‘Who’s that?’ Maggie asked idly. She was feeling relaxed and content. She’d sold a house that morning that was going to earn her a rather nice, fat commission.
Tim glanced over his shoulder at the new arrivals that had caught Maggie’s attention and drew an excited breath.
‘Jack McKinnon,’ he said. ‘You know—the property developer.’
Maggie stared at the man. She did know the name and the man, but only by reputation.
Jack McKinnon was a millionaire many times over and amongst other things he headed the company that was developing new housing estates in what Maggie thought of as ‘her patch’, the Gold Coast hinterland.
If she was honest, and she was, Maggie disapproved of the kind of housing estates Jack McKinnon developed. She saw it as tearing up of the rural land that had always been the Coast’s buffer zone. The area where you could own a few acres, run a few horses, breed llamas or whatever took your fancy; the green zone that was a retreat for many from the high- rise and suburbia of the rest of the Coast.
Now, thanks to Jack McKinnon and others, part of that green zone was disappearing and thousands of cheek-by-jowl ‘little boxes’ were taking its place.
Unfortunately, the reality of it was that the Coast’s population was burgeoning. Not only did it offer a good climate and great beaches, but its proximity to Brisbane, the state’s capital, also made it desirable and future urban development was inevitable.
Doesn’t mean to say I have to like the people involved in doing it and making a fortune out of it at the same time, she mused.
‘Do you know him?’ she asked Tim as Jack McKinnon and his party, two women and another man, selected a table not far away and sat down.
‘I went to school with him, but he’s a few years older. Bumped into him a couple of times since. He’s a Coast boy who really made good,’ Tim said with pride.
Maggie opened her mouth to demolish the likes of Jack McKinnon, then decided to hold her peace. Tim was sweet and good company. At twenty-nine he was a dentist with his own practice. With his engaging ways and a passion for all things orthodontic, and the prices dentists charged these days, she had no doubt he would ‘really make good’ as well, although perhaps not on the scale of Jack McKinnon.
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Tim what the man was like, but she realized suddenly that she couldn’t fathom why she wanted to know, and she puzzled over that instead.
It came to her there was definitely an aura to him that she found a little surprising.
His dark fair hair streaked lighter by the sun fell in his eyes. He would be over six feet, she judged, slim but broad-shouldered and he looked lithe and light on his feet.
Unlike many of the ‘white shoe’ brigade, Gold Coast identities, particularly entrepreneurs, who had over the years earned the sobriquet because of their penchant for flashy dressing, Jack McKinnon was very casually dressed with not a gold chain in sight.
He wore jeans, brown deck shoes, a white T-shirt and a navy pullover slung over his shoulders.
There was also a pent-up dynamism about him that easily led you to imagine him flying a plane through the sound barrier, crewing a racing yacht, climbing Mount Everest, hunting wild animals and testing himself to the limit—rather than developing housing estates.
As these thoughts chased through her mind, perhaps the power of her concentration on him seeped through to him because he turned abruptly and their gazes clashed.
A little flare of colour entered Maggie’s cheeks and Jack McKinnon raised an ironic eyebrow. Even then she was unable to tear her gaze away. Somehow or other he had her trapped, she thought chaotically as more colour poured into her cheeks. Then he noticed Tim and instant recognition came to him.
That was how Tim and Maggie came to join Jack’s party.
She tried to resist, but Tim’s obvious delight made it difficult. Nor was there any real reason for her to feel uneasy amongst Jack McKinnon’s party, at first.
Her slim black linen dress and high-heeled black patent sandals were the essence of chic. Her thick dark gold hair fell to her shoulders when loose, but was tied back with a velvet ribbon today. Her golden skin was smooth and luminous.
She was, in other words, as presentable as the other two women. Nor were they unfriendly, although they were both the essence of sophistication. One, a flashing brunette, was introduced as Lia Montalba, the other, Nordic fair, as Bridget Pearson. The second man, Paul Wheaton, was a lawyer who acted for the McKinnon Corporation, but who was paired with whom was hard to say.