She arched her body, then flipped upright, laughing down at him. ‘I wonder why?’ She sobered and stroked his broad shoulders. ‘What is the masculine equivalent of a siren?’
‘There isn’t one.’
‘There should be,’ she told him. ‘Anyway, you’re it, Mr McKinnon. Enough to make any girl feel very buoyant, not to mention—wonderful!’
He stared into her eyes, as green as the sea at that moment, with her eyelashes clumped together and beaded with moisture, and at the freshness of her skin. And he said with an odd little smile, as if there was something in the air she wasn’t aware of, ‘I haven’t felt quite so wonderful myself for a while.’
She insisted on cooking breakfast, saying it was about time she earned her keep.
They’d showered together and she’d put on a short denim skirt with a green blouse that matched her eyes. Her hair was loose as it dried and she frequently looped it behind her ears as she cooked—grilled bacon and banana with chopped, fried tomato and onion and French toast.
‘There,’ she said proudly as she set it out on the veranda table. ‘I may not be in your gourmet class, but I’m not useless in the kitchen either.’
‘Did I say you were?’ he drawled.
She pulled out a chair and wrinkled her nose at him. ‘You’ve carefully avoided any mention of it, which led me to wonder if you’d simply assumed my privileged background had left me fit only to rely on someone else to provide my meals—what a mouthful, Maggie,’ she accused herself with a gurgle of laughter.
He grinned. ‘I did wonder.’
‘Well, now you know. I’m actually quite domesticated.’ She picked up her knife and fork, then paused and frowned. ‘Was that a car in the driveway I heard?’
He cocked his head. ‘I’m not expecting anyone.’
A moment later they heard a door bang, then footsteps crunching on the gravel path around the side of the house.
‘Anyone home?’ a voice called at the same time as a tall fair woman appeared at the bottom of the steps, then, ‘Oh, Jack! I’m so glad I caught you. Maisie did say you’d decided to stay on for a couple more days, but one never quite knows with you!’
To Maggie’s surprise, Jack McKinnon went quite still for a long moment, still and tense and as dangerously alert as a big jungle cat. Then he relaxed deliberately and stood up. ‘Sylvia,’ he said. ‘This is a surprise.’
Maggie blinked and Sylvia, his adoptive sister, arrived on the veranda. She was as lovely as her photo and there was no trace of sadness about her as she greeted Jack, full of laughing explanations.
‘I really needed a bit of time off—Mum and I were getting to the stage of wanting to shoot each other! So I flew up to Proserpine yesterday, hired a car and took off before dawn hoping to catch you and surprise you—oh!’ Her gaze fell on Maggie. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Maisie didn’t say anything about…’ She trailed off awkwardly.
‘Don’t be silly, Syl,’ Jack said quietly. ‘I’m always happy to see you. This is Maggie.’
Maggie got up and came round the table, holding out her hand. ‘Maggie Trent, actually. How do you do?’
Sylvia’s mouth fell open, as if she was completely floored, and she appeared not to notice Maggie’s proffered hand. Instead, her gaze was riveted on Maggie’s tawny hair and green eyes. Then she closed her mouth with a click. ‘Not—Margaret Leila Trent?’
‘Why, yes!’ Maggie beamed at her. ‘I don’t know how you know that, but that’s me.’
‘Jack,’ Sylvia said hollowly, and turned to him, ‘don’t tell me this is what I think it is. He’d…’ she swallowed visibly ‘… he’d kill you if he knew…’
‘Who?’ Maggie said into the sudden deathly silence.
‘Your father,’ Sylvia whispered. Then she put a hand to her mouth and turned around to run down the steps.
‘You stay here, Maggie,’ Jack ordered. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’ He followed Sylvia.
CHAPTER FIVE
IT WAS an hour before he came back, a tense, highly uncomfortable hour for Maggie.