‘I know. Isn’t he a darling? He just can’t seem to do enough for me!’ she trilled, earning herself a vitriolic glare from kohl-lined eyes as her visitor rushed to find the back door. Her coltish grace made Jane realise that under the sophisticated make-up the waif was younger than she had first appeared—much too young for a hardened cynic like Ryan Blair.
Cradie-snatcher! she thought balefully as the girl ran towards Ryan, the long red locks—which could only have come from a bottle—flouncing down her back as she called out his name.
She was only slightly mollified by the dismay on Ryan’s face as he rose to his feet, a clutch of wispy carrot plants dripping from his large hand. So...he hadn’t been expecting a visit from his little totty!
A moment later he dropped the carrots as the girl launched herself into his arms for a hug that made Jane’s bones ache. They fitted together with the ease of long-standing intimacy. Jane folded her arms across the tightness in her chest as the pair began an animated conversation, the girl’s thin arms gesticulating wildly and Ryan’s body language surprisingly defensive. Good! She hoped he was having a great deal of trouble explaining himself!
He saw Jane still standing on the verandah and slung his arm across the girl’s narrow shoulders, tugging her back towards the house in spite of her obvious reluctance.
‘I hope Melissa wasn’t rude. Sometimes she tends to act first and think later when family matters are at stake,’ he said, coming up the steps.
‘Melissa?’ Jane echoed faintly as the truth hit her. She tried not to gape as she compared the sulky, slinky creature in front of her to the vague memory of a plump brown-haired sixteen-year-old trailing Ava down the aisle. No wonder the hostile green eyes had seemed so familiar. Although she had never met Ryan’s sister she recalled Ava describing how excited Melissa had been about being a bridesmaid for the first time and how much she had loved her frothy dress.
Ryan was digesting her ill-concealed shock. ‘Of course...who did you think she was?’ he asked curiously.
Jane stiffened. ‘I had no idea, since she didn’t stop to introduce herself,’ she said coldly, to hide her chagrin.
She was so busy grappling with the implications of Melissa’s arrival that she allowed herself to be hustled into the kitchen where Ryan calmly set about the ritual of morning tea.
‘Jealous, Jane?’ he murmured in her ear as he moved past her to place the kettle on the stove.
‘In your dreams!’ she muttered, haughtily ignoring his knowing smile, aware of Melissa’s resentful regard.
‘Oh, yes—frequently...’ His soft words were accompanied by a brief resting of his hand on her hip, ostensibly to move her out of the way so he could reach the mugs on the shelf behind her.
‘You still haven’t been formally introduced, have you?’ he said as they all sat down at the kitchen table. ‘Jane Sherwood, my sister Melissa, who’s an aspiring model—’
Melissa’s head jerked back. ‘I’m not aspiring. I already am a
model!’
‘Part-time—’
‘Only until my career takes off. As soon as I get more jobs than I can fit in with my lectures I’m dropping out. I can always go back to university later—’
It was obviously an old argument. ‘But you won’t. It’s much harder to get back into studying after years away from it. I don’t know why you can’t continue to fit your modelling around your lectures.’
‘Because a modelling career doesn’t last very long—’
‘So much more reason to have other qualifications to fall back on.’
‘So you have to strike while the iron’s hot, make the most of your opportunities when they occur. If I want to succeed I have to make myself available when photographers want me to be available, not the other way around.’
‘What do you think?’ Ryan asked Jane unexpectedly.
‘What’s it got to do with her?’ snarled Melissa, tossing her head in a swirl of fire.
‘Absolutely nothing,’ said Jane flatly. ‘It’s your life. What you do with it is entirely up to you.’ She looked across at Ryan. ‘Don’t let anybody tell you any different.’
She could see that Melissa was torn between the desire to use the comment to support her own views and the equally strong desire not to agree with anything Jane said.
‘Troublemaker!’ said Ryan. ‘Here—’ he dunked a straw into Jane’s mug. ‘Drink your tea. Jane wanted to be a dress designer but she let her father bully her into business,’ he told his sister.
Again that flicker of confusion as Melissa frowned at the dressing and tape on Jane’s hands. ‘I don’t see why I should be expected to feel sorry for her,’ she burst out, gnawing on her pouting red lips. ‘Or why you had to move in with her. I couldn’t believe it when I found out where you were—’
‘I’ve already explained all that.’
So that’s what they had been discussing so heatedly in the garden. Jane would have traded her last cent to have heard his explanation!