Free Outback Sunset by Lynne Wilding

‘I’d like to see Dad. If there’s room on board, can I come too?’
    ‘Sure,’ Curtis shrugged a shoulder at her. ‘We’ve a Robinson 44 now, it’ll take the three of us, withTony in the front seat. You can even play nurse if you want to. Tony would probably like that.’ She pulled a face at his sarcastic tone and he grinned.
    Curtis shook hands with his uncle. ‘Hang around if you want, but I’ll be away for several hours.’
    ‘It’s all right. We’re on our way to Darwin anyway and just called in to break the journey.’ He gave his nephew a casual salute. ‘I’ll be seeing Hilary while I’m there. Want me to pass on any messages?’
    ‘Give her my love, and tell her that everything’s fine here.’ Curtis, with a goodbye nod, went out the back door without wasting any more time, with Nova trailing behind and doing a slow jog trot to keep pace with him.
    Vanessa chose a CD, popped it into the hi-fi and pressed the play button. Spanish music filled her redecorated living room. She loved the new look Maxine Richards had created for her.
    The building had central heating so Maxine had opted to pull up the carpet in the living and dining area, polish the floor boards and spread two subtly patterned Turkish rugs across the floors. The colour of the walls was a soft apricot-orange and the new sofa had apricot tones with several loose cushions in cream and varying shades of apricot. Over the fireplace stood a large gilt bevel-edged mirror and two exquisite chandeliers, plus several strategically placed table lamps to provide adequate lighting. Two one-metre high, hand-painted Greek urns, a glass-topped mahogany coffee table and a nouveau Provincial French bureau completed the look ofunderstated elegance. As she caught the tempo of the music, Vanessa began to dance.
    Around the sofa, past the window, pirouetting sensually to the tango beat, her invisible partner was Bren.
Bren
… They had become almost inseparable apart from career commitments … but, they hadn’t made love! Kerri, busybody that she was, constantly asked, ‘Have you done it yet?’ Embarrassing, really. If she wasn’t such a good friend she’d have told her in no uncertain terms to mind her own business.
    She was waiting for Bren to pick her up. They were going to take advantage of Ronnie’s offer to use his houseboat. Three carefree days during which her understudy would play her role in the play while she and Bren sailed down the Thames, and along a series of canals to Oxford. There was no telephone on board and no fax machine, and no curious Kerri! Just the two of them.
    Vanessa stopped but still swayed to the beat in front of the mirror over the mantelpiece to study her reflection. Was she in love with Bren Selby? She stared critically at her image while she catalogued her features. Her mouth was a little too wide, her eyebrows were too straight — she’d rather they arched a little even though straight did suit her. The high cheekbones, inherited from her mother, gave her face a slightly aristocratic look. She sucked in her cheeks and the bones stood out even more. Good bone structure. Gran had said she would age well. Christ, who cared about that, she thought as she flicked her hair back? She was only twenty-eight, a long way from being
old
. As she stared into her brown depths she tried to analyse her feelings for Bren.
    Without a doubt she liked him, a lot. He was easy to be with. No pretensions, no bullshit, no sugar-coated compliments to get into her pants. That, in itself, set him apart from most of the men who came on to her. Her cheeks tinted pink at her frank thoughts. Did
she
want him to? Hmmm! There was a strong, growing physical attraction between them, she couldn’t deny it. She dreamt about him, thought about him so much, wondered, yes, what would it be like to run with her feelings.
    Her fiancé, David, had been an experienced lover, skilled in the art of getting a woman’s total response. Bren, obviously,