And nights, James darkly vowed, as he echoed the toast with mocking grace and drank with her. If it was the last thing he did, he’d find out all there was to know of Lucy Worthington. Every intimate detail! Monday was now a write-off, but come Tuesday…if he had to shake her out of her buttons, he would.
CHAPTER SIX
NOT even the coolness of the night lowered the fever in Lucy’s brain. The ball was over but her feet still felt like dancing as she and Josh walked from the convention centre to the parking station. She had hooked James Hancock’s interest. No doubt about it now. The trick was to pull out all stops to hold it engaged.
‘What are you going to tell your mother?’ Josh asked, a curious lilt in his voice.
‘Mum?’
A spear of guilt pierced Lucy’s intoxicating dreams of conquest and triumph. Her mother wouldn’t approve these wild and wanton plans at all. In fact, she’d have a pink fit if she even heard a whisper of them.
‘I’m not going to tell her anything,’ she said decisively, and cast Josh a stern look. ‘And don’t you dare gossip to your mother, either. You know they belong to the same Businesswomen’s Association.’
He held up both hands in a gesture of innocence. ‘Mum’s the word. Your secrets are my secrets, Lucy love.’
‘Good! Just keep them that way,’ she insisted.
Josh and his mother were close, invariably telling each other everything. In fact, Lucy had often envied the very open loving relationship they shared. Sally Rogan was a warm, happy person. Widowed when Josh was only three, she had opened a fashion boutique which was a thriving business because she’d always taken the time to chat to her customers and get to know what appealed to them.
Her own mother tended to preach to her customers. She ran a health food shop and styled herself as an authority on what was good for everyone. In personality, Ruth Worthington and Sally Rogan were chalk and cheese. Being sensible came first with Ruth, while having fun came first with Sally.
The two women didn’t mix in any social sense, though they’d both lived and worked in the same town for over thirty years. Being in business was the only thing they had in common, and when they went to those meetings they were usually polite to each other, prompted, no doubt, by the long-term friendship between Josh and Lucy, which also occasionally led to the swapping of family news. Tonight’s news had to be kept off that agenda at all costs.
Lucy knew what she would be in for if it wasn’t. Her mother didn’t approve of extravagance and didn’t know the meaning of fun. Or she’d lost all sense of it when her husband had left her for another woman. Lucy had no memory of a father. He’d gone before she was two years old, but she’d been drilled in lessons from that desertion for as long as she could remember.
You can’t count on men to look after you.
Make your own security.
Never lose your head over a man. He’ll take advantage of you.
And so on, and so on, and so on.
Now bent on breaking just about all of those rules, Lucy didn’t want any accusing lectures from her mother. She’d suffer her own grief from this decision if she had to, but inviting a battering stream of ‘I told you so’s’ would only add misery to misery if nothing worked out as she wanted it to.
‘So how are you going to hide the car?’ Josh quizzed.
She heaved a sigh, knowing full well what her mother would say about running a red sports convertible. ‘I’ll keep it in Sydney.’
‘You’re still going to catch the train to Gosford every time you visit your mother?’
‘Easier than flaunting that extravagance in her face. It would be like waving a red rag at a bull. Besides, it’s not as if it’s a long train trip.’
In fact, it was only an hour and ten minutes on the fast northbound trains between Sydney and Gosford. She usually read a book, which she couldn’t do driving a car—one of the reasons she preferred public transport. Lucy had never found it a hardship to do without her own vehicle.
‘Waste of a great car, not using it on the expressway,’ Josh remarked. ‘You should let yourself enjoy it and to hell with what your mother thinks.’
‘I will enjoy it. But I’ll probably end up selling it so why cause a hassle?’
‘Ah!’
The ‘Ah!’ was so full of understanding, Lucy blushed. ‘You said I should be unpredictable,’ she reminded him.
Josh laughed and started singing, ‘This is the moment…’
She laughed, too, her tingling feet performing a pirouette as she threw out her arms and exultantly sang ‘This is the time…’
Josh caught her waist and lifted her up to the stars—metaphorically speaking—and they laughed in a mad, joyous celebration of victory over the frustration that had originally driven Lucy this evening. Miracles were definitely in the air.
‘Well, Lucy love, if you’re really going to show him you’ll have to let your hair down,’ Josh merrily advised as he set her on her feet again.
‘I intend to.’
‘Some shopping is in order.’
‘Will you help me, Josh? Do you have some spare time tomorrow? I want some really modern sexy stuff to go with the convertible but I don’t want to look too tarty.’
‘We’ll trawl the streets tomorrow afternoon,’ he promised.
‘Great!’ She hugged his arm as they proceeded into the parking station. ‘You’ve got such a good fashion eye. I’m bound to choose the wrong things.’
‘Flattery will get you everywhere.’
‘You’re the best friend!’
He patted her hand with indulgent affection. ‘Lucy love, it will be a huge pleasure to see the butterfly emerge from your mother’s narrow little cocoon.’
She frowned. ‘Have I been so stodgy?’
‘Not stodgy. Never stodgy,’ he assured her. ‘But to a large extent you have lived by the constraints your mother put on you. If you get too fixated on being safe, you miss out on much of the fun in life, and you never live life to the full.’
But you don’t fall down a hole, Lucy argued to herself, then realised her thought was parroting what her mother said. She shook her head, disturbed by the idea she was living a brain-washed life instead of a life of her own.
‘Take the suits you wear to work,’ Josh went on seriously. ‘They armour you against risk. They’re safe, beyond criticism, properly professional, but they don’t express the real Lucy. Not the Lucy I know. They’re a reflection of your mother.’