was a hard, tedious job, without a vestige of glamour. Because daily workouts in a gym in London had been part of his routine, Simon was very fit. Nevertheless, by nine o’clock that evening when the beat of an approaching helicopter signalled the end of their day, every muscle and bone in his body was aching with fatigue.
At intervals throughout the day he had caught the distant mutter of an engine, and had seen Shea’s blue helicopter swinging round the head of the fire with its load of water. Now he was almost relieved to see that it was not Shea’s small machine but the larger Bell that was sinking down into the clearing near the small knot of men. He didn’t have the energy to deal with Shea right now, he thought, heaving himself aboard. All he wanted to do was sleep.
The Bell disgorged them behind the command post. ‘Great way to spend a Saturday evening, eh?’ Jim said, a grin splitting his blackened face. ‘You OK?’
‘Do I look as bad as you?’
‘I’ve seen you look better...there’s a lake half a mile down the road, we could take the truck and go for a swim.’
‘Don’t know if I’ve got the energy,’ Simon groaned. ‘Is this how you Canadians separate the men from the boys?’
A light female voice said, ‘It’s one of the ways. Hi there, Jim, how did it go?’
‘Good,’ Jim said, and rather heavy-handedly began talking to the man with Shea, a tall, good-looking man in a beige flying suit like Shea’s.
Said Simon, ‘Good in no way describes the day I’ve had. But you, Shea, look good.’
She was wearing jeans and a flowered shirt, her tawny hair loose on her shoulders in an untidy mass of curls that softened the severity of her expression. He added, ‘That was a compliment. You could smile.’
‘You’re persistent, aren’t you?’
‘Tenacious as the British bulldog, that’s me,’ Simon said. ‘How was your day?’
‘Great. The fire’s under control—got stopped at the firebreak. So now there’ll be lots more work for you,’ she finished limpidly.
Jim and the pilot had moved away. ‘Unemployment is beginning to seem like an attractive option,’ Simon said.
‘I didn’t think you’d stick with it,’ she flashed.
‘I’d hate to prove you wrong.’
‘Be honest, Simon,’ she retorted. ‘You’d love to prove me wrong.’
It was the first time she had used his name. He liked the sound of it on her tongue. Very much. What the devil was happening to him? She was an argumentative, unfriendly and judgemental woman. Why should he care what she called him? ‘If I stick with it, will you smile at me?’ he asked.
He saw laughter, as swift as lightning, flash across her eyes. She said primly, ‘I don’t make promises that I might not keep. And I distrust charm.’
‘I have lots of sterling virtues—I don’t drink to excess, I don’t do drugs, and I pay my taxes.’
‘And,’ she said shrewdly, ‘you’re used to women falling all over you.’
‘You could try it some time,’ he said hopefully.
‘I never liked being one of a crowd.’
His eyes very blue in his filthy face, Simon started to laugh. ‘I think a woman would have to be pretty desperate to fall all over me right now. I stink.’
‘You do,’ she said.
‘Hey—you’ve agreed with something I’ve said. We’re making progress.’
Glowering at him, she snapped, ‘We are not! You can’t make progress if you’re not going anywhere.’ Looking round, she added with asperity, ‘Where’s Michael gone? We’re supposed to—’
‘Is he your boyfriend?’ Simon interrupted.
‘No.’
Until she spoke he was not aware how much the sight of the good-looking pilot at her side had disturbed him. He said indirectly, ‘I hate coy women.’
‘You like complaisant women, Mr Greywood.’
‘Then you’re a new experience for me, Ms Mallory... Michael’s over by the oil drums.’
She tossed her head, turned on her heel, and stalked over to the stack of oil drums. Well pleased with himself, Simon headed for the kitchen, and when Jim joined him a few minutes later said, ‘I could do with a swim—you still interested in going?’
‘Sure,’ Jim said. ‘What did you say to make Shea look like a firecracker about to explode?’
‘I have no idea,’ Simon said blandly. ‘But thank you for diverting the estimable Michael.’
Jim put a hand on his arm and said soberly, ‘Don’t play games with Shea, Simon. She’s not one of your sophisticated types—she could get hurt.’
‘She’s not going to let me get near enough to hurt her.’ Simon shifted his sore shoulders restlessly. ‘Let’s go for that swim.’
CHAPTER THREE
THREE days passed, hot, cloudless days where the wind blew ashes in ghostly whorls among the charred stumps and fanned the flames of back fires. Simon’s muscles grew accustomed to the hours of hard labour, labour which he was finding oddly satisfying. There was nothing romantic about mopping up after a fire. But he knew he was protecting the unburned woods from further outbreaks, and that pleased him inordinately. Not even the news on the second day that the fire had leaped the break and was again out of control could entirely dissipate his pleasure in a job as far removed from painting portraits as he could imagine.
Mopping up certainly didn’t give him the time or the energy to sit around and brood about his creativity. Or rather his lack of it.
Only two things were bothering him. The majority of the men were holding back from him; and Shea was avoiding him.
As he stooped to pour fuel into his chainsaw he remembered the conversation he had overheard in the dark woods by the lake the very first evening he had been here. He had been sitting on the grass doing up his boots when he had heard one of the other swimmers say from behind a clump of trees, ‘Who’s the new guy?’
‘Jim Hanrahan’s brother,’ Steve had replied.
‘Don’t look like a brother of Jim’s to me. Speaks kind of funny—like he’s royalty.’
‘He’s from England,’ Steve said.
A third, derogatory voice said, ‘He’s a painter.’
‘Nothin’ wrong with that,’ the first voice responded. ‘I’ve painted a house or two in my day.’
‘Pictures, Joe,’ the third voice said.
