It was true that he was feeling frustrated and needed a change of scene. It was true enough that he thought she’d worked wonders for him whatever she might like to think to the contrary, although it was hard to pinpoint exactly how she’d done it. A born carer? he wondered. With a knack for people and a passion for getting them moving again? Possibly.
So why was he feeling guilty now?
It made sense for him not to want to swap horses midstream, so to speak, but was that all that was behind it?
Sienna continued her work with Finn throughout the next week, and discovered again that he could be “difficult”, as she thought of it.
It all came about over her refusal—at first, that was—to agree to him discarding his stick.
They finished their session in the gym—a late session as it happened, to fit in with a meeting he’d had earlier—but he refused point-blank to be pushed back to the house in his chair.
‘I’ve also decided I don’t need the stick any more,’ he stated.
‘Finn, don’t be silly!’ She stared at him.
‘You said that to me once before, but there was nothing silly about that either,’ he countered, his eyes dark and moody again. ‘Have you any idea what it feels like to be tottering around on a stick? Or pushed about by a slip of a girl?’
‘Of course I do! Not that it matters who does the pushing, I would have thought!’
‘Yes, it does,’ he stated. ‘It makes me feel about a hundred years old and useless.’
Sienna took a breath and counted to three. ‘You’d probably really feel a hundred years old if you fell over and broke something. All right—’ she came to a sudden decision ‘—no more chair but it’s quite—quite childish to do away with your stick.’ She drew herself up to her full five feet six inches and stared at him with the authority she seldom had to use with patients.
It didn’t work.
He grinned fleetingly and said quite gently, ‘Ms Torrance, you may insult me all you like, but you cannot stop me.’ He turned away and started to walk out.
Sienna muttered something beneath her breath as she watched his retreating figure, then, ‘I can take myself off your case, Mr McLeod, which would mean you’d have to find someone else to go to Waterford with you.’
He stopped, then turned back. ‘Fighting words, my dear, but what about your sister Dakota’s wedding?’
Sienna opened her mouth and closed it.
‘Especially in light of not only having told them you’re bringing someone but who?’
Several emotions chased through Sienna’s eyes. ‘I—well, I’d just have to swallow my pride, that’s all.’
He surveyed her, then his lips quirked. ‘How about swallowing your pride and conceding this? I could be the best judge of the stick bit.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ll tell you over dinner.’
‘Dinner! Here? No. Thank you, but no,’ she amended.
‘We’ve been down this road before,’ he commented. ‘All the same, you choose then.’
‘Choose?’ she repeated, looking bewildered.
He shrugged. ‘You seemed to suggest here was the problem. That’s fine with me, so how about some neutral territory?’
Sienna drew several breaths of varying intensity, frustration being the dominant emotion they signified. ‘That’s twisting my words!’
‘Not as you said them. Don’t you want to know why I’m of a mind to do away with my stick, Sienna?’
‘And that’s twisting my arm,’ she retorted.
‘I know a rather nice restaurant on the river,’ he remarked with his eyes full of amusement. ‘Their lobster and Moreton Bay bugs are amazing.’
Sienna opened her mouth and closed it. If she had one weakness it was fresh seafood and Moreton Bay bugs came at the top of that list. ‘Well,’ she said rather weakly, then eyed him accusingly. ‘How did you know that?’
He lifted an eyebrow enquiringly.
‘That I would sell my soul for Moreton Bay bugs.’ She shook her head exasperatedly.
He grinned. ‘I didn’t, but I like the sound of that.’
‘If you think I’m a pushover in any other direction, think again!’ she warned.
‘Perish the thought,’ he murmured, then laughed at her expression. ‘Sienna, I’m only asking you to have dinner with me.’
She exhaled audibly. ‘All right. Just this once. But I need to go home and change.’
‘Not a problem.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Give me your address and Dave and I will pick you up at, say, seven?’
Sienna drove home, still seething inwardly, but once there she went into another mode.
She showered and changed into a swirly, silky three-quarter-length skirt, a white background with a cinnamon pattern on it and a white knit top. She slid her feet into bronze sandals and looped her hair up into a loose knot.
She applied some discreet make-up, then studied herself in the mirror and decided that her upswept hair called for some dangly earrings. She found a pair, tiny seed pearls on copper wire, and put them on.
Then she stood quite still and asked herself why she was going out of her way to look her best when she’d been literally conned into this dinner.
Because that’s what Finn McLeod does to you, she conceded with a little spark of fire in her eyes. Puts you on your mettle even when you’re extremely annoyed with him!
Well, she conceded, annoyed with him and herself—you could have said no!
Dave knocked on her door at seven exactly and escorted her down to the waiting, latest model Mercedes. She climbed into the back, Finn was in the front, and she breathed in the scent of fine new leather.
But to her immediate consternation she saw that Finn was wearing a suit, although no tie.
‘Uh—what kind of restaurant are we going to?’ she asked as Dave drove them off.
‘Angelo’s,’ Finn replied.
Sienna clicked her tongue. Angelo’s was one of Brisbane’s most exclusive restaurants.
Finn turned his head towards her. ‘Is that a problem?’
‘I’m not dressed for Angelo’s. I’m dressed,’ Sienna said with precision, ‘for a rather nice restaurant on the river—which to me indicated somewhere casual and pleasant rather than five-star and extremely up-market.’ Her voice had risen a little.
‘I
