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‘Mmm? Oh, sure. But I don’t expect it will be very often. I’m sure they’ll fix the phone down the road soon.’
‘When they do, make sure you make your calls during daylight hours. It’s not a good idea for a lone female to stand in a lighted phone booth by herself at night, even in this part of town.’
Anne’s feminist instincts bristled. ‘I can look after myself, thank you.’
‘It doesn’t look like it. You’re fairly small—’
She knew he wasn’t complimenting her on her slenderness. ‘I’m compact,’ she corrected him. ‘I keep very fit, as you must know from all the thumping you do on my wall. And I have four brothers back at home!’ She announced the fact as if it explained everything.
Evidently it didn’t to him—a dead give-away that he was an only child. ‘They’re not going to do you much good there,’ he scoffed.
‘I didn’t mean I need them to defend me. I meant that growing up with them taught me how to fight dirty. I broke Rex’s arm once, and he’s taller than you!’
She hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her skirt in a boastful stance that threw out her chest.
‘What did you do, batter him to the ground with your br-braids?’
She eyed him suspiciously but he didn’t react. Perhaps she had misjudged that small stammer.
‘Actually I fell on him,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘Out of a tree. He was trying to shake me down, so I came down. Knocked him flat. He was sixteen at the time and he howled like a baby.’ The smile she gave him was redolent of bloodthirsty pleasure.
‘How old were you?’
‘Thirteen…’
She bit her lip. She had forgotten that, as Katlin, she was supposed to be the eldest. Thank goodness she hadn’t given the childhood encounter any time reference. Hunter had no way of knowing how old the real winner of the Markham Grant was but she shouldn’t have taken the risk. Anne knew that she didn’t look her own twenty-three years, let alone Katlin’s twenty-eight.
She bent over and peered into the pot he had set on the cook-top, giving her sauce an brisk stir with the wooden spoon he had left resting across the top.
‘Wouldn’t this have been quicker in the microwave?’ she offered helpfully.
‘Quicker but not better,’ he said, accepting the change of subject as he filled a large pot with cold water and set it on another ring, flicking one of the dials inset into the bench on to high. ‘A long, slow blending of flavours always results in a better dish than a brief jostle of molecules. I want to give the wine time to mature the flavour.’
‘I suppose you think that only culinary philistines use microwaves,’ she sighed. Naturally someone like Hunter Lewis wouldn’t have to take the reduced power costs of using a microwave into his equation!
‘Not at all. They have their uses. I take it you like pasta?’
&n
bsp; She looked at him, in his casually elegant clothes, in his casually elegant kitchen. ‘It’s cheap, tasty and nutritious… What’s not to like?’
He rinsed his hands in the sink and turned to rest a solid hip against the marble counter as he dried his hands on a linen tea-towel and studied her mobile expression.
‘Do you resent me for what I have, Anne?’ he drawled with uncanny perception. ‘Is that where all this subtle hostility of yours is aimed? I assure you, most of what I have I’ve worked hard to earn for myself.’
‘I work hard too,’ she shot back.
‘Oh? When?’
‘What do you mean, when?’ Did he think she was a scrounger because she was supposedly living on a grant?
‘When do you write?’
Anne nibbled her full lower lip. ‘I’m writing all the time,’ she said defensively.
‘I don’t doubt it. Russian, Japanese and anthropology, isn’t it?’ Anne’s heart sank as she realised he must have looked her up in the university files. It might have been idle curiosity on his part, but what if he de- cided to dig further?
‘I’m not talking about compiling course assignments,’ he continued in a tone of voice which she thought he probably used on recalcitrant students—crisp and lightly sarcastic. ‘I’m talking about writing. That is why you’re here, isn’t it—to finish a first novel for publication? If you’re taking on a heavy study-load, when are you going to find the necessary writing time for yourself? And don’t tell me you can fit it in here and there…creative writing involves a sustained, concentrated effort—’
