by Sara Wood
Granted, Morgan was the hunkiest guy she’d ever met, that dark intractable manner only adding to her fatal fascination—but she’d promised herself that she would find someone who was gentle and kind, full of consideration for others. Someone who utterly adored her. Less than that she would not accept. And in any case, she had something more important on her mind.
She sighed heavily, realising she was no nearer to seeing her father. She was even more determined now that she knew he was ill. Morgan had to give her the name of the hospital. She’d get it out of him at breakfast time if she had to lick his boots in the process!
Halfway across the landing, she stopped in her tracks. She’d see him sooner than that—Morgan had said he was doing the washing! If she went down now, she’d bump into him! Her face coloured with embarrassment. For a fraction of a second she almost chickened out, and then impatiently brushed away her sense of discomfiture.
She needed food and this was her opportunity to pin him down. Without fail.
He was struggling to fold a damp sheet when she padded into the kitchen, her bare feet silent on the terracotta tiles. She took one look at his brooding face and powerful figure and her stomach swooped.
‘I’m starving,’ she announced as a diversionary tactic for her runaway carnal impulses.
He turned, frowned in the general direction of her searing yellow outfit, and continued battling with the sheet.
‘Eggs and bacon in the fridge.’
‘’Fraid I’m hopeless at cooking,’ she admitted. ‘I was thinking of toast and coffee, and perhaps a fruit pie or a chocolate cake—’
‘In the larder.’
His head jerked abruptly to indicate where. The sheet slipped from his fingers and he glared at it, then her, as if it were her fault.
The old Jodie would have crumpled. This one said drily, ‘Here. I’ll help you with that.’
They did sides to middle and end to end. The moment she began walking towards him with her end of the sheet she felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck.
‘Thanks,’ he said curtly, and seemed as anxious as she was to avoid close contact because he virtually snatched the folded sheet from her fingers and spent a while arranging it over a chrome rail attached to the front of the stove.
She let out a shaky breath. It had happened again! Why, she couldn’t imagine. Though…he was a hard, moody man, and handsome enough to give women grief. However, she’d had enough of that. For her, men were as passé as thongs. All she had to do now, she thought ruefully, was convince her hormones.
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she remarked casually, in an effort to break the tense silence.
‘So I see.’ He yanked at the tie on his robe, knotting it more securely. It was a telling gesture. One of those indicators like…folding one’s arms…which made it plain that he was being defensive. Keep out, it said. Don’t invade my territory.
She felt deflated. He didn’t feel comfortable with her around. He didn’t like her, didn’t trust her and couldn’t bear to be in the same room. And now he was reinforcing her theory by turning his back on her at every opportunity.
Jodie glared at the broad expanse of white towelling. Her wretched sexual hunger interfered briefly and forced her to admire the shapely triangle of his back and the small waist and hips.
And then she pulled herself together. He had his need to be alone, but she needed information. Which she’d get, come hell or high water!
Whirling on her small bare feet, she found the bread, the butter and a large apple pie, and brought them triumphantly to the table.
‘I’ll help myself to coffee,’ she added, pleased with her assertiveness. Wordlessly he handed her a bone china mug and she filled it to the brim. ‘I irritate you, don’t I?’ she said bluntly.
He gave a small and mirthless laugh, finished stacking wet handkerchiefs on top of the chrome lid which covered a hot plate, then hauled an ironing board out of a cupboard.
‘You’re a complication,’ he acknowledged drily.
At least he was honest. She watched him plug in an iron and grab a shirt from a huge basket of ironing, quite dazzled by his domesticity.
‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked, unable to hold back her curiosity. ‘Don’t you have a daily help?’
‘I am the daily help.’
Her eyes widened in surprise. ‘You?’ It briefly crossed her mind that Morgan and her father could be lovers, but the idea was so ridiculous and Morgan so utterly male that she dismissed it immediately. ‘Where’s the toaster?’ she said, looking around for one.
‘Here.’ He took the bread from her, lifted the other chrome lid on the stove and slid the slices between two pieces of mesh shaped like a tennis racket. ‘Keep an eye on that. It toasts very quickly.’
She kept lifting the lid and peering at it. The heat coming off the hot plate was intense, and, as he’d said, the toast was done in a matter of seconds. She wasn’t sure what impressed her most, the stove—which seemed to be doubling up as an ironing machine and a clothes dryer—or Morgan’s domestic talents.
‘Is this is your job, then? Washing and ironing and so on?’ she fished, lavishly spreading the butter.
He frowned at her from under his lowered brows and expertly dealt with the collar, cuffs and the front of the shirt.
‘No. I do it because someone has to.’
‘At five in the morning?’ she murmured in amazement, pushing up her sleeves in the warmth of the kitchen. She sat on the edge of the table eating the toast, her legs swinging, scarlet toenails twinkling in the bright light.
Morgan slanted an odd look at her. ‘I can’t fit it in otherwise,’ he said slowly.
‘Why don’t you employ someone?’
Tight-lipped at her questioning, he pressed fiercely on the shirt, steam rising in clouds. ‘The only two possible daily helps who live locally worked here for a few days and then walked out.’
She wasn’t surprised. He’d try anyone’s patience. Generously sugaring her coffee, she mused that it was his fault if he had to do his own smalls. So she bit back an urge to offer help and bit into the bread instead, munching away and watching him covertly from under her lashes.
Almost immediately she felt that surge of electricity again, a strong current which seemed to pull her towards him. He must have sensed she was watching him because he flicked a glance at her and stopped his manic ironing while their eyes locked.
Jodie felt her mouth drying. She squirmed, caught helplessly in his magnetic field, the remorseless sexual tension boiling up like a seething cauldron inside her.
She seemed to be all heat, her mind consumed by the sight of Morgan, dark, virile, naked beneath the robe…
Swallowing, furious with herself, she slid shakily off the table and moved further away, wandering about at the far end of the kitchen. It wasn’t enough. She was reduced to opening and shutting cupboard doors with her free hand in the effort to dissipate the explosive energy building inside her.
And although the temptation was to stay and drink in Morgan’s hot sexuality, she knew she must ask what she needed to know and leave, so that she could escape her own frightening desires and retire to the safety of her room.
‘My…father…’ she began in a terrible croak, and was forced to moisten her lips. She put down the toast in case he saw how much her hands shook and she pushed them into her pockets, determined to see this through. ‘I want to know where he is,’ she said jerkily, ‘and how he is and when I can see him. I want to know all about him—’
‘I visited him yesterday while you were asleep,’ he broke in obliquely.
Her huge green eyes flinched at the sight of his grim face. It didn’t look as if he had good news. She began to tremble.
‘Oh! H-how is he?’
‘Stable,’ he replied, sounding utterly drained.
‘What does “stable” actually mean?’ she asked anxiously.
‘I believe it means he’s not getting any worse.’ He picked up another shirt and sprea
d out a sleeve on the ironing board, his movements slow and laboured, as if he was walking through a fog. ‘They think he’ll pull through,’ he said huskily, his voice vibrating with emotion.
‘Oh, dear God!’
Overwhelmed by relief, Jodie closed her eyes and let out a whimper. The room seemed to spin around and she would have fallen if he hadn’t come quickly to her side and steadied her.
His touch brought her sharply back to reality. With intense clarity she could feel the welcome pressure of his hands around her arms, could trace by feel alone each long finger and its soft pad at the tip. The rise and fall of his breath quickened now, and she inhaled the faint warm aura of his body: a clean, indefinable faint fragrance of fresh soap.
She quivered in the thick silence, struggling to understand why he was shaking too. Apparently her father’s illness had hit him hard. Sympathetic tears began to trickle down her face again.
‘I don’t believe this! What a wimp! I don’t want to cry!’ she mumbled crossly, aware that he was looking at her intently. ‘But…it was a shock, hearing that my father was on the danger list, Morgan—and now he’s going to be all right, I—I—!’
‘Of course. You’re letting go. I do understand,’ he said quietly.
Something in his tone alerted her. ‘You’re very fond of him, aren’t you?’ she asked huskily.
‘Fond? I love him,’ he replied, his breath warm on her lips.
She stared, surprised by his passion and transfixed by the torment in his eyes until she recalled his Latin American background. He would love and hate with a ferocity she could barely imagine.
‘If…if he had died,’ she said, stumbling over her words as emotion claimed her, ‘I—I couldn’t have borne it.’
‘Neither could I,’ he said thickly.
She choked on a sob, her lower lip trembling uncontrollably. Pulling her close, he slid his arms around her comfortingly, and then his hands were stroking her hair so tenderly that she could hardly bear the sweetness of his caress.
He really did care for her father, she thought muzzily. Her cheek lay on the soft lapel of his cotton robe; her lips just touched the hot silk of his chest. She could hear his heart beating loudly and suddenly she knew why he’d been short-tempered and curt with her. He’d been desperately worried, perhaps to the exclusion of everything else.
Without realising it, she nuzzled more trustingly in his arms, musing that there was a special link between Morgan and her father which she’d discover soon. In the meantime, she could almost forgive Morgan for his abruptness.
‘It’s been hard for you too, hasn’t it?’ she whispered, guiltily enjoying the feel of her mouth against his skin.
‘Harder for him,’ he growled.
That touched her. She inhaled a raw breath, her emotions stretched too far in compassion for her father, her own relief, and an overwhelming sympathy for Morgan, who was stoically trying not to let his anxiety get the upper hand.
‘It’s all right now,’ she murmured soothingly. ‘He’s on the mend. It’s wonderful news.’
On an impulse, she hugged him, loving the firmness of his body in the circle of her embrace. And then she lifted her head to look at him, her eyes bright with happiness.
‘He’ll be back here sooner than you know. Won’t that be wonderful?’
She felt his muscles relax, felt the huge outrush of air from his lungs. His cheek came down against hers and her arms tightened around him again in sheer relief. Knots in her slender shoulders unwound as she relaxed completely in his arms.
Her father would be well and Morgan had accepted her. There would be no barriers between them now.
She sighed, a gentle joy easing away the remnants of tension. Her body felt warm and molten against his, almost boneless. Suddenly her chin was being tipped up by a questing finger and she smiled up at him, tears still swilling her bright eyes.
Time seemed to stand still. Her breathing was suspended. She was lost, drowning in the dark pools of his liquid eyes, her lips parting of their own volition as his head angled, the light gleaming with an aching beauty on his raw cheekbones and sinfully smooth jaw.
She knew she should move, say something, even, but speech and conscious thought had deserted her. An irresistible force was weighting her lids and compelling her eyes to close before she understood why.
And then all reality was obliterated because his mouth was on hers, firm yet gentle, his kiss more sweet and tormenting in its restrained passion than any she’d ever known.
Her head tipped back in abandoned pleasure and she wound her arms around his neck with a little whimper of need. Without any thought to what she was doing, she kissed him back, only knowing that she wanted him to stroke her body, to hold her tightly and to kiss her like this for hour after hour till her blind need to be loved had been sated.
But he broke her dream by gently pushing her back, his hands supporting her as he stared, blinking, at her ecstatic face.
‘I think,’ he said thickly, ‘that we’re both overreacting to the news about Sam.’
She stared at him blankly, her lungs almost devoid of breath. For a moment his gaze dropped to her parted lips and she thought—crazily hoped—he was going to kiss her again, but he inhaled sharply.
‘Yes,’ she agreed reluctantly.
He frowned. ‘The two of us have been under some strain. Needed someone to hug…’
She released her grip on his robe, pulled herself together and managed a weak smile, thankful that he was defusing the situation.
‘You’re right! Lucky the vicar wasn’t to hand!’ she suggested, unnaturally bright. Slipping away and grabbing a piece of stone-cold toast, she waved it airily to give her time to come up with some coherent reply. ‘Relief does the oddest things to people!’
She took a bite at the flaccid bread and wished she hadn’t, all the time praying he’d agree and not question why she’d fallen so recklessly into his arms. But since he’d grabbed blindly at the nearest source of comfort, he was clearly ready to believe that was what she’d done too.
‘Certainly does. I do apologise. I overstepped the mark.’
Back to his abrupt, clipped self, he took up the ironing again with a grim fervour that astonished her.
‘That’s OK. Understandable in the circumstances,’ she said warmly.
She flashed him a smile but he didn’t respond. She sighed with disappointment. She’d been mistaken; he didn’t want to unbend towards her. That moment of closeness had been purely a reflex action to her father’s improvement.
Her teeth dug into her lower lip. It felt awful, being disliked and thought a liar. If only Morgan would trust her! But at least they’d shared a mutual emotion. That was a start.
‘The hospital,’ she prompted gently. ‘I’d like to ring—’
‘No!’ he broke in roughly. ‘Sam is too ill and too frail to cope with you. He has to concentrate on getting better. I will not allow you near him.’
‘But…I thought you might have changed your mind—!’ she began in horror.
‘Then you’re wrong. I have some sympathy for you, but my first duty is to him. He’s made his wishes about you quite clear.’
‘Based purely on an incorrect assumption about me!’ she protested.
‘So you claim. It doesn’t alter the fact, Jodie, that he doesn’t want you. Accept this and—’
‘No, I won’t!’
‘Then you leave me no choice.’
Scowling, he switched off the iron and put it and the board away with a clatter. She was speechless at this turn of events. Avoiding her dismayed gaze, he began to prowl up and down the kitchen.
‘My advice,’ he went on tightly, ‘is that you cut your losses and get on with your life, Jodie. There’s nothing here for you, and you’ll only give yourself grief by fighting for the impossible!’
He had thumped his hand down on the counter angrily, his movements faster and his temper closer to exploding as he stalked up and down the floor like a caged animal.
Jodie gulped. His long legs devoured the length of the kitchen as if he was hungry for a fight, and she cringed back against the stove, the chrome bar biting into her back as she arched away from his unreasonable fury.
‘I have to try!’ she cried bravely.
He stopped dead, the full force of his wrath turned on her. ‘Why do you seem determined to pester a desperately sick man?’ he thundered.
‘My father!’ she reminded him hotly.
‘Who is in no condition to listen to your excuses—!’
‘The truth!’ she flared, hands on hips, eyes glittering with combat.
‘And who washed his hands of you with the utmost contempt and absolute loathing!’ he hurled, white slashes of anger gleaming on his high cheekbones.
Her face paled. ‘He doesn’t feel that strongly about me…does he?’ she moaned, wincing with the pain of what he’d said.
‘You drove me to tell you that!’ he said in exasperation, his eyes dark and glittering. He continued his fevered prowling. ‘Don’t push me any further or you’ll regret it! I must protect Sam! He’s in no fit state to do so himself!’
‘I’ve told you I only want what’s best for him!’ she protested, frustration making her tearful. She pressed her trembling lips together, her eyes luminous with silent pleading.
‘Then go!’
‘Not without knowing how he fares! I can’t leave. Even if I never see him, I have to know what happens to him—’
‘I’ll phone you,’ he said grimly. ‘That’s a promise. And now you’ve taken up enough of my time. I want you out of here—’
‘That’s rich! I’m his daughter and I have more right to be here than you!’ she defended, folding her arms defiantly. ‘I’m staying, whatever you say. I will see my father! You can’t stop me from enquiring at the hospital about him! If you stand in my way, I’ll—I’ll call the cops!’ she finished wildly.
‘Call them!’ he snarled, whirling like a cornered tiger. ‘They won’t be interested. Even if they are, I’ll tell them how you broke his heart when you didn’t answer his letter, how that had repercussions far beyond anything you could ever imagine—’