by Helen Brooks
‘There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, Marigold,’ he answered evenly, but with the smoky inflexion in his voice which gave it a sensual kick that was pure dynamite. ‘Something I would be only too pleased to rectify, given half a chance.’
His eyes stroked her face for a moment before he looked down the drive again. ‘I enjoy playing the piano and I’m told I can make a half-reasonable noise on the trombone. I like parasailing and scuba-diving; I prefer American football to English football or rugby and I loathe golf. But of course there are other…activities which give me more pleasure than all the rest put together.’
She didn’t ask what they were, keeping her gaze on the car in front of them, from which the passenger was waving frantically, as she said, ‘Scuba-diving? I’ve done a little of that, enough to get my PADI open-water certification.’ She had tried to persuade Dean to do the course with her, thinking they could dive together in the warm waters of the Caribbean on their honeymoon, but he had only gone a couple of times before dropping out, claiming trouble with his inner ear. Privately she had thought he was scared. He had never coped well with a new challenge.
‘So you’re a water baby?’ The moonlight caught the shining jet of his hair and turned the grey eyes to mercury as he turned to look down at her. ‘That doesn’t surprise me. I had you down as gutsy as well as beautiful.’
‘Flattery will get you everywhere,’ Marigold said as lightly as she could manage.
‘I wish.’ It was very dry. ‘And it is not flattery. I told you before, I only tell the truth.’
‘That would make you a man in a million,’ she said with a trace of bitterness she couldn’t quite disguise.
‘Just so.’ He smiled lazily. ‘It’s nice you’ve recognised the fact so quickly.’
And then he stiffened as he looked down the drive, his voice gritty as he said, ‘Who the hell is that, driving like a maniac? He’s just caused Charles to swerve and nearly go off the road. I don’t recognise the car.’
Marigold followed the direction of his gaze and then swallowed hard. She recognised the car and it didn’t belong to a him but a her.
Emma was driving the smart little sports coupé her doting father had bought her the year before, and she executed a flamboyant halt in front of the house which sent gravel scattering far and wide. ‘Goldie, darling!’ She was calling even as she unfurled herself from the leather interior. ‘I’ve had a nightmare of a journey.’
‘It’s Emma,’ Marigold murmured desperately. ‘She wasn’t supposed to arrive for another couple of days.’
‘Lucky you.’ It was caustic, antagonism bristling in every plane and line of his hard male face as narrowed eyes took in the tight leather trousers and three-inch stiletto heels, the dyed blonde hair and carefully made-up, lovely face.
‘I was waiting outside the cottage and one of the cars stopped and told me you were here,’ Emma continued as she walked towards them, speaking to Marigold but with her big green eyes fixed on Flynn. ‘Darling, I had to get away from London. Oliver and I have had the most awful row and I never want to see him again in all my life,’ she finished dramatically, before adding, as though she had suddenly realised her lack of manners, ‘Oh, I’m Emma Jones by the way,’ as she held out one pale beringed hand to Flynn.
He made no effort to reach out and take it, merely nodding as he said, ‘Maggie’s granddaughter. It figures.’
Emma stopped abruptly. She was used to men going down before her shapely figure and batting eyelashes like ninepins, not having them growl at her with a face like thunder. However, Emma was made of sterner stuff than she looked, and her voice didn’t falter as she said, ‘What exactly does that mean?’
‘I was a friend of your grandmother’s and cared about her; I think that says it all.’
‘Really.’ Emma lifted her small chin and slanted feline eyes, but it was obvious she knew exactly what Flynn meant when she said, ‘Daddy said there were some rather rude individuals in this neck of the woods.’
‘Daddy was right. And this particular rude individual is now asking you, politely, to get off his property,’ Flynn said evenly.
At some point during the discourse Marigold had disentangled her hand from Flynn’s arm and now she said hurriedly, ‘I’ll get my bag if you want to wait in the car for me, Emma.’
‘Sure.’ As Emma turned and began to saunter away Marigold fled into the house, grabbing her bag from where she’d left it in the drawing room and retracing her footsteps into the hall, where she found Flynn waiting for her.
‘You don’t have to go.’
‘I do.’ Marigold bit her lip. ‘You know I do.’
‘Can I see you tomorrow?’ he said quietly.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘I disagree,’ he said, still very softly. ‘It’s an excellent idea.’
‘Please, Flynn—’
‘What are you so scared of anyway, Marigold? Is it me? As a man, I mean? Or is there something more? Something in your past concerning this ex-fiancé of yours? Did he ill-treat you in any way?’
‘You mean apart from sleeping around in a way that ensured everyone knew but me?’ Marigold asked derisively, and then she paused, taken aback at her own bitterness. Right up until this moment in time she hadn’t realised how deep the wound had gone, and for a second she hotly resented Flynn forcing her to see it. She didn’t want to think of herself as damaged or a victim, she thought furiously. She had to get the victory over this.
‘I have to go.’ She gestured towards a scowling Emma, sitting looking at them from the gently purring coupé. ‘Emma’s waiting.’
‘Damn Emma.’
‘I have to go.’ She backed into the doorway and out beyond, running to the car in a way that played havoc with her injured ankle.
Once Marigold was inside the car, Emma wasted no time in leaving, her speed indicating quite clearly she was mortally offended even if she had handled the situation with surprising coolness. ‘What an awful man!’ They hadn’t got out of the drive and onto the lane beyond the gates before Emma let rip. ‘How dare he talk to me like that? And what were you doing in his house anyway?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ OK, so Emma might be upset but no way was she going to apologise for being in Flynn’s home. ‘I wasn’t aware it was out of bounds,’ Marigold challenged quietly.
Emma sent a swift glance Marigold’s way and her tone was less confrontational when she said, ‘Of course it isn’t; I just wasn’t aware you knew the owner, that’s all.’
‘I don’t—I didn’t,’ Marigold corrected. ‘It happened like this…’ She explained the circumstances of her first meeting with Flynn, leaving out his comments relating to Emma and her family and finishing with, ‘I think he thought quite a bit of your grandmother, Emma.’
Emma shrugged offhandedly. ‘I barely knew her,’ she admitted indifferently. ‘I know she drove my parents mad with her refusal to go into an old people’s home, and that she had a load of flea-ridden animals, but my father usually visited her on his own.’
‘How often was that?’ Marigold asked quietly.
‘Now and then.’ It was cursory. ‘She had plenty of friends hereabouts.’
‘It’s not like family though, is it?’
‘Don’t you start.’ Emma skidded to a halt by the side of Myrtle and Marigold could almost see the small car flinch as the sports car missed her bumper by half an inch. ‘My grandmother had the chance to go into a home where she would have been looked after and which my parents could have visited more easily, but she insisted she wanted to stay in the cottage. My father is a busy man; he’s got an important job. He can’t waste time running about all over the place, besides which he and Mother entertain a lot—important people, necessary for his position at work. Anyway, they didn’t get on, my grandmother and father. Just because my father was unable to attend my grandfather’s funeral, my grandmother said she’d never forgive him.’
‘Why couldn’t he go to the funeral?
’ Marigold stared at Emma’s disgruntled face and wondered why she’d never realised that she really didn’t like this girl at all.
‘Pressure of work,’ Emma said perfunctorily. ‘You have to make sacrifices if you want to get to the top.’
‘Yes, I suppose you do.’ Marigold opened her door as she added, ‘I’m leaving in the morning, Emma; there are things I need to do at home. Are you still intending to sell the cottage?’
‘I might be.’ Emma glanced at her as they walked to the cottage door whereupon Marigold handed the other girl the front-door key. ‘Why?’
‘I’d be interested in knowing how much you want for it, that’s all.’ Somehow she couldn’t bear the thought of Emma owning the beloved home of the young, sweet-faced bride in the photograph, or selling it to someone who wouldn’t appreciate the blood, sweat and tears old Maggie had put into the last years. ‘Along with the furniture, the pictures, everything,’ she added quietly.
‘All that old rubbish?’ Emma looked at her as if she was mad, and she probably was, Marigold admitted wryly to herself. ‘Whatever would you be interested in that for?’
‘It fits the cottage, that’s all.’
‘Doesn’t it just!’
Marigold slept the night on the sofa in the sitting room despite Emma’s insistence that she could share the bedroom, and by nine o’clock the next morning she was on her way back to the city. If she had stayed any longer there would have been a very real possibility of her and Emma having a major fall-out, and she didn’t want that. Not so much because it would make things difficult at work as because she felt old Maggie was relying on her to buy the cottage and make it a real home again.
It might be fanciful, Marigold admitted as her car chugged cheerfully along, this link she felt she had with Emma’s grandmother, but she felt it in her bones and she couldn’t get away from it.
As she drew nearer to London, Marigold found she couldn’t stop Flynn from invading her thoughts as he’d done all night; his image in her mind seemed to increase with the miles. He had accused her of being scared of him; was she? she asked herself, hating the answer when it came in the affirmative. She had run away this morning, she acknowledged miserably; for the first time in her life she had run away from something—or, more precisely, someone. Admittedly she would have left the cottage after her conversation with Emma; it had grated so much she couldn’t have stayed and pretended everything was all right as far as the other girl was concerned, but she should have popped to see Flynn on the way and told him she was leaving. After all he had done for her it would have been courteous if nothing else.
But… She gritted her teeth at the but. She’d known deep in the heart of her but not admitted till now that she’d wanted to see him too much as well as not at all. How was that for a contradiction? she thought ruefully.
Was she thinking of buying Emma’s cottage because it would mean Flynn would be her neighbour? Marigold tried to take a step backwards and answer her question honestly. No, she didn’t think she was, which was a relief. But neither did Flynn’s presence just across the valley make her think the notion was impossible, which, if she wanted nothing at all to do with him, wasn’t sensible, was it?
Oh, this is crazy, stupid! Why was she tearing herself apart like this over a man she hadn’t known existed a week ago? He probably wouldn’t give her another thought once he found out she’d gone—if he bothered to enquire, that was.
Marigold honked Myrtle’s horn long and hard at a smart Mercedes that cut her up from an approach road and felt a little better for letting off some steam.
If her buying the cottage worked out—great. If it didn’t, so be it. Either way she’d still put her plans for the future into operation and go self-employed. One stage of her life was finishing, another was just beginning, and it was up to her what she made of things.
She was not going to think of Flynn Moreau any more. He was a brief interlude, a little bit of Christmas magic maybe, but Christmas was over, as was her flirtation with Flynn. She nodded resolutely to the thought and then, as she caught the eye of the passenger in the car alongside, pretended to be nodding along to a song. Look at her, she told herself crossly once the car had changed lanes and disappeared, she was going barmy here! Enough was enough. Decision made. Autonomy for the immediate future and definitely, definitely no men in her life.
Marigold spent the next two days of the holiday cleaning her small flat in Kensington from top to bottom, and catching up with several domestic jobs she had been putting off for ages. She didn’t allow herself to think, keeping the radio or TV on at all times and ruthlessly curtailing any stray thought which crept into her consciousness and might lead down a path to Flynn.
She returned to work on Wednesday morning with her notice already typed and in her bag. Patricia and Jeff were sorry to accept her notice but promised her work on a freelance basis, and after she’d agreed to stay until the end of March all parties were happy. Emma was on holiday until the new year and Marigold wasn’t sorry, despite her desire to set the ball rolling with regard to her purchase of the cottage. The other girl’s callous attitude about her grandmother had bothered Marigold more than she would have liked.
The first day back at work was quiet, what with quite a few firms having taken an extended break until after the new year, so for once Marigold left the office on time and was back home before six o’clock. The phone was ringing as she walked into the flat; it was her mother, insisting she join the rest of the family and friends for a New Year’s Eve bash at her parents’ home.
After promising her mother she would think about it—an answer Sandra Flower was not particularly happy with—Marigold managed to put down the phone some twenty minutes later; her mother having bent her ear about everything from her cleaner’s bad leg to the state of the nation.
Marigold hadn’t taken one step towards the kitchen for the reviving cup of coffee she’d been literally tasting for the last few minutes, when the front doorbell rang followed by an imperious knock a second later.
‘Give me a chance…’ Marigold grumbled to herself as she went to the door, pushing back her shining veil of hair with a weary hand. The hard physical work in the flat over the last two days, added to the twinges her ankle still gave which kept waking her up in the night, had caught up with her after a day at work and she was looking forward to a long, hot soak in the bath with a glass of wine, followed by an early night.
‘Hello, Marigold Flower.’
It was Flynn. Bigger, more handsome and twice as lethal as she remembered, his dark hair tousled by the strong north wind which had been blowing all day and his grey eyes narrowed and faintly wary. He looked tired, she noticed with a detachment borne of shock. Exhausted even.
Marigold said faintly, ‘How did you know where I lived? Emma didn’t…?’
‘No, Emma didn’t,’ he assured her drily. ‘Let’s just say Emma took great pleasure in slamming the door in my face and leave it at that.’
‘You were awful to her,’ Marigold said weakly, still trying to take in the fact he was right here on her doorstep.
‘She got off damn lightly and she knows it.’ Flynn was dismissive.
‘So how did you find me?’
‘Process of elimination. There aren’t too many M. Flowers in London, and your number was about the fifth my secretary tried. Your answer machine provided the name Marigold…’ Dark eyebrows rose above brilliant eyes. ‘Do I get invited in?’ he asked softly.
‘Oh, yes, of course.’ She was so flustered she nearly fell over her own feet as she quickly stepped to the side and ushered him through.
‘I’ve been in London for the last thirty-six hours,’ he continued quietly. ‘Emergency call from the hospital.’ And then he stopped in the doorway of her small sitting room, glancing round appreciatively as he said, ‘This is charming.’
‘Thank you.’ Marigold had spent every night for a month painting and papering her tiny home in the immediate aftermath of the break with Dean, needin
g the hard work as therapy to keep her from caving in to the pain and rage and bitterness. She had gone for bright, bold colours to offset her internal bleakness, and the sitting room with its radiant yellow walls reminiscent of sunflowers and pinky terracotta sofa and curtains on a pale wood floor was daring and adventurous. ‘I like it.’
He turned to her, his grey eyes smiling. ‘It suits you.’
Oh, wow, he was something else. Impossible, dangerous and more attractive than any man had the right to be. Marigold sternly took hold of her wildly beating heart and said evenly, ‘Why are you here, Flynn?’
‘To see you.’ He stated the obvious with a wry smile. ‘You never said goodbye, remember?’
‘You came here to say goodbye?’
‘Not exactly.’ he pulled her against him, bending quickly and kissing her with hard, hungry kisses that brought an immediate response deep inside her. He kissed her until she was limp and breathless against him and then raised his head, his voice slightly mocking as he said, ‘No, not exactly, but then you knew that, didn’t you? Just as you knew I’d follow you.’
‘I didn’t!’ she said indignantly, her voice carrying the unmistakable ring of truth.
He frowned, tilting her face upwards with a firm hand. ‘Then you should have,’ he said softly, without smiling.
Probably, but then she wasn’t versed in all the intricate games of love like his more experienced women friends. She was just herself; a not very tall, rather ordinary, hard-working girl with the unfortunate name of Marigold Flower. And she dared not let herself think this could mean anything.
‘I came to ask if we could try getting to know each other for a while,’ he said smoothly, reading the confusion and withdrawal in her face with deadly accuracy. ‘OK? No heavy stuff, just the odd date now and again when I’m in town. Dinner sometimes, a little sightseeing, visits to the theatre, that sort of thing. Just being together with no strings attached.’