Steven was having a difficult morning. He’d overslept, which meant that he’d had to curtail his morning run. He hadn’t even had time to change out of his running gear before he got Windflower’s breakfast.
She sat at the breakfast bar, swinging her legs. In her school uniform checked dress she looked the picture of wholesome innocence. Steven had learned to distrust that look.
‘What is it?’ he said suspiciously.
‘Nothing.’ She attacked her cornflakes. ‘Have you done my name badge for sports day?’
‘What?’ Steven poured coffee, distracted.
‘I told you. I’ve got to have a name badge. With my name on it. My full name.’ In case he hadn’t understood, she spelled it out. ‘Both bits. You said you’d do it on the computer.’
‘Oh, that.’ He pushed his hand through his hair. ‘We’ll ask Val.’
Windflower rocked complacently. ‘Val can’t do it.’
‘She can if I ask her,’ Steven said carelessly. He leaned against the counter, inhaling coffee. Pure caffeine rush. By golly, he needed it. How on earth was he going to get Pepper Calhoun to give him another chance?
‘No, she can’t. She tried.’ Windflower’s voice rose to a classic wail. ‘I’ve got to have a badge. I’ve got to. I’ve got to.’
Steven looked up sharply. This was out of character. ‘Calm down. Of course you’ll have a badge if you need one. Why couldn’t Val do it?’
Windflower’s wails stopped with suspicious promptness. ‘My name is too long,’ she announced.
Steven saw that she was dry-eyed. He began to see where this was going.
‘I see. And have you got a solution?’
Windflower pursed her lips. ‘I think,’ she said judicially, ‘that I prob’ly ought to have a special name for school. I think that would be best.’
‘Ah.’
‘A short name.’
He nodded, keeping his mouth serious. ‘So it would fit onto the badge. Good thinking. Any suggestions?’
Windflower shook her head, all silent virtue.
Their eyes met. Each of them was perfectly well aware of what the other was doing. And wasn’t going to give an inch.
Steven was the first to break. He burst out laughing. ‘All right. I’ll think about it, you baggage.’
She grinned engagingly as she got off the stool. ‘Thank you.’
One of the mothers gave Windflower a lift into school. Steven always walked her to the porter’s lodge and handed her over. Of course normally he was not wearing running shorts and a sweat-stained tee shirt, but that couldn’t be helped.
‘What are you doing today?’
‘French and dancing,’ said Windflower, concentrating on the stuff she liked. ‘And I’m sleeping over with Sarah.’
Steven was touched. It was quite clear that until she arrived in Oxford Windflower had never had a friend her own age. She had taken to pre-teen sleepovers like a man with a hangover to coffee. Worried about the impact on her friends’ parents, Steven had rationed her to one a week. As a result she had a diary full of engagements stretching through to the autumn.
‘Have a good time.’
‘Uncle Steven…?’
‘Yes?’
‘Could my friends sleep over one weekend?’
His heart sank. It was only fair; he could see that. But the thought of organising nine-year-olds in the rickety Master’s Lodging filled him with dread. I need a co-parent, he thought. And instantly wondered how Pepper Calhoun would handle a contained nine-year-old.
Forget it, he told himself. That’s pure fantasy.
Aloud he said, ‘We’ll see.’
It was a glorious summer morning. The lawns glowed. The college basked. Sunshine struck gold and honey from stone buttresses on the medieval chapel. Even the gargoyles looked as if they were about break into a dance.
Steven thought of all the repairs that the building needed and his heart sank. But this was too good a morning to be in despair. On a morning like this he could even believe he would find a way through to Pepper Calhoun’s guarded heart.
Beside him, Windflower said in a pleased voice, ‘There’s Pepper. Hello, Pepper.’ She let go his hand and broke into a run.
Steven, by contrast, stopped dead. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be.
It was.
Coming out of the porter’s lodge, with her glorious hair flipping around her in the morning breeze, was his shy goddess. Not that she looked shy at the moment. Uncomfortable, wary and tough, yes. Shy, no.
And distinctly winded as the child launched herself into her.
‘Hello.’ She touched the child’s hair awkwardly, as if she was not quite sure of the form but was secretly rather pleased. ‘How are you?’ It was aimed at both of them.
Steven felt a smile break out from his feet upwards. It felt as if his whole body was grinning like an idiot. For two pins he would have joined the gargoyles on the chapel and jigged round the tower.
Careful, he told himself. Careful. One wrong move and she’ll take off again.
Curbing every instinct he had, he strolled over.
‘I’m great,’ he said. ‘Windflower’s on her way to school, but apart from that she’s great, too. You?’
‘I’m good.’
She fell silent, looking about her. Looking everywhere but at him, in fact. Oh, yes, she was definitely uncomfortable.
Oh, heavens, when she looked like that…
Steven wanted to reassure her so badly it was like a burn. But how do you reassure a prickly woman on the look-out for insults? Who challenges you as soon as look at you?
Keep those instincts under control, Konig!
He said carefully, ‘This is a nice surprise.’ In spite of himself, his tone was tender. ‘What brings you to Oxford?’
She risked a quick glance at him then, but looked away at once before his eyes could snare hers. Was it his imagination or did a faint colour touch her pale cheekbones?
The porter came to the door of the lodge. ‘Mrs Lang is here for the little girl, Master.’
He brought his mind back to practicalities. ‘Thank you, Mr Jackson. Windflower, time to go.’
She let go reluctantly. ‘Will you come to sports day, Pepper?’
Pepper was clearly at a loss. Steven rescued her.
He said firmly, ‘We’ll talk about it. Don’t keep Mrs Lang waiting.’
Windflower nodded. ‘I’m on the high jump team,’ she said enticingly.
She held up her face to her visitor and, when Pepper seemed not to know how to respond, hauled her face down for a brisk kiss before going back to Steven for her farewell hug.
‘Goodbye, baggage,’ he said. ‘Have a good sleepover. See you tomorrow.’
She went.
Pepper was looking stunned. ‘High jump?’ she echoed faintly.
Steven smiled. ‘Until a couple of weeks ago Windflower lived a footloose life. No settled school. No family. She feels she’s got a lot to catch up on. So she’s drumming up a club to go and cheer any time she does anything. Don’t let her get to you.’
‘I can relate to that. But she sounds more constructive than I was.’
Steven was rueful. ‘She’s constructive all right. Currently she’s negotiating for a name-change.’
Pepper smiled suddenly, that wonderful smile he had dreamed of. Full of warmth, just as he remembered. Full of fugitive fun, too, as if she were surprised at herself.
‘Are we talking blackmail, by any chance?’
‘Well, high-pressure salesmanship, certainly,’ said Steven, delighting in her. ‘So—what are you doing in Oxford? I don’t flatter myself that you’ve come just to see me.’
Incomprehensibly, that seemed to upset her. She swallowed audibly.
‘Um—’
When she swallowed Pepper’s throat moved convulsively. It fascinated him. He wanted to tip her head back, so that amazing hair flowed over his pillow, red as the dawn. He wanted to kiss the length of that long ivory throat and…
To take his mind off his fantasies, Steven did an energetic jog on the spot. He must look an idiot, but it was better than going into the full sex maniac routine, he thought wryly.
‘Can it be that you’ve changed your mind?’
She tensed. ‘What?’
‘Want to talk to me after all?’ he asked gently.
She moistened her lips. Steven’s temperature went up a couple of degrees. This was becoming unmanageable.
‘Let’s go inside and discuss it,’ he said hastily. ‘Have you had breakfast?’
‘No. I—’
‘Then let’s go.’
‘No, really. I don’t need anything.’
He did not risk touching her. But he swept his arm round the curve of her back, as if he was pressing the air behind her to urge her forward. Pepper gave a voluptuous shiver, as if he had touched her exactly as his fantasies suggested.
Steven gave a laugh that was half a groan. ‘Coffee, then,’ he said. ‘If you don’t need it, I do.’
Pepper was finding this more difficult than she would have believed possible. She did not know what she had thought she would say to him. But nothing was as she expected.
The child was a shock. The way he looked even more so.
The child clearly lived with him. He treated her with the easy authority of a father. So was ‘Uncle Steven’ just a polite story?
And as for the way he looked! Pepper felt every hair on her body stand up and surrender. In a sweat-stained tee shirt and shorts, all bare tanned legs and wind-ruffled hair, he exuded sheer animal energy. And she wanted him.
It made it difficult to concentrate. It also made it all the more unbelievable that she hadn’t recognised him before. The pirate was unmistakable.
He took her under a low stone arch, through a narrow alley between two stone buildings, into a quadrangle and out under a grander arch to—well, a fairy story.
‘That’s Rapunzel’s turret!’ exclaimed Pepper, stopping dead.
‘Master’s Lodging,’ said Steven with inexplicable indifference. ‘Actually, it’s my office as well. Pressure on accommodation.’ He held the weathered oak door open to allow her to pass through. ‘Works quite well, but my secretary sees more of my private life than she wants.’
As if to illustrate that, a pleasant-faced woman came out onto the staircase.
‘Good morning, Master. The Dean has rung asking for a word before the Fund-Raising Committee.’
‘That man needs to get a life,’ muttered Steven. ‘Better fit him in, though. Anything else, Val?’
The secretary looked pointedly at his running gear. ‘Nothing that can’t wait until you’re dressed.’
Steven laughed. ‘Point taken. I’ll just give my guest a coffee.’
He introduced them. The secretary acknowledged it. She looked wooden.
‘Give me half an hour,’ he said, leading the way to the stairs.
‘Certainly, Master.’ She went back into her room and closed the door on them with point.
Pepper refused to be intimidated. ‘They call you Master?’ She didn’t believe it.
His eyes danced. ‘Goes with the job. Come on.’ He ran lightly up the ancient staircase.
Pepper followed more sedately. ‘But Master!’ She shook her head. ‘It’s feudal.’
‘Oxford is good at names. The students call me King Kong,’ Steven said ruefully. ‘They say it’s because of my eyebrows. But I’m not convinced.’
Neither was Pepper, looking at the bunching of powerful muscles under thin cotton as he led her through the door into his private rooms. She tried hard not to think about it.
‘Kitchen,’ said Steven, waving a hand at a bright room with an elderly wooden table and appliances that looked nearly as antique as the staircase. ‘Help yourself to coffee. I’ll be back.’
He went, pulling the stained tee shirt over his head. Pepper averted her eyes. But not before she had seen a hair-roughened chest and a stunningly solid pair of shoulders. The man had to work out. Was he vain? Somehow she didn’t think so. It would have been easier to deal with him if she did, she thought, irritated. But at the moment he just looked too damn close to perfection: gorgeous, intelligent, successful and good with children.
Out of my league, even if I had a league, she told herself. She had never been attracted to muscle-bound men. The captain of the football team had left her cold. Monstrous biceps and sculpted abs made her feel slightly ill. But Steven’s bas relief musculature made a vein throb in her temple and her arms reach on auto pilot.
She put her hands behind her like a schoolgirl.
Oh, Lord, she thought. This is what Izzy calls the extremity of lust. Gulp!
She kept her hands behind her until he had clattered up the next flight of stairs and she heard the door shut behind him.
The coffee maker was more than half full. She poured a mug and tossed it down like medicine. Coming here was a mistake. But now she had done it she had to see it through.
She could do it. Of course she could. She had confronted Ed Ivanov with his mercy dates, hadn’t she? If she could do that she could face anything, no matter how unflattering.
So when Steven came back she burst into rapid speech. She spoke uninterrupted for ten minutes, her words tumbling over themselves in agitation. When she had finished he looked at her incredulously.
‘You have only just remembered me from the plane, fair enough. But you want me to apologise to you because you didn’t recognise me? How do you work that out?’
Pepper had not come here intending to demand an apology. But in the heat of the moment that was how it had come out, and she wasn’t backing down. She said hotly, ‘Because you didn’t tell me you were the guy from the plane. You knew the moment we met at Indigo Television. Didn’t you?’
‘Not the moment,’ he demurred. ‘You were wrapped up like Nanook of the North, if you remember.’
Pepper refused to be sidetracked. ‘Tell the truth.’
He pulled a wry face. ‘Okay. I knew.’
‘So why didn’t you tell me?’
He helped himself to coffee, shrugging. ‘Obviously I’d made less of an impression on you than you had on me. It happens.’
Pepper narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Liar.’
He laughed. ‘Well, it wasn’t much of a first meeting, after all.’
Wasn’t it? Pepper flinched inwardly. So the magnetic attraction had been one-sided after all! She had got it wrong again.
Well, what else could she expect? She was the woman who had thought Ed Ivanov dated her because he liked her!
What is wrong with me? she thought. She was supposed to be so intelligent! She could add up forward projections for her business plan until they were coming out of her ears. But ask her to add one man and one woman and she could not get the answer right. She could speak French and Spanish, but when it came to the language between men and women she didn’t know what the words meant.
Izzy and Jemima did it on pure instinct. So did every other woman she knew. Mary Ellen had to be right. She was a freak!
She looked round for her bag. ‘I must be going,’ she said in a suffocated voice. ‘I’ve got some business premises to look at.’
Steven found her bag. But he did not give it to her. Instead, he held on to it and said easily, ‘If you’re going to be around Oxford anyway, why don’t we get together later?’
In spite of herself, a quick laugh lit Pepper’s eyes. ‘Sports day?’
He smiled back. It was a heady feeling.
‘That’s an idea. But not until the end of the month. I was thinking more of a spot of tourism. That’s how I lured you down here after all.’
Pepper jumped. ‘You didn’t lure me down here,’ she said loudly. Too loudly.
The smile in his eyes deepened. ‘I tried. If you remember th
e plane, you must remember that. So, what about if I take you round a couple of colleges? We could go up St Mary’s for the panorama. Or the river.’
‘That’s very kind of you but—’ She was arrested. ‘The river? You mean like The Wind in the Willows? Oh, how I loved that book. My parents used to read it to me together. It’s about the only thing I can remember of them. They were supposed to be reading to me but I think actually they were reading it to each other.’
She smiled reminiscently. It was an old picture, the three of them on a beach somewhere—Brazil? The Caribbean?—with her sitting between them and her father and mother passing the book between them, stopping only to tickle her or bury her legs in the sand.
Her eyes softened. ‘It was always a perfect day.’
Steven looked at her curiously. But his voice was deeply amused when he said, ‘I wasn’t exactly thinking of Ratty and friends. In Oxford the male student does his courting on the river.’
Courting? Pepper’s spine stiffened as if someone had pulled a lever suddenly.
Steven did not appear to notice. He was saying reflectively, ‘Umm, long tradition. If you’re serious about a girl, you take her out in a punt, moor under a willow and read her something libidinous.’
‘O-oh?’ Pepper wondered if she were blushing and decided not to think about it too closely. ‘Does it work?’
His grin widened. ‘You can’t expect me to tell you that.’
Oh, Lord, here was more of that secret language she didn’t understand! She said with constraint, ‘What do you mean?’
His eyes danced. ‘In the battle of the sexes you’re on the other side.’
She moistened her lips. He watched as if he were fascinated. Pepper didn’t care if she was blushing. Inwardly she was melting. How did the man do that?
So, okay, she didn’t speak the language. Okay, she had never done any of this sexy, teasing flirtation in her life. But she had her pride. If other women could do it, so could she. Steven Konig was not going to tie her up in knots without her at least trying to fight back.
She gave him what she hoped was a smouldering look. ‘You mean I have to do my own reconnaissance?’
‘I look forward to it.’
Pepper choked.
He gave her a wide, innocent look. But she was sure that he knew the effect he had on her. Steven Konig did speak the language. No doubt about that.
The Independent Bride Page 12