Too Scared to Love

by Cathy Williams

  Brian had been a different matter. She had not faced her gullibility soon enough.

  She had set her alarm-clock for five, and when it shrilled next to her the following morning she groggily dragged herself out of bed, trying not to give in to instant depression at the blackness outside or at the long drive ahead of her.

  Emily, when Roberta tiptoed into the room to say goodbye, was engulfed under the duvet. Roberta shook her slightly and said, ‘See you later,’ getting a tired grunt for her efforts.

  Grant was waiting for her in the hall.

  ‘About time,’ he greeted her, and Roberta said sweetly,

  ‘And a very good morning to you, too.’ She had felt quite sleepy as she had trudged down the stairs, but the sight of him had now banished all her drowsiness. He seemed to have that effect on her.

  She glanced at him hopefully and said, ‘I don’t suppose you feel up to driving yourself after all?’

  ‘Difficult,’ Grant admitted. ‘I’ve covered the bulk of the work, but I still have a few finishing touches to put to it which I can do in the car. Then, once I get to the cabin, it’ll just be a matter of transferring the important sections on to the computer.’ He handed her the keys to the car. ‘Don’t be reckless. I don’t fancy ending up in hospital.’

  What a paragon of politeness you are, she thought, taking the keys off him and gritting her teeth against the bone-aching cold as she opened up the car and eyed the dashboard with trepidation. It looked like the control panel of a plane. And she was supposed to get to grips with this?

  It was easier than she had expected. The car was automatic, so there was no problem having to adjust to unfamiliar gears and, she conceded, it was a remarkably comfortable car to drive. Large, the seats luxuriously padded, and everything electronically controlled so that there was no fumbling about trying to get things into position.

  Grant knew the route well enough not to consult a map, and gradually she began to feel more confident about the drive up.

  She relaxed enough to ask him questions, her eyes briefly leaving the road now and again to appreciate the scenery, and he spoke about the terrain with love. He had the sort of deep, persuasive voice that charmed, and he sprinkled his descriptions with enough dry wit and humour to keep her amused.

  As the darkness around them paled into tentative daylight, the roads become more crowded, but by then the bulk of the journey had been accomplished.

  ‘We’ve covered the brunt of it,’ he said, slanting a sideways look at her. ‘That wasn’t too bad, was it?’

  Roberta didn’t look at him; she was too busy peering around her, cautiously keeping a very safe distance between herself and the nearest vehicle. Accidents frequently happened through misplaced self-confidence on the road, and it was a trap that she had no intention of falling into.

  ‘I’m not used to driving,’ she confessed. ‘As I said, I didn’t have a car in London.’

  ‘And your boyfriend?’ The question, thrown casually at her, caught her unawares, and she replied without thinking,

  ‘He didn’t like me behind the wheel of his car. I don’t think he trusted me enough with it.’

  ‘Nice man,’ Grant said mildly, and she frowned, not really able to defend Brian in any way whatsoever.

  They continued for a while in silence, and she only realised that the weather had deteriorated when the first flakes of snow began to hit the windscreen.

  She glanced across at Grant worriedly.

  ‘It’s snowing,’ she said, stating the obvious. The windscreen wipers were now on full, and as fast as they cleared the screen it became speckled with the dusty flakes.

  ‘We’re not far away,’ he answered in a clipped voice, but she was feeling distinctly alarmed by the time the car swerved off the main road and began the painstaking manoeuvre through isolated territory towards the cabin.

  She had slowed down considerably to accommodate the change in the weather, but by the time they neared the cabin the snow was so thick that she was driving almost at a crawl.

  She hardly saw the place until it was looming in front of her, a small building with just the sort of rustic charm associated with hideaways near a lake.

  She switched off the ignition and turned to him. ‘I can’t possibly get back in this,’ she said, angry with him for making her drive him up here in the first place.

  He nodded curtly, staring out through the window. ‘We’d better get inside, and quick.’

  He opened the door and ran ahead of her to unlock the cabin, while she followed quickly, head bent against the snow, her eyes disturbed and anxious.

  There was a sort of terrible beauty about the way the ground was rapidly being blanketed under the snow, which was covering over their tracks even before they were inside the cabin.

  ‘What am I going to do?’ she wailed, staring at him.

  ‘There’s no point in becoming hysterical,’ he pointed out, moving across to the window and inspecting the scene outside. He turned to face her. ‘I’ll light a fire, we might as well get some warmth in here.’

  Roberta watched in silence, fighting her hysteria, while he laboriously lit the fire until it was glowing.

  Keep calm, she told herself, but as soon as she thought of being cooped up here with him, the hysteria assaulted her again.

  She distracted herself by looking around the cabin. It was simple, but not depressingly so. One large lounge-diner, a kitchen which seemed remarkably well kitted out and, just off the lounge, a door which no doubt led to the bedroom. The sort of place where lovers would have a field day. Had he come here with his wife? Stupid question, of course he had. This place was made for courting, but that was about it.

  He had sat down on the sofa in front of the fireplace and Roberta walked across to face him, her arms folded across her chest.

  ‘You’ve got me up here,’ she said carefully. ‘Now what are we supposed to do about this?’

  ‘Wait it out. Do you think I’m any happier about this than you are?’

  ‘How long is this snow likely to last?’

  ‘Hard to say,’ Grant remarked. ‘A couple of days at the outset.’

  ‘Two days?’ Her voice was a shrill whisper.

  ‘You look as though you’ve been condemned to a stint in hell. I won’t rape you, if that’s what you’re afraid of.’ He gave her a smile that was devoid of any humour.

  ‘I was worried about Emily,’ Roberta hedged, angry at the panic that had gripped her by the throat. ‘Mrs Thornson is going to be away, and—’

  ‘Phone her.’ He waved towards the telephone. ‘Or rather, bring it here. I’ll talk to her.’

  She brought him the phone, wandering across to the window while he explained the situation to his daughter. The thought of two days out here, stuck, was awful, overwhelming. A drive up she could manage well enough; she could fill that with polite conversation and make sure that her self-control was well and truly in place, but two days, if not more, in a cabin miles away from nowhere filled her with dismay.

  ‘I can’t stay here,’ she said flatly, turning around to look at him. ‘Surely I can make my way back to the main road before the snow gets too deep?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Look at the weather, woman. Do you really think that you would stand a chance if you set off now? You probably wouldn’t make it as far as the bottom of the lane, and believe me I have no intention of beating a path through the snow searching for you.’

  ‘This is all your fault!’

  ‘There’s no point dwelling on whose fault it is. The simple fact is that we’re here, and there isn’t the remotest chance that we can get out for the time being. You should thank your lucky stars that we managed to get here in one piece. This kind of snow can be deadly.’

  ‘There are a lot of things in life that I could thank my lucky stars for,’ Roberta muttered, angry at his tone of voice and at her lack of composure, ‘and believe me, being stranded here with you isn’t one of them.’

  His mouth tightened. �
��I don’t like your tone of voice,’ he said tersely.

  Roberta strolled across to the fire and stared down at the leaping flames. She hadn’t meant to sound antagonistic, but the thought of enforced confinement with a man, particularly this one, had made her voice sharp and querulous.

  ‘Is this place all right for food?’ she asked, making a determined effort not to lose her cool.

  ‘Yes. I make sure that it’s well stocked every time I come up here.’

  ‘And do you come up here often?’ It had been meant as an inoffensive, polite, keeping-her-cool kind of question, but as soon as it was out she realised that it could easily be misconstrued as nosiness, and she rushed on hurriedly, ‘I mean, it seems rather odd to come here for a night, when your meeting isn’t until tomorrow morning and in a hotel.’

  Grant shrugged. ‘I have a computer terminal here. The hotel which was booked doesn’t run to such luxuries.’

  ‘Why couldn’t you have had your meeting in Toronto?’

  ‘I don’t suppose this will mean a great deal to you but, if you must know, this particular deal is extremely price-sensitive. Any hint of it to the outside world could jeopardise it, not to mention significantly affect my corporation’s stock price.’

  ‘Hence the secrecy.’

  ‘In instances like this, it pays to be careful.’

  ‘Lucky you happened to have this cabin, then.’ She sat down, feeling much more in control now. He had been right, of course, panicking wouldn’t get her anywhere at all. Problems assumed massive importance the more you dwelled on them.

  And face it, what was she really scared of? He wasn’t going to rape her, as he had so succinctly told her.

  ‘I’ve had it for a number of years. It’s always proved...useful.’

  The meaning of his words echoed disturbingly in the room.

  ‘I expect the Vanessas of this world would be most impressed with this slice of solitude,’ she heard herself saying. Why was it, she thought, annoyed with herself, that she managed to come out with the most provocative remarks whenever she was in the company of this man?

  She had never before in her life felt the need to explore someone else’s depths. Even Brian she had accepted at face value, more fool her.

  She had been quite content to skate through life without being muddled by this overwhelming urge to indulge her curiosity in another human being. Curiosity, she now thought, complicated things, left her with a headache.

  ‘I suppose they would,’ Grant drawled, staring at her, ‘but you’re not.’

  Roberta laughed shortly. ‘I’d be impressed if you managed to find me a way out of here.’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid I don’t run to miracles,’ he said tersely. ‘Now, would you mind passing me my case?’

  She handed it to him and he snapped it open, extracting a disk and several sheets of paper. Then he walked across to the desk in the far corner of the room and switched on the computer terminal.

  ‘And instead of twiddling your thumbs and praying for a break in the snow,’ he said, without raising his head, ‘why don’t you do something about lunch? There’s a lot in the kitchen. And you’d better get out of those clothes. They’re damp. If you stay in them much longer, you’ll probably end up with pneumonia and find that you can’t move out of here when the snow finally does let up.’

  This was a new variation on a problem. She stared at him aghast.

  ‘But I haven’t brought any clothes with me,’ she said.

  He barely glanced at her. She might just as well have been a piece of furniture, she thought, wondering whether that made her feel relieved or piqued.

  ‘There are some of my things in the dresser,’ he muttered, his face wearing an expression of intense concentration as he stared at whatever the screen had thrown up for him.

  Roberta sighed and walked towards the dresser, rummaging about in the bottom drawer until she pulled out a long-sleeved T-shirt with a baseball motto on the front.

  It would do. It had obviously done for someone else before her and, from the size of it, it hadn’t been Grant. She vanished into the bedroom, pulling off her damp clothes and slipping on the T-shirt, which fitted her perfectly apart from the length. Whoever had worn this had been taller than her.

  She looked at herself in the free-standing mirror on the wooden dressing-table, one of the few concessions to vanity in the house, and tried to ignore the brightness in her eyes and the hectic colour in her cheeks.

  Grant didn’t look up as she re-entered the room. It was only as she walked past him on the way to the kitchen that he glanced at her, his eyes narrowing as he took in her slender body under the baggy cotton.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ he grated. ‘Where the hell did you get that?’

  ‘In the dresser,’ Roberta replied coolly, even though the dangerous glitter in his eyes was making her feel increasingly apprehensive. She remembered that thunderous rage which had filled him when he had first seen her. She didn’t need a repetition of that out here in the middle of nowhere.

  She stepped backwards unconsciously and said, in a quick, defensive voice, ‘I only looked where you told me to. It was the only thing I could find that would fit me. I can hardly be expected to walk around in a pair of your trousers, can I?’

  ‘Get it off!’ he ordered, standing over her and supporting the weight of his body on the table, his features rigid with fury.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m telling you to.’

  She took another few steps backwards. Right now he looked as though he could throttle her, in which case she had no intention of deliberately standing in his line of fire.

  ‘Look,’ she said, attempting to defuse the situation, ‘aren’t you over-reacting just a little? It’s just a T-shirt, for heaven’s sake!’ She gave him a weak smile, quailing visibly as he took a step towards her.

  ‘If you don’t take that damned thing off, then I’ll do it for you,’ he muttered, and he meant it. She could see the intent as clearly in his eyes as if it had been scrawled in bright red lettering across his forehead.

  Her feet froze to the ground as his hand clasped her arm, moving to the neckline of the T-shirt. Galvanised into action, she struggled against him, her efforts bringing them both to the floor in an undignified heap.

  Then her bewilderment and anger was replaced by something altogether different. An intense longing that ripped through her body as his fingers found the tiny buttons on the front of the T-shirt and began undoing them.

  She was breathing quickly, her face flushed, and he must have noticed the intangible change in her because, just as quickly, his fury gave way to a stifled moan and the fingers that had been tugging at the buttons curved to cup the nape of her neck.

  She knew that he was going to kiss her even before his lips found hers, and she knew as well that she was powerless to fight it.

  That deep-seated attraction which she had felt for him ever since they had first met had clearly been simmering away inside her, waiting to erupt, and his mouth, moving feverishly over hers, was the catalyst that unlocked it.

  She gave a tiny groan and closed her eyes, succumbing to his plundering tongue. Her hands coiled upwards to caress his head and she felt as though she had been waiting for this moment for all her life. Nothing had prepared her for this. Not Brian, not anyone. This torrent of desperate yearning was quite new to her.

  It seemed to fill her body, making her thoughts, her power to reason, hazy and ineffective.

  And when she felt his hand slide along the smoothness of her thighs, she lost the ability to think at all.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THERE were a thousand reasons why she should stop him before the situation reached the point of no return, but for the life of her she couldn’t recall any of them. It was as if all her normal processes of reasoning had been suddenly suspended in mid-air. She knew that they would all come flooding back to her, probably sooner rather than later, but right now they were tantalisingly out of reach.
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br />   He slid his hand into her hair, and murmured huskily, ‘The floor isn’t exactly the ideal place to make love, is it?’

  A wave of recklessness washed over her. ‘It seems fine to me.’

  ‘The bedroom is only yards away. But now that you’re in my arms I don’t want to let you go even for that short distance.’

  ‘I could always lift you there,’ Roberta teased, and he chuckled under his breath.

  ‘I’m six feet two and not exactly lightly built.’

  ‘I know,’ she whispered with shameless abandon, running her fingers down his spine and pulling his shirt out of the waistband of his trousers. He had not changed his clothes, and they were slightly damp, but the moistness of his skin only aroused her further.

  She pulled his head towards her and kissed him with feverish passion, while her fingers fumbled with the buttons of his shirt until they were all undone and he shrugged it off.

  How had she ever imagined that she had tasted the exquisite fruit of desire? What little experience she had had paled into insignificance next to what she was feeling now.

  He tilted her head backwards and trailed his mouth along her neck, his hand slipping underneath the T-shirt to caress the fullness of her breasts.

  Roberta shuddered as his fingers found the hardened tip of her nipple.

  ‘I think the bed will have to wait after all,’ he said roughly. Expertly, he freed her shoulders from the T-shirt, pulling it down until she was naked, then he drew back, his eyes roving with restless thoroughness over her body.

  Roberta smiled. She had always been slightly inhibited about her body. She felt none of those inhibitions now as she lay back provocatively, enjoying the fire of his scrutiny.

  He traced a line along her thigh, pausing to stroke the flat contours of her stomach, and by the time his finger reached her breast she was gasping for breath.

  ‘I’ve tried to imagine what lay under that control of yours,’ he murmured, his breathing as uneven as her own. ‘I’ve never met any woman who didn’t invite with her body, but not you. I couldn’t begin to think what it would be like to make love with you.’