There was nothing like back-breaking work to take your mind off the parts that were stirring, demanding some attention.
Fat chance.
Hal had expected her to know what he was thinking and she’d blown it. Well, she’d finally caught on, thanked him and she half expected him to call back and tease her on her slowness. Hoped…
‘You’re early,’ she said, glancing at the clock as, having rapped on the open door, Hal walked in without waiting for an invitation. She’d heard him coming—the gravel made a good burglar alarm—had time to still her beating heart. ‘It’s only eight-thirty. What’s up? No one to keep you in bed?’ she asked.
‘Sadly, no. Not that it would have mattered one way or the other. The contractors arrived at seven to start emergency work on the roof. If it didn’t sound paranoid, I’d swear that Cranbrook sold the lead himself when he knew he’d lose the house.’
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘That does sound paranoid.’
‘You didn’t see him the day he signed the contract.’
‘He was there?’ she asked, surprised, a little shocked. ‘I heard he’d had a stroke. How was he?’
‘In surprisingly good voice,’ he said, turning away, looking out of the window. ‘The reason I came to knock you up early is because I have another meeting at ten.’
‘Sorry, you’re hours too late to have that pleasure. Have you had breakfast?’ she asked.
‘Yes, thanks, but I wouldn’t say no to a cup of coffee if there’s one going. Is Alice around?’
‘Working on a school project. Half-term homework. Just to keep us parents up to scratch.’ She switched on the kettle, turned to face him. ‘Hal…’
‘I got your message,’ he said, before she could say any more.
‘I’m sorry I was so slow on the uptake,’ she said, turning to lean back against the counter, refusing to let him brush the subject aside. ‘The puppy wheeze worked a treat but it still doesn’t solve the problem of what you’ll do with all this livestock when you go back to London.’
‘Who said I was going back to London?’ he said. And looked as shocked as she felt; almost as if his mouth had bypassed his brain and spoken from some deeper instinctive place.
“The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of…”
For some reason the quotation had been running through her head.
‘Hello, Hal!’
He turned, almost with relief she thought, as Alice bounced into the room clutching the list she’d been working on.
‘Hello, Alice.’
‘Excuse me, young lady,’ she said, trying very hard not to resent the fact that her daughter had got a much warmer greeting from Hal than she had. That Ally—Alice—had interrupted a moment when he might have said anything. ‘You are supposed to be working.’
‘I have been working. I’ve been working for hours,’ she said. ‘It has to be break time. There are rules about that sort of thing, you know. A children’s charter. Human rights, loads of stuff…’ She put the sheet of paper on the table, and poured herself a mug of milk, raided the biscuit tin. ‘Besides, Hal and I need to settle on some names. We can’t go on calling the dogs Mummy Dog, Baby Dog One and Baby Dog Two forever, can we?
‘Certainly not. Show me what you’ve got,’ Hal said, pulling out a chair and sitting down.
‘Well, I thought we could call the mummy dog Dandelion, because she’s all white fluff.’
‘I like it.’
She gave him a big smile. ‘You could call her Dandy for short.’
‘I really like it.’
‘And then Savannah and I drew up a list of names for the puppies. I was thinking maybe Thistle for Baby Dog One.’
‘Thistle?’
‘I was thinking Purple and Prickly,’ Claire said, helping him out, ‘but apparently we’re doing seed heads.’
‘So that would be Thistle, short for Thistledown? It works for me,’ Hal said.
Well, great…
‘Now,’ Alice said, ‘the next one is a bit tricky. I like Parsley…’
‘Parsley?’
‘That’s cow parsley, of course, not the green stuff that Mum grows in the herb garden, but Sav wanted Bramble.’
‘Savannah is Alice’s best friend,’ Claire explained. ‘She came to tea yesterday. To see the puppies.’
‘Bramble flowers are white but there’s no fluff,’ Alice said. ‘Just blackberries.’
‘I see your problem.’
‘They’re doing a wild-flower project this term,’ she said, refusing to be ignored. ‘Endangered habitats. There are bee orchids, cowslips, fritillary in the long meadow, did you know? We’d have lost them without the rabbits to graze it.’
‘It’s a good job we didn’t go for the Jack Russell, then,’ he said, finally raising his head to look at her. There was a moment of connection over a good memory, shared, before he turned back to Alice. ‘I really like Parsley, but if it would make Sav happy maybe we should go with her choice.’
‘Dandelion, Thistledown and Bramble,’ Alice said, ticking their choices. ‘Okay. They’ll need name tags for their collars. Will you organise that?’
‘I’ll get it done straight away. Great job, both of you.’
Alice beamed. Then, looking around, said, ‘Did you bring Bernard to visit them?’
‘No. He’s been out for a long walk this morning and decided he’d rather take a nap under Penny’s desk.’ Seeing her disappointment, he said, ‘The pony’s arriving after lunch if you want to come up and say hello. You can say hello to Bernard then. Bring Sav, too, if you like.’
‘Great. Mum, can I use your computer? I want to look up West Highland terriers, just to make sure I’m doing all the right things.’
‘Help yourself.’ She poured out a couple of mugs of coffee, sat down. She wanted to thank him again, but it was probably better to stick to business. ‘The Wish scheme. Willow said you had some ideas?’ she prompted, head down, pen at the ready.
He didn’t respond and she looked up.
‘I’m really sorry about calling you a bastard.’
‘Are you?’
‘What will it take to convince you?’ she asked and remembered, too late, another moment when she’d said that. Another moment, right here in this kitchen, when he’d told her that her mouth would get her into trouble.
Hal’s face was giving her no clues as to what was going through his mind, but if she had to gamble, she’d have said that he was thinking much the same thing.
He held her gaze for a moment that seemed to stretch like an elastic band, with the same breath-holding uncertainty about when it would snap.
‘I’ll let you know,’ he said, finally, looking away. ‘In the meantime, tell me what you think about a cycle path across the estate. From the village right into the town.’
‘A cycle path?’ Gratefully seizing the reprieve, she said, ‘Where did you have in mind?’
He took a map of the estate from his pocket and unfolded it on the table. ‘Here, on the far side of the Cran,’ he said and she leaned forward so that she could follow the route he traced with his finger.
‘Across here?’ she asked.
He looked up, catching the note of confusion in her voice.
‘Yes. Do you have a problem with it?’
His eyes were particularly blue this morning, his hair had grown out of the perfect trim and he was beginning to look less like a man who’d strayed from his city office into the country, more like a man who was at home there.
‘Claire?’
The lines of his face had relaxed into a smile, his mouth into the sensuous curve of a man whose thoughts had nothing to do with cycle paths.
He lifted his hand to her cheek, slid his fingers through hair escaping untidily from the band she used to keep it out of her face while she was in the garden, cradled her head. The noises of the countryside drifted in through the open doorway.
A chainsaw whining as it cut through a branch somewhere, a thrush declaring terr
itorial rights, a tractor…
She heard none of them as his lips touched hers. All her senses were concentrated on Hal. On the touch of his fingers, entangled in her hair, on the taste of toothpaste, fresh and sharp against her mouth, the scent of his skin… He’d come to her fresh from the shower after his early walk.
Her lips parted of their own volition, her tongue teased gently inside his lip and there was nothing in the world but the two of them as he kissed her, sweetly, thoroughly, with total conviction until a thud from the room above brought them crashing back to their senses.
‘Okay,’ he said casually, ‘we’ll call that a down payment. Now, you will please concentrate on the cycle path.’
He had to be kidding…
‘What, exactly, is your problem with the route?’
She blinked, swallowed. Concentrate? He expected her to concentrate when he was still looking at her as if…
‘A down payment!’
‘I’m almost convinced,’ he said, ‘but your apology still needs a little work. Now the cycle path?’ he prompted, as if what had happened was the most ordinary thing in the world. Maybe, almost certainly, for him it was…
Focus, Claire!
‘I don’t have a problem with it,’ she said, doing her best to be as blasé as Hal. ‘It’s perfect except…’
What?
There had been something and she dragged her gaze from his, looked at the map. The route. Oh, yes…
‘What about your golf course?’ she asked.
‘What golf course?’
‘Isn’t there going to be a golf course for your hotel and conference guests?’
‘I hope not. I’ve earmarked the sandpits area as a scramble course where local lads can let off steam on their motorbikes in safety. Learn maintenance. There’s a keeper’s hut up there that would make a good clubhouse. It’s on my list of ideas for the town to vote on.’
‘And if they don’t like it?’
‘I’ll do it anyway.’ He waited. ‘And the cycle path?’
‘Is a brilliant idea. The kids could ride in safety to the high school instead of catching the bus. I could ride safely to work. If I was going to work.’ She paused. ‘If I had a bike.’
‘Well, um, great. So, which one is going to be your personal “Wish”?’
‘Neither. I want the town to approve of the scramble club, and the cycle path is a public amenity. If they want, they should put in a bit of effort. My personal “Wish” is for help to restore the temple beside the lake.’
‘Oh.’
‘I’m getting that look,’ he said. ‘The one that says I can afford to pay someone to do it.’
‘Well, you can. At least I’m hoping you can, because that’s going to be peanuts compared to the cost of repairs and renovations to the Hall with every move monitored by English Heritage. You won’t be able to get away with that PVC guttering you’ve put up at the back of the house.’
‘It’s temporary. The replacements will have to be specially cast.’
‘Good grief. How much will that cost?’
‘Not peanuts,’ he assured her. ‘But it’s not about the money. You keep telling me that Cranbrook Park should be available for the community. I think the community should prove that they care about it enough to put something back, don’t you?’
‘Is Cranbrook Park going to be available for the community?’ she asked.
‘You’re just going to have to trust me on that, Claire,’ he said, getting up.
‘Like the wood and the puppies and no doubt some perfectly good reason for closing the footpath?’
‘Here’s my list of project ideas,’ he said, placing an envelope on the table. ‘Take a look, let me know what you think when you bring the girls up to the Hall this afternoon to meet the pony.’
‘I’m included in the invitation?’
‘Only if you bring another cake. Gary ate most of the last one.’
She laughed. ‘I knew that would get you in the end.’
‘You don’t know a thing, Claire Thackeray,’ he said, ‘or you’d be a lot more worried.’ He paused in the doorway. ‘There is one more thing.’
She rose slowly to her feet. ‘Yes?’
‘I have to go to a charity dinner on Saturday night and I need a partner.’
‘Dinner…’ Was he asking her on a date?
‘It’s in London,’ he warned. ‘A black-tie event. Is that a problem?’ he asked. Almost as if he immediately regretted mentioning it. Wanted her to turn him down.
She ought to turn him down.
‘I may not have fulfilled my potential, Hal, but I do possess a long frock. I bought it cheap in a sale for the Observer Christmas party,’ she added. ‘It’s dark blue and everyone wants black.’
‘I don’t care if you bought it in a charity shop,’ he replied. ‘I just need someone to fill an empty seat.’
‘And having wondered who you knew who wouldn’t have a date for Saturday night, you thought of me.’
Sweet.
‘Have you?’ he asked.
‘Got a date? Hold on, I’ll check,’ turning to unhook the calendar from the kitchen wall,
She knew she should tell him that she was busy. No woman should be free on a Saturday night, it said so in all the dating manuals, but he wouldn’t be fooled. She was never going to have a date any night of the week.
The big question was why didn’t he have one?
Who cared? When would she ever have another chance to place a tick in her fantasy-date box?
‘Well?’ he asked impatiently.
‘I do have bingo in the church hall pencilled in for Saturday,’ she said, ‘but you’re in luck.’
‘You’d give up bingo for me?’
‘No, but the village hall had a plumbing disaster last week and it’s been cancelled.’
‘Can you get a babysitter?’
The single parents’ get-out-of-jail-free card. No babysitter, no date…
‘I’ll let you know.’
‘This is my mobile number,’ he said, writing it on the back of the envelope. ‘Call me.’
She waited for the sound of his feet on gravel, but it didn’t come and when she glanced out of the window, she saw him walking through her garden. He stopped in the play area and she half hoped to catch him doing hopscotch. Maybe it was a girl thing…
He took his time, doing a little looking of his own, before he climbed over the fence and walked up the hill towards the Hall.
*
Claire filled a bucket with hot, soapy water and sat on the doorstep washing her plant trays. Not until they were spotless and drying in the sun did she get out her phone and call Penny to ask her if she was up for a Saturday night babysitting job.
‘You’ve got a date?’ she asked, delighted.
‘Oh, no…’ She’d been left in no doubt on that score. This wasn’t ‘convincing’ Hal part two—at least not in that way. Her punishment was an evening at a dull dinner that he wasn’t going to inflict on any woman he cared about. But one man’s punishment was another woman’s…research opportunity. ‘It’s work,’ she said.
‘Why don’t I have a job like that?’
‘The thing is, it’s going to be a late one. Is that going to be a problem?’ Now she was the one sounding as if she was hoping for a reprieve.
‘Of course not. Ally can stay over with us. I’ve got a ton of baking to do for the school Spring Fayre and she can help me.’
‘She’ll love that except…’
‘Yes?’
‘She’s taking her responsibility for the puppies very seriously. I think she’ll insist on them coming, too.’
‘No problem. I might even be tempted to have one of the puppies if Ally will let them be separated.’
‘You are a star.’
*
Hal’s phone bleeped, warning him of the arrival of a text.
Sitter sorted. Time?
Uncharacteristically economical with words for Claire Thackeray and interesting that sh
e had texted rather than called him. Could it be that she was still so mad that she couldn’t trust herself to speak to him?
Or had she picked up on his own uncertainty and didn’t want to risk saying something that would give him an excuse to change his mind?
He still didn’t know why he’d asked her instead of one of half a dozen women whom he could have called, who would have been happy to fill the seat beside him even at such short notice. And his bed, when the dinner was over, if it was on offer. Infinitely simpler.
Or maybe he did.
He’d told Claire that sex was simpler than getting involved in an emotional relationship, but it was soulless, too. Little more than going through the motions while his exchanges with Claire raised his pulse, left him wanting more.
Her tongue was sharp but her eyes were soft and her anger was the kind that only needed a touch to explode into rip-your-clothes-off desire. Then there was the added edge in knowing that she wanted something from him. His story. His life. The suspense in wondering how far she’d go to get it.
Would she flutter her eyelashes at him again?
Flirt?
Risk another meltdown kiss?
The thought of her touching close in the dark rear of the car, touching close as they sat shoulder to shoulder over dinner, thigh-to-shoulder close as they danced, had him achingly hard. That he was sure she felt the same way lent Saturday night a dangerous, touchpaper volatility that made him feel like the kid that had, once upon a time, run wild in Cranbrook Park.
She might be the last woman on earth he’d ever date, but he hit Reply, thumbed in—6:45 I won’t wait.
CHAPTER TWELVE
AT exactly fifteen minutes to seven on Saturday evening there was a long ring on the doorbell.
Claire took a last glance in the hall mirror, checked her hair, pulled on an artfully arranged tendril, putting off the moment for as long as she dared. Then she took a deep breath and opened the door.
The breath wasn’t enough. What she needed was a quick blast of oxygen as she got the full effect of Hal North in a dinner jacket. It should be a criminal offence for any man to look that good.
‘Ready?’ he asked impatiently. Clearly he wasn’t reduced to similar gibbering incoherence by the efforts she’d made with her hair, her make-up, her bargain-basement dress. ‘No last instructions to the babysitter?’
The Last Woman He'd Ever Date (Mills & Boon Modern Tempted) Page 14