by Susan Napier
Fran stared furiously at the place where he had been. She waited apprehensively for him to reappear around the corner after he had considered he had taught her a lesson. He did not return.
Apprehension turned to fear, then to anger. If she fell and broke her neck it would be entirely his fault! How dared he take risks with her life the way he did with his own?
Anger is a great motivator. When Fran jumped it was with a full head of boiling steam. Clutching frantically on to the rock face as her feet steadied on the ledge Fran felt a furious sense of triumph. When she looked back, she was chastened to discover that during her leap the chasm had shrunk... it wasn't that wide or high. Achievement had reduced what fear had magnified. Still, he had no right to make her do it!
She was even more annoyed when she edged around the corner and discovered that Ross wasn't smugly waiting there, just out of sight, ready to fly to her resuce if need be. He really had gone on! Breathing heavily, she struggled on around the rocky spur for what seemed like an age.
She came upon Ross eventually, sunning himself like a seal on a flat rock in a sandy inlet riddled with caves. He had stripped off his shirt and draped it over his face, his jean-clad legs stretched out so that the grubby sneakers hung over the edge of the rock, the soles lapped by the tide. At shore level the wind was no more than a gentle breeze, and Fran could feel the sweat trickling down the neck of her wool sweater.
'You pig!' she attacked his peaceful indifference. 'I could have fallen back there!'
A lazy hand lifted the shirt from his face, the muscles in his arms flexing under a light sheen of sweat as he propped himself up on an elbow, eyes slitted against the sun. 'I knew you wouldn't let yourself fall, Princess. You were too anxious to give me the sharp edge of your tongue to worry about mundane things like falling.'
'Well, you had more confidence in me than I did.' She suddenly felt weak and wobbly, and didn't know whether it was from delayed fright or the sight of that crisp pelt of red-brown hair catching the sunlight and playing it over his well developed chest. His jeans, as usual, rode low on the lean hips.
'I think that's your problem, Princess. Your self-confidence has gaping holes in it... it makes you prickly and defensive.'
'I don't need any of your rockside psychiatry, thank you, Dr Tarrant,' she said sarcastically, but he only chuckled indulgently.
'Admit it, Princess, you got a big thrill out of besting me and that damned crevasse.'
'I hate you, Ross Tarrant—' she began heatedly, wondering why, considering the lengths he had driven her to over the past week, she was still on speaking terms with him.
'No, you don't, you just hate it when I'm right,' he said with lazy perception, lying down again. 'Take off your sweater and get some sun. You could do with some extra Vitamin D, and you're far too pale.'
'Fear tends to do that to me,' she muttered blackly, but she did what he suggested, lying beside him on the rock after first making sure there was ample space between them. The hard warmth at her back, and the soft caress of sun on her exposed skin soon melted away her ill-temper. Perhaps she did need to be prodded out of her native caution once in a while... but not too far and not too often! As if he sensed her softening, Ross began to talk about some of the places he had travelled to during his apparently peripatetic life... places that Fran had only dreamed of seeing. He didn't satisfy her curiosity as to how he had afforded his travels, and she didn't ask.
'It sounds as if you've been just about everywhere,' she said wistfully, not opening her eyes. 'I've barely travelled around this country.'
'You have to take your chances when they come... or make your own. Nurses are always in demand overseas. Or why don't you use some of your inheritance and take a trip?'
'I already have plans for that.'
'Oh, what?' She heard his head turn, felt his gaze on her sun-warmed face, and took pleasure in denying the curiosity she heard in his voice.
'None of your business.' She smiled, the movement making jagged red patterns on the inside of her eyelids. To the man who had propped himself up beside her that secretive smile was an alluring challenge. He had a sudden desire to burrow inside that mysterious contentment of hers and lay her bare to his senses. To strip away the defensive barriers of her mind, as well as her clothes, and satisfy both curiosity and libido at the same time.
When there was no comeback to her provocative remark Fran opened her eyes. Ross's long, half-naked body was suffocatingly close, the expression on his face as unidentifiable as it was disturbing. She sat up, tucking her legs protectively against her chest and clasping her arms around her blue corduroy-covered knees.
'I suppose, on these great travels of yours, you pursued your usual obsession for danger. Did you conquer the world's natural wonders? Ski the Alps, swim the Rhine, climb the Eiger... ?'
His face relaxed into teasing lines. 'Dave is the mountaineer of the family, not me... he's planning a Himalayas trip next year... and most of the Rhine is too polluted to swim, but I definitely skied. Nearly got caught in an avalanche once, as a matter of fact.'
'You would,' Fran grumbled. If he wasn't looking for danger it was obviously seeking him. 'What is so attractive about dangerous sports?'
'It's not the danger per se, although as you just discovered that does generate a certain exhilaration in the bloodstream. It's the challenge of testing oneself, of discovering just how far one can push one's limitations.'
'But...to risk life so casually—' She struggled to under-stand.
'I'm far from casual,' he said, sitting fully upright so that his hip brushed hers. She edged away from the scalding contact. 'I use all the necessary safety precautions and I never tackle impossible odds.'
'Is it your courage you're trying to prove? Your fearlessness?'
'I don't believe that courage is fearlessness,' he said, tilting his proud head to the sun. 'I think that courage is far more than just an absence of fear, or a reaction to danger. I think courage is resisting fear, acknowledging and mastering it instead of letting it master you.'
His philosophy was unsettling to Fran, who thought fears were far better tucked away out of sight and, if possible, forgotten altogether. The man himself was a challenge to everything she thought and felt. More than a challenge—a threat. He seemed to have the ability to persuade her to do things that she really didn't want to do, undermining her initial refusals with a mixture of logic and teasing that never failed to ignite her normally controlled temperament. In fact, she realised with horror as she trailed him back to the cabin, he had her seeking his approval, acting like a lovestruck child instead of a mature woman who needed no one's approval but her own!
Francesca looked about her with fresh eyes when they got back to the cabin at last, and she was aghast at the evidence of Ross's influence over her better nature. The clutter was verging on mess... and she had even allowed herself to fall into his habit of leaving the dinner dishes until the following morning, and even then to merely wash and leave them draining on the bench!
Alarmed at how quickly her natural discipline had been undermined, Francesca punished herself with an orgy of cleaning that, over the next twenty-four hours, sent Ross into spasms of mocking abuse which culminated, the next afternoon, in a trivial but fiercely escalating row that sent him storming out of the cabin, declaring her to be a neurotically obsessed personality with delusions of sainthood.
'Better than having delusions of godhead!' she flung after him, pleased at having pierced his easy-going skin. 'Only gods are invulnerable, Ross Tarrant, but you'd rather kill yourself than admit it!'
When the cabin was aggressively sparkling Fran stomped out of it herself, finding the pleasure in his absence was short-lived. She had thought of some magnificent put-downs to his insults and he wasn't there to hear them. He was always going on and on to her about accepting people the way they were and not imposing her expectations on them. What about him? Wasn't he trying to change her, imposing expectations of his own?<
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She glared at the sight of Ross in the dinghy, rowing vigorously across the bay. He could row to China for all she cared! She tried skipping a few stones, failing miserably. Another lesson of Ross's that hadn't taken.
When she looked up again Ross had stopped rowing and was leaning back in the dinghy, letting it drift. He was several hundred metres off the beach now, slowly moving towards the point. The sun, which had promised another jewel-like day, had reneged and slid behind a flowering cloud which was turning the sea grey-green.
Ross began to row again but this time, instead of moving smoothly, the dinghy began to spin in circles. Fran frowned. What was he doing now? He was acting like a complete amateur. The drift seawards continued and her scathing thoughts disappeared in a puff of smoke as she suddenly realised that he wasn't kidding around. Something was wrong.
If he drifted out past the point into the channel, the current would take him God knew where...and he hadn't a hope of making it to the rocks unless he got control of the dinghy. His arm! Of course... typical Ross, so convinced of his physical prowess that it never occurred to him that his arm might not be up to rowing a heavy dinghy.
Fran tried to shout out, but the breeze which had sprung up took away her breath, the same breeze that was creating tiny white-caps on the choppy water. She felt an instant's panic as she wondered what to do. Should she run in and telephone for help? What if the weather suddenly changed for the worse in the meantime and Ross got swamped? What if he wasn't in trouble at all? He would be furious if she humiliated him by calling out the coastguard for nothing.
Her eyes measured the distance. Three hundred metres? Easily within reach. Without a second thought she stripped off her slacks and jumper, carefully placed her watch on top, and ran down into the water, not even flinching as the frigid waters closed around her, her eyes fixed on Ross, still going around in circles, still drifting. The fool! The blind idiot! She would tear him into strips!
It wasn't until she was half-way out that she began to feel the cold. She stopped, treading water for a moment, noticing with a leap of fear that the distance between them seemed to have widened rather than narrowed. What if she got cramp? Ross wouldn't be able to help her. What if he kept drifting, just out of reach?
She refused to go back. She gritted her teeth and put her head down and swam. She alternated strokes as she felt herself tire, trying not to think about cramps or sharks... it was too cold for sharks, wasn't it? So intent was she on not dwelling on the awful possibilities that she almost swam into the side of the dinghy, banging her hand painfully on the hull, only to have it grabbed even more painfully.
'What the hell do you think you were doing?' Ross yelled at her as he hauled her roughly into the bottom of the boat. Gasping for breath Fran stared up at the pale, thunderous face. 'What a bloody stupid thing to do! That water is like ice. Are you trying to extend your sick leave by getting another bout of pneumonia?'
Fran was shaking, but it was with combined shock and rage rather than cold. 'You were floating out to sea!' she yelled back at him as she sat up. 'Talk about being bloody stupid! What did you take the boat out for in the first place? You know your arm isn't up to sustained activity like rowing. I thought you never tackled impossible odds.' She snatched the oars and began to row furiously.
'I could have managed,' he said tightly, trying to take
one oar. 'You didn't have to risk your fool neck—'
'Shut up, Ross Tarrant. Just sit there and shut up!' She spurned his effort to help furiously. She didn't feel the wind chilling her skin, she didn't feel the rivulets from her hair streaming down her shoulders, she wasn't aware of the wet transparency of her bra and panties. She was sustained by sheer temper.
The silence was a solid wall until they reached the beach and hauled the dinghy up on the sand above the high-water line. Ross's face was stiff and pale, his eyes shuttered as he watched her bundle up her clothes and start jerkily towards the cabin. Then she stopped and turned on him, unable to help herself.
'What is it with you, Ross? Was this another test to
put yourself through? Do you have a death-wish or
something? You weren't even wearing a life-
jacket—'
'Why don't we continue this discussion after we've dried off?' Ross interrupted her tersely, plucking at his spray-damp shirt as he took in her huge eyes in a frozen face, the thick lashes meshed with salt. 'You need a shower, and a session in the spa to warm up.'
Suddenly feeling too exhausted to argue, Fran stumbled away. The shower felt like hot needles piercing her skin and yet not warming her. It was with a shudder of gratitude that she sank into the spa and felt its comforting heat seep into her aching bones.
Ross appeared on the deck wearing a towelling robe that skimmed the tops of his thighs. He was carrying a tray which he set down on the tiled edge of the pool.
'What's that?' She looked suspiciously at the bottle and two glasses.
'Brandy. For shock.'
'I'm not in shock.' A moment later she was, as he shrugged off his robe and stepped down into the water. Confronted with a naked Ross Tarrant, sculptured muscle from head to foot and supremely unself-con-scious of his undeniable maleness, Fran's brain went into overdrive. She gaped, blushed, paled and closed her eyes. When a glass was thrust into her trembling hands she gulped it indiscriminately. It was like swallowing molten metal. Her eyes flew open and stung with tears, blurring the image of him sitting calmly across from her, waves lapping at the solid slope of his shoulders as he sipped his own brandy.
'You're suppose to sip it,' he told her gravely.
'Don't you tell me what to do! Don't you ever tell me what to do, not after—' She clenched her teeth and stared at him with fierce eyes. Defiantly she tossed back the rest of the brandy, trying to ignore the way it peeled the lining from her throat, and held up her glass. He poured and she drank that too, to make her point. Ross was no longer pale, but there was still tension around his mouth and a kind of quiet resignation in his eyes that made her feel very odd. Or was it the brandy?
'Why?' She whispered suddenly and he sighed as if he had been braced for the question and actually welcomed it.
'I'm sorry, Princess. I was in a temper and out to kick the world in the teeth. It was a very dumb thing to do and it put you in danger. Forgive me?' He was very, very quiet and Fran gulped, taking a grip on her anger. It was the only thing holding back the tears.
'Even a child would have had more sense.'
'I agree.'
'You could have floated out to sea and drowned.'
'I know.'
'And I would have felt responsible.'
'I'm sorry.'
'And will you stop being so humble?' she shouted at him. 'It doesn't suit you at all.' She slopped some more brandy into her glass, frowning when it brimmed over into the steamy water. Suddenly she wasn't angry any more, she was sad... so sad. Tears welled up and she didn't have the strength to stop them. She sniffed. 'I was so scared...'
She heard a vague clink as he put his glass down. 'Oh, Frankie, so was I... I knew that I wouldn't be much use to you if you got into trouble... I couldn't even help myself...this damned arm!' His voice relaxed again as he took her glass away and cuddled her close to his side. 'Don't cry, darling, we're both safe... safe and warm again.' He nuzzled her mouth reassuringly, his broad arms scooping around her back so he could stroke her gently. Fran forgot her sadness as her breasts were crushed against the silky-wet hair of his chest. She wriggled closer, blissfully revelling in the movement of skin on skin, and he gave a wry half-groan against her cheek before his mouth found hers. The kiss was long and deep and slow, and it made Fran's brandy-muddled head rock. In fact, the whole world was rocking.
'I think I feel seasick,' she murmured languorously, not at all dismayed. 'Do you think I should have some more brandy?'
'Definitely not.' He closed her eyes with kisses and when she opened them again after another pleasant sea journey she found hers
elf back in the cabin, swathed in towels, on a rug on the floor in front of the fire. Ross was beside her, back in his bathrobe, with her nightgown and robe slung over his arm.
'It's too early to go to bed,' Fran protested dreamily.
'You don't have to go to bed, but you're not going out again. The weather's closing in, so you may as well put these on.'
'I can't, I'm too weak,' she slurred smugly. Lead weights on her hands and feet prevented her from moving.
'Are you asking me to put them on for you?' His face held mingled amusement and wariness, confronted with a wide-eyed, kittenish woman who aroused his protective instincts as well as making him aware of baser ones. It was a Francesca at once strange and disarming.
Emboldened by brandy, she gave him a slow up-and-under smile that he couldn't fail to mistake.
'Sit up.'
She sat up obediently and watched with interest as he slowly unwrapped the towels. There was silence as they both looked down at her body. Ross drew a long, unsteady breath as he unfolded her nightgown.
'Do you think I'm pretty?' Fran demanded, offended at his lack of reaction.
'I think,' he said firmly, 'that you're drunk.'
'You don't think I'm pretty,' she mourned, blinking at him. 'I'm too thin, aren't I? First I was too fat and now I'm too thin.'
'I'm beside myself with lust,' he said drily, not entirely untruthfully. 'Arms up.'
She looked at him. How lovely he was! She wanted him to hold her again, to make her feel safe. He didn't usually make her feel safe, quite the opposite, but tonight he didn't seem threatening. He was soft and gentle and when he touched her he made her feel wanted, made the woman part of her fill with an aching longing.
'Francesca,' he said thickly, as he watched her eyes becoming heavy-lidded with unspoken desire, 'if you don't let me put this nightdress on you something is going to happen that we'll both regret tomorrow.'
'I won't regret it,' she said sulkily. How could she regret being loved? She put her hand out and touched him on the chest, sliding inside the damp towelling to find the powerful thud of his heart.