by Susan Napier
And ever shall be the little voice echoed the prayer, for ever and ever.
'No...' She feebly denied the inevitable even as she lay there, watching his mouth approach, wanting yet afraid...
'Yes...' His teeth sank softly into her vulnerable lower lip, his certainty absorbed into the pores of her skin as he lowered himself on to the bed, pushing her back into the pillow, so that she accepted the weight of his chest against her tingling breasts, the fresh, clean scent of him in her nostrils, the taste of him in her mouth.
The intimate curl of his tongue inside her mouth set off a chain reaction in her body which recoiled even as it delighted in a trapped feeling of pleasure. You can't escape, she thought eagerly, so you may as well enjoy it.
As a hangover remedy it was without equal. The touch and taste of him sweetened every sense and sent a burst of adrenalin through her veins. It was like leaping that crevasse, all fear and a crazy sense of triumph at the challenge of the unknown... for, to Fran, this heated sexual urgency was largely unknown. It had been building inside since she had first seen Ross staring at her nakedness in the spa pool, a brooding, masculine threat...since long before that, since he had planted that dormant seed in a young girl's body, now germinating into the full flower of passion.
The kisses flowed like heady wine from mouth to mouth, and they were both breathing hard when he finally lifted his head and they stared at each other in crackling silence. He noticed with satisfaction the stormy glaze of the grey-blue eyes, the flush of arousal mantling the creamy skin of her face and throat, the provocative part of her slightly swollen mouth, while she was conscious of the full heaviness of his body as he lay on top of her, the hard, masculine pressure points imprinted on her as if he were the erotic template and she the silky bolt of cloth to be cut to fit his shape.
He kissed her again, a long, slow, thorough kiss, and then murmured against the corner of her mouth, 'If you're thinking what I'm thinking, Princess, I'm afraid we'll have to postpone. I don't think I could look my mother in the eye if she asked why we were late for lunch.'
Fran gasped. It was Sunday! She had forgotten about Jason's invitation.
'I wasn't thinking------ '
He cut her off with another quick kiss. 'Yes, you were, and this time you can't blame the brandy.' He rolled off her and stood up beside the bed, looking down at her flushed confusion. 'Some time soon we're going to be lovers, Francesca, and finish what we started thirteen years ago...'
She gazed at his retreating back with a mixture of fascination and stunned anger. He made it sound so simple, like predestination. But Fran wasn't about to be seduced by fate. She tried to shake off the odd, empty ache in her body as she armoured herself in a carefully demure skirt and blouse. So what if there was a strong physical attraction between them? They weren't animals, they didn't have to give in to it just because it was there.
To her chagrin Ross chuckled when he saw her clothes.
'Who do you think that's going to fool, Princess? I know what sinful passions lurk beneath that starchy breast.'
'If you don't behave, I'm not coming,' she told him haughtily.
'Scout's honour.' He held up a hand, a pious look on the handsome face.
'You were never a Scout, Ross Tarrant,' she accused.
'Gigolo's honour, then.' He grinned at her disapproval.
'I don't believe that, either,' she sniffed as she marched out of the cabin.
'Took you long enough,' he said lazily as he handed her into the pick-up. 'Would you like to know what I really do for a living?'
'No.'
'Sure?' he teased knowingly, reading the frustrated curiosity in her stubborn profile. Now when she put on her prim and proper act it amused rather than annoyed him, because he knew it was only an act, that underneath she was feeling vulnerable.
'I'm not in the least interested,' she lied loftily, planning to dig the information out of his family over lunch, but casually, so he wouldn't realise what she was doing.
'Still, I think you ought to be prepared--------- '
'Are you going to start this thing, or do you want me to drive?'
'But, Fran—' He was laughing at her again, over some secret joke, and she had no intention of playing the straight woman to his punchline.
'Oh, go row a boat!' she snapped childishly.
'Shrew.' He clicked his tongue in tender exasperation as he started the car. 'OK, but it's your funeral, Princess. Don't get mad at me later.'
'Of course I won't.' Managing to imply that he wasn't worth getting upset over.
His hum filled the silence between them as the car wound along the inland road. Fran looked out the window to hide her smile. She didn't want to admit it to the smug man beside her, but she enjoyed bickering with him. She had never allowed herself the luxury of arguing with a man before, flexing her will against his; she had always been too shy, too uncertain of herself as a woman. If she hadn't liked or agreed with what a man said, she had simply withdrawn and naturally, she realised with hindsight, that had set limits on every relationship she had entered. Not even Brian had known what she really thought or felt, so she couldn't really blame him for his furious reaction when the cumulation of years of frustration had exploded on his head.
With Ross it was different. From the very first his boldness had made her bold. Because he had expected the worst from her, and she from him, she had felt free to let her feelings rip. And the unspoken physical attraction that had run concurrent with the surface animosity had spiced her reactions with a delicious exhilaration. But what would happen now, now that the unspoken was voiced? Where did they go from here? Where did she want to go?
Lunch with the Tarrants proved to be a small series of revelations, capped off by an enormously shattering one.
First surprise was the warmth with which Florence Tarrant welcomed Fran into the big, sunny kitchen of the large, rambling old house. After scolding her son for his tardiness in not bringing Francesca along before, she simply opened her arms and hugged the young woman as if she was a long-lost relative.
'You're looking as if a puff of wind would blow you away. I hope Ross is looking after you. I'm so sorry about Ian, my dear. It must make you feel very alone now.'
Fran felt a prickle of unexpected tears at the back of her throat and swallowed hastily. The casually affectionate embrace touched a deep chord within her. Such gestures had been few and far between in her past. Physical affection from her grandparents had been rationed so that she wouldn't be 'spoiled', and she had no memories of her own mother, who had rejoined her roving lover when Fran was only four months old and been killed with him in a car accident two years later.
'It does a bit,' she admitted to the slim, dark-haired older woman, surprised at the impulse to confide to an almost total stranger. 'Which is a bit hypocritical, I suppose, since we saw each other so little, and didn't get on very well when we did get together.'
'Not silly at all.' Florence Tarrant smiled in warm understanding. 'We all tend to take certain basics in our life for granted, like family ties, until suddenly they're not there any more.' The soft brown eyes began to twinkle as she looked from Fran to her son. 'You'll just have to create some blood ties of your very own to take for granted.'
It took Fran a moment to realise what she meant. When she did she blushed to the roots of her hair and sent Ross a speaking look when he laughed at her stammering attempts to explain that there was nothing between them.
'If you say so, my dear,' Florence Tarrant said, with a placid smile that was both sympathetic and disbelieving.
'I told you she was trying to marry me off,' Ross whispered in her ear as they went into the large, wood-panelled dining-room.
'I can understand her desperation!' Fran shot back. 'Ageing playboys must have a pretty limited value on the glutted marriage market.'
Ross got his revenge for that remark when they were seated and Fran had been introduced to a bewildering array of people: Beth, a sweetly feminine
version of Ross with long, straight dark hair and flashing blue eyes, and her morose-looking boyfriend, John, who seemed glumly aware he wasn't going to hold this young butterfly's attention for long; Ross's youngest brother, David, who worked with Jason in the family business and, except for his husky size, took after his mother with his dark hair and eyes, and the three, leather-jacketed and vaguely menacing members of his band, Mo, Bean and Adam; the patriarch, Mike Tarrant, as broad-shouldered as his three sons and looking amazingly fit for a man in his mid-sixties, his blue eyes alert and his gruff voice offset by the same world-embracing friendliness that his wife possessed. Jason and Tessa, to Francesca's left on the long, polished wood table, were welcome, familiar faces, but she wasn't given a chance to say more than hello before Ross made his dramatic announcement.
'Sorry we were late, folks, but you can thank Francesca that I'm sitting here at all. She saved my life yesterday.'
'Saved your life? Wow!' Beth's lovely eyes widened with awe. 'What happened?'
Stricken with embarrassment at being the centre of attention, Fran could only stare daggers at Ross, lounging cheerfully at her right elbow. She had thought he would have kept silent about his ignominious expedition, but it seemed that he was happy to court his family's disfavour for the sake of embarrassing her.
Grinning back at her, he launched into a colourful, graphic description of the previous day's rescue, drawing a clamour of admiration for the blushing heroine.
'He wasn't really in any danger—' she tried to say, but her attempted modesty was brushed aside as Ross came in for his share of derision.
'I would have tipped him out of the thing and made him swim back,' David crowed cockily over his brother's ignominy. Two years younger than Jason, he obviously grabbed every opportunity he could to repay years of teasing by his two impressive elder brothers.
'I wouldn't have blamed you, Francesca, if you'd left him to the coastguard,' his mother said with amazing placidity. 'They would have given him a good talking to. I hope you have no ill effects from your heroics, my dear.'
'Only a hangover,' put in Ross wickedly, but this time Fran refused to blush. He had actually done her a favour, in an embarrassing way. He had ensured her instant acceptance by his family. Or is that what he had intended? She looked at him uncertainly, and he winked.
'He plied me with brandy afterwards,' she said, deciding to twist his mockery to her own advantage. 'So I guess the hangover is his fault too!' She shrugged with an air of injured innocence.
'Ross!' His mother's reproach was all that she could have wished for.
'Medicinal purposes only, Mum,' said Ross defensively. 'She was in shock. I think she realised what an unnecessary risk she had taken.'
'Unnecessary risk? I took?' Encouraged by the em-pathetic vibrations from around the table, Fran took umbrage. ' You're the dumb ox who thinks that risks are only there to be taken. You're the one who rowed off in a childish huff just because I wouldn't lie down and let you wipe your arrogant feet all over me! You're the one who started the whole argument by trying to get rid of me by domestic violence.'
'He hits you?' sqawked Beth, looking at her brother with new eyes, and to Fran's surprise and amusement Ross actually blushed.
'Of course I don't hit her,' he growled. 'That's not to say she couldn't do with a damned good spanking on occasion.'
'Ross!' Florence Tarrant metaphorically rapped his knuckles.
'That's a pretty sexist remark to make. I'm surprised at you, Ross,' Tessa put in her quiet voice. Her face was serious, but when she flicked a glance at Francesca her eyes were filled with the same amusement reflected in her fiancé’s. Francesca grinned back.
'I didn't mean physical violence,' she explained sweetly. 'I meant his horrific lack of willingness to lift a finger around the house. He's as domesticated as a wild boar.
'But I taught all my sons domestic chores,' Mrs Tarrant protested, 'Ross, what have you been doing to poor Francesca?'
'What indeed?' murmured Ross, humour twitching at his mouth again as he met Francesca's demure gaze. 'Stirrer,' he muttered, for her ears only.
'I must admit that he does more than his share of the cooking, though,' she said quickly, conscious of the threat of the long, hard thigh suddenly pressed against hers. She shifted her legs. He followed, tangling his feet with hers. Above the table their eyes duelled. 'He's a great cook, but he's useless anywhere else but the kitchen.'
'Oh, really?' Jason gave a shout of laughter. 'Poor Ross. Bedside manner slipping, is it, doctor?'
'Now, Jason,' his mother admonished him mildly.
'Sorry, Francesca,' Jason's apology was unabashed. 'It's just that you must be the first nurse Ross has ever met who hasn't instantly succumbed to the great healer's charm. Told you it was just the white coat, Ross.'
Fran's slightly bewildered smile froze on her lips. She felt Ross's hand come down warningly on her knee.
'You should have let me explain when I wanted to, Princess,' he breathed in a singsong manner out of the corner of his mouth.
Her puzzlement, however, was misinterpreted by everyone else. 'I can see by your blank expression that you haven't worked at National Women's Hospital, Francesca,' Beth giggled. 'After the Dream Consultant has made his rounds there they have to sweep 'em up from the hall ways...swooning nurses and patients alike!'
Consultant? Doctor? Ross was a doctor?
Fran's head swivelled stiffly to her right. The deep azure eyes were filled with rueful apology, and an unholy amusement that was almost her undoing.
He was a doctor! Ross...that lazy, teenage intellectual sloven, had trained to be a doctorl When? How? She went icy with embarrassment when she recalled some of the things she had said to him, and then sizzled hot with fury. How he must have enjoyed watching her make an arrant fool of herself! The only redeeming feature of his wretched joke was that he didn't appear to have told anyone else of her misconception... the misconception he had deliberately fostered!
CHAPTER SEVEN
'Francesca?' She came out of her fierce trance to meet Mrs Tarrant's concern. 'Are you all right? You've gone quite pale. Ross, perhaps you should have kept her in bed.'
'I tried, believe me, Mum, I tried.' Ross's smirk sent the colour flooding back into Francesca's face. She placed her hand on his under the table and dug in her nails. He jerked back in his seat with a strangled cough. Nursing his branded hand in his lap, he had the gall to send Fran a reproachful look. 'I...er...think she's recovered now. Perhaps it was a momentary swoon...'
'It takes more than just a pretty face to set Auckland Hospital nurses swooning.' Francesca gave him a sweet, murderous smile.
'No, it takes a good slug or two of brandy to do that,' Ross agreed, equally sweetly.
Francesca wanted to sink through the floor. Even the ravenous, leather-jacketed trio at the other end of the table stopped eating their way through third helpings in order to follow the intriguing conversation.
'Now, Frankie, you said you wouldn't get mad,' Ross teased, his eyes glinting with provocative triumph, knowing that she could say little without revealing what a gullible idiot she had been. Why hadn't she suspected? The way he'd talked about his injuries, the intelligent questions he had asked when she'd talked about her work—they should have given her clues. But she had been blinded by other things, not the least of which had been the instant, unwelcome attraction she had felt for him.
He was enjoying this, damn him, and she could tell from his disgustingly smug expression that he thought that just because he had now proved how utterly respectable he was that everything would go his way... that she would fall gratefully into his manly arms!
She managed a creditable laugh. 'I'm not mad. I was just thinking that whatever we do we seem to end up diametrically opposed.' She dazzled Ross with a brilliant smile that made the amused blue eyes narrow with suspicion. Brace yourself, Doctor, Fran thought with grim satisfaction, one good bombshell deserves another! 'Here you are, local boy made
good... a doctor, no less, and here / am, always the goody-two-shoes at school, going sadly to the dogs, according to my friends.'
She savoured the laughing protests and enquiries, not taking her eyes off the still and silent Ross, seeing his suspicion harden into scepticism. He thought she was just coat-trailing.
'But you're a nurse. That's as good as a doctor in my book!' Beth was saying. 'Ross says that nurses are the backbone of the Health Service.'
'They are. But I'm not a nurse any more.'
Ross didn't change colour and not a muscle moved in his face, but the sheer blue shock of his eyes was worth the price of baring her life to a bunch of virtual strangers. Francesca raised her eyebrows mockingly.
'Shall I loosen your collar, Doctor? Some hot, sweet tea, perhaps?' A brief storm darkened the blue eyes and she grinned delightedly, a wicked mischief dancing across her wide mouth. And he thought that he had the monopoly on provocation!
'My dear.' Florence Tarrant tugged her attention away from her helpless victim so that Francesca didn't see the storm clear as swiftly as it had come, to be replaced by a sultry gleam of admiration, and a determination which would have disturbed her greatly had she seen it. 'Surely you haven't had to give up your career permanently because of your illness? After all your training!'
'Oh, no,' Francesca told her hostess, touched by her evident sympathy, and guilty because she didn't really deserve it. 'I resigned just before I came up here, but I never actually intended nursing to be a life-long vocation when I started out. It was as much a way to escape home as a desire to help people.' Florence Tarrant smiled understandingly, without a hint of the disapproval that Fran had faced from others about 'wasting her training', and she was encouraged to expand. 'I've enjoyed myself, and learned a lot but... well... now I have a chance to do what I always wanted. I'm going into business with a friend.'