by Susan Napier
'Really? What kind of business?'
'Gardening.' Fran flushed slightly at the soft, in-
credulous sound from the man beside her. She kept her
gaze firmly fixed on Florence Tarrant's surprised interest.
'My grandmother said it wasn't any kind of job for a
well brought-up young lady, and I wasn't very assertive
back in those days so I chose second-best. But I've kept
up gardening as a hobby and taken several extensive
courses on horticulture. Since I've become a qualified
nurseryman—'
'Nurseryperson,' corrected Tessa with a grin which Fran returned in brief.
'—my friend Christina—who runs a plant shop—and I have been making plans to expand her shop into a garden centre as a base for a contract-gardening business. We were having trouble with our bank loan and probably would have had to postpone for another few years until...well...when Grandfather died I realised that our problems were solved.'
'One door closing, another opening.' Mrs Tarrant eased Francesca's fear that they would think her mercenary. 'I wish you the best of luck, Francesca, it'll be a great adventure. I'm a keen gardener, too, but I'm not terribly knowledgeable. Perhaps you'd like to give me some advice...I've got some stubborn spots where nothing seems to grow...'
Ross settled back in his chair, turning his powerful body in Fran's direction as she ignited to his mother's interest.
So...Francesca wasn't going to invest her unexpected windfall in blue-chip stock or a nice, safe, retirement fund. She was going to risk it on the roll of a die! For, in the current economic climate, anyone starting up a small business, even one with solid financial backing, was taking a gamble.
How she had enjoyed throwing it in his face. Ross looked down at the fast-fading indentations in the back of his hand and smiled inwardly. At least her tit-for-tat revelation had defused her anger at his own. She could hardly start throwing stones in his direction now. He lifted his eyes to her animated profile, amused by her determination to ignore him, but content to study her at leisure as she chatted with his mother. Some of that bright confidence was bravado, he realised... typically Fran. She was such a mixture of fierce independence and sweet vulnerability, bravery and cowardice, that it wasn't surprising that she had confused him at times. In all probability she confused herself even more. She would never admit it, of course, but Fran was starved for praise, for approval... for love... it showed in the way that she flowered shyly under the slightest sign of interest, and the startled pleasure she took in the easy acceptance of his family. And yet a veneer of protective caution prevented her from reaching out, from trusting that she wouldn't be rebuffed. It was typical that even in making this quantum leap into an unknown future she was still following some immutable plan, her eyes fixed firmly on her goal, allowing for no deviation from her set course.
Ross intended to show her some interesting detours, only slightly concerned that he had no particular destination in mind, only a series of intriguing signposts to follow. He wasn't sure when she had stopped being merely an intellectual and sexual challenge—and he was never one to resist that! If the compulsion to have her had been merely physical he could have done so by now, he had that much confidence in the mutuality of the attraction, but the complex shadings of her deceptive personality had added a completely unpredictable element to his desire.
Francesca, becoming increasingly uncomfortable at the silent, heavy-lidded stare she could feel from the man next to her, was grateful for Mrs Tarrant's suggestion of a tour of her gardens. But she couldn't escape Ross for long. He came out to tell his mother that she was wanted on the telephone, then stood, barring Francesca's way through a vine-covered arch between the barn and double garage.
'Are we quits, Frankie?' he asked softly, tilting his head to one side so that the sun gilded his hair and the smooth, hard line of his jaw.
Fran stiffened her shoulders. 'I suppose you thought it great fun to pretend to be some out-of-work hobo. You must have really laughed when I worried about your health!'
'Actually, it annoyed the hell out of me,' he said wryly. 'I'm afraid I was too busy trying to strut my macho stuff to thank you at the time. Thanks for caring, Fran.'
'I didn't care,' she denied with a sniff. 'I would have been the same whoever you were. It was nothing personal.'
'Does your impersonal concern always lead to your seducing your patients?' he enquired with interest, and to her fury she blushed.
'You... you... you...' She sought for an adequate description.
'Doctor!' spat out Ross in such tones of loathing that Fran felt a traitorous frisson of laughter shiver up her spine. 'Somehow it doesn't sound as insulting as gigolo, does it?' he asked coaxingly.
'Ross—' Her voice trembled on the edge of a laugh. How dared he make her laugh when she wanted to be furious with him!
'Ah, Fran, stop trying to pretend that you're a prig. I think we've disproved that one entirely, haven't we? No woman with such passionate responses as yours could be a prig. I think your affinity with plants and nature is your basic earthiness seeking an outlet...'
Passionate? Earthy? Fran stared at him blankly. Neither she nor anyone else thought of her in those terms. Practical, disciplined, compassionate, yes...except in Ross's presence—then all those neatly dove-tailing pieces of her personality tended to break apart and float dizzily away. Each time she had more and more difficulty fitting them back together again. While she pondered the disquieting mental image, Ross moved closer until she became aware of the sun reflecting off his soft white linen shirt, warming the skin of her face. His blue eyes, like twin seas, beckoned her into deep waters.
'Let's face it, Frankie,' he said softly. 'It was you, not me, who was so anxious to preserve your misconceptions. . .I just went along for the ride. I'll admit that, at first, I thought you deserved the come-uppance, but that was before I realised why it was so important for you to think that I was an uncouth, muscle-bound, immoral reptile. It was both a defence and a weapon. You were afraid of your feelings for me. You were attracted to me, but you didn't want to commit yourself to that attraction. You felt safe wrapped in your moral outrage, because it meant that you could experience the vicarious sexual thrill of being with me without risking the emotional involvement that intimacy inevitably brings. In short, Princess, you were running scared.'
'Why, you conceited moron!' Fran was appalled at the accuracy of his guess. For the first time she wondered what kind of doctor he was. Was he, God forbid, a psychiatrist? Used to probing for motives and meanings? 'Is that a pompous way of accusing me of being a tease?'
She was horrified the moment the words popped out. She hadn't meant to say that. Hurriedly, she tried to recover. 'I mean, do you assume that every woman you meet is wildly attracted to you? That's one way of turning a rejection into an ego booster, I suppose.'
He ignored her jeer, choosing to answer the involuntary cry that she had revealingly blurted out. 'A tease is a woman who deliberately arouses a man just for the pleasure of slapping him down.' He moved suddenly and Fran flinched, but he was only stretching out his arms to lace his fingers through the woven wire of the archway in an attitude of unthreatening openness. Fran's restless desire to escape this disturbing discussion evaporated. As long as he didn't touch her she could handle the situation. Of course, there were other ways of touching.
Having Ross's tapering masculinity spreadeagled in front of her was like a caress to the senses. It presented a tempting illusion that Ross was offering himself to her, making himself vulnerable, the male as victim.
'I think that for the most part you don't realise what the hell you're doing, it's just pure instinct. But, Fran, sometimes you make me ache...'
'Then why didn't you—?' She bit her lip, but it was too late, the question was asked.
'Last night?' He understood her so well, too well... 'Because that's not the way I want it. I don't want to just reliev
e an ache in my groin, Frankie. I think that's what makes you so scared, mmm?'
She looked away from the warm blue invitation. 'I think you're the tease, Ross Tarrant...' she said shakily.
'I would never slap you down, honey, don't ever be afraid of that. Ever since I was seventeen I've had intermittent dreams about you, sometimes so vivid that it was as if I was actually touching and tasting you, the sweet, wild scent of you perfuming my lonely sheets...'
'Lonely!' Fran had to stop that erotic imagery. 'I doubt your bed is ever empty, let alone lonely. You know too much about women for your own good.'
He laughed. 'That's your fault, Princess.'
'Mine?'
'I have you to thank for what I am today.' His laughter faded into a wry seriousness at her puzzlement. 'What you said to that arrogant young punk took, Frankie. Initially it was my pride that drove me to try and prove you wrong about me, to take the hardest option there was. I didn't have bursary, but I went to university the next year. I was going for Bachelor of Science, but I did so well the first year that I switched to Medicine. It wasn't easy. As you so succinctly told me, I'd been lazy; I had to learn to discipline myself all over again—' he grinned at the memory. 'I didn't even have time to play sport. And then, when it came to specialising, I again used you for inspiration.'
'Oh?' Fran could tell by the glint in his eye that she needed to brace herself.
'Mmm... my natural talent, remember? My skill with women? I didn't lie to you about that, Frankie, they do pay to come and see me. I'm in great demand...as an obstetrician. Do you know, darling, that you look like a fish?'
Fran snapped her mouth shut. Suddenly it all made sense... the wicked way he had misled her by telling her almost the truth. She closed her eyes against that teasing grin. 'You...wretch!' Against her will she was laughing, and he was watching with a peculiar smile of satisfaction.
'I must say I was slightly miffed that you hadn't known, perhaps that's why I let you wander so far up the garden path,' he admitted when her laughter faded to adorable giggles that made her look like that shy teenager again. 'I had flattered myself that I was fairly well known in the medical fraternity... I'm in private practice, but I'm a consultant at National Women's, too.'
'Well, hospitals do tend to be rather insular,' Fran offered with a trace of apology. 'We get absorbed in our own little microcosm of wards and shifts, and I haven't been on an obstetric ward for years. I...can't believe it...' She stared at him and he could see from her face that she was threatening to go off into giggles again.
'Don't apologise, Fran,' he said drily. 'You don't want to break your record of consistently deflating my ego... although, thank God, there's one area in which you never fail to respond but flatteringly.'
The giggle froze in her throat, as he had meant it to. They stared at each other. Vine shadows laced the handsome face, sending ripples of darkness across the unruffled blue calm of his eyes. He hadn't moved, arms still outstretched, only the white tension-lines where his fingers gripped the wire revealing the control he was exercising. It would have been easy to take her into his arms and convince her that what he wanted she wanted also... but with Fran the easy option wasn't an option at all. Her submission had to be voluntary or it was valueless to both of them. The tightly wrapped petals protecting the feminine core of her personality couldn't be forced open... they would respond only to warmth and light and the promise of life-giving nourishment. Surely the Fran that he had learned about this afternoon could be coaxed to take the inevitable gamble that was involved in any human relationship...
'Why didn't you tell me what you wanted to do with the money, Fran?' He chose to take the oblique route.
The soft lilt in his voice as much as the abrupt change of subject disconcerted her. 'I...it was none of your business,' she said huskily.
'And now it is?' He deftly manipulated her answer. 'Have you decided that you don't need excuses any more?'
'Excuses?'
'To stay. You can't still believe that I'm after your inheritance any more... I never put in a formal claim anyway. So if you stay now, it's for one reason. You want to.'
Predictably, when cornered, Francesca panicked,
looking for the exits. 'You think, just because I know
you're a doctor and not some... layabout—'
'Oh, no, we've already dealt with that one, Princess,' he told her with quiet, inexorable reason. 'The attraction we share has nothing to do with what we are. Your status or mine has nothing to do with it. And don't make the mistake of thinking that just because I'm a professional that I'm suddenly invested with emotional respectability. Part of me will always be a hell-raiser, always open to a challenge... I've learned to reconcile the conflictions of my character... I think you're just starting to. You can be a woman and run a business, Francesca. They aren't mutually exclusive.'
'I don't know yet that I can run a business.' Under
stress she admitted something that previously she would never have dreamed of admitting. 'I... I'll need all my time and energy to find out. I'm so close now, I can't afford—'
'Other commitments? Spending a few more days with me isn't a commitment, Fran. Hell, I have enough responsibilities in my own professional life to ensure that I evade them as much as I can in my private life.'
A more straightforward proposal of dishonourable intentions Fran couldn't imagine and she felt strangely reassured. In effect it was a promise to let her dictate the terms of their relationship which, combined with the powerful feeling of inevitability which he had engendered this morning, proved unbearably tempting. But there were cross-currents between them that tugged dangerously at her senses. What if she stayed and, God forbid, fell in love with him? Every cautious bone in her body went brittle at the idea of trusting her happiness to someone else.
'I... should go back to Auckland.' She was disgusted to hear her tongue change must into should.
'Why?' He was leaning so close, hanging from tense fingers, that she could feel his breath fluttering on her lashes. 'You told us at lunch that your partner is doing all the paperwork, and that you've had the plans drawn up for weeks. In another few days Simpson will have squared Ian's estate, unchallenged, and you can leave with a full statement of your assets to show your bank manager. Stay until then, Princess...'
At what point had the snide insult become an endearment? Fran wondered as she put a hand flat on his chest to stop herself falling forward into the blue void of his eyes. His chest rose quick and hard against her hand, her fingers sliding through the patch of hair revealed by the opened neck of his shirt.
'I... I can't...' absently, concentrating on the vibrations under her fingertips.
'You can...' The words formed against her lips, his tongue stroking its velvety roughness against their parted warmth, then plunging inside with a sudden-ness that made her head reel. The muscles of his arms bulged as his hands clenched convulsively against the wire at the inward sway of her body against the open trap of his. The slender, capable hand on his chest slid up around the rigid column of his neck, pulling him down to her, her other hand curving around his hard waist, fingers reaching down to splay against the muscular jut of his buttocks. Ross gave a soft groan in her mouth and arched hungrily into her softness, the powerful thighs supporting the potent thrust of his hips. Fran responded just as hungrily, realising dimly that his refusal to put his arms around her was a deliberate enticement, a sexual challenge that was impossible to resist.
She pushed a thigh between his, and he caught and held it against the centre of his body, letting her feel the rigid proof of his arousal. Yet still he didn't put his arms around her. With a hot surge of mingled power and frustration Fran pushed her rounded breasts against his chest, crushing the taut peaks with a shudder of masochistic pleasure, her mouth widening beneath the silken search of his tongue. Both hands were now clinging to his waist, sliding up under the sweatshirt to find the damp, ridging muscles of his back. Suddenly he tore his mout
h away. 'Stay.'
Francesca stared at him with storm-grey eyes, feeling the small tremors that rippled through the powerful male body. The handsome face was flushed, the sensuous mouth full, the blue-hot flame in his eyes both frightening and exciting her. She had never dreamed she could make a man look like that: pleasure-racked from the mere touching mouths and bodies. Hanging there against the wire, he looked as if he was being tortured and she supposed that in way, he was... and she was the torturer. Guiltily she stepped back, but he caught her at last, his fingers white with the marks of the wire, cupping her face, the strain of his gentleness evident in the husky grating of his voice.
'No... stay.' He laid a finger against her mouth and moved it back and forth against the swollen fullness. 'In your own time, Frankie. I won't rush you, I won't hurt you...' And he gathered her delicately into him, his kiss deep and soft and infinitely sensuous. There was none of the tension of moments before, but passion aplenty, smooth and swift-running, freed of the turmoil of Fran's mental resistance. They were so engrossed they didn't hear the tentative electronic tuning from the barn develop into a hard-driving rhythm. Fran was listening to an inner music, far more lyrical. The sound vibrating the timbers of the barn concealed other noises, however, and Fran was highly embarrassed when her eyes fluttered open and she saw Jason and Tessa, hand in hand behind Ross, regarding them with twin expressions of amusement.
'Ross—' She squirmed, trying to push him away.
'Don't get skittish on me now, Princess—' His voice
was velvet with sensual threat.
'Unhand the lady, thou blackhearted villain!' Jason grinned, causing his brother to spin around, keeping firm hold of the woman in his arms. 'A gentleman would heed a maiden's protest.'
To Fran's further embarrassment Ross didn't let her go. He scooped her around in front of him, pulling her back against his chest and linking his arms under her breasts so that they presented a united front to his brother.