by Penny Jordan
Rafe had doted on his own mother; he still did. The reasons that had made her run away, leaving her two young sons behind, had been wide and varied depending on who you listened to in the small community—everyone had their own pet theory.
To say Rafe’s relationship with his stepmother had been bad would have been like saying he was quite tall and fairly good-looking. A child of seven or eight didn’t have the weapons required to prevent a clever, manipulative woman from alienating him from his father. These days Rafe wasn’t short of weapons, or overburdened with moral qualms about using them. In short, Rafe could be pretty ruthless. Maybe that was what the situation called for…? She firmly pushed aside the tempting idea of letting Rafe have free rein.
A few minutes later Rafe returned carrying two mugs of strong black coffee. ‘Do you take sugar? I couldn’t remember…’
The small figure on the rocker stirred restlessly in her sleep, but didn’t waken.
CHAPTER THREE
GROANING, Tess subsided weakly back against the pillow. Her head felt as though it might well explode.
‘That wine should carry a warning.’ The not unsympathetic response to her visible discomfort came from a point not too far from her left ear.
If her head hadn’t felt so fragile she’d have nodded in rueful agreement. ‘If I go so far as to look at that stuff again…’ With a disorientated gasp she opened her heavy eyelids with a snap—actually, in her head it sounded like a loud, painful clang.
Dark eyes smiled solicitously back at her. Her disorientation deepened and the clanging got infinitely worse.
‘You’re in my bed.’
Tess tried to sound as though finding an extraordinarily attractive man in her bed was an everyday occurrence. She failed miserably to achieve the right degree of insouciance.
Her manic thoughts continued to race around in unhelpful circles without delivering a single clue to explain away this bizarre situation.
‘On your bed,’ Rafe corrected pedantically as he curved an arm comfortably under his neck and rolled onto one side.
Did that make a difference? She hoped it did! A quick glance beneath the cosy duvet confirmed she was still wearing the least glamorous night apparel in her admittedly largely unglamorous wardrobe. Tess felt anything but cosy at that moment but she did clutch eagerly at this small crumb of comfort. And Rafe was fully clothed; that had to be a good sign…didn’t it?
A sign of what? a drily satirical voice in her head enquired. It wasn’t as if Rafe had ever displayed anything remotely resembling interest in her body. Why would he, when he had an obvious weakness for the tall, statuesque type? His married lover was probably another in the long line of blonde confident goddesses.
When she looked at the situation sensibly Tess was forced to concede that it bordered on the bizzarely improbable that he’d been overcome by lust! A fact which ought to have cheered her up, but since when did being forced to face the fact you didn’t have any sex appeal cheer up any girl?
Hell! I just wish I could remember so I know what I need to forget!
Unfortunately her amnesia only covered the problem of how, when and with whom—cancel the with whom, that was fairly obvious—she had gone to bed. The other awful events of the previous day were not at all fuzzy. Chloe and her betrothed were coming to take Ben to the zoo. Even Chloe had recognized—after a little judicious nudging—that she couldn’t remove her baby son without a little preparatory work.
Discovering she’d done something she would definitely regret with Rafe of all people might confirm her irresistibility, but it would also round off the worst day of her life perfectly! No, I couldn’t have…could I…? She surreptitiously searched his handsome face for some clue and discovered only a moderate degree of amusement, which could mean just about anything.
‘It isn’t the first time I’ve shared your bed, Tess—not by a long chalk, if you recall.’
Tess was surprised at the reference. Her tense expression softened. She did recall; she recalled hugging his skinny juvenile body to her own and as often as not falling to sleep with his dark head cradled against her flat chest.
The poignant image unexpectedly brought a lump to her throat. She’d never had a friendship as close as the one she’d once shared with a much younger, more vulnerable Rafe. It wasn’t reasonable to expect that degree of intimacy to extend into adulthood, but it was depressing to realise how far apart they’d grown recently. If something was that good it was worth making a bit of effort to preserve it. Their friendship might not have thrived on neglect, but at least it hadn’t withered and died.
She let out a tiny sigh and allowed herself to feel hopeful. If this time had been as innocent as those far-off occasions he was referring to, she had nothing to worry about. She’d have felt even more relieved if Rafe didn’t have the sort of voice that could make something as innocent as a nursery rhyme sound suggestive.
‘Is the old walnut tree still outside the bedroom window?’
These days women usually opened the door for him…except for Claudine…His eyes grew chilly as he recalled that significant door that had been closed firmly in his face. Pity it hadn’t closed before he’d made a total fool of himself!
‘No, it was diseased, we had to have it chopped down,’ Tess told him in a brisk tone that didn’t even hint at how upset she’d been by this necessity.
‘Time gets to us all,’ he sighed mournfully.
Her eyes made a swift, resentful journey over his large, virile person. Sure, he looked really decrepit! To add insult to injury, she suspected that even in this sizzlingly spectacular condition he was some way off his prime just yet.
‘It doesn’t seem right,’ he continued. ‘A Walnut Cottage without a walnut tree.’
The same thought had occurred to her but she didn’t let on. ‘You’re not going all nostalgic on me, are you? If it makes you feel any better,’ she conceded, ‘I planted several seedlings after they cut the old one down. And in the interests of accuracy I ought to point out that this was Gran’s room back then; so was the bed.’
The one he had shared with her had been a narrow metal-framed affair that would probably collapse under him these days, she thought, letting her eyes roam over his lengthy, muscular frame.
Who’d have thought that skinny kid would turn into something as perfectly developed as this awesome specimen? Aware that her breath was coming faster as her eyes lingered, she took a deep breath and passed the tip of her tongue over her dry lips. When she swallowed, her throat was equally dry and aching as if she wanted to cry—only she didn’t.
It was all right to notice that a man oozed sexual magnetism; it was quite another to let the fact turn you ga-ga. Rafe had enough people raving on about his physical perfection without her joining the fan club! She looked up anxiously to see if he’d noticed her drooling display and saw his eyes weren’t on her face at all.
‘A lot of things have changed since then.’ His deep voice was warmly appreciative as he continued to stare at the up-tilted outline of her small breasts.
He lifted his head and his eyes were slumberously sexy. Her breasts responded as though he’d touched the soft mounds of quivering flesh with his warm mouth. The startling image banished all rational thoughts from her head for one long, steamy moment. Nostrils flared, cheeks burning, she fought her way back to sanity.
‘Some things don’t change—things like your complete disregard for other people’s feelings.’ It was a whopping big lie, so to justify it she began to feverishly search her memory for some example to prove her point. Triumphantly she discovered one. ‘Your family must have worried like crazy about you when you went missing all those times…?’ Looking at it now through adult eyes, she saw aspects to Rafe’s frequent nocturnal wanderings that her childish eyes had never seen.
‘If concern is expressed by the vigour of the punishment, they were deeply concerned.’ Something in his cynical voice made her search his stony face.
The memory of the bruises she�
�d once seen on his back when they had all gone swimming popped into her head. Suddenly all those times he’d refused to take off his heavy, long-sleeved sweater on a hot summer day made horrible sense. Everything clicked into place and she felt sick.
Tess forgot her throbbing head; she jerked herself upright.
Outrage glowed in her eyes. ‘He hit you!’ She thought of Guy Farrar with his mean little mouth and big meaty fists and her skin crawled. ‘You never said!’ she began angrily.
Nobody, not her dimly remembered parents or dear gran Aggie had ever laid a finger on her. Her chest felt tight and her eyes stung. She knew now what should have been obvious to her ages ago: their efforts to force Rafe to fit the mould of a perfect Farrar had gone beyond the verbal chastisements she’d heard often enough for herself…they’d tried to beat him into submission!
‘Leave it, Tess,’ Rafe said curtly.
‘But—!’
‘You’re hyperventilating,’ he told her, studying with clinical interest the agitated rise and fall of her small but shapely breasts. So, he’d noticed she had breasts! It was no big deal. However, noticing was one thing, staring was another. He firmly averted his eyes.
Tess wasn’t about to apologise for her emotional response; she couldn’t understand his lack of it! ‘I’m not!’ she denied breathlessly. ‘Doesn’t it make you mad?’ she persisted incredulously.
For a long time it had, but Rafe had no intention of explaining how much effort and determination it had taken him to finally shelve the resentment that had simmered for years.
Her firm jaw tightened and her smouldering eyes narrowed. ‘I’d like to—!’ she began hotly.
Rafe took hold of her hands and, inserting his thumbs inside her clenched fingers, slowly unfurled her white-knuckled fists. ‘I can see what you’d like to do…’ he remonstrated softly.
Rafe frequently thanked his lucky stars that his only personal legacy from a father who’d automatically raised his fist on the frequent occasions when his troublesome younger son had annoyed him was a deep revulsion for violence and individuals who used it to control those who were weaker and more vulnerable. He was well aware that all too often the pattern repeated itself in each successive generation.
There had only been the one occasion when he’d used his physical strength to punish someone else—actually there had been three of them, sixth formers who had been making the life of another fourth former a living hell.
It was a sad fact of life, he reflected, but some kids had victim written all over them, and bullies of all ages could smell fear. You only had to be a little bit different—different but desperate to be the same as everyone else.
Rafe had walked into the common room one day to find them holding the kid up against a wall taking it in turns to punch him. He’d literally seen red; a red haze had actually danced before his eyes. That day he’d rid himself of several devils, and got expelled.
The touch of his thumb against the skin of her palm made Tess grow very still. The odd shivery sensation deep inside brought a troubled frown to her smooth wide brow as, warily, her eyes encountered his rather dark, rather luscious velvety orbs.
She hadn’t been prepared to discover this sort of intensity in the searching quality of his dark glance. Quite suddenly the quality of the tension that gripped her altered. If anything, this fresh, tingling jolt of sexual awareness was even more intense than before. It left her incapable of doing anything but staring dry-throated and breathless back at him.
‘I know you’re aching to ask…’
Tess ignored the melting sensation low in her belly. It was perfectly understandable—Rafe’s low drawl was pitched at an intimate, toe-curling level guaranteed to bemuse, bewilder and befuddle just about any female with a hormone to call her own. Tess’s hormones, after years of wilful neglect, were staging an ill-timed comeback. She was aching all right, in ways she didn’t want to think about; it was all extremely embarrassing.
‘But, no, I didn’t accept your drunken invitation. However, I couldn’t leave you asleep in that chair so I carried you up to bed.’
‘I didn’t invite you into my bed!’ Fists clenched, she robustly rejected his gentle taunt.
Stomach lurching horridly, she glanced uncomfortably at the solidity of his biceps. It wasn’t difficult to see how he’d carried her up the stairs. It was so easy, in fact, that a ridiculously romanticised version of this event was playing in her head at that very second. The only thing that was difficult to see was how she’d forgotten it…
‘No,’ he agreed with a grin that was slightly strained around the edges. The frequent occasions in the night when she’d cuddled up to him couldn’t legitimately be called invitations—they could be called extremely…provoking, however, and they had been a reminder that, though his heart might be broken, his more basic bodily functions were still in full working order!
The enigmatic quirk of his sensual lips sent her tummy muscles into a fresh series of uncomfortable fluttery acrobatics. Tess ruthlessly gathered her straying wits and recognised that this was only half an explanation. Rafe had carried her up, but that didn’t mean he’d had to stay—in fact if he’d been a gentleman the idea would have occurred to him!
‘And you were overcome by exhaustion…?’ she suggested tartly.
‘I guess I was,’ he conceded, not responding to the challenge in her eyes.
Tess permitted herself a little snort of disbelief. He didn’t look exhausted; in fact, she decided crankily, it ought to be illegal for anyone to exude that sort of vitality this early in the morning.
‘Trust you to turn out to be a morning person,’ she grumbled.
‘Not exclusively,’ Rafe corrected her solemnly.
Tess’s puzzled frown encountered the sensual, amused gleam in his eyes; a few seconds later heat washed over her as the meaning of his smutty innuendo hit home.
‘You always did have an overdeveloped opinion of your own abilities.’ She aimed for amused but tolerant and almost made it.
Rafe heard the almost and grinned as he defended himself. ‘I’ve had some very positive feedback,’ he reflected innocently.
Tess could imagine but she tried not to. ‘I don’t require references, glowing or otherwise. What time is it?’
He told her and with a yelp she leapt out of bed. ‘Chloe and her boyfriend are coming this morning.’
‘What are you going to do—roll out the red carpet?’ he drawled.
His critical tone really got under Tess’s skin. He made it sound as though she had a choice. ‘I know what I’m not going to do and that is resort to covert dirty tricks and manipulation.’
‘Have it your own way.’
She shot him a sweetly malicious smile. ‘I will,’ she assured him calmly.
‘I don’t understand it,’ she continued fretfully as she pulled a motley assortment of garments from deep drawers in the heavy old mahogany chest. ‘Ben always wakes up before seven.’ She’d found that having a baby made her alarm clock redundant.
Rafe’s hand shot out and he caught the latest garment she’d carelessly flung over her shoulder in the general direction of the bed. It turned out to be a flimsy bra. A passing glance told him his educated guess had been bang on size-wise.
There had been a plus side to his sleepless speculation: he hadn’t thought too much about Claudine. An arrested expression crossed his face when he realised how little he’d been thinking about her.
‘Ben did look in earlier.’
‘He what…?’ she snapped, stomping towards the bed, hands on her hips.
‘I suppose he decided there wasn’t much room this morning,’ Rafe speculated, gazing at the narrow stretch of tumbled bed she’d just vacated. On impulse he reached out and felt the warmth that still lingered from her body on the cotton bed linen. ‘He tootled off. I did go check on him—he seemed happy playing with his toys so I left him to it.’
She gazed at him incredulously. ‘Didn’t it occur to you he must have climbed over the ba
rs of his cot?’ She’d known for some weeks that the cot’s days were numbered. Ben had been eyeing up the bars lately with a very determined eye, and she’d already foiled a couple of abortive escape attempts.
‘And that is…?’
His laid-back approach was intensely irritating. ‘Dangerous!’ she snapped.
‘Well, he looked fine to me.’
‘I can’t believe you just let him wander around unsupervised! He could have fallen down the stairs!’ she cried out, her voice rising sharply in alarm.
‘Calm down, there’s a gate thing over the top of the stairs. I should know—I nearly killed myself trying to step over it while I was carrying you last night.’
Tess gave a sigh of relief. That was Ben’s physical well-being sorted. There were other traumas. ‘He must have seen me in bed with you!’ she wailed.
‘What has got your knickers in a twist—the fact Ben saw you in bed with someone, or the fact that he saw you in bed with me?’
Tess recognised immediately that there was some merit in what he said, only she’d have died before she admitted it to him or herself.
‘Like I said,’ Rafe continued, a shade of impatience creeping into his languid tone, ‘I hardly think the sight will have seriously corrupted his morals.’
‘That’s not the point, you should have woken me. Routine is very important for children.’
‘Remember to tell Chloe that, won’t you?’ Tess flinched and looked so stricken that he instantly regretted his cheap wisecrack. ‘I would have woken you if he’d seemed distressed. What are you going to do about Chloe?’ he asked her gently.
He swung his long legs over the side of the bed and stretched. The light material of his shirt stretched taut across his broad chest and Tess looked hastily away.
‘What can I do?’ She did her best to resist the tide of helplessness that washed over her. ‘I’m going to remind Chloe that this thing has to be done slowly, sensitively, with as little disruption as possible. In fact, at Ben’s pace. It’s not like I won’t still be seeing him…’ There was a tell-tale little tremor in her voice as she lifted her chin defiantly. ‘He’ll visit, I’ll visit…I’ll be his favourite aunt…’ It wouldn’t get her very far if she let herself wallow in self-pity; being an aunt would have to be enough.