by Неизвестный
‘It’ll be an excellent skill to have,’ she said coolly. ‘Ex—
cuse me. I have jobs to do.’
‘Lucy and I are going to hunt for eggs,’ called her grandmother. ‘Well, she’s hunting, I’m holding the basket. Then, when she’s picked strawberries, I’ll supervise her making some jam. I’m being discreet. I hope you appreciate that. I know you two will want to be alone—’
‘No, we won’t!’ Trish cried sharply, appalled by the surreptitious glances Adam and her grandmother were sending each other.
There was definitely some. collusion going on, she thought grimly. She clenched her fists, cringing at the things her grandmother might have told him. Perhaps he knew she’d cried herself to sleep night after night. That she hadn’t been eating. That one day her grandmother had found her curled up in a small, miserable ball in the bed where her baby had been conceived.
She went white with dismay. Adam was the last person on earth she wanted her inner grief exposed to! Why didn’t Gran keep out of things she didn’t understand?
‘We do need to talk,’ Adam said, a little tensely. ‘You disappear, Mrs Hicks. I’ll tell you when you can show your face again.’
Trish’s grandmother giggled, not at all offended by his high—handed orders. He’s got her wrapped around his little finger! Trish thought hysterically, suddenly horribly nervous now that she and Adam were alone. She began to fidget. Almost certainly he was aware of her reaction to his departure. That gave him the advantage. Her throat dried as she met his eyes. Disconcerted by their unreadable depths, she let her gaze drop, managing to take in most of him on the way.
This time he was wearing slim—cut jeans and a casual denim shirt with a navy sweater tied carelessly around his shoulders. He looked utterly wonderful.
Unnerved by her covetous thoughts, she took the initiative.
‘I’m surprised to see you here.’
‘So am I,’ he admitted, as if he wasn’t too sure he was doing the right thing.
‘Why have you come, then?’ she asked shakily.
‘l have unfinished business.' There was a brief pause.
‘You look. . .well.’
She met his unspoken query with a challenging stare. ‘l am.’
He was checking her condition, she thought contemptuously. This was the moment when she should tell him about the baby. But she couldn’t. lt seemed so bald: And by the way, I ’m pregnant! She shrank from throwing it casually into the conversation. lt was too important to treat lightly, and she needed more time to think out her own feelings before involving Adam——if she ever did. For one thing, it could ruin his relationship with Louise.
She realised that he was speaking to her and she hastily brought her attention back to him.
‘...intend to tell you what I’ve been up to.’
She recoiled, her mouth dropping open in amazement. A blow—by—blow account of his reconciliation with Louise?
What did he think she was—a masochist?
‘Why should I be interested in your activities?’ she asked, quivering with anger and pain. Desperate for something normal to do, she bent down and sorted out the washing.
‘You won’t know unless you listen,’ he told her curtly. Looking up, she tried to judge his mood. Despite the studied, nonchalant pose he’d adopted, there was something odd about him, as if he faced danger——and was both wary and excited by it. She could feel the vibrations of it now, across the kitchen.
Suddenly a faint smile touched the corners of his mouth and she saw he was eyeing the garment in her hand. Trish glanced down and sighed. Her usual luck was with her. No scarlet panties, lace suspender belt or peek—a—boo bra to make her feel satisfyingly desirable yet annoyingly unat~
tainable oh, no!
‘Gran’s vest,’ she said, daring him to suggest it was more likely hers.
‘Warm,’ he commented laconically.
‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Captain Oates wore it during his trek to the Pole,’ she muttered. Adam’s brief laugh, his beautiful teeth and the warmth in his eyes made her ache with longing. Irritably she grabbed her own small cotton briefs and bras and thrust them into the gaping machine before he saw them too clearly. Her underwear was between her and her bodyand no business of anyone else’s. She poured in the powder and switched on. Then she washed her hands, turned on the oven and started hauling out of the cupboards every—
thing she needed for baking.
‘Couldn’t this frantic activity wait?’ Adam asked edgily.
‘No.’ Just as tense herself, she popped an apron over her head. ‘I have a Guest from Hell and I want to make her something mouth—watering to pacify her-——’
‘What’s hellish about her?’ Adam pushed away her fumbling fingers and tied the apron strings in a neat bow. For a few seconds she was forced to stand still and suffer the sensation of being charged up by a powerful battery. Then she was able to put a decent distance between herself and the battery’s source—Adam. Since it was better than discussing passionate reunions with wronged fiancées, she told him about Mrs Varsher. He listened and watched while she agitatedly banged the scone dough about.
‘Nothing’s right for her,’ she finished gloomily. ‘I do my absolute best and she still finds fault. I feel I’ve failed.'
‘She could be doing it deliberately,' he suggested. Trish’s eyes widened. ‘No, she wouldn’t...’ She fell silent. Would she? ‘The mattress hadn’t been stained the last time I checked,’ she said slowly.
‘She could have poured tea over it.’
She nodded—reluctant, though, to believe that someone would go that far. ‘I have to admit that I’m sure I took down the correct order for the newspapers.' she mused,
‘And I can’t believe that the basin hadn’t been properly cleaned. Or that Mrs Varsher had asked for coffee after dinner, not tea. I wrote it down myself. . . ’ Her troubled face lifted to Adam’s, her suspicions growing. ‘Why would she behave like this?’ she asked, bewildered.
‘To get free accommodation he said cynically. ‘At the end of her stay she’ll list your shortcomings and threaten to report you to the Tourist Board. You say, "No, no!" and she suggests she doesn’t pay.’
‘Oh, hell!’ ’
Trish grimly stamped out the scones and placed them on a baking tray. lt looked as if he might be right! Mulling this over, she pushed the tray into the oven and began to collect ingredients for chocolate cake.
‘You’ve got me worried now if what you say is true, she could ruin me!’ she said anxiously, deftly weighing and measuring ingredients.
‘You’ve never had anything like this before?’
Beating the eggs and sugar with more than usual energy, she sighed. ‘One or two oddballs; nothing I couldn’t handle. I usually let Gran loose on the bores and they soon get the message. I’ve been lectured on Zen Buddhism for three hours, learnt everything there is to know about the undertaking business and bought earplugs for the fellow guests of a couple of honeymooners who spent all day and night in bed. But everyone’s always been complimentary.'
Adam rested a comforting hand on her warm, bare arm. She shook it off, aware that they were getting far too friendly again. ‘You have nothing to worry about,’ he assured her firmly. ‘The woman’s deliberately creating trouble—’
‘But I can’t prove it!’ she cried in agitation.
‘I could help—’
‘Leave me to sort this out myself!’ she said vehemently.
‘You don’t have to pretend you care what happens to me. My livelihood doesn’t matter to you. You don’t give a damn if my guest—house business folds because of adverse reports! But it means a huge chunk of my income vanishing. I can sell eggs and cakes and vegetables, I can cut and tie daffodils in the winter, but we couldn’t survive on that. I need this business to keep Gran and me. And...’
He tensed. ‘And?’ he prompted.
She had been about to say ‘And my baby’. Quickly she made a substitution. ‘
And Lucy.’
Adam gave her a peculiar look. ‘Lucy?’
‘Yes. There’s just her and her brother and he works on the farm next door which is up for sale. He might not have a job this time next year. Lucy will need what she earns from me.’ She pushed her hair back anxiously with a floury hand. The future looked tough. ‘Adam, I’ve got enough to worry about without you hanging around. Under the circumstances I’d be grateful if you’d find somewhere else to stay. Give Lucy her lessons, by all means, but have the decency to keep out of my hair. What you do, or have done, is of no interest to me.’
For a moment he watched her adding ingredients, then slamming sponge tins down on the farmhouse table and greasing them as though they were her worst enemies, before filling them with the cake mixture.
‘You seem very jumpy,’ he said quietly.
He was doing it again. Speaking in that pseudo-special voice. Making her legs turn to mush and forcing her heart to do somersaults. Any minute now and it would be leaping right out of her chest and flinging itself adoringly at his feet. Viciously she snatched up the tins and shoved everything in the oven.
‘It’s not surprising under the circumstances. I don’t know the social etiquette where ex-lovers are concerned! I find this embarrassing in the extreme! It would be easier all round if you pushed off !’ she said rudely.
‘Not possible. I have unfinished business, remember?
‘Your computer man? I should think he’s fed up with hiding behind a sofa in case his millennium bomb goes off!’ she muttered.
‘You’re winding me up!’ he drawled.
‘No. You’re winding me up. And I’m about to snap my springs!'
Before he could open his mouth to reply, she was scrabbling in a cupboard for her heavy toolbag, emerging grimly with it and striding across the kitchen in a rattle of saws, chisels and assorted screwdrivers.
‘Now what are you doing'? he asked in exasperation.
‘I’m either icing a cake or the fence needs mending. You choose,’ she threw over her shoulder.
‘Leave it for a moment!’ he ordered, hot on her heels. She whirled, confronting him furiously, close to angry tears. ‘I will not! You might think it’s important to unburden yourself and tell me all about your admission to Louise and the rapturous reunion, but I don’t want to know! I’ve got better things to do. Find a priest if you’re that keen to confess your sins.'
Flinging the front door open, she stomped down the garden and dumped her tools by the broken fence.
‘Is this vandal damage, the results of your grandmother practising her decapitating-gangsters swing, or mountainous seas?’ Adam enquired sarcastically.
Trish scowled. ‘Wear and tear. And I’m feeling worn and torn myself, so go away and leave me in peace!’
Feeling horribly bad—tempered, she crouched down, her cornilower-blue skirts settling all around her, and selected a claw-hammer to ease out the wire nails.
To her relief, Adam stopped annoying her with stupid questions and merely irritated her by watching every movement she made, as if he’d never seen anyone mend a fence before.
Oyster-catchers were screaming above Great Porth and she looked across to the nearby beach to see them, registering that they were probably objecting to something which was threatening their nests. Then the danger passed and there was silence. The wind had died down, leaving a blissful peace. Only the sound of the wash of waves on the shore, and tems and redshanks calling to one another, disturbed the serenity. Adam exhaled with heartfelt pleasure. ‘Wonderful to be here again,' he mused to himself, as if the cares of the world were falling from his shoulders. ‘Trish, I would prefer to talk to you somewhere private,' he went on decisively, coming to stand close to her. ‘But since you insist on fitting me in between your household chores and the DIY, I’ll have to make the best of it.’
He appeared to be waiting for a comment from her. She didn’t give him one. It annoyed her that he thought she’d be riveted by his actions. Egocentric brute!
Adam inhaled deeply and then exhaled very slowly, speaking on the out breath. ‘I’ve spent a good deal of time with Louise, Trish.’
Not liking the image that conjured up, she kept her gaze fixed rigidly on the paling she was lining up. ‘Make yourself useful. Hold the face of the sledgehammer— there—
like a backstop, so I can bang the nail in. Hold it firmly!’
Placing a nail carefully, Trish gave it a satisfying whack. Then repeated the performance with the second paling. Adam flung the hammer down grimly. ‘That’s it. No more avoiding the issue. You’ll damn well listen to me!’
‘I don’t care about Louise! If you and she are crawling all over each other, well, that’s very jolly. I’ve got a fence to——’
‘The hell with it! A few minutes of your time, that’s all I’m asking! It’s important to me, Trish. To us!’
‘Us‘? I told you! We don’t have any us!’ she yelled.
‘Why are you shouting?’ he asked with enormous interest.
‘I’m not shouting!' she snapped, aware how silly that sounded when she felt as if she’d been operating at a volume of a million decibels. She jammed the wire pins between her firmed lips, carpenter—style, to stop herself from saying anything else incriminating. `
His eyes glittered and danced. He unpeeled her fingers from the hammer, took the next paling from her hand and then slowly removed each pin. She held her breath. One pin. Two. Three. Four.
His fingers lingered on her lips for several beautiful seconds. And the lowering of his thick lashes and the expres~
sion of concentration on his face made her mouth shape itself into an unconsciously sexy pout.
‘Do I have your full attention now?’ he asked darkly. She swallowed. ‘Yes.’ The movement of his hands on her arms was electrifying. Helplessly, Trish looked up. ‘Go on.’ But to protect herself she added, ‘But be quick!'
He gave her a slow smile which brought warmth to his eyes and a tenderness to the lines of his expressive mouth.
‘I tried to make a go of it with her,’ he said earnestly. ‘I thought that was where my duty lay. Almost immediately I realised I was wasting my time. We split up ten days ago. We’re not engaged any more.’
Trish’s eyes rounded. Her gaze went to his left hand. No ring. A mixture of emotions chumed through her. Astonished by his action, she said, ‘But surely...if she loved you she’d forgive you a brief, stupid mistake, wouldn’t she?’
His fingers tightened on her arms. ‘Oh, yes,’ he agreed.
‘I believe she would. But I made it clear it wasn ’t one brief, stupid mistake.’
‘I see!’
Dismay, followed by bitterness, spread across her face. So he’d behaved like that before, had he? She wasn’t the first! It made sense. He was an out·and—out flirt. If she’d had any sense she would have realised that. It wasn’t likely that Adam had been tempted only by her! Plenty of other women would be more beautiful, more seductive and more riveting companions.
It didn’t surprise her that Adam grabbed any woman who happened to be handy. That was the problem with handsome, madly virile men. They oozed sexuality and needed constant satisfaction! And weren’t risk—takers supposed to be prone to living dangerously-—-and born deceivers? She primmed her mouth in disapproval and returned his intense gaze with a stony glare.
‘You’ve no morals at all!’ she reproved.
‘You can’t condemn me for facing up to reality,’ Adam said, his expression neutral. ‘If I’d really loved her, I wouldn’t look at another woman, let alone be overwhelmed by the desire to make love to that woman every time I set eyes on her.’
Trish felt her stomach swoop. His sexual urges had ruined his future. But then he could hardly expect to have a lasting relationship and play fast and loose on the side.
‘So.. .it’s over?’
‘Yes. I don’t honestly think it ever got going beyond first base.'
Why was he telling her this? she wondered. ‘Poor L
ouise!’ she said sympathetically. ‘How’s she taken it?’
‘You sound as if you care,’ he said, with some surprise.
‘Of course I do!’ she said indignantly. ‘It’s awful to be rejected.'
His eyes darkened. ‘Yes. It is.’ He paused as if gathering his thoughts. ‘Louise was very upset. I was surprised,' he admitted, and she was mollified by the concern threading his voice. ‘That’s why I stayed with her for so long. I didn’t think I should go till she’d accepted the situation. She’s more vulnerable than you’d think!'
‘No,’ Trish said quietly. ‘You’re her vulnerable spot. I saw that the moment I met her.’
‘You’re perceptive.'
She shrugged. ‘The signs were all there.'
Adam frowned. ‘She always seemed so cool and composed.’
‘We all try to protect our vulnerability, Adam,’ she said gently.
He was silent for a moment and seemed to be wrestling with something that troubled him. ‘True..It’s the only way to survive.'
She realised he’d been thinking aloud and hadn’t meant her to hear that. Her pulses quickened. What was it that made him wary of his emotions? The loss of Christine?
And now his relationship had foundened. He must be feeling very low.
‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out,’ she said sincerely.
‘I wish it had. It all made perfect sense at the time. Now...I know it was a mistake from the beginning.'
‘You did the right thing,' she said impulsively. ‘You would have made her very unhappy.’
'Knowing that didn’t make it any easier to explain,’ he said with a frown. ‘How do you tell someone you don’t love them?’
‘The minute you’re sure,’ she said, feeling guilty about Tim. ‘Better that than to keep the other person hoping.’
‘I don’t think Louise appreciated my frankness,' he said heavily. ‘I made it clear that I cared for her, but I felt nothing more than that. She pleaded with me to stay. I spent hours with her, trying to explain that one day she’d meet someone who really adored her and who would walk over hot coals if she asked them to. I did my best to persuade her she’d be better off without me. It was a long time before she saw reason—’