by Linda Miles
‘Is that a serious question?’
‘Semi-serious. I didn’t give you much time to think just now.’
Rachel scowled at him. ‘I don’t think of marriage as a strategy for updating my wardrobe,’ she informed him. ‘That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.’
He shrugged. ‘Well, it mattered to Olivia.’
‘I’m not Olivia,’ snapped Rachel.
The blue eyes lit with amusement. ‘I know you’re not, R. K. V. It’s one of the things I like best about you.’ He ran a careless finger through the black thatch of hair; a tingle of electricity ran up her spine. ‘Never mind, Spidergirl. If we scrimp and save maybe I’ll be able to buy you a new spidersuit for our golden wedding.’
‘You may be out of a job,’ retorted Rachel, ‘but I’m a highly sought-after environmental impact assessor. If you’re nice maybe I’ll buy you a new tie once in a while.’
‘Now that I’m an ex-businessman I don’t have to wear a tie,’ he protested. ‘But if you promise not to buy me any I’ll be as nice as I know how.’ He bent his head and brushed her lips again with a feather-light kiss.
Rachel laughed and shook her head, responding more to the glowing look in his eyes than to the words. She felt as though she’d never really appreciated him before.
Rachel had been through so many crises with Driscoll that she knew every form the bruised male ego could take when it had had a battering. Sometimes she’d felt as if she’d developed a kind of sixth sense for the wounded self-esteem that could lurk under even an appearance of jauntiness. Now, though, the sixth sense found nothing to work on. If Grant had been putting a good front on bitter disappointment and resentment, she would have known—but he wasn’t.
He was as genuinely exuberant and light-hearted as he’d been the day they’d first met, when the world had been at his feet. In some men, that might have been a sign of irresponsibility, of an inability to face the facts. With Grant, though, it seemed to be proof of an absolutely unshakeable self-confidence. Driscoll, who’d had no self-confidence, had had to insist that everything he did was right. Grant, she suspected, would be the first to admit that he had made a few mistakes which had contributed to the present setback. The reason was that he simply wouldn’t care.
Grant, she thought, would fight to get back what was his, and would probably get it; it was hard for Rachel to believe that he could fail to get something if he put his mind to it. If he didn’t, though, he would move on to something else and make a success of that instead. That conviction of being able to make his way in the world would always be with him. For all his joking, easygoing manner, he had an inner strength which far surpassed anything she’d ever come across.
‘You know, I’m almost glad this has happened,’ she said, feeling as always that she could tell him whatever she thought. ‘It’s easy to underestimate you. After all, lots of people can be laid back when they have money to cushion them. It’s when things go wrong that they fall apart.’
She smiled at him rather shyly. ‘Whereas you really don’t mind! I don’t think I could have believed that if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. I’ve never met anyone like you. You shrug off things that would devastate other people.’
For once he seemed at a loss for words. His hand traced the line of her jaw while he searched for an answer. At last he said ruefully, ‘I think you’re giving me too much credit, Rachel. The last few months have been absolute hell: knowing I couldn’t have you, trying to pretend I didn’t care. I may not have fallen apart, but I did the next worst thing, throwing myself into a kind of senseless workaholism, trying to work so hard I couldn’t think.’
He grinned wryly. ‘Well, I certainly succeeded there. I managed to blind myself to some really fundamental problems until the whole thing blew up in my face.’
‘But you’re not worried about it,’ said Rachel. ‘You’re not sitting here trying to tell me you’re the businessman of the century even though you just happened to lose your company through a small oversight.’
‘In other words, my ego is so colossal I don’t need you to bolster it,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I love it when you love me for my faults. Seriously, though, I may have lost a lot of money, but I can always get more—and at least I don’t have to feel guilty about Olivia. She was working so hard to make a success of the project that I felt trapped; I couldn’t even think of letting her down when she’d been so loyal. The way I feel now, escape is cheap at the price. Would you marry Driscoll for the sake of a few million? The hell you would.’
Rachel gave up the struggle. It made a change to have a man do something really extraordinary and insist that it was nothing to make a fuss about. Somehow she thought she could get used to it.
‘All right, you win,’ she said. ‘The money is nothing. But the science park is your baby. You can’t give that up without a fight. Isn’t there anything we can do? Can’t the police do anything?’
“‘Constable, my ex-fiancée hired the ex-fiancé of my fiancée to identify a common sparrow as a Savi’s Warbler. I demand that you arrest her instantly.” I’m sure they’d find it very entertaining.’
‘We were kidnapped,’ Rachel protested. ‘That’s not a joke.’
‘Of course not, but the question is how to get my company back on track,’ he pointed out. ‘Ever head of a poison pill?’
‘The kind of thing spies have?’
‘Or companies. It’s a safeguard against takeovers,’ he explained. ‘You have a lot of clauses written into your constitution that make it hard for someone else to make a quick profit if they buy you out. Mine includes a lot of things that require approval of seventy-five per cent of the share-holders—in particular, radical changes in dealings with my old pals in the Amazon, since the drug I told you about was one of the things likeliest to attract an outsider. I’ve only got thirty per cent of the shares, but it’s enough to block anything I don’t like. On the other hand, obviously they can buy up enough to block anything I might want to do.’
‘But why would Glomac try this if it wasn’t going to do them any good?’ asked Rachel.
Grant shrugged. ‘In the first place, they were obviously in a hurry: they had to move as soon as the share prices dropped. They couldn’t afford to wait, in case I managed to kill the story. That seems to have happened by accident—it looks as though I have Driscoll to thank for that. In the second place, it’s obvious Olivia thought she could talk me round. She probably persuaded Matheson that she could deliver the goods.’
‘But once they know she can’t, won’t they just back down?’
‘More likely try to starve me out,’ he said cynically.
‘But if you could kill the story now, share prices would go back up, wouldn’t they?’ asked Rachel. ‘So they’d make a profit if they sold, and they’d have no reason to keep them if they couldn’t use the company the way they wanted.’
‘It’s a possibility,’ he agreed. ‘But it’s not an easy story to kill. We can go back and get soil samples again from the plants, and maybe prove that that was a set-up. A bird is something else again. How do you prove that someone didn’t see a bird he said he did?’
‘So we need a confession,’ Rachel said despondently.
‘Looks that way. How do you fancy your chances with Driscoll?’
‘Not good,’ she admitted. ‘What about Olivia?’
‘What do you think?’ He grimaced.
There was a gloomy silence. At last Grant shrugged. ‘Rachel, I’m not saying it looks hopeful, but in my experience you tend to find inspiration unexpectedly when you’re in a tight corner. You’re better off trying to come up with an unorthodox solution that looks as though it might work than wasting energy on obvious things that seem pointless but are easy to do.’
‘But—’ Rachel began.
‘Look, I may not think much of my chances of getting Olivia to come clean, but they’ll be roughly nil if I introduce her to the pleasure of a police cell. Let’s not do things just for the sake of doin
g something.’
‘So you think we should just sit here and do nothing?’ Rachel asked impatiently.
‘I didn’t say that,’ he protested. ‘I thought we were making the best possible use of our time, before you interrupted and started going on about the police.’
Rachel laughed. ‘All right, I take back the nothing. I agree that kissing me is an unorthodox solution to the problem. My only question is, what makes you think it might work?’
‘There speaks the typical scientist. Sceptical to the core.’ His mouth quirked up in amusement. ‘Let’s just say that, in my experience, inspiration never comes when you look for it. The best plan is to think about something else and see what happens. Does that satisfy your conscience, Dr Hawkins?’
‘Of course,’ said Rachel promptly. ‘And, just out of scientific interest, would you say that kissing someone was the most effective way of not looking for inspiration?’
‘I never answer leading questions,’ he murmured. He bent his head and kissed her lightly. Rachel took a sharp breath. ‘I think I can say, though,’ he said very softly, his mouth only a breath away from hers, ‘that kissing you beats any other way of not looking for inspiration that I’ve ever come across.’
His mouth took possession of hers. Rachel gave up the argument. Why had she thought he was being impractical? He was simply not looking for inspiration in the most distracting, most effective way possible. She should have known.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
IN THE end it was frustration rather than inspiration that stopped them: the gear lever, the steering wheel and the bucket seats kept jabbing them. At last Grant leant back against his seat and glared out of the window.
‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ he asked, his voice rough.
‘I don’t know,’ Rachel said hoarsely, trying to control her breathing. ‘I’m thinking that I’m staying with my aunt and uncle, who would probably put us in a room with twin beds even if we were married, that you own a house with fifty bedrooms that’s in the hands of your ex-nancee-if-sheonly-knew-it; and that your money and credit cards are probably in a wallet in a jacket which I notice you’re not wearing. Is that what you were thinking?’
‘More or less.’ He rubbed his hand over his jaw and grimaced. ‘And also that I need a shave.’
‘We’d better go to my aunt’s house,’ Rachel said reluctantly. ‘At least we can get something to eat. I’m so hungry.’
He agreed to this and turned on the ignition. The car made a tight circle, then headed back to the main road.
There was no sign of their enemies. ‘Since we took this car, they’ll be bound to realise I’m back,’ said Grant. ‘That may be a good thing. It’ll probably make them nervous; they may start to make mistakes.’
Rachel agreed to this doubtfully. As far as she could see, the situation was hopeless. She couldn’t see what kind of mistake their opponents could make that would do Grant any good.
Aunt Harriet exclaimed in horror over the appearance of the two battered arrivals on her doorstep. She allowed them to go upstairs to wash and change, Rachel into clean clothes, Grant into a dressing gown of Uncle Walter’s. She then watched with satisfaction while they wolfed down most of the contents of the kitchen.
‘Oh, Aunt Harriet,’ said Rachel through a full mouth, ‘congratulate me! We’re engaged.’
‘She’s supposed to congratulate me,’ Grant corrected her. ‘You just get felicitations.’
‘Well, I’m glad to hear it,’ said Aunt Harriet. ‘At least now I’ll get rid of that pesky tarantula. But I’m not sure if I can congratulate you, Grant. Rachel always seems to get into such a lot of trouble.’
‘The better for me to get her out again,’ he said cheerfully. ‘And I like William. How is the little devil, anyway?’
‘I really couldn’t say,’ Aunt Harriet replied stiffly. ‘I’d rather not think about him, and I find I can’t help thinking about him if I look at him, so I haven’t been looking at him.’
He grinned. ‘Well, I can only say that you can’t be more anxious to find him a new home than I am to give him one. The sooner I get Rachel under my own roof the better.’
Aunt Harriet suggested acerbically that he would be very welcome to take the spider before the wedding.
‘I’m afraid Grant needs to stay here,’ said Rachel, and sketched in the situation.
‘Ah,’ said Aunt Harriet. ‘Well, you can borrow a pair of Walter’s pyjamas tonight, Grant, and I’ll try to clean those things of yours for tomorrow. I don’t suppose you’d care to be seen in public in his ordinary clothes.’
Rachel suspected that, if the truth were known, Grant would just as soon not take the pyjamas either, but he accepted the offer politely.
They spent the rest of the day eating, snatching kisses in corners when they could escape Aunt Harriet’s eagle eye, and arguing about the best way to tackle Glomac.
Evening came without further inspiration. They went upstairs, and Aunt Harriet escorted Grant to a room at the opposite end of the corridor from Rachel’s. A prim single bed, immaculately made up, stood against one wall.
‘There you are,’ said Aunt Harriet. ‘Breakfast at eight o’clock.’ She laid a clean pair of pyjamas on the bed, and stood with arms folded. Under that eagle eye Grant kissed Rachel chastely on the cheek.
‘Good night, Spidergirl. Pleasant dreams.’ His eyes gleamed.
Rachel went to her room and slipped into her own pyjamas. She heard Aunt Harriet stumping down the stairs, presumably to wash out Grant’s clothes.
About ten minutes later there was a soft knock at the door. It opened and Grant strolled in.
Rachel stifled a laugh behind her hand. Uncle Walter’s pyjama bottoms stopped about halfway down Grant’s calves. An ample waist was now gathered in copious folds by the cord now tied around the narrow hips of the wearer while, below, the cotton strained over muscular thighs. He’d buttoned one button of the top, which closed easily over a lean belly and gasped suddenly across a broad, powerful chest.
‘Oh, dear,’ Rachel said faintly. ‘I’m afraid they don’t fit terribly well,’ she sputtered. ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’
‘I’ve come to say goodnight to William,’ he explained. He approached the glass case and peered solemnly down. William crouched motionless in a corner.
‘He’s sleeping,’ said Grant. ‘I won’t wake him.’
Rachel choked down a laugh.
‘But since I’m here it seems a shame to waste a golden opportunity,’ he remarked. He came and sat beside her on the bed, the pyjama bottoms straining at the seams.
‘I don’t like to be a wet blanket,’ said Rachel, ‘but I think Aunt Harriet was trying to give you a hint by putting you in that bedroom.’
‘It would take more than a hint and a pair of tight pyjamas to keep me away from you,’ he said, grinning and putting an arm around her. ‘She could try chaining me to the bedpost…’
‘Well, you’d probably pick the lock with your teeth,’ said Rachel. She raised a hand to his silky smooth cheek. ‘Mmm, lovely.’
He kissed her hungrily. No wonder, she thought; it had been nearly two hours. Rachel struggled briefly with temptation and gave in; she unbuttoned the button of his pyjama top and slid her hand round to the hard, muscular back.
He groaned deep in his throat and fell back on the bed, drawing her with him and pulling her hard up against him. Rachel tried to relax. She wished she could enjoy this. Well, she was enjoying it,. but she actually felt more nervous now, when the most dangerous thing that could come through the door was her aunt with a glass of hot milk, than she had in their attic prison when armed desperadoes might have burst into the room.
‘Grant,’ she murmured, ‘what if my aunt comes in?’
‘I’ve got one foot on the floor,’ he said, lifting his head for a moment. She could feel his warm breath against her mouth. ‘If it’s good enough for the old Hollywood censors it should be good enough for your aunt.’
T
he blue eyes were limpid with innocence.
‘I don’t know about my aunt,’ said Rachel, ‘but, considering what you can do with your feet bound and both hands tied behind your back, it would take a lot more than one foot on the floor to set my mind at rest.’
She let her head fall back on the pillow and looked up into his face, running her fingers through the thick blond hair. ‘Isn’t there any way you can get those people out of Arrowmead?’ she asked huskily. ‘I want to cast aside my inhibitions.’
‘I suppose it’ll have to be that,’ he said. ‘I can hardly just take you along to the wedding and say I’ve found a better bride.’ He ran his hand lightly along the line of her hip.
‘Actually, I think it might help if I just talked to Olivia,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘She has a lot of debts. I think she must have got nervous when I explained that what I had in mind wasn’t likely to show a profit for a long time. Glomac must have looked a better bet, but she’s obviously got into something a lot nastier than she expected. Maybe I could offer her some kind of deal to get her out of a tight spot…’
Rachel refrained from comment. If all Grant’s hunches had been as brilliant as this idea of appealing to Olivia’s better nature, something told her, he’d have had an overdraft the size of the national debt. With any luck he’d have a better idea if she didn’t say anything.
‘I just don’t see—I mean, do you think she was really planning to marry you?’ she asked instead. It was wonderful to have him actually in her arms while she asked this, wonderful to have solid proof that he was indisputably hers.
‘Looks that way.’ He smiled, tugging one of her soot-black locks of hair. ‘I suppose she thought I’d be better off financially in the long run. That was all that really mattered to her, so she probably thought the end justified the means for me too, that I just didn’t know where my own interest lay.
‘Anyway, if she tells Matheson she’ll confess, he’ll have to back down to keep his nose clean.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ said Rachel. ‘Just be careful, will you? Sort it out over the phone, or in writing, or something. You’ve robbed these people of the chance to shoot at your tyres, you know. They may aim at your head in sheer frustration.’