by Linda Miles
Oh, didn’t it? thought Rachel furiously.
‘This is amazing,’ said Grant. ‘I always thought of R. K. V. Hawkins as a hardworking scientist who stayed out of trouble.’
‘Oh, good heavens, no,’ said Aunt Harriet. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’
‘Well, she never said anything about it.’
‘I wonder why?’ speculated Uncle Walter.
‘And these are all in Spanish,’ continued Aunt Harriet. ‘Don’t ask me what it was all about, because I couldn’t tell you, but I do know she made some depositions. Took a while for the black eye to fade, of course, but, after all, you can do so much with make-up.’
‘Grant,’ said Rachel faintly.
‘Rachel!’ He came instantly to her side. ‘Are you all right? How do you feel?’
‘Terrible,’ she said bluntly. ‘If you have to go on about that stuff, go into another room.’
‘I told you she’d be all right,’ Uncle Walter said cheerfully.
‘We’ll leave the two of you alone for now, Grant,’ said Aunt Harriet. ‘I’ll just make sure your bed is ready in the spare room.’
‘Thanks very much,’ said Grant, sinking to one knee beside the sofa. At least he wasn’t treating her like a rubber ball that always bounced back, thought Rachel. Grant hardly noticed when her aunt and uncle left the room: he was staring anxiously down into her face.
‘What happened to your hands?’ he asked. ‘They’re covered with scratches.’
‘I climbed up that blasted rose trellis,’ said Rachel.
‘My poor Rachel,’ he said. ‘What a lot of trouble I’ve caused you.’ He kissed her hands, then held them to his cheek.
Then, abruptly, he did a double take. ‘The spare room,’ he said. ‘Did your aunt say something about the spare room?’
‘Where you spent last night,’ Rachel reminded him.
‘Oh, yes, how kind,’ said Grant. ‘But I couldn’t possibly settle in without making sure you’d had proper medical attention. It’s the least I can do after all you’ve been through. Can you stand?’
‘I think so, but it’s really not necessary…’ Rachel was beginning to feel guilty about having made such a fuss.
‘Not another word,’ said Grant. ‘I’ll get your uncle to lend me his car.’ He scooped Rachel into his arms and strode for the door, where he nearly ran into Aunt Harriet bearing a clean towel.
‘Rachel is feeling very strange,’ he said to the astonished aunt. ‘I’m taking her in just to be on the safe side.’
Half an hour later a doctor had confirmed that the wound needed no stitches and was clean. Grant ushered Rachel out to the car again. Fifteen minutes later it drew up in front of Arrowmead.
No bullets cracked the windscreen. No thugs ran across the lawn.
‘Haven’t you had enough for one day?’ asked Rachel.
‘They’re all gone,’ said Grant. ‘In police custody. They’ve even picked up Matheson. I wanted to talk to Olivia alone, but I gave the police a time to show up half an hour after the time I’d set for my appointment just in case something went wrong. You know I never take unnecessary risks.’
‘Well, I’ve often heard you say so,’ Rachel said drily, sparing a thought for all those unmanned police stations. ‘Why did you go off without telling me?’ she demanded accusingly.
‘I didn’t want you to get in any danger,’ he explained. ‘I thought you didn’t like adventures.’
‘I don’t like adventures,’ said Rachel. ‘I hate being shot at. I hate being hit over the head. I hate broken bones. But if you ever go off without me again I’ll tear you limb from limb.’
He smiled at her, and even though she was furious she found herself smiling helplessly back. ‘This was a false start,’ said Grant. ‘Nothing like this will ever happen again.’
‘All right,’ said Rachel. That was one good thing about Grant: he was such an optimist. She raised one hand to his hair and stroked it.
‘I had a voice-activated tape recorder attached to my body; I got a terrific confession from Olivia,’ he explained eagerly. ‘We’ll get the science park back on track and settle down.’
‘Mmm-hmm,’ said Rachel.
‘No one will ever shoot at you again,’ he assured her. He looked rather the worse for wear himself: there was a bandage across his forehead, and an ugly bruise on one cheekbone. Rachel tried to imagine him leading a respectable life as one of the world’s bystanders, and failed.
‘Mmm-hmm,’ said Rachel again.
He grinned. ‘Well, if they do I promise I’ll always be there to remind you to wear your bulletproof vest.’
Rachel tried unsuccessfully to frown. A little smile was tugging at the corner of her mouth. Maybe she’d been trying to change the wrong things. She’d tried to give up science altogether instead of finding a way of doing the science she liked. She’d tried to become the kind of person who turned a blind eye to trouble.
Maybe, she thought, it was because everyone around her had tried to turn her inclinations into a straitjacket. Driscoll had left her to get on with boring specialisation because that was ‘Rachel’s field’. Her aunt and uncle and everyone else she knew had just left her to get into scrapes and struggle out of them because that was what they thought Rachel was like—it would never have occurred to any of them to join her in attacking a flagrant abuse, or in facing danger.
Well, you couldn’t say that of Grant, she reflected. His instincts were the same as hers; they’d be a real team. And if he was there, would she be able to help having a wonderful time? No, Rachel realised wryly, she probably wouldn’t. She could probably spend the next fifty years taking ‘no unnecessary risks’ with Grant and have the time of her life.
‘Do you promise always to kiss it better if people beat me to a pulp?’ she asked.
‘Rachel, darling,’ he protested, ‘no one is going to beat you to a pulp. You’re not listening to me. We’re going to be respectable, law-abiding citizens doing business with other respectable, law-abiding citizens. We’re going to settle down.’ The brilliant blue eyes deepened from aquamarine to sapphire. ‘But I promise to kiss you for strictly non-medicinal purposes on an extremely regular basis.’
He bent his head and kissed her.
‘I hope you’re not having second thoughts,’ he added, raising his head and looking at her anxiously. ‘I couldn’t face another lonely night in your aunt’s spare room, so I brought you back here instead.’ He smiled at her. ‘I just thought as long as we’d got rid of the household pests we needn’t—er—impose on your aunt’s hospitality any longer. Do you mind? I’ll take you back if you want to go home.’ Some people, thought Rachel, might think it a bit of an imposition to take her uncle’s car, leaving him the use of a Jaguar with an empty tank. She would have to point that out to Grant—some other time.
‘You mean we’re actually alone with a house with a double bed?’ she asked.
‘More like fifty last time I counted,’ said Grant.
‘Hmm,’ said Rachel. There was really no point in arguing with Grant, who sincerely believed that he’d come to the end of his adventures. It would really be much better, on the whole, just to keep him occupied and make sure he kept out of trouble.
‘Why don’t we find one?’ she said. ‘I think we could both do with a good night’s sleep.’
‘Is that a polite way of saying a bad night’s sleep?’ asked Grant.
‘What do you think?’ countered Rachel.
‘I think it means you don’t want to go,’ he said.
‘No, I think I’ll stay here,’ said Rachel. ‘You’re absolutely right, Grant. It’s time we settled down.’
ISBN : 978-1-4592-6356-7
HUSBAND-TO-BE
First North American Publication 1998.
Copyright © 1997 by Linda Miles.
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