Beyond All Reason

by Cathy Williams

He slumped on the sofa and rubbed his eyes with his thumbs, and reluctantly she went into the kitchen with the matches and made them both some coffee, while she continued to seethe inwardly.

  How did he find her? The question answered itself almost immediately. She had asked her where she would be staying, because he’d said that he knew the Lakes very well, and she had told him, in some detail, where the cottage was. She had never expected the piece of information to have brought him to the doorstep.

  She went back out into the sitting-room, handed him the coffee, which he took without looking at her, and then she sat down on the ground with her back to the fire.

  ‘I haven’t heard you rushing to thank me,’ he said, when he had first drained the cup.

  ‘Haven’t you?’ she said in a lemony voice, a mixture of sweetness and acidity. ‘Well, thank you so much for giving me the fright of my life. It really made my day.’

  ‘Wrong answer,’ he drawled, and this time his eyes fell on her for the first time. They wandered over her, in her pyjama-clad state, and she was deeply grateful that the only light in the room was the shadowy light from the fire. That way he wouldn’t be able to make out the red embarrassment on her face.

  Now that he had removed his coat, she could see that he was wearing a deep-coloured jumper, grey or black, she couldn’t tell, and a pair of dark jeans. His shoes he had kicked off but he was still wearing his socks, which were the same dark colour as the rest of his clothes.

  ‘You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here,’ she pointed out, flicking her hair behind her small ears, and he watched every movement in detail.

  ‘I would have thought that it was self-explanatory.’

  ‘I must be a bit dense in that case, because I’m stuck for an explanation.’ She sounded controlled enough, but she didn’t feel controlled. In fact, she wasn’t going anywhere near him if she could help it. She had deluded herself into thinking that Ross Anderson had only been part of the reason for her decision to flee London for a few days. Now, with him lying there on the sofa with his feet crossed at the ankles and looking, infuriatingly, as though he damn well belonged there, she realised that he had been the whole reason for her sudden departure.

  She had always acknowledged his staggering, terrifying sexy charm, the sensuality beneath the dark, hard features, but it was only recently that she had acknowledged the effect that they had on her.

  Physical attraction seemed too mild a term for the overwhelming, choking craving that she felt for him, and it was that that had sent her running up to the cottage so that she could muster her forces and return to London with her personality intact.

  ‘I came,’ he said lazily, with his eyes closed and his hands linked behind his head, ‘because I heard on the television that snow had started here and was due to worsen, and that some parts had already lost electricity. I knew where you were and I telephoned the weather centre for more information.’

  ‘How did you make it here?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t drive the distance from London, before you overwhelm me with your concern. I took a helicopter to my parents’ house and made it to within striking distance of this place in the Range Rover, but then the roads seized up on me and I had to walk the rest of the way.’

  ‘How far?’ she asked, horrified.

  ‘About a mile.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she mumbled under her breath, and he said, opening his eyes,

  ‘I don’t think I caught that.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she repeated in a loud voice, ‘but there was really no need. I was fine.’ Scared witless but fine. Now I’m anything but fine.

  ‘I take it the electricity’s been cut off.’

  ‘Yes,’ she conceded, ‘some time during the night. I woke up to go to the bathroom and nothing. So then I came down here and lit a fire. Why didn’t you knock on the door,’ she asked suspiciously, ‘instead of lurking around the cottage?’

  ‘Because,’ he said patiently, ‘I didn’t know whether you were asleep or not. I knew the fire was lit, but you could have done that and gone back upstairs to bed, in which case, if the back door had been unlocked, I would have simply let myself in without waking you.’

  He stood up abruptly and stripped off his jumper to the short-sleeved T-shirt underneath, then she watched in horror while he divested himself of his trousers and socks, and lay back down on the sofa clad in only the T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts.

  This wasn’t going to do, she thought worriedly, this wasn’t going to do at all. Her nerves were all over the place and her heart was doing a frantic tattoo in her chest.

  ‘Damp,’ he explained casually, yawning, and rather than just sit where she was, frozen and staring, Abigail stood up and busied herself laying the clothes in front of the fire. With any luck they would be bone-dry within minutes and he could get them back on again.

  His eyes were on her, she could feel them sending prickles of awareness along her spine.

  ‘While you’re on you feet,’ he said, yawning again, ‘you couldn’t get me something to eat, could you?’ It was phrased as a question, but he didn’t expect her to refuse.

  ‘It’s late. Have you any idea what time it is? You can’t be hungry.’

  ‘Try telling that to my stomach.’ He studied her face and, with a shrug, she headed back towards the kitchen, and groped through the drawers until she found some candles. Then she lit three of them and stood them up in a line on the window-ledge. Making two mugs of coffee by the light of the fire in the sitting-room was one thing, but fixing a meal was another.

  He should never have come, she thought to herself disgruntedly. Did he make a habit of showing up unexpectedly where he wasn’t wanted? He might have thought at the time that he was doing the right thing, saving her from a fate of hypothermia, but that didn’t alter the fact that he was here now, larger than life, making her feel jittery and on edge.

  She opened a can of baked beans, which had been in the cupboard, buttered a couple of slices of bread, which she had thankfully brought with her in some abundance, and covered the lot with grated cheese, then she reluctantly walked back into the sitting-room and handed it to him.

  ‘It’ll have to do,’ she informed him, and he shot her a dry look.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting caviar and lobster.’ He began eating, and she returned to her safe place by the fire, with her arms wrapped round her knees.

  ‘How long do they expect the snow to last?’ she asked after a while, and he replied, concentrating on the plate of food,

  ‘A few days.’

  ‘A few days! A few days! That’s ridiculous!’ We can’t stay cooped up here together for a few days, she wanted to wail. I’ll go to pieces.

  ‘Have a look outside,’ he returned calmly. ‘I’ll bet you that it’s gathered force even since I’ve been here.’

  She walked across to the window and looked out, and he was right. It was snowing furiously and the snow was catching on absolutely everything and sticking there. In the morning, the place would look like a picture postcard, but not one in which she particularly wanted to feature.

  ‘Point proved?’ he asked in a voice that told her that he was only too aware that his presence in the cottage was filling her with misgivings. He deposited the empty plate on the ground and she eyed it with her hands on her hips.

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Well, that’s just fine. I can tell you from now, though, that I might follow your orders at work, but don’t think that I’m going to be fetching and carrying for you while we’re here.’

  She picked up the plate because her little speech hadn’t provoked him into activity, picked up the two mugs and stormed off to the kitchen.

  When she returned, hovering to look down at him, he was virtually asleep.

  ‘I’ll be heading off to bed now,’ she said awkwardly. ‘The spare room is first left on the landing. I haven’t been in, but I presume it’s made up.’

  His eyes flickered open, unnervingly black and glittering in the
semi-shadows. They fastened on her, sapping her and making her feel confused.

  This, she thought despairingly, was what she would have to watch out for. The enemy in the camp was herself, her treacherous body which could be roused to shameful response without even being touched. She schooled her features accordingly and began to move away.

  ‘You’ll freeze up there,’ he said conversationally, and she turned back to face him. ‘You yourself said that what awakened you was the cold. Well, I won’t be up to tend this fire and when it goes out, you’ll go numb. At least down here will remain warm for much longer.’

  ‘I’ll risk it,’ Abigail informed him lightly, and he frowned.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why?’ She searched around for a suitable reply to that and didn’t find any. ‘Because,’ she pointed out lamely, ‘there’s only one sofa down here.’

  ‘I’ll sleep on the floor. I’m sure something could be rigged up.’

  ‘No bother.’ Sleep here in the same room as him? Rig something up so that she could spend what remained of the night in a state of nervous tension, listening to his every movement? No chance.

  ‘Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  ‘I won’t.’ She turned and walked away and it was only when she was at the top of the stairs that she was aware of him behind her, taking them two at a time, his long legs covering the distance until he was standing next to her.

  She edged against the wall and said sharply, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Sheets? Blankets? You don’t expect me to fall asleep like this, do you?’

  The question invited her to look at him and she didn’t.

  ‘In that case, the spare bedroom is right behind you.’ Her voice sounded taut in the silence and her back was pressed against the wall in the attitude of a cornered rat.

  ‘OK.’ He lowered his eyes, his long lashes falling against his cheek. ‘Bit jumpy, aren’t you?’ he asked with soft amusement. ‘What do you think I’m going to do?’

  ‘Nothing!’ Her voice sounded far too high and she cleared her throat. ‘I’m not jumpy. It’s just that, well, naturally, with the lights going and all that, I’ve been a bit rattled.’

  ‘I thought you said that you were fine?’ he asked immediately, staring at her, and she blushed, hating him for needling her into justifying her behaviour.

  He could be very inquisitional when he wanted. He did it when he wanted something from someone and when the most handy tactic was to circle them like a predator until they had nowhere to run. He also did it for amusement, and this, she thought angrily, was why he was doing it now, making her stumble over her words. In the normal course of events, at work, it was diplomatic to ignore his occasional provocation, but out here, on neutral ground, she wasn’t going to keep quiet and smile a lot. She wouldn’t show him what sort of effect he had on her, but she damn well wouldn’t hesitate to show him that provoking her was not a good idea.

  ‘I would be,’ she said coolly, with more composure in her voice, ‘if you would fetch what you came for and go to sleep.’

  ‘Of course,’ Ross murmured obligingly, looking down but not before she saw the wicked gleam in his eyes, ‘just so long as you’re all right and you don’t twist and turn and think that I’m going to barge my way into your bedroom and rape you.’

  ‘Difficult,’ she mused icily, ‘when I have every intention of locking my bedroom door.’

  She turned away and he called out from behind her, ‘So you are jumpy with me in the house!’ He laughed under his breath and she knew that if there had been anything to hand she would have flung it at his smug head.

  The blankets, when she made it back to her bed, were ice-cold and she huddled into a ball underneath them, teeth chattering, wishing that she had had the sense to slip on a pair of socks before jumping in.

  It was earlier than she had expected. Not yet midnight, although it felt later. She lay in the darkness, eyes wide open, staring at the shadows on the walls and furniture and thinking how her peaceful little interlude had been shattered.

  She couldn’t face the prospect of an indefinite stay in a very small cottage with only Ross Anderson for company. Even when they had been in America, work matters had absorbed most of their leisure time, and, she thought with some desperation, just look at what had happened when they had been together without the work to keep them occupied. Ross found her amusing. She was different from the type of women he normally dated. That was why he had made that light pass at her in Boston, a light pass which had nearly ended up wrecking her life. The fact that he already had a girlfriend had not been any deterrent.

  She groaned aloud and punched the pillow in helpless frustration. He should never have come here. She should never have told him where she was going. She should have pretended to listen to his warnings about snow and told him that she was going to stay in London. Should, should, should. By the time she drifted off into a restless sleep, her head was rebounding with shoulds.

  She awoke less than three hours later. The room was very cold. For a while, she lay completely still and told herself that it was mostly in her mind. She knew that the heating was not working, and so she felt far colder than she would have otherwise. She had once been told a story about a group of people locked inside a hot, cramped room somewhere on a ship. They had been collapsing from the heat when someone said that a window somewhere had been prised open. No one questioned them, they accepted it and spent the rest of the journey in relative comfort only to find that no window had been opened at all. She told herself that what she was experiencing was the same thing.

  She spent another half-hour trying to persuade her body to listen to her mind, and then abandoned the struggle. The fact was that she was freezing and it wasn’t going to get any warmer. Ross, damn him, had been right. The effect of the log fire was dying and there was no central heating set on timer to come on in an hour’s time.

  She clutched the blankets around her and tiptoed down the stairs.

  Why should he sleep in comfort when she was rigid with cold?

  The logs were still burning, but only just. Abigail eyed the warm rug in front of the fire greedily, then shifted her gaze to where Ross was sound asleep on the sofa.

  She had no intention of waking him up. There was no way that he was going to have the last laugh. She would grab some sleep, perhaps a couple of hours, and then head back up to the bedroom before daybreak. He would never know. He was out like a light and likely to stay that way for several hours after the mammoth journey he had had.

  She hitched the blankets around her tightly, to make sure that she didn’t inadvertently knock against anything, and settled in front of the fire with a little sigh of relief.

  For a while she listened to Ross’s even breathing, her body tense in case he woke up, but sleep was weighing on her eyelids, and she could feel herself relax and begin to drift off. It was a wonderful feeling.

  She was having a dream. A very vivid dream. In it, she was somewhere very hot, she could feel the sun burning down on her body, and Ross was next to her, his hands wandering over her body, his mouth against the warm curve of her neck. She could feel the pleasurable ripples of sensation touching every corner of her body, and she sighed and smiled. She twisted her position, and her eyes flew open because she was no longer alone inside the blankets. Ross was next to her.

  Abigail sat up, instantly awake, and looked down at the dark, handsome face which the faint light of the moon threw into shadows and angles.

  ‘Lie back down, woman,’ he said drowsily, and she grabbed the blanket around her.

  ‘What,’ she hissed, ‘do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘What does it look like to you?’

  It was dark, but not so dark that she couldn’t make out the dry half-smile, which sent her into a spasm of speechless fury. How dared he? His thigh was by her toes and she edged them away, curling her feet underneath her.

  ‘Get out,’ she told him in a low, angry voice. ‘
Back to the sofa!’

  ‘Why?’ he asked implacably. ‘The cold woke me and I saw that you had decided to set up camp on the ground, so I figured that two bodies underneath the blankets would generate infinitely more heat than one.’

  Abigail looked at him with dislike, remembering her dream with a shudder of humiliation.

  ‘You figured wrong, in that case.’ She yanked the blankets towards her and he pulled them back, which made her even more furious.

  ‘Let go,’ she demanded. ‘Right. If you don’t have the decency to go back where you belong, which incidentally is your own apartment in London, or at least the sofa while you happen to be here as an uninvited guest, then I shall just have to go back upstairs.’

  She stood up and his hand snapped out, curving round her wrist and pulling her back down so that she half fell on top of him in an undignified heap.

  Her heart was beating fiercely and she put her hands on his chest to push herself back up, but was thwarted by a combination of unobliging blankets, which had somehow managed to wrap themselves around her like a cage, and his arms which were infinitely more unobliging than the blankets.

  They stared at each other in silence, their faces only inches apart.

  ‘Don’t be a fool, Abby,’ he murmured, and the husky depth of his voice made her head begin to swim. ‘You know I’m right This place is like an ice-box, and if we can warm each other then we might as well, because it’ll do us both good to get some sleep.’

  ‘You are the most objectionable man I have ever, ever met in my entire life.’ The words were bitten out separately.

  ‘Well, I guess that’s better than being boring.’

  She ground her teeth together and made an inarticulate, strangled sound.

  ‘Light the fire,’ she told him. ‘Light the damned fire and then you can get back to the sofa!’

  He didn’t even bother to look in the direction of the logs. ‘My body finds it far nicer to remain where it is.’

  She wanted to scream.

  ‘Relax,’ he told her seriously. ‘This is just a practical solution to a temporary problem.’ He eased her down, applying a little pressure when she squirmed against him.