Shadowed Stranger

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘Thanks, Selma,’ she said absently, and turned in the direction of the A section, dreading seeing Rick again and yet finding herself charged with anticipation at the same time.

  She had felt only half alive this last week since leaving Brian’s parents’ house, since last seeing Rick, and just knowing she was to see him once again filled her with pleasure.

  The emotion was successfully masked before she confronted Rick, and her expression was cool and remote, although her heart leapt into her throat just at the sight of him. ‘Tidier’ didn’t exactly describe the way he looked—devastating was a more apt description, the charcoal-grey pin-striped suit tailored on to him, his silk shirt snowy white. He bore no resemblance to the old Rick, but looked totally Oliver Pendleton.

  Until she looked at his eyes! The expression in those mesmerising grey eyes was totally Rick, slightly narrowed they conveyed better than words the desire he still felt towards her.

  He took an involuntary step towards her and then checked himself. ‘Robyn …’ he said huskily.

  It took all her will-power not to declare her love for him right then and there, but she managed to control the impulse, if she did but know it looking coolly self-assured in the black fitted skirt and pink blouse.

  ‘Mr Pendleton,’ she greeted stiffly.

  A smile touched his well-formed mouth. ‘So we’re still being formal, are we?’

  She raised cool questioning eyebrows. ‘I have no idea what you mean.’

  His mouth quirked. ‘You know, Robyn. When you start calling me Rick I’ll know that we’re friends again.’

  ‘I didn’t know we were ever that!’

  ‘Lovers, then,’ he shrugged.

  Robyn gasped, and looked about them selfconsciously. ‘Do you mind!’ she hissed.

  ‘Not at all.’ He thrust his hands into his trousers pockets, unconsciously pulling the material tautly across his thighs.

  ‘We were never lovers!’ she whispered vehemently.

  ‘Weren’t we?’ He feigned a frown. ‘No, we weren’t, not quite. Who was the boy you went to lunch with?’ he asked suddenly, all teasing gone, his eyes narrowed.

  She looked startled. ‘Alan?’

  Rick nodded tersely. ‘I believe that was his name.’

  ‘He—’ she hesitated. ‘He’s my boy-friend,’ she invented, hoping Alan would forgive her for forcing him into this role.

  Rick’s mouth tightened. ‘Is he indeed?’

  ‘Yes!’ she snapped.

  ‘For a girl who supposedly didn’t have even one boy-friend before I met her,’ he drawled insultingly, ‘you’re certainly making up for it.’

  Her eyes flashed deeply violet. ‘And why shouldn’t I? I didn’t know anyone had staked a claim on me.’

  His fingers curled painfully about her upper arm. ‘I have,’ his eyes glittered. ‘You’re mine, Robyn, and no one—no one is going to take you away from me.’ His expression was fierce. ‘Let alone that kid you just came back with.’

  Robyn swallowed hard, thrilled by his masterfulness in spite of herself. Oh, if only he could have been like this before, before she had discovered how despicable he really was! She shook off his arm. ‘For your information, Alan is far from being a boy. And I don’t belong to you, Mr Pendleton,’ she told him coldly. ‘Now would you please stay away from me.’

  ‘Never!’ he snarled.

  ‘Then I’ll have to make you, won’t I!’

  His mouth curved into a humourless smile, his eyes like chips of ice. ‘You can try, Robyn. But I’ll wear you down in the end.’

  Her mouth set stubbornly. ‘You can try,’ she scorned angrily. ‘But you won’t succeed.’

  ‘I will,’ he said with a certainty that frightened Robyn. He touched her briefly on the cheek. ‘I’ll be seeing you, Robyn.’

  ‘You won’t!’

  He made no further comment but walked away with a half-smile on his lips, nodding briefly to Selma on his way out.

  If she weren’t so angry—and this a public library!—she would have screamed with the frustration of this whole meeting. Rick was back in her life, and this time he seemed determined to stay—even if she didn’t want him to.

  ‘He gets more handsome every time I see him,’ Selma whispered ecstatically at her side.

  ‘He’s an arrogant brute!’ Robyn hissed.

  Selma gave her a knowing look. ‘But you love it.’

  ‘I do not!’

  ‘Liar!’ Selma smiled before going back to her work.

  Robyn stormed through the double doors labelled ‘Staff Only’, hanging her jacket up in the cloakroom.

  Alan came out of the staff-room as she was viciously brushing her hair, two bright spots of angry colour in her cheeks. ‘What’s happened to you?’ he asked in amusement. ‘It can’t have been Leaven, we weren’t late back.’

  ‘Nothing happened to me,’ she snapped, still too furious to think straight. Rick thought he just had to snap his fingers and she would come running. Well, she wouldn’t, she couldn’t. The role of mistress was surely the worst one of all.

  Alan studied her closely. ‘Do you usually get angry at nothing?’ he asked gently.

  The fight went out of her. ‘No,’ she sighed, putting away her brush. ‘No, I don’t. You see I—I just met—well, a sort of ex-boy-friend—’

  ‘Only sort of?’

  She blushed. ‘Well, he’s hardly a boy, you see, and—’

  ‘No, I don’t see,’ Alan frowned. ‘How old is he?’

  She shrugged. ‘Mid-thirties. But that isn’t what bothers me—’

  ‘It bothers me,’ Alan said quietly.

  Her expression brightened. ‘It does?’

  ‘Yes, it—Why?’ he asked suspiciously.

  Robyn took a deep breath, wondering how he was going to take this next bit of news. ‘I told him you were my boy-friend.’

  ‘What!’

  She bit her lip guiltily. ‘I’m sorry, Alan. You see, he thought we were involved, you and I, so I let him go on believing it.’

  ‘Can I ask why?’

  She looked down at her hands. ‘He’s married, Alan.’ She looked up at him pleadingly. ‘I didn’t know at the time I—I liked him.’

  ‘He didn’t tell you,’ Alan guessed.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay, Robyn, I’ll be your boy-friend. Where would you like to go tonight?’

  ‘Nowhere,’ she laughed. ‘I’ll only need you as a verbal boy-friend.’ Although it didn’t seem to have put Rick off so far!

  Alan shrugged. ‘Okay. I’d decided to ask Selma out anyway.’

  ‘You had?’ Her face lit up as she envisaged Selma’s pleasure. And she was sure Alan was wrong about Selma’s feelings; she liked him as he was now, not as the school hero he had once been.

  ‘Do you think she’ll accept?’ he asked uncertainly.

  ‘I—Why don’t you ask her and find out?’ She decided against telling him how eagerly Selma would accept. After all, the poor girl deserved some secrets.

  He nodded. ‘I’ll do that.’

  Robyn felt a little more relaxed now; the last few minutes’ conversation with Alan had lessened her anger towards Rick. Not that he was going to walk back into her life and stay. She would tell him any lie to get rid of him, anything at all.

  * * *

  Selma was ecstatic about her date with Alan that evening, and she talked of nothing else all afternoon, so much so that Robyn was glad to leave work that evening.

  ‘What do you think I should wear?’ Selma asked as they clattered down the stairs together. Both of them finished at five tonight.

  Robyn sighed impatiently. ‘We’ve already discussed this, Selma, several times, in fact. You’re going to the cinema, so you wear something casual.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘I know you look good in your black dress, but it just isn’t suitable for wearing at the cinema.’

  Selma wrinkled her nose. ‘Why couldn’t he have asked me to the disco or something?’ />
  ‘You know he can’t dance very easily, it makes his leg ache.’

  ‘Oh dear!’ Selma put a hand up to her mouth. ‘I just know I’m going to say something like that tonight and put my foot in it.’

  Robyn shrugged, having listened to similar comments all afternoon. ‘Then maybe you shouldn’t have accepted his invitation.’

  ‘Not accepted?’ Selma was scandalised. ‘Are you joking? I’ve liked Alan ever since we were at school. I can’t believe he’s actually asked me out.’

  ‘Believe it,’ Robyn advised. ‘And wear trousers tonight.’

  ‘My silk ones?’

  ‘No,’ she sighed. ‘Use your head, Selma. Alan likes you in the sort of clothes you wear to work—’

  ‘But—’

  ‘So wear something casual,’ Robyn repeated firmly. ‘You don’t have to impress Alan.’ And some of Selma’s more elaborate outfits could just scare him off.

  Selma pouted her disappointment. ‘Not even my silk trousers?’

  ‘No,’ she laughed.

  ‘Spoilsport!’

  ‘Robyn …’

  She spun round to confront Rick, the formal suit now replaced with tight-fitting denims and a loose sweat-shirt, the neatly combed hair ruffled into disorder. When he looked like this she could forget he was Oliver Pendleton, and she only just stopped her joyful smile at seeing him here.

  Selma raised her eyebrows pointedly. ‘See you tomorrow, Robyn. Goodnight, Mr Howarth,’ she added with a coy smile in his direction.

  He nodded, his smile charming. ‘Goodnight, Selma.’

  She was obviously delighted that he knew her name, and moved away with an exaggerated sway of her hips. But she needn’t have bothered for Rick’s benefit, he had eyes only for Robyn.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked rudely.

  He appeared unperturbed by her attitude. ‘I thought I might give you a lift home.’

  ‘I have my bike here.’ She walked round to the side of the library, aware that he followed her, his long and leisurely strides bringing him to her side.

  She gasped as she looked down at the back wheel of her bicycle—the tyre was completely flat. He had done this, he had to have done! She turned on him accusingly.

  He put up a silencing hand. ‘Before you say anything—’

  ‘You did this!’ she exploded. ‘You let my tyre down.’

  Rick calmly shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘You—’

  ‘But I sat and watched the two young boys who did,’ he revealed lazily, crossing his arms over his chest as she bent down to inspect the wheel.

  Robyn turned to glare at him. ‘Why didn’t you stop them?’ She stood up to kick the wheel. ‘It’s no good, they’ve taken the valve from my inner tube.’

  Rick shook his head. ‘They didn’t take it, they threw it away. Over there,’ he pointed to some thick bushes a short distance away.

  She drew an angry breath. ‘I suppose you sat and watched them do that too?’

  He smiled. ‘Yes.’

  ‘But why?’ she groaned. ‘Now I’ll have to get the bus.’

  ‘I’ve already offered you a lift home.’

  Her mouth twisted. ‘And I’ve already refused.’

  He shrugged. ‘The offer’s still there.’

  Robyn turned away. ‘So is the refusal.’ She gave one last angry glare at her bicycle before walking off in the direction of the bus stop. How could he have just watched those boys do that to her bicycle! He had probably put them up to it!

  There were half a dozen other people waiting at the bus stop, so she went to the back of the queue, searching through her handbag for the right change.

  ‘Care for a lift, darling?’

  She looked up to find a Rolls-Royce outrageously parked at the bus stop, Rick leaning over to talk to her out of the open passenger door. She closed her handbag with a snap, her chin going high. ‘No, thank you,’ she refused icily, wishing he would stop embarrassing her and just drive on.

  ‘Come on, darling,’ he said coaxingly. ‘I’m sorry I insulted your mother, but that’s no reason to walk off like this.’

  Robyn frowned. What on earth was he talking about now? They hadn’t so much as mentioned her mother. ‘What—’

  ‘Get in the car, darling, and we’ll kiss and make up,’ Rick added enticingly.

  Robyn could see the smiles on the faces of the other people waiting in the queue, and she wasn’t about to stand here and be humiliated any longer. She got into the car, slamming the door behind her.

  Rick grinned as he accelerated the car away from the pavement in the direction of Robyn’s home.

  ‘You swine!’ she muttered through gritted teeth, ignoring the fact that this new car of his was much more comfortable than the bus would have been.

  He glanced sideways at her. ‘For offering you a lift home?’

  ‘For embarrassing me into accepting it.’ She refused to look at him. ‘That was the idea, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ he told her happily.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked in exasperation.

  ‘Visiting you.’

  ‘I don’t want any visits from you!’

  ‘Look, I know I walked out on you—’

  ‘You flatter yourself if you think that bothers me!’ she snapped.

  His hand moved out to cover hers, his fingers tightening as she would have snatched her hand away. ‘I would have come back before now, Robyn, but I—I was detained.’

  ‘By Sheila!’

  He frowned. ‘No, not by Sheila. I admit she was the reason I had to leave in the first place, but she wasn’t the reason I stayed away,’

  ‘I don’t suppose she was,’ Robyn scorned, sure now that Rick couldn’t love his wife. But that didn’t excuse him wanting an affair with her.

  ‘A punctured lung was the reason I couldn’t come back straight away,’ he told her harshly.

  ‘So I heard.’ She hardened her heart, not willing to let him see how the news of his illness had upset her.

  ‘Brian?’ he snapped.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He has another girl-friend, you know.’

  She did know, having spoken to Brian on the telephone yesterday. She nodded. ‘Her name’s Trudi.’

  ‘Doesn’t it bother you?’ he rasped.

  ‘Should it?’ she returned calmly.

  ‘Obviously not. How far have things gone between you and Alan?’ he asked grimly.

  Robyn remained cool with effort. ‘Mind your own business.’

  ‘You are my business.’ His eyes were very dark as he turned to look at her, his hand returning to the steering wheel, shaking slightly.

  ‘And Sheila?’

  Rick frowned. ‘Are you jealous of her?’

  ‘Me, jealous?’ she exploded at his audacity. ‘I don’t have any right to be jealous over anything. Anyway, you aren’t worth it.’

  ‘Then why the interest in Sheila?’

  ‘Why not?’ she shrugged.

  ‘Robyn …!’ He gave an impatient sigh. ‘Are you still annoyed because I didn’t tell you who I really am?’

  ‘The famous obstetrician Oliver Richard Howarth Pendleton?’ she taunted. ‘Why should it bother me? I’m sure you enjoyed your little joke.’

  ‘There was no joke, Robyn,’ he rasped harshly. ‘Not on you or anyone else.’

  ‘I’m sure there wasn’t,’ she scorned. ‘We all go around masquerading as other people.’

  ‘I told you why I did that.’

  ‘To try and get into the part of your character Dominic,’ she scoffed.

  ‘I had no idea at the time how important you were going to become in my life—’

  ‘Important!’ she cut in. ‘Spare me that—Mr Pendleton,’ she took care not to call him. Rick; she was determined never to call him that again. He would only take it as an invitation.

  ‘But you are important to me. I admit I didn’t want you to be, but that’s the way it’s worked out.’

&
nbsp; ‘That’s my cue to say I’m flattered,’ Robyn said tautly, seeing with relief that they were nearing her home. ‘Take it as said!’ she snapped.

  Instead of turning the car right, into her road, Rick veered the car off to the left instead, driving half a mile or so down the dirt-track before switching off the engine and turning in his seat to face her.

  ‘What happens now?’ She faced him unflinchingly.

  ‘I kiss you and bring you to your senses,’ he said grimly, moving dangerously towards her.

  ‘If you kiss me—’

  ‘You’ll scream,’ he finished dryly. ‘I think you might have some trouble doing that with my mouth on yours. Besides, who would hear you out here?’

  They were rather isolated—in fart, they were parked out in the middle of nowhere! She was at Rick’s mercy!

  ‘That’s right,’ he seemed to guess her thoughts. ‘And you might as well get used to being kissed by me, it’s going to happen a lot in future.’

  She pushed ineffectually at the hard wall of his chest. ‘You’re arrogant, conceited—’

  ‘And I want you,’ he moaned, a hand either side of her face as he lowered his lips to hers.

  She shouldn’t be enjoying this, she shouldn’t! But she was, the tears she had shed over him in the past now seemed unimportant. This was Rick, the man she loved, and she liked being held by him, kissed by him.

  ‘Oh, Robyn, Robyn,’ his lips travelled slowly across her cheek to nibble on the lobe of her ear. ‘Relax, darling,’ he encouraged softly. ‘Let me love you.’

  She didn’t have the strength to stop him, her groan one of pleasure as he undid the buttons on her blouse, his mouth now moving to the firm curve of her breasts in the cream lacy bra.

  She must be mad—this couldn’t be happening to her here in broad daylight. Rick was making love to her, physically arousing her, and she was letting him, was even encouraging him as her hands became enmeshed in the thick dark vibrancy of his hair, holding him tightly to her.

  His skin felt smooth and firm as he encouraged her hands under his sweat-shirt, gently pushing her back on the seat, his hard thrusting thighs on her as his mouth plundered hers with a thoroughness that left her head spinning.

  Rick lifted his head, his eyes glazed with passion. ‘You own me, Robyn,’ he gasped, his face tense with the effort it took for him to control the quicksilver desire his body couldn’t even begin to hide. ‘I belong to you.’ His kisses were heated against her throat.