by Penny Jordan
It struck her, as she stood frowning by the door, that she really had very little idea of what actually was involved in the physical running of her parents’ small business. On her brief stays with them, she normally spent her time trying to help her father unravel the complications of their antiquated book-keeping system, and in coaxing him to replace it with a modern computer.
True, she did sometimes stroll through one of the greenhouses with her parents, and she certainly enjoyed the fruits of their labours when she sat down to a meal. She knew that her parents had recently invested in a series of polythene tunnels which would enable them to grow over a longer period, and that they were hoping that this year their profit would be large enough to warrant their taking out a bank loan for a new greenhouse, but of the actual day-to-day physical work of sowing, planting out and growing, she had very little knowledge at all.
Angrily she chewed hard on her bottom lip and then stopped, disgusted with herself for this reversion to such an infantile habit.
It was almost eleven o’clock. She couldn’t spend the rest of the day virtually a prisoner inside, and all because she didn’t want Carter to think that he had won and that he was in charge in her parents’ absence.
Come to think of it, perhaps he was a good deal more clever than she had thought; perhaps he had deliberately suggested she go down to the paddock, knowing that to do so was to be sure that she remained well away from it. And she had fallen for it. Why, for all she knew, he could right at this very minute be poisoning her parents’ land, be destroying it, or contaminating it with the very chemicals from which it was supposed to be free.
Suddenly impelled by new urgency, she hurried across to the back door and then hesitated. She had no wish to arouse Carter’s suspicions, to make him aware that she and Peter realised that his motives in becoming so friendly with her parents might not be entirely altruistic.
Her glance fell on the kettle and she smiled.
Of course. If she were to take the two men a drink, under the guise of proffering an olive branch… She would have a much better chance of discovering just what Carter was up to if he no longer thought that she was hostile to him.
Berating herself for not having thought of this before, for perhaps having aroused his sense of self-preservation and caution, she started to make some fresh coffee.
Much as it went against the grain to allow any man, but especially one like Carter, to think that he had won and that she was prepared to be subservient and obedient to him, sometimes one had to use a little caution and diplomacy. After all, this wasn’t something she was doing for her own sake, but for her parents. They had worked so hard to establish this small and potentially profitable business and they were so proud of their joint achievement. They would be desolated if they were to lose what they had built up. It was up to her as their daughter to make sure that that did not happen.
Peter had been quite right to alert her to the danger posed by Carter, and she quickly squashed the small and rather uncomfortably disconcerting feeling that, in pretending she was now prepared to be friendly to Carter, her behaviour was rather underhand. Elspeth had always prided herself on her honesty, and it rather irked her that she should now have to adopt a less than truthful manner.
Frowning over things, she found a large flask and filled it with coffee, and then, as though to compensate for that small frisson of guilt, she found the tin containing her mother’s homemade scones and cut and buttered some.
Putting everything in one of her mother’s baskets, she opened the back door, momentarily starting as the parrot shrieked unexpectedly, ‘Mind how you go! Mind how you go!’
He had been so quiet since Carter had gone out that she had virtually forgotten his presence.
The age of her parents’ house, its thick walls and small windows, ensured that its interior was kept dark and cool even on the hottest of sunny days, and Elspeth blinked as she walked out into the yard and the brilliant sunshine.
Only one of her father’s dogs seemed to have accompanied Carter, the other as though by some mutual canine agreement apparently having decided to stay on guard, just inside the gate. With the habits and instincts of her breed, she was lying in the shade, just out of sight of anyone approaching the house. She turned and grinned at Elspeth, thumping her tail on the dusty ground as Elspeth spoke to her, reminding her endearingly of one of the wicked collies portrayed so cleverly in a Giles cartoon.
She was less than halfway across the yard when she realised she ought to have changed her clothes. Her suit skirt was far too tight for her to lengthen her stride to one comfortable for crossing even relatively flat open land. The heat of the sun made the jacket uncomfortably warm, and her smart, low-heeled shoes were certainly nowhere near as comfortable on a bumpy grass path as they were for city streets.
It was less than half a mile to the paddock; she had grown up on a farm and virtually as soon as she could stagger had been familiar with the countryside. Whenever she came home, she always packed her sensible walking shoes and a couple of pairs of well-worn jeans.
Her wellington boots were still in the rack beside the back door along with those of her parents—so why on earth was she behaving like an idiot and trying to gingerly pick her way along a narrow, overgrown path, in clothes that any fool would have known were completely unsuitable for such an occupation? Any fool—even one whose only acquaintanceship with the countryside came from looking at the ads in glossy magazines.
From here she could see the paddock, and the two men working in it could see her, which meant that she could not go back and get changed.
The trouble was that she had been so determined to check up on Carter that she had forgotten that mad impulse when she’d got up this morning to dress in something that would make it clear to him the type of woman she was. And, much as she longed to go back to the house and get changed, or even to remove the uncomfortable weight of her jacket, she stoically refused to give in to that need, firmly continuing on her set course, and trying to pretend that she felt completely at ease in her ridiculous and unsuitable clothes.
As she passed the greenhouses, she saw that all the windows had been opened, and that the beds outside alongside them were filled with a variety of young vegetables, all growing healthily and organically.
Her mother had told her on her last visit that she had been discreetly picking the brains of some of the village’s elderly residents, and that she was keeping a note of all the gardening tips they had given her, including a list of the various home-made remedies for various pests and diseases likely to affect their produce.
The paddock was separated from the rest of the smallholding by a hawthorn hedge, its greenery now at this time of year liberally sprinkled with wild roses, and as she approached it Elspeth drew a faint sigh of relief. Her calves were aching, and the basket had suddenly grown rather heavy. She had turned her ankles more times than she cared to remember and she was only thankful that it was dry underfoot.
And then she saw the stile, and frowned at it. Surely the last time she had come home there had been a gate here into the paddock?
The stile, although solidly constructed and perfectly safe, was not going to be easy to climb in her straight skirt—at least, not unless she hitched it up quite considerably. For a moment the indignity of having to climb the stile with her skirt somewhere up around the top of her thighs made her stop and bitterly curse herself under her breath.
She was feeling too hot and sticky, and thoroughly unlike her normal self; and certainly, she was sure, the image she must be presenting must be far from the one of cool elegance she normally showed to the world. A gust of hot wind teased her hair, blowing it on to her face so that she had to put down the basket to push it out of the way.
Still muttering under her breath, this time it was Carter she cursed and not herself. After all, it was his fault that she had come out here like this, that she had walked down that uneven path in these totally unsuitable shoes, that she was feeling so hot and ir
ritable—
‘Need a hand to get over the stile?’
She was so engrossed in her angry thoughts that she hadn’t even heard Carter approach.
With the sun in her eyes, it was difficult to focus on him where he stood at the top of the stile, casually pulling on his shirt, although she could still see where his chest was streaked with sweat and what looked like soil. His hair was ruffled by the same hot wind that had tormented hers, but at least he was properly dressed both for his occupation and habitat. While she… Never could she remember feeling at such a disadvantage to any man. And it was especially galling that it should be with this one that she should be making such an idiot of herself.
Carefully shielding her eyes, she prepared to refuse his offer, looking suspiciously into his face for the amusement she knew must be there. After all, in his shoes, she doubted that she would have been able to refrain from having a good laugh at his expense, but to her surprise he was simply watching her with what looked like genuine concern, as though he actually had virtually walked the width of the field simply because he wanted to help her.
As she contemplated this fact, the strangest sensation assailed her. Elspeth was not used to men wanting to help her, to cosset and protect her. She had always told herself that those old-fashioned notions of what had once been considered to be good manners went hand in hand with a paternalistic attitude that had kept her sex in emotional and financial chains for far too long, and yet, as Carter finished fastening his shirt and came down towards her, she had an unwanted and rather shocking bleak awareness of the fact that Peter would never in a thousand years have done what Carter was doing. That Peter would have quite casually and calmly left her to struggle on her own without even thinking that she might need the strength to lean on.
Had it been his mother who was crossing the stile, though…
Unaware of how huge and shadowed her eyes had become, she stiffened when Carter asked quietly, ‘Are you all right, Elspeth? It’s a hot day, and although I’m delighted that you’ve decided to come down…’
He was going to make some comment about the unsuitability of her clothes, she knew it, Elspeth thought, her whole body tensing as she prepared to reject whatever it was he was going to say, but instead, apparently oblivious to her tension, he simply went on calmly, ‘You shouldn’t have gone to the trouble of lugging that heavy basket down here.’
‘I thought you might both like some coffee,’ she told him gruffly, too grateful to him for not mentioning her clothes to prevaricate.
‘That was very thoughtful of you. Here, let me help you over the stile. No, you put the basket down. I’ll take care of that.’
The heat must have had more of an effect on her than she had realised, Elspeth thought dizzily as she weakly put down the basket and allowed Carter to come so close to her that she could actually smell the hot male scent of his skin.
Such an unexpected and intimate awareness of him as a man—earthy, sweaty, vigorous and somehow or other, in the most startling way, producing a shockingly erotic response within her own body, kept her standing as tense and still as a statue, so stunned by her own response to him that she had no intimation of what he intended to do, until he suddenly swung her up into his arms and advanced towards the stile.
She tried to protest, but the unexpected sensation of being off the ground, of being totally dependent on the physical strength of another human being made her feel so vulnerable that she clung instinctively to him, her protest that there was no need for him to carry her and that she could quite easily walk shockingly smothered against the bare flesh of his throat as he shifted her weight slightly so that he could mount the stile steps.
It seemed he had heard her, though, because he replied casually, ‘It’s easier this way. Saves you having to tussle with that skirt of yours—or even worse, damage one of your ankles.’
She stiffly tried to hold herself away from any contact with his body—an almost impossible task, when he was insisting on carrying her in such a way that she seemed to tilt into it in a manner that was quite shockingly intimate.
Her heartbeat seemed to have accelerated to at least one and a half times its normal beat; her chest, she suddenly discovered, seemed to have trouble expanding enough to allow her to breathe normally. She closed her eyes dizzily, telling herself that if she could just blot out the sight of Carter’s body, so erotically filling her vision, these unwelcome sensations would no doubt disappear, but immediately she did so Carter stopped moving, causing her to open them again very quickly.
She told herself it was the unfamiliar vulnerability of her position that caused that odd ripple of sensation to shiver caressingly down her spine as she found herself looking directly into the watchful depths of his eyes.
‘Are you all right?’
The words seemed to rumble from somewhere deep in his chest, so that she felt as well as heard them. Amber eyes should look cool and aloof, not—not warm…and—and concerned, she decided muzzily as she dragged her gaze away from them and tried to focus on something safer, but Carter had shifted her weight slightly and his forearm blocked her view.
Odd how she had never realised before how very virile a man’s arms could be. Carter’s were wired with hard muscle, covered in firm, tanned flesh and dark hair which shone silkily in the hot sun. As she stared at him, wondering why on earth her mouth had gone so dry, and why she should suddenly suffer a deeply embarrassing and totally unthinkable compulsion to reach out and run her forefinger lightly down the hard curve of that forearm, the hairs on it suddenly lifted, just as though she had actually given in to that compulsion and caressed him, just as though he had looked into her mind and seen laid bare there the confusion and shame of what she was feeling.
Shock made her turn her head as though in rejection of what she was thinking, her gaze momentarily locking with his. He was, she saw, looking at her sternly, a tiny frown quilting his forehead, his mouth suddenly hard with tension.
‘You don’t feel faint or anything, do you?’ he asked her abruptly.
She had been so convinced he had known exactly what kind of effect he was having on her that it was several seconds before she realised he had totally misinterpreted her reactions. When she did, she seized gratefully on the excuse he had unwittingly offered her and said, ‘No… No, I’m fine. If anyone’s feeling faint it ought to be you. There was really no need to carry me over the stile, Carter, I was perfectly capable of climbing it for myself. In fact, to be honest with you I would have preferred to be allowed to do so. The days are gone when women found it flattering to be treated as helpless pieces of china,’ she added for good measure, her voice almost tart, as he completed his task and swung her carefully to the floor.
Not for the world did she want to admit to herself how much she missed the warm contact of his flesh against hers; and she certainly did not miss that odd breathless sensation that had swept through her…nor that idiotic awareness of him as a man, that unseemly desire to actually reach out and touch him. What on earth could have possessed her?
Flushing guiltily as she remembered unwillingly all that she had felt, she bent her head and made a pretence of dusting down her suit.
She was behaving ridiculously. She had never reacted like that to the sight of Peter’s arms. Reluctantly, she was forced to admit that poor Peter physically was nowhere near in Carter’s class. His body, while not precisely puny, was quite obviously that of a man who worked with his brain rather than his body. Peter burned in the sun, and for that reason never exposed himself to it. From what she could remember of the odd times she had seen him wearing a short-sleeved shirt, his arms were pale, almost hairless. Certainly they had never aroused in her the shockingly indecorous sensations that she had experienced just now—thank goodness. One thing she did know was that Peter would have been as horrified as she was herself if they had done so. Her reaction to Carter had been so…so primitive, so…so shockingly intense, so…so out of character, she thought helplessly, as she waited for hi
m to retrieve the basket and rejoin her.
When he did so he was looking rather grim, she noticed, and, forcing herself to remember exactly why she had come out here, she told herself that he was no doubt surprised and not very pleased to see her.
She saw that John was using a rotavator to break up the soil, and while she watched, desperately focusing on the other man in an attempt to appear totally oblivious to Carter’s presence, she forced herself to concentrate on the reality of what he was doing here.
No doubt that small piece of pseudo-gentlemanly by-play over the stile had simply been a means of getting under her guard, of putting her off the scent, and she—poor fool—had reacted to it as though she were sixteen years old and never been held in a man’s arms before—never been kissed.
Kissed… Suddenly, traitorously, her thoughts rioted out of control, as she wondered what it would have been like if Carter had kissed her; if, when he had looked into her eyes then when he’d been standing on the stile, instead of looking away he had lowered his mouth to hers.
She discovered that her mouth had gone dry at the thought, that a nervy tension was gripping her stomach, and that inexplicably her lips were tingling slightly. She ran her tongue over them in nervous exploration as though she was terrified that, by some osmosis, she would discover an alien male taste clinging to them.
‘Look, are you sure you’re all right? This sun is very hot.’
Instead of being grateful that he had mistaken her reactions, Elspeth discovered that she was actually quite cross. ‘I’m perfectly fine,’ she snapped back at him. ‘And as for the heat, this is my home, Carter. I might live in London now, but I’ve spent all my growing years here in Cheshire—under the heat of its sun,’ she added sarcastically, and then before he could say anything she asked, ‘What is John doing?’
‘He’s preparing the ground for sowing. Your mother wants to try producing more soft fruits; one of the restaurants she supplies specialises in a range of soft fruit desserts and they’re very interested in anything she can grow here organically. We’re having trouble with the rotavator though. We could do with one with a bit more power.’