by Lynne Graham
‘W…walked,’ Tina gasped out hoarsely on the peak of another frightened sob.
Ran, Kitty translated, eyeing the ripped sleeve on the blouse and the angry scratch on the skin beneath. She must have fallen as well to have ended up in such a sorry state.
‘You gave me a fright,’ Kitty confided.
‘Me?’ Tina struggled against another sob.
Kitty nodded. ‘Wasn’t that silly of me?’
‘No. I’m scared of lots and lots of things!’ Tina wailed shakily.
Kitty abandoned her attempt at a psychological approach and put her arms round the shivering child. ‘You mustn’t be scared of me,’ she muttered awkwardly.
Tina went rigid, but under the influence of soothing murmurs she chose to cling instead and cry all the harder. She was far too worked up to calm down quickly. Kitty took her in by the fire and lost no time in stripping her sodden clothing off. She tugged a rug off the settee which she had moved through from the parlour and wrapped Tina into its warm folds, frowning as she noticed the slap marks imprinted on one skinny little leg. Anger stirred in Kitty. Surely a rebuke would have been sufficient to discipline a child as timid as Tina?
She lifted the phone book. ‘I’m going to phone your house. Your granny must be worried about you.’
‘Don’t wanna go home,’ Tina mumbled.
‘Don’t you want to see Daddy?’ Kitty cajoled.
‘Daddy’s only home when I’m asleep,’ Tina gulped wretchedly. ‘I don’t wanna go home. I’ll get smacked again.’
The phone was answered by Jessie, her voice betrayingly sharp with strain. ‘It’s Kitty. Have you been looking for Tina? She’s here at Lower Ridge with me.’
‘Oh, thank God,’ the older woman gasped. ‘Is she all right? I’ve been looking everywhere for her.’
‘She’s fine. Wet and in a bit of a state, but no harm done.’
‘It’s been one of those days. I was packing for Miss Sophie’s visit to her sister’s and, while I was busy, Tina broke an ornament in the drawing-room. Miss Sophie lost her temper. When she’d left, I went up to bring Tina down from her room but she was gone,’ Jessie relived the experience.
‘How long has she been missing?’
‘Could you bring her home?’ In her flustered state, Jessie talked over her. ‘I couldn’t reach Jake. He’s out on a call.’
Obeying her own instincts, Kitty first persuaded Tina into a warm bath. Between hiccups, she heard all about the ornament and how nobody liked bad little girls. She rolled up the sleeves of one of her sweaters to adapt it for Tina’s use. By the time a plaster was fixed to her arm and she had had a cup of cocoa, Tina was losing her shyness. However, the moment she realised she was going home again, the tears returned and Kitty had to bundle her into the car.
The Range Rover was parked at Torbeck. Assuming that Jake was out in the other vehicle, Kitty lifted Tina unhurriedly from her car. Before she could reach the door, Jake came striding out, black temper etched into the rigidity of his strong features. When he saw Kitty standing there with Tina in her arms, he stilled. ‘I was just on my way over to pick her up.’
Jessie emerged from the house at a trot. Bypassing Jake, she hurried forward and immediately reached for Tina. ‘A fine dance you’ve led me this morning, young lady,’ she scolded.
Tina loosed a gulping sob and clutched frantically at Kitty, whose sympathy had been of the more obvious variety. Jessie bore off the distraught child to the accompaniment of tearing sobs which Kitty found extremely upsetting.
‘I’m sorry that you’ve been inconvenienced like this.’ The apology clearly cost Jake an effort. It was patently obvious that he would rather his daughter had run in any direction other than Lower Ridge. ‘Sometimes I don’t know what gets into Tina.’
Kitty raised a brow. ‘You don’t?’
His jawline squared. ‘She’s very highly strung. Jessie’s inclined to be a little too strict.’
‘It wasn’t Jessie who frightened the child into running away.’ Uneasily, Kitty turned back to the car, prepared to go no further.
‘Meaning?’
‘Forget it,’ she muttered.
A hand clamped to her shoulder, spinning her back with an easy strength that infuriated her. ‘Are you saying that I was to blame?’ It was raw. ‘I wasn’t even at home.’
‘From what I’ve heard, you’re not here very often,’ Kitty returned dulcetly. ‘But it’s none of my business.’
‘You’re damned right, it’s not!’ Tawny anger emblazoned his fierce, narrowed scrutiny. ‘For somebody who couldn’t even bring herself to look at Tina last week, you’re very concerned all of a sudden.’
Guilt attacked her. At first glimpse of Tina, an agonised bitterness had rushed up out of Kitty’s subconscious. Today she had reacted instinctively to an unhappy child in need of comfort. Fond as she was of children, she was ashamed of that initial alienated response and deeply disturbed that Jake should have noticed her revealing lack of warmth.
‘I’ve never had very much to do with young children,’ she parried weakly.
‘Yet you still think that you have the experience to judge me an inadequate father?’ he bit out savagely.
No cooler now in temper, Kitty sent him a contemptuous smile. ‘Well, to be brutally frank, I’m not over-impressed by what I’ve seen so far, and I was even less impressed when you left your housekeeper to deal with her just now.’ She paused, undaunted by the expression of sheer incredulity on his dark visage. ‘No, you don’t like it when the boot’s on the other foot, do you, Jake? You don’t like being condemned without a fair hearing. Now you can understand how you’ve made me feel in the past.’
‘A woman who conducts a particularly public affair with a man of Maxwell’s age and reputation can’t possibly be that sensitive.’ His stare was insolently steady on her whitening face.
Her palm connected with his cheekbone. The blow was instinctive and the sting of the slap carried right up her arm. He didn’t even flinch.
‘So we are that sensitive,’ he gibed, danger sparks entering an atmosphere already overcharged with hostility.
CHAPTER FOUR
KITTY was trembling, badly shaken by her complete loss of control. ‘Much as I might like to stand here trading insults, I’ve got better things to do with my time,’ she said tightly.
Hard fingers lifted at speed to snap round her narrow wrists, preventing her from walking away. ‘And I’ve got a better idea for entertainment,’ Jake blazed down at her.
Employing an ease that outraged her pride, he repelled her puny attempts to free herself and pulled her against his long, powerful length. The heat of his body penetrated her clothing. Her every nerve-ending leapt into an instant overload of shattering physical awareness. Her lips framed tart words of rejection and a crazy heat sprang up in her loins, her heartbeat suddenly thunder in her ears. She didn’t know what she said. The hand clamped to the base of her spine impelled her into stirring contact with the hard thrust of his thighs and her knees went weak.
A kind of feverish panic claimed her. Involuntarily she collided with dark mahogany eyes. ‘No…’ The syllable was slurred.
He raised her up to him and covered her mouth with devastating urgency. Excitement possessed her. A jolt of such wild, tearing hunger followed in its wake that there was no room for all those frantic angry thoughts in her head…those thoughts that should have been there but somehow weren’t. She was in his arms and she didn’t know how she had got there. She couldn’t think, she could only feel. Her fingers sank into his black hair, rejoicing in the thick, silky texture. Her head tipped back, unerringly providing him with easier access, and the passionate fusion of his mouth on hers was ecstasy.
On some distant level of unconcern she was aware that he swept her up and carried her out of the rain which was dampening her skin. When he settled her down again, something oddly coarse and springy met her spine, but the hand skimming impatiently beneath her sweater was more than capable of driving out
that faint discomfort. He thrust the barrier of her clothing away and the burning heat of his mouth engulfed the aching peak of her nipple. A startled cry broke from her. A slow, spreading heat flickered and flamed deep down inside her.
He moaned her name and tasted her swollen lips once more with the same incredible hunger that was controlling her. It was a hunger that had no beginning and no end and, somewhere in the midst of it, they were both irretrievably lost. He ground his hips into her softer curves in a movement that made him shudder violently. He groaned something inaudible and then he swore, freeing her fast of his drugging weight.
Cool air washed her exposed skin. Jessie’s call crossed the yard, loud and clear as a tannoy. Awareness returned to Kitty with the impact of a punch on the stomach. She clawed her sweater down clumsily, straightened her rucked skirt.
‘You make me feel like an animal.’ His savage confession sliced through the simmering silence. ‘But that’s what you’ve wanted from the start, isn’t it?’
A horse shied nervously in a nearby stall. They were in a stable. She wanted to cringe in self-disgust but pride wouldn’t let her. Nothing other than force would have made her look in his direction. She rose with what little dignity she could muster from a bed of flattened straw.
A ruthless hand snapped round her forearm, jerking her back against the brick wall. She almost fell. Her legs were as wobbly as an accident victim’s and, just like an accident victim, she couldn’t yet believe what had happened to her.
‘Isn’t it?’ Hard fingers pushed up her chin, enforcing the visual contact she had shrunk from. A powerful anger simmered in the darkness of his fierce gaze and she felt dizzy again.
‘I don’t know what you’re getting at.’
‘Like hell you don’t!’ he derided. ‘From the first moment outside the cemetery, you’ve been supremely, smugly self-aware that you can make me want you again. I can still see you draping yourself over that pillar like a Venus’s fly-trap…just daring me to touch you.’
‘A…A what?’ She was defenceless under the attack. She couldn’t think straight. In the space of a few crazed minutes, her entire conception of herself had exploded into nothingness, leaving her reeling inside a stranger’s body.
He vented a harsh laugh. ‘It wasn’t intended as a compliment. I was actually stupid enough that day to think it was all an act. The walk, the megawatt smile, the “come close and get burnt” look in your eyes. I’ve seen you do it on TV and you do it well—’ he spelt out with rich, unhidden contempt ‘—the come-on and then the put-down.’
When she made a desperate attempt to slide past him, a strong hand settled on her narrow shoulder to hold her demeaningly captive.
‘Let me go!’ she spat in panic.
‘You weren’t in the notion of going anywhere five minutes ago, so don’t tell me you’re pushed for time now!’
Heat suffused her pallor in a telling wave.
‘My God, Kitty can still blush. Of course, there’s something rather inglorious about the stable setting.’ Smoothly master of himself once more, Jake was coldly cruel as she had never known him before. ‘Tell me, when were you planning to call time? I wasn’t playing one of your little power games, Kitty. I would have had you and to hell with the consequences!’
She gulped strickenly. ‘You conceited b—’
His other hand braced against the wall as she shifted restively. ‘Do you think so? Someone told me recently that it was just a matter of pushing the right buttons and it must be true. What’s wrong, Kitty?’ he chided silky soft, returning her provocation with interest. ‘Do I make you feel threatened in some way?’
She shut her eyes tightly, willing him to leave her alone. Depsite his outer cool, she sensed the subdued violence still pent up just below the surface. The passion that had run riot between them had disturbed him just as deeply. But Jake had changed. How facile of her to imagine otherwise! She didn’t recognise this abrasively masculine and menacing stranger, cutting her to ribbons with his tongue.
‘You used to do that when you were a little girl.’ His dark-timbred voice fractured into roughness. ‘And now you’re all grown up and supposedly able to look after yourself, I still want you so badly that I ache. Does that make you feel better? Does that satisfy you, Kitty? But I’m not taking the heat for Maxwell and I’m not planning to play substitute either,’ he delivered forcefully. ‘So what do you want from me?’
Even with her deliberately heavy steps neither of them had heard Jessie’s approach. She coughed loudly and both of them spun, Jake springing back from Kitty to finally give her breathing space.
‘I put Tina down for a nap and she’s pleading for Kitty to come and tuck her in. She’s taken quite a fancy to you.’ Kitty received a veiled look that lingered. ‘You’d best get that straw out of your hair.’
‘Thank you, Jessie.’ Jake’s inflexion was Arctic.
‘If you want to make a spectacle of yourself in the yard, you draw the kitchen curtains,’ Jessie advised bluntly. ‘I’m not blind.’
Her cheeks a wild-rose pink, Kitty plucked hurriedly at the offending piece of straw snarled up in her hair.
‘I’ll take you upstairs.’ Jake thrust the back door wide.
Overtly conscious of him, Kitty felt a shiver travel through her tensed limbs. A flashfire recall of the hunger that had demanded and consumed her to the exclusion of all else nearly froze her in her tracks. No, don’t think now, you can’t afford to think now… here…
‘I’ll see to that,’ Jessie overruled, bustling forward.
Tina was a minor lump in an overlarge three-quarter bed. Myopic eyes squinted at Kitty over the top of the sheet. A watery smile formed. ‘Can I have a story?’
A tattered version of The Ugly Duckling appeared from under the covers. ‘Daddy says when I grow up I’ll be a beautiful swan,’ Tina shared shyly. ‘You can sit here.’ The bed was patted and when Kitty had begun to read Tina whispered, ‘You can put your arm round me if you like. Daddy does that. It’s nice.’
Kitty rearranged herself. Tina snuggled up against her. ‘I like you.’ She hesitated. ‘Do you like me?’
‘Of course I like you.’ The story, Kitty acknowledged, came a poor second to Tina’s need for affection and reassurance.
The child giggled sleepily over the exaggerated animal noises Kitty used to liven up the text. Long before the end of the story, Tina was fast asleep. As Kitty stood up, she was dismayed to see Jake’s tall, dark silhouette shadowing the doorway. How long had he been there watching her act the clown for his daughter’s amusement? she wondered in angry embarrassment.
‘You do a masterly imitation of a cross mother duck,’ he said as she shut the door behind her.
She spun defensively. ‘I happen to like children.’
A sardonic twist moulded his firm lips. ‘Isn’t it strange that I should have received the impression that you would dislike any child of mine?’
Her breath caught in her throat. ‘That’s a crazy idea,’ she parried, striving to inject the correct note of disdain into her intonation.
Unmoved by her scornful retort, he stared measuringly down at her. ‘You’re like tempered steel under the overwhelmingly feminine exterior. If you’re not trying to put me down, you’re on the attack. I find myself wondering why that should be after all this time…’
Her violet eyes were shuttered pools of vibrant colour in her stilled face. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe and she was sick with fear. Jake turned the tables with a vengeance. Cool, clear intelligence powered his dark, perceptive scrutiny and froze up the muscles in her throat.
‘Why?’ The low-pitched demand rattled down her spine like castanets at a funeral. ‘If I shook you again out from behind that glossy, oh, so superficial fa;alcade, would the girl I remember make a guest appearance? I refuse to believe that you’ve changed out of all recognition.’
He was close again—too close. A treacherous, conscienceless tide of yearning was rising inside her. It was the way he was looking a
t her, the dangerous undertow of tension threatening to suck her down. Under that dark glittering onslaught, her breasts swelled into uncomfortable tightness beneath her sweater. That awesome sexual current was uncontrollable and petrifying. She forced her feet on to the head of the stairs. It was the most difficult movement she had ever made in her life. A piece of invisible elastic wanted to yank her relentlessly back to him.
‘Kitty.’
Her name, and nobody else had ever said it with that exact inflexion. He was nowhere near her now and still she felt cornered. Once, unforgettably, the Tarrant cool-headedness had triumphed over his desire for the Colgan brat. The lesson ought to be engraved in letters of fire on her forehead. It ought to have killed stone-dead the shameful excitement he unleashed in her. That it did not was devastating Kitty all over again.
Fighting to maintain her poise, she said, ‘What would you have done if I’d taken you up on your offer of hospitality?’
‘Stood a lot of cold showers.’ The admission was gritty but quite unapologetic. ‘Every time I see you my most overriding impulse is to flatten you to the nearest horizontal surface. You probably made a wise decision.’
The insanity playing havoc with her senses lost its grip. The elastic snapped. Jake had always been able to stop at the wanting. Always. Leaning forward, her bitterness screened by a mocking smile, she pressed a playful set of fingertips to his shirt-front. ‘Some time, Jake, I really must teach you how to make a sophisticated pass.’
A strong hand caught her fragile wrist, making her planned and immediate withdrawal impossible. ‘Stop it,’ he said very drily. ‘Heaven Rothman goes down like a concrete block with me at any time of day. I’m not impressed.’
Voices from the kitchen were drifting up. Jake uttered a sharp imprecation and mercifully released her. She wanted to lift cool hands to her burning cheeks. He had shot her down in flames.
‘Drew told me what happened. The minute I heard I came straight here. Is Tina in her room? I must go up and see her.’ The breathless, husky voice was suddenly matched to an identity.
