by Helen Brooks
She turned in one angry, sweeping movement and made for the door, but Flynn was there before her, opening it with a flourish as he said calmly, ‘I’ll get Wilf to bring your things down, shall I?’
‘Thank you!’ It was a bark, which made his lips twitch. Marigold saw the amusement he couldn’t hide and willed herself to ignore it, pattering down the hall as fast as she could and into the little corridor leading to her rooms. She opened the door to the sitting room with trembling fingers, so upset she didn’t know if she wanted to cry or scream and nearly losing her balance in the process.
In the event she neither screamed nor cried, but sat waiting for Wilf with a straight back and a burning face once she had closed the suitcase and slipped on her thick fleece. Impossible man! Utterly, utterly impossible man! And she hadn’t asked him for help in the first place. Well, reason interrupted, she had hoped for a lift to Emma’s cottage when she’d flagged him down on the road, but that was all. She hadn’t asked to come here. She hadn’t asked to spend the night. And she definitely hadn’t asked for his opinion on her, or her life.
It was a further ten minutes before Wilf knocked on the outer door, and by then Marigold was calmer, at least outwardly. Inwardly she still wanted to kick something—or someone to be exact. That someone was waiting in the hall when she followed Wilf into the main house, and as the other man continued outside with the suitcase Marigold said very stiffly to Flynn, ‘Would you thank Bertha for me for all her kindness?’
‘Certainly.’ He reached for a leather jacket on a chair near by and pulled open the front door—which had swung partially closed—to enable her to pass through.
‘And I’ll get Emma to pop the crutches back when she arrives,’ Marigold added tightly, hating the fact that he was coming outside to watch her depart.
Only he wasn’t.
The massive 4x4 was parked on the drive with the suitcase on the back seats, but Wilf was nowhere to be seen. Marigold reached the vehicle with Flynn just behind her, and as he said, ‘Here, let me help you,’ she found herself lifted into the passenger seat before she could utter any protest. He then proceeded to walk round the bonnet and climb into the driver’s seat, as cool as a cucumber.
‘What are you doing?’ She knew her voice was too shrill but she couldn’t help it.
‘I thought you wanted to go to the cottage? Have you changed your mind?’ he asked helpfully.
‘No, I have not changed my mind,’ Marigold snapped testily. ‘I thought Wilf was taking me.’
‘I don’t know who told you that. As far as I recall, I said nothing beyond Wilf would bring your case to the car.’
‘But I told you—’
‘Ah, but I won’t be told, Marigold, as I thought we’d already ascertained,’ Flynn said with unforgivable satisfaction. ‘I wouldn’t dream of delegating the responsibility of seeing one of my guests to her new accommodation to Wilf, not when I’m available,’ he added as the powerful engine kicked into life. ‘Wilf will drive your car over at some point in the next couple of days but, as you can’t possibly drive with that foot, there is no hurry, is there?’
It was so reasonable that Marigold felt like a recalcitrant child, which no doubt was exactly how Flynn wanted her to feel, she thought irritably.
The 4x4 ate up the short distance across the valley to the cottage before Marigold could blink, or at least that was what it felt like. She wouldn’t have admitted to a living soul that her spirit shrank at having to enter the damp, dark little house again, but the pale winter sunshine did light up the outside of the cottage beautifully, she thought as Flynn parked at the small gate and then walked round the car to help her descend.
She steeled herself for the rush of damp air and chilliness as Flynn opened the front door with the key she had given him the day before so Wilf could get some heat into the cottage, but instead of the dank, dismal air she remembered the tiny hall was warm and welcoming.
He opened the door to the sitting room for her, and the fusty, damp room of yesterday had been transformed into a still undeniably crowded but bright, warm and charming room. A crackling fire was burning in the grate, two bowls of sweetly perfumed, colourful flowers added a real homely touch, and, with the drapes at the windows pulled back to disclose the white wonderland outside, the cottage couldn’t have been more different from her memory.
‘We’ve kept the heaters on night and day so I’m afraid the electricity might be a bit heavy,’ Flynn said quietly at her side. ‘But it was necessary. Wilf took them away today; now it’s warmed through the fires in here and the bedroom will be enough to keep it up to temperature.’
‘It’s lovely.’ She couldn’t believe how a bright log fire and bowls of flowers could bring such enchantment to a place, but they had. Everything seemed different. She was suddenly seeing the cottage through the eyes of Emma’s grandmother, and her heart went out to the old lady who had fought so hard to remain in her home.
She limped through to the bedroom, where another glowing fire met her, along with fresh sheets and an exquisite broderie-anglaise bed cover in cream linen. Marigold recognised the design. ‘This is one of your bedspreads from the house, isn’t it?’ she said slowly, her eyes taking in more flowers on the dressing table and chest of drawers.
Flynn gave the nonchalant shrug she was beginning to recognise. ‘Spares, apparently, which Bertha had in one of her cupboards,’ he said dismissively.
‘And the flowers?’
‘Wilf has a couple of greenhouses in the grounds. He keeps Bertha supplied with flowers for the house and there are always more than we can use.’
Marigold wasn’t fooled by the casual words. Flynn had organised all this and she was grateful, she really was, but she was frightened of how pleased she felt. He’d do the same for any foundling he discovered lost in the storm, she reminded herself with wry, caustic humour; this didn’t mean anything. And that was fine, just fine, because she didn’t want it to mean anything. She had just come out of one disastrous relationship—she didn’t need anymore emotional turmoil.
‘It’s so different.’ He was right behind her, standing in the bedroom doorway as she turned, and when he didn’t move she said quickly, ‘You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble but I do appreciate it. What do I owe you for the fuel?’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous,’ he said softly.
Marigold could feel her heart racing, a frantic, fast thud that made her unable to think coherently. She stared up at him, vitally aware of the broad male bulk of him and of her own fragility. ‘But I must pay you,’ she insisted faintly. ‘I couldn’t possibly—’
His head lowered as his hands gently gripped her upper arms and the kiss was everything she knew it would be. It was gentle and exploring at first, his mouth caressing and warm and firm, and when she made no effort to push him away it deepened subtly into a sensual invasion that had her making small female sounds of pleasure low in her throat.
‘Your hair feels like spun silk,’ he murmured against her soft lips, one hand entangled in the chestnut veil as he pulled her head back to allow himself greater access to her mouth. ‘And the colours in it are enchanting. I’ve never seen anyone with such beautiful hair; do you know that?’
Marigold didn’t answer him; she couldn’t answer him. She was dazed and shaking, utterly bewildered by the desire he had aroused with just a kiss. A kiss. She had never felt like this once in all her time with Dean.
He took her mouth again, biting gently and expertly at her bottom lip in between kissing her with increasing passion. He had drawn her onto the hardness of his male frame now, their bodies so close she could feel what the kiss was doing for him. One hand was warm and firm against the small of her back and the other was stroking her face, throat and shoulder, soft, sensuous, light caresses that were sending her nerve-endings into quivering delight.
He was so good at this; his mouth first languorous and then fierce, teasing and then demanding as it moved against hers with complete mastery. He was ravaging h
er inner sweetness now and dimly Marigold realised she was kissing him right back, just as passionately.
His fingers brushed against one full breast and then the other before exploring the slender width of her tiny waist, and then, with a low sound of protest deep in his throat, his mouth lifted from hers and he eased her away from him very slowly, still taking care to hold her upright.
‘You see?’ he said very softly. ‘Fire with fire.’
Marigold stared at him, her eyes slowly losing their dazed, fluid expression as reality dawned in all its chilling horror now he wasn’t kissing her any more. This man was someone she didn’t like; they had barely said more than two civil words to each other since they’d first met, and she had allowed him… She didn’t like to think what she had allowed.
He must have sensed something of what she was feeling because his voice was dry when he spoke again, carrying the hidden amusement she’d heard several times before as he said, ‘It’s all right, Marigold. It was just a kiss.’
No, it wasn’t just a kiss, she thought with blinding humiliation, at least not to her. It was easily the most mind-blowing experience of her life and had taught her more about herself in a few moments than in the last twenty-five years; the most important thing being—she didn’t have a clue who she really was. If anyone had told her she could lose her head like this she would have laughed in their face, but it had happened. It had happened. And it mustn’t happen again.
‘Please let go of me.’ Her voice was small but clear, and he complied immediately.
What must he be thinking? Marigold asked herself with silent desperation. One day she was telling him how she’d come to Emma’s cottage to nurse a broken heart—the next she’d practically eaten him alive! She made no apology for exaggerating on both counts.
‘I’m not going to say I’m sorry for kissing you because I wanted to do so even from that first moment on the road,’ Flynn said with careful flatness. ‘Neither will I pretend not to notice that you enjoyed it.’
She didn’t deny this—there would have been no point and Marigold had never been one for dodging the consequences of her actions. Instead she raised her small chin and slanted her eyes—her body language speaking volumes to the tall, dark man watching her so closely—and said tightly, ‘I would like you to leave now but first I must pay you for the logs and coal.’
‘It was a kiss, for crying out loud!’ Flynn rasped irritably, raking a hand through his dark hair in a manner that spoke of extreme frustration. ‘Between two consenting adults, I might add. Now, if we had ended up in bed I might be able to understand you feeling slightly…manoeuvred.’
‘There was absolutely no question of that,’ Marigold snapped angrily. He’d be telling her she was anybody’s next! ‘I barely know you.’
Dark eyebrows rose mockingly as he crossed powerful arms over his chest. ‘Flynn Moreau, thirty-eight, single, and of sound mind,’ he offered lazily. ‘Anything else you’d deem important?’
‘Plenty.’
‘Then we’ll have to see to that in due course,’ he said very softly, and suddenly he wasn’t smiling.
‘I don’t think so.’ She tried very hard to make her voice sound firm in spite of the fact her stomach had turned to jelly. He was interested in her? She couldn’t quite believe it. Men like him—successful, wealthy, charismatic and powerful—went for the tall, leggy blonde model types; Tamara types. Worldly women who knew all the right gossip and wore the right clothes, and who had a list of friends that ran like the current Who’s Who. She was five-feet-four with straight chestnut-brown hair and a skin that sprouted freckles in the summer, and even her mother couldn’t call her a ravishing beauty. Perhaps he thought a little dalliance over the holiday period might be entertaining? Especially as she was on the doorstep, so to speak.
‘No?’ His voice held the softest edge of irony and he didn’t seem at all put out at her refusal to play ball. It confirmed her theory more than anything else could have done. ‘Still pining after what might have been?’
For a moment she didn’t understand to what he was referring, and then she remembered Dean. Dean. Who hadn’t stirred her senses or aroused her body remotely when compared to this man, and who now seemed a very distant memory indeed. Which was frightening, scary, when taking into account that but for Tamara she would now be Mrs Dean Barker. ‘Not at…’ She stopped abruptly when the silver eyes glittered a challenge. ‘No, I am not pining for what might have been,’ she said instead, very slowly and very firmly. ‘In fact, for some time now I’ve felt I had a lucky escape.’ The time in question being since Flynn had kissed her and she’d known, for the first time, what it was like to actually meet a man passion for passion. She would never have felt like that about Dean, not in a million years.
‘But he’s shaken your trust in the male of the species,’ Flynn said intuitively. ‘Hasn’t he?’
Yes, he had, and it was annoying that she hadn’t realised that till now either, Marigold thought irritably. Mr He-Who-Knows-All-Things here would just love it if she admitted that little golden nugget. ‘I’m sorry if that’s the only way you can accept that I don’t want to get to know you any further,’ she said primly.
‘So I’m not right?’
She took a deep hidden breath and lied through the pretty white teeth again. ‘No, you are not.’
He smiled; a predatory, shark-like smile if she thought about it, Marigold noticed uneasily. ‘I’m pleased you’re not an accomplished liar, Marigold,’ he said charmingly. ‘I really don’t like that in a woman. Now, there is a small lean-to and hut just outside the kitchen door; Maggie used to keep the chickens in there when the weather was bad. Wilf’s stocked it with logs and coal—more than enough for a couple of weeks’ fuel—and you must keep the fires going day and night. You know how to bank a fire, I suppose?’
She didn’t have a clue, but she nodded stiffly. ‘Of course I do,’ she said haughtily.
He eyed her mockingly. ‘Plenty of damp slack does the trick, along with tea leaves or vegetable peelings; that sort of thing. Pile it on thick just before you turn in and make sure as little air as possible is getting to the fire. That way you should still have enough glowing embers to get it going nicely in the morning once you’ve scooped the ash into a bucket.’
Quite the little downstairs maid, wasn’t he? Marigold thought nastily, and then felt immediately ashamed of herself when Flynn added, ‘Your groceries are all packed away in the cupboards and the fridge is stocked. There’s no freezer, I’m afraid.’
‘Right, thank you. Now, what do I—?’
‘If you mention payment once more I’ll take it,’ Flynn warned with a glint in his eye, ‘but it won’t be of the financial kind. Do you understand?’
She opened her mouth to protest, looked into his eyes and knew he meant it. Her mouth closed again. She was just eternally grateful he’d never know the way his words had made her flesh tingle and the blood sing through her veins.
‘Take these every six hours; no more than eight in twenty-four hours,’ he warned quietly, suddenly very much the professional as he brought a small bottle of the painkillers out of his pocket. ‘And no more than the odd glass of wine whilst you’re taking them.’
She nodded, wishing he’d just go. She needed time to sort out her whirling thoughts and utter confusion, and whilst he was here in front of her there was no chance of her racing emotions being brought under control.
He stepped closer again, lifting a hand to cup her chin as he said, ‘Goodbye, Marigold.’
‘Goodbye.’ Suddenly, and with an irrationality that surprised her, she wanted to beg him to stay. Which was crazy, she warned herself, wondering if he was going to kiss her again.
He didn’t.
What was wrong with her? Marigold asked herself crossly as she watched Flynn turn and walk to the door. She couldn’t be attracted to him; she wouldn’t let herself be. Her life was difficult enough at the moment and she had some major changes in view for the new year and the last
thing she needed was a complication like Flynn!
She followed him to the front door and watched the tall, dark figure stride across the snow where the path should have been. The blue sky above him was piercingly clear, and a white winter sun had turned the snow into a mass of glittering diamonds in which the indentation of his large footsteps stood out with stark severity. They were like him—utterly larger than life.
Marigold narrowed her eyes against the sunlight as her thoughts sped on. Flynn was one of those characters you came across just a few times in a lifetime; the sort of person who created atmosphere and life wherever they went, sweeping lesser mortals into their orbit for a short time until they moved on to pastures new. It would be fatal to get involved in any way with a man like that.
He had talked about meeting fire with fire, but he didn’t know her, not really. She was just ordinary—she wanted a home and family eventually, with the right man. Most of all she wanted someone who loved her, who was completely hers. Someone who thought she was wonderful just as she was and who would never look at a tall, beautiful blonde with legs that went right up to her armpits.
She watched the 4x4 move away, lifting her hand briefly in acknowledgement of Flynn’s wave, and it wasn’t until she hobbled back into the cottage and made her way into the kitchen, intending to make a reviving cup of coffee, that she even realised she was crying.
CHAPTER FIVE
WITH a determination Marigold didn’t know she was capable of, she put all thoughts of Flynn Moreau out of her mind for the rest of the day and evening. Admittedly he did have an annoying habit of invading her mind if she let her guard down even for a second, but, with the radio kept on pretty loudly and a book in front of her nose which she’d been promising herself she’d read for ages, she managed fairly well.
Once Flynn had gone she’d hobbled out to the kitchen and found the cupboards and fridge stocked with masses of stuff she hadn’t bought, along with several little luxuries that brought her eyes opening wide. Several bottles of a particular red wine that she knew cost the earth; an enormous box of chocolates; a mouth-watering dessert that was all meringue and whipped cream and fresh strawberries and raspberries, and which would easily have served eight people… The list went on.
