Sharp of him. She drew in a deep breath, determined that he would be able to visualise the vibrant combinations of colours she had in mind. ‘That’s right—three walls and one window. I’d like another painted in that very rich, intense, almost royal purple—you know the shade.’
‘And the final wall?’ he queried, deadpan. ‘What plans did you have for that—sky—blue pink?’
‘Gold.’ The same glossy gold which touched the tips of his hair.
‘Gold?’
‘Mmm.’ Holly nodded her head enthusiastically. ‘It’s the perfect wedding colour—it symbolises the ring and it suggests pageantry and ceremony. And I want this shop to really stand out!’
He fleetingly wished that she wouldn’t move with such a refreshing lack of inhibition when she got carried away like that. If only she’d wear a bra. Didn’t she realise how ripe and how luscious such sudden movements could make her breasts appear? The hint of their succulent swell against the simple shirt she wore seemed positively indecent.
He swallowed down the erotic fantasies which were beginning to burgeon into life again. ‘Stand out?’ he quizzed mockingly, reflecting that it was a poor choice of phrase, given the circumstances. ‘It will certainly do that!’ He frowned. ‘Though won’t using specialist paints delay your opening—since I imagine that you’ll have to buy the more unusual materials in London?’
Holly shook her head with a smile ‘Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong! There’s a specialist paint shop right in Winchester—we need look no further than there!’
We.
Her easy use of the word caused Luke a moment of chilly disquiet, until he silently chided himself for his out-and-out arrogance. Was he now worried that Holly was getting possessive, or passionate, about him? When there had been nothing in his behaviour—not a word nor a gesture—which she could have interpreted or misinterpreted as some kind of come-on.
Holly saw the way his shoulders stiffened, and she could sense immediately what he was thinking. Her fingers crept up to cover her mouth apologetically. ‘I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to be presumptuous.’
He shook his head. ‘You weren’t being presumptuous. And we’ll both go into Winchester to choose your paint.’ After all, he was the one who was paying for them’
‘But aren’t you...?’ She found that her words were tripping over themselves, as though they couldn’t quite decide in what order to leave her mouth. ‘Wouldn’t you...?’
He looked into her widened green eyes with something approaching amusement. ‘Wouldn’t I what, Holly?’
‘Wouldn’t you rather be doing something else?’
He most certainly would.
Her words created such a shockingly graphic image in his mind that Luke briefly closed his eyes in despair. It was simply sexual attraction, he told himself over and over again, as if repetition would make it more believable. Nothing more than that—a combustive hormonal reaction which she had provoked in him, and which would fade as inevitably as the sunlight would fade from the afternoon sky. Was she aware of it, too? he wondered. Did it pulse and hum around her, too—the feeling almost palpable?
His mistake had been to take her into his house in the first place. To rush in playing the Good Samaritan, trying to fool himself into minimising the potency of the attraction he felt towards her—as if, by rationalising it, it would go away of its own accord.
Because it wasn’t conveniently disappearing, and he somehow doubted that it would—unless you took sexual attraction through to its natural conclusion, which he had no intention of doing. For how could it disappear, if she continued to haunt him with those emerald eyes and that pale skin, and the careless cascade of coppery curls?
Maybe she was destined to always be one of those ‘if only’ women—if only he’d met her when he’d been in that sowing wild oats stage of his life. Holly Lovelace was enchantingly beautiful with her wild, artistic looks—great for a tempestuous affair, but...
The sooner she was set up in her newly decorated shop and out of his life, the better—and, just in case he was forgetting, he wasn’t in the market for a lover.
‘There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing,’ he lied. ‘And besides, Margaret is coming in to clean the house this morning, so we’ll leave for Winchester just as soon as you’re ready.’
Winchester was crowded.
Luke looked at the throbbing crowds in disbelief. ‘Where’s the execution?’
‘Sorry?’
‘I mean, why else could all these people be here?’
‘They’re Christmas shoppers,’ explained Holly, craning her neck to gaze up in awe at the cathedral.
‘But it’s only November!’ he scowled.
‘And some people buy their Christmas presents throughout the year. Apparently,’ she added hastily, in case he thought that she was among them!
Luke stared at the looped ropes of fairy lights which twinkled in one shop window, surrounding the puffy cheeks of a beaming cardboard Santa. The same compilation tape of Christmas songs seemed to be blasting out of every shop they passed. He shook his head and thought longingly of the stark beauty of Africa. ‘It’s crazy—crazy—this whole commercial Christmas trip! A celebration of consumption and consumerism!’
Holly shrugged, pleased to hear his views echoing her own. ‘I know. I keep planning to go into hibernation!’
They passed a florist’s, where pots of fragrant winter jasmine were stacked next to the gaudy crimson of the seasonal poinsettias. Luke saw a wreath—glossy green and spiky, and studded with berries the colour of blood. Ignoring the appreciative ogling of a young assistant through the window, he slowed down.
‘I guess it’s your birthday soon?’ he hazarded.
Holly blinked. ‘How did you know that?’ she demanded, and then laughed as she looked down and spotted the holly wreath. ‘Oh!’
‘Well, it’s a Christmas name, isn’t it?’ He looked at her, a question in his eyes. ‘Usually.’
‘Yes, you’re right. I was born on Christmas Eve.’
“‘The night before Christmas?”’ he quoted softly, until something in her eyes made him ask, ‘But you don’t enjoy your birthday?’
Maybe other men had always just asked the wrong questions in the past. Or maybe this man just asked the right ones. Whatever his gift, Holly found that she wanted to tell him things—personal things—in a way which was definitely not her usual style.
‘No, I don’t,’ she told him slowly. ‘Or, rather, I didn’t—not when I was little. It’s a difficult night of the year to get a babysitter—a fact that my mother never failed to remind me of. When I was older, she used to leave me while she went out, and in a way I preferred that. Less pressure—’
‘How old?’ he interrupted savagely.
Holly thought back. ‘Ten. Eleven. But people weren’t so paranoid about leaving children then,’ she added hastily, as some innate loyalty to her mother made her want to defend her.
‘And did you get presents?’
‘Oh, yes. Huge presents sometimes—if the boyfriend was rich enough. Other years they were a little thin on the ground.’
He said something very soft beneath his breath.
Holly dodged a shopper who was steaming down the high street like a Sherman tank and sneaked a glance at Luke’s hard profile. ‘So how did you spend your Christmases in Africa?’
His mouth tightened as he found himself reluctant to think about it—let alone talk about it. Last Christmas he had spent with Caroline. She had flown in from Durban and had managed to create a traditional turkey dinner on his antiquated old stove. She had even brought linen napkins in her suitcase, and her gift to him had been fine crystal glasses, out of which they had drunk champagne, although his throat had been so dry with the heat that he would have preferred beer. She had raised her glass to him and, in that freeze-framed moment, had seemed to personify calm. An oasis in the hurly-burly of what his life had been up until that point. She had talked wistfully of the babies she longed to
have, and everything had suddenly seemed to make perfect sense.
He’d remembered fragments of a conversation he had once had with an Indian friend, and these had drifted back to him as he’d stared into Caroline’s serene face. It had been one of those East versus West debates. Dhan had said that it did not surprise him that the Western ideal of basing relationships on romantic love should be doomed to failure. Compatibility and respect were far more important in the long run. And Luke had agreed with him—every word.
Luke watched now as Holly excitedly browsed through paint charts, impatiently scooping great handfuls of fiery curls away from her pale cheeks.
He wanted her, he thought guiltily. Far too much.
He cleared his throat and spoke to the assistant, who had spent the last ten minutes gazing at him mistily. ‘I presume you have professional decorators you recommend?’ he asked.
The assistant nodded and fluttered her lashes at him. ‘Oh, yes, sir!’
He gave her his lazy smile. ‘So how soon could I have a shop decorated?’
The assistant paused. Some people you could fob off. Others you wouldn’t want to. Some people came into this shop with their symbols of wealth ostentatiously displayed. This man wore faded jeans and a sheepskin jacket and a pair of desert boots. There was no expensive watch gleaming discreetly on his wrist, and yet he exuded that certain something which spoke of power.
The assistant gave a smile she reserved solely for the really hunky customers. ‘How soon do you want it decorated, sir?’ she asked him pertly.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘SO—’ LUKE handed Holly a cup of coffee and tried to inject a little enthusiasm into his voice. ‘A week to go.’
‘And counting.’
They looked at one another in silence over the breakfast table.
‘It’s been less... problematic having you here than I thought,’ Luke said heavily. He had been down to the shop first thing, irritated to discover that for the first time in his experience, the building work was actually coming in on time!
‘Well, it isn’t quite over yet,’ said Holly.
‘No.’
The thought of moving out appalled her; she felt extremely comfortable where she was, thank you very much. And she liked Luke—she liked him a great deal.
Not that she had anything to be miserable about, not really. The business part of her—though still in a very embryonic state—was delighted that all the work on the shop was going according to schedule. It would be wonderful to hang a sign on the door saying ‘Open’. To have all those dewy-eyed brides-to-be arriving and flicking through her sample swatches of Thai silk and duchesse satin.
But these past few days in Luke’s company...
Holly sighed, recognising that somewhere along the way she had become completely captivated by him. Whether or not he had intended for it to happen, she didn’t know. She certainly hadn’t intended to be held in thrall by those faded denim-blue eyes and the dark hair kissed with gold...
And when she thought about it logically, it wasn’t really surprising that she was so reluctant to move out. There couldn’t be many women who wouldn’t enjoy sharing a house with a man like Luke Goodwin! A man with manners, who cooked, who read and who could make her laugh.
In fact, his only fault—apart from his unfair attraction to the opposite sex—was a distinct bossiness, and the idea that he was somehow always right.
He gave her a challenging look over the breakfast table. ‘Right, Holly,’ he said sternly. ‘You might as well get your car looked at. You’re not using it much at the moment. There’s a Beetle dealer in Winchester—he can tell you what it’s worth, if you really want to sell it.’
‘I can’t remember saying that I wanted to sell it,’ she objected.
‘Didn’t you?’ His eyes were baby-blue innocent. ‘Well, it’s up to you—but think of frosty mornings like yesterday, when it wouldn’t start.’
When the car had glittered like a magnificent red and yellow jewel—but Holly’s breath had been great white puffs of smoke, and her fingers had ended up blue and numb. And Luke had actually scowled, and got angry, and told her she was irresponsible, and asked how she was intending to cope if it broke down in the middle of a country lane at the dead of night.
‘Okay,’ she sighed. ‘Let’s go and see the car dealer.’
He drove her into the city, where she was quoted a very healthy price which made her think seriously about selling. And while they were in town she went to see the signwriter whom she had persuaded to decorate the front of the shop in the most unforgettable and spectacular style before Saturday.
It was almost six as they drove along the back roads out of Winchester towards Woodhampton, and Luke glanced over at her in the dim light of the car.
‘Fancy stopping off for supper on the way home?’
‘I’d love to,’ she whispered in delight, then could have kicked herself. How did she manage to come over like a sixteen-year-old being asked out on a first date!
Luke frowned in the semi-darkness. She confused the hell out of him; she blushed, she stumbled, she turned wide green eyes on him which made him feel guilty for wanting her. Which he did. Still. Frequently.
Sometimes she sounded as naive as a schoolgirl. An image which did not tally with the foxy way she had of looking at him sometimes. Or the way she looked herself... Today she was wearing dark velvet trousers which clung sinfully to those long legs of hers as she crossed one slim ankle over another. He tore his eyes away only just in time to narrowly miss bumping over a rock on the side of the road.
‘Damn!’
‘Don’t swear, Luke,’ she commented mildly.
Then cover up, he felt like saying, but resisted.
At the pub they settled down to eat plates of curry and half-pints of lager.
‘That was good,’ said Luke, wiping his mouth with a napkin and pushing the empty plate away. ‘Reminds me of Sunday lunches out in Kenya.’
‘Does it?’ She stared at a piece of poppadom. ‘And did you eat these?’
He grinned. ‘Sometimes.’
‘So was life very different out there?’
‘Different to what?’
‘Well...’ she looked around the pub, glittering and gaudy with metallic streamers ’...different to this.’
He looked at her. At the way her hair blazed like the sunsets he’d watched while drinking a beer in the hot dust at the end of the day. He thought about it. ‘Yeah. Very different. The days are ruled by the seasons and the animals’
‘And was it a very big game reserve?’
He smiled then, a relaxed smile, thinking that she asked questions with the absorption of a child. ‘There aren’t really any little reserves, Holly’ You need a plane to get around. I used to fly my little super-cub over the place—checking the herds and counting the game. Sometimes I’d get up early at six, and take the hot air balloon up—’
‘Seriously?’
He smiled. ‘Sure. It’s the best time of all—very, very beautiful, and the wind is quite still. The animals don’t even know you’re there, and you can see cheetah kills or check if any damage has been done by the odd rogue elephant. If there were any injured animals I’d go back for them with a vehicle, and bring them back and tend to them.’
‘And you loved the animals?’ she quizzed softly.
‘Not in the way you think.’
‘And what way is that?’
‘It’s not like having a puppy running round the place; not the same kind of thing at all. Man’s relationship with wild animals tends to be based on mutual respect, but they aren’t tame and they never will be.’
‘So they don’t love you unconditionally? I thought that was the thing which motivated people to work with animals.’
He shook his tawny head. ‘Nope. If you’re lucky, you can earn their trust—and that’s a pretty good feeling.’
No wonder he looked so rugged and brown and strong. Holly stared at the strong lines of his jaw and again felt that st
upid urge to trace her finger along its proud curve. ‘I’ve never met a real-life adventurer before.’
‘Hey!’ he contradicted softly, with a shake of his head. ‘It’s just a job, Holly.’
‘Not really,’ she mused. ‘It’s hardly putting on your suit and getting on the 8:05 every morning with a rolled-up umbrella under your arm!’ And it seemed such physical work, too. Most of the men she’d met in her life wouldn’t have been able to punch their way out of a wet paper bag. Somehow she didn’t picture Luke having any trouble. ‘How about time off? What did you do then?’
He looked at her, imagined the vast African sun gilding her hair. ‘Oh, I walked a lot—there are some beautiful rivers out there. Sometimes I camped out under the stars. I grew an orchard of oranges and lemons and had freshly squeezed juice for breakfast. Sometimes I’d get on a horse and just ride.’
‘So it was solitary?’
‘Sometimes.’
She opened her mouth to ask him about women, but something stopped her and she shut it again. She didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to he in bed at night and torture herself—imagining those strong brown limbs tangled with someone other than her.
God, what was she thinking? She swallowed. That she’d like to go to bed with him—that was what she was thinking.
He narrowed his eyes. ‘Why, Holly, you look awfully hot under the collar,’ he commented on a murmur. ‘Why ever’s that?’
‘Too many layers on,’ she mumbled, and took a huge mouthful of lager.
But she might as well have been a nun for all the notice he took of her. In the same situation, any other man might have leapt on her, but, while only a fool would deny that something fizzled through the air between them, Luke behaved like a perfect gentleman. Holly felt protected and safe; safer than she could ever remember.
Just my luck, she thought gloomily that night, as she lay in bed reading what the competition was up to in English Brides. You find a man you can spin wild fantasies about and he treats you like a maiden aunt!
Still, at least there was plenty of work to keep herself occupied, while Luke sat in the study, frowning like mad over his legal documents, or driving out to a farm his uncle had owned on the edge of the county which he said was driving him nuts because no money had been invested in it for years.
One Bridegroom Required! Page 6
