He couldn’t help himself.
Just once, he thought, and he leant and took her face in his hands. And kissed her.
Well, why not? The child was deeply asleep on the rug beside them. There was no-one but this man and this woman. And what harm was there in a kiss?
None, but if the kiss was a seal on a promise…
And that was what it felt like. It was a promise half made and now met head-on. Two halves of a whole, meeting and merging and becoming their rightful one.
This was their second kiss. The first had been a kiss of triumph-of warmth and laughter and joy. This took it further. This was no light kiss between a man and a woman with common cause for joy. This was a kiss that took one man and joined him to one woman for ever.
For the heat that flooded through them was unimagined-a heat that neither had experienced before. It felt so right. So much a part of them. Because it was what both had been searching for for life, but neither had known until this moment.
The kiss deepened and deepened again. They were kneeling on the sand, the sleeping child beside them. The waves were washing in and out, unnoticed but forming a glorious backdrop for their passion. The moon was just above the horizon, setting its silver ribbon of light across the surf-aimed just at them.
As a blessing…
His hands held her close, exploring her body, feeling the softness and the yielding wonder of her. His mouth tasted her, savoured her, gloried in her…
And for Molly, after that first moment of shock as his mouth met hers, she knew that this was where she wanted to be for the rest of her life. That whatever this man asked of her she was prepared to give. Because, in a sense, she’d given already. She’d given her heart.
He was so large and so male. The feel of his fingers in her hair sent heat surging right through her body. She gloried in him. Her tongue tasted him, needed him, took him, and when his hands slipped down the soft cotton of her bra and caressed the soft curves of her breasts it was as much as she could do not to groan with pleasure.
Dear heaven… Oh, love…
Her fingers moved to slip inside his shirt so she could feel the nakedness of his chest, feel his nipples, feel the muscles across his chest and the way his whole body was taut with desire. Taut with desire for her.
Oh, love…
This couldn’t last. She knew it couldn’t. Jackson Baird was right out of her league. But for now he was kissing her and she wanted nothing more. All she wanted was that this wonder flooding through them both should be allowed to run its own sweet course-to take them where it willed within the kiss itself.
Neither could break the moment.
Molly’s face was in Jackson’s hands again, and her sweetness was threatening to engulf him. Her joy, her love of life, her laughter-damn, even her efficiency. All of her. All of her was in this kiss, and he’d never felt anything so wonderful in his life.
Her body was pliant in his hands. Her sweetness was in his heart. She was a world away from anyone he’d ever met.
She was Molly…
He wanted her so badly. He felt his body stiffen with desire and gave an almost audible groan. Some things weren’t possible. Not here. Not now. Even if he’d brought precautions, there was the child to consider.
As if on cue Sam stirred between them and sighed in his sleep. Not much, but enough. It was enough to break the link-to let reality glimmer in.
And with reality came confusion. They were left staring at each other in the waxing moonlight, neither knowing where to take this. Neither understanding what had happened. Only knowing that it had happened and life itself had somehow been transformed.
The silence lasted into the stillness as the moon rose over the clouds and burst forth in all its glory. The glimmer of silver became a shaft of glorious, shimmering wonder-they were on a knife-edge and it could go either way.
But in the end sense won. Of course sense won. When had it not?
‘I’m…I’m sorry,’ Jackson murmured into the stillness, and he somehow broke away to stand apart from her. It had needed only that for Molly to haul herself together-to banish the confusion she was feeling and replace the sensation with anger. Sorry!
‘You hardly seduced me,’ she muttered, and pulled backwards, gathering Sam into her arms as though the sleeping child was a shield. ‘It was one kiss-and I kissed you right back.’
One kiss does not a relationship make, her tone said, and Jackson took a deep breath and thought, She’s right. There were so many other factors at play here. This was not sensible. It was not even possible!
His future was mapped out. Sensible and settled. Just him and his half-sister against the world…
‘Give me Sam.’ He stooped and lifted the child from her, using the movement to pull himself together. Then he stood cradling the little boy to him and looking down at Molly as she hauled their picnic stuff together. She wasn’t looking at him.
Maybe she couldn’t.
‘Time to go home?’ he said softly, and she shoved the last things in the picnic hamper and rose. She was angry, but it was impossible for him to tell if she was angry with him or with herself.
‘Yes,’ she said briefly. ‘It’s time to go home.’
‘It’s been a wonderful night.’
‘Apart from the past few moments,’ she muttered. ‘And they were just plain stupid!’
Just plain stupid?
Jackson lay awake into the night and thought about those words. Just plain stupid.
She was right, he thought. It was stupid. Because they were worlds apart.
Why?
The question hammered him in the dark. Why was it so impossible?
Because she didn’t understand.
Understand what?
Understand him.
Hell, he should have had more sense than to ever let a relationship get this far, he told himself savagely in the dark.
Unbidden, a vision of his parents came into his mind-his parents as he remembered them best. He’d been about four at the time, and it was the same sort of ugliness that had dogged him all through his childhood. There’d never been any doubt that his parents loved each other, but they’d seemed intent on destroying each other from the time he could first remember.
So their relationship had been a series of tumultuous merges. They’d come together with mutual need and their love would hold them for maybe a day. Maybe not even for that long. Then the tempers would flare again, with Jackson caught in the middle.
He’d been used as a tool. A weapon.
‘You love me most, don’t you Jackson?’ his mother would demand of him, and his father would grasp his hand and try and drag him away.
‘The boy wants to be with me.’
The boy hadn’t wanted to be anywhere, and the boy who’d become a man was just the same. If that was love he wanted no part of it.
You don’t recover from that sort of damage, Jackson thought bleakly. How could he ever admit to himself that he could love like that? It wasn’t a wonderful emotion you could sink into. It left you exposed to pain and then more pain after that. And then there’d been Diane, and that had hurt still more.
So now he was solitary, and he liked it that way. His father had walked out for the final time when he was ten years old and his mother had punished him the best-or the worst-way she could think of. She’d had an affair that had resulted in Cara-and when that hadn’t been enough for her she’d driven herself furiously into a tree. Because of love…
Love could go take a hike, he told himself into the night. He’d take care of Cara and no one else. He wanted no emotional dependence. Ever.
‘Mr Baird is nice,’ Sam murmured sleepily to Molly as she tucked him into bed. His arms came up to claim her for a goodnight kiss. Such a gesture was unusual, to say the least, and Molly sat down on the bed and hugged him back.
‘Yes, Sam. He is nice.’
‘He kissed you.’
So Sam hadn’t been soundly asleep. There was no sense in denying it.
‘He did.’
And Sam was off and running. ‘Do you think he might like us enough to marry you?’
‘Hey.’ She laughed, but her laugh was decidedly hollow. ‘We’ve only known the man since yesterday.’
‘But he is nice.’
‘He’s very nice. But the man’s a millionaire, Sam. The likes of him don’t look at the likes of us.’
‘Why not?’
‘He’ll marry someone of his own class.’
‘That’s silly.’ He was drifting into sleep but refusing to be shifted from his lovely fantasy. ‘And what’s class?’
‘It’s like the case of Cinderella and the Prince,’ she told him, rumpling his hair and removing his glasses to lay them on the bedside table. ‘The way I see it, it would have been pretty uncomfortable to be Cinderella.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she’d have had to say thank you for the rest of her life and she wouldn’t have liked it.’
‘Maybe Cinderella could have got a job, like lots of married ladies do. Like you.’ He giggled. ‘Cinderella could have sold palaces for a living.’
She grinned at the image. ‘Oh, sure. And she’d sell glass slippers on the side. You’re letting your commercial ventures run away with you, kiddo.’ She kissed him soundly. ‘Now-sleep, young man.’
‘But what about you and Mr Baird?’
‘You know, there’s about as much chance of me kissing your frog, Lionel, and having him turn into a handsome prince as there is of me kissing Jackson Baird and having him propose marriage.’
Sam liked that. He chuckled sleepily and turned towards his frog box.
‘Lionel might like it if you kissed him.’
‘And after Mr Gray went to all that trouble to find a Mrs Lionel for him!’ Molly rose and grinned. ‘Mrs Lionel might have something to say to any frog-kissing I might like to do.’
‘You’re funny.’
‘No.’ The smile died from her eyes as she stooped to tuck his covers closer. ‘Just sensible. Someone has to be.’
‘Miss Copeland?’
After a sleepless night Molly rose early to catch the elderly lady at home. From what she knew of old ladies she’d be more likely to find her alert at breakfast than at midnight, and frankly she hadn’t had herself enough in control to phone last night.
She was right in her guesswork. Hannah Copeland answered on the first ring and sounded wide awake. ‘Yes, dear. I was hoping you’d call.’ Molly had talked to her briefly on Friday night, so the elderly landowner knew what to expect. ‘Does he like my farm?’
‘He wants to buy.’
‘Oh, I am pleased. That’s very nice, dear. Is three million too much?’
‘It’s a very reasonable price. To be honest, you could ask more. If you were willing to subdivide…’
‘No, dear, I do not want to subdivide.’
‘It’s just the place is really worth much more. Are you sure you want to sell?’
‘To the right buyer-yes, I am.’
‘And you think Jackson Baird is the right buyer?’
There was a pause on the other end of the line, as if the lady was considering how much it was wise to tell. Finally she decided to be frank. ‘My mother was a friend of Jackson Baird’s grandmother,’ she told her. ‘She was so worried about Jackson. Has he turned out well, dear?’
Molly blinked. ‘I…yes. I guess you could say he’s turned out very well.’
‘He’s not married?’
‘Um…no.’
‘I didn’t expect he would be after those awful parents.’ She paused as Molly waited. ‘But my mother and his grandmother worried so much about him, and I know they’d approve of me doing this.’
‘Miss Copeland, I don’t think Jackson Baird needs any favours,’ Molly said bluntly. ‘The man’s extremely wealthy.’ She hesitated, but the silence on the end of the line told her to move on. So she did. ‘You did say on Friday that if he was interested there were a couple of stipulations you’d make?’
‘Yes.’
‘The Grays being one of them?’
‘You guessed?’ Her pleasure sounded down the line. ‘Of course. I’d never want Gregor or Doreen to have to move.’
‘I’m sure Jackson will agree to that.’
‘And I trust you. You have a lovely voice. Mrs Gray says you have a little boy?’
‘Doreen rang you?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘You don’t mind that I brought Sam?’
‘Of course I don’t mind, dear. The place needs children. I’d rather hoped that despite his parents’ example Mr Baird might have a wife himself. Do you think he’s the marrying kind?’
Whew. Molly shook her head at that one. ‘I can hardly ask him,’ she said frankly. ‘Don’t tell me you want to make that a condition of sale?’
‘No.’ But she sounded wistful. ‘I’m no matchmaker. But I do want my farm to go to someone who’ll love it as I have.’ There was a pause, then, ‘I’d like to meet Jackson. In person.’
‘I’m sure we can arrange that.’
‘And I want to meet you. Will you bring him to lunch with me on Monday?’
‘I think my boss-’
‘No. You.’
Molly thought that through. Fine. If that was what it took to get a sale… ‘I’ll check with Jackson now. Can I bring the contract to lunch?’
‘Bring whatever you want.’ The old lady’s smile sounded down the phone. ‘But don’t book anything else for the afternoon. I like long lunches.’
Molly had a very long shower and when she met Jackson over the breakfast table she was formality itself.
‘Good morning. How did you sleep?’
He’d decided on formality as well, but now it was pushed on him he didn’t like it very much. Two could play at this game.
‘Fine, thank you. And you?’
‘Like a top,’ she lied.
‘Where’s Sam?’
‘He ate at dawn with Mr Gray,’ she told him. ‘It seems they had an assignation. The frog croaking just before sunrise is truly wonderful. Gregor’s told him that there are ten different species to be listened to.’
‘Fantastic.’
‘It is fantastic.’ She was prattling like a fool, and serving herself far too much from the feast filling the kitchen table. ‘I’ve rung Miss Copeland.’
‘My, you have been busy.’
‘It’s my job to be busy.’
‘Of course.’
‘Don’t you want to hear what she had to say?’ She poured a glass of orange juice so fast she spilled it. Oh, for heaven’s sake, she was acting like a schoolgirl.
‘I do want to hear what she has to say.’ He sank courteously into a chair and waited for her to recover.
‘She says she’ll sell-as long as you keep Doreen and Gregor on and you meet her for lunch on Monday and you turn out to be a nice person.’
‘A nice person?’ He raised a quizzical eyebrow.
‘She didn’t elaborate.’ She shrugged. ‘It seems money itself isn’t the aim of the exercise. I have a feeling if she doesn’t like you-or even if she doesn’t like me-then she’ll pull out of the sale. So it’s up to the pair of us to define nice.’ She already had. She was staring at her plate-at anything rather than him.
But he was looking straight at her, considering. ‘You know, it is underpriced.’
‘That’s hardly the line of an eager buyer.’ She concentrated again on her orange juice-concentrated really, really hard. She didn’t want this man to be nice, she thought. She wanted the ruthless businessman she’d heard of. Ruthless she could cope with. For some reason nice made her want to weep.
Then Sam yelled from outside the window and stomped in to find them. Molly was almost glad of the interruption.
‘We counted eleven different frog calls! Mr Gray says he’s hard pushed to tell the difference, but he’s got a recording that’ll tell us in the library. He says it’s time for breakfast and then we can go swimming. Can we go swimming, Mr Baird?�
�
Jackson’s eyes met Molly’s and he smiled-she was way out of her depth all over again, and she stayed out of her depth all day.
And it was some day-a day full of Jackson. She watched him swim with her small nephew. She watched him patiently take Sam step by step through the early stages of swimming as if he had all the time in the world and this was the most important thing he could do with his time.
She watched him laugh with triumph as Sam conquered floating, and she watched his eyes swing up the beach to find her. The message they held was pure, unadulterated delight. He could as well have been a child himself.
Where was the ruthless businessman now?
She watched him towel Sam dry and tow the sleepy little boy back to the farmhouse. And she watched him devour another of Doreen’s enormous meals and compliment her, then share a joke with Gregor and…
And twist each and every one of them round his little finger, she thought. The man’s charm had them all in thrall.
There was a side to Jackson that she hadn’t seen, she thought desperately. There must be. He hadn’t gained his fearsome reputation for nothing. So beware…
But her heart wasn’t being the least fearful. Her heart wasn’t being the least bit sensible.
Her heart was falling head over heels in love with Jackson Baird.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘FRANCIS?’
‘Mr Baird.’ Roger Francis answered on the first ring and his tension was palpable. ‘What’s the decision?’
‘No decision yet. The property is just what I’ve been looking for but I’m required to meet the owner. It seems the old lady’s only selling if she approves of me and if she approves of the selling agent. She’s set up a lunch for us both tomorrow.’
‘And if things don’t go well?’
‘Then I’ll be back looking at the Blue Mountain property again. And it may well happen. As I said, she seems just as interested in her saleswoman as she is in me. She sounds a real eccentric-but then at her age and with her degree of wealth I guess it’s her prerogative.’
‘Sure.’ But Roger didn’t sound sure. He sounded tense as hell.
Well, it was late on Sunday night, Jackson thought. Maybe he’d interrupted something important. But the man was on his payroll; he was paid to be on call at all hours and he hardly ever earned his keep. And there was something Jackson wanted him to do.
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