by Lynne Graham
Angry tears stung Tabby’s eyes as she stared down at the cheque that Christien had left behind him. With hands that were all fingers and thumbs she tore it up into lots of little pieces. She had not even looked at it to see how much he had been prepared to pay for the cottage. He did not want her in France, but she had already made all her arrangements. How dared Christien assume that he could buy her off and make her do things she didn’t want to do? How dared he call her easy to her face? He had betrayed her, but then he had never given her any promises of fidelity, had he? Nor, she noted, had he mentioned his staggeringly beautiful blonde Parisienne girlfriend.
She would go to Solange’s cottage and she would use it for as long as she wished. It would be a mark of her respect for a sweet woman, whom sadly she had never got to know well. Perhaps at the end of the summer she would take stock on whether or not anywhere in the vicinity of Duvernay was the best place for her to embark on a new life with her son. But as for Christien Laroche, who had already caused her so much grief, he had better steer clear of her from now on!
CHAPTER THREE
A SLIM blond male of around thirty with steady blue eyes and an attractive grin, Sean Wendell walked Tabby back to the town car park. He groaned out loud when he realised what time it was. ‘I’m going to have to rush off and leave you here…I have an appointment with a client.’
‘No problem. You’ve been a terrific help and thanks for the coffee,’ Tabby told him warmly, for her aunt’s former work colleague had proved to be a positive goldmine of local knowledge.
Regardless of the fact that he was already running late, Sean followed her across to the ancient van packed high with possessions. He continued to hover while she climbed back into the driver’s seat. ‘Look, don’t try to unload the van on your own,’ he urged. ‘I’ll come over this evening and give you a hand.’
‘Honestly, that’s very kind of you but I loaded it up, so I should be able to unpack it again.’ Colouring at the continued heat of Sean’s admiring appraisal, Tabby closed the van door and drove off with a wave. She liked him but wished that he had taken the hint that, while she was always happy to have another friend, nothing more intimate was on offer.
It was four o’clock on a warm June afternoon. She had made good time from the ferry port and Sean’s linguistic prowess had speeded up her dealings with the notaire. Now, she was barely twenty kilometres from her final destination. However, as Tabby drove out of Quimper again a glimpse of a shop window full of colourful faience pottery sent her thoughts winging back to her childhood. Her late mother had collected the elegant hand-painted pottery for which the cathedral city was famed and every year a fresh piece had joined the display on the kitchen dresser. Shortly before their move to a new and much bigger house, Tabby’s stepmother, Lisa, had disposed of the whole collection, along with everything else in the household that had reminded her of her husband’s first wife. After her father’s death, it had hurt Tabby to have no keepsakes with which to highlight her memories of her parents.
But on the day that she travelled through Brittany to claim her inheritance, it would have been impossible for her to forget that her mother’s biggest dream had always been to own a house in France. Indeed, by the time that Tabby finally identified the half-timbered one-and-a-half-storey cottage that was screened from the quiet country road by a handsome grove of oak trees, she was very much in the mood to be excited and to be pleased with all that she saw.
The front door of her new home opened straight into a big room with a picturesque granite fireplace and exposed ceiling beams. It was full of character and Tabby smiled. Her smile dimmed only a little when she glanced through a doorway at a kitchen that consisted of a stone sink and an ancient range that did not look as though it had been lit in living memory. The washing facilities were equally basic. However, the final room on the ground floor came as a delightful surprise for it was an old-fashioned sun room with good light, which would make a wonderful studio for her to work in. Up the narrow twisting oak staircase two rooms lay under the eaves. She unlatched stiff windows to let in the fresh air before strolling back downstairs and out of doors.
The garden rejoiced in splendid countryside views, an orchard and a pretty little stream. It would make a wonderful adventure playground for Jake, Tabby reflected cheerfully. Having seen all that there was to see, she endeavoured to take sensible stock of her inheritance. Christien’s description of the property as a ‘glorified summer house’ had been infuriatingly accurate for there was no central heating, no proper kitchen or bath. She had also rather hoped that there would be some furniture to supplement what little she had of her own, but apart from a couple of wicker chairs in the sun room the cottage was bare to the boards. On the other hand, the roof and walls seemed sound, her utility bills would be tiny and, once she was bringing in a decent income, she would be able to add a few frills.
Her good mood very much in the ascendant, Tabby sat down under a tree and took advantage of the provisions she had bought on the outskirts of Quimper. Her hunger satisfied by half a baguette spread with tomatoes and ham and washed down with water, she changed into shorts and a T-shirt in preparation for cleaning the room where she planned to stay the night. An hour later, every surface scrubbed, she unloaded her bed from the van. As the head and footboards were made of wood, getting them up to the bedroom was no mean task, but she persevered and indeed was finally struggling with what was left of her energy to drag up the mattress as well when a knock sounded on the ajar front door.
Having got the unwieldy double mattress squashed round the bend in the staircase, Tabby was lying across it to keep it there while she tried to catch her breath again. Determined not to let go of the mattress, she attempted to twist her head round and peer down to see who was on the doorstep, but it was an impossible feat. ‘Yes?’ she called, praying that it would be Sean Wendell arriving as promised to offer his male muscle.
‘It is I…’ A dark-timbred masculine drawl imparted with accented clarity and awesome cool. ‘Christien…’
She was unable to see him and taken badly by surprise; dismay provoked Tabby into loosing a rather rude word. It was ironic that it was a word that she had never said out loud in her life before and she cringed at her own lack of control over her wretched tongue. In fact she just wanted the ground to open up and swallow her and a fiery blush enveloped her complexion. Had he tried, Christien could not have chosen a worse moment to spring a visit on her.
Entering the cottage, Christien angled his proud dark head back and wondered if she had a man upstairs with her. ‘Are you planning to come down and speak to me any time soon?’
Feeling trapped and foolish, Tabby flipped over and struggled to wedge the mattress in place while she stretched forward as far as she dared in an effort to see Christien. But that movement was all that it took for the bulky item to spring free of her hold. The weight of the mattress against her back dislodged her feet from the step and as the mattress forced its passage back down the stairs at shocking speed it carried her with it. In dismay, she cried out but it was too late: the edge of the heavy mattress hit Christien hard on the knees, destroyed his balance and toppled him before he could move from its path.
Christien fell and he only managed to partially break that fall by bracing strong hands on either side of her startled face. Tabby was winded by the sheer impact of a well-built six-foot-three-inch male hitting the mattress and momentarily crushing the life out of her lower body.
‘Zut alors!’ Christien raked down at her with furious force.
For an instant as she careened down the stairs like a cartoon character on board a novel flying carpet the world had swum scarily out of focus, but now it had righted itself again and Tabby found herself gazing up into dark golden eyes as bright as gemstones in a masculine face handsome enough to take any woman’s breath away. Her slight body stilled taut as a bow string beneath the heavy imprint of his. Something as powerful as it was emotionally painful swelled inside her chest and her throa
t tightened, her mouth running dry. Physical memories were engulfing her to a level beyond bearing for her senses had gone off on a rollercoaster ride of rediscovery.
The clean, evocative aroma that was unique to Christien flared her nostrils: hard male heat braced with a faint exotic hint of citrus. The very scent of his skin was so immediately familiar to her that she was shaken by the leap of her own recognition even at that most primitive level. She searched his lean dark features, her attention lingering on his level ebony brows, straight nose, blunt cheekbones and stubborn jawline, and then she connected with his amazing eyes again and felt a deep, slow pulse begin a slow, dangerous beat way down low in her pelvis. Below her T-shirt, her nipples swelled and tightened into sudden embarrassing prominence. She didn’t want to feel like that, indeed she could barely credit that she could still react to the primal charge of his raw masculinity to such an extent, but it was as though a chain reaction of response had kicked off inside her and, once started, there was no stopping it.
Tabby trembled, her hips succumbing to a tiny, involuntary upward shift and her slender thighs sliding a little further apart to better bear his weight in a movement as old as history itself. That wicked throb at the heart of her could not be denied even while she struggled to recapture her ability to think.
‘What the hell do you think you are playing at?’ Christien demanded wrathfully as in fierce, fervent denial of the burning heat of his own arousal, he began to lever himself up and back from her.
It was those words of his that were Tabby’s ultimate undoing. The mere suggestion that she might somehow have choreographed a mattress to surf down the stairs and knock him off his feet was sufficient to send Tabby into a sudden helpless fit of giggles. Recalling how chillingly impressive Christien’s air of grave authority had been before the mattress intervened, she was in stitches.
‘You think this is funny…huh?’ Christien growled with savage incredulity.
‘I-Isn’t it?’ she prompted chokily.
A split second later, his hot, hungry mouth swooped down to possess hers and killed her near-hysterical amusement at source. He was pure erotic temptation. For the first time in almost four years, electrifying excitement seized Tabby. Her head spun and air rasped in her tortured throat. The explicit intrusion of his tongue in the moist interior of her mouth sent a wave of delirious hunger currenting through her slight body. Her last grip on reality snapped: suddenly she was reaching up to him and no longer a passive partner. Her arms locked round his lean, hard frame, her hands rising to shape his broad shoulders before her fingers snaked higher and delved deep into the black silk luxuriance of his hair to hold him to her.
‘Christien?’
‘Non…’ In an abrupt movement, Christien wrenched himself back from her again. Breathing raggedly, he stared down at her, his smouldering gaze blazing gold, febrile colour accentuating the savage line of his hard cheekbones, ferocious tension written into every hard, angular line of his lean, strong face. In one powerful movement he vaulted upright, but it took every atom of will-power he possessed to step back from her. That acknowledgement both outraged and shocked him but, more than anything else, he was disconcerted by an awareness of exactly what had ripped his formidable self-discipline to shreds a moment earlier: that husky laugh of hers had snatched him back in time to that summer.
He had never forgotten that streak of bubbling, contagious joy that was so much a part of her nature, her childish habit of giggling at the most inopportune moments and in the worst of places, or her mysterious ability to lift him from his darkest moods. Loner and cynic though he was, he had basked in that warmth of hers, the extravagant, trusting ease with which she seemed to love. His hard, sensual mouth set into a tough line. Love as she had offered wasn’t worth a damn but the sex had been out of this world, he reminded himself with bitter amusement.
‘Why did you touch me?’ Tabby condemned shakily.
‘Why do you think, chérie?’ The thickened note in his sexy drawl sent a responsive shiver travelling down her taut spinal cord.
‘You shouldn’t have. That’s all in the past.’ Shaking like a leaf in a cruel wind, Tabby scrambled off the mattress and turned away from him. Her knees were wobbling and her hands were trembling. Her reddened lips stung from the devouring heat of his and more than anything else in the world she just wanted to sink back into the lean, powerful strength of him and taste him over and over again until the terrifying ache of loss he had filled her with had finally evaporated and faded like a bad memory.
And that was not how she should be thinking about a male who had once used her and discarded her again with no more care or consideration than he might have utilised had she given him her body in a casual one-night stand. In fact it was frightening to recognise the longing still pent-up inside her and the extent of her own vulnerability. Where were her pride and her intelligence?
‘How did you even know I was moving in today?’ she demanded, desperate to keep herself busy and stooping down to snatch at the mattress and manhandle it up onto its side again.
Someone who knew that she had an appointment to collect the keys from the notaire had made the mistake of passing on that news to Matilde Laroche and Christien’s working day had been interrupted by his distraught parent and her announcement. He had left his mother in the soothing hands of her doctor but his own patience had been sorely tested. Only once in his life had his late father attended one of Solange’s rustic picnic parties, so his son could not see how the overgrown meadow outside could be regarded by the older woman as being in quite the same category as sacred ground.
‘I can understand that you would want to take a look at your inheritance,’ Christien remarked with studied calm. ‘Naturally you’re curious but I can’t believe that you’re planning to live here.’
‘Why can’t you believe it?’
‘Pas possible…it’s not habitable!’ he retorted drily.
Out of the corner of her eye, Tabby studied him. His silk business suit was a trendy black pinstripe of exquisite cut that accentuated his wide shoulders, narrow hips and long powerful thighs. He looked absolutely gorgeous and, without her even realising it, her sneaky covert glance had become a full-on stare. Cheeks reddening as he elevated a questioning brow at the intensity of her appraisal, Tabby hefted one corner of the bulky mattress up onto the bottom step of the stairs again and slung him an expectant look. ‘Are you going to give me a hand with this?’
Complete disconcertion pleated his level brows.
‘Of course, it must be hard to stay fit when you’re in an office all day.’ Tabby sighed.
An utterly unexpected slashing grin banished the gravity from Christien’s lean dark face. ‘Do you really think I’m about to fall for a bait that basic?’
Riveted to the spot by the sheer charisma of that knowing smile, Tabby tried and failed to swallow. Closing his lean, shapely hands into the mattress, he hauled it up the stairs, negotiated with ease the bend that had caused her such grief and came to a halt in the room where the bed frame already stood assembled. As she reached the doorway he settled the mattress down onto the frame.
‘Where did you find the bed? On a dump?’ he enquired.
‘It’s old but it’s solid.’ However, her bed had come closer to the dump than she would ever have admitted. Virtually all of the elderly furniture and household effects in the van had come from her aunt’s attic and garage, both of which Alison was clearing in preparation for letting her property.
‘You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here,’ Tabby reminded Christien as she bent to rifle the cardboard box of bedding in the corner and emerged with a folded sheet.
Christien studied the sheet she was unfurling and noted that it had been carefully mended with a slightly different colour of cloth. Did people still patch linen these days? He was more shocked than he would have liked to admit by the sight of that mended sheet. He had a vague Cinderella-like image of her sitting darning by candlelight and, in defiance of that
unusually colourful flight of fancy on his own part, he spread his hands in a scornful gesture. ‘Why are you wasting your energy with this? You can’t live here-’
‘You couldn’t,’ Tabby countered, tucking in the sheet at the corners with determined industry, because at least while she was attending to practicalities she was not gawping at him like a lovelorn schoolgirl. ‘You’d be lost without your luxuries, but I’ll be quite happy getting back to basics-’
‘That’s a double bed…who are you planning to share it with?’ Christien demanded without warning.
An image of Jake’s warm little body sneaking in below the covers first thing in the morning to cuddle up to her crossed Tabby’s mind and her green eyes softened and her lush mouth took on a tender curve as she thought of her son.
Raw anger flaring and tensing his hard dark features, Christien strode forward to scrutinise her with brilliant dark golden eyes. ‘If you choose to live on the Duvernay estate, there will only be one man in your bed, and that man will be me…tu comprends?’
In rampant disbelief, Tabby straightened to stare at him. ‘Are you out of your mind?’
‘Is that what you wanted…is that why you’re here?’ Christien purred low and soft, though the sting of that insolent enquiry cut like glass against her tender skin. ‘You want to take up where we left off that summer?’
Without even thinking about what she was going to do, powered by hot, deep anger alone, Tabby slapped him. The crack of her fingers against his bronzed cheek sounded preternaturally loud in the hot, still room. ‘Does that answer that question?’
