by Maggie Cox
‘So…so hot…’ she murmured, moving her head from side to side. ‘Need some…water…’
‘Here.’ Sliding his arm round Jenny’s shoulders, Rodrigo helped raise her head, then reached for the carafe of water on the nightstand. Pouring some into the matching glass, he touched the cup to her lips. She sipped thirstily, some of the liquid escaping to streak down her chin onto her gown.
‘Please…let me lie down again.’ Her sky-blue eyes opened wide to stare up at him. ‘You—you shouldn’t be doing this.’
‘Why?’ Rodrigo smiled, lifting an eyebrow at the flash of lightning outside the window that for electrifying moments dwarfed the dim glow of the lamp. ‘What else should I be doing on a night like this? You are ill, Jenny, and I am the only one around to take care of you.’
‘But you—you’re not responsible for me any more.’ As she bit down anxiously on her quivering lower lip her feverishly bright blue gaze was shrouded in tears.
‘Do not talk further…you will only distress yourself. Rest. That is what you must do now. It’s all you can do.’
Moving back to the bathroom, Rodrigo searched through the mahogany cabinet for some of the regular medication that was recommended for flu and fever. The doctor had advised him to give some to Jenny just as soon as he could. It would settle her and help her have a more comfortable night. Discovering an unopened packet near the back of the cabinet, he scooped it up in triumph and not a little gratitude.
It wasn’t the easiest task to get her to take the two capsules he placed in her hand. She was trembling so violently with fever. Fear slashed through Rodrigo’s insides that she might take a turn for the worst after all. If she did then that singularly unhelpful doctor would rue the day he had refused to come out to her, he vowed passionately.
Biting back his apprehension and doubt, he persuaded Jenny to swallow the pills with a slurp of water. With her eyes closed again, she turned onto her side. A couple of minutes later she displayed all the signs of sleeping deeply.
Freeing a relieved sigh, Rodrigo scraped a hand round his stubbled jaw, studying her closely, with microscopic thoroughness. It was no hardship to watch her…not when she resembled some slumbering angel lying there.
Downstairs in the kitchen, a gratingly anxious meow greeted him. Smiling, he dropped to his haunches to gather up the softly striped ball of fur that had instantly pressed against his ankles, as though desperate for reassurance. The feline was clearly jittery about the storm, and he took a few moments to pet and make a fuss of her before popping the animal back onto the woolly plaid blanket in her basket beside the range.
Making a swift inspection of his surroundings and spying the uncovered cake of which he’d enjoyed a slice earlier, he replaced the lid on the tin so it wouldn’t dry out. Satisfied that all was as it should be, he flicked off the lights and headed back upstairs. Dropping by his bedroom first, Rodrigo grabbed some paperwork relating to the meeting rearranged for the following day, dragged the satin quilt off the bed and returned to Jenny, unable to suppress the concern that had been building inside him ever since she’d fainted into his arms earlier. He was anxious to ascertain how she was doing.
He saw at once that she was still asleep, but even so he laid his cheek briefly against her chest to reassure himself that the soft rise and fall of her breathing was progressing normally. The action sent a spasm of volcanic need jackknifing through his body that almost tore his breath from his lungs. The sweetly intoxicating scent of her flesh combined with the touch of her soft breast beneath his cheekbone almost made him forget she was ill and made him long to be able to lie down beside her instead.
He glanced ruefully across at the rattan-cushioned chair he planned to spend the night in to watch over her, and his sigh was stoic. He didn’t suppose he would get much sleep at all tonight, no matter where he slept. Not when he needed to keep his wits sharply about him to take care of Jenny. In four hours’ time he would get her to take another dose of flu medication. Before that he would be sponging her down with tepid water again, to cool her temperature.
Moving across to the chair, Rodrigo stared down at the sheaf of papers in his hand. His reluctance to give the words on the page the proper attention hardly surprised him. Not when every sense and faculty he possessed was completely given over to the welfare of the lovely young woman sleeping fitfully in the bed before him. His unexpectedly dedicated commitment to his former wife left him with little desire for anything else right now.
If Jenny were well, no doubt she’d find it quite ironic. She firmly believed he had no inclination to care for anyone but himself. Many times during the brief year they’d been together she’d bemoaned the fact that he was too wrapped up in his work to spend proper time with her. Eventually Rodrigo had had to face up to the fact that he was poor husband material because it was true…he was married more to his work than Jenny. And that was ironic too, really, when he considered the simplicity of his mother’s long-ago hope for him. Her heartfelt desire had been that her only son would find a warm, loving partner for life, father a healthy brood of children and then settle down somewhere he could be happy—preferably somewhere in Andalucia—and be content for the rest of his existence.
It was his father who had conditioned and programmed him from an early age to seek the lucrative rewards of a successful career in business. Benito Martinez had all but banged the idea into Rodrigo’s head with a sledgehammer, giving him no choice to explore the alternatives. As a young man Benito had tried and failed to make his fortune from a house-building business. He had made some poor financial decisions and—to his shame—had lost everything. If Rodrigo achieved success in business then he, Benito, would truly be able to hold his head up in their village at last, and show them that the Martinez name meant something.
The implication had been that until such a time he would remain disappointed. And in pursuing an idea that hadn’t even originated from him Rodrigo had learned that sometimes children were expected to fulfil the frustrated dreams of their parents instead of following their own…
The most disturbing images and feelings had been running through Jenny’s brain. Nearly all of them involved a man who looked as if he’d stepped out of a Renaissance painting. Such endlessly dark soulful eyes he had, such glossy black hair and a heavenly shaped mouth. His beautiful face haunted her. His warm accented voice took her to a land of hot sun, cool Mediterranean waters and the echo of an ancient drumbeat that had been the heart of its people for centuries. Her Renaissance man also had powerful muscular arms that could carry her anywhere he wanted if Jenny allowed it, and those arms seemed to represent security and safety and something else—something essential that she’d longed for. It didn’t matter right then that her fevered mind struggled to put a name to it.
A choking cough suddenly seized her. Each breathless convulsion was like a scythe slicing through her brain, it hurt so much. The arms she had dreamed of were suddenly holding her up, lifting a glass of water to her parched lips, patiently supporting and encouraging her as she gulped thirstily. Sensing her hand tremble where it circled the glass, Jenny gripped it a bit too tightly to still the tremors and accidentally tipped half the contents over her nightgown. The icy water that connected with her heated skin was akin to the touch of the coldest steel blade, and she gasped in shock.
‘Oh, how stupid! What have I done?’
‘It’s nothing to be anxious about, querida, and nothing that cannot be put right in a moment. Here…I will help you remove this, then get you a towel and a clean gown.’
Before Jenny could find the strength even to protest, Rodrigo was lifting up her nightgown, bunching it into a ball, and heading off into the bathroom. Too sick to mind that he’d just seen her naked, she crossed her arms over her chest, shivering violently from a combination of fever, cold, and pure distress that she was too weak to help herself. He returned quickly, to drape a large bathtowel round her shoulders. The floral smell of lavender-scented washing detergent as well as the disturbi
ngly sensual whiff of her ex-husband’s aftershave permeated her fogged brain to cause a faint skirmish of acute awareness deep in her belly.
‘Thanks.’ She couldn’t bring herself to raise her eyes to look at him.
‘Where do you keep your clean nightgowns? In that chest of drawers over there?’
‘The second one down.’
As deftly as he’d removed the wet nightgown, Rodrigo slid a fresh one down over Jenny’s head and shoulders, with the same pragmatic ease. Outside the bedroom window another starburst of vivid white lightning followed by another rumble of thunder reminded her that the persistent storm had not yet exorcised its rage.
A sense of feeling safely cocooned here inside, whilst the elements caused mayhem around them, rippled beguilingly through her. It was no good feeling resentful or embarrassed about needing Rodrigo’s help tonight, she concluded wearily. All she could do was surrender to the deep malaise that dragged at her limbs and made her head feel as though it was stuffed with cloth and pray and hope that when the morning came she would be over the worst and finally able to care for herself. Till then, she had no choice but to leave Rodrigo in charge.
Lowering her head resignedly against the pillows once more, Jenny shut her eyes to the surprising and hypnotic sound of his husky velvet tones softly singing what sounded very much like a lullaby in Spanish.
Chapter Four
IN THE space of a heartbeat a lovely consoling dream—a dream about a man who had a healing touch and a honeyed voice to match—turned into a nightmare of a passage in darkness, with flames licking under the only door. Jenny’s pulses were wild with terror. Suddenly it was impossible to breathe. Consumed with fear that she would die there, she let words tumble from her lips incoherent and terrified as she pleaded to be rescued—pleaded for her very life.
Strong hands imprisoned her wrists and implored her to calm down in case she hurt herself. It was all right, the disembodied voice soothingly promised. Nothing was going to harm her—he would make sure of that.
As awareness of her true surroundings returned, Jenny stared frantically at the lean, high-cheek-boned face that stared back at her with rock-like steadiness in his depthless black eyes, as if whatever troubled her—however big or small—he would handle it. Her heart continued to thump crazily beneath her ribs until bit by agonising bit she recognised Rodrigo.
‘It’s all right,’ he soothed again and the kindness mirrored back to her from his glance and his voice was like being in receipt of a warm woollen blanket on a raw winter’s night. Slowly her terror started to recede. ‘You were having a nightmare, baby…but you were here all the time, safe in your bed. You’re burning up with fever. You’re going to have to let me do what I can to help make you more comfortable.’
‘A nightmare…’ she mumbled through the tousled skeins of spun-gold hair that in her urgency to be free had spilled across her face.
‘Don’t move,’ Rodrigo told her firmly. ‘I’ll be straight back.’
True to his word, he was, bringing with him the ceramic bowl refilled with fresh tepid water and a newly rinsed washcloth. Without words he began to apply the cloth to Jenny’s face, neck and shoulders, tugging down the thin straps of her nightgown to do so, smiling directly into her eyes when her gaze dazedly fell into his.
After a while he said, ‘You were screaming, “Fire!”’ Neither his expression nor the tone of his voice changed as he stated this. Calmly and methodically he continued to cool her heated skin with the gently wrung-out cloth.
‘I haven’t had that nightmare in ages.’ A violent shiver bounced up Jenny’s spine like tumbleweed tossed around by strong winds. Desperately she tried to push away the cloying dark remnants of the stark cold horror that had visited her. She felt so weak and ill. But even more than the longing to be free of her sickness she craved the comfort and reassurance of someone who cared about her.
What did it say about her life that in her time of need she had to depend on the man who had left her? Was she destined to pay the price of the poor choices she had made for the rest of her days? She was so tired of being afraid, so weary of waiting for some new disaster to yet again destroy everything she’d once depended upon, leaving her with the sense that she was nervously walking a precipice that at any second she might plunge off.
‘So…what makes you have such disturbing night-mares? Do you know?’
As Rodrigo touched the cool washcloth to the area just below her throat, Jenny shivered again. ‘The house burned down. I—I lost everything…my parents’ photos, the mementoes of mine and Tim’s childhood, all our furniture and belongings…everything.’
‘You were not there at the time? You didn’t get hurt?’
‘No. I was away when it happened, thank God. But every time I dream about it somehow I’m there in the middle of it all and I can’t get out.’
‘Why did you not let me know about this?’ Her ex-husband’s voice sounded fierce for a moment.
‘We’d parted. We were no longer together and it was up to me to handle it.’
Rodrigo breathed in deeply. ‘So what caused this fire?’
‘The police investigation concluded it was an electrical fault.’
‘That was the most incredible bad luck. But we won’t talk about such distressing matters right now. It won’t help. I’m going to give you some more medication to help lower your temperature and then you will sleep again.’
Letting the cloth drop back into the bowl, Rodrigo moved the items onto the nightstand then turned back to Jenny to lightly curl his hand round her delicately made wrist. Adjusting his palm, he thoughtfully stroked the pad of his thumb across the finer skin at the base of her fingers.
‘And this time it will be a healing, dreamless sleep, I am certain…no more nightmares.’
‘You sound so sure.’
‘I am sure.’
‘Why?’
‘Because my intuition tells me so.’
‘You believe in that?’
‘I do.’
After swallowing down the two capsules that Rodrigo gave her with a few sips of water, Jenny smiled shakily. ‘You should have been a doctor.’
‘What? And deprive the hotel business of my incredible flair and superb know-how?’
‘You’d be superb at whatever career you chose, Rodrigo. You would have made the best carpenter too.’
Unable to ignore the weariness that was like a powerful warm wave taking her under, Jenny slid back down into the bed, her eyelids closing even before her head touched the pillow. She’d happily accept the idea of a dreamless sleep, she silently admitted. But she’d equally welcome another dream of a man with sable eyes deep enough to swim in and a gentle sure touch that was far more healing than any medicine…
For a long time after Jenny had returned to the land of sleep Rodrigo sat in the rattan chair, listening to the rain lash furiously against the windows, soberly mulling over what she’d told him about her family home burning down and losing everything.
He had been drifting off himself when her anguished cry had rent the air and sent him bolting out of his seat as if an explosion had just ripped through the room. But even though his heartbeat had thundered in alarm, he’d still had the presence of mind to stay calm, so that when she emerged more fully from whatever nighttime horrors had visited her he could reassure her that it was only a dream. Those incandescent blue eyes of hers definitely didn’t lack courage, but he’d sensed early on in their acquaintance that there was some fragility in her make-up too.
It had made it all the harder for him to end a marriage that should never have happened in the first place. But Rodrigo had been so head over heels in love with Jenny from the instant he’d seen her chatting to a friend, one of the receptionists at the hotel he’d been staying at in London, that for a while he hadn’t been thinking straight.
Now, after witnessing the distress caused by her nightmare, Rodrigo willingly resigned himself to the fact that he would be getting no sleep for the rest of the night
. How could he risk even dozing if that fever of hers got worse? It was vital to stay alert in case he had to make an emergency dash in his car to the nearest hospital. But even the idea of negotiating a safe path through this hostile storm in the pitch-dark, in an area he wasn’t even familiar with, keeping one eye on his possibly dangerously ill passenger as he drove, filled him with dread. Yet there was no question that he would do what had to be done and deliver Jenny safely into the competent medical hands she deserved…
Grimly firming his mouth, he beat his fingers in a soft, restless tattoo on the arms of his chair. It was best not to concentrate on the worst-case scenario, he decided. If Jenny woke suddenly he would not want her to sense that he was rattled by the situation in any way.
Needing a distraction, he reached for the sheaf of papers he had brought from his room, resolving to concentrate.
Two hours later the thunder and lightning was at last a spent force, the storm having subsided to the ghostly sound of the wind rushing pell-mell through the trees and faintly rattling the windows. Judging by the hushed rhythmic breaths that had softly accompanied the reading of his documents Jenny was still sleeping peacefully, and a welcome atmosphere of calm had descended on the room.
His eyes feeling as if he’d rinsed them out with gravel, Rodrigo laid down his papers and stood up. Yawning and stretching, he moved barefoot to Jenny’s bedside. Glancing down at her angelic profile—at the curling dark blonde lashes brushing the tip of her velvet cheekbone, the slim, elegant nose and lips as serene as those of the blessed Madonna herself—he felt a rush of forceful commanding need rock him to his soul.
After helping her change her gown during the night and seeing her naked once again it was hard to get the arresting image of her bewitching perfection to leave his mind. She was so lovely that Rodrigo had to force away the idea of her being with someone else. It made him feel jealous and suddenly possessive. If he had a second chance with her then he would definitely not spend all his time at work. Even he must learn from the lessons of the past.
