by Anne Mather
Rhys’s grin was sympathetic. ‘Not like my mother,’ he assured her dryly. ‘But I guess it’s something we have in common, hmm?’
His smile was disturbing, and Jordan pushed her hands into the pockets of her shorts and quickened her step. She wondered what his fans would say if they could see her now. No one, seeing them together, would ever suspect he was the ‘pop’ idol who evoked such hysteria at his concerts. He looked like any other tourist, holidaying on the island, and only when she encountered the smouldering brilliance of his eyes did she understand a little of the excitement his musical genius provoked.
‘Slow down,’ he said, his hand descending on her shoulder to retard her progress, and she quivered beneath the touch of those long sensitive fingers. ‘Hey, are you cold?’
‘Cold?’ Jordan’s skin felt as if it was on fire. ‘No, I’m not cold,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Do—do you think you’re going to like it here?’
‘Apart from Ruby, you mean?’ he countered teasingly, dropping his hand, and Jordan expelled her breath with some relief. ‘I think so. I can work here, and that’s important to me. I like—most of the people. I like the climate. And I like my house—your grandfather’s house,’ he acceded, with a shrug.
‘It’s your house now,’ said Jordan quickly. ‘I used to love that place when I was a kid. But after Daddy shut the place up, I never went back.’
‘You should.’ Rhys had halted, and she was obliged to stop, too, or appear rude. ‘I’d like you to see what I’ve done with it. Oh, nothing radical,’ he assured her laughingly, as she lifted anxious eyes to his face. ‘Just a coat of paint here and there, and some new furniture. All in keeping with the character of the place, I promise.’
Jordan dragged her gaze away. ‘Yes,’ she said tautly. ‘Yes, I’d like to see it some time. Thank you.’
‘When?’
‘When?’ She shifted in some confusion, keeping her eyes on the distant horizon, realising her father was unlikely to give her permission. ‘Oh—I don’t know. When you’re properly settled in, I suppose.’
‘I am “properly settled in”,’ he countered dryly. ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you think your old man will let you come?’
Jordan looked down at her toes. ‘I think—it’s unlikely,’ she conceded truthfully. ‘Daddy doesn’t approve of me spending time alone with—with men.’
‘Don’t you mean with boys?’ suggested Rhys shrewdly. ‘I can’t imagine your father foreseeing any possibility of you spending time alone with a man. And I am a man, Jordan, not a boy.’
‘I know that.’ Jordan hunched her shoulders. ‘Like I said, he’s old-fashioned.’
‘And you’re not?’
His eyes mocked her, and she coloured again. ‘Probably,’ she mumbled. ‘Anyway,’ she looked back along the beach, ‘we ought to be retracing our steps.’
‘In a minute.’ His fingers encircled her arm just above her wrist, pulling her hand out of her pocket and turning her to face him. ‘Are you afraid of me?’
‘Well—I wasn’t,’ she murmured uneasily, and his lips parted in reluctant amusement.’
‘You don’t have to be,’ he told her softly. ‘I only want us to be friends. Dig?’
‘Dig?’ Jordan was confused, and Rhys’s laughter was low and irresistible.
‘Understand,’ he explained sobering. ‘It’s an expression, that’s all. Like—like saying you’re getting high, when what you really mean is you’re drunk. Slang, I suppose your father would call it.’
‘Oh, I see.’ She was very conscious of him holding her wrist in his hand. ‘I’ll remember.’
‘Good.’ On impulse, he lifted her hand to his face and bestowed a light kiss on her knuckles. ‘Okay, let’s go.’
Jordan’s legs felt decidedly shaky as she followed him back across the road to the jeep. It was ridiculous really, she chided herself. He hadn’t done anything; only brushed her knuckles with his lips, and that was nothing really. But her skin tingled where his lips had touched, and she was supremely conscious of his lean body as he swung into the jeep beside her.
He pulled up at the gates to the hotel, and Jordan was grateful, but when she went to get out his insistent words arrested her. ‘When will I see you again?’ he asked, and she turned to look at him with some regret.
‘I—don’t think——’
‘How about the day after tomorrow?’ he interrupted her huskily. ‘I’ll come and get you about—three o’clock, hmm? We can play some music. If you like my music, that is.’
‘Oh, I like it.’ Jordan shifted unhappily. ‘I—I’d love to do that, but——’
‘Three o’clock, then,’ said Rhys flatly, and she took a deep breath.
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I—I will come, but I’ll borrow Daddy’s Volkswagen and drive myself.’
‘Okay.’ Rhys drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. ‘I’ll be expecting you.’
Jordan nodded, and as if unable to resist the urge to wipe the anxious expression from her face, he leant towards her and deposited a reassuring kiss on her cheek. ‘Until Thursday,’ he murmured, and drove away as soon as her feet touched the tarmac of the drive.
CHAPTER SIX
THE night air was a soothing balm to her aching head, and realising the harsh treatment her hair had received might be in part responsible for the painful tightness across her temples, Jordan lifted her hands and loosed the pins. Immediately the chunky braid she had secured earlier fell down over one shoulder, and almost at once she felt an easing of the tension.
It must be getting late, she thought guiltily, getting to her feet and going indoors to repair the damage. But in her bedroom, seated in front of her dressing table mirror, she regarded her refection with something like desperation. Had she changed so much? she wondered, pushing her fingers into the plait so that her hair fell silkily over her arms. This was how Rhys had liked it, she recalled, stifling the emotion the memory evoked. If she had ever fastened it up, he had always tumbled it down again, laughing and burying his face in its softness. Rhys …
Jordan went infrequently to Rhys’s house in those first few weeks he was on the island. To start with, she didn’t like deceiving her father, and even though she was doing nothing wrong, she still felt guilty every time she met his trusting gaze. But the time she spent with Rhys was too precious to give up, and she lived every day as it came, refusing to consider the consequences.
Rhys had rigged up one of the downstairs rooms as a studio, and except for those occasions when they went down to the beach to swim, they spent most of their time in there. Sometimes Rhys would just play her records, of other bands as well as his own, and on other visits he would play for her. He was an expert on both the guitar and the electric organ, although he told her that his organist on all his records was someone else. He also had sophisticated synthesiser equipment, and Jordan was fascinated by the sounds he could create. Only occasionally would he sing, but Jordan treasured these moments most of all. His voice, raw and untrained, had the ability to scrape every nerve in her body, and at times like these she could quite understand why the audiences at his concerts went wild with excitement. She would sit watching him, her legs drawn up, arms wrapped around her knees, feeling all her bones turning to water, and the fact that he was performing for her alone was incredibly stimulating.
Eventually, of course, her father found out what was going on. She never did discover how he had found out what she doing, though she suspected Raoul had something to do with it. Anyway, although he didn’t actually forbid her to see Rhys again, Robert Lucas made his disapproval blatantly clear, and Jordan was too used to obeying her father to challenge his wishes too often.
This did not improve her relationship with Rhys. Just recently she had become aware of a certain tension between them, a strained element in his attitude towards her, which was not helped when her father banned her from using the Volkswagen to reach Planter’s Point. This meant that every time they wanted to see one another, Rh
ys had to drive to the hotel to pick her up and take her back again afterwards. It was an unsatisfactory arrangement because their time together was so limited anyway, and after one particularly brief visit, when Jordan had had to get home to help her father with the accounts, she was not surprised when Rhys did not arrange another assignation.
Nevertheless, it hurt, and for several days she nursed her wounded pride, telling herself it was probably for the best anyway. She was becoming too involved with him, not just physically, but emotionally, and although she was not very experienced in such relationships, she was not ignorant of the facts of life. Just being with Rhys had been thrilling enough in the beginning, but now she knew she wanted more from him. Every time she was with him, every time they touched—either accidentally, in the exchange of glasses of beer or lemonade, or purposely, like on the beach, when he caught her round the waist and carried her, struggling, into the waves—her blood ran like wildfire through her veins, and she wanted to wind her arms around his neck and pull his teasing mouth to hers.
Such thoughts horrified her, particularly as Rhys had given her no reason to think of him that way. He was always polite, amusing, treating her more like an engaging child than an adult, except recently, when she had suspected her company was beginning to pall. Maybe he was glad of her father’s involvement to free him from an annoying obligation, she thought miserably, moping about the hotel continually until Nana Fox intervened.
Nana Fox had been Robert Lucas’s nanny when he was a small boy, and although she was near retiring age, she had agreed to come and look after Karen when Jordan’s mother returned to England. Jordan herself was considered too old to require a nanny, but the old coloured woman had made no distinction between them, and Jordan had shared the love she lavished so generously on the two motherless little girls.
These days, of course, Nana’s role was confined to sitting on her balcony knitting, or taking ponderous walks along the beach, but both girls still visited her frequently, and there was little that went on in the hotel that she didn’t know about.
It was she who noticed Jordan’s preoccupation, and guessed immediately what had happened. ‘Plenty of other fish in the sea,’ she declared complacently, putting the finishing touches to a cardigan she had knitted for Karen. ‘There’s that nice Ferris boy—what’s his name? Neville? Nicholas?’
‘It’s Neil,’ said Jordan, curling up on the chair beside her. ‘And I’m not interested in Neil Ferris.’
‘But you are interested in Rhys Williams?’ remarked the old lady dryly. ‘Is that wise? I hear these pop stars build quite a reputation for themselves.’
‘Rhys isn’t like that.’ Jordan cupped her chin on her hand and stared broodingly over the balcony rail. ‘He’s really nice, Nana—kind and polite, and generous. He’s given me loads of tapes to play on my recorder.’
‘I know, I’ve heard them,’ responded Nana Fox with a grimace. ‘All that drumming—it quite reminds me of Africa!’
Jordan giggled. ‘You’ve never been to Africa.’
‘No, but I watch television, don’t I?’ exclaimed her companion staunchly. Then she, too, laughed. ‘So—what’s your problem, Jordan? If he’s so nice, why don’t you go and see him? Your father hasn’t forbidden you, has he? He’s only expressed his disapproval.’
‘He’s banned me from using the Volkswagen,’ muttered Jordan miserably. ‘It’s too far to walk to Planter’s Point. Besides, I don’t have the time.’
Nana Fox frowned over her sewing. ‘Borrow Josef’s Mini,’ she remarked carelessly. ‘I’m sure he’d lend it to you for an hour or so. He won’t be needing it.’
‘Oh, Nana, you’re brilliant!’ Jordan sprang off her chair and flung her arms round the old lady. ‘Why didn’t I think of that? Oh, thank you!’
‘Just drive carefully, that’s all,’ declared Nana Fox severely. ‘I don’t want to have to face your father if you end up in the ditch.’
‘I won’t.’ Jordan hastened towards the door, ‘See you later. And thanks again.’
Josef grudgingly gave his consent for her to drive his ancient vehicle. ‘You take care of her now,’ he ordered, patting the bonnet affectionately. ‘I don’t want no bumps or scratches on this paintwork. I painted it myself.’
Jordan grinned. ‘I’ll be careful,’ she assured him warmly, and drove away feeling free for the first time in weeks.
Weeks! She shook her head. It was two weeks since she had seen Rhys, and she pictured his surprise when she drove up in the old Mini. So long as he was at home, she amended anxiously. But where else could he be?
The Mini broke down about two hundred yards from Rhys’s gate. One minute it seemed to be progressing happily, and the next it coughed and spluttered and ground to a standstill. Damn, she thought impatiently. But at least it had helped her to achieve her objective. Rhys would have to give her a tow, but that was something she would worry about later.
Managing to push the car on to the grass verge, she set off to walk the last few yards. It was very hot, and the camisole dress she had worn, because it was the prettiest thing in her wardrobe, was soon clinging to her legs. She half wished she had worn her bikini, so that she could have taken the dress off, but underneath were only her cotton briefs, which in no way resembled a bathing suit.
She heard the sound of music and voices as she turned into the drive of Rhys’s house, and for a moment she faltered, uncertain of what to do next. But curiosity—and the fact that she had no means of transport back to the hotel—forced her to go on, and following the path along the side of the house, she eventually reached her goal.
The music was louder here, emanating, she suspected, from the loudspeaker system in Rhys’s living room. The noise of talking and laughter had warned her of the presence of other people, but even so, Jordan was not prepared for the sight that met her startled eyes. At least half a dozen young men and women were sprawled over Rhys’s verandah, with empty cans and bottles littering the flat boards at their feet. They were all in various stages of undress, from frayed denim shorts to minuscule bikinis, and one of the girls had actually shed her bikini top. Rhys himself was seated on the swinging couch, where in the past Jordan had often curled to listen to him play, plucking lazily at his guitar while two nubile females draped themselves decoratively beside him. It was like a scene from some Roman orgy, thought Jordan sickly, her imagination running away with her, and her face flamed with colour at the thought of her own naïvety.
At the same moment that Jordan saw Rhys, one of the other young men saw her, and tossing the can of beer he had been holding aside, he got unsteadily to his feet.
‘Hey, don’t go, pretty maiden!’ he exclaimed, leaning heavily on the rail, and Jordan backed away sharply as his alcohol-laden breath engulfed her.
‘Jordan!’
His companion’s leering protest had attracted Rhys’s attention, and thrusting his guitar on to the couch beside him, he too came to his feet. But Jordan was too shocked to linger. Exchanging one wounded glance with the man she had believed was beyond reproach, she turned and ran back along the path, realising as she did so she had no place else to go.
‘Jordan!’
Rhys was coming after her, and although she knew it was futile, she darted into the trees at the side of his drive, stumbling over twigs and branches and scoring her bare arms with their sharp fingers. Then she was on to the beach and running, kicking off her sandals and putting as much distance between her and her pursuer as it was humanly possible to achieve.
He caught her, of course, as she had known he would. His legs were longer, and he did not have the cumbersome folds of her skirt to contend with. He could outrun her at any time, and particularly now when she was hot and breathless from the constriction of tears in her chest. Catching a handful of her hair as it billowed like a flag behind her, he slowed her progress, then deliberately tripped her up, tumbling her down on to the soft-packed sand. She tried to save herself, clutching his arm as she felt herself falling; but all s
he succeeded in doing was bringing him down with her, and his weight upon her body knocked all the air out of her lungs.
She lay there panting, her hair a glory of sun-streaked silk about her, her breasts clearly outlined beneath the thin cotton of her dress as she struggled to regain her breath, her eyes brimming with unshed tears—and Rhys lost his head. With a groan of submission he covered her mouth with his own, and all the hot tearful accusations Jordan had been going to fling at him were stifled by the hungry pressure of his lips.
His mouth was firm and persuasive, easily disposing of her immature reluctance, and parting her lips with sensual insistence. Her senses swam as he plundered the moist sweetness she gave up to him, and the intimate caress of his mouth evoked sensations she had never dreamed existed. With a little moan, she wound her arms around his neck and arched her body towards him, responding instinctively to the needs he was creating. She didn’t care about where she was, or that anyone might see them. She wanted to prolong the moment, and the exquisite pleasure of his touch.
‘Oh, Jordan!’ he muttered at last, easing his weight from her so that he could look down at her, and Jordan’s colour deepened beneath his intense appraisal. What must he be thinking? she wondered, ashamed of the way she had reacted, and her arms fell to her sides as she recalled what she had interrupted back at the house.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said unsteadily, putting up a hand to her hair, and with a groan he took her hand in his and raised it to his lips. This time he pressed his face to her palm, and the sensuous tip of his tongue was wet against her skin.
‘Don’t be sorry,’ he said huskily. ‘I’ve been wanting to do this for weeks. Only I didn’t know how you’d react, and I didn’t want to drive you away.’
‘Is that why you’ve brought in reinforcements?’ she asked bitterly, withdrawing her hand from his grasp and turning her face away, and Rhys uttered an oath as he forced her to look at him.
