Jennifer was torn as to whether to believe him or not. On the one hand, he had always claimed to have the constitution of an ox. He was known to boast that he never fell prey to viruses and that his only contact with a doctor had been on the day of his birth. He surely wouldn’t lie when it came to admitting pain.
On the other hand, he didn’t look in the slightest regretful about his circumstances. In fact, for someone in the grip of back pain, he seemed remarkably breezy.
Breezy or not, she couldn’t send him hobbling back to his house although the thought of him in the cottage with her made her stomach tighten into knots of apprehension. Four years of hiding had been rewarded with such a concentrated dose of him that she was struggling to maintain the fiction that the effect he had on her was history. It wasn’t. Anything but.
‘So… as it stands, I’m going to have to fetch clothes for you for an enforced stay of indefinite duration, plus your laptop… plus I’m going to have to feed and water you…’
‘There’s no need to sound so thrilled at the prospect…’
‘This just isn’t what I banked on when I began this journey to the cottage.’
‘No,’ James said drily, ‘because you didn’t even expect to find me here.’
‘But I’m glad I did,’ she told him with grudging truthfulness. ‘Four years is a long time. I was in danger of forgetting what you looked like.’
‘And have I lived up to expectation?’
‘You look older than you are,’ Jennifer said snidely, because his ego was already big enough as it was.
‘That’s very kind of you.’ But he grinned. That boyish, sexy grin that had always been able to set her pulses racing. ‘Now you’re going to have to do me yet another favour, I’m afraid.’
‘You want coffee. Or tea. Or something else to drink. And you’d like something sweet to finish off the meal. Maybe a home-made dessert of some kind. Am I along the right lines?’
‘Could I trust you to make me a home-made dessert?’ he asked lazily. ‘Don’t forget that my knowledge of your love of cooking goes back a long way…’ He held her eyes and Jennifer, skewered by the intensity of his gaze, half opened her mouth to say something and discovered that she had forgotten what she had been about to say. Colour slowly crawled into her face and, to break the suffocating tension, she stood up to get the two plates and carry them into the kitchen.
‘So tea or coffee, then,’ she said briskly. ‘Which is it to be? Dad has a million varieties of tea you could choose from. The larder seems to have had a massive overhaul ever since he decided to take up cooking. Apparently one brand of tea is no longer good enough.’
‘I need you to help me undress.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I can’t manoeuvre to get the trousers off, even though the painkillers are beginning to kick in.’
Jennifer froze. For a few seconds all her vital functions seemed to shut down. When they re-engaged, she knew that, in the name of this friendship that they were tentatively rebuilding, she should think nothing of providing the help he needed. He had no qualms asking for it. He wasn’t going into meltdown at the thought of her touching him. She had loftily told him that he should see her as a friend rather than a woman, so what was he going to think if, as a friend, she told him that she couldn’t possibly…?
‘Have you tried?’
‘I don’t need to try. Every time I make the smallest movement, my back protests.’
Jennifer took a deep breath and walked towards him. What choice did she have?
James slung his arm over her shoulders, felt the softness of her skin underneath the jumper she was wearing, breathed in her clean fresh scent, the smell of the cold outdoors still lingering on her skin.
‘Well, thank goodness I’m not one of these five-foot-nothing girls you go out with,’ she managed to joke, although her vocal cords felt unnaturally dry and strained. ‘You would still be lying in the snow outside or else dragging yourself back to the house the best you could.’
‘Why do you make fun of yourself?’
‘I don’t.’ She helped him into a sitting position. His skin was clammy. Underneath the breezy façade, he was obviously in a great deal of discomfort, yet he had not taken it out on her. While she had been reluctantly catering to his demands and not bothering to hide the fact that she wasn’t overjoyed at having him under her roof, he had been suffering in silence. Shame and guilt washed over her.
‘You do. You’ve always done it.’ He had unbuttoned his shirt and he grimaced as she eased him out of it, down to the white tee shirt underneath. ‘I remember when you were sixteen laughing at yourself, telling me about the outfits your friends were wearing to go out, making fun of your height and—’
‘I can’t concentrate when you’re talking!’ She was red-faced and flustered because those were memories she didn’t want thrown at her.
‘You’re a sexy woman,’ he said roughly.
‘I’ll help you to your feet so that we can get the trousers off.’ He thought she was a sexy woman. Why did he have to say that? Why did he have to open a door in her head through which all sorts of unwanted thoughts could find their way in? He hadn’t thought she was a sexy woman four years ago, she reminded herself fiercely. Oh, no! Four years ago he had shoved her away!
She didn’t have to look at him as she began easing the trousers off. On their downward path, she was aware of black tight-fitting underwear, the length and strength of his legs, his muscled calves. She was in danger of passing out, and even more so when she heard his voice in her head telling her that she was a sexy woman.
Patric had never made her feel this way when he had told her that she was sexy. Hearing Patric tell her that she was sexy had made her want to giggle uncontrollably.
‘This is crazy,’ she said in a muffled voice, her face bright red as she sprang back to her feet and snatched the jogging bottoms she had earlier brought down.
‘Why is it crazy?’
‘Because you… you need a professional to help you. A qualified nurse! What if I do something wrong and you… you damage yourself?’ She was mesmerised by the sight of his legs, the dark hair on them, the rock hardness of his calves. She didn’t dare allow her eyes to travel farther up. Instead, she focused furiously on the jogging bottoms and his feet as he stepped into them, supporting himself by his hand on her shoulder.
‘I thought you already gave me all the vital checks?’
‘Not funny, James! There. Done!’
‘Tee shirt. Might as well get rid of that as well.’ He slowly sank back down on the sofa.
Jennifer wondered whether this would ever end. He thought she was sexy. What did he feel as her fingers made contact with his skin? Did it do anything for him, considering he thought that she was a sexy woman? She fought back the tide of inappropriate questions ricocheting in her head and pulled his tee shirt off, where it joined the rest of his now barely damp clothes on the ground, and helped him with the tee shirt she had grabbed from her father’s chest of drawers.
None of the clothes fitted him properly. The jogging bottoms were too short and the tee shirt was too tight. He should have looked ridiculous but he didn’t. He just carried on looking sinfully, unfairly, disturbingly sexy.
‘Okay. I’m going to stick these in the wash and have a shower and then I’ll make you some coffee. I’m sure Dad has some sleeping tablets somewhere in his bedroom from when he did his back in a few years ago. Shall I get them for you?’
‘Painkillers are about as far as I’m prepared to go when it comes to taking tablets.’
Jennifer shrugged and backed towards the door, clutching the clothes in one hand like a talisman.
Anyone would imagine, he thought with sudden irritation, that she had been asked to walk on a bed of hot coals. She made lots of noises about friendship but her body language was telling a different story. This wasn’t the girl upon whom he had always thought he could rely. This wasn’t the girl fascinated by his stories and willing to go
the extra mile for him. This was a woman inconvenienced by his presence, a woman determined to keep him at a distance. He had hurt her once and she had moved on, leaving him behind in her wake. The knowledge was frustrating. He wondered how well he had ever known her. She had skimmed over her relationship with the Frenchman and had mentioned no other guys, although he was sure that there would have been some. The woman was a knockout. But whereas once she would have happily confided in him, leaving no detail out, this was no longer the case. He could remember a time when she had laughed and told him little stories about the people she went to school with and, later, to university. No more.
Fair’s fair, he thought. Did she know him? He was uneasily aware that a relationship flowed two ways. It was something he was poorly equipped for. His relationships with women were disposable and had always involved more effort on their part than on his.
James was not given to this level of pointless introspection and he pushed it aside.
‘Well, it’s up to you,’ she was saying now with a dismissive shrug. ‘I think, as well, that you should sleep down here. The sofa is big enough and comfortable enough and it’ll save you the trip up the stairs. There’s a downstairs toilet, as you know… I know the bath is upstairs but I’m sure you’ll be able to manage things better… tomorrow… after you’ve had a good night’s sleep…’ She hoped so because she drew the line at helping him into a bath or under the shower. Just thinking about it made her feel a little wobbly.
Having delivered that speech in a surprisingly calm, controlled, neutral voice, she fled up the stairs, had a very quick shower, which was blissful, and then returned to the sitting room with an armful of bed linen. She had expected to find him still lying on the sofa but he wasn’t. He had moved to one of the chairs and switched the television on. Wall-to-wall coverage of the weather.
Quickly and efficiently, she began making up the sofa with two sheets, the duvet which she had pilfered from her father’s bed, likewise the pillows.
‘You probably shouldn’t be taxing your back too much,’ she said, hovering by the sofa because she didn’t intend to stay down and watch television with him. There was danger in this pretend domesticity and she had no intention of falling prey to it.
‘The more I tax it, the faster I’ll be back on my feet,’ James said curtly, realising, from her dithering, that she had no intention of being in his company any more than was strictly necessary. Her body language was telling him that, whatever common ground they had managed to carve out for themselves, she still hadn’t signed up to be stuck with him in the cottage for an indefinite period of time. That was beyond the call of duty.
‘Aren’t you going to relax and watch some television with me?’ he asked, perversely drawn to hearing her confirm what was going through his head, and his mouth twisted cynically as she shook her head and stammered out some excuse about still having to clear the kitchen, being really tired after the day’s events, needing to finish some emails she had started earlier in the afternoon…
‘In that case,’ he said coolly, ‘I wouldn’t dream of keeping you. If you make sure that the painkillers are at hand, then I’ll see you in the morning.’ He stood up, waved aside her offer of assistance and made his way back to the sofa, where he lay down carefully as she left the sitting room, closing the door quietly behind her.
CHAPTER FOUR
IT DIDN’T take long for Jennifer to work out that James made a very demanding patient.
She awoke the following morning at seven-thirty and tiptoed downstairs to discover that the light in the sitting room was on, as was the television, which was booming out the news. James was on the sofa and she stood for a moment in the doorway to the sitting room with her dressing gown wrapped tightly around her, drinking him in. She had hoped to simply grab a cup of coffee and retreat back to her bedroom for a another hour’s worth of sleep, but he noticed her and glanced across broodingly at her silhouette.
‘There’s no end to this snow,’ were his opening words. The curtains had been pulled open as if to reinforce his darkest suspicion that they were, indeed, still stranded in a sea of white. ‘The last time it snowed like this, life didn’t return to normal for two weeks. I have work to do.’
‘That goes for the both of us,’ Jennifer muttered, ungluing herself from the doorway and stepping into the sitting room to toss a few logs into the now-dead fire.
She had exhausted herself wondering how she was going to deal with James under her roof. She had feverishly analysed the heady, unhealthy mix of emotions his presence generated, had shakenly viewed her loss of calm as a dangerous and possibly slippery slope to a place she couldn’t even begin to imagine, a place where she once again became captive to feelings she had spent years stuffing away out of sight. Now she realised that, while she had been consumed with her own emotional turmoil, he likewise was counting down to when they could part company.
She sourly wondered if making the best of things was becoming a strain. Add to that the fact that he was now out of action and she could understand why he was contemplating the still-falling snow with an expression of loathing.
‘I’ve had to let Paris know that I can’t say when I’ll be back. I’m missing Patric’s next exhibition, which I had been looking forward to. You’re not the only one desperate to get out of here!’
James wondered whether she could make things any clearer. If she had had skis, he would not have been surprised to find her strapping them to her feet so that she could use them.
And who cared whether she happened to be missing her ex-boyfriend’s exhibition? He thought back to the fair-haired man with the earring and the fedora and scowled. They had gone out and broken up. Who, in God’s name, remained good friends with their ex-partner? It was unhealthy. His mood, which had been grim the night before when she had made it clear that the last thing she wanted was his company, became grimmer in receipt of this unwanted piece of information.
‘I’ve been up since five,’ James told her, levering himself into a sitting position.
‘Wasn’t the sofa comfortable?’
‘It’s big but so am I. I wouldn’t say it’s been the most amazing night’s sleep. My back was in agony.’
‘I left some painkillers…’
By way of response, James held up the plastic tub and tipped it upside down. ‘Not enough and I didn’t have the energy to hobble into the kitchen to see if I could find more. Your father has an eccentric way of storing things.’
Jennifer, ashamed because she had spared little thought for his back in between her own inner confusion, instantly told him to wait right there, that she would get him some painkillers immediately, something stronger than paracetamol.
‘Where am I supposed to go?’ James asked sarcastically. ‘I am literally at your mercy.’
Jennifer almost grinned. He was always so masterful, so much in control, the guy who was never fazed by anything and yet here he was now as sullen and as sulky as a child deprived of his Christmas treat because the body on which he depended had let him down.
‘I like the sound of that,’ she told him and he quirked an eyebrow and then reluctantly smiled.
‘Really? So what do you intend to do with me?’ Jennifer didn’t know whether there was any kind of double meaning to that soft drawl, but she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
‘Well…’ be brisk and keep it all on an impersonal level, two friends thrown together against their will, two friends who had absolutely no history ‘… first of all I shall go and get you some painkillers. A full tub of them, although I don’t have to tell you that under no circumstances are you to go over the allotted dosage—’
‘There’s a career in nursing crying out for you—’
‘And then—’ she ignored his interruption ‘—I shall light that fire because this room is pretty cold—’
‘Fire went out some time around two in the morning.’
‘You were up at two in the morning?’
‘Between the
sudden drop in temperature and the agony in my back, sleep was difficult.’
Jennifer, distracted from her list of things to do, wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not. The advantage to their familiarity with one another was that there was no need to continually try and be entertaining or even talkative. The disadvantage was that he would see no need whatsoever to be on his best behaviour.
‘And then I shall go up to your house and fetch whatever it is you want me to fetch.’
She didn’t give him time to ask any questions. Instead, she went to the kitchen, located a box of strong painkillers and took them in with a glass of water.
‘You’ll have to help me into a sitting position.’
‘Honestly, James, stop milking it.’ But she helped him up and she knew, although she could barely admit it to herself, that she liked the feel of his body. She could tell herself that she had to be careful until the cows came home, but it was heady and treacherously thrilling to touch him, even if the touching, like this, was completely innocent.
Flustered, she turned her attention to the dead fire, and she began going through the routine of relighting it. It was something she had done a million times. More logs would have to be brought in from the shed outside. She hoped that they would have been cut. Her father was reliable when it came to making sure that they were well stocked over the winter months. Snow, at some point, was inevitable and it never paid to take something as simple as electricity for granted. Too many times it had failed, leaving them without heating.
James edged himself up a bit more and watched, fascinated, as she dealt expertly with the fire. He had turned down the volume on the television when she had entered the sitting room and the flickering light from the TV picked out the shine in her long, wavy hair, which fell across her face as she knelt in front of the fireplace.
The Girl He'd Overlooked Page 7
