Woman To Wed?

by Penny Jordan

  It was not too late, of course. Women of her age and even older were having babies every day, many of them without the support of a husband or partner, but, having been brought up solely by her great-aunt, Claire had very ambivalent feelings about having a child on her own. Of course, if she were ever to find herself in a situation where for some reason she’d conceived accidentally, then there would be no question but that she would have her child and love him or her.

  She bent her head protectively over the kitten as she realised the direction her thoughts were taking and just why the thought of an accidental pregnancy should have crossed her mind.

  It wasn’t going to happen, of course. She must make sure that it did not happen, she told herself sternly.

  Outside it had started to rain, the wind gusting fiercely against the window.

  The weather forecast had warned that they were in for a stormy evening with heavy rain and gale-force winds. As she returned Felicity to the new basket that Brad had bought for her and glanced out of the window at the lowering sky, Claire was thankful that she didn’t have to go out.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  BRAD grimaced in disgust as he realised that one of the tyres on his hire car had developed a slow puncture and was now flat. Cursing under his breath, he glanced from the car window to the bleak, empty landscape and the heavy rain. It was barely six o’clock in the evening but the sky was so overcast that it was already almost dark.

  There was no one else around, the desolate area that the local council had designated as a new industrial complex as yet little more than a vast sea of mud, broken here and there by sets of footings.

  It had been a chance remark during his interview with their potential new customer—an official from the head office of a locally based insurance broker which was thinking of installing air-conditioning in all its offices—that had led to his trip out here to look at the new industrial site.

  He hadn’t realised, until the other man had mentioned it, that the existing warehouse was built on a piece of potentially very valuable land. The town had expanded rapidly in the years after the warehouse had first been constructed—adjacent to the original owner’s home—and although Brad had been aware that virtually all the property surrounding the warehouse was residential he hadn’t appreciated the significance of this fact until the other man had brought it to his attention.

  He had a client, he had told Brad, a well-known local builder, who he suspected would be very interested in acquiring the land for development if it ever came onto the market. After he had gone, a few brief enquiries by Brad had elicited the information that as prime residential building land the warehouse site was very good indeed, and, moreover, that if they were to move to a new purpose-built unit the savings they could make would more than offset the cost of such a move.

  On impulse Brad had decided to drive out and look at the new industrial complex that the local council were building, but what he hadn’t bargained for was the fact that his hire car was going to get a puncture.

  It was still raining very heavily but there was no help for it—he was going to have to get out and change that tyre, Brad acknowledged, removing his suit jacket and opening the car door.

  Ten minutes later, his hair plastered wetly to his scalp, his back soaked to the skin through the inadequate protection of his shirt, Brad had managed to remove the spare wheel from the trunk—the boot of the car, he amended grimly—and to locate the jack.

  The unmade road along which he had driven to inspect the site was rapidly changing to a thick mush of sticky mud beneath the lashing downpour. Removing the rubber-backed lining from the boot floor to use as a kneeling pad, Brad started to jack up the car.

  Half an hour later, so wet that he might just as well have been standing naked under a shower, and perspiring heavily from his efforts to release the wheel-nuts, Brad gave in. What he wouldn’t give now for a can of lubricant, he thought, but the nuts, fitted by machine, were simply not going to budge.

  He reached into his car for his phone and punched in the number of the car-hire firm.

  It was over an hour and a half before he finally saw the headlights of the breakdown vehicle coming towards him through the heavy downpour of the continuing rain.

  He had been reluctant to run the car engine for too long in case he ran out of petrol and his wet shirt, still clinging clammily and coldly to his skin, coupled with the sharp drop in temperature which had accompanied the driving rain made him shiver and sneeze as he stepped out of the car to greet the mechanic.

  ‘Better watch it, mate,’ the mechanic told him cheerfully as he sprayed the stubborn wheel-nuts and waited for the lubricant to take effect. ‘Sounds like you’ve got yourself a nasty chill there.’

  It was another half an hour before the wheel was finally changed, the wheel-nuts proving recalcitrantly stubborn but eventually coming free.

  Thanking the mechanic, Brad climbed back in the car and restarted the engine.

  Claire glanced uncertainly at the kitchen clock. Where was Brad? She had assumed, obviously erroneously, that he was going to be back in time for dinner but it was after nine now and she had long since disposed of the meal she had prepared for him.

  When Brad hadn’t returned when she had expected she had been tempted to phone the office, but she had reminded herself fiercely that he was simply her lodger and that was the only relationship between them—the only relationship she wanted there to be between them.

  It hadn’t been easy to ignore the mocking laughter of the inner voice that had taunted her, Liar, but somehow she had made herself do so. If she’d wanted or needed any confirmation that what had happened between them this afternoon was something that Brad very definitely did not want to take any further, she had surely had it in the very fact that he had delayed his return for so long.

  Don’t run away, he had told her, but perhaps, like her, he too had been caught up in the intensity of the moment, suspending normal, rational judgement and reality.

  Hannah had been round earlier to leave her a book that she had promised to lend her on traditional Edwardian rose gardens; she would make herself a hot drink and go and sit down in the sitting room and look at it, Claire promised herself. She had just settled down when she saw the headlights of Brad’s car. Uncertainly she bit her lip, not sure whether to stay where she was or go and greet him.

  As his landlady, she ought perhaps at least to check to see if he wanted anything to eat. She was not really sure what the mode of behaviour should be between landlady and lodger—where one drew the line between a presence that was welcoming and one that was intrusive.

  It was time to feed Felicity, she reminded herself, and if she didn’t appear Brad might think...might assume...

  What? she asked herself grimly. That she was afraid...embarrassed... self-conscious? Well, he would be right on all those counts. She did feel all those things and more—much more, she acknowledged, her body suddenly growing hot as she had an unnervingly vivid memory of the way his mouth had felt on hers—his body, his...

  Swallowing hard, she reminded herself that, no matter what she felt, she did have a responsibility as his landlady to make at least an attempt to behave in a businesslike manner towards him.

  Irene would certainly have something to say to her if she learned that Claire had left him supperless. As she got up and walked towards the door Claire heard Brad walk into the hall and sneeze—once and then again.

  Frowning now, she opened the door, her eyes widening in shock as she saw his coatless, damply dishevelled state.

  ‘Brad, what on earth...?’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he said. “There was a problem with the car and I had to wait for them to get a breakdown truck out to me. I should have let you know, but I had no idea how long they were going to be.’

  A problem. Her heart thumped anxiously against her chest wall. ‘Not an accident?’ she protested. ‘You—’

  ‘No, not an accident,’ he assured her. ‘I had a flat tyre, that’s
all, but unfortunately—’ he paused for another volley of sneezes, visibly shivering as Claire looked on in appalled consternation—‘I tried to change it myself and got soaked,’ he told her ruefully, his teeth suddenly chattering.

  ‘You’re soaked,’ Claire told him. ‘And frozen. You’d better go upstairs and have a hot shower. I’ll make you a drink and something to eat.’

  Had she got any cold or flu remedy in the house? Claire wondered, listening anxiously as she heard Brad pause halfway up the stairs for another fit of obviously feverish sneezing.

  He was going to be lucky if all he got away with was a bad chill, she recognised as she hurried into the kitchen to fill the kettle and look through the drawers to try to unearth the old hot-water bottle she always kept handy for cold sufferers. In these centrally heated days it probably wasn’t necessary but somehow it made one feel better, Claire acknowledged. Sally certainly insisted on having it whenever she went down with a cold.

  A brief check on the high shelf where she kept her medicines revealed the patent aspirin-based remedy which Sally always swore worked for her. Expelling a small sigh of relief, Claire picked it up. She had no doubt whom Irene would blame if Brad did become ill.

  He was used to a much better regulated climate than theirs, she reminded herself as she added some brandy to the mug of coffee that she had made him. He would, perhaps, be better off going straight to bed and keeping warm there rather than coming down for something to eat. She could easily take him a tray of food upstairs.

  His bedroom door was ajar when she went up with the coffee but, recalling what had happened the last time she had walked into his room, she paused, knocking and calling out uncertainly.

  ‘Brad...?’

  His husky ‘Come in’ confirmed her earlier suspicions about the state of his health.

  ‘I’ve brought you some coffee,’ she told him, and added, ‘And I’ve put some brandy in it, so...’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Brad praised her. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing the towelling robe she had seen him in before. As he reached out to take the coffee from her Claire saw to her concern that his face already looked hectically and feverishly flushed.

  ‘I think you might be running a temperature,’ she warned him gently.

  ‘I think you’re probably right,’ Brad agreed. He was beginning to feel decidedly unwell. As a boy he had been very susceptible to frighteningly severe chest infections brought on by any kind of exposure to a cold or flu virus, but fortunately over the years he seemed to have developed a better immunity to them. Until now, he acknowledged, already recognising the signs of a return of his childhood symptoms.

  ‘You ought to have something to eat,’ Claire told him, ‘but I don’t think you should come back downstairs; you look—’

  ‘I’ll be all right,’ Brad interrupted her stoically. ‘A good night’s sleep and a couple more of these...’ he told her, pointing to the brandy-laced coffee she had brought him.

  ‘I could make you an omelette,’ Claire offered, but he was shaking his head.

  ‘I don’t think I could,’ he told her ruefully. ‘My throat...’ He touched the tender area, wincing as he felt the tell-tale swelling of his glands.

  ‘I’ve got some aspirin,’ Claire said, but Brad shook his head again. ‘I’m allergic to it,’ he told her wryly. ‘Look, I promise you, I’ll be fine.’

  The concern he could see in her eyes made him realise how tempting it would be to exaggerate his symptoms. If he hadn’t been feeling so damn ill and weak there would have been a lot he could have done with that warm, womanly anxious look.

  As he shivered involuntarily and started to sneeze again Claire made a soft sound of distress and urged him to get into bed.

  ‘I can’t,’ he told her.

  ‘You can’t? But...’

  Since he was already sitting on the side of the bed, Claire was puzzled by his refusal, until he informed her softly, ‘In order to get into bed I’ve got to take this robe off first, and if I do that...’ He paused deliberately, and as she unwittingly focused on the bare V of warm brown flesh in front of her, with its soft, tantalising tangle of silky dark hair, she suddenly realised what he meant: that he was naked beneath his robe.

  Her soft, betraying ‘Oh’ and the quick flush of colour that stained her skin made Brad ache to reach out and take hold of her, to pull her down against his body and...

  Stop that, he warned himself, stifling a low groan of unexpected arousal. There were some things that even the threat of a feverish chest infection couldn’t keep down—quite literally, he realised in wry self-mockery.

  ‘I... I’d better go downstairs,’ Claire mumbled awkwardly. ‘I was wondering...if you’d like a hot-water bottle,’ she added, and then wondered what on earth had made her make such a patently silly offer. He was an adult, not a child, and, unlike Sally, he—

  ‘A hot-water bottle...’ Brad closed his eyes and gave a long, appreciative sigh. ‘I can’t think of anything I’d like more...’

  Oh, yes, he could, he corrected himself as he watched Claire disappear. He could think of something he’d quite definitely like very, very much more, and that was holding Claire’s body next to his own...a real, live comforter.

  Ten minutes later when Claire returned she was concerned to see how much more hectically flushed Brad was, his breathing painfully rasping and laboured. As she leaned across the bed to hand him the hot-water bottle she could feel the feverish heat coming off his body. Concerned, she asked him, ‘Would you like me to send for a doctor? Your breathing... I’m—’ ‘No... I’ll be OK,’ Brad assured her. ‘It sounds worse than it is.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Claire queried doubtfully. ‘You—’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Brad told her firmly. ‘A good night’s sleep and I’ll be fine.’

  It might not strictly speaking be the truth, Brad acknowledged ruefully as he watched Claire walking away from him, waiting until she had closed the door behind her to let his body relax into the racking fit of shivers he had managed to suppress whilst she was there, but he knew these feverish bronchial attacks of old and they always seemed worse to the onlooker than they actually were.

  Claire made an irritated sound of self-criticism as she got out of the bath and remembered that she hadn’t locked the back door. Reaching for her towelling robe, she pulled it on over her still damp body, acknowledging that she had better go and do so before she forgot—again.

  The back door securely locked, she had almost reached her own bedroom when she heard a noise from Brad’s room. She paused, and heard him cry out. Something was wrong.

  Quickly she hurried into his room. The bedside lamp was switched on, a glass of water which Brad must have fetched from the bathroom earlier next to it. Brad was lying on his side, facing away from her, muttering something hoarsely under his breath. As Claire strained to hear what it was she automatically reached across the bed towards him, saying his name with anxious urgency.

  When he didn’t make any response her anxiety increased. She touched his bare shoulders lightly, wincing as she felt the heat coming off his skin, and listened to the harsh bark of his cough. This time he registered her presence, turning over to face her, saying something that she couldn’t catch and then calling out sharply, ‘No... No... It isn’t true... Dad...’

  Claire shivered as she heard the pain in his voice and realised that he was talking in his sleep—a very feverish and restless sleep, if the tumbled state of the bedclothes and the low, emotional sound of his voice were anything to go by, she recognised.

  Did he dream of his dead parents often, she wondered compassionately as she heard him whisper his father’s name a second time, or was this just a side effect of his fever?

  As he’d turned over the duvet had slid down his body, exposing his torso, warmly tanned and firmly muscled, but it wasn’t sensual feminine appreciation of his maleness that Claire felt most strongly as she looked at him but anxious concern as she saw the sweat-soaked dampness of his b
ody hair and the hectic heat of his skin. She watched as, despite the heat, he started to shiver convulsively, another spasm of the harsh, dry cough she had heard earlier racking his chest so painfully that her own actually seemed to ache in sympathetic response.

  Automatically she reached out to pull the duvet back up over him, instinctively soothing him with the kind of low-voiced, gentle comfort she had always given Sally as a child. The intensity of the fever worried her and she regretted not insisting on sending for a doctor earlier.

  As she tried to tuck the duvet more securely around him her fingertips accidentally touched his skin. Its heat shocked her, fuelling her anxiety. She placed her hand against his forehead. His skin felt burning hot, his hair soaked with sweat.

  He was talking in his sleep again, protesting about something or someone—she couldn’t tell.

  ‘It’s all right, Brad,’ she told him gently. ‘Everything is all right.’

  ‘Claire...’

  Claire froze as the eyes she had thought closed in a deep, fever-fuelled sleep abruptly opened, their gaze focusing on and then fusing hypnotically with hers.

  Claire found herself becoming slightly breathless and dizzy as she tried to wrench her eyes away from the hot, mesmerising glitter of Brad’s and discovered that she could not do so.

  ‘Claire,’ he said again, his voice lower, huskier, the sound of her name something between a growl and a groan. Then he said huskily, ‘You’re here... I thought you were just a dream... Come, closer.’

  ‘No, Brad, you don’t...’ Claire started to protest, but with surprising strength Brad reached for her, one hand encircling her wrist, the other wrapping around her as he sat up and half lifted and half pulled her with firm insistence onto the bed next to him.

  ‘I thought you were just a dream,’ he whispered throatily as his hands framed her face. ‘But you’re not. You’re actually here, and real...very, very real.’