by Susan Napier
‘Yes.’ There was a trace of malice in his inspection.
‘You look like a racoon.’ She scowled at him and he tagged on hurriedly, ‘A very pretty racoon, of course.’
She was torn between laughter and offended dignity. ‘Oh, nice save, Mr Suave. Very debonair!’ She slid off her stool. ‘Since I haven’t got my instant-repair kit with me I’d better take a face-saving stroll back to the chalet.’
Luke rose, sliding a discreet tip across the polished wood of the bar. ‘I’ll come with you. After all, it was my vodka that did the damage ... and I wouldn’t like anyone to take a swipe at you in the dark, mistaking you for a pretty, noxious pest.’
Rosalind groaned. ‘You pick up the art of stinging banter awfully fast for a beginner. I hope I’m not unleashing a monster on the unsuspecting women of the world!’
‘Perish the thought, Dr Frankenstein,’ he murmured in her ear as they turned onto the crushed-shell pathway that branched off under the palms towards their small grouping of chalets.
When they reached her chalet she lingered on the doorstep, relaxed in the certainty that her escort wasn’t suddenly going to turn into an over-amorous octopus. If there was any pouncing to be done she suspected she was the one who would have to do it!
Smiling at the thought, she ordered him to call for her the next morning, so they could plan out their day over breakfast at the elegant little coffee-bar on the balcony of the hotel’s marine sports pavilion.
‘But-’
‘But what?’ she said impatiently as she opened the door. ‘You don’t eat breakfast?’ She turned to look at him, standing at the bottom of the wooden steps. ‘Or did Erina make you a more attractive offer? Were you planning on having breakfast in bed, maybe?’
She couldn’t see, because his face was shadowed by the night, but she would have bet that he was blushing as he growled, ‘Of course not. I just wondered why it had to be so early, that’s all.’
‘You’ll see.’ She grinned and turned to trundle upstairs to the bedroom, uttering a shriek of horrified mirth as she saw her black-ringed eyes in the bathroom mirror. Rosalind Racoon indeed! Ah, well, tomorrow she would get her revenge...
She scrubbed her face till it was pink and shiny and fell into bed, drifting off to sleep to the hushed sounds of the sea and the tropical night breeze whispering in the palms outside her window.
CHAPTER FIVE
ROSALIND woke to a furious thunderstorm.
No, not thunder. It was definitely a man-made racket, she decided as she opened her eyes to a room awash with light. Someone was hammering at the front door of the chalet.
Rosalind sat bolt upright and immediately fell back on the pillows, groaning, but it was too late—her stomach had already been set in unsteady motion. Waves of nausea washed over her and she closed her eyes, swallowing frantically, trying to think calming thoughts, but it was difficult to concentrate with the thumping going on downstairs, the sound vibrating through the wooden walls of the chalet. She held off for a few more miserable seconds but then had to make a heart-pounding dive for the bathroom.
She only just made it. She slumped to her knees by the toilet bowl, retching violently, feeling the sweat break out all over her tortured body. Even when she could bring up no more she still retched. She flushed the toilet and moaned as the churning of the water triggered a fresh bout. Death seemed a very attractive alternative.
The thumping had stopped and suddenly she became aware of a questioning voice echoing inside the chalet.
‘Uh... Rosalind? I’m here! Are you ready to go?’
Luke! She lurched to her feet. She could hear the footfalls crossing the polished wood floor below. His next call was stronger as it came floating up the narrow stairway.
‘Rosalind? Are you still up there?’
In a panic, Rosalind realised that if he came up the stairs he would find her in the nude. She preferred to sleep without the rumble of the air-conditioner and it was too hot to wear anything in bed but the flimsy sheets. She tried to call out but her voice emerged from her burning, bile-coated throat as a dry croak. She grabbed the green hotel robe hanging on a brass hook on the wall and wrapped it around her, her fingers fumbling with the tie as she staggered towards the door.
‘Rosalind? I can hear you moving around; I know you’re awake. Please, won’t you answer me?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m here.’ She hurried down to meet him, moving as fast as she dared, a supportive hand sliding along the wall to give her stomach the illusion of stability. As she had feared, he had already started up the stairs and they met on the small landing.
Luke looked insufferably fit and healthy in white trousers and a rather vivid island-print shirt, the jewel-bright colours stamped on a red background—a garment which at any other time she would have coveted. As it was, its vibrancy made her stomach wince and she quickly shifted her gaze. His damp hair was neatly combed back, his recently shaven jaw was smooth and glossy and the crisp, clean tang of a citrus-based cologne preceded him.
In contrast Rosalind felt grubby and smelly and desperate for a shower, and when Luke froze in his tracks she knew that she looked exactly the way she felt. She glared at him, wishing she had long, abundant curls to hide behind, rather than the perky, short, nakedly revealing cut that she ordinarily loved.
‘I’m sorry; I overslept,’ she rasped sullenly. ‘Did you have to pound at my door like that? I thought it was an earthquake.’
His speculative dark eyes roamed from her bare toes curling against the cool floor to the sleep-crease marring one creamy cheek. ‘You told me to be here at this time. I thought you meant that you’d be ready and waiting’ He looked at his watch—a menacing lump of black plastic studded with buttons. Why was it that the people who needed them least always boasted the most macho time-pieces? thought Rosalind sourly.
‘So? Sue me,’ she grunted.
‘Are you always this grouchy in the morning?’ For some reason the notion seemed to give him pleasure.
‘No. I’m usually much worse,’ she snapped.
He nodded, as if he could quite believe it. ‘You left your door unlocked? Don’t you think that’s a bit unwise for a woman alone?’
‘I do now,’ she said, unable to think of anything wittier.
He looked at her as she leaned limply against the painted wall, and moved tentatively closer. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? Your face doesn’t look so good.’
No wonder—her stomach was still trying to push itself up into her throat! ‘Gee, Luke, you really know how to turn a girl’s head.’
‘No, I meant you don’t look well,’ he said. ‘Have you changed your mind about an early breakfast? Last night you said something about bacon and eggs and waffles dripping with syrup—’
‘Oh, God!’
Rosalind clapped her hand to her mouth and whirled about. She raced back up the stairs, almost killing herself as she tripped over the trailing belt of the huge, one-size-fits-all robe. This time she only made it as far as the hand-basin, hanging onto it for grim life as she was shaken by another bout of violent nausea.
Lost in her misery, she was barely aware of the long_ arm swooping around her until it contracted to a tight band just beneath her breasts, gently supporting her bent over body while her trembling legs were braced from behind by the warm cup of masculine hips and thighs. After she had finished her ignominious performance Luke forced her to sip a glass of water so that she could rinse the vile taste from her mouth.
Rosalind, a notoriously bad patient at the best of times, was purely ungrateful.
‘Go away,’ she groaned thickly as she tried to wrestle herself free of his tender mercies. Either she was as weak as a baby or Luke was a great deal stronger than he looked. ‘Why can’t you leave me alone? I don’t want you here. I don’t-mmph, mmph...’ Her fretful wail was smothered in the folds of a deliciously cool flannel as it was firmly stroked over her sweaty face and then her hands.
‘I can do that myself.’ She glared at
him from under damply spiked lashes and ruffled brows dyed the same colour.
‘Too late; it’s done. Come on. Back to bed.’
He was very good at giving orders all of a sudden, she thought grumpily, but still felt too fragile to make an issue of it. She meekly lay down on the tumbled bed and closed her eyes. She felt the mattress alongside her hip depress with Luke’s weight as he sat down on the edge of the bed.
‘I think I’ll ring down to Reception for the hotel doctor. If you have food poisoning it could be serious—’
‘Don’t bother; I know what it is and it’s not food poisoning,’ she roused herself to protest.
‘Oh. I see.’ Luke’s slow enunciation dripped with distaste. ‘Perhaps a hair of the dog would help, then?’
Rosalind’s eyelids cranked open to check the disapproving slant of the demon eyebrows. ‘It’s not a hangover, either,’ she retorted. ‘I wasn’t drunk last night. You should know; you walked me home...’
‘You could have gone out again after I left. Or hit the room-service bar.’
Maybe someone he knew was an alcoholic. It was the only reason Rosalind could think of for his unflattering suspicions. ‘Well, I didn’t. I went straight to bed.’
‘Then why are you ill?’
‘I just got up too suddenly, that’s all,’ she muttered petulantly. He would probably laugh if she told him. Hell, she would laugh if this was happening to someone else. But right now she didn’t feel in the mood to provide anyone with amusement.
He frowned, propping one hand beside her head and leaning forward for a closer inspection of her unhealthy pallor. His hair fell over his forehead and this time he didn’t bother to brush it back. His mouth was a thin, stern line, his face losing its puckish illusion of youthfulness as his expression became absorbed ... intent.
Rosalind’s skin prickled with self-awareness under the rough towelling. She was suddenly conscious that she was lying there, to all intents and purposes helpless, nude beneath her robe, while Luke bent over her, fully dressed. There was something uncomfortably erotic about the situation—a purely atavistic feminine response to the threat of male dominance.
Not that Luke was any worry to her in that direction, she told herself hurriedly, but she wondered at her own waywardness. Ever since her disaster with Justin she had preferred to be the controlling partner in her relationships with men. Even in her secret fantasies she had never felt excited by the idea of being sexually dominated, of being held captive by passion and aroused against her will by a skilful seducer...she was immune to the appeal of dashing sheikhs and silken bindings. So why such thoughts should sneak into her mind now, when she was feeling so thoroughly ghastly and totally unattractive, was difficult to comprehend.
She wondered exactly what was going through Luke’s mind. Nothing as wildly inappropriate as what was going through her own, she decided as she watched the shift of his expression. What ever made her think that he was young for his age? Right now he looked every one of his twenty-eight years—and more...disconcertingly mature and sombre in his seriousness.
His eyes had that glaze of absent-minded, see-nothing vagueness which Rosalind was coming to realise indicated a see-all state of mind. He was focusing on the big picture rather than on the one immediately in front of him, his brain adding up all the possibilities and cross-referencing them with what information he already had.
‘Do you mean it’s some form of motion sickness?’ he asked puzzled. ‘But how can that be...? You weren’t sick on the flight.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake! Not motion—morning,’ she stressed weakly, realising that he wasn’t going to give up until he had a satisfactory answer. ‘Look, just pass me over one of those crackers just there on the bedside table and then toddle downstairs and make me a cup of tea...weak, with just a little milk and not too hot—’
‘Morning? What do you-? Morning sickness!’ He jackknifed upright again, setting up an unpleasant vibration in the mattress. ‘My God, do you mean—you’re pregnant?’
‘For God’s sake, stop rocking the boat and pass me the damned cracker!’ moaned Rosalind, wishing she were well enough to enjoy his shocked reaction.
‘Pregnant!’ he repeated, doing as he was bid, his face almost as pale as hers under the natural tan as he stood uncertainly next to the bed. ‘Who’s the father?’ he asked abruptly.
‘Jordan...my brother-in-law,’ said Rosalind, munching experimentally.
‘What?’ If she had thought he looked devilish before, now he was Satan, King of Hell, come to fry her for every sin she had ever dreamed of committing. ‘You’ve been having an affair with your own sister’s husband?’ he thundered accusingly, smoke practically pouring from his pinched nostrils.
‘No, of course not!’ she cried, stuffing the rest of the cracker in her mouth with kill-or-cure haste. Jordan would hit the roof if that rumour ever got around! ‘Jordan’s the father, but of Olivia’s—my sister‘s—baby!’
His eyes went darkly opaque. ‘My God,’ he breathed. ‘Are you acting as a surrogate mother-is that it? Are you carrying their child implanted in your womb because your sister can’t carry a full-term pregnancy?’
His leap of imagination took her breath away. She was glad that she was already lying down. It wasn’t often these days that she was taken so spectacularly off guard. She felt a deep, dangerous stirring of dark emotions which she ruthlessly repressed.
‘No! Honestly, Luke, I don’t know where you get such wild ideas from; you’re as bad as the tabloids—’ She bit her lip, hoping he hadn’t noticed the slip. The cracker miraculously seemed to have settled down in comfortable residence and she pushed herself cautiously up against the pillows and took pity on his confusion.
‘I’m not carrying anyone’s child, OK? I’m not pregnant at all; I just have the symptoms.’ She thumped the mattress with a frustrated fist and threatened fiercely, ‘Oh, I’m going to kill her for doing this to me when I get back home!’
Sharp alarm briefly pierced the bewildered dark eyes. ‘Kill who?’ he said sharply.
‘Olivia, my sister, that’s who!’ She braced herself for the usual scepticism as she attempted to explain as succinctly as possible, ‘Olivia’s the one who’s pregnant, not me. We’re twins, you see, and we’ve always shared a really close mental and physical connection. When we were children, whenever Olivia got ill I did too...or I showed all the symptoms but not the illness ... and vice versa. Fortunately it’s faded quite a bit as we’ve grown older and become more separate in our lives. Sometimes it’s just the echo of sympathetic feeling, a not-quite-rightness, but sometimes it’s a real, rip-roaring snorter!’
‘Like now.’
Strangers rarely took her affinity with her twin seriously and Rosalind’s mouth formed a pink O at his apparently easy acceptance of the bizarre truth. But then, she reasoned, it was no more bizarre than his guess.
‘Like now,’ she conceded ruefully. She sat up further, and brightened as she realised the nausea had passed. She felt perfectly normal again. She grinned her relief. ‘But, hey, it’s just a temporary condition and it’s not usually this drastic—at least not for me. Jordan told me it’s far worse for poor Olivia, who throws up on and off for hours every single morning—and she hates being ill and helpless even more than I do!’
Thirty minutes later, at the balcony restaurant, Luke was watching in appalled fascination as she poured more syrup onto the plate of waffles next to her decimated serving of bacon, eggs, grilled tomato and hash browns.
‘I don’t know how you can do that,’ he murmured, shuddering as she took a dreamy bite of the sticky-sweet concoction. ‘Anyone else would have settled for dry toast.’
‘I have a naturally high tolerance for food,’ she grinned, paraphrasing his words from last night as she cast a disparaging look at his orange juice and the plain wholemeal toast that had followed his bowl of cereal and fruit. ‘I think it’s something to do with my body chemistry. And don’t forget that Olivia’s hormones are busily info
rming me that I’m now eating for two!’
‘You’ll have to make sure you start getting a bit of exercise today. You don’t burn up many calories sunbathing.’
‘Exactly my plan.’ Rosalind’s smug grin made him eye her warily. He was beginning to know the look that bespoke mischief. ‘When we’ve finished eating we’ll go downstairs and book our jet-skis. I hope we’re still early enough to get a couple for this morning.’
He put down his orange juice. ‘Jet-skis!’
‘They rent them out by the half-hour but I say we get them for a full hour. Surely you didn’t think that we were just going to sit around and flirt with each other all day, did you, Luke?’ she said sweetly, enjoying his startled consternation. ‘That wouldn’t burn up very many calories either. Flirting isn’t a passive art, you know; it’s as much physical as verbal. Being able to flirt on the wing, so to speak, increases your chances of success ... Besides, if you do interesting things you set up opportunities to meet a more interesting type of woman. I take it you haven’t ridden a jet-ski before.’
‘No, nor ever wanted to,’ he said, glancing down at the short jetty and pontoons which marked off the area of the beach which had been set aside for the safe use of power boats and jet-skis. ‘Can’t we do something less... noisy?’
‘No, we can’t.’ She ruthlessly brushed aside his objection. ‘I thought you said you didn’t want to encroach on my holiday? Well, if we do things my way we’ll both get what we want—I’ll have some fun and you’ll provide yourself with a stimulating new experience to talk about.
‘Trust me—once you get the hang of it you’ll love it,’ she predicted, polishing off another waffle. Her green eyes shimmered with innocence as she leaned over the table to add in a low purr that made a flush streak across his cheekbones, ‘Just think of the pleasure of having all that throbbing power between your legs. Who knows? It might prompt you to discover a totally new aspect of your personality!’
