Читать книгу Bride Required - Alison Fraser, Alison Fraser - Страница 8

WHAT was the opposite of a guardian angel? A jinx, Dee supposed. Whatever it was, she had one.

Having tossed and turned for most of the night, she slept when the first rays of light squeezed through the boarded windows and only woke when the air was warm and the sun high in the sky. She didn’t need a watch to tell her she was already far too late. She would never reach the Continental Hotel by nine.

She went all the same, with Henry in tow, and used her last money on the fare. The hotel was posh and exclusive, and its doorman wouldn’t let her past the steps. Reluctant enquiries were made. They confirmed a Dr Ross had been there—had being the operative word. It was her fault for being late, but she cursed him all the same. Couldn’t he just have waited?

She drifted off to the nearest tube station and, without a flute to play, did what she hated and begged outright. Her dismal face drew little sympathy, but enough for her fare home, tea and a roll at Rick’s and two tins of dog food.

She made her way home, thinking the day couldn’t get worse, but it did. She saw the caravans first, parked at the near end of the estate. For a moment she thought they belonged to gypsies, until she saw the vans on the other side and was whistled at by two workmen swilling beers on a caravan step. The developers were moving in.

She raced along to her maisonette, thinking she might already be too late to fetch her stuff, but the flats still stood, doors and windows now plastered with orders to quit and a demolition date two days hence.

She’d known it would be soon. When she’d found the place there had been other squatters around her, but most had since disappeared. She rounded the corner of her block to find the couple from downstairs passing stuff out through a gap in their boarding.

They claimed to have somewhere to go and invited Dee to come along with them, but Dee felt safer on her own.

She went up to her flat and was relieved to find the boarding still in place. She helped Henry in first, because he was too stiff to manage on his own. She collected her things together, ready to move on in the morning, then sat on her dirty mattress, trying not to think of the chance she’d let slip by.

It was some hours later when she heard noises again. They were distant at first, probably coming from the far end of the block. She heard the sound of splintering wood. A board being moved. Perhaps it was someone like herself, looking for a place to sleep. Usually she laid low, waiting for whoever it was to settle.

This time, however, it seemed they were checking every flat, searching for something or somebody, and Dee no longer felt like sitting tight. So she slipped through the gap in the boarding and landed soundlessly on the balcony below, then tried to haul Henry through, but he kept backing away. Having been reluctant to wake, he was even more reluctant to go walking.

Dee heard footsteps directly below her and, panic rising, made another grab for his collar. Unfortunately Henry began to whine and scrape and generally protest at the idea of going through the narrow gap for the second time that day. She leaned further and Henry disappeared altogether in the direction of the bedroom.

Dee might have climbed back in, but the footsteps were no longer below her; they were echoing up the far stairwell. As she withdrew from the window her jacket caught on a nail. The sleeve ripped slightly, then held fast. Rather than rip it further, she shrugged out of it and left it hanging as, in panic, she took to her heels along the balcony towards the other staircase.

A voice called out, meaning to halt her, but all it did was make Dee’s heart hammer with more fright. This was no kid out to vandalise a derelict building, but a full-grown man, and he was after her, his footsteps thundering in pursuit as she jumped three steps onto the landing, then stumbled her way down the next flight.

She landed hard and felt a jarring in her knee, but she kept going. She made for the open wasteland and the cover of darkness. But he was right behind her, running hard, gaining on her, closing in as her knee began to give out. She kept running until the second he grabbed at her, then she cried out in fear and rage as she went crashing to the ground.

Hard male hands kept her there. Face down in weeds and muck, she waited for her worst nightmare to begin. Seconds ticked by in her head before her assailant dragged her round, and it was the longest moment in Dee’s life. Nothing, not even her experiences with her stepfather, had prepared her for this.

Then he spoke, and fear dissolved in an instant. Relief followed, but was quickly sidelined by temper.

She lifted a hand and struck at him.

‘It’s me…Baxter.’ He warded off the blow.

‘I know it’s damn well you!’ she screamed back at him, and took another swipe.

He dodged that one, then grabbed at her arms before she could hit him again. ‘I’m not going to harm you.’

‘No, just break my leg in a rugby tackle!’ she shot back.

‘I was trying to grab your arm,’ he claimed, ‘but you halted mid-flight and I fell with you… Sorry.’

‘Sorry!’ Dee exploded at this utterly inadequate word.

He lifted his shoulders. ‘What else can I say?’

‘Try goodbye,’ snapped a still angry Dee, ‘but first could you bloody well get off me?’

He considered it for a moment. ‘Provided you promise not to attack me again.’

Her attack him? Dee stared at him in disbelief. Unfortunately, being flat on her back, she was in no position to argue.

‘Okay,’ she agreed.

‘Good.’

‘Come on then.’

Dee wasn’t scared of him any longer. There was something so calm and rational about this man, it was hard to imagine him as a threat. But she was still lying beneath him, conscious of the weight of his body on hers.

‘I’m waiting,’ he drawled.

‘What for?’

‘Your promise.’

God, he wanted her to dot the ‘i’s and cross the ‘t’s.

‘I promise not to attack you,’ Dee ground out through clenched teeth.

Baxter caught her eyes, a stormy blue spitting fury. He released her arms slowly and half expected another blow. But perhaps she wasn’t quite that foolish. She remained still as death beneath him, and he levered himself away. He brushed earth and undergrowth from his clothes before offering her a hand.

Dee ignored it. She knew she’d damaged her knee and wasn’t sure if she could stand.

She shot at him instead, ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’

‘Looking for you,’ he responded evenly. ‘I assume you’ve backed out on our deal?’

Dee could have contradicted him, but right at that moment she couldn’t see herself tolerating five minutes of his company, far less a year.

‘How did you know where I was?’

‘Your friend from the café gave me the general location.’

‘Rick’s no one’s friend. How much did you give him in return?’

‘Twenty pounds.’

‘You were robbed,’ she scoffed. ‘Rick would sell his own mother for a fiver.’

He shook his head at her cynicism. ‘You underrate his loyalty. It took me a while to convince him I meant you no harm.’

‘I know—you told him of our engagement!’ Dee concluded archly.

‘Not quite.’ His brief smile acknowledged the absurdity of such a relationship. ‘I said you were my runaway niece.’

‘How original—the niece story again,’ she scorned. ‘I hope you didn’t tell him my real name was Morag!’

‘I had to. I don’t know your real name.’ He lifted a questioning brow.

‘Deborah DeCourcy,’ she told him.

He laughed in disbelief. ‘Okay, don’t tell me, but I’d aim for something more credible next time.’

‘That is my name,’ she insisted. ‘And you should talk, Mr Baxter Macfarlane Ross.’

‘I suppose it is a mouthful… All right, Deborah,’ he tried out her new name.

She snapped, ‘Don’t call me that.’

‘I thought it was your name,’ he countered.

‘It is. I just don’t like it.’ Deborah belonged to the girl Dee used to be. She was someone else now. ‘You haven’t answered my question. Why did you come looking for me?’

‘To give you these.’ He went into his jacket for his wallet and took out the other halves of the notes from yesterday. ‘I thought you might need it.’

Dee took them and muttered a grudging, ‘Thanks.’

‘I wanted to check you were all right, too,’ he added.

‘Never better.’ Dee grimaced as she struggled to her feet, and started limping back towards the flats.

‘I can see that.’ He caught her elbow and would have given her support, but she shrugged off his hand.

She made it as far as an abandoned oil drum, then perched on it for a rest.

He nodded towards her leg. ‘Want me to take a look at that?’

‘Why? What can you do?’ Dee didn’t want his concern.

‘I’m a doctor, remember?’

Actually she hadn’t. She still thought of him as male model material. Too handsome for words.

‘So you say.’ Dee had her doubts and didn’t want him treating her anyway. ‘You just don’t happen to be my doctor.’

‘No problem. I’ve got a mobile on me. Do you think your doctor will come on a house call?’ He glanced round him at the derelict flats and urban wasteland.

‘Very funny.’ Dee understood the point. She didn’t have a GP anyway.

‘If you can’t walk, I’ll carry you,’ he offered matter-of-factly.

‘I’d rather die,’ Dee muttered, not quite under her breath.

‘Fair enough.’ He began to walk away.

Dee watched in disbelief. ‘You’re not going to leave me here, are you?’

He turned, hands in pockets, and gave her a mocking look. ‘What happened to “I’d rather die”!’

Dee could have thrown something at him, only she had nothing at hand. She made it to her feet instead, and hobbled a step or two.

He grunted his impatience before he came striding back and literally swept Dee off her feet. It was so unexpected, her heart missed a beat. Then missed another as she was compelled to lock her arms round his neck. Her hands brushed against the warmth of his skin while he moved with an easy strength. Unfamiliar feelings stirred inside her, and she tried to detach herself from this acute physical awareness of him.

‘Stop squirming,’ he instructed briskly as he picked his way past the debris of dumped rubbish and made for the road rather than her maisonette.

‘Where are we going?’ demanded Dee, alerted by the change of direction.

‘There’s a derelict bus shelter,’ he informed her. ‘You can sit there while I fetch the car.’

Car? What car? He’d said his car was in Scotland.

Could it all be a lie? His being a doctor, needing a wife, being willing to pay ten thousand pounds? The more Dee thought about it, the crazier it seemed.

He could be a liar, a thief, a madman, but the curious thing was, she still wasn’t scared of him. In fact, as he dumped her in the graffitied bus shelter and wordlessly walked away, she was more scared that he wouldn’t return.

By the time a car appeared and caught her in its headlights, she was very jumpy.

She was relieved when Baxter Ross emerged from behind the driver’s wheel. He might be a stranger but there was something reassuringly normal about him.

He put an arm to her waist and helped her limp to the car. She leaned on the bonnet and observed a car-hire sticker on the windscreen. So maybe he wasn’t a liar.

He opened the passenger door, saying, ‘I’ll drive you to the nearest Casualty to check the damage.’

Dee already knew what was wrong; she had damaged the tendon again. ‘I’ll go tomorrow.’

He made a noise, impatient rather than sympathetic. ‘Don’t be silly. You won’t get there under your own steam.’

‘I have to go back to the maisonette,’ she insisted.

He followed her worried glance to the block of flats. ‘If it’s a boyfriend, then he can’t be up to much,’ he dismissed. ‘Not if he lets you go on midnight rambles in this neighbourhood.’

‘It’s a dog!’ she retorted abruptly. ‘You’ve met him, remember?’

‘Yes, of course, Henry.’ He surprised her by recalling her dog’s name.

‘I can’t leave him,’ she explained in more even tones. ‘He’ll be frightened on his own.’

‘Get in.’ He nodded towards the passenger seat. ‘I’ll go fetch the mutt.’

He was so offhand, it was impossible to imagine him as a threat. He started to walk away.

She called after him, ‘Be careful. Henry might be a bit nervy.’

‘Nervy—right.’ He cast her a look over his shoulder. ‘As in likely to bite first and ask questions later?’

‘Possibly,’ Dee admitted.

‘Well, thanks for the warning, at least.’ He carried on walking.

Dee watched him go, a tall, lean figure with a fluid stride. Nothing seemed to throw him.

It was Dee who felt reaction set in, shivering in the cool night air at her lack of jacket, and she climbed into the passenger seat to wait for him.

She soon heard barking, and rolled down the window a fraction. She worried about the dog initially, but as the barking became louder and fiercer her concern switched to Baxter Ross. She might not like him much, but he was trying to help her when he could easily have walked away.

The barking continued, interspersed with the sound of wood being smashed, then there was silence. Dee sat in the car, holding her breath interminably, before they suddenly appeared.

The dog padded alongside the man. It seemed that Henry had decided Baxter Ross was more friend than foe. He wagged his tail, glad to see Dee but not unduly worried.

Dee watched in the mirror as Baxter Ross removed the parcel shelf at the back of the car and folded down the rear seats to create a large boot, pushing his own luggage nearer the front. He helped a stiff Henry into it and also stowed away her flute case and rucksack. Why had he brought those?