Читать книгу Carole Mortimer Romance Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Carole Mortimer - Страница 35

‘I WANT to know exactly what you know about Rebecca going away!’

Cyn drew in a slow controlling breath as Wolf verbally attacked her as soon as she opened her cottage door to his knock. She had been expecting something like this all day, ever since her peaceful Saturday had been shattered at ten o’clock this morning when she received a telephone call from Rebecca Harcourt... She wished, and not for the first time, that she hadn’t had her home telephone number as well as her business one printed on the card she had given Rebecca at their first meeting, then she wouldn’t have Wolf standing on her doorstep glowering down at her!

‘You’d better come in,’ she invited him wearily now, stepping back to allow him entrance.

‘I— My God!’ he muttered impatiently as he followed her inside the cottage—and almost hit his head on the low-beamed ceiling. ‘I didn’t realise you lived in the original Seven Dwarfs’ cottage!’ he rasped insultingly as he lowered his head to avoid another beam.

The height and small size of the rooms was one of the reasons Cyn had been able to rent the cottage in the first place; there weren’t too many people short enough to feel comfortable living here! It certainly wasn’t suitable for one of the commuter couples who would usually have snapped it up; not too many men must relish the idea of going around permanently bent over in order to be able to walk about their own home!

Wolf looked particularly ridiculous, his size and height making him look more like a giant who had stumbled into the Seven Dwarfs’ cottage than anything else. Not that many men had been to the cottage at all, and Wolf certainly hadn’t been invited here, so it was his own fault if he was now uncomfortable.

He sat down abruptly in one of the armchairs, the cane-based chair creaking under his weight; even the furniture had had to be chosen to fit in with the small proportions of the rooms.

He glared up at Cyn. ‘Well?’ he barked harshly.

Cyn looked down at him, having none of the problems with the size of the cottage that he obviously did. He was dressed as casually as she was today, both of them wearing denims, Cyn’s topped with a bright pink sweatshirt, Wolf wearing a pale cream sweater. But the casualness of their clothes was the only thing they had in common. Wolf’s expression was grim, Cyn’s deliberately enquiring. She knew what he was talking about, of course she did, but she didn’t know how to answer him, had no idea exactly how much he knew concerning Rebecca...

‘I was just about to make a cup of coffee,’ she said lightly. ‘Would you like one?’

‘No, I damn—’ Wolf broke off abruptly, drawing in a slow controlling breath as he sat forward in the chair. ‘I didn’t come here for coffee, Cyn,’ he bit out harshly. ‘I came for some answers. Gerald tells me that this morning you received a telephone call from Rebecca asking you to inform him that he isn’t to worry about her because she’s fine, but that she may stay away longer than the couple of days she initially planned—and that the wedding is off!’

Cyn had still been half asleep when she answered the ringing of her telephone early this morning, having spent a restless night, still churned up over that meeting with Wolf and Barbara in his office. But she had come awake instantly when Rebecca identified herself on the telephone. However, Rebecca hadn’t wanted Cyn to talk, had only wanted her to listen, and then pass the message on to her father. When Cyn had protested at the message she wanted her to pass on Rebecca had put the receiver down at the other end.

Cyn had been stunned. What was she supposed to do now? One thing she had known—Rebecca had no intention of telephoning her father and talking to him herself, so if she didn’t call him herself he would be left wondering what had happened at the end of the weekend when Rebecca didn’t return home from the schoolfriend’s she had told him she was visiting. And when Gerald telephoned that friend he would discover that Rebecca hadn’t been there at all!

Cyn hadn’t liked the position she had been put in at all, and wished once again that she had never heard of the Harcourt family. But as she had heard of them, and Rebecca had entrusted her with the task of talking to her father, Cyn had had no choice in the end but to telephone Gerald. He had been stunned by what she had to tell him, and wanted to know where Rebecca really was, but as Cyn had no idea...

It hadn’t taken Wolf long after Gerald must have spoken to him to decide that Cyn must know more than she was telling them.

She shrugged. ‘That was exactly what Rebecca told me to tell her father.’ She grimaced at the inadequacy of it. But Rebecca had been adamant that she had nothing else to say on the matter, so what else could Cyn possibly say about it?

‘Why you, Cyn?’ Wolf’s eyes were narrowed up at her speculatively. ‘Why did Rebecca choose you to talk to rather than one of us? After all, Gerald is her father, and I’m—I was—her fiancé,’ he amended grimly.

Cyn swallowed hard. ‘Possibly that’s the reason she chose me,’ she suggested lightly. ‘The two of you were too close, whereas I—’

‘Yes?’ Wolf prompted as she hesitated.

‘I don’t know why she chose me either, Wolf,’ Cyn snapped, her eyes flashing deeply violet. ‘You’ll have to ask Rebecca that, won’t you!’

‘But I can’t, because she isn’t here,’ he reminded her softly. ‘You are.’

And she wished she weren’t! She had known there was going to be trouble over Rebecca’s behaviour, had tried to think of some answers she could give Wolf—because she had known he would come here demanding some!—but the truth of the matter was that she just didn’t have any to give him. Not without betraying Rebecca’s trust in her. And she couldn’t—wouldn’t do that.

She shrugged. ‘And I’ve told you everything Rebecca told me to.’

Wolf still watched her with narrowed eyes. ‘Everything?’ he echoed silkily.

She couldn’t quite meet his gaze now. Yes, she had told them everything Rebecca had told her to tell her father and Wolf—but not everything she knew! And Wolf was astute enough to realise that, if Gerald wasn’t.

Rebecca hadn’t answered her when Cyn had asked if she was doing this thinking she needed to be alone, had just repeated the message she wanted Cyn to give her father. But Cyn would be very interested to know if the young golden god of a gardener arrived for work on Monday morning...

‘Everything,’ Cyn repeated firmly. ‘There’s really nothing more I can tell you, Wolf, so if you wouldn’t mind, I—’

‘But I do mind, Cyn,’ he told her evenly as he once again stood up—and instantly cursed the low ceiling once again as he ducked to avoid hitting his head. ‘I wanted to talk to you about last night.’

She was discovering that the tiny rooms in the cottage had another disadvantage besides the obvious ones; the small proportions made Wolf seem very close, very dominating with his superior height—and more than a little dangerous! What was it they said, the best form of defence was attack? Well then, she had better attack, and quickly, because her defences were starting to crumble!

‘Your fiancée has just called off your wedding, and you want to talk to me?’ she scorned incredulously. ‘I think it’s Rebecca you should be trying to talk to!’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t happen to know where she is, do I? But I do know where you are,’ he added with satisfaction.

Cyn swallowed hard. ‘I have nothing more to say about last night. In fact, now that the wedding appears to have been cancelled,’ she continued more confidently—she would not talk about Barbara, would not put herself through that emotional torture a second time! ‘I can’t see any reason for us to have any further contact at all. Unless, of course, Rebecca changes her mind about the wedding, in which case I’ll be more than happy to talk to both of you concerning the—Wolf!’ she croaked as he reached out suddenly and pulled her up hard against his chest, the expression on his face grimly determined, to say the least.

‘Shut up, woman!’ he rasped. ‘Just shut up,’ he groaned before his head lowered and his mouth claimed hers.

Cyn wished he would stop doing this, because there was no way she could resist him. She had once loved this man— Once? God, she still loved him, she realised with a sickening jolt in her stomach. How could that be? How could she still love this man, a man who had not only betrayed her, but also the girl he had been about to marry in a few months’ time?

She didn’t know how she did, she just knew, as her body and senses responded to his caresses, that she had never stopped loving him. In spite of it all, she loved him! He was the reason she had never been able to feel any emotion stronger than liking for any other man.

She pulled away from him with a choked sob. ‘Stop it, Wolf,’ she told him shakily, pushing at his chest. ‘I don’t want this.’

‘I need this!’ he claimed determinedly, his head lowering to hers once again.

She was too weakened by his closeness to protest this time when his mouth claimed hers, his lips sipping and tasting, his tongue dipping and caressing, and her arms moved up about his neck as she pulled him down to her.

It had always been like this between them, this wild racing of pulses, this wild cry of every nerve-ending for the caresses that would drive them towards the edge of fulfilment.

Wolf was filled with the same sense of urgency as his hands roamed restlessly over her body and the kiss deepened and lengthened, the pulsing of his thighs telling her of that need he had claimed only minutes earlier.

God, how she loved the feel of his hair beneath her fingertips, those fingers becoming entwined in the long silky blondness as she held him against her, the tip of her tongue meeting the quest of his in answering longing.

What was she doing? What was Wolf doing? This was wrong, so very wrong, for both of them! It hadn’t worked out between them seven years ago, wouldn’t work out now either, and Cyn knew she had no intention of becoming just another conquest to Wolf. And she could never be anything else. Had never been anything else, not really— Was that why he was doing this, because she had been the one to end things between them all those years ago? God, she was so stupid...!

She wrenched away from him, his fingers biting painfully into her arms preventing her from moving away from him completely, his expression slightly dazed as he looked down at her questioningly; and no wonder, for seconds ago she had been pliantly aroused in his arms!

‘What’s the matter, Wolf?’ she said scornfully. ‘Can’t you be without a woman in your life for more than a couple of hours?’

He blinked, his brain still slightly fogged by the passion they had shared only seconds ago. ‘What—?’

‘Your fiancée had gone away for the weekend last night, so you invited not one woman but two to join you for dinner!’ Cyn accused disgustedly. ‘Now today, when it seems Rebecca’s panicked completely and called off the wedding, you don’t go chasing after her claiming your undying love for her and trying to convince her the two of you do have a future together—oh, no, you come to my cottage and try to make love to me. It seems to me Rebecca’s had a lucky escape!’ As she had, she told herself angrily.

Wolf’s hands dropped away from her arms as if he had been burned, the dazed expression replaced by chilling anger as he listened to her scathing words.

But Cyn was beyond caring about how he felt about what she was saying. This anger wasn’t only for Rebecca, but for herself too, for all the past pain Wolf had given her, and all the heartache she knew was yet to come; getting over Wolf this time was going to be much harder than it had been the first time!

‘Now get out of here, Wolf,’ she told him with steady dignity. ‘Get out, and stay out!’

‘You’re twisting things round to suit what you want to believe,’ he rasped harshly, his mouth a taut line, his jaw tightly clenched.

‘I want to believe you’re going out of that door!’ Her eyes flashed deeply violet.

‘Cyn—’

‘Why don’t you ask yourself why I want to believe those things, Wolf?’ she challenged, her eyes over-bright with unshed tears; she would not cry in front of him, she wouldn’t! ‘It’s because I don’t want you here. I’ll never want you here. I don’t want you!’ The last came out slightly shrill as she willed him to go away, knowing she didn’t have the physical strength or ability to actually make him go if he chose not to. But why should he want to stay somewhere he so obviously wasn’t wanted?

His eyes glittered ominously, his face looking as if it were etched from granite at that moment. ‘We have to talk—’

‘We have nothing to say to each other,’ she snapped tautly. ‘Go and cry on some other woman’s shoulder!’ Barbara’s. She had always been more than willing to listen to his problems. And anything else he chose to tell her.

Wolf’s mouth tightened. ‘As you’ve already pointed out, I’m hardly in a desperate state about the wedding being called off,’ he rasped grimly. ‘And that’s because—’

‘You didn’t love her!’ Cyn finished accusingly. ‘I already knew that. You’re incapable of loving anyone! That’s why I—’ She broke off as she realised she had been about to admit to having encouraged Rebecca to think very seriously before she committed herself to a marriage she wasn’t sure of; that would be all the ammunition Wolf needed to rip her to pieces!

‘Yes?’ Wolf prompted, silkily soft.

Her cheeks were no longer pale now but darkly flushed. ‘Why I didn’t marry you myself seven years ago!’ she substituted defiantly, knowing by the icy glitter to his eyes now that he was absolutely furious. Well, so was she, dammit, furious at the way he had thought he could just walk back into her life—and her bed!

‘All right, Cyn,’ he ground out harshly, a nerve pulsing in his rigidly clenched jaw, ‘I’ll go. But if I ever find out you were instrumental in Rebecca’s sudden flight I’ll—’

Cyn never found out exactly what he would do to her if he realised she had spoken to Rebecca—although she could surely guess!—because at that moment he turned with forceful strides towards the door, obviously forgetting the low height of the ceiling, as he cracked his head on one of the beams, while at the same time seeming to catch his foot on something too as he went sprawling across the room, narrowly missing hitting his head again, this time on the dresser that stood against the far wall.

It was all over in a matter of seconds, and Cyn could only stand by helplessly as she watched the series of events, totally baffled as to what had actually happened—although she moved quickly enough once she realised Wolf wasn’t about to get immediately back up on to his feet.

He lay on the carpet lengthways across the room, and part of her marvelled at the fact that he had actually managed to avoid crashing into any of the furniture, the small two-seater sofa behind him, the coffee-table in front of him. Not that she thought he was going to be in the least grateful for that—when, or if, he got up.

Cyn quickly moved the coffee-table out of the way, going down on her knees beside Wolf. His eyes were closed, and he still wasn’t moving. Oh, God, he hadn’t been knocked out, had he? What were you supposed to do with someone who was knocked out? Perhaps she should telephone for an ambulance? For a doctor, at least?

But when she picked up the receiver to dial the emergency number it was to discover the line was dead. And no amount of pressing down on the connection made any difference to that eerie silence.

‘You’re wasting your time with that; it’s what I tripped over!’

The harshness of Wolf’s voice in the otherwise silent room almost made Cyn drop the receiver and fall over herself. She turned to him with wide eyes, relieved to see he was now sitting up, at least. But from the grim expression on his face, he couldn’t see anything to feel relieved about!

She put down the useless receiver. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘How—!’ He drew in a controlling breath, shooting her an impatient glare. ‘How the hell do you think I’m feeling, with half a mile of telephone line wrapped around my ankle!’

That was when Cyn saw what he had meant by his first remark; her telephone line wasn’t just wrapped around his ankle, he had actually ripped the socket out of the wall. No wonder the line had been dead just now. So much for calling him a doctor!

‘I was trying to get help for you—I don’t think you should move until a doctor has looked at you,’ she told him quickly as he seemed to be trying to get to his feet. Trying, because he didn’t seem to be doing a very good job of it; he was obviously in pain somewhere as he gave a low groan. ‘You were only unconscious for a few moments,’ she acknowledged as she put her hand on his shoulder to stop him from moving any further. ‘But it was long enough to—’

‘I wasn’t unconscious at all, Cyn,’ Wolf rasped, the expression in his eyes no longer just impatient; the furious glitter was back in the golden depths. ‘I was lying down here with my eyes closed counting up to a hundred so that I didn’t immediately strangle you for the fact that you always did like a mile of telephone line so that you could move from room to room while you talked on the telephone!’

She moved back as if she had been stung, colour darkening her cheeks as she remembered the fact—as Wolf obviously did too!—that seven years ago he had had to call in an engineer to his apartment to put in a longer telephone line after she had ‘moved from room to room as she talked on the telephone’ and pulled the wire from the socket several times and disconnected her calls. It was disconcerting to realise this man knew her so well...

‘Obviously you only need half a mile of extra line in this doll’s house,’ Wolf continued disgustedly, having managed to untangle the line from his leg now, and impatiently throwing it to one side. ‘But it’s still enough for me to have almost broken my neck on it!’

Cyn didn’t think now was the time to tell him that this was a cottage, that they were supposed to be small. Character, the estate agent’s blurb had called it, and she happened to like it exactly as it was.

All of which was totally irrelevant to what had just happened, she accepted ruefully. If it had been anyone else but Wolf...!

But of course it wouldn’t have been—would it?—not the way her luck had been going lately. If things had been going her way at all at the moment Wolf wouldn’t have turned out to be Rebecca Harcourt’s fiancé in the first place, and then she wouldn’t have met him again at all.

Not that that was really relevant either; she had met him again, and he was now prostrate on her sitting-room floor—apparently unable to get up again, she realised with horror, as he attempted to move and could only give that pained groan once again.

Cyn was on her knees beside him, looking him over worriedly; it seemed as if they were going to need a doctor after all. ‘Where does it hurt?’ she frowned. ‘Is it your head?’

‘My head just has a lump on it—the size of an egg!’ he muttered with a pained wince after he had put up a hand to the side of his head and discovered the lump there. ‘But maybe that will have knocked some sense into me—at last!’ he grated, glaring at her once again. ‘It’s my ankle that seems to be preventing me from getting up.’ He shook his head with self-disgust at his inability to be able to do such a simple thing as get to his feet.

Cyn looked down at the injured ankle, inconsequentially noting as she did so that both Wolf’s socks were black; obviously he was no longer ever so distracted that he put on odd socks. She knew it was a stupid thing for her to have even noticed, but it was nevertheless yet another indication that this man wasn’t the Wolf she had known in the past; unless she had been there to remind him, that Wolf had often—as he had told her at their very first meeting that he did—gone out with odd socks on.

‘I solved that particular problem by buying all black socks,’ Wolf spoke gruffly as he obviously guessed her thoughts.

She gave him a sharp look, quickly looking away again at the rueful humour she saw in his eyes. ‘I’m sure that’s more sensible, with all those dark business suits you wear,’ she dismissed abruptly. The Wolf of the past had never been sensible. But then that Wolf hadn’t worn business suits either, would have dismissed any suggestion that he should do so.

Once again Cyn wondered what had happened to him during the last seven years. And she refused to believe, no matter what he had said to the contrary, that it had anything to do with her; nothing she could have done would ever have turned him into a businessman. And she wouldn’t have wanted it to. She had been proud of his painting, so sure he was going to succeed.

‘I wish all my problems could have been solved as easily,’ Wolf added grimly now. ‘Cyn—’

‘Let’s see if we can get you moved,’ she said briskly, standing up to bend down and put her hand under his arm. ‘If not, with the telephone being out of action, I’ll have to drive to the doctor’s and get him to come out here to you.’

Wolf made no attempt to move, but sat looking up at her, so close she could see the black flecks in the gold of his eyes. ‘End of conversation?’ he prompted gruffly.

Cyn refused to meet his gaze. ‘The past is best forgotten, Wolf,’ she told him offhandedly.

His hand moved out to grasp her arm. ‘I’m not talking about the past—’

‘Well, don’t fool yourself into thinking there’s a now!’ she bit out scornfully. ‘The only here and now we have is your injured ankle—and I intend getting professional help for that as soon as possible,’ she said briskly, deliberately moving so that his hand fell from her arm. ‘Can you try to at least get into a chair so that I can take a better look at your ankle?’ It was cramped, to say the least, sandwiched as he was between the sofa and the coffee-table.

He continued to look up at her for long, tension-filled minutes, then he nodded slowly, his expression grim at the effort it took for him to move at all; the ankle was obviously very painful indeed.

In fact, when Cyn finally looked at it once he was in the chair, she wondered how he had managed not to shout out loud at the pain moving must have caused him. His ankle was swollen to twice its normal size, and she knew if she didn’t soon get his shoe off it would have to be cut from him. Which would be a pity, as the shoes were obviously handmade, and very expensive.

Yet another indication of the wealthy businessman lifestyle Wolf now enjoyed.

Not that his clothes hadn’t been of good quality in the past, they had been; it was just that he hadn’t seemed to particularly care what he wore. Now his clothes, as with everything else about him, seemed to have been chosen with studied care. Unless he hadn’t chosen them! Barbara was still very prominent in his life, and Cyn had never forgotten the fact that the other woman had decorated his flat for him all those years ago. For the times the two of them could be together...?

Cyn didn’t want to think about that, it was still all too painful.

‘The shoe will have to come off,’ she told him abruptly, lifting his foot up on to her knee. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered as he gave a pained groan at her rough treatment, moving more cautiously now as she unlaced the shoe and gently eased it loose so that it no longer pressed down into his swollen foot. Slipping the loosened shoe off obviously caused him further pain, although he didn’t actually say that it did, the grim set of his face telling its own story. ‘Why don’t you just scream and shout like other people when they’re in pain?’ she snapped, impatient with his stoic attitude; why couldn’t he just be normal, for a change!

‘Will that change anything?’ he said quietly.

She looked up at him sharply, quickly looking away again as she saw the pain etched into his features. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sighed at her own lack of feeling, sitting back on her heels. ‘I think you may have to go to the hospital.’ She frowned at the amount of damage he appeared to have done to his ankle; he might even have broken it.

‘I’ve known that for some time,’ he nodded. ‘The question is, will you drive me there?’

‘Will I—? Of course I’ll drive you there!’ She glared at him for even thinking she might not. She hadn’t changed that much. ‘I hate to see anyone in pain,’ she snapped dismissively.

‘That’s me firmly put in my place,’ Wolf drawled with a grimace. ‘Just in case I should have thought your concern was personal,’ he added ruefully at her questioning look.

Cyn didn’t even bother to answer him, concentrating all her attention on getting him outside to her van so that she could drive him to the West Middlesex Hospital, about five miles away—which proved difficult in itself. Wolf was unable to put any weight on his injured ankle at all; his arm was about her shoulders as he leaned heavily on her on the slow walk—hobble!—out to her van parked in the driveway.

‘I think you’ll be more comfortable in the back,’ she frowned as she realised he couldn’t possibly climb up into the passenger-seat in the driving compartment, but that he would probably be able to fall into the back of the van without too much trouble.

Which was exactly what he did, almost taking her with him as she wasn’t strong enough to stop him overbalancing!

Cyn felt hot and irritated when she finally had him settled into the back of the van, not least, she admitted, because of all the physical contact necessary with Wolf to get him there. No matter how she might try to convince herself that she and Wolf were totally wrong for each other, her body seemed to have other ideas, and even now she could feel her nipples taut beneath her pink sweatshirt; thank God the material wasn’t such that Wolf was aware of them too!

‘You’ll have to move my car, I’m afraid.’ He grimaced at the BMW parked directly behind the van.

‘Well, I didn’t intend reversing over it!’ She glared at him for the unnecessary reminder; she was well aware of the fact that she would have to move his car. She was also aware that she would rather not have done so in the small confines of the driveway. It would be just her luck to back the expensive car into her garden wall!

Knowing Wolf was sitting watching her, with the van doors still open, didn’t help. But finally, with a grating of gears—and more than a little cursing!—Cyn managed to manoeuvre Wolf’s car out of the way enough to be able to reverse the van down the driveway and out on to the lane.

She deliberately didn’t think about him sitting in the back as she drove to the hospital; she dared not allow herself to dwell on the pain the jolting of the van must be giving his ankle, just concentrated on her driving.

And once they reached the hospital the experienced staff took over, two able-bodied ambulancemen helping him out of the van into a waiting wheelchair, a nurse taking him off to an examination-room, leaving Cyn in the waiting-room feeling more than a little superfluous.

It seemed she was waiting there forever, and she began to wonder if they hadn’t all forgotten about her completely; the rumblings of her stomach told her it was suffering for the lunch she had missed earlier through Wolf’s arrival. At this rate she was going to miss dinner too!

But finally Wolf was wheeled back into the waiting-room, his ankle noticeably bandaged but, fortunately, not in plaster, which must mean he hadn’t actually broken any bones—although his face looked grimmer than ever, and Cyn could only guess at the pain the examination and following treatment had given him.

‘Nothing broken,’ the nurse announced cheerfully as she brought the wheelchair to a halt beside Cyn. ‘Although your husband will need these to get about on for a while.’ She produced a pair of crutches. ‘Although not too much of that for the first couple of days, Mr Thornton; you need to rest that ankle until the swelling goes down,’ she told Wolf sternly before going off to deal with the next patient.

Cyn stood up, looking down wordlessly at Wolf, deliberately ignoring the natural mistake the young nurse had made in assuming Wolf was her husband because she had driven him to the hospital, much as she had felt her cheeks burn at the error. Not that Wolf seemed in the least perturbed by the mistake, so why should she?

What did they do now? Obviously Wolf’s injury wasn’t serious enough for him to be admitted to hospital, but at the same time he couldn’t go back to his flat alone either. And yet the thought of having to drive him to his mother’s house, of possibly having to see the other woman again—worse, having to see Barbara again!—filled her with dread.

But she needn’t have worried; Wolf seemed to have his own answer to that problem!

‘You’ll have to take me back to your cottage for a few days, of course,’ he announced dismissively.

As far as Cyn was concerned there was no ‘of course’ about it; he couldn’t possibly stay at her cottage with her, for any length of time!