Читать книгу Tender Touch - Caroline Anderson - Страница 5

FROM his vantage point by the door Gavin watched her. He wanted to go to her, to open her door and help her out of the car, but he forced himself to remain by the door, his smile casually welcoming, while he watched her thoughtfully.

Laura liked it. He could see that at once without a degree in psychology. It was written all over her face in letters ten feet high.

He couldn’t stop the smile. He’d felt just the same about the cottage when he’d first seen it, and it was good to share that feeling. He unfolded his arms as she approached and straightened away from the door frame.

‘Hi. Welcome to my humble abode,’ he said with a smile, and, pushing the door open wider, he ushered her in.

She stopped just inside the door and looked round hesitantly, and immediately he saw it with her eyes—bare and rather bleak.

‘It’s a bit sparse at the moment,’ he told her hastily. ‘I’ve only been in it just over a week, and it’s taken me all my time to get it clean and respectable. Now I have to work on homely.’

His grin was wry, and to his relief she answered it, her face softening as she looked round at the clean but almost empty room. ‘It’s going to be lovely. Is there an inglenook in that chimney wall?’

He glanced across at the blank wall where a fireplace should have been. ‘I expect so. I was going to attack it and find out, but it wasn’t exactly a high priority. I was more concerned with having a kitchen sink that worked!’

Her smile warmed him down to his bones. ‘I see your point,’ she agreed. ‘Did you have a great deal to do?’

He gave a little grunt of laughter. ‘Just a touch. I’ll get there, though. Come and see the bits that are relevant to you.’

He led her through the doorway, ducking automatically now, and turned in time to see her face as she followed him.

‘Oh, Gavin, it’s lovely!’ she cried, and he felt his efforts were amply rewarded, just by the smile on her face. The little suite and matching curtains had been in a junk shop, and despite her new baby his sister had washed the curtains and covers for him and helped him put the curtains up. The soft lovat-green carpet was all new throughout, courtesy of the bank, and as he led her up the little winding staircase he found his heart was hammering in his throat.

For some crazy, absurd reason it was suddenly incredibly important that Laura like the bedroom and want to move into it, to share his home with him, so he could keep an eye on her and look after her and shield her from any further hurt.

He needn’t have worried. She loved the little room, simply furnished with an old wooden bed frame he had struggled up the stairs with, a simple chest of drawers and an old loom chair with a pretty cushion on it to match the curtains his sister had been about to throw away.

‘Oh, it’s lovely,’ Laura breathed. She crossed to the window and looked out, her mouth curving involuntarily as her eyes took in the view over the village to the church in the distance. ‘Gavin, it’s wonderful.’

‘Come and see the kitchen,’ he urged, worried now that she might change her mind and run away once she saw the primitive sink and basic plumbing.

She didn’t. Over supper, a simple salad with fresh, crusty bread and crumbly farmhouse cheddar bought in haste at the farm shop up the road, he told her of his plans for the kitchen, and she agreed, offering suggestions of her own that improved on his ideas and filled him with enthusiasm so that he wanted to start straight away.

He restrained himself, making her a cup of coffee instead and taking her through into his own sitting-room, now comfortably furnished with one large, squashy chair to accommodate his rangy frame and another, smaller one that Laura looked just right in.

She kicked off her shoes with a sigh, tucked her feet up under her bottom and wriggled down into the chair as if she belonged there.

He propped his feet on the trunk between them and watched her over the top of his mug. Lord, but she was lovely. Lovely, tired and still so wary. Why?

‘Well?’ he said at last, his patience exhausted. His mouth tipped in a cautious smile. ‘Are you going to come and live here?’

He avoided saying ‘with me’, although it was at the forefront of his mind and quite a different proposition to the one he had put to her.

She met his smile with a tentative one of her own. ‘I’d love to—if I can afford it. You haven’t said how much.’

He halved the figure he had originally intended to ask, and she protested.

‘That’s far too little! It’s worth twice that!’

Which took them back to his original figure. They settled on a halfway point, and as she agreed to it Gavin leant back against the cushions, the tension draining from him at a stroke.

‘When do you want to move in?’ he asked after a moment. ‘You can come as soon as you like; it’s ready.’

Her poor lip was caught between those little teeth again and worried gently. ‘Tomorrow?’ she suggested. ‘If that’s not too soon…?’

His heart lurched. Too soon? No way!

‘That would be fine,’ he said casually. ‘After work?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m on a late—I could bring my things over in the morning. I haven’t got much.’

‘I’ll give you some keys now.’

‘But I haven’t got my cheque book with me. Don’t you want money up front?’

He chuckled. ‘Why? Are you going to do a runner with my immaculate furniture?’

Her smile was worth waiting for. ‘I might—you don’t know,’ she teased, and he felt a lump form in his chest and swell until it nearly choked him. Damn, she was pretty when she smiled like that …

She set her cup down on the old trunk that served as a coffee-table and got to her feet, clearly reluctant. ‘I must go—my parents will be worrying about me.’

‘Ring them.’

‘May I?’

She was very brief—too brief. He didn’t want her to go. She did, however, taking the keys and promising to see him tomorrow at the hospital with a cheque after she had moved in. He escorted her to her car, keeping a distance, and by a huge effort of restraint managed not to hug her.

As she drove off, giving a jaunty little wave, he went back into the house. Thoughtful, he lowered himself into her chair. It was still warm, and the faintest trace of her fragrance lingered on the air. His fingers meandered absently over the arm, outlining the overblown roses of the print as he looked around the room.

For the first time since he had bought it, he realised what the house needed to turn it into a home.

A woman—but not just any woman.

Laura …

She couldn’t believe her luck. The cottage was wonderful, Gavin was so easy to get on with it was unbelievable, and her first day had gone really well. Perhaps her new life wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Carrying her few things up to her pretty little bedroom, Laura unpacked her clothes and put them away, laid out her hairbrush and scant cosmetics on the chest of drawers and looked around.

The bed was made up with clean, crisp linen, a bedside table and lamp had appeared overnight, and downstairs in the kitchen was a note propped up on the table.

Help yourself to anything you fancy from the fridge. Tea and coffee on the side. See you later, Gavin.

She made a cup of coffee and took it through into his sitting-room. She had a room of her own, but for some reason she was drawn to this room, to his chair, huge and comforting.

She sat in it, tucking her feet up, and, leaning her head back, she laid her face against the back and caught an echo of his aftershave, tangy and citrusy, very clean with none of the sweet, spicy tones that she so detested.

It conjured his image, sprawled here as he had been last night, his long body, relaxed in jeans and a sweatshirt, looking comfortably familiar. Ridiculous, of course, because she didn’t know him and he wasn’t in the least familiar, but she couldn’t shake this feeling that in some way she knew him, was connected to him, and that this house was where she was meant to be.

It was so silly, because the last thing she needed was a relationship, and Gavin was the last person she would think of in that context.

He just wasn’t that sort of person, not one of the overtly sexy young doctors that seemed to cruise around hospitals in an aura of testosterone and sexual arrogance.

The thought made her chuckle. She just couldn’t imagine Gavin coming on strong to anyone. Not that he was unattractive—far from it. He had beautifully even features if one discounted the slightly crooked nose, probably a legacy of some lethal ‘sport’ like rugby, and his firm, full lips parted when he smiled to reveal perfect white teeth—well, almost perfect. One had a slight chip on the corner—the same accident? Possibly.

His shoulders weren’t enormous by any means but they were quite respectable, and there was no weight on him. If anything he was too thin, she thought critically, and vowed to cook him some decent, rib-sticking meals to fill him out. Still, his legs were solid enough. She remembered how he had looked in his jeans, and realised with a start that he probably was a very attractive man—if men attracted one.

After what had happened to her, Laura would find it hard to be attracted to any man. The consequences were just too awful, the price too high.

She got up, out of his chair that reminded her so unsettlingly of him, and put her cup back in the kitchen. She needed to change and get back to the hospital, give Gavin his cheque for the first month and be on duty by twelve-thirty. It was already after eleven. Running upstairs, she flung her jeans and jumper onto the chair, tugged her dress over her head, zipped up the front and pulled the stretchy red belt round her waist. Her tights wouldn’t go on straight, her shoelaces got in a knot and it was ages before she ran out of the door.

By the time she got to the hospital she was beginning to worry. Would she find him in time? She was getting anxious about owing him the money, and she didn’t want to upset him so early on in their relationship.

The word brought her up with a start. Did they have a relationship?

She hated that word. Business arrangement, then. Friendship. Anything but relationship. The word was too emotive.

She needn’t have worried. He was there on the ward, looking rumpled and very familiar in theatre pyjamas. She thought with a little shiver of shock that he was actually bigger than she’d realised, taller, heavier, more—masculine? Her heart thumped, and she had the sudden, terrifying feeling that she had made a dreadful mistake.

Then he turned towards her, his blue eyes lighting up as he saw her, and his face creased in a smile of friendly greeting. ‘Hi. Everything all right? Did you manage OK?’ he asked softly, and her fears dissipated like mist in the morning sun.

She handed him the cheque. ‘Fine,’ she told him, and she realised it was true.

The afternoon was busy. Gavin was around, quietly busy, tending to Oliver Henderson’s patients who had had operations the day before. She met Sue Radley, Oliver’s senior registrar and Tom Russell’s counterpart on the other firm, and found her pleasant if a little withdrawn.

That suited Laura. She didn’t want cosy little chats—not that there was time.

Ruth was going to be more of a problem. Married for six months, blissfully happy despite her promise to live with Gavin if he crooked his little finger, she was warm, nosy and a definite threat to Laura’s peace of mind.

They were working together on a drowsy post-op patient, turning her and settling her down again, and Ruth was chatting happily about her new house and her husband Bob, a paramedic with the ambulance service.

‘So, how about you?’ she asked as she switched the bag of saline to the drip stand on the other side of the bed. ‘Single? Divorced? Widowed?’

‘Single,’ she said economically. It wasn’t really a lie. She was single now. Anything deeper she wasn’t prepared to go into. She wondered why Ruth had left out ‘married’, but she didn’t have long to wait. The bongo drums had clearly been hard at work already.

‘I hear you’re moving in with Gavin, you lucky old thing.’

‘Hardly moving in,’ Laura protested softly. ‘He’s got two cottages. I’m having one.’

‘But they’re joined, and you have to share bathroom and kitchen, don’t you?’

Did she know everything? Laura wondered in despair. ‘I’m sure we can manage not to get in each other’s way. Anyway, with the shifts we both work, I imagine we’ll hardly see each other.’

Ruth snorted. ‘If I had a chance like that, trust me, I’d take it. That man is something else. You can take him superficially, laughing and joking all the time, but underneath he runs deep. He’s solid gold, through and through.’

Laura was uncomfortable. ‘He’s been very kind,’ she said, to fill the silence.

She smoothed the covers over their sleeping patient and checked that the drip was hanging straight before moving away. Ruth went with her. ‘He is kind—too kind for his own good. He gets very tired, because he’s so conscientious. Oliver thinks very highly of him, but one of the downsides of that is the responsibility he gives him, and Gavin takes it very seriously.’

He would. Even after such a short acquaintance, Laura knew that. Lighthearted though he might seem to be, there was nothing superficial about Gavin Jones.

One of the patients rang his bell, and Laura hurried over to him, glad to get away from Ruth and her talk of Gavin. He was beginning to intrude far too much into her thoughts already …

Late that afternoon Evie Peacey came back to the ward from ITU. She was stable enough to move, and they needed the ITU bed, but it did mean she needed to be ‘specialled’—supervised and monitored by one particular nurse every minute. The job fell to Laura, and she was glad, because specialling patients was something she loved to do.

Evie was a little drowsy still with her sedation, but even so she managed the odd witticism which made Laura smile.

‘One way of losing weight, eh?’ she whispered hoarsely, her face creased in a pain-filled smile.

Laura patted her tummy, definitely her weakest point, and grinned back at Evie. ‘Perhaps I should try it. I’ll get Gavin to open me up and whip out a bit of this, shall I?’

Evie shook her head disapprovingly. ‘You’ve got a lovely figure, Laura—can I call you Laura?’

‘Of course you can—and you’re too nice about it. I’m overweight.’

‘No, you’re a woman. There’s a difference. Women should be soft, not all hard and bony like men. It’s all very well looking at these skinny things, but you ask a man what he’d like to snuggle up to!’

Behind her back, Laura heard a chuckle and with a sinking feeling she turned to see Gavin standing in the doorway of the little single room, a broad grin on his face.

The next second his arm was round her, hugging her up against his side in a harmless, platonic and somehow extraordinarily disturbing embrace. ‘Absolutely right, Evie,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘Who wants to snuggle up to a stick insect?’

Evie wheezed and moaned, and Gavin’s face instantly registered regret. He released Laura and went over, taking Evie’s hand in his. ‘Hey, you aren’t supposed to laugh at my jokes, only your own. How are you after the move?’

‘I’ll do,’ she mumbled, clearly tired.

‘Are you very sore still?’

‘Only what I’d expect. It’s all right till I have to move for any reason.’

‘I’ll increase your pain relief—Laura, we can turn up the pethidine pump a little to deliver it faster, and you can override it to give her an extra wallop just before any procedures. I’ll just take a look at your turn, Evie, before I go home, make sure it’s looking beautiful for the night.’

His smile would have melted an iceberg, Laura thought, taking the other side of the bedclothes and turning them back with him to expose Evie’s abdomen.

He lifted her gown and the plain gauze dressing to inspect his handiwork, the incision clean and healthy-looking under the staples. It was a very long incision, down the mid-line, and with all the additional rummaging around it must have been very painful. She was still having all her nutrients by intravenous drip, and the contents of her stomach were being aspirated hourly via a tube to rest her bowel until the area settled.

Satisfied with the incision, Gavin replaced the dressing and the gown, then laid the bedclothes lightly over the top.

‘You’ll do, as you say. Nice quiet night, no entertaining the troops, please, and I’ll see you in the morning, all right?’

Evie nodded slightly, and he brushed her cheek with his knuckles in a tender and affectionate gesture before beckoning Laura to the door.

‘I’ve written her up for the extra pethidine. Just keep an eye on her during visiting. Oliver’s said immediate family only, and only for a few minutes at a time, but Helen’s off duty this evening and I don’t want Evie overstressed by her endless visitors, OK?’

‘I’ll guard her with my life,’ Laura said with a little grin.

‘Good. Are you all right for supper, by the way, or do you want me to save you something?’

She was flustered by the sudden change of tack from professional to personal. ‘No, I’ll eat here,’ she said hastily. ‘Don’t worry about me.’

His eyes searched hers for a second, and she had a weird feeling that he was going to say something, but he didn’t in the end, just smiled slightly, his eyes softening, and moved towards the door. ‘I’ll see you later,’ he said quietly, and with a wave to Evie he went out and left her alone with her patient.

‘He’s a lovely man,’ Evie said with a sigh as Laura did her observations and entered the results on the chart. ‘The consultant’s nice enough, but Dr Jones—I don’t know, he’s so caring, as if I really matter to him.’

‘I think you do,’ Laura assured her. ‘You matter to all of us, Evie. All the patients do. That’s why we’re here.’

Hanging the chart back on the end of the bed, Laura smoothed her hand, the skin still plump and firm, and felt a great sadness that this brave and funny lady was going to be snuffed out like a candle at any time. ‘Why don’t you try and sleep now for a while? I’ll have to disturb you again in half an hour, so you may as well nap if you can.’

She did doze, off and on, and in between Laura read to her from a magazine and told her about her childhood on her father’s farm.

‘How come you’ve never married?’ Evie asked her later.

Laura hesitated, then answered carefully. ‘You have to be very sure you want to spend the rest of your life with someone before you make that commitment. It’s very hard to be so sure in advance, when you don’t know what they’re like in the morning, or when things go wrong and the bank gets uppity, or if your health lets you down. No matter how hard you try, sometimes it’s not possible to know all the answers.’

Evie studied her closely. ‘You sound as if you’ve been through it,’ she said softly.

Laura avoided her eyes. ‘There’s so much talked about it these days. It’s turned us all into experts! Now, I think it’s time we turned you. I’ll just get one of the other nurses to give me a hand.’

The other staff nurse on was Linda Tucker, and Laura called her over as she passed.

‘Could you give me a hand to turn Evie?’ she said.

‘Sure. Hello, darling—how are you? We’ve missed you while you were in ITU—fancy going down there, you traitor! Right, my love, let’s have you over—one, two, three—there we go.’

She helped Laura settle their patient, then left as Laura gently rubbed Evie’s bottom and hip to get the circulation going again in the skin.

Visitors were starting to arrive, and Laura warned them as they came in that they were to stay only a very few moments. Evie’s husband she allowed to stay longer, but even he taxed her strength.

Laura could see Evie flagging with the effort of being brave and cheerful, and she apologised to Mr Peacey as she asked him to leave. ‘She’s still very drowsy and sore, and needs her rest. She’ll be much better tomorrow. Why don’t you pop in and see her in the morning?’

He nodded. ‘I will—thank you, Nurse.’ He blew Evie a kiss from the door and left, and as he did Laura could see Evie crumple.

She tucked the bedclothes round her shoulders and smoothed her hair back from her damp brow. ‘You have a rest, now. Well done. I won’t let anybody else in to see you, so you can go to sleep.’

Her eyes drifted shut, and after a moment Laura realised she’d slipped quietly off. She watched her breathing, watched the silent heart trace on the monitor, and watched her patient’s face in turn. Of them all the face was the most interesting. The lines were nearly all laughter lines, but there were some, probably from pain, that were newer.

She was sixty-four, no age really, and there was certainly nothing remotely wrong with her mind. Her husband looked sad, though, a lingering sadness deep in his eyes, and a sort of suspense. It must be awful for him, too—maybe worse, because he would have to carry on after Evie had slipped away.

Laura checked the monitor again, the trace nice and steady, the respirations even if a little shallow. That was only to be expected as the abdomen was tense and so all her breathing was being done using the chest wall.

A head popped round the door. ‘Are you all right for a little while?’ Linda asked softly. ‘I’m just going for my break, so it’s only you on who’s qualified. Is that OK?’

‘So long as I don’t have to leave Evie.’

‘Someone else can always cover her if there’s a problem. I won’t be long.’

Laura nodded. ‘Leave the door open and tell the others where I am.’

There was a crisis, of course. Wasn’t there always when things were tight? Laura thought.

One of the post-ops began to look decidedly dodgy, his pulse racing, his blood pressure falling through the floor, and it looked as though he was haemorrhaging.

Laura went to investigate, reminding herself of his condition. He had had a rectal bleed, and on investigation a roughened area of rectum had been found and cauterised in a very minor procedure. He was due to go home the next day, but Laura had a funny feeling he wouldn’t be.

‘I feel so faint,’ he told her.

‘Any pain?’

‘Colicky—like diarrhoea.’ He moved, his eyes widened and he grabbed Laura’s hand. Oh, no—I think I just messed up the sheets,’ he told her. ‘Is it another bleed?’

She turned back the covers, controlled her own response to the lake of blood appearing on the bed and pressed the bell.

‘I’m afraid so. I’ll get Mr Russell to have a look at you.’

A junior nurse appeared, covered her shock admirably and looked at Laura.

‘Shall I page Tom?’ she asked.

Laura nodded. ‘Would you?’

Tom Russell was on the ward in moments, took one look at him and whisked him off to Theatre again. By the time Linda came back from her break Laura had relieved the nervous student with Evie and was back in the little room, sitting on the same chair and flicking through a magazine.

‘Everything OK?’ Linda asked cheerily.

Laura got up and went to the door, pulling it to behind her. ‘If you discount Mr Long and his bleed.’

Linda’s brows drew together in a quick frown. ‘Richard Long? The man with the ulcerated bowel? I thought they’d cauterised the suspect area?’

Laura nodded. ‘They did. He’s back in Theatre—had another bleed. It was pretty major. They’re opening him up and having a more thorough look.’

‘Oh, my lord—how is he?’ She laughed. That’s a daft question. Sorry. I suppose we’ll have to wait and find out. How’s Evie?’

‘Stable.’

‘Good. She deserves a break. Perhaps her post-op could be nice and smooth, unlike the rest of her history. Talk about Murphy’s law. If anything could have gone wrong with that sweet little lady, it has. It’s so unfair.’ Linda glanced at her watch. ‘Want to go and grab a bite? I’ll keep an eye on Evie.’

It was almost nine, hardly worth worrying about. ‘I’ll go later, after I finish. I’m not really hungry.’

‘Sure?’

She nodded.

‘I’ll go and prepare Dick Long’s bed for his return, then. I suppose he will come back.’

Laura pursed her lips. ‘I wouldn’t like to count my chickens. He looked pretty grim.’

Linda sighed. ‘I’ll check with Theatre.’

She went into the office, made the call and came back. ‘He’s in Recovery—they got to him in time. He’ll be transfused until he’s stable then returned.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Look, I’ll go and hand over to Jean Hobbs, then you can go, OK?’

Laura nodded and went back in to Evie. It was three minutes to nine. She recorded her resting pulse and respiration, took her blood pressure and checked her temperature, hardly disturbing the sleeping woman at all. As she worked she thought about her new home, and Gavin, her landlord. What would he be like?

Unobtrusive and rather fun, she thought. She couldn’t imagine him playing heavy rock all night, or drilling walls at three in the morning. More important, she didn’t feel that he was likely to put her under the microscope.

Off duty at last, she made her way back to the cottage and turned onto the drive, killing the engine. The lights were off in his sitting-room, and there was no sign of him when she went in. She almost felt she ought to knock, as she had to use his sitting-room as the entrance. The last thing she wanted to do was barge in on his privacy, and, attractive as he was, although not to her, she was sure he must have a serious girlfriend.

Imagining the scene she could walk in on made her cheeks heat, and she was standing by the door, her lip caught in her teeth, when he wandered through from the kitchen dressed only in a pair of jeans.

He flicked the light on, and her eyes widened. His chest was spangled with dark curls glistening with moisture, the flat copper coins of his nipples just visible against the paler skin, and she could see clearly the ripple of muscles down his board-flat stomach. His hips were narrow, emphasised by the jeans hanging on them held up only by the zip. The stud was undone, as if he had tugged them on hastily, or perhaps just temporarily. His feet were bare, so almost certainly he was naked beneath the jeans …

He grinned, quite undisturbed by his undress. ‘Hi. Good day?’

She swallowed and dragged her eyes up to his. ‘Yes—fine. Peaceful. Evie’s doing well.’

‘Good. Let me just get dressed and I’ll be down. Have you eaten?’

She shook her head. ‘No—there wasn’t time. We had an emergency.’

His mouth quirked and her heart turned over. This was ridiculous, she scolded herself. He was her landlord, a colleague and anyway it was the last thing on her mind—

‘I knew you wouldn’t get round to it, so I hung on for you. There’s a curry—give me a tick and I’ll be down. I’ve been working in the garden and I’ve just had a shower. There’s a bottle of wine open on the side—help yourself.’

He opened the door at the bottom of his stairs and ran lightly up, and then she could hear the boards creak under his feet as he moved around his room.

Quickly, trying to avoid thinking about what he was doing, she went up her own stairs, peeled off her uniform dress and replaced it with the jeans and sweatshirt she had had on that morning, and made her way back to the kitchen just before Gavin.

He was respectable now—at least, he had tugged on a sweatshirt to cover that surprisingly muscular chest, and his feet were clad in slipper-socks, bright pink with purple rubber paw-prints all over the soles.

‘I like the socks,’ she said drily, and he chuckled.

‘Christmas present from my sister. Have you poured the wine yet?’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve only just come down.’

He reached past her, smelling of fresh soap and clean skin and healthy man, and she moved away slightly to give him room.

He filled the glasses and handed her one, then raised his. ‘Here’s to us—long may we not fight over the toothpaste and whose turn it is to wash up!’

It was an innocent toast, but as she laughed and lifted her glass to clink it against his she met his eyes and for the merest second blue fire burned in their depths.

Or did she imagine it?

She sipped the wine, turning away to look through the window.

‘So, what have you been doing in the garden?’ she asked in as normal a voice as she could muster.

‘Reclamation,’ he said drily. ‘It was a disaster. I’m going to have to get a skip to put all the junk in—I think everyone for miles around has used it to tip their rubbish into.’

‘Can I see?’

Of course.’ He reached past her and opened the door to the lobby, then the back door. She followed him out into the garden, inhaling the scents of the night.

The lilac was intoxicating. She found the bush halfway up the garden, sprawling across the neglected lawn and begging for attention.

‘It needs rather more know-how than I’ve got to sort it out, I’m afraid,’ he said ruefully from beside her. ‘I can get the old car tyres and bed frames out of the way, and cut the grass and dig and light the bonfire, but after that I’m lost. I don’t suppose you know the slightest thing about gardens?’ he asked hopefully.

Oh yes—and I love gardening.’

‘You do—lifesaver! I tell you what—I’ll wash up, you garden. OK?’

She laughed. ‘Done. I loathe washing up.’

‘I knew we’d make a great team,’ he said softly, his voice close in the dusk. His arm reached out and broke off a piece of the lilac, and then without warning he moved closer—far too close—and tucked it behind her ear. For a perilous moment she waited, expecting him to draw her into his arms and kiss her, ruining everything, but then to her surprise he moved away.

‘We ought to eat—I don’t know about you but I’m starving,’ he said, and she wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it or if his voice was strained, as if he, too, had felt the moment and retreated from it.

Then they were back inside, leaving the tensions behind, banished by the bright lights and the everyday actions of dishing up and eating the meal.

It was delicious. She hadn’t realised how hungry she was, or how tired.

By the time they had cleared away the kitchen she could hardly keep her eyes open, and Gavin put the kettle on. ‘Go and get ready for bed,’ he instructed her gently. ‘By the time you’ve come down and washed, there’ll be a cup of tea here for you to take up to bed with you. You look bushed.’

‘I am,’ she admitted, and with a small smile of gratitude she went up to her room, changed into her sexless and ancient Winnie the Pooh nightshirt and ratty old towelling dressing-gown, and, bringing her wash things down, she made use of the little bathroom.

There was no sign of him, but by the time she emerged, face scrubbed and devoid of make-up, her long, dark hair down and brushed until it gleamed, Gavin was back in the kitchen with a cup of tea for her.

‘You’re wonderful,’ she murmured, taking it gratefully.

He gave a soft snort. ‘Because I made a cup of tea?’

She shook her head. ‘Because you realised I needed it. Because you noticed I was tired. Because you’ve made me so welcome, fed me, put sheets on my bed, found me a bedside table and lamp—everything.’

His eyes locked with hers for an endless moment, and then he gave a little twisted smile. ‘You haven’t seen the garden in daylight yet,’ he warned.

She laughed softly. ‘No, I haven’t, but it would have to be pretty bad to get the balance of payments right.’ On impulse—an impulse she later found herself regretting—she went up on tiptoe and brushed her lips against his. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, and then, clutching her tea in one hand, she turned and fled.

Gavin watched her go, his lips tingling from the fleeting contact. His fingers touched his lips, expecting them to feel different—on fire, perhaps.

They weren’t, but he was. Heat scalded along his veins, quickening his pulse and shattering his composure.

He rested his hands on the edge of the worktop and dropped his head forward against the wall cupboard. Hell’s teeth, he thought raggedly. The way she’d looked at him with those bruised brown eyes, shot through with navy blue like dark pansies against her pale skin—

He dragged in a much-needed breath and lifted his head, tipping it back and staring up at the patchy ceiling.

His lips still tingled, his blood still raced, his heart was bounding against his ribs …

‘You’re in trouble, old son,’ he advised himself. ‘Deep trouble.’

He picked up his tea and went out into the dark garden. The scent of the lilac filled the air, reminding him of her. Need, sharp and savage in its intensity, raked through him and he groaned softly.

Her light was on. He wondered what she was doing, and stamped on that train of thought instantly.

She had problems. He had to keep reminding himself of that. No matter how he felt, if he didn’t keep it under wraps he wouldn’t be able to help her, and that was why she was here.

Not, he told himself, to entertain him when the evenings grew lonely and boring, and passion stalked him through the long hours of the night.

He would have to tread carefully with her, look after her, nurture her. He mustn’t frighten her off, because he had a feeling it would be all too easy to do, and deep inside he knew that if he lost this wary and gentle woman he would lose something infinitely precious and absolutely irreplaceable…