Читать книгу Perfect Proposals Collection - Lynne Marshall - Страница 28

A FEW days later Jo stopped what she was doing—attempting to capture Adele Hastings in oil crayons—and sank her chin onto her hand as she recalled the wash-up of the abortive kidnap attempt.

Immediately after Gavin had asked her to marry him, he’d blacked out and a police helicopter had landed on the lawn.

What had transpired was that Gavin’s mother had flown into Brisbane, only to suddenly remember Jo’s imminent arrival on Kin Can. So she’d tried to ring the station in vain over a couple of days and finally got worried enough to ring the police.

They’d driven out from Cunnamulla and, on finding the Kin Can sign mysteriously removed, they’d called for back-up.

Gavin had been airlifted to hospital, and all three kidnappers—the tall one had also been shot but only wounded—had been taken into custody. A stash of drugs had been found in their van.

Case, the head stockman, had been liberated from a shed a few kilometres from the homestead.

The next day the silver-grey Range Rover driven by ‘Joe’ had been found to be stolen, which had made sense of the kidnappers’ request for verification of what vehicle he’d be driving.

Even more sense to it all had come when the man who had wielded the gun had been discovered to be the brother of a Kin Can employee Gavin had sacked for incompetence and drug addiction. Revenge had been the motive for it all.

Jo had refused the police offer of hospitalization and counselling. Her worst problem, or so she’d thought, was only some spectacular bruising inflicted by Gavin himself when he’d tackled her to the floor in the boundary hut. She’d also been pressed into staying on by Gavin’s mother, who’d flown into Kin Can later that day after visiting her son in hospital.

Rosie had been left in Brisbane with Gavin’s sister in case the damage to the homestead, the police presence and the absence of her father might upset her.

It wasn’t until the next day that Jo was able to ask Adele Hastings why she hadn’t told her son about her portrait.

Adele struck an attitude of considerable hauteur—she was a petite, stylish redhead in her late fifties—and she informed Jo that the less Gavin was consulted about anything, the better.

Jo blinked and frowned. ‘Why?’

‘My dear, he has enough delusions of power as it is. So I usually go ahead and do my own thing, then when it’s a fait accompli, he simply has to live with it.’

‘But why would he object to you having your portrait done, Mrs Hastings?’

‘He probably wouldn’t have. It’s the principle of the matter,’ Gavin’s mother confided. ‘But you see, I also have a secret agenda, Joanne.’

They were having coffee poured from a Georgian silver pot into wafer-thin china cups despite sitting at the kitchen table. Adele, Jo was increasingly to discover, didn’t believe in slumming it under any circumstances and the only reason they were in the kitchen was because there were police and workmen all over the rest of the house.

‘A secret agenda?’

Adele Hastings eyed Jo over the rim of her cup out of blue eyes very much like her son’s. ‘Well, I planned to give my portrait to my daughter, Sharon, for her thirtieth birthday. She’s a bit of a connoisseur and has expressed an interest in your work. She also has everything that opens and shuts so…’ She waved an elegant hand. ‘But it’s Gavin I particularly want you to do. And maybe Rosie, if you have the time. But I especially want Gavin to hang up beside his father, grandfather and great-grandfather.’

Jo put her cup down with a slight clatter. ‘Would he approve?’

‘I doubt it. I mentioned it once and he said—forget it, he couldn’t be bothered! You’d have to do it secretly, without sittings and so on. But I believe you’re very clever like that, my dear,’ Adele said warmly. ‘My friend, Elspeth Morgan—she was the one who recommended you—was so impressed with all the portraits you did of her cats—from photos, apparently!’

Jo closed her eyes briefly. The Elspeth Morgan commission had been a nightmare, although a lucrative one. A formidable Brisbane society matron, she’d changed her mind six times about what clothes and jewels she should be captured for posterity wearing. Then she’d decided to get her four cats done individually as well, and been quite hurt when Jo had drawn the line at cat sittings and insisted on taking photos.

‘Uh—I feel a sort of moral obligation not to draw people who expressly don’t want to be done, Mrs Hastings.’

Blue eyes engaged with level grey ones. ‘I see,’ Adele said consideringly.

And, unbeknownst to Jo, Adele found herself recalling her son Gavin’s strictures on the subject of Joanne Lucas.

Obviously in pain and looking feverish against a starched hospital pillowslip, he had nevertheless issued a series of instructions to her. No interviews to be given to the press; no press to be allowed on Kin Can at all, even only to photograph; Rosie to be kept in the dark and in Brisbane until he was up and about—and Jo Lucas to be kept on the station until he got back.

‘How can I keep her if she doesn’t want to stay?’ she’d objected, looking mystified. ‘It all sounds like a ghastly experience so it’s understandable if she—’

‘Beloved, use your considerable powers of persuasion,’ he’d broken in with a half-smile, and added, as she’d looked more mystified, ‘There are some things I need to—make up to her. I thought she was part of the gang at first. Just don’t let her go.’

Adele Hastings withdrew her mind’s eye from her wounded but still high-handed son and studied the young woman sitting across the table from her with a suddenly accelerated heartbeat. Was there something between them? Had Gavin fallen in love when she’d given up nearly all hope of it ever happening again? What sort of a girl was she?

Good bone structure, good figure if you liked tall girls, fine skin, lovely hair, but not, one would have thought, Gavin’s type—why? Too…understated? Compared to the glorious vivacity, the dark flashing eyes, the bundle of fun and essential willowy chic Sasha, Rosie’s mother, had been? Perhaps, but all the same…

Adele smiled suddenly with all the considerable charm she was capable of. ‘Forget I even mentioned it, Joanne. But you will stay with us and at least do me and Rosie? One thing I do know, he would love a portrait of her. Not only that, I would just love you to be my guest!’

Jo stirred. ‘Well—’

‘There’s also the fact,’ Adele hastened on, ‘that I feel so guilty about landing you in what happened, but lately I seem to have become quite scatterbrained!’ She shook her head sorrowfully.

Jo found that she couldn’t help warming to Gavin’s mother. ‘It’s just as well you and Rosie weren’t here at the time,’ she said. ‘Uh…’

‘Please, Jo—may I call you that? And may I tell you a secret? My dear friend, Elspeth Morgan, is actually an old bat and for some reason your portrait of her and her damn cats has really turned her head. She’s lording it over all of us like royalty and I can’t bear to be outdone like that!’

Jo’s lips twitched. ‘Us?’

‘We, a group of us, work on several charities together. She’s always been something of a Hyacinth Bucket amongst us but now she’s unbearable.’

Jo had to laugh. ‘Thank heavens I didn’t think of that at the time! I’d have made her look as if she’d stepped right out of Keeping Up Appearances.’

‘So you’ll stay?’

‘Yes.’

‘Lovely!’ Adele sat back. ‘Now just tell me what you need and I’ll see you’re as comfortable as possible.’

That had been three days ago, Jo recalled as she sat at the table in her bedroom late in the afternoon.

Unlike the bedroom she and Gavin had been locked into, this one was modern, spacious and minimalist. That was why she’d opted for it on being given a choice. There were no frills, although plenty of comfort and luxury beneath its cream and olive décor, and plenty of room for the large table that had been moved in for her to work at.

All the same, it had been three days of coming to understand that the kidnapping affair had taken more out of her than she’d anticipated. Three days of being cosseted by Gavin’s mother, of giving statements to the police, and being shown round Kin Can.

Days of being unable to draw a thing.

And days in which to ponder the fact that her heart had actually tripped when Gavin Hastings had declared that it would be a damn good idea if she married him.

Not only had her heart tripped but no amount of telling herself it was only a joke, no amount of tossing and turning at night had been able to alter one simple little fact.

From hating Gavin Hastings, she’d gone, in the space of a heartbeat, to acknowledging she had finally fallen in love. Why it had happened, how it had happened—surely not simply because he’d thrown himself in front of a gun aimed at her? But she couldn’t take issue with it either, not from her point of view. She could no longer think of him without the knowledge of love in her heart, and a quiver of desire throughout her body.

From his point of view, however, there was plenty with which to take issue. Had he only said it in a moment of light relief after appalling tension?

Jo, she told herself, not for the first time, of course he did. Only hours earlier, if that, he gave you, chapter and verse, every good reason why he wouldn’t ever marry again. And it’s no good telling yourself that if things could change rather like lightning tearing apart your soul for you, the same had happened for him.

‘So why am I here?’ she asked aloud. ‘He’s due home today and very shortly, and I should have shaken the dust of Kin Can off my shoes. Not only that, I can’t draw a thing because all I want to draw—is him.’

She sat perfectly still for a few minutes. The house was quiet, she was alone in it apart from the housekeeper, Mrs Harper, who worked efficiently and discreetly, she’d discovered. Adele had flown to Brisbane to pick up Rosie and they were to collect Gavin from the Charleville base hospital on their way home.

She got up presently and wandered through the main rooms. Gavin Hastings had been right. His mother, if it was she and not his wife who’d decorated Kin Can homestead, had very superior ideas, not to mention long pockets.

The original farmhouse had obviously been renovated and considerably enlarged. Although there were some wonderful antiques around, modern touches had been introduced and some of them looked rather new. The formal lounge was spacious with deep white cut-velvet settees on a cinnamon carpet and a huge, glorious gold and dusky pink painting on a feature wall—just swirls of colour but riveting all the same.

Jo recognized the work of a Sydney artist and had a pretty accurate idea of the value of the painting—not small change by any means.

The dining room was starkly simple. Rattan chairs, a round glass table on a brass pedestal, a cream carpet, a gorgeous chandelier strung quite low and a huge pottery urn in one corner. But her favourite room was the one Adele called the garden room. It was a long converted veranda with sliding glass windows down its length and linen blinds.

There were basket chairs, indoor plants in terracotta tubs and low tables stacked with books and magazines. There were Mexican rugs on the polished wooden floor and a lovely view of the sparkling pool outside. It was surrounded by an emerald lawn fringed with flowerbeds and a variety of gums, white, red and yellow-barked.

You could be forgiven for forgetting you were in the midst of thousands of hectares of rather flat, arid-looking mulga country—the stunted acacia that nevertheless provided shade for sheep—when you gazed out onto this view, Jo mused. And she shook her head to think of how a virtual cloudburst only days ago had now been absorbed into the soil as if it had never happened.

But on the other side of the house there was ample evidence this was a working sheep station. A huge machinery shed dominated the landscape, plus—possibly the crux of it all—the shearing shed and attendant yards.

Jo had been given a tour of it all by Case. Despite their utilitarian purposes and the evidence that quad bikes had replaced, to some extent, horseback sheep-mustering, she’d felt an almost Banjo Paterson sense of romance. Especially when she’d been introduced to the working dogs, mostly border collies and kelpies.

To be the mistress of it all would be rather like being mistress of an empire.

The thought had crossed her mind while she’d patted a grinning border collie, taking her unawares and shaking her composure considerably. I must be mad, had been her next thought.

A couple of days later, as she stood under the arch-way leading to the garden room, she heard a light plane buzzing over the homestead, and her nerves tightened. The Hastings clan was due to land shortly. No more mad notions, Jo, she cautioned herself.

It hadn’t been the ordeal Jo had somehow expected, meeting Gavin Hastings again. Of course his bubbly mother with her super social skills had helped. And his daughter, Rosie, had turned out to be a charming imp with her father’s dark hair but someone else’s dark eyes.

So, unless anyone had been particularly on the lookout, they wouldn’t have noticed her slightly heightened colour or the evidence of what her heartbeat was doing, and she felt that, otherwise, she’d been relaxed and friendly about it all.

Then Adele had confided that she’d ordered a celebration dinner but they’d be having it early on account of Rosie, and they’d all gone to their rooms to change. Jo had passed through the dining room on her way to her room, to see the table set with silver, crystal and fine bone china, so she’d showered and changed into the best clothes she’d brought.

These were a fine silky-knit pewter top that crossed over her breasts and tied at the waist, a paler grey, three-quarter-length skirt and silver sandals. She put her hair up in a loose knot, changed her mind and took it down, then resolutely pinned it up again.

Relaxed and casual she might have been able to project on re-meeting Gavin Hastings, but inside her something seemed to be spinning…

‘So—’ Gavin handed Jo a nightcap, and a flicker of humour chased through his eyes, ‘—alone at last.’

She glanced up at him and accepted the drink. It wasn’t that late but Rosie, complaining bitterly, had been taken to bed and Adele had retired to what she called her ‘suite’.

‘Are you fine now?’ she queried as the silence began to stretch between them. They were in the garden room. Outside, the pool was lit and the trees around the perimeter of the lawn were casting some fascinating shadows.

‘More or less. Some stitches to come out, that’s all. What have you been up to?’

‘Trying to draw, but not successfully. I really think I should have gone back to Brisbane—for a break at least—but your mother was very determined to have me stay.’ She blew her fringe up.

Gavin Hastings paced up and down the polished floor then stopped to stare out at the pool as a wallaby hopped across the lawn. ‘I told my mother to keep you here.’

Jo narrowed her eyes, then pleated her skirt. There was nothing to minimize his effect on her now.

In well-pressed khaki trousers, polished brown deck shoes and a red and white checked shirt there wasn’t anything of a demented bushranger about him other than the remnants of his black eye. He also looked relaxed, although perhaps a little pale, but he had undergone an operation to remove the bullet from his arm.

As she mulled over what he’d said a faint smile replaced her frown as she studied her glass.

‘What?’ he queried.

She looked up to see him standing right in front of her with a question in his eyes.

She shrugged. ‘I gather that being shot hasn’t diminished your habit of being in command.’

‘There was no reason for you not to stay on, was there?’

‘How would you know?’ she countered.

He pulled up a chair and sat down opposite her. ‘Tell me about it. I thought you intended to stay on Kin Can for a couple of weeks at least.’

Jo gestured. ‘Perhaps. But it was all rather traumatic. That—’ she glanced at him quizzically ‘—didn’t occur to you?’

‘Jo—’ he paused and their gazes locked ‘—I meant it. Will you marry me?’

She froze, then placed her glass carefully on a side table. ‘Gavin, you couldn’t possibly have meant it. We barely know each other, we both have very good reasons for—’

‘We know each other a hell of a lot better than most people,’ he broke in. ‘What we went through was extremely revealing, wouldn’t you say?’

His eyes searched hers until she looked away.

‘We also happen to want each other,’ he added softly. ‘Would you like me to tell you how I want you?’

‘No,’ she said swiftly and swallowed.

He grinned fleetingly. ‘You couldn’t stop me.’

‘I…I could get up and go away,’ she pointed out.

‘Not very far. Assuming I allowed you to go anywhere.’

‘Gavin—’ some steel entered her grey gaze ‘—you used that tactic before, but may I point out you don’t have a gun to reinforce it now?’

He grimaced. ‘A gun with no bullets.’

‘I wasn’t to know that.’

‘No, you weren’t,’ he agreed. ‘Nor did it stop you from testing my intentions with the damn gun.’

‘Well, then.’ She folded her hands.

‘I don’t see why we can’t have an adult conversation about it,’ he said submissively.

Her gaze sharpened again, this time with acute suspicion, and his next words confirmed her suspicions—it was a highly unlikely state of mind to find him in…

‘My mother didn’t have a gun to hold to your head, bullet-less or otherwise.’

His words sank into a pool of silence but the inference was loud and clear—why was she still on Kin Can if she didn’t want to be?

Jo bit her lip.

‘See what I mean?’ His blue eyes held a trace of ironic enquiry.

‘Just as your mother feels you suffer from delusions of power, Gavin Hastings, she is also a powerful persuader.’

‘So it had nothing to do with me?’

‘Look—’ she turned her head to stare out over the lawn for a long moment ‘—we both know exactly why marriage is not for us and none of those reasons has changed so—’

‘Jo—’ his voice hardened ‘—things do change and sometimes when you least expect them to. OK, yes, I fully expected the memory of Sasha to make it impossible for me to marry again, but this is different.’

‘How could it be?’ she asked with difficulty. ‘How could you hold me up against her memory and not find me wanting? Tell me something.’ It was a shot in the dark but something Adele had let drop forced her to make it. ‘Who does Rosie remind you of vividly?’

‘Her mother,’ he said grimly. ‘She always will. That doesn’t mean you and I can’t create our own world, our own magic. But let’s talk about you for a moment.’

He paused, but gazed at her narrowly until she took refuge from his scrutiny by sipping her drink.

As he watched her it occurred to Gavin Hastings to find it incredible that he’d ever thought her unfeminine, even if so briefly.

All the same, seeing her dressed up for the first time was a sheer pleasure. Her sense of style might be understated but the pewter of her top highlighted her creamy skin and made her eyes greyer. As always the gold of her hair was gorgeous, although he objected to it being tied up, he discovered.

Then there were those legs. Her thigh was sculpted by her skirt as she sat, turned a little away from him, and her ankles were slim and elegant in high-heeled sandals.

‘Know what I thought while I was in hospital?’ he said at last.

She shook her head.

‘I thought if, when I get home, Jo Lucas has gone, that’ll be her way of telling me it’s no go. But if she’s still there, it’ll be because she’s…at least curious…to see if I meant it.’

Jo stared at him with her lips parted.

‘Mmm… Not only curious to see if I meant it,’ he went on, ‘but unable to shake off the physical and mental closeness we shared over those awful hours, the trust we shared while we were manacled together. Believe me, there could hardly be anything more claustrophobic than being handcuffed to a guy you hate and mistrust.’

‘You…’ She licked her lips. ‘You were on the good side.’

‘Maybe.’ His eyes bored into her own.

‘And, of course,’ she added in case that sounded ungrateful, ‘you did save my life at the possible expense of your own.’

He smiled faintly and shook his head.

‘You didn’t?’ Her eyes widened.

‘It was a calculated risk that went slightly wrong. I had no intention of either of us getting shot. My reflexes must have been a bit out of training. Mind you, the science of calculated risks is always—a risky business.’

Jo released a slow breath. ‘Whether it was a calculated risk or not, it was still extremely brave and I’m still extremely grateful.’

‘Good.’ His lips twisted. ‘Why don’t you apply that thinking to what I could do for you if you married me?’

She stood up abruptly and tossed him a rather tart little look.

‘Don’t trade too much on that, Gav Hastings,’ he murmured, ‘in other words?’

This time the look she shot him shouted, You better believe it!

He laughed softly. ‘That’s my Josie! Anyway—’ he stood up ‘—think about it.’

Surprise caused her to blink before she said cautiously, ‘Does that mean I’m off the hook for the moment?’

He shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘Of course. Never let it be said I pressured you into anything. Incidentally, if you’re worried about your career as an artist, I think it’s very appropriate for a wife.’

Jo opened and closed her mouth several times like a fish out of water.

‘And talking of thinking about things, there is always this.’ His eyes glinted as he moved to stand beside her. ‘Definitely worth thinking about, I would have thought.’

She knew in the split second before he did it what was coming, but her reflexes let her down. Indeed, she found she couldn’t move a muscle as he took her in his arms.

‘I wonder if you have any idea,’ he said, barely audibly, ‘how your mouth tempts me, Miss Lucas?’

‘Why?’ She frowned in genuine puzzlement.

‘Why? It’s just luscious and asking to be kissed, that’s why. Hasn’t anyone told you that?’

She shook her head. ‘I…don’t much enjoy being kissed.’

‘Could be you haven’t met the right man yet.’ His eyes glinted. ‘Have you ever experienced an orgasm?’

Jo opened her mouth to tell him it was none of his business, but changed it to, ‘Why?’ again.

He frowned faintly. ‘I get mixed signals. There’s this cool, calm Jo Lucas quite capable of holding her own against any man, one feels, then there’s the cuddly girl who slept in my arms and really didn’t want to leave them—’

‘So that’s what you were so smug about!’

‘Bastard that I am,’ he agreed without the least trace of repentance. ‘But there’s also—I don’t know—something that makes me wonder.’ He frowned again.

‘If I’m some kind of freak?’ she suggested dryly. ‘I’m surprised you want to marry me, in that case.’

‘Not at all. The prospect of being man enough to do it is highly appealing,’ he said seriously.

Jo caught her breath, because this was absolute arrogance if nothing else and therefore intolerable, but just as she was about to tell him so he started to laugh.

‘You thought I was serious, Josie!’

Colour flooded her cheeks and he took advantage of her confusion to lower his mouth to hers.

‘Won’t hurt in the slightest,’ he promised against her lips. ‘Just leave it to me.’

Far from hurting or being the invasion she’d always found distasteful, it was increasingly fascinating. Then again, Gavin Hastings took his time about really kissing her. He nuzzled the corner of her mouth, her cheek, the side of her throat at the same time as he swept his hands slowly but, oh, so thoroughly down her body.

At the same time, he drew her against him and she had to fight against a deliciously sensuous tide that flooded her at the contact with his warm, hard body.

Then he curved one hand round the back of her neck and began to explore her breasts with the other.

She breathed raggedly.

‘Nice?’ His lips returned to the corner of her mouth.

She didn’t answer, she couldn’t find the words to tell him it might be nice but it was also dangerous. But she did find herself hanging onto his arm unexpectedly, until he lifted his head suddenly and grimaced in pain.

‘Oh!’ Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Your wound—I’m so sorry!’

‘It’s OK. Here—’ he repositioned them so a wall was behind her ‘—lean back.’

‘Why?’

‘Just so I can get my breath again.’

‘But I feel terrible,’ she protested.

‘Jo—’ he brought both hands up to imprison her between them against the wall ‘—I’m fine. And all the more fine to be doing this. Just relax.’ This time, he lowered his mouth to tease her lips apart.

She did relax, mainly because she was still concerned about hurting him and not wanting to do it again. Or, she wondered, was it an urge to heal the hurt she’d caused that made her really let her guard down?

Whatever, she went from being wary about the way he was arousing her to accepting it. The next step, allowing her senses to participate, came swiftly. Her skin shivered when he moved one hand from the wall to slide it down her arm. Then his fingers moved to her throat and slipped down to the V opening of her top.

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, and moved forward against him. His other hand came down and he wrapped his arm around her, and she breathed deeply. As she did so the last of her wariness dissolved completely beneath an assault of pure pleasure and pure man.

‘Did you know,’ he said at one stage, ‘that you looked very attractive tonight but stern? I much prefer you like this.’

‘Like what?’ she breathed.

‘Disordered and wanton.’

‘I’m no such thing!’

His hands moved deftly and he released her hair from its knot and untied her top. ‘No?’

‘That’s your doing, not mine,’ she protested, but with little heat.

He smiled lazily. ‘I’ve been thinking of doing it for days. You do realize that even while I was harbouring the deepest suspicions about you, Jo, I was—unable to keep my mind off your body and all its delights?’

‘I did realize—’ she moved beneath his exploring fingers ‘—that you were being rather bloody-minded about women and their intentions, mine in particular.’

He laughed softly and pushed her top back to kiss her shoulder. ‘I hope this is a suitable form of revenge.’

She raised her arms and ran her fingers through his hair, then drew her hands down his back. ‘Revenge?’

‘Mmm…’ He slipped her bra strap aside. ‘You have me at your mercy at the moment, Miss Lucas.’

She opened her mouth to say that it could be the other way around, but he forestalled her.

‘Or, maybe it’s mutual.’ And this time, as he cupped her breast he started to kiss her in earnest.

She kissed him back. For the first time in her life she really gave herself up to being kissed and was almost unbearably pleasured by the unexpected intimacy of it.

Her senses spun and she couldn’t stay still. She couldn’t get enough of the fire and heat of his body on hers and his touch on her breasts and hips seemed to brand her and claim her for his own, almost as if she were his creation.

And she was, she realized. This tall man who’d started out by insulting her in just about every conceivable way, then saved her life whether he liked to think it or not, had somehow unlocked the essence of her femininity. So that she longed to beg for more intimacy, the closest no-holds-barred kind of all.

They drew apart at last and Jo had to lean back against the wall for support. He put his hands up to imprison her against it again and stared down at her.

Her gorgeous mouth was bruised and ripe. Her golden hair lay in a swathe across one shoulder with her fringe in her eyes. Her breasts heaved—there was a dew of sweat trickling down the smooth, pale valley between them until she, belatedly, pulled her bra up, and she blew up at her fringe.

For some reason they both smiled at this little reflex gesture of hers, and he decided to complete her restoration himself.

He combed her fringe aside with his fingers and retied her top, smoothing it into place, then he looked into her eyes again.

Her smile had gone and they were dark now, as if with shock, as if the magnitude of the experience was hitting her—or the unexpectedness of her response? he wondered.

And he realized in the same breath that it was going to take a lot of will power to defuse things between them. An almost inhuman effort, in fact, not to take her by the hand and lead her to his bed and keep her there until she shuddered in his arms and came beneath him…

Then she blinked several times as her gaze focused on the sleeve of his shirt, and he looked down to see a patch of blood.

At the same time Jo Lucas came out of her daze into a sudden fever of a different kind—concern.

‘Oh, no! Look what I’ve done! Why didn’t you say? I must be mad!’

‘Believe me, I didn’t feel a thing and you weren’t mad at all.’

‘Of course I was. So were you!’ she retorted. ‘How could you even think of going around kissing people like that with a gunshot wound in your arm?’

‘I wasn’t kissing people plural, only one. You,’ he pointed out.

‘Don’t split hairs,’ she warned. ‘Let me have a look.’

She started to unbutton his shirt with a militant expression.

‘I take it this is not a good time to argue with you, Jo?’ he drawled.

‘It isn’t.’ She eased his shirt off.

‘Would you mind if I swore comprehensively?’

‘Be my guest. I’ve no doubt heard it all before.’

‘Ma’am, in that case I’ll give it a miss.’ He looked down at the dressing on his arm. ‘It probably only needs replacing.’

‘We’ll see. Come with me.’ She handed him his shirt and turned away.

He followed her to her en-suite bathroom where she retrieved her first-aid kit from a drawer. She then proceeded, with competence, to remove the dressing, swab the wound where it had opened slightly between stitches, and redress it.

‘There.’ She patted him lightly on the elbow. ‘I don’t think you did too much damage, but you should see a doctor if it keeps on bleeding.’

He put his shirt on with a frown in his eyes. ‘Are you also a nurse?’

‘No, but I did a first-aid course at school.’

‘And did it very thoroughly, by the look of it.’ His hands paused in the act of buttoning his shirt. ‘Why do I get the feeling you do everything thoroughly, Jo Lucas?’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘I have no idea.’ She suddenly noticed that he’d buttoned his shirt crookedly and with a click of her teeth started to re-button it.

He put his hands on her wrists and stilled her busy fingers. ‘See what I mean?’ he murmured.

She lowered her lashes in some confusion.

He added, ‘All the more reason to marry you.’

The bathroom had cream tiles and olive-green fittings. There was a wide mirror above the twin basins and Jo turned away from Gavin Hastings, to find herself looking into it, and getting a shock.

Her hair was a mess, her face was pale and her eyes looked different, although she couldn’t say why. Then it hit her. They were completely bemused.

‘That offer is still open, incidentally,’ he said. ‘Much as you’ve made a point of changing the subject.’

She stared at him in the mirror and thought of objecting that she’d had good cause. But perhaps there was a more pertinent objection to make?

‘All this has happened so…so fast.’

‘That’s because of the way we met. High drama had an accelerating effect. We were sharing a toothbrush only hours after we’d been introduced. We were virtually sleeping together before that.’

She shook her head. ‘We weren’t!’

‘No, you’re right,’ he agreed, ‘now I come to think of it. You must have moved into my arms at least—two hours after I introduced myself?’

Jo looked away from the pure devilry in his eyes. ‘You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?’

‘Nope. And, of course, there’s the fact that I saw you stripped to your underwear only about five minutes after we met, Lady Longlegs,’ he added softly.

Jo made an abrupt movement, then turned resolutely to face him. ‘You can’t just ask me to marry you like this without some…explanation. Not after what you said.’

‘Jo—’ he sobered abruptly ‘—I’m rushing my fences, aren’t I? Sorry. The thing is, it suddenly came to me that I needed a wife because Rosie needs a mother and my mother needs a break. But before I worked that out, I had this—I don’t know—conviction, that it needed to be you.’

‘Why?’ she whispered.

He shrugged. ‘The link the whole kidnapping debacle forged between us? You may think I saved your life, but what you may have forgotten is the lengths you were about to go to with a solid marble inkwell to save mine. Perhaps it’s that between us. We care about each other, Jo.’

‘As opposed to being deeply, wildly, madly in love?’

She thought he flinched as she said the words, but might have imagined it.

‘Sometimes the less flamboyant emotions are the ones with the better foundations.’

Her gaze dropped after what seemed like an eternity and she said very quietly, ‘I’ll think about it.’

He studied her and seemed about to say something, but changed his mind in the end, and dropped the lightest kiss on her hair before he turned away.