Читать книгу A Very Passionate Man - Maggie Cox, Maggie Cox - Страница 7

HE HAD no idea what drew him to the window just then. A sudden movement, perhaps, a glimpse of something white he’d caught out of the corner of his eye… If he’d wanted to dig deeper he would have said it was a feeling that drew him; a sense of something unexpected about to happen.

For some reason tension coiled in his stomach and made it hard to breathe. Evan put it down to the debilitating effects of burnout. Work had been the driving force in his life for too long and he was no longer able to kid himself that he could give himself up to its demands indefinitely—not unless he wanted an early death. That last bout of flu had damn near killed him. But what was he supposed to do now? He’d done what his doctor advised and taken a month off from his business to relax, walk on the beach, catch up on his reading…get his head on straight. As far as Evan was concerned, all were prospects that frankly held little appeal. Life for him equalled activity, and he’d always pushed his body to the maximum, whether in the gym or working ridiculous hours to promote his business. If only he had known that one day there would be a price to pay for such single-minded recklessness…

A sudden frisson of fear biting on his nerves, he clenched his jaw, green eyes narrowing at the sight that met his gaze through the window. Past the tumbledown, mildewed fence that needed mending, a woman, white straw hat, white cotton dress down to her ankles, stood amongst the crestfallen weeds of the neighbouring garden looking as if she’d somehow wandered on to the scene from the pages of House and Garden. Secateurs in one hand, a wicker basket in the other, it seemed to Evan that she glanced disconsolately at the sight before her, as if she might have taken on more than she could handle. Not that he could blame her. The old, run-down cottage had been empty for at least three years, maybe more. It had had a ‘For Sale’ sign stuck outside for maybe the same length of time. He should have noticed it had gone, but then he rarely came down to the coast these days—his sister, Beth, used the house more than he did. The evidence of her presence was everywhere, from the feminine paraphernalia dotted round the bathroom to the box of kids’ toys stacked in the living-room behind a chintz curtain.

For some reason, the appearance of the woman in white irked him. He’d wanted peace. OK, so maybe he wasn’t sure that he could handle it, but peace was what he’d had in mind as he’d made the long drive down from London yesterday. Now that peace had been infringed upon by the presence of an unexpected and unwanted neighbour. Rubbing at his forehead, Evan sensed the tension gathering there like a building thunderstorm. As long as she didn’t bother him, everything would still go as he planned. Maybe she hadn’t bought the house at all—maybe she was ‘staging’ it for a potential buyer? Wasn’t that how they referred to it these days? But the face partially shielded by the big straw hat and the slender almost ethereal demeanour of the woman didn’t immediately shout ‘estate agent’ to Evan. Angel, or ghost, but not estate agent.

Irked by such a ludicrous flight of fancy, he drew away from the window before she caught him staring. He glanced at the pile of hardbacks on the coffee-table, and walked moodily past them into the kitchen to make himself a drink. When he’d had his refreshment he’d take a long walk on the beach to help ease out the kinks in his tired, aching muscles. Perhaps his dour mood would improve after that.

Her train of thought suddenly lost, Rowan came to a standstill in the middle of the neglected little garden, staring down at the secateurs in her hand as if she couldn’t quite fathom how they’d appeared there. She hated it when her thoughts were suddenly snatched away by this…this awful blankness. It was like wandering into a blinding mist after walking beneath a clear blue sky. Her fingers tightening round the smooth wooden handle of the pruning shears, she chewed down on her lip, willing herself to take charge, to be whole again—as she had been before Greg had died. But that girl had long gone, and the feeling of being apart from the rest of the world that had seized her that morning grew instead of lessened. Her heart galloped and her breath hitched, as if someone had sabotaged her oxygen supply. Instead of scrubby weeds, cheerful yellow dandelions and trailing bindweed, she saw her husband’s face just before he’d left on his last assignment that hot August morning. Saw his plethora of camera gear hitched across his shoulder as she’d seen it many times before, such an integral part of him. The equipment was almost a metaphor for Greg’s personal philosophy that, no matter how heavy your load, you just got on with life because after all, wasn’t it a bonus that we were here at all? And, with that wicked boy-scout grin that could crowd her chest with warmth, he’d walked out of her life and into an oncoming car as he crossed the road to join the rest of his crew in the television-news van.

Rowan swallowed hard, willing herself to move before she took root where she was standing—just like one of the scrubby weeds she’d been so intent on removing. She’d never get anything done around here if she kept sabotaging her efforts like this. It wasn’t just the garden that needed tending. The house also needed work to make it more habitable, even if she was destined to enjoy its comfort alone since Greg wasn’t around any more to share it with her. The neglected little cottage, just a short walk away from the beach down a winding country lane, had captured their imaginations as soon as they’d seen it. They’d started making plans for its improvement the very moment they’d jumped out of the car to examine it. It would be their mission to return it to its former glory, they had vowed. In no time at all it would be the quintessential English country cottage, roses round the door and all. Hardly unique, but then they hadn’t been planning on winning any prizes for originality—just making a home together. After Greg had gone, it was the only place that Rowan could bear to be. Although it had been their dream, Greg had never actually lived in the house with her and so she wasn’t going to be constantly reminded of his presence. Everything he’d owned she’d passed on to family, friends or charity shops and now, free of any physical reminders of the man who had been her husband, Rowan hoped to make a new life. ‘Hoped’ being the operative word. As yet she didn’t seem to be getting very far.

The straw hat came bowling towards him as Evan lengthened his stride past her house. Another fierce gust of wind lifted it high above the broken wooden gate that leaned drunkenly on one rusty hinge and as he automatically reached out to grab it, he felt his sweater catch on one of the pointed wooden slats. Cursing softly, he unhooked himself, then raised his gaze to the slender figure in white drifting gracefully down the concrete path towards him. Evan’s first glimpse of the woman’s face without the protective shield of the hat told him that she was pretty, but unremarkable. As she drew nearer and he saw the tinge of pink shading her cheeks and the deep shyness reflected in soft, sherry-brown eyes he elevated his opinion to ‘almost beautiful,’ but his intention of keeping contact brief and strictly to the point didn’t change. No sense in sending out the message that the aliens were friendly when Evan was feeling anything but.

‘Thank you. Lucky for me you were passing just at the right moment.’

She flashed him a smile to accompany the soft, velvet voice that stroked over his nerve-endings, and a stab of heat caught him unawares. His black brows drew together in a scowl.

‘Hardly the weather for straw hats, I would have thought.’ As Evan handed over the recalcitrant hat he saw her smile quickly disappear to be replaced by a new, guarded look. Good. She’d got the message, then. Impatient to continue his walk, he turned away until her soft voice unexpectedly lured him back.

‘Look around you.’ Glancing up towards a cloudless blue sky, she was shielding her eyes from the almost too-bright glare of the sun. ‘It’s spring and soon it will be summer. Doesn’t that make you want to acknowledge it in some way?’

Glancing at her long, pale arms in her white sleeveless dress, Evan angled his hard jaw disdainfully. ‘I’d put on some more clothes if I were you. You’ll catch your death out here in this cold wind.’

Ignoring possibly the most forbidding glower she’d ever seen, Rowan defiantly stuck out her hand towards him. ‘I’m Rowan Hawkins. I moved in a few weeks ago and I’m very pleased to meet you. I was wondering when I’d meet my neighbours. Have you been away on holiday?’

‘Look…what exactly do you want from me?’

Stunned, Rowan nervously licked her lips. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘If you’re expecting me to be all cosy and neighbourly then I’d like to set the record straight right now. I’m not the cosy or neighbourly type, Miss Hawkins, so save that annoyingly sunny smile of yours for someone else who might appreciate it. Do I make myself clear?’

Saying no more, Evan proceeded down the road, his broad shoulders squared against the fierce breeze that had gathered strength as they’d exchanged words, his hands dug deep into his jeans pockets. Watching him go, his long-legged stride carrying him purposefully away, Rowan felt her stomach sink like a stone. What an arrogant, unpleasant man! The hostility in those startling green eyes of his had genuinely shocked her. She wasn’t used to eliciting such animosity in people and now, when she was feeling possibly at her most fragile, it was a double blow. That darkly handsome face of his certainly didn’t invite a repeat introduction at a later date, and she would just have to console herself that she’d found out how unpleasant he was sooner rather than later. At least now she would be able to give him a wide berth when she saw him again. Trust her luck to live next door to a man who would make Genghis Khan seem like your average friendly neighbour!

Glancing down at the straw hat clenched tightly between her fingers, Rowan drew her softly shaped brows together in an anxious frown. Joking aside, how was she supposed to make a new start when even her closest neighbour didn’t want to know her? With no heart to continue her pitiful attempt at gardening, she turned towards the house with a purposeful stride of her own—feeling not the slightest bit of remorse when she banged the front door noisily shut behind her.

The sound of Rowan Hawkins’ broken gate swinging eerily back and forth on its solitary hinge damn near drove Evan to distraction that night. Unable to find sanctuary from his foul mood in sleep, he pushed to his feet, dragged back the filmy gauze curtain from the window that overlooked the moonlit garden next door, then glared at the offending gate as though his gaze alone could make it burst into flames.

Trouble was, it wasn’t just the gate. Even the slightest thing seemed to irritate him out of all proportion these days. Anyway, you’d think her husband or boyfriend would fix the damn thing for her. She certainly didn’t strike him as the type of woman who’d be happy to get her hands dirty doing anything practical like DIY. And who the hell dressed in white to do gardening? The woman clearly didn’t have the sense that she was born with. Annoyed that his pretty neighbour was occupying more of his thoughts than she ought to be, Evan stalked into the kitchen to make a drink. When he discovered he was out of coffee his frustrated curse punctuated the air. Tunnelling his fingers through black hair, that if left long would have a distinct wave in it, he shut his eyes for a moment in a bid to calm down, but failed miserably as a stray memory of his ex-wife infiltrated its way stealthily into his mind. If Rebecca hadn’t stung him for most of his wealth in their divorce settlement, he wouldn’t have spent the past two years working himself into the ground to build up his fitness business again. Two gruelling years when he had sacrificed damn near everything—his home, his friends, his social life—to claw back most of what he had lost. It was testament to his blind single-mindedness that he had succeeded. The business was doing even better than ever. With over twenty fitness outlets all bearing the Evan Cameron name dotted round the country, he could afford to take things a little easier now. When he hadn’t done any such thing, a three-week bout of influenza had made the decision to slow down for him. Slow down? Evan grimaced bitterly at the thought. Bring him to his knees, more like. In all his thirty-seven years he had never been so ill or so mentally and physically battle-scarred. To tell the truth, it had scared him rigid. How ironic that a man who promoted health and fitness had succumbed to illness all because of self-neglect.

Forcing himself to breathe more evenly, Evan opened a cupboard above the plain white counter in search of a malt drink. He should know better than to crave caffeine in the middle of the night, anyway. Five minutes later, his mood slightly improved and his drink made, he sought out the big, squashy sofa in the comfortably furnished living-room then reached for the remote and switched on the TV. As he strove to concentrate on yet another rerun of The African Queen unfolding before him, he tried to blot out the sound of Rowan Hawkins’ rickety gate creaking noisily back and forth.

Rowan was attempting to replace the rusty hinges on the gate. Dressed in jeans and a skinny-rib red sweater, her glossy brown hair scooped back into a pony-tail, she tried in vain to unscrew the tightly embedded steel screw in the one remaining hinge. Trouble was, her hands were freezing. The sun was shining but the icy wind cut like a razor and she could barely get enough leverage on the screwdriver to turn the thing at all. ‘Damn!’

Could anyone blame her if she felt like sitting there and crying like a baby? First she’d discovered she’d acquired a Neanderthal for a neighbour, and second she’d learned that ‘do it yourself’ was definitely not her natural province. She would just have to spend some of the small legacy Greg had left her after paying for the house on funding some urgently needed jobs that needed doing round the place. Like this gate. It should have been so simple. It looked simple, Rowan reflected, as her brow knit in frustration. But right now splitting the atom might be simpler.

‘Having trouble?’

Rowan glanced up in shock at the deep, masculine voice and heat rushed into her body as if she’d been dropped into a vat of hot water. Frosty eyes the colour of green ice stared back at her with disconcerting directness. Despite a helpless stirring of rage swirling deep in her belly, she couldn’t help but be compelled to study the tough male visage. He was without a doubt commandingly masculine yet at the same time beautiful, and Rowan was even more disturbed by him than she had been on their first encounter—when he’d grudgingly halted the escape of her wayward straw hat. But, all the same, she’d be damned if she would give him the satisfaction of thinking she was some kind of helpless little woman who didn’t know what she was doing.

‘I’m fine, thank you.’

Laying down the screwdriver, she rubbed her hands briskly together to get the circulation flowing back into her cramped fingers, deliberately keeping her expression carefully blank.

‘That damn gate of yours kept me awake all night with its creaking.’ Folding his arms across a chest that was disconcertingly wide, with muscles like steel beneath his black sweater if the strongly corded sinews in his forearms were anything to go by, Rowan’s hostile neighbour presented her with yet another forbidding scowl.

‘Why do you think I’m trying to fix it? It kept me awake too.’ That and another awful nightmare about Greg walking out in front of that car…

‘So you know what you’re doing, then?’

She thought she saw just a hint of a smile touch those austere-looking lips of his, but then told herself she must be mistaken. Something told her that smiles from this man would be as unlikely as honeysuckle growing in the Arctic. Anyhow, she was too busy being incensed by that superior, condescending tone of his to care one way or the other.

‘Frankly, Mr Whatever-Your-Name-Is, it’s none of your business. Now, I’d really appreciate it if you’d just leave me alone and let me get on with it.’

‘Evan Cameron.’

‘What?’ Rowan blinked up at him.

‘My name. It’s Evan Cameron.’ But don’t get your hopes up. Just because I’ve told you my name it doesn’t mean we’re going to be friends. She heard the words echo through her head even though he hadn’t actually voiced them.

‘Fine. Good. I’ll know who you are if anyone knocks on my door by mistake, then.’ Her fingers curled around the screwdriver again and determinedly she trained all her concentration on trying to undo the obstinate screw.

‘Give it to me.’

‘What?’

The screwdriver was deftly removed from between her freezing-cold fingers before she even knew what was happening. Shocked by the contact of his larger, rougher hand brushing against hers, Rowan stood up to her full five feet five inches and glared at the black-haired whipcord-lean specimen of forbidding male towering over her.

‘Why don’t you get inside in the warm and I’ll see to this?’

If he’d meant to sound solicitous of her welfare all of a sudden, Rowan itched to tell him that he’d failed. Her creaking gate had annoyed him, that was all, and he was anxious to get it fixed so he wouldn’t have to endure another sleepless night because of it. Another woman might be grateful he was going to fix it at all and save her a job, but not Rowan. As far as she was concerned, if someone couldn’t offer help with a good heart then it wasn’t really help at all. She’d rather blunder on under her own steam and make a pig’s ear of the job than allow some hostile male with an overstated sense of his own machismo to take charge.

‘I didn’t ask for your help and neither do I require it, Mr Cameron. I’m sure you have better things to do than stand out here in the cold and fix my annoying gate on a Sunday morning.’

Holding out her hand, Rowan tried to ignore the thundering of her heart as her own soft brown eyes duelled with frosty green. ‘I’d like my screwdriver back, please.’

‘You got a man about the house, Ms Hawkins?’

‘That’s none of your business. And before you say anything else, don’t you dare stand there and condescend to treat me like some vacuous little female who doesn’t know one end of a power tool from another, because I—’

‘Do you?’ Evan’s lips twitched into a smile before he could help it.

Her shoulders stiffening in resentment, Rowan glared in disbelief. ‘Do I what?’

‘Know one end of a power tool from another?’

‘This is ridiculous! Give me my screwdriver and just go. Please go!’

‘Please yourself.’ Shrugging those broad shoulders of his as if he really didn’t give a damn, Evan returned the tool to her outstretched hand. He turned to walk away, then stopped and glanced back for a few disturbing seconds, his cool gaze sizing Rowan up as if he definitely found her wanting in the physical department. ‘Funny how the phrase “cutting off your nose to spite your face” springs to mind. Fix that gate, Ms Hawkins, or I’ll be knocking on your door in the middle of the night so that you can share my night-time torment.’

And with that he walked away, as if he were some arrogant lord of the manor and she a mere peasant trespassing on his land. Giving vent to her fury, Rowan jammed the screwdriver back into the screw and nearly howled in pain when it slipped and almost took the skin off her thumb.

Two hours later, her belly grumbling for lunch and her body stiff with cold, Rowan got up off her knees and had to admit defeat. Two hours…two hours, for God’s sake! And that damn hinge still wouldn’t budge. As she hurried back up the path towards the house, she glanced surreptitiously at her neighbour’s windows. Satisfied that she wasn’t being observed, she rushed inside and carefully shut the door behind her. Ten minutes later, phone directory in one hand and a steaming mug of hot chocolate in the other to warm her, Rowan sat herself down at the circular pine kitchen table with the telephone to see if she could locate a nearby odd-job man. She was still seething from Evan Cameron’s parting remark—‘night-time torment’ indeed! She was just about to pick up the phone to punch out a number when the melodic sound of the doorbell trilled ominously through the house.

‘You’ve got guts, I’ll give you that.’

‘Meaning?’

Bristling at the humour in Evan Cameron’s previously glacial green eyes as his awesome physique dominated her doorway, Rowan didn’t know how she resisted the urge to slap that smirk clean off his wretchedly handsome face.

‘For two hours now I’ve watched you struggle with that hinge in the cold and wind, and, whatever I think of your misguided stubbornness to prove a point, I’ve got to respect the fact that you didn’t give up trying. Let me put you out of your misery and mend the gate for you, then I promise I won’t bother you again.’