Читать книгу Finn's Pregnant Bride - Sharon Kendrick - Страница 10

‘I THINK I might join you,’ he had said.

Catherine rubbed a final bit of sun-block onto her nose and knotted a sarong around the waist of her jade-green swimsuit, aware that her heart was beating as fast as a hamster’s. She was meeting Finn Delaney on the beach and was now beginning to wonder whether she should have agreed so readily.

She let a rueful smile curve her lips. She was thinking and acting like an adolescent girl! She had broken up with her long-term boyfriend, yes—but that didn’t mean she had to start acting like a nun! There was no crime in spending some time with an attractive, charismatic man, was there? Especially as she had barely any time left. And if Finn Delaney decided to muscle in on her she would politely give him the brush-off.

She scrunched her dark hair back into a ponytail and grabbed her sun-hat before setting off to find some coffee. The sun was already high in the sky, but the terrace was shaded with a canopy of dark, fleshy leaves and she took her seat, trying to imprint the scene on her mind, because tomorrow she would be back in the city.

‘I see you with Kirios Finn last night,’ observed Nico rather plaintively as he brought her a plate of figs and some strong black coffee. Every morning he tried something new to tempt her, even though she had told him that she never ate breakfast.

‘That’s right,’ agreed Catherine. ‘I was.’

‘He like you, I think—he like beautiful women.’

Catherine shook her head firmly. ‘We’re just passing acquaintances who speak the same language, that’s all,’ she said. ‘I’m going home this afternoon—remember?’

‘You like him?’ persisted Nico.

‘I hardly know him!’

‘Women like Finn Delaney.’

‘I can imagine,’ said Catherine wryly, thinking of those compelling blue eyes, the thick, unruly hair and the spectacular body. She might not be interested in him as a man, but her journalistic eye could appreciate his obvious attributes.

‘He brave man, too,’ added Nico mournfully.

Catherine paused in the act of lifting her cup and looked up. Brave was not a commonly used word, unless someone had been sick, or fought in a war, and her interest was aroused. ‘How come?’

Nico pushed the figs into her line of vision. ‘The son of Kirios Kollitsis—he nearly die. And Kirios Delaney—he save him.’

‘How?’

‘The two of them take scooters across the island and Iannis, he crash. So much blood.’ He paused. ‘I was young. They brought him here. The man from Irlandia carry him in in his arms and they wait for the doctor.’ Nico narrowed his eyes in memory. ‘Kirios Delaney had white shirt, but now it was red.’ And he closed his eyes. ‘Red and wet.’

Oh, the power of language, thought Catherine, her coffee forgotten. For some reason the stark words, spoken in broken English, conjured up a far more vivid impression of life and death than a fluent description of the accident could ever have done. She thought of the wet and bloody shirt clinging to Finn Delaney’s torso and she gave a shiver.

‘They say without Kirios Delaney then Iannis would be dead. His father—he never forget.’

Catherine nodded. No, she imagined that he wouldn’t forget. A son’s life saved was worth more than a king’s ransom. But even if he hadn’t acted as he had Finn Delaney was still an unforgettable man, she realised, and suddenly the casually arranged meeting on the beach didn’t seem so casual at all.

She should have said no, she thought.

But her reservations didn’t stop her from picking her way down the stone steps which led to the beach. When she had reached the bottom she stood motionless. And breathless.

The beach—a narrow ribbon of white bleached sand—was empty, save for Finn himself. His back was the colour of the sweetest toffee and the lean, hard body was wearing nothing but a pair of navy Lycra shorts. Catherine’s mouth felt like dust and she shook herself, as if trying to recapture the melancholy of yesterday.

What the hell was the matter with her? Peter had been her life. Her future. She had never strayed, nor even looked at another man, and yet now she felt as though this dark, beautiful stranger had the power to cast some kind of spell over her.

He was lost in thought, looking out over the limitless horizon across the sea, but he must have heard or sensed her approach, for he turned slowly and Catherine suddenly found that she could not move. As if that piercing, blue-eyed stare had turned her to stone, like one of the statues which guarded Pondiki’s tiny churches.

‘Hi!’ he called.

‘H-hello,’ she called back, stumbling uncharacteristically on the word. But didn’t his voice sound even more sensual today? Or had the discovery that another man could set her senses alight made her view him in a completely different light?

Finn watched her, thinking how perfect she looked—as though she was some kind of beautiful apparition who had suddenly appeared and might just as suddenly fade away again. A faery lady. ‘Come on over,’ he said huskily.

Catherine found moving the most difficult thing she had ever had to do, taking each step carefully, one in front of the other, like a child learning how to walk.

Still, he watched her. No, no ghost she—far too vivid to be lacking in substance. The black hair was scraped back and barely visible beneath her hat, emphasising the delicate structure of her face, the wariness in the huge emerald eyes.

The swimsuit she wore was a shade darker than those eyes, and it clothed a body which was more magnificent than he had been expecting. The lush breasts looked deliciously cuppable, and the curve of her hips was just crying out for the lingering caress of a man’s palm.

Realising that his heart was thundering like a boy’s on the brink of sexual discovery, and aware that he must just be staring at her as if he’d never seen a woman before, Finn forced his mouth to relax into a smile as she grew closer.

‘Hi,’ he said again.

She felt strangely shy—but what woman wouldn’t, alone with such a man on a deserted beach? ‘Hi.’ She managed a bright smile. She wasn’t a gauche young thing but a sophisticated and successful woman who was slowly recovering from a broken romance. And as soon as the opportunity arose she would tell him that she was interested in nothing more than a pleasant and companionable last day on Pondiki.

Finn smiled, so that those big green eyes would lose some of their wariness. ‘Sleep well?’

She shook her head. ‘Not really. Too hot. Even with the air-conditioning I felt as though I was a piece of dough which had been left in a low oven all night!’

He laughed. ‘Don’t you have one of those big old-fashioned fans in your room?’

‘You mean the ones which sound as though a small plane has just landed beside the bed?’

‘Yeah.’ He wanted something to occupy himself, something which would stop him from feasting his eyes on her delicious breasts, afraid that the stirring in his body would begin to make itself shown. ‘What would you like to do?’

The words swam vaguely into the haze of her thoughts. In swimming trunks, he looked like a pinup come to life, with his bright blue eyes and dark, untidy hair.

Broad shoulders, lean hips and long, muscled legs. Men like Finn Delaney should be forbidden from wearing swimming trunks! More to distract herself than because she really cared what they did, she shrugged and smiled. ‘What’s on offer?’

Finn bit back the crazy response that he’d like to peel the swimsuit from her body and get close to her in the most elemental way possible. Instead, he waved a hand towards the rocks. ‘I’ve made a camp,’ he said conspiratorially.

‘What kind of camp?’

‘The usual kind. We’ve got shelter. Provisions. Come and see.’

In the distance, she could see a sun-umbrella, two loungers and a cool-box. An oasis of comfort against the barren rocks which edged the sand, with the umbrella providing the cool promise of relief from the beating sun. ‘Okay.’

‘Follow me,’ he said, his voice sounding husky, and for a moment he felt like a man from earlier, primitive times, leading a woman off to his lair.

Catherine walked next to him, the hot sand spraying up and burning her toes through her sandals.

The sound of the sea was rhythmical and soothing, and she caught the faint scent of pine on the air, for Pondiki was crammed full of pine trees. Through the protective covering of her sun-hat she could feel the merciless penetration of the sun, and, trying to ignore the fact that all her senses felt acutely honed, she stared down instead at the sizeable amount of equipment which lay before her.

‘How the hell did you get all this stuff down here?’ she asked in wonder.

‘I carried it.’ He flexed an arm jokingly. ‘Nothing more than brute strength!’

Memory assailed her. She thought of him carrying his wounded friend, his white shirt wet with the blood of life. Wet and red. She swallowed. ‘It looks…it looks very inviting.’

‘Sit down,’ he said, and gestured to one of the loungers. ‘Have you eaten breakfast?’

She sank into the cushions. She never ate breakfast, but, most peculiarly, she had an appetite now. Or rather, other pervasive appetites were threatening to upset her equilibrium, so she decided to sublimate them by opting for food.

‘Not yet.’

‘Good. Me neither.’

She watched as he opened the cool-box and pulled out rough bread and chilled grapes, and local cheese wrapped in vine leaves, laying them down on a chequered cloth. With what looked like a Swiss Army knife he began tearing and cutting her off portions of this and that.

‘Here. Eat.’ He narrowed his eyes critically. ‘You look like you could do with a little feeding up.’

She sat up and grabbed the crude sandwich and accepted a handful of grapes, preferring to look at the chilled claret-coloured fruit than meet that disturbing blue stare. ‘You make me sound like a waif and stray!’

He thought she was perfect, but that now was neither the time nor the place to tell her. ‘You look like you haven’t eaten much lately,’ he observed.

‘I’ve eaten well on Pondiki,’ she protested.

‘For how long—two weeks, maybe?’

She nodded.

‘But not before that, I guess,’ he mused.

Well, of course she hadn’t! What woman on the planet ate food when she had been dumped by a man? ‘How can you tell?’

It gave him just the excuse he needed to study her face. ‘Your cheeks have the slightly angular look of a woman who’s been skipping meals.’

‘Pre-holiday diet,’ she lied.

‘No need for it,’ he responded quietly, his eyes glittering as he sank his teeth into the bread.

He made eating look like an art-form. In fact, he made eating look like the most sensual act she had ever seen—with his white teeth biting into the unresisting flesh of the grapes, licking their juice away with the tip of his tongue—and Catherine was horrified by the progression of her thoughts.

When she’d been with Peter she hadn’t been interested in other men, and yet now she found herself wondering whether that had been because there had been no man like Finn Delaney around.

‘This is very good,’ she murmured.

‘Mmm.’ He gave her a lazy smile and relaxed back, the sun beating down like a caress on his skin. There was silence for a moment, broken only by the lapping of the waves on the sand. ‘Will you be sorry to leave?’ he asked, at last.

‘Isn’t everyone, at the end of a holiday?’

‘Everyone’s different.’

‘I guess in a way I wish I could stay.’ But that was the coward’s way out—not wanting to face up to the new-found emptiness of her life back home. The sooner she got back, the sooner she could get on with the process of living. Yet this moment seemed like living. Real, simple and unfettered living, more vital than living had ever been.

Finn raised his head slightly and narrowed his eyes at her. ‘Something you don’t want to go back to?’ he questioned perceptively. ‘Or someone?’

‘Neither,’ she answered, because the truth was far more complex than that, and she was not the type of person to unburden herself to someone she barely knew. She had seen too much in her job of confidences made and then later regretted.

And she didn’t want to think about her new role in life—as a single girl out on the town, having to reinvent herself and start all over again. With Peter away on assignments so much, she had felt comfortable staying in and slouching around in tracksuits while watching a movie and ploughing her way through a box of popcorn. She guessed that now those evenings would no longer be guilt-free and enjoyable. There would be pressure to go out with her girlfriends. And nights in would seem as though life was passing her by.

‘I suppose I’ve just fallen in love with this island,’ she said softly. Because that much was true. A place as simple and as beautiful as Pondiki made it easy to forget that any other world existed.

‘Yeah.’ His voice was equally soft, and he took advantage of the fact that she was busy brushing crumbs from her bare brown thighs to watch her again, then wished he hadn’t. For the movement was making her breasts move in a way which was making him feel the heavy pull of longing, deep in his groin. He turned over onto his stomach. ‘It’s easy to do.’

Catherine removed a grape pip from her mouth and flicked it onto the white sand. ‘And what about you? Will you be sorry to leave?’

He thought of the new project which was already mounting back home in Ireland, and the opposition to it. And of all the demands on his time which having his fingers in so many pies inevitably brought. When had he last taken a holiday? Sat in such solitude, in such simplicity and with such a—his heart missed another unexpected beat—such a beautiful companion? He pressed himself into the sand, ruefully observing his body’s reaction to his thoughts and just hoping that she hadn’t.

Her legs were slap-bang in front of his line of vision, and he let his lashes float down over his eyes, hoping that lack of visual stimulation might ease the ache in his groin. ‘Yeah,’ he said thickly. ‘I’ll be sorry.’

She heard the slurred quality of his voice and suspected that he wanted to sleep. So she said nothing further—but then silence was easy in such a perfect setting.

She feasted her eyes on the deep blue of the sea, and the paler blue of the sky above it. Remember this, she told herself. Keep it stored in your mind, to bring out on a grey wet day in England, as you would a favourite snapshot.

She flicked a glance over to where Finn lay, watching the rise and fall of his broad back as it became gradually slower and steadier. Yes, he was definitely asleep.

His dark tousled head was pillowed on hair-roughened forearms, and the image of the sleeping man was oddly and disturbingly intimate. Very disturbing. She found herself picturing his bronzed body contrasted against rumpled white sheets and the resulting flush of awareness made Catherine get abruptly to her feet. She needed to cool off!

The sea beckoned invitingly, and she pulled off her sun-hat and ran towards it, her feet sinking into the heavy wet sand by the water’s edge. She splashed her way in, waiting until she was out of her depth before she began to strike out.

The sea was as warm as milk, and not in the least bit invigorating, but the water lapped like silk over her heated skin. Catherine continued to swim quite happily in line with the shore, and was just thinking about going in when she experienced a gut-wrenchingly sharp spasm in her leg. She squealed aloud with the shock and the pain.

She tried to keep swimming, but her leg was stubbornly refusing to work. She opened her mouth to call out, but as she did salt water gushed in and she began to choke.

Don’t panic, she told herself—but her body was refusing to obey her. And the more the leg stiffened, the more water poured into her mouth, and she began to flail her arms uselessly and helplessly as control slipped away…

Finn was lost in a warm world of sensation, inhabited by a green-eyed siren with a cascade of black hair, when his dream was punctured by a sound he could not recognise. His eyes snapped open to find Catherine gone.

Instinct immediately warned him of danger and he leapt to his feet, his blue eyes scanning the horizon until he saw the disturbed water and the thrash of limbs which told him that she was in the sea.

And in trouble.

He ran full-pelt into the sea, his muscular legs jumping the waves, breaking out into a powerful crawl which ate up the distance between them.

‘Catherine!’ he called. ‘For God’s sake, keep still—I’m on my way!’

She barely heard him, even though she registered the command somewhere in her subconscious. But her body was not taking orders from her tired and confused mind and she felt herself slipping deeper…ever deeper…choking and gagging on the sour, salty taste.

‘Catherine!’ He reached her and grabbed hold of her, hauling her from beneath the surface and throwing her over his shoulder. He slapped the flat of his palm hard between her shoulder blades and she spat and retched water out of her mouth, sobbing with relief as she clung onto him.

‘Easy now,’ he soothed. ‘Easy.’ He ran his hands experimentally down over her body until he found the stiffened and cramped leg.

‘Ouch!’ she moaned.

‘I’m going to swim back to shore with you. Just hold onto me very tightly.’

‘You c-c-can’t manage me!’ she protested through chattering teeth.

‘Shut up,’ he said kindly, and turned her onto her back, slipping his arm around her waist.

Catherine had little memory of the journey back, or of much that followed. She remembered him sinking into the sand and lowering her gently down, and the humiliation of spewing up the last few drops of salt water. And then he was rubbing her leg briskly between his hands until the spasm ebbed away.

She must have dozed, for when she came to it was to find herself still on the sand, the fine, white grains sticking to her skin, leaning back against Finn’s chest.

‘You’re okay?’ he murmured.

She coughed, then nodded, a sob forming in her throat as she thought just how lucky she had been.

He felt her shudder. ‘Don’t cry. You’ll live.’

She couldn’t move. She felt as if her limbs had been weighted with lead. ‘But I feel so…so stupid!’ she choked.

‘Well, you were a little,’ he agreed gently. ‘To go swimming straight after you’d eaten. Whatever made you do that, Catherine?’

She closed her eyes. She couldn’t possibly tell him that the sight of his near-naked body had been doing things to her equilibrium that she had wanted to wipe clean away. She shook her head.

‘Want me to carry you back to the lounger?’

‘I’ll w-walk.’

‘Oh, no, you won’t,’ he demurred. ‘Come here.’ And he rose to his feet and picked her up as easily as if she’d been made of feathers.

Catherine was not the type of woman who would normally expect to be picked up and carried by a man—indeed, she had never been the recipient of such strong-arm tactics before. The men she knew would consider it a sexist insult to behave in such a way! So was it?

No.

And no again.

She felt so helpless, but even in her demoralised state she recognised that it was a pleasurable helplessness. And the pleasure was enhanced by the sensation of his warm skin brushing and tingling against hers where their bodies touched. Like electricity. ‘Finn?’ she said weakly.

He looked down at her, feeling he could drown in those big green eyes, and then the word imprinted itself on his subconscious and he flinched. Drown. Sweet Lord—the woman could have drowned. A pain split right through him. ‘What is it?’ he whispered, laying her gently down on the sun-bed.

She pushed a damp lock of hair back from her face, and even that seemed to take every last bit of strength she had. But then it wasn’t just her near escape which was making her weak, it was something about the way the blue eyes had softened into a warm blaze.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered back, thinking how inadequate those two words were in view of what he had just done.

A smile lifted the corners of his mouth as some of the tension left him.

Some.

‘Don’t mention it,’ he said, his Irish accent edged with irresistible velvet. But he wished that she wouldn’t look at him that way. All wide-eyed and vulnerable, with the pale sand sugaring her skin, making him long to brush each grain away one by one, and her lips slightly parted, as if begging to be kissed. ‘Rest for a while, and then I’ll take you back up to the hotel.’

She nodded, feeling strangely bereft. She would have to pack. Organise herself. Mentally gear herself up for switching back into her role of cool, intrepid Catherine Walker—doyenne of Pizazz! magazine. Yet the soft, vulnerable Catherine who was gazing up into the strong, handsome face of her rescuer seemed infinitely more preferable at that moment.

Peter? prompted a voice in her head. Have you forgotten Peter so quickly and replaced him with a man you scarcely know? Bewitched by the caveman tactics of someone who just happened to have an aptitude for saving lives?

She licked her bottom lip and tasted salt. ‘You save a lot of lives, don’t you, Finn Delaney?’

Finn looked at her, his eyes narrowing as her remark caught him off-guard. ‘Meaning?’

She heard the element of caution which had crept into his voice. ‘I heard what you did for the son of Kirios Kollitsis.’

His face became shuttered. ‘You were discussing me? With whom?’

She felt on the defensive. ‘Only with Nico—the waiter. He happened to mention it.’

‘Well, he had no right to mention it—it happened a long time ago. It’s forgotten.’

But people didn’t forget things like that. Catherine knew that she would never forget what he had done even if she never saw him again—and she very probably wouldn’t. They were destined to be—to use that old cliché—ships that passed in the night, and, like all clichés, it was true.

He accompanied her back to the hotel, and she was glad of his supporting arm because her legs still felt wobbly. When he let her go, she missed that firm, warm contact.

‘What time are you leaving?’ he asked.

‘The taxi’s coming at three.’

He nodded. ‘Go and do your packing.’

Catherine was normally a neat and organised packer, but for once she was reckless—throwing her holiday clothes haphazardly into the suitcase as if she didn’t care whether she would ever wear them again. And she didn’t. For there was an ache in her heart which seemed to have nothing to do with Peter and she despised herself for her fickleness.

She told herself that of course a man like Finn Delaney would inspire a kind of wistful devotion in the heart of any normal female. That of course it would be doubled or tripled in intensity after what had just happened. He had acted the part of hero, and there were too few of those outside the pages of romantic fiction, she told herself wryly. That was all.

Nevertheless, she was disappointed to find the small foyer empty, save for Nico, who bade her his own wistful farewell.

No, disappointment was too bland a word. Her heart actually lurched as she looked around, while trying not to look as though she was searching for anyone in particular. But there was no sign of the tall, broad-shouldered Irishman.

Her suitcase had been loaded into the boot of the rather ramshackle taxi, and Catherine had climbed reluctantly into the back, when she saw him. Swiftly moving through the bougainvillaea-covered arch, making a stunning vision against the riotous backdrop of purple blooms.

He reached the car with a few strides of those long legs and smiled.

‘You made it?’

‘Just about.’

‘Got your passport? And your ticket?’

If anyone else had asked her this she would have fixed them with a wry look and informed them that she travelled solo most of the time, that she didn’t need anyone checking up on her. So why did she feel so secretly pleased—protected, almost? ‘Yes, I have.’

He ran his long fingers over the handle of the door. ‘Safe journey, Catherine,’ he said softly.

She nodded, wondering if her own words would come out as anything intelligible. ‘Thanks. I will.’

‘Goodbye.’

She nodded again. Why hadn’t he just done the decent thing and not bothered to come down if that was all he was going to say? She tried to make light of it. ‘I’ll probably be stuck in the terminal until next week—that’s if this taxi ever gets me there!’

He raised his dark brows as he observed the bonnet, which was attached to the car with a piece of string. ‘Hmmm. The jury’s out on that one!’

There was a moment’s silence, where Catherine thought he was going to say something else, but he didn’t. On impulse, she reached into her bag for her camera and lifted it to her eye. ‘Smile,’ she coaxed.

He eyed the camera as warily as he would a poisonous snake. ‘I never pose for photos.’

No, she didn’t imagine that he would. He was not the kind of man who would smile to order. ‘Well, carry on glowering and I’ll remember you like that!’ she teased.

A slow smile broke out like the sun, and she caught it with a click. ‘There’s one for the album!’

He caught the glimpse of mischief in her green eyes and it disarmed him. He reached into the back pocket of his snug-fitting denims. He’d never had a holiday romance in his life, but…

‘Here—’ He leant forward and put his head through the window. She could smell soap, see the still-damp black hair and the tiny droplets of water which clung to it, making him a halo.

For one mad and crazy moment she thought that he was going to kiss her—and didn’t she long for him to do just that? But instead he handed her a card, a thick cream business card.

‘Look me up if ever you’re in Dublin,’ he said casually, smacking the door of the car as if it was a horse. The driver took this as a signal and began to rev up the noisy engine. ‘It’s the most beautiful city in the world.’

As the car roared away in a cloud of dust she clutched the card tightly, as if afraid that she might drop it, then risked one last glance over her shoulder. But he had gone. No lasting image of black hair and white shirt and long, long legs in faded denim.

Just an empty arch of purple blooms.