Читать книгу The Spaniard's Revenge - Susan Stephens, Susan Stephens - Страница 8

SOPHIE sat staring ahead for what felt like hours on end, while the truck bumped and snarled its way across miles of featureless rust-coloured plain. But finally, when neck-ache began to beat at her brain, she was forced to give in. Easing her head from side to side, she stole a glance at her companion. His character had changed for the worse—that much she knew already. Now it was time to see whether the years really had been as kind to him as first impressions suggested…

‘Seen enough, Sophie?’

Well, his senses were as keen as ever.

‘Enough to see you haven’t changed,’ she lied with every appearance of calm. Inwardly she was as churned up as she could ever remember. It was one thing playing the ice-queen to Xavier’s blatant virility, but he was sending her senses haywire! He always had been attractive. But now, with every vestige of civilised man stripped away, he was a lot more dangerous—a fact her body attested to as it responded urgently to him. In fact, there was a whole orchestra thrumming an insistent pulse where at best a mild pelvic clench would normally signal the presence of some attractive male.

‘Is that good, or bad?’ he said, eyes crinkling, lips turned down in wry enquiry.

Sophie felt her senses flare as she ran the inventory. Good—because she really liked his hair shorter, and the fact that it had darkened with age. It was as thick as ever with sideburns losing definition in the black stubble on his jaw…She stopped for a moment. For her, the stronger the attraction, the greater the fear; it was a potent combination, she realised, forcing herself to continue. Good—because his tanned face was just as strong and lean as she remembered it; the type that could almost have been described as stereotypical ‘carved out of granite’ had it not been for some really great additions. The mobile mouth for instance…and those clued-up, laughing eyes… She sucked in a guilty breath as he returned her stare full throttle.

‘You haven’t given me an answer yet,’ he said, turning his attention back to the rutted road. ‘Good. Or bad?’

His resonant voice was strumming her like a practised hand on a finely tuned instrument, the same harmonious chord running through her from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes…and all of that long before her mind had a chance to register the melting pot of confident Latin male and shrewd, irresistible humour he managed to shoe-horn into the one short question.

‘It’s good to see you again, Xavier,’ Sophie admitted carefully, aware that her lips were actually trembling. And bad? The few moments Sophie gave herself to consider this slipped away too quickly. ‘Bad, because you don’t want me here—’ She slammed her mouth shut without even bothering to try and dig herself out of the hole. Was that really the best she could come up with? It sounded like a suck-up! The kind of simpering, no-brain remark the person he seemed to think she had grown into might make. The look on his face only confirmed her worst fears.

‘Too right I don’t,’ he said brusquely.

She should have known. And now she was angrier with herself than with him. Trust her to fall for the brief interlude when he almost made it to polite! She should have known he was only softening her up for the verbal kill. Turning her face away, Sophie stared numbly as the bleak terrain flashed past.

‘So now I get the silent treatment?’ Xavier said, flashing her a glance.

What was she doing here anyway? Sophie asked herself angrily. She could practice medicine equally well back home. Fate? She dismissed that out of hand. Henry? That was more likely. Wide-open spaces before the net of suburbia closed over her. Space from Henry—

‘So, no husband yet?’ Xavier demanded.

The patronising question stabbed into her reverie. ‘Is this what I’m missing?’ Sophie murmured tensely.

‘Don’t flatter yourself, sweetheart. I asked a simple question.’

‘It’s none of your business, Xavier,’ she flashed back. ‘And let’s get something straight. I may work for you but my private life’s just that—private. I’m here to stay. Get used to it.’

‘You sleep in here,’ Xavier told her as he shouldered open a creaking tin door. ‘I leave for the high country tomorrow morning at dawn.’

As Sophie dumped her rucksack on the ground, Xavier looked round the sparsely furnished room, thumbs firmly planted in the belt-loops of his snug-fitting jeans, inviting her to change her mind and beg him to let her return to her safe, cosy bed back in the UK.

At least it was clean, Sophie thought—floor newly swept, windows bright in their frames of peeling, yellowing paint. Taking in the dilapidation as well as the lack of amenities, she just nodded her head. ‘Fine. I’ll be ready first thing tomorrow,’ she agreed evenly.

Xavier shifted position, drawing himself up. Asserting his authority. Sophie felt herself instinctively bristling in response.

‘I said I’d be heading for the high country. You’ll be staying here.’

‘Oh, really?’ Sophie knew she was overtired. The last thing she wanted was a fight. But she had no intention of backing down either.

‘Yes, really,’ he stated firmly.

They were confronting each other tensely like two stalking tigers. Xavier broke the silence first, adding a little more chaos to his hair with an impatient pass of his strong, tanned fingers.

‘Look, Sophie,’ he said, applying a very masculine brand of reason. ‘This place needs sorting out before morning. A pile of new medical supplies have arrived, and they all need putting away in some sort of order. Then the details need filing—’

‘If you wanted a filing clerk you should have requested one in your list of job opportunities in the recruitment pack,’ Sophie pointed out.

‘We’re a team. We share the work-load.’

‘Then may I suggest you stay with me here at base until we have completed the office work and stock-take. Then we can both travel on to the high country together.’

There was just enough of a pause to show that she had got through to him.

‘What I’m trying to say—’

‘I think I know what you’re trying to say, Xavier,’ Sophie countered firmly.

As she watched his eyes narrow she felt a thread of apprehension run through her. Xavier had become a difficult, complex man, not someone it was sensible to range herself against. But teamwork meant sharing everything, didn’t it? From clearing up, to treating patients. ‘I’d better sort out my things…freshen up,’ she said, taking a different tack in the hope of cooling things down.

‘Of course.’ He gave her a mock bow, but his disturbing gaze held her own until Sophie’s desperately searching fingers managed to locate the fastenings on her bulging rucksack and she could pretend to busy herself with that. But before he left she wanted another answer. ‘Who sleeps in here?’ she said, surveying the row of camp beds.

‘Me,’ Xavier said with a shrug, ‘and whoever else drops in.’

Taking a deep breath, Sophie swallowed back the panic that threatened to choke her. She was here to work. She had to forget every one of her personal concerns and just get on with it. ‘How exhilarating,’ she managed evenly. ‘I shall never know what to expect from one night to the next.’

Xavier shot her a darkly amused stare. ‘You won’t be here that long,’ he promised.

‘Don’t count on it,’ Sophie murmured under her breath, glancing around.

‘My apologies,’ Xavier said as he watched her. ‘I don’t know what you were expecting, but this isn’t the Ritz. It’s just an old place I’m using until I get something else built.’

‘I think it’s all quite satisfactory, thank you,’ Sophie countered. ‘Apart from having to share with you, it’s exactly what I expected.’ She saw his lips kick up at one corner, and his eyes begin to gleam. ‘Bathroom?’ she demanded briskly, though her heart was still juddering.

‘Bathroom?’ The drawled exclamation was accompanied by another humour-laced stare. ‘Turn right outside the door, third bush down—’

‘OK, Xavier,’ Sophie said calmly. ‘I can see I’m not getting anywhere with you being polite. So, let’s both shoot from the hip. Don’t waste your breath. You don’t frighten me.’ But the feelings he awoke in her did, Sophie acknowledged, struggling to ignore them.

‘Good,’ he said mildly, throwing up his hands in mock-surrender.

‘So when do I get to meet the rest of the team?’ she said, adopting her professional manner.

‘Impatient, Sophie?’

‘Keen to get on with the job.’ And to be too busy to think about anything else.

‘The rest of the team are in place now,’ he said. ‘I’ve been flying backwards and forwards from Spain for some time now. All that’s left is for me to finish my tour here and check that everyone has everything they need.’

‘And I fit in, where?’

Xavier’s eyes hardened thoughtfully as he looked at her. If he had seen her name before she arrived she wouldn’t even have got this far. And he wasn’t about to tell her that the last position on his list, the position she thought she was filling, was for his second in command—a doctor who would accompany him wherever he went. ‘Are you hungry?’

Sophie locked eyes. ‘You didn’t answer my question yet.’

‘And you didn’t answer mine,’ he said easily.

They stood confronting each other in silence for a few moments until Sophie saw something change in his eyes, then she quickly looked away.

‘We’ll discuss your position over dinner,’ he said. But the curl of his mouth, the look in his eyes, suggested, missionary, or dominant?

Defences formed in her mind and sprang to her lips. ‘I don’t know what kind of arrangement you have with your other female colleagues,’ Sophie said coldly, ‘but let’s get this straight from the outset, Xavier, I never mix business with pleasure. And I don’t find you the least bit attractive,’ she blurted when she saw the amusement behind his eyes.

‘You are hungry,’ he murmured confidently.

As a flood of feelings she had kept at bay for a lifetime threatened to overwhelm her, Sophie reminded herself forcefully how much she wanted this job. ‘As it happens, you’re right. I am hungry,’ she said, relieved she could sound so cool.

‘So, why don’t you leave the unpacking for now?’

Sophie relaxed fractionally.

‘By the way, where do you want to sleep?’ He echoed her glance down the line.

‘Next to the window?’ Sophie suggested. The first three bunks were already occupied—one of them by him, presumably. A two-bunk gap was the best she could hope for, so she’d take it.

Picking up her rucksack, Xavier dumped it on top of the last bunk. ‘After you,’ he said, gesturing towards the open door.

If possible, the kitchen was even more basic than the sleeping quarters. An ancient stove fed by bottled gas, and blackened with use, sat squat in one corner. A single cold tap dripped rhythmically over a large, rectangular pot sink crazed with age, and above that some hastily erected shelves were haphazardly stacked with assorted tinned food of uncertain origin.

‘I can feel your concern coming right at me through my shirt,’ Xavier observed, sounding pleased. ‘Time to book that plane ticket home?’

‘No,’ Sophie said flatly. And, as long as it was only concern he could sense, that was fine by her.

‘Well, it’s clean,’ he said, glancing around with relish. ‘At least I can reassure you on that point.’

Reaching up to the top shelf, he brought down a crude wooden box. ‘I’ve got some fresh supplies,’ he explained, tipping it a little so that Sophie could see inside. ‘The local big shot gets me anything I need. He offered me his youngest daughter yesterday.’

‘Did you accept?’ For some reason his gag bothered her more than it should have done, Sophie realised, wishing she could call back the question.

‘Joke?’

‘Ha ha,’ she intoned dutifully, keeping her face in neutral while a rogue shaft of sensation warned her not to think about Xavier in any way at all, other than as her boss.

‘So,’ she continued a little too brightly. ‘What do we have here?’ As his attention returned to their food supplies, Sophie’s gaze was drawn to his powerful arms. On one wrist he wore a black leather wristband, which had been his younger brother Armando’s, and on the other, a no-nonsense steel watch.

The sight of the wristband forced Sophie’s thoughts into a dark, shadowy corner. No wonder Xavier had been shocked to see her. How could he talk about the past without making some reference to the accident? He had to log everything as before or after. People who came after were safe, because they didn’t know, didn’t have to know. She was very much before the accident. She must have been the last person on earth he wanted around, she reasoned, telling herself to go easy on him.

Xavier stopped rooting through the food and stared back at her. Instinctively, he glanced at the wristband and, just for an instant, Sophie saw the pain was still as raw, still as devastating and undiminished as on the day Armando had been killed. Surely he couldn’t still be blaming himself? In that moment she longed to reach out to him, to touch him in some way, but the closed expression on his face warned her not to try.

‘The food’s pretty good,’ he said, confirming her suspicions, as he turned back to the prospect of supper with a force that suggested he was keen for them both to leave the past undisturbed. Plunging his hand into the depths of the box, he murmured, ‘Now this looks like Pachamana.’ Lifting out an earthenware pot, he held it up.

‘Which is?’

‘Various meats, and vegetables.’

‘Meats?’

‘Still a vegetarian?’ he guessed.

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t apologise for that.’

He made it sound as if she had plenty to be sorry about without the fact that she was a vegetarian, Sophie thought wryly. ‘Do you have anything else?’

Xavier shot her a look that suggested this foray into domesticity was about as far from fun for him as it got. Remembering she had vowed to be nice to him, Sophie said, ‘Don’t you miss that wonderful chef your mother used to employ at Casa Bordiu?’

‘I don’t miss anything about my old life—with the exception of seeing my parents most days,’ he said, the expression in his eyes hidden from her as he turned away.

‘But all that opulence and then this—’ Instantly, Sophie knew she had gone too far, delved too deeply into realms he would rather forget. When he turned around the shadows in his eyes were darker.

‘Opulence?’ He spat out the word like poison, and then drew himself up to lash her with his pain. ‘Have you forgotten how my brother was killed? Opulence—’ He stopped, his face an ugly mask, but the words dredged up from some fetid place at his core hung in the air between them like a dissonant chord.

‘I hadn’t forgotten,’ Sophie said gently.

‘Don’t bring it up again,’ he rapped, each word staccato.

But she hadn’t, he had, Sophie registered.

Xavier turned angrily on himself. This was his worst nightmare come true. All he could see when he looked at Sophie was her father. She had the same blue eyes, the same blonde hair, and the same slim build. On her father it had been an insipid combination—perfectly suited to his character. Xavier’s lips curled in self-disgust. It was no use trying to shovel blame for the accident on to that weak excuse for a man. The blame for Armando’s death rested squarely on his own shoulders—one day he’d have to confront that, but not today—and not with Sophie Ford. He cast another glance at her. She was her father’s daughter all right. She looked so like him. She shared the same tainted blood. Women like her were good for one thing only…

His senses flared as he looked at her. With that in mind he would have to build a few bridges. Didn’t they say revenge was a dish best served cold? Though when they got between the sheets, he’d take his hot. Little Sophie Ford had ripened like a peach for the plucking—and he was developing quite an appetite.

‘It’s baked over a heated stone inside a hole in the ground,’ he said pleasantly.

Sophie actually flinched as she hurried to pay attention. It was as if the tense exchange had never taken place. Xavier might have been conducting a presentation to a class of students, she realised, as he carried on describing the food they had available.

‘What else have you got?’ she said, glad to play along.

‘Papa a la Huancaina,’ he said, removing a lid from the second pot with a flourish.

She was relieved to see him relaxing a little. She guessed his emotions had stalled ten years back at the time of the accident. Rather than confront the deep well of grief inside him at the time, he had simply shut himself off from it. This wasn’t the Xavier she knew—this was a man who cared for nothing and no one; a man who had forgotten how to love, Sophie mused, vowing to cut him some slack.

‘It could have been prepared especially for you, señorita: boiled potatoes with cheese bathed in a mild chilli sauce.’

At least he had forgotten to scowl this time, Sophie noticed wryly. Maybe there was hope for a reasonable working relationship after all. ‘Sounds great,’ she agreed.

‘And for pudding we have tropical fruit.’ He introduced each one in turn. ‘Papaya, mango, passion fruit.’

‘So, what did you have to give the local big shot in exchange for all this?’ she teased. But from the minutest change in his eyes she saw that her attempt at humour had missed its mark by a mile.

‘Is that important?’

His voice was soft and unthreatening, but Sophie knew she had touched a nerve. There was something in his eyes—unanswered questions that must have lain dormant in his mind for years. Suddenly something occurred to her: surely he didn’t imagine she was one of the people who thought him responsible for his brother’s death? The very idea was offensive to her, ludicrous.

‘If it was anything to do with the full moon and virgins, no, not particularly,’ she said in a desperate attempt to lighten the situation. She leapt with alarm as the box hit the floor with a slap.

‘Is that what you think of me?’ Xavier demanded quietly. Tension swirled around them like a mist, making the tiny kitchen feel a good deal smaller.

‘Of course not.’ Sophie was frightened by the intensity in his gaze, and at the same time the thought of Xavier doing anything underhand was inconceivable.

Silently, he returned to the business of lighting the cooker, signalling the end of the exchange.

They had to get to know each other all over again, Sophie realised, as she watched him. The impetuous teenager she had once been was as far removed from her present incarnation as Xavier was from the life-loving young aristocrat who used to rip up the roads with his high performance cars.

Over supper they discussed nothing more controversial than the various treatments for asthma, a condition Sophie had suffered from since infancy. Then, after helping him to clear up the dishes, she made an excuse to escape to her own bed. Away from Xavier’s distracting presence, Sophie hoped it might be possible to get her thoughts in order and have a decent night’s sleep before their early start the next morning.

Snuggling deep into her sleeping bag, half-clothed, she meant to spend an hour or so quietly mulling over everything that had happened. But the moment her head touched the pillow her eyes drifted shut, and she knew nothing more until an insistent tapping on the window brought her fully awake the next morning.

Gathering her thoughts, Sophie clambered out of the low-slung bed and stared out of the window. A Peruvian couple stood waiting outside, a broad smile on the woman’s round face, with just a little more tension showing on the face of her male companion.

‘Just a minute,’ Sophie called to them as a cluster of impressions struck her all at once: Xavier’s bed hadn’t been slept in, the floor felt chilly under her bare feet, even though the sun was beaming promisingly outside, she was in Peru! Excitement ripped through her as she pulled on her jeans and made for the door. Whoever the couple were, they looked friendly, and Xavier had to be somewhere around…didn’t he?

She was here to do a job, Sophie warned herself as she went to open the outer door to the clinic. Even if an unashamedly primitive part of her insisted on responding to the fact that Xavier was masculinity incarnate—a fact that excited and worried her in equal measure—it was high time she got on with it.

But where were the keys? And, more importantly, where was Xavier?

She was fully awake now, her senses on full alert, and she had the unmistakable impression that she was alone. Swinging around, she scanned the sparsely furnished room, and there, on top of the table where they had eaten supper the previous evening, she saw a large bunch of keys resting on top of a sheet of paper. Snatching up both the keys and the paper, she made for the door, reading as she went.

Juan and Lola will take good care of you—

The hand holding the sheet of A4 clenched automatically, scrunching the rest of Xavier’s message into indecipherable gibberish.

He’d gone without her!