Elusive Lover

‘Tell me about it,’ Josh prompted softly.

‘There isn’t a lot to tell,’ she said awkwardly. The pain was still too new for her to talk about it unemotionally.

‘Tell me anyway,’ Josh insisted.

She told him the bare outline of her visit to her father, aware that he was astute enough to read between the lines, and by the sympathy in his eyes he had done that very well.

When she had finished he just nodded. ‘So now you’re alone in Calgary?’

‘Yes.’

‘So why don’t you go home?’

‘Because I don’t have the money! I’m sorry,’ she sighed, ‘I didn’t mean to shout. But it’s so expensive living in Calgary. It’s going to take me months to get the money together for my return ticket.’ Without realising it she contradicted her previous statement about returning next month.

‘Not necessarily,’ Josh put in softly.

‘Oh, it will,’ she nodded. ‘I wasn’t expecting to be returning, so what little savings I did have I spent on a few new clothes. And I’m not getting on very well with my saving here.’ She straightened in her chair. ‘Which reminds me, I should be going. Thank you for breakfast, Mr Hawke, but I have to go and get myself another job now.’

His hand on her arm stayed her move to stand up. ‘What sort of job?’

Erin shrugged. ‘The same as I’ve been doing, I suppose.’

‘Cleaning and making beds?’

‘Yes,’ she answered resentfully. ‘There always seem to be those type of jobs going.’

‘Oh, there are,’ Josh nodded. ‘I know of one myself.’

‘You do? Where—No, I can’t ask you for any more help,’ she sighed. ‘You’ve been very kind already. In fact, I should be buying you breakfast.’ She pulled the notes out of her pocket that Mike had given her for her wages, giving a rueful laugh. ‘I think you must have frightened Mike—he overpaid me!’

‘Put it away, Erin,’ Josh instructed in a voice that brooked no argument. ‘When I invite someone out to eat I don’t expect them to pay for it. And I meant it about the job. Are you interested?’

Pride warred with necessity, and finally necessity won. ‘Yes, I suppose I am. It would be the same sort of thing, cleaning, stuff like that?’

‘Stuff like that,’ he nodded. ‘What you have to decide is whether or not you would find my sexual harassment any more acceptable that you did Mike Johnston’s.’

CHAPTER THREE (#u86fa9ad8-399a-502f-9ce6-effb38b8b754)

ERIN swallowed hard, licking her lips as they suddenly seemed too stiff to speak, searching his strong, hard face for some sign of the teasing mockery he seemed to treat her with.

She could see none. Josh was gazing steadily back at her, seemingly waiting for her answer. But what could she answer to a suggestion like that?

‘I—What did you say?’ she finally asked huskily.

‘I think you heard me, Erin,’ he drawled, his mouth twisting.

‘Yes, but—I don’t understand!’

‘Then perhaps I’d better explain myself,’ he taunted. ‘I live alone, and after a winter of cooking and cleaning for myself, of being without female company——’

‘Now that I don’t believe!’ she scorned. This man had a lazy charm that attracted women like bees around honey.

‘But it’s true. I’ve been working——’

‘Doing what?’

‘Time enough for that later,’ he dismissed. ‘I’d just got to the part where I’ve denied myself female company,’ he derided. ‘Meeting you has made me decide it’s time to change all that. You’re good at cleaning, and anyone can cook. Your references as a lover aren’t all that good, but——’

‘That’s because——’

‘You’ve been choosing the wrong men,’ he erroneously finished her outburst. ‘You respond beautifully to me.’

‘Well, really!’ Erin gasped.

‘Yes, really,’ he mocked in that lazy drawl. ‘A few lessons and you’ll be just perfect.’

Erin was very pale, wondering when this nightmare was going to end. ‘Lessons you intend giving me, I suppose?’ she said hollowly.

‘Of course.’

She shook her head. ‘Are you insane, Mr Hawke, or am I?’

‘Neither of us, honey,’ he squeezed the hand he still held. ‘And I haven’t finished explaining yet. Now I have reason to go to London in a couple of weeks’ time——’

‘London?’ she echoed in a dreamlike voice.

‘Yes,’ Josh smiled. ‘Like to go with me?’

‘Go with you?’ she squeaked.

‘You’re beginning to sound like a parrot,’ he teased.

‘But I—— You said go with you?’ she asked eagerly.

‘Yes,’ he said suddenly serious again. ‘In return for your taking care of the house—and me, I’ll buy you your ticket back to London. What do you say?’

What did she say? A chance to go back to London in two weeks and not the months she had envisaged. But at what a price!

But why not? Joshua Hawke was a devastatingly attractive man, had already shown himself to be an accomplished lover, so why not accept his offer? At least she would be getting something back for what every other man seemed to want to take for nothing.

But to share a bed with this man, with a complete stranger—was getting back to London worth that?

Josh watched all the different emotions flickering across her face, the consternation, the doubt, the bewilderment. ‘Is it yes or no?’ he prompted hardly.

‘I—I don’t know,’ she muttered. ‘I—It seems a bit—drastic to me.’

Humour quirked his mouth. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard sharing a bed with me called “drastic” before——’