Elusive Lover

‘I don’t care what you want!’ She shook off his hand on her arm, running to the door. ‘I’ll finish your room once you’ve left.’ She closed the door behind her and ran hurriedly to the store-room.

‘Erin!’ Joshua Hawke caught up with her before she reached it, spinning her round to face him. ‘Now I intend talking to you.’ His expression was grim, all of the lazy charm he had first teased her with completely erased. ‘If you won’t tell me where you live then meet me here. We can have dinner together, and you can tell me about yourself.’

She faced him defiantly. ‘And why should you want to know anything about me? Haven’t I told you enough—bored you enough, already?’

‘You haven’t bored me,’ he shook her roughly. ‘You’re lost and alone, and——’

‘But I’m not suicidal!’ she scorned him.

He seemed to go pale. ‘All right, Erin,’ he thrust her away from him, ‘if that’s the way you want it.’ He turned and strode off, getting into a brown pick-up, its paintwork mud-spattered, a huge wooden crate in the back. Her last glimpse of him qwas a narrow-eyed man intent on the road in front of him, his hat pulled low over his face, his jaw set in a firm line.

Oh, how could she have told him all those things, cried all over him like that! She just hoped she never had to face him again. She had made an absolute fool of herself.

She tidied his room so fast it must have been a record, terrified he would get back before she had finished. But he didn’t, and she was able to make her escape without making any more of an idiot of herself.

Only Mike was in the office when she went in to say goodnight; Frances was probably in the back doing her nails. What else would she be doing! A curvaceous blonde of about thirty, she wasn’t exactly maid material.

Mike looked up from his newspaper. ‘A little late tonight, aren’t you?’ he scowled, a tall sandy-haired man who couldn’t believe every woman he came into contact with didn’t find him madly attractive. He and Frances made a good couple, although Erin wondered when they ever had time for each other, they seemed to have such a lot of other—interests.

She gave a dismissive shrug. ‘I had a lot to do,’ she told him pointedly.

His gaze slowly undressed her. ‘So I saw,’ he sneered. ‘Flirting with the guests isn’t what you’re paid to do.’

She bit her lip. ‘Flirting…?’

‘I saw you with the Hawke guy. Find him attractive, do you?’

‘I—No! No, I——’

‘Liar!’ he accused angrily. ‘I hope you aren’t up to anything with him, Erin, because I don’t allow that sort of thing in my place.’

She stiffened with indignation. ‘I’ve no intention of “getting up to anything” with Mr Hawke. I happened to be doing his room, and——’

‘Spare me the details,’ Mike cut in nastily. ‘I just want you to remember,’ he moved closer to her, his hand touching her waist, ‘that I’m first in line when you do decide to start coming across.’

His crudeness made her feel sick, as did the way he was touching her. He had also answered her curiosity about Frances; she couldn’t be back yet, Mike would never act this way within hearing distance of his wife.

Erin moved away from him. ‘I just came in to tell you I’ve finished for the day. I’m going to my room now.’

His gaze ran over her suggestively. ‘Want me to come with you?’ he asked softly.

She swallowed hard. ‘No, thank you.’

‘So polite,’ he taunted. ‘Do you say thank you afterwards too?’

She had to get out of here, before she was physically sick. ‘I—Goodnight, Mike.’

‘’Night, Erin. Tomorrow’s another day, hmm?’

She looked away. ‘Yes,’ she agreed in a choked voice.

His mocking laughter followed her. He had her trapped, and he knew it. If only she hadn’t been so stupid, so trusting. When Mike had told her that there was a room she could rent from him she had jumped at the chance of leaving the flat she had been paying an exorbitant rent for and moving in here. The room had turned out to be little more than a cupboard, the rent almost as high as the one she had been paying, also Mike conveniently had a key to her room. She had changed the lock once, but he had demanded her spare key—for fire purposes, he said. She could hardly refuse in the circumstances, and so now she lived in dread of him just letting himself into her room one night.

So far he hadn’t done so, seeming to be biding his time, but she knew that very soon her time was going to run out. And she lived in dread of that day!

No wonder she had lost twelve pounds; she was surprised she hadn’t lost more, having no appetite, and hardly daring to sleep at night because of Mike and that spare key.

She studied herself in the mirror once she reached her room. She looked a mess—too thin, too pale, and worst of all, no vitality. It was hard to believe this was the same näive girl who had set out so hopefully eight weeks ago.

It had taken just two weeks of that time for her to realise her father didn’t want her around, another week to realise it was going to take forever to get the return air-fare together. So far she had a hundred dollars towards it, at this rate she might get back to England in six months or so.

She groaned, burying her face in the pillow and sobbing what few tears she had left after crying in Joshua Hawke’s arms.

Six months ago it had all seemed so easy, so very easy. She had hardly been able to believe it when Bob had offered to buy her an air ticket to see the father who had returned to Canada when Erin was only five years old. Until she saw it was a one-way ticket!

Her mother had died just over a year ago, leaving Erin to care for the man who had been her stepfather since she was eight years old. It was the age-old story of immigrants, one partner liked the new country and one didn’t. Her mother liked England and so she stayed, her father hated the little country that would fit into one corner of Canada, so he returned to his native country. They had divorced two years later, and a year after that her mother had brought Bob Walker home as her stepfather.

He wasn’t the sort of man to tolerate children, liking to go out in the evenings, taking her mother with him, and so for the most part he ignored Erin’s very existence. Her mother had claimed he needed time to adjust, and yet when her mother had died just after Erin’s eighteenth birthday Bob was still resenting her presence in his home.

She had tried to care for Bob the way her mother had, had tried to love him, and yet it was so hard to love someone who had never shown her even one gesture of affection in the whole of the ten years she had known him.

After a year of cooking and cleaning for him, with not one word of gratitude, she was prepared to admit defeat. Then out of the blue Bob had given her the air-ticket to come out here and visit her father. She hadn’t thought twice about it, writing to let her father know, and even though she had received no reply from him she had still come, sure that after all this time he would want to see her.

He hadn’t. He had remarried himself, had a new family, a son and daughter of ten and eleven respectively, and his second wife had left Erin in no doubt of her opinion of her turning up on their doorstep uninvited.

Nevertheless, her father had grudgingly allowed her to stay, putting her in with Ronnie, his other daughter. Ronnie turned out to be a precocious little brat, who took every opportunity she could to let Erin know she wasn’t wanted there.

The last straw had come after she had heard her father and stepmother arguing about her. With a few cruel words she had learnt that her father was no more pleased to see her than her stepmother was, that she had been the result of an effort on her parents’ part to try and make their marriage work.

Even now she didn’t like to think about it, to realise that she hadn’t so much been wanted by her parents but had been a final attempt to pull their marriage together. It wasn’t surprising that such parents should have destroyed her.

Oh, her mother had tried her best, had loved her in her own way, but ultimately it was Bob who always came first, even if he wasn’t always right.

She had left her father’s house after hearing that argument, and the lack of argument at her decision to leave only served to enhance the fact that she hadn’t been wanted there in the first place.

And so she had been left alone, with very little money, and no visible means of supporting herself. In a place as large as Calgary, a city growing at a rate too fast for its population, she had felt sure she would be able to get a job. She could, if she didn’t mind waiting two or three weeks to get an interview. She had been through it all before in England, and she didn’t have the funds to wait that long, so she took the first job she could start immediately, little realising that once she began work she had no time to look for a more suitable job.

She spent the evening doing her laundry, suddenly realising at bedtime that she hadn’t eaten again. Joshua Hawke had probably gone out and had a big juicy steak, forgetting all about the childish creature he had invited to join him.

Why had he done that? He didn’t seem to be the type good Samaritans were made of. And yet he had listened as she sobbed her heart out. Listened! The poor man hadn’t had much choice about it, she had cried all over him!

Well, that wouldn’t happen again. She didn’t need or want anyone worrying over her, least of all a tall arrogant stranger who mocked her most of the time.

She didn’t know whether she was relieved or disappointed when she left her room the next morning to find the brown pick-up noticeably absent. Joshua Hawke must have left very early, it was only eight-thirty now. Perhaps he worked on one of the ranches after all. But his hand, when he had touched her, hadn’t felt calloused and rough. It hadn’t felt soft and effeminate either, making his occupation a puzzle.

Why on earth did she keep thinking of the man! She wasn’t likely to see or hear from him again, he had probably forgotten all about her now that he had returned home.

Did he have a wife? She somehow didn’t think so. Why she thought that she didn’t know, he just hadn’t looked married. She was probably wrong, he probably had half a dozen children too! Maybe that was the reason he had been so patient with her display of tears, because he had children of his own.