An Insatiable Passion

Pale now, she hunched under the quilt, her hands cupped round the coffee. ‘I’m not normally so careless, but if you’re looking for gratitude, you’re in the wrong place. Nobody asked you to interfere. How long have you been here?’

‘Since about three,’ he admitted shortly. ‘I didn’t like to leave you again until I was sure you were all right.’

Pinned to her mattress, sluggish and dishevelled, she felt grossly disadvantaged. ‘Have you turned nocturnal?’ she enquired. ‘Won’t someone have missed you?’

‘Sophie’s used to my being out at night.’

Really? He stayed overnight with Paula, did he? Times must have changed in Mirsby. You’d have been a scarlet woman the length and the breadth of the neighbourhood if you had behaved like that when Kitty had lived here. Hating him, she let coffee scald her tongue. Why wouldn’t he leave her alone? Yesterday had been a truly ghastly day and Jake had clogged up far too much of it.

‘Throw on some clothes. I’ll take you home for breakfast. A neighbourly act,’ he specified drily.

She nearly choked on her coffee. ‘Breakfast?’

Abruptly he dropped down on a level with her. ‘I’ve had enough drama in the last twenty-four hours to last me into the next century,’ he warned abrasively. ‘I also have a suggestion I want to put to you.’

‘Keep it. Keep breakfast as well,’ she advised, bending her head to evade a collision with rich, dark eyes far too close for comfort.

‘Is it so hard for you even to be civil to me?’ he raked, low and rough.

Her eyes closed. Every minute she spent in his radius heightened her inner turmoil. It would not be long before he questioned the depth of her bitter sensitivity to an episode he had firmly set behind him under the forgivable heading of misspent youth. She was terrified of exposing her vulnerability to that extent. But she would never be able to forgive him for the impossible choice he had once laid before her. How could she forget the agony of losing her baby?

Her eyelids smarted with sudden stinging moisture. That was a period of her life that she did not want to recall in his presence. It made her too vulnerable.

Jake expelled his breath, searching the drawn tension of her shielded profile. ‘Look, I can understand that you feel pretty raw right now, but I’m not the enemy.’

With a shaken sound of disagreement, she pushed back the quilt. ‘Give me ten minutes.’

CHAPTER THREE

UP IN the bathroom Kitty shivered as she washed and tugged clothes on clumsily over goose-fleshed limbs. If she had one personal hate, it was a bathroom like a fridge. She combed her hair, grateful for the excellence of a cut that made the long, gleaming strands fall smoothly back into style. She rubbed her cheeks, saw some pink appear.

Downstairs again, she looked round the empty room thoughtfully. She could be comfortable enough here. She had hot and cold running water and the means to eat and keep warm. She wasn’t so soft that she had to have the luxuries. As she tossed her toiletries bag back into her case, she noticed the phone sitting on one of the chairs tucked under the table and she smiled. Now that was a necessity.

She climbed into the Range Rover, slim and bright in her black jeans and a red sweater, worn under a soft leather jerkin. His cloaked gaze whipped over her, leaving her feeling curiously self-conscious.

‘When did Gran get the phone in?’ she asked.

‘I persuaded her to get it in after your grandfather died,’ Jake answered, filtering the vehicle slowly down the lane to avoid the deepest pot-holes. ‘I’m fairly certain she never used it, but it gave her a feeling of security.’

Kitty had stiffened. ‘Something else I need to thank you for?’

‘I don’t want your thanks,’ he parried flatly. ‘To get down to my suggestion—I think you ought to stay up at Torbeck for a few days.’

In sharp disconcertion she turned to look at him. ‘At your farm?’

His hard-set profile was impassive. ‘As I understood it, you’ve nowhere else to go until you get yourself sorted out.’

She stole a startled glance at him under her lashes, oxygen trapped in her convulsed throat. Dear heaven, had he taken her derisive plea of poverty seriously last night? Only a spendthrift fool could have been broke after the well-paid employment she had enjoyed. Too late she recalled how the Press had lovingly interpreted Grant’s roared assurance that without him she wouldn’t have a penny to bless herself with. Furthermore, Jake had two sisters and a mother, who had reputedly run up debts everywhere locally before he had been able to convince them that they could no longer afford the costly extras they had once taken for granted. Jake had no experience of women possessed of financial common sense.

Carefully she breathed in, oddly reluctant to subject him to the full absurdity of his misapprehension. ‘You know, I was joking last night. I’m not suffering from a cash-flow problem, Jake.’

He interrupted her drily, paying no heed to her firmly voiced assurance. ‘Possibly the invitation didn’t come out quite as I intended, but it was well meant. You need peace and privacy right now. It’s available at Torbeck. Sophie spends half her day in bed and the other half down at Merrill’s. You’re welcome to take up the offer. There are no strings attached to it, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

‘No, that wasn’t what—’

‘I won’t touch you again. Neither of us really knew what we were doing last night,’ he cut in grimly.

‘Speak for yourself.’ Did he have a whole list of excuses? she wondered in disgust. I was drunk; I didn’t know what I was doing. Did maniacal passion resulting in temporary insanity only strike him in her radius?

Something far from cold had leapt into his incisive gaze. ‘You mean it didn’t matter who it was? Any port in a storm?’

Tempted to slap the unpleasant smile off his darkly handsome features, she curled her fingers tightly into her palm. ‘I wouldn’t know. I’m not a sailor.’

‘You’re right there,’ he conceded smoothly. ‘You were drowning last night.’

The muscles in her stomach contracted sickly. Had he noticed something surprisingly inexperienced in her response? Determined not to show her shrinking discomfiture over the suspicion, she breathed mockingly, ‘Did that give you a buzz? I like men. Do you have a problem with that, Jake? Human sexual response is all about pressing the right buttons, and you’re not exactly without virtuosity in the field, are you?’ Warming up, she let a languorous smile form on her lips. ‘Surely you’re not complaining because I enjoyed the demonstration?’

A white tension had hardened his jawline. ‘You sound like a tramp.’

‘No, you don’t like women who enjoy it. Do I make you feel threatened in some way?’ Kitty dealt him a condescendingly interested appraisal from beneath her curling lashes. ‘Do you need the pretence of fumbling innocence to turn you on? Is that what Paula—’

The Range Rover suddenly shot to a bone-jolting emergency stop. Snaking out both his hands, he yanked her forward. Wide-eyed and pale, she stared up at him. Rage burned in his blazing dark scrutiny. His hand rested with whiplash accuracy against her slender throat. ‘Leave Paula out of this. One more word and, so help me God, Kitty, I’ll…’

‘You’ll what?’ Shaken by the tenor of her own cheap taunts, she was trembling. But on a secret level a hand-in-the fire exhilaration had gripped her to power her through her verbal assault on his masculinity.

Abruptly his hands left her. ‘That is one bait I won’t bite. No games, Kitty. I warn you,’ he gritted.

Sliding back, she jerked a shoulder, mutinously silent. At least her scornful attack had obliterated any unfortunate impression she might have left behind. Woodenly she stared out of the windscreen. Games? That was his department. Or it had been eight years ago. Stop it…stop it, a voice shrieked inside her head. Eight years ago, Kitty. Eight years ago.

Brown fingers drummed a soundless tattoo on the wheel. Without looking at him, she could tell that he was shaken up as well. The vibrations in the air were suffocating. ‘We don’t have to be at each other’s throats. I want to be a friend. That is all,’ he said roughly.

‘Don’t put your hand on a Bible and say it if you’re hoping to get through the Pearly Gates unchallenged.’

He bit out a humourless laugh. ‘You’ve got no make-up on and you ought to look like hell after the last week, but you’re still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. Is that what your ego needs to hear from me?’ he demanded scathingly. ‘Is that what you wanted last night? You don’t need that confirmation from me or anybody else.’

Unmovingly she watched him, her oval face clean of all expression. Her looks had brought her more disillusionment than happiness. Beauty had been a necessary passport into her father’s superficial affections. It had been her possibilities, not her personality which had persuaded Grant to take her under his wing.

And if she hadn’t been beautiful, Jake would have left her alone. At seventeen she had been defenceless. He had not even needed to lie about loving her to have his careless hour of satisfaction. There was nothing she would have denied him then. The knowledge made her stomach clench.

‘Will you stay at Torbeck?’ he prompted impatiently.

For a malicious second she savoured the prospect of his mother’s horror should she be saddled with her as a houseguest. Paula wouldn’t like it too much either. As quickly as she pictured the havoc she could wreak, she discarded the unattractive vision.

‘I’m going to stay at Lower Ridge,’ she told him flatly.

In the act of moving on the Range Rover, he stopped, his dark head whipping back to her in shock. ‘You can’t be serious!’ he said forcefully. ‘The house is falling down. The wiring’s dangerous.’

‘The house has stood for many years. I doubt if it will burn, blow up or collapse round my ears in the space of a few months,’ she scoffed.