The Last Woman He'd Ever Date (Mills & Boon Modern Tempted) Page 3

  ‘I’m a journalist.’ A rather grand title for someone working on the news desk of the local paper. ‘I’m interested in all the angles. Protecting the countryside has its place, too.’

  ‘For the privileged few.’

  ‘The estate has always been a local amenity.’

  ‘Not if you’re a fisherman,’ he reminded her. ‘I assume, since you’re covering local issues that you work for the local rag?’

  ‘The Observer, yes,’ she said, doing her best to ignore his sarcasm, keep a smile on her face. She wanted to know what he knew.

  ‘All that expensive education and that’s the best you could do?’

  ‘That’s an outrageous thing to say!’

  Oops… There went her smile.

  But it explained why, despite the fact that she’d been a skinny kid, totally beneath his notice, he had remembered her. Her pink and grey Dower House school uniform had stood out amongst the bright red Maybridge High sweatshirts like a lily on a dung heap. Or a sore thumb. Depending on your point of view.

  The other children in the village had mocked her difference. She’d pretended not to care, but she’d envied them their sameness. Had wanted to be one of them, to belong to that close-knit group clustered around the bus stop every morning when she was driven past in the opposite direction.

  ‘You were headed for Oxbridge according to your mother. Some high-flying media job.’

  ‘Was I?’ she asked, as if she didn’t recall every moment of toe-curling embarrassment as her mother held forth in the village shop. She might have been oblivious, but Claire had known that they were both the object of derision. ‘Obviously I wasn’t as bright as she thought I was.’

  ‘And the real reason?’

  She should be flattered that he didn’t believe her, but it only brought back the turmoil, the misery of a very bad time.

  ‘It must have been having a baby that did it.’ If he was back in the village he’d find out soon enough. ‘Miss Snooty Smartyhat brought down to size by her hormones. It was a big story at the time.’

  ‘I can imagine. Anyone I know? The father?’ he added, as if she didn’t know what he meant.

  ‘There aren’t many people left in the village who you’ll remember,’ she said, not wanting to go there. Even after all these years the crash of love’s young dream as it hurtled to earth still hurt… ‘As you pointed out, there aren’t any jobs on the estate for our generation.’ Few jobs for anyone. Sir Robert’s fortunes had been teetering on the brink for years. Cheap imports had ruined his business and with his factories closed, the estate—a money sink—had lost the income which kept it going.

  The Hall was in desperate need of repair. Some of the outbuildings were on the point of falling down and many of the hedges and fences were no longer stock proof.

  Cue Archie.

  ‘No one who’ll remember me is what I think you mean,’ he said.

  ‘You’re in luck, then.’

  ‘You think I’d be unwelcome?’

  He appeared amused at the idea and flustered, she said, ‘No…I just meant…’

  ‘I know what you meant,’ he said, turning back to the delicate task of unpicking the threads of her suit from the thorns.

  Ignoring the cold and damp that was seeping through her skirt, trying to forget just how much she disliked this part of her job, she tried again. This time, however, since he clearly wasn’t going to be coaxed into indiscretion, she came right out and asked him.

  ‘Can you tell me what’s happening to the estate?’ Maybe the subtle implication that he did not know himself would provoke an answer.

  ‘There’ll be an announcement about its future in the next day or two. I imagine your office will get a copy.’

  ‘It has been sold!’ That wasn’t just news, it was a headline! Brownie points, job security… ‘Who’s the new owner?’

  ‘Do you want a scoop for the Observer, Claire?’ The corner of his mouth quirked up in what might have been a smile. Her stomach immediately followed suit. She might be older and wiser, but he’d always had a magnetic pull. ‘Or merely gossip for the school gates?’

  ‘I’m a full-time working single mother,’ she said, doing her best to control the frantic jangle of hormones that hadn’t been disturbed in years. ‘I don’t have time to gossip at the school gates.’

  ‘Your baby’s father didn’t stick around, then?’

  ‘Well spotted. Come on, Hal,’ she pleaded. ‘It’s obvious that you know something.’

  If he had been the chairman of the Planning Committee she’d have batted her eyelashes at him. As it was, she’d barely raised a flutter before she regretted it.

  Hal North was not a man to flirt with unless you meant it.

  Poised on the brink of adolescence, paralysed with shyness if he so much as glanced in her direction, she had not fully understood the danger a youth like Hal North represented.

  As a woman, she didn’t have that excuse.

  ‘It’ll be public knowledge soon enough,’ she pressed, desperately hoping that he wouldn’t have noticed.

  ‘Then you won’t have long to wait will you?’

  ‘Okay, no name, but can you tell me what’s going to happen to the house?’ That’s all she’d need to grab tomorrow’s front page. ‘Is it going to be a hotel and conference centre?’

  ‘I thought you said it was going to be a building site. Or was it an industrial estate?’

  ‘You know how it is…’ She attempted a careless shrug, hiding her annoyance that he persisted in trading question for question. She was supposed to be the professional, but he was getting all the answers. ‘In the absence of truth the vacuum will be filled with lies, rumour and drivel.’

  ‘Is that right?’ He straightened, put away his knife. ‘Well, you’d know more about that than me.’

  ‘Oh, please. I work for a local newspaper. We might publish rumour, and a fair amount of drivel, but we’re too close to home to print lies.’

  She made a move to get up, eager now to be on her way, but he forestalled her with a curt ‘wait.’

  Assuming that he could see another problem, she obeyed, only to have him put his hands around her waist.

  She should have protested, would have protested if the connection between her brain and her mouth had been functioning. All that emerged as he picked her bodily out of the ditch was a huff of air, followed by a disgusting squelch as her foot came out of the mud, leaving her shoe behind. Then she found herself with her nose pressed against the dark green heavyweight cloth of his coveralls and promptly forgot all about the bluebells.

  Hal North had a scent of his own. Mostly fresh air, the sweet green of crushed grass and new dandelion leaves, but something else was coming through that fresh laundry smell. The scent of a man who’d been working. Warm skin, clean sweat—unexpectedly arousing—prickling in her nose.

  He was insolent, provoking and deeply, deeply disturbing but, even as the urgent ‘no!’ morphed into an eager ‘yes…’ she told herself to get a grip. He had been bad news as a youth and she’d seen, heard nothing to believe that had changed.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ she said, doing her best to avoid meeting those dangerous eyes as she clung to his shoulders, struggling for balance and to get her tongue and teeth to line up to form the words. ‘I really have to be going.’

  ‘Going? Haven’t you forgotten something?’

  ‘My shoe?’ she suggested, hoping that he’d dig it out of the mud for her. He was, after all, dressed for the job. While the prospect of stepping back into it was not particularly appealing, she wasn’t about to mess up the high heels she carried in the messenger bag slung across her back.

  ‘I was referring to the fact that you cycled along a footpath, Claire. Breaking the by-laws without a second thought.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’ She laughed but the arch law-breaker of her youth didn’t join in. He was not kidding. He was… She didn’t know what he was. She only knew that he was looking down at her with an inten
sity that was making her pulse race. ‘No! No, you’re right,’ she said, quickly straightening her face. ‘It was very wrong of me. I won’t do it again.’

  The hard cheekbones seemed somehow harder, the jaw even more take it or leave it, if that were possible.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘You don’t?’ she asked, oblivious to the demands of the front page as her upper lip burned in the heat of eyes that were not hard. Not hard at all. Her tongue flicked over it, in an unconscious attempt to cool it. ‘What can I do to convince you?’

  The words were out of Claire’s mouth, the harm done, before she could call them back and one corner of his mouth lifted in a ‘got you’ smile.

  There was no point in saying that she hadn’t meant it the way it had sounded. He wouldn’t believe that, either. She wasn’t sure she believed it herself.

  If it looked like an invitation, sounded like an invitation…

  Her stomach clenched in a confused mix of fear and excitement as, for one heady, heart-stopping moment she thought he was going to take her up on it. Kiss her, sweep her up into his arms, fulfil every girlish dream she’d confided to her journal. Back in the days before she’d met Jared, when being swept into Hal’s arms and kissed was the limit of her imagination.

  No! What was she thinking!

  In a move that took him by surprise, she threw up her arm, stepped smartly back, out of the circle of his hands, determined to put a safe distance between them before her wandering wits made a complete fool of her. But the day wasn’t done with her.

  The morning was warm and sunny but it had rained overnight and her foot, clad only in fine nylon—no doubt in shreds—didn’t stop where she’d put it but kept sliding backwards on the wet path. Totally off balance, arms flailing, she would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her round the waist in a grip that felt less like rescue than capture and her automatic thanks died in her throat.

  ‘You’ve cycled along that path every day this week,’ he said, in a tone that suggested he was right, ‘and I don’t think you’re going to stop without good reason.’

  ‘Archie is a great deterrent,’ she managed.

  ‘Not to those of us who know his weakness for apples. A weakness I’ve seen you take advantage of more than once this week. Being late appears to be something of a habit with you.’

  He’d seen her? When? How long had he been back? More importantly why hadn’t she heard about it when she called in at the village shop? There might be few people left who would remember bad, dangerous, exciting Hal North, but the arrival of a good-looking man in the neighbourhood was always news.

  ‘Were you lying in wait for me today?’

  ‘I have better things to do with my time, believe me. I’m afraid this morning you just ran out of luck.’

  ‘And here was me thinking I’d run into you.’ He moved his head in a gesture that suggested it amounted to the same thing. ‘So? What are you going to do?’ she demanded, in an attempt to keep the upper hand. ‘Call the cops?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m going to issue an on-the-spot penalty fine.’

  She laughed, assuming that he was joking. He didn’t join in. Not joking…

  ‘Can you do that?’ she demanded and when he didn’t answer the penny finally dropped. A fine… ‘Oh, right. I get it.’

  He hadn’t changed. His shoulders might be broader, he might be even more dangerously attractive than the boy who’d left the village all those years ago, but inside, where it mattered, he was still the youth who’d poached the Park game, torn up the park on his motorcycle, sprayed graffiti on Sir Robert’s factory walls. Allegedly. No one had ever caught him.

  He was back now as gamekeeper, warden, whatever and he apparently considered this one of the perks of the job.

  She shrugged carelessly in an attempt to hide her disappointment as she dug around in her bag, fished out her wallet.

  ‘Ten pounds,’ she said, flicking it open. ‘It’s all I have apart from small change. Take it or leave it.’

  ‘I’ll leave it.’ Her relief came a fraction too soon. ‘I’m looking for something a little more substantial by way of payment.’ What! ‘Something sufficiently memorable to ensure that the next time you’re tempted to ride along this path, you’ll think again.’

  She opened her mouth to protest that parting with all the spare cash she had to see her through until the end of the month was memorable enough, thank you very much. All that emerged was another of those wordless huffs as he pulled her against him, expelling the air from her body as her hips collided with hard thighs.

  For a moment she hung there, balanced on her toes.

  For a moment he looked down at her.

  ‘What would make you think again, Claire?’

  Had she thought there was anything soft about those eyes? She was still wondering how she could have got that so wrong when his mouth came down on hers with an abrupt, inescapable insistence.

  It was outrageous, shocking, disgraceful. And everything she had ever imagined it would be.

  CHAPTER THREE

  CLAIRE Thackeray abandoned her bike, her shoe and, as her hair descended untidily about her shoulders, a scatter of hair pins.

  Hal knew that he would have to go after her, but it hadn’t taken her stunned expression, or her stiff back as she limped comically away from him on one shoe to warn him that laughing would be a mistake.

  It was as clear as day that nothing he did or said would be welcome right now, although whether her anger was directed at him or herself was probably as much a mystery to her as it was to him.

  The only thing he knew with certainty was that she would never again ride her bike along this path. Never toss an apple—the toll Archie charged for letting her pass unmolested on her bike—over the hedge.

  ‘Job done, then,’ he muttered as, furious with himself, furious with her, he stepped down into the ditch to recover the shoe she’d left embedded in the mud. He tossed it into the basket on the front of her bike, grabbed the fishing rod he’d confiscated from Gary Harker and followed her.

  It was the first time he’d lost control in years and he’d done it not just once, but twice. First when he’d kissed her, and then again as her unexpected meltdown had made him forget that his intention had been to punish her. Punish her for her insulting offer of a bribe. Her pitiful attempt at seducing what he knew out of him. Most of all, to punish her for being a Thackeray.

  He’d forgotten everything in the softness of her lips unexpectedly yielding beneath his, the silk of her tongue, the heat ripping through him as she’d clung to him in a way that belied all that buttoned-up restraint.

  Which of them came to their senses first he could not have said. He only knew that when he took a step back she was looking at him as if she’d run into a brick wall instead of a flesh-and-blood man.

  Any other woman who’d kissed him like that would have been looking at him with soft, smoky eyes, her cheeks flushed, her mouth smiling with anticipation, but Claire Thackeray had the look of a rabbit caught in headlights and, beneath the smear of mud, her cheek had been shockingly white.

  Her mouth was swollen but there was no smile and she hadn’t said a word. Hadn’t given him a chance to say… What?

  I’m sorry?

  To the daughter of Peter Thackeray? The girl who’d been too good to mix with the village kids. The woman who, even now, down on her luck and living in the worst house on the estate, was still playing the patronising lady bountiful, just as her mother had. Handing out charity jobs to the deserving poor. Sending the undeserving to the devil…

  That wasn’t how it was meant to be.

  But she hadn’t waited for an apology.

  After that first stricken look, she’d turned around and walked away from him without a word, without a backward glance as if he was still the village trash her father—taking his cue from Sir Robert—had thought him. As if she was still the Cranbrook estate’s little princess.

  The battered wheel ground again
st the mudguard and stuck, refusing to move another inch. Cursing the wretched thing, he propped it up out of sight behind a tree, then grabbing her shoe he strode after her.

  ‘Claire! Wait, damn it!’

  *

  Claire wanted to die.

  No, that was ridiculous. She wasn’t an idiot kid with a crush on the local bad boy. She was a responsible, sensible grown woman. Who wanted to die.

  How dare he!

  Easy… Hal North had always done just what he wanted, looked authority in the eye and dared anything, defying them to do their worst.

  How could she?

  How could she just stand there and let Hal North kiss her? Respond as if she’d been waiting half her life for him to do exactly that? Even now her senses were alight with the heat of it, the blood thundering around her body at the thrill of surrendering to it, letting go in a world-well-lost moment when nothing else mattered. Not her dignity, not her child…

  It had been everything her youthful imagination had dreamt about and more. Exhilarating, a dream-come-true moment to rival anything in a fairy tale.

  Appalling.

  She clung desperately to that word, closing her eyes in a vain attempt to blot out the warm, animal scent of his skin, the feel of his shoulders, solid beneath her hands as she’d clutched at them for support. The taste of his hard mouth lighting her up as if she’d been plugged into the national grid; softening from punishing to seductively tender as her lips had surrendered without a struggle to the silk of his tongue.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me?’

  Of course she’d heard him.

  “Wait, damn it…”

  He’d sounded angry.

  Why would he be angry? He was the one who’d kissed her without so much as a by-your-leave…

  ‘I brought your shoe,’ he said.

  She took it from him without slowing down, without looking at him. It was caked in wet sticky mud and she tossed it defiantly back into the ditch.

  ‘That was stupid.’

  ‘Was it?’ Probably. Undoubtedly. She’d come back and find it later. ‘What’s your on-the-spot fine for littering?’