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A little stiffly, she rose to her feet. She would go without the damned cigarettes now. Maybe he was right—if she could manage to give them up when she was at such a low ebb, she would never need them again. ‘Oh…by the way,’ she added, slanting him a covert look from beneath her lashes, ‘there was a woman here to see you a little while ago. Something about her horse. She said she might call you later.’
‘She didn’t leave a name?’
‘No. She…seemed to think you would know who it was.’
A flicker of some expression passed across his eyes, but it was gone too quickly for her to read it. ‘I see,’ was all he said.
Having asserted that she was sure she wouldn’t fall, she was alarmed by how dizzy she felt as she gazed down the steep flight of stairs. But she wasn’t going to let him see that—he might offer to carry her again. Resolutely gritting her teeth, she took hold of the banister and slowly made her way down.
It was quite a relief to get back to the settee. She sank down a little more heavily than she had intended, leaning back and closing her eyes. It was hard to believe that just that small amount of effort could be so exhausting. Beside her she heard Tom laugh drily.
‘You’re not quite as fit as you think you are, are you?’ he remarked, a sardonic glint in his eyes.
‘No, I’m not,’ she conceded. ‘I feel perfectly all right when I’m sitting down, but when I try to move around it catches up with me.’
‘You’ll be better in a day or two,’ he assured her, his voice surprisingly gentle. ‘I’m just going to put the kettle on. Would you like a cup of coffee?’
‘Y-yes, please.’ It made her nervous when he was being kind to her—it felt much safer when he was shouting.
Why did he have to be so utterly gorgeous? Aver-agely good-looking she could have coped with, but in her present highly susceptible state this just wasn’t fair. She watched him covertly from beneath her lashes as he made the coffee, fascinated by every economical movement.
There was something so very self-sufficient about him; he was a man who didn’t need a woman around. He had Vi to take care of his domestic comfort, and probably a whole posse of willing young ladies to minister to his other needs, without ever being offered much in the way of commitment. He got all the close companionship he needed from his dog.
But, though he wasn’t married now, had he been once? She judged him to be maybe in his middle thirties—surely even he hadn’t been able to get off scot-free all these years? There were so many things she wanted to know about him, but she guessed that he wouldn’t easily be persuaded to talk about himself.
He brought her coffee, and then folded himself into the battered old armchair beside the fireplace, his long, lean legs sprawled across the stone hearth. Jethro collapsed in a bundle at his feet, his head draped over his ankles, his eyes closed in sheer bliss.
Josey sipped her coffee, searching her mind for something to say, simply to make conversation. ‘This is a nice cottage,’ she remarked, trying to keep her tone light and casual. ‘Have you lived here long?’
‘It was my uncle’s place. We were partners for a while, but he retired about five years ago—though he still comes in to help with the small animal clinic a couple of afternoons a week.’
‘You…were born around here, then?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘My parents have got a farm, over by Withingham. Cows, mostly, and a few pigs. But my brother does most of the work now—he’s the farmer out of the two of us. My father’s nearly seventy—though he insists he isn’t quite ready to retire yet!’
His tone was quite friendly, and, emboldened, she risked probing a little further. ‘Had you always wanted to be a vet?’
‘Ever since I was a kid,’ he responded with a grin. ‘I was always over here, pestering my uncle to let me help him. I used to drive him mad, bringing in birds that had broken a wing, or a rabbit I’d let out of a farmer’s gin-trap. That didn’t make me very popular in certain quarters, either,’ he added darkly. ‘Sometimes I think that, the more I know about people, the more I prefer animals.’
‘It must be hard work,’ she mused.
He laughed drily. ‘Yes, it is—damned hard work, and there’s no money in it.’ He slanted her a look of hard mockery. ‘Not the sort of money that would run to a Porsche, anyway.’
She blinked in shock—that gibe had stung.
‘So what sort of work did you do in London?’ he persisted, a cynical edge in his voice, as if he was expecting something totally frivolous.
‘Oh, I…used to be a secretary,’ she stumbled. ‘But I haven’t worked for several years now. My…husband didn’t want me to.’
‘How long have you been married?’
‘Nearly nine years. A long time, isn’t it? You can get less than that for murder these days.’
He lifted one dark eyebrow in sardonic enquiry. ‘It seemed like a prison sentence?’
‘Worse!’ She was unable to keep the bitterness from her laugh. ‘At least with a prison sentence you get time off for good behaviourl’
‘But on the other hand, you wouldn’t get to serve your sentence in some posh Docklands penthouse, or drive around in a flash sports car,’ he pointed out with a touch of asperity.
She flashed him a look of angry indignation. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, you weren’t exactly in a hurry to leave, were you?’ he taunted.
‘Well, no…but I——’
‘Nine years—was it worth it for all that comfortable lifestyle?’ he sneered. ‘The clothes, and the jewellery, and the fast cars…’
‘That’s not true!’ she protested, stung. ‘How can you judge me? You don’t even know me.’
‘I don’t need to know you—I just have to look at you.’ His eyes lashed her with icy disdain. ‘What is it they say—“You can never be too rich or too thin”? You’ve dieted so much to fit the fashionable image you’re practically a bag of bones, and you’re so screwed-up you can’t get by without those things.’ He cast a contemptuous glance at the empty cigarette packet on the table beside her. ‘I’ll tell you something—if you put on a bit of weight you might look halfway decent, but until you sort out what’s going on in your head, you’ll never——’
His words were interrupted by a sharp ring at the doorbell. He rose swiftly to his feet and crossed the room, to admit a tall, ruddy-faced young man, still in his muddy wellington boots. In his arms he was carrying a drooping bundle, wrapped in an old blanket.
‘I’m sorry to barge in like this, Tom—I know it ain’t your surgery tonight. But it’s our old Shep,’ he blurted out, agitated and upset. ‘He was perfectly all right this morning, but when the missus came in from fetching the kiddies from school he was like this—couldn’t move, couldn’t get up, wasn’t even interested in his bone. Daft old mutt, he is, and getting on a bit now, but the kids love him. I don’t know if there’s anything you can do.’
‘That’s fine, Bob,’ Tom assured him swiftly. ‘Bring him through to the clinic.’
‘Do you…think he’s going to be all right?’
Tom hesitated, casting a doubtful eye at the bundle in the young farmer’s arms. ‘I’ll do my best,’ he promised.
CHAPTER THREE
DRAWN by an instinctive concern for the little dog, Josey followed them. The veterinary clinic was through a thick oak door at the end of the passage. A cluttered office led into a much larger room, with a rubber-topped table in the middle of it and all manner of important-looking equipment stowed neatly around the walls.
‘Put him down, Bob,’ Tom instructed, gesturing towards the table. ‘You get off home now—I’ll have a look at him, and see what I can do.’
‘Right.’ The farmer’s voice was suspiciously thickened, and Josey noticed him surreptitiously wipe a tear from the corner of his eye. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it, then. Maybe I’ll give you a ring in a couple of hours to see what’s what.’ Reluctantly he turned away from the table, barely even noticing Josey as he stepped past her.
She moved over to the table. The dog was a medium-sized black and white mongrel, with thick shaggy fur and a tail just made to be wagged. But now he was still, and even Josey could see that he was tense with pain. ‘Do you think he’ll be all right?’ she asked, unconsciously echoing the farmer’s words.
Tom was bending over his patient, his sensitive fingers gently examining the small, trembling body. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted wryly. ‘I’ve a nasty feeling he’s got peritonitis—maybe from a ruptured appendix or a punctured intestine. I’m going to have to open him up and have a look.’
He didn’t sound very hopeful, and Josey felt tears rise to prick the backs of her eyes. Some children were going to be very sad if their pet didn’t make it. ‘Is there…anything I can do to help?’ she asked.
‘Just sit there by his head and keep an eye on him,’ he instructed as he deftly slipped a needle into the dog’s vein, and hooked it up to a plasma drip. ‘I’ll have to try and get his fluid balance right before I can operate. Make sure he’s breathing steadily, and tell me if the colour of his gums changes.’
She nodded, glad to be able to contribute if only in a token way, and, pulling over a stool, she sat down. ‘Come on, Shep,’ she coaxed, stroking the small shaggy head. ‘Keep fighting, boy. Just think of all those lovely bones waiting for you if you get well.’
As Tom worked, Josey watched, fascinated by the skill in those beautifully made hands. Gone was all trace of that cynical, short-tempered man of so brief a time before; he had turned on the radio, and to the soothing strains of a Rachmaninov violin concerto he was performing the delicate operation on the small furry body that slumbered in anaesthetised bliss on the table.
He seemed so deep in concentration that she was taken by surprise when he sat back. Glancing across at her, he caught the unguarded expression of admiration in her eyes, and a smile of mocking amusement flickered across his face.
‘Well, I think that should do it,’ he said, flexing the muscles in his wide shoulders to ease their tension. ‘How’s he looking?’
‘Fine,’ Josey confirmed, feeling a surge of embarrassed colour in her own cheeks at having betrayed herself. ‘Will he be all right now?’
‘Well, it’s still touch and go, but if Bob hadn’t brought him in when he did he wouldn’t have stood a chance. We’ll know in a few hours whether he’s going to pull through. I’ll just get him settled in the sick-bay, and then we can see how he gets on over the next couple of hours. Come on, old feller.’ Gently he stroked his hand over the dog’s shaggy head. ‘Just hang in there a bit longer.’
With infinite care, he lifted his small patient and carried him through to a back room. There was already one occupant—a young tabby cat, who hissed viciously to show her resentment of being confined in her cage.
‘All right, Tuppence, I know it’s time for your dinner,’ Tom remarked to her soothingly as he passed.
Against one wall was a low wooden bench, divided into individual pens, and Shep was laid gently on a cosy pad of fibre bedding, his head arranged so that his tongue wouldn’t obstruct his breathing. Josey bent to look at him.
‘He…he’s twitching a bit,’ she remarked anxiously. ‘Is he all right?’
Tom laughed. ‘He’s dreaming. He’s probably out in a field somewhere, chasing rabbits. That’s a good sign—it shows he’s starting to come out of the anaesthetic.’
‘Oh.’ She managed a reasonably steady smile. ‘I didn’t know dogs dreamed.’
Those intriguing hazel eyes slanted her an enigmatic smile. ‘Everybody dreams.’
He was very close to her, and the faint, evocative muskiness of his skin drifted across her senses. She felt her heartbeat accelerate in response, and turned away quickly, afraid that he might pick up signals that she didn’t want to transmit.
‘Would you…would you like a cup of coffee?’ she offered, to cover her confusion.
‘That seems like a good idea.’
‘Right.’ She hurried away to the kitchen before he could notice that her cheeks were flushing a deepening pink.
But it proved far from easy to manage the simple task of filling the kettle with only one good hand, and she splashed water all over the place. Then trying to unscrew the lid from the coffee jar, she split the granules all over the scullery floor.
Her overwrought nerves seemed to snap in frustration, and she swore fiercely, tears springing to her eyes. From the doorway came the sound of Tom’s laughter, low and husky. ‘Having trouble?’ he teased gently.
‘I couldn’t get the lid off. I’m sorry, I…’ She knew she was dangerously close to making a complete fool of herself.
‘Hey…!’ To her surprise, he came over, and took her gently in his arms, drawing her against him. ‘Come on—it isn’t that important,’ he soothed, stroking his hand over her hair. ‘It’s only a bit of coffee.’
She couldn’t help it—she knew it was meant to be no more than a comforting gesture, but the impact of being held so close to him, feeling the warm strength of his arms around her, breathing the evocative male muskiness of his skin, fuelled the fires of that fantasy she had been dwelling in, and she lifted her head, her lips softly parted, as if half expecting him to kiss her.
There was an arrested expression in those deep hazel eyes, as if he too had been taken by surprise, and for one timeless moment they hovered in uncertainty…and then with a faintly sardonic smile he let her go.
‘I’d better wipe it up,’ he said.
‘Oh…no, I’ll do that,’ she offered quickly, her heart pounding in painful embarrassment.
‘Perhaps you’d better not,’ he advised in mocking amusement. ‘You seem to be seriously accident-prone’
‘I’m not usually,’ she protested, not liking the clumsy, incompetent image he seemed to have of her.
‘Well, never mind. It’s soon done.’ He had taken a floor cloth from beneath the sink, and mopped the floor quickly. ‘I’ll make the coffee.’
She flashed a fulminating glare at his indifferent back, and sat down at the big scrubbed-pine table. He had retreated back into those arctic wastes he normally inhabited, and yet…somehow she was sure she hadn’t imagined what she had seen in his eyes just a moment ago.
Mind, it was so long since a man had looked at her with any kind of interest that she wasn’t sure if she would even recognise it now, she conceded wryly. But it had seemed, just for those few incredible seconds, as if he really was going to kiss her…
Impatiently she shook her head. It was dangerous enough to let herself indulge in stupid romantic fantasies about him, but if she was going to start imagining that he might be remotely interested in her she was going to end up making a complete fool of herself.
By the time he brought the coffee she had managed to reassemble some kind of mask of composure, and her voice was commendably even as she thanked him.
‘How’s the wrist?’ he enquired, sitting down opposite her.
‘Oh…not too bad,’ she responded with a flickering smile. ‘It still hurts a bit.’
‘You were extremely lucky,’ he reminded her.
‘I know.’ She risked a brief glance up at him. ‘I suppose I ought to report the accident to the police?’
‘I’ve already reported it. Jack’ll be down to talk to you about it when you’re feeling a bit better.’
‘Do you suppose they’ll charge me with careless driving?’ she asked anxiously.
He shook his head. ‘I doubt it. Apart from Bill Wickham’s ditch, you were the only one who suffered any damage. You’ll need to put in an insurance claim, of course.’
‘It’s on my husband’s insurance.’ She couldn’t keep the edge of bitterness from her voice. ‘Personally I don’t give a damn whether he makes a claim or not.’
‘Even so, don’t you think you’d better ring him and let him know where you are?’ he enquired levelly.
‘He won’t care,’ she asserted. ‘He’ll just be sorry I didn’t manage to kill myself—that would have saved him the bother of going through a divorce.’
Those hazel eyes were completely unreadable. What was he thinking? She hadn’t meant to tell him about her marital problems, but somehow it was a relief to talk about it.
‘Why are you getting a divorce?’ he enquired; there was a kind of empathy in the way he asked the question, and suddenly she was sure that he was divorced too.
‘Why not?’ She shrugged her shoulders, still trying to hide her hurt behind a pose of indifference. ‘He wants to marry his secretary, and who am I to stand in the way of true love? Besides, she’s pregnant.’
He looked surprised. ‘Did you know he was having an affair?’
‘Of course.’ She was trying to make her voice sound cynical and hard, but she suspected it wasn’t quite coming off. ‘He has affairs with all his secretaries—it’s just one of his endearing little habits.’
He laughed drily. ‘So why didn’t you leave him sooner?’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted with wry self-mockery. ‘Habit, I suppose. And I didn’t have anywhere else to go.’
‘You don’t have any family?’
‘No—well, there’s my father, of course, but I couldn’t have gone there. I don’t get on particularly well with my stepmother.’
‘You could have got a place of your own.’
‘Yes, I suppose so…’ She looked down, swinging her foot in awkward embarrassment. How could she expect him to understand the way Colin had eroded so much of her confidence that she hadn’t believed she could manage on her own? She wasn’t at all sure that she could now—but at least she didn’t have to think about it for a few more days. She wasn’t well enough to leave Tom’s yet, and go to a hotel.
There was a long silence. She could still feel his eyes resting on her, and a kind of shimmering heat had started deep inside her. Was he aware of the effect he had on her? She was fairly sure he must be—he was far too perceptive to miss the signs that gave her away.
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