When Harriet Came Home (16 page)

The roughness in his voice pierced her resolve. Was he reluctant to see her go? Did he realise that she had nothing to look forward to on her return to Sydney?

“Please stay.” His face was serious, his body tensed. “Please stay, Harriet, and I promise we’ll just talk.” He sat down on the couch and patted the seat beside him.

Cautiously she sat down again.

“Tell me about your life in Sydney.”

“My life in Sydney?” She wrinkled her brow. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything.” He handed her mug to her. “Ken tells me you have plans to rent a bigger commercial space soon and expand your market. I want to know all about your plans.”

Ah, yes, her plans. She had plans—big plans for her catering business, but…none of that mattered anymore. Nothing mattered as much as this man sitting beside her, listening to her talk about her ideas and turnover, her staff and clients.

She knew where her heart lay. She would trade all her accomplishments for the right to be by this man for the rest of her life, for the privilege of sitting here by the flickering fire. She half feared, half hoped he would reach for her again, but he didn’t, and gradually she relaxed in her corner of the couch in the soporific warmth of the fire.

When Adam got up to poke at the fire, she leaned her head on the armrest and watched him, drowsily admiring his figure. She was tired, and she knew she should ask him to drive her home, but somehow she didn’t. She would rest her eyes for a few minutes before she reluctantly called an end to the night. Snuggling down into her corner, she closed her eyes.

A shaft of sunlight across her face woke her up. She yawned and rubbed her eyes, wondering why her back felt kinked. The room came into focus, and she saw the dead ashes of the fire, her shoes on the carpet and a thick woollen blanket tucked around her. With a gasp she jumped to her feet.

She’d spent all night at Adam’s cottage, and it was already past nine in the morning. How could she have slept for so long? How could he have let her sleep for so long?

She pushed open the door to his bedroom. It was empty, the bed already made. No sound from the bathroom; no sound from anywhere. She was alone.

Damn, where had he gone? By the time he drove her back home, her parents would be well and truly up, and there would be no hope of concealing the fact that she’d spent the night with Adam. Her parents would never believe
nothing
had happened between them. Neither would anyone else who saw Adam driving her home on a Sunday morning. The rumour-mills would be working overtime.

With a groan she slipped on her shoes, and hurried over to the kitchen sink to wash her face under the cold-water tap. Her eyes were blurred as she straightened up and gazed out the window. She wiped them and gasped.

Up on the hill the Blackstone mansion stood solid and mellow in the morning sunshine. And billowing out of a second-storey window was a thick pall of black smoke.

Adam’s house was on fire.

Harriet skidded to a halt at the open door of the mansion. She stepped into a hallway reeking of smoke.

“Adam!” Her quavering cry echoed through the empty rooms.

She could hear nothing except for a muffled roar coming from above. She clutched the newel post and craned her neck upstairs, calling Adam again. There was no reply.

But she knew in her bones he was in the house. Knew he was somewhere upstairs. In danger.

The bitter tang of smoke stung her throat. She drew in a deep breath and flung herself up those stairs before she could think twice. The roar of the fire grew louder, and, as she reached the first floor, she saw the flames, red and angry, shooting out of a bedroom. The room where she’d helped Adam with his woodwork.

Her knees turned to water. Sweat poured into her eyes as the heat of the fire blasted her face. Oh God, all she wanted was to turn around and escape.

But she couldn’t.

She dropped to her knees and crawled forward, hugging the wall as she entered the bedroom. It wasn’t a room anymore. It was a cave of roaring flames and thick black smoke. Tears poured from her eyes. Acrid heat scoured her lungs. She couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

Somehow she kept on crawling, feeling her way through the nightmare. A few metres in, her trembling hands fumbled against something solid, inert. Adam. Lying unconscious on the ground.

Through her streaming tears she made out his head and shoulders. She shook him, but he didn’t move. She shook him again, harder. Still no response. Her fingers sought out and found the reassuring pulse beating in his neck.

“Adam!” She screamed before a paroxysm of coughing shook her, doubling her up in agony. If they didn’t get out of here soon, the smoke would kill them both.

He groaned, and his eyes flickered open.
Oh thank God!

“Get out of here,” he croaked.

“Not without you.”

She helped him roll onto his hands and knees. He was groggy and disoriented. The smoke thickened until she couldn’t see two inches in front of her. She took the lead, crawling toward the door, with Adam holding on to her. With agonising slowness they began to inch away to safety. The heat and terror sapped her energy, but she wouldn’t give up, wouldn’t stop until she had him safe.

They were almost out. She could see the murky outline of the door. A burst of flames suddenly roared down on them.

“Look out!” Adam shoved her out of the room.

A second later the ceiling of the bedroom came crashing down in a blaze of heat and sparks and crumbling, red timbers. The explosion sent fire and smoke billowing toward them. Adam cannoned into her, flinging her to the ground, his body protecting her. She twisted round, saw he’d been knocked out by some flying debris. There was no time to stop. The danger had followed them. The hallway was thick with poisonous smoke, the walls creaking and melting in the face of the voracious inferno.

She had to get him down the stairs, but she didn’t think she was strong enough. Crying with desperation, she yelled at him to wake up, but only a dry croak came out of her desiccated lungs, lost in the monstrous roar of the flames.

It couldn’t end here. Not like this.

If she could only gather up her last scraps of strength. If she could only have a few moments of rest. But by then it would be too late. Too late for both of them. She pressed her blackened, sweat- and tear-streaked cheek against his and shut her eyes.

Adam.

A sob rose in her throat as she curled her arms around him and rested her face against his, holding him tight All she could hear was the awful roar of the fire, and…was that a siren? It was. She sat up, listened. Other noises came to her, distant but real. Sirens wailing, voices yelling, boots pounding on the stairs. She smeared away the gunk from her eyes just in time to see a fire fighter reach the top of the stairs. In his breathing equipment he looked like an alien, but she’d never seen a more beautiful sight. A fresh flood of tears poured down her face.

Two days later, Harriet marched through the hospital, her head held high, her step confident. It was a paper-thin disguise. Her mouth was dry with nerves, her stomach knotted. At the nurses’ station the medical staff looked at her curiously and exchanged knowing smiles with each other. Heat crawled up her chest. She knew it’d be like this, knew she’d attract stares and comments. But she couldn’t leave Wilmot without seeing Adam.

One of the nurses leaned her hip against the counter and flashed her a grin. “Hi, Harriet. He’s down the hall in 2B.”

The heat shot up her neck. The nurse didn’t even elaborate on who “he” was. Didn’t need to. Everyone within a twenty-kilometre radius of Wilmot knew. She nodded at the nurse and surged onward to room 2B. A private room, of course. Feeling everyone’s eyes glued on to her back, she pushed open the door and barged in.

Adam swung round at the window.

He was standing up and fully dressed in khaki chinos and a black cotton shirt. Apart from a few scratches and bruises on his face, he looked wholly recovered and composed.

“Ah,” she stuttered as her heart-rate kicked up even further. “I should have knocked.”

“Luckily I’m decent.” He gave her a crooked little smile. “I’ve been watching you through the window. You’ve been sitting in your car in the parking lot for the past fifteen minutes. I thought I’d have to come out and get you.”

That explained why he didn’t look the least surprised to see her. It had taken her all that time to screw up her courage to enter the hospital. She ran her fingers along the bed rail. “Um, you okay?”

“Doctors say I’m fine. I heard you suffered a bit of smoke inhalation.”

“Not much,” she hastened to assure him. “I just spent a few hours at emergency strapped to an oxygen tank.”

She looked him over, relief washing through her once more. She already knew he was all right, but nothing could comfort her as much as seeing him for herself. He looked so solid and healthy and unfairly handsome that the urge to fling her arms around him and squeeze him tight bloomed in her. Instead she dug her fingernails into her palms.

“I’m just waiting for my discharge papers.” He shot her a keen glance. “What are you up to?”

“I’m about to drive back to Sydney.”

His shoulders tensed. “And you thought you’d just drop in on your way? Why didn’t you visit sooner?”

She gestured toward the flowers, balloons and get-well cards massed around his room. “I heard the crowd was three deep around your bed. Everyone wanted to see you. I thought you’d appreciate a little peace.”

“Really?” He took a few steps toward her. “Is that the only reason?”

She eased out a sigh. There was no point in concealing the truth. “I also wasn’t too keen on being more fodder to the gossip-mills by visiting you in hospital. The phones around Wilmot have been running hot ever since…well, you know.”

“Ever since you risked your life to rescue me from a fire?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t rescue you. The firemen carried you out of the house. I probably just gave you some extra bumps and bruises.”

“You saved my life, Harriet. Let’s not quibble about that. If you hadn’t found me, I wouldn’t be alive today.”

She wrapped her arms around herself and hunched her shoulders. “Yeah, well, that’s not what’s going round town. All everyone can talk about is how the fire crew found me sprawled all over your body, not to mention the fact that I spent the night with you.”

He gave a rasping laugh which quickly turned into a cough. “Why does that get your goat?” he said when he had recovered. “You and I both know our night together was perfectly innocent.”

“No one would ever believe that!”

“And that’s the only reason you haven’t come to see me?”

She shuddered and hugged herself tighter.

“No,” she admitted in a low voice. “The real reason is I was afraid. I was afraid that when I saw you again I’d break down in front of everyone…” She covered her face with her hands as she suddenly felt herself go to pieces. “Oh, Adam, I was so scared. I still have nightmares. I thought…”

He crossed the room in a couple of strides and pulled her into his arms. She leaned her head into his chest and cried until his shirt was soaked through. He didn’t seem to mind. He drew her closer and buried his face in her hair.

“I put you in terrible danger,” he said. “That morning, I woke up early. You were still sleeping, so I thought I’d finish up something at the house. I was in a hurry to get it done before you woke, so I took my power tools upstairs, and the damned electricity shorted out and started the fire. I would have been okay if I hadn’t been up a ladder at the time. The shock knocked me off my feet. I must have hit the ground pretty hard.”

His arms tightened around her, and she felt his heart thudding against her wet cheek. “I’ll never forgive myself for endangering you like that. God—” he gave a disgusted grunt, “—and after all the safety drills I drum into my crew, I go and do a stupid thing like that.”

It felt so blissful to be in Adam’s arms, but she knew she was only making it harder for her to leave. Reluctantly she disentangled herself from him and found a wad of tissues to clean her face.

“I’m sorry about your house, too,” she said as she balled up the tissues. “I heard the upstairs has been badly damaged. All your hard work gone to waste…” Her voice trailed off, everything in her aching for him and his loss. She knew how much Blackstone Hall meant to him.

Adam shrugged. “It’s insured.”

She blinked at him. “But all that time you spent, all that effort to restore the original fittings.”

“Yeah.” To her puzzlement he seemed totally unperturbed. “But you could also think of it as having a blank canvas, ready for any kind of look. Maybe it’d be a good selling point.”

“
Selling
point?” She gaped at him. “Surely you’re not thinking of selling Blackstone Hall?”

“Maybe I am. Maybe I don’t want to be anchored by the past. Maybe I want to cut loose and move somewhere else.”

The emotion in his eyes squeezed the air from her lungs. “But you can’t move somewhere else! You belong here in Wilmot, like you always have.”

“Do I?” His eyes never wavered from her. “Then we have a problem, don’t we?”

“We do?”

“Yup. Big problem.” He reached out and twirled a piece of her hair around his finger. “Because I was planning on moving down to Sydney.”

The hospital room seemed to whirl around her. When her head stopped spinning she found him still gazing at her with an unnerving intensity.

She moistened her lips. “Why?”

He slid his fingers through the length of her hair, and started twirling again. “Well, if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed…”

She sucked in a breath. “And I’m the mountain…?”

“Metaphorically speaking.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

He too drew in a sharp breath. “Why not?”

Fresh tears sprang to her eyes. “I just told you. You belong here in Wilmot, not some big, sprawling city. You’d hate it in Sydney.”

“No, I wouldn’t. I’d be close to you. That’s all that matters.”

Why were her eyes so blurry? Her stomach so queasy? He slid his hands around the sides of her face and drew her closer.

“Harriet, I love you.” He tweaked her earlobes softly. “I love your gutsiness and your vulnerability. The way you’ve reinvented yourself yet still kept all the best things about you. I love the way you walk, the way you kiss, the way my body goes haywire every time I catch sight of you.”

He drew in a deep breath. “I’m crazy for you, Harriet Brown, and that’s the truth, even though it’s probably not what you need to hear right now.”

Her ears were tingling. Her heart skittered around like a crazy puppy. “No, it’s exactly what I need to hear right now.” Her arms shot out to circle him round the waist. “And you need to hear that I love you too.”

“Really?” His eyes glimmered.

She nodded, incredulous happiness shooting through her. It wasn’t a dream—Adam loved her! She stretched up on tiptoe and met his kiss midway. For a long while there was nothing in the universe except his mouth, his hands and the sweet nothings he murmured in her hair. When they paused for breath, her skin was rosy and tingling, and she felt as if she’d been doused in fairy dust.

The hospital room came wavering back into focus and reality intruded. There were matters she couldn’t leave unresolved.

“I love you so much, Adam.” Still tremulous, she linked her hands with his. “But I won’t let you uproot yourself from this place. Everyone here likes and respects you. Just look at all these flowers and cards around you. You belong here. Don’t tell me you’d find it easy to sell Blackstone Hall after everything you’ve gone through.”

“It wouldn’t be easy, no.” He stroked her cheek tenderly. “But neither would I find it easy to be apart from you for most of the week. How often would I get to see you?”

“More often than you probably like.” She gripped his waist, thrilled by the play of his muscles against her palms. “I’m moving back to Wilmot.”

He wrinkled his brows at her, caution seeping into his eyes. “You said you never liked living in Wilmot. What’s made you change your mind?”

“You.” She slid her hands up the length of his chest. “When we were caught in that fire, I never thought once of leaving your side. I realised something fundamental. I’d never be happy without you. That’s the truth, and nothing else matters. So I’m going to move back to Wilmot and help my dad at The Tuckerbox.”

“But what about your catering business and all your plans?”

“I’ll have to honour my commitments, of course, but I’ve already spoken with my dad, and he’s over the moon about it. And once we get The Tuckerbox on its feet again, I’ll look at doing catering as well. Who knows, I might even get Cindy to help me.”

“You made such a huge decision even before you came to see me?” Adam looked both incredulous and impressed.

She nodded. “I wasn’t sure what you felt about me. I wasn’t sure if you just wanted to be friends, but I knew I wanted to be here. I wanted to take a chance on us.” She fumbled in her bag and shyly drew out a long, red sock. “Do you remember this?”