Wild and Willing! (7 page)

‘I felt my share of anger and self-pity, but that passed. I decided to get on with life. I hate wasting time. I have no intention of being one of those pathetic people who prate on about their golden years when they’ve still most of their life in front of them. The fact is I can never dance professionally, at least not at the level I wanted to. But it doesn’t stop me enjoying music.’

‘I remember.’

The reminiscent gleam in his eyes made her shift uncomfortably and clutch her mementoes tighter to her bosom. ‘You didn’t approve,’ she reminded him stiffly.

‘From a distance I enjoyed it.’ The corners of his mouth lifted in a reluctant smile.

‘Why from a distance?’ She was excited by this confession and fascinated by the smile. For a moment she forgot he’d broken her sister’s heart.

‘You’re too…unsettling close to.’ The husky admission emerged almost against his will.

‘Perhaps you need a challenge.’

She was pleased he found her unsettling. Considering the traumatic effect his intrusion into her life had had it seemed only fair he should suffer some of the discomfort.

Not that she fooled herself he was anything like as confused and miserable as she was. He had his life neatly planned out and there was no place in it for her. He’d made that
very
plain.

‘What are you trying to goad me into doing?’ His scornful look made her squirm. He must think she was quite shameless. She
was
quite shameless where he was concerned, it seemed.

‘Just making conversation.’ She produced an unpicturesque handkerchief and lifted it to her reddened nose.

‘Just as well; you’re not dressed for seduction.’

‘Thanks a lot! I really needed reminding that I look like hell.’

‘I can’t fight with you when you’re like this,’ he commented half-regretfully. ‘It feels like kicking a kitten.’

‘Oh, Doctor, you’re all consideration,’ she purred rattily. ‘I’m sure Freud would have had a field day with all your feline references, but don’t worry about me. I’m quite capable of looking after myself.’

‘I never doubted it.’

Beth Lacey bustled in with a good-natured smile on her face. She placed a tray with tea and scones on the coffee table. ‘It’s so nice for Anna to have some company. She’s a very impatient patient.’

Anna simmered as Adam exchanged a sympathetic glance with her mother.

‘He didn’t come to see me,’ she said, correcting the implication that Adam Deacon was out and about visiting the sick and distressed. A saint he was not!

‘All you had to do was ask,’ Adam said with another sympathetic smile.

Anna ground her teeth and glared at the back of his golden head as he turned to speak to her mother. ‘If I wanted company I’ve plenty of
friends
I’d ask.’ A flush mounted her cheeks as she realised how petulant her retort had sounded.

‘Did Adam tell you about the burglars?’ Beth asked. ‘He caught them red-handed. A gang from out of town.’ Beth gave the impression that no one local would have committed such an uncivilised act. ‘Did they do that to your face?’ With concern she looked at the scrape down the side of his cheek.

‘No, this was a stray cat.’ His eyes tauntingly flickered in Anna’s direction.

His fingers touched the superficial healing scar, and a
mental image of herself tracing the angry line with her tongue popped into Anna’s head. She trembled with the effort of dispelling the picture.

Beth clicked her tongue in sympathy. ‘Well, I think you were very brave to tackle the thugs.’

Thugs… Anna swallowed, realising for the first time that he could easily have been hurt. The desire to protect him from injury was bewilderingly strong.

‘Stupid, more like,’ she retorted tartly, however. ‘Wouldn’t it have been more sensible to leave that sort of thing to the police rather than act like some sort of macho vigilante?
They
know what they’re doing.’ She turned a blind eye to her mother’s glare.

‘Your concern for my welfare is deeply touching.’ Adam deliberately misunderstood her comment, but came ironically close to the truth. ‘It would hardly be realistic to expect an overstretched police force to keep a twenty-four-hour watch on an empty house. I’m no hero, Anna.’

‘How cruel of you to shatter my illusions!’ she moaned with a theatrical gesture.

‘Anna, if you can’t be civil…’ her mother began in a severe tone. ‘I know something that might cheer you up,’ she said, diverted from her scolding. ‘You’ll never guess who I met in town.’

‘Mother is a terrible gossip.’

‘Nonsense. I just take an interest, that’s all,’ Beth observed in a hurt tone. ‘If you’re not interested…’

Anna worked her way closer to the door and resisted the temptation to smooth down her spiky hair, all the time conscious of Adam’s scrutiny.

Did he always look perfect? she thought resentfully. In casual cream trousers and a tan leather jacket he looked distractingly gorgeous.

The sound of Adam’s phone made Anna jump.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, fishing the instrument from his pocket. ‘Hello, Deacon here.’

Anna tried very hard to look as if she wasn’t listening. She abandoned this pretence when, after a short pause, Adam exploded.

‘He—they did
what
? Why the hell would they do that? What has being three to do with it?’ Adam closed his eyes and groaned.

Anna exchanged a glance with her mother who was just as fascinated by this point as she was.

‘Don’t panic.’ Adam covered the mouthpiece with his hand and looked from Anna to Beth and back again. ‘Nathan and Sam have locked themselves in the bathroom and flooded the place.’

The expression of sheer horror in his eyes made Anna’s lips twitch. Domestic crises were obviously outside Adam’s experience. A small, choked sound escaped her firmly clamped lips. Adam glared at her.

‘I’m glad
you
find it amusing,’ he snarled sarcastically. ‘Two half-hysterical children are not
my
idea of a joke.’ He lifted his hand to respond to the person on the other end. ‘Yes, Kate, you
did
tell me they’re crying.’

‘You need to get them out,’ Anna volunteered helpfully.

‘Thank you for that pearl of wisdom.’

Anna hoped that her mother could now see how unpleasant Adam Deacon was. She threw her parent a look, but that lady was apparently fascinated by the cover of a glossy magazine. As awful as Adam was this was an emergency and Anna was concerned about these children she’d never met.

‘Can they reach the lock?’

Adam conveyed this question down the line. ‘All right, Kate, there’s no need to yell.’ He winced and moved the instrument several inches from his ear. ‘It appears the leg’s come off the stool.’ He spoke into the phone again. ‘Tell Granny I’ll pay for the Persian rug to be cleaned. I’ll buy her another one!’ he snapped, impatience lapping at the edge of his level tones. He turned
back to Anna. ‘They can’t turn the taps off. The plaster is falling off the drawing-room ceiling.’

This time the look he shot Anna was one of pure appeal. Adam in charge, domineering and capable, was a dynamite package, but this hint of vulnerability wrung her heart. Adam wasn’t as self-sufficient as he liked to appear.

‘Tell them to pull the plug out,’ she suggested practically. Simple common sense often eluded intellectuals, in her experience, and here was a perfect example.

Adam hit the heel of his palm to his forehead. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ He passed the advice down the line. ‘They’ve done it. Now we’ve just got to get them out— Hi, Jake, what sort of lock is it? Then you could actually unscrew the mechanism from the outside. Good man,’ he said with a sigh of relief. After a pause he said, ‘Tell them to calm down. How?’

‘Get them involved.’ Anna made the suggestion tentatively.

Adam’s eyes narrowed as he regarded her. He gave a sudden decisive nod. ‘Here, you tell her.’ He covered the distance between them in two strides and shoved the phone into her hand. Leaning one hand against the wall, he effectively prevented her from obeying her instincts and running.

She glowered at him. How typical of the man to selfishly put her on the spot. ‘Hello, I’m Anna.’ Her anger faded as she heard the panic in the young voice of the girl on the other end of the line.

The youthful voice identified herself as Kate, and Anna replied sympathetically. Her soft tones eventually appeared to have a soothing effect on the overwrought girl.

‘Explain to them that they’ll soon be out and tell them what— Jake, is it? Yes, what Jake is doing. Do they like helping him? Good. Then let them think that’s what they’re doing. Improvise a bit. Let them use their toothbrushes
as screwdrivers and they can help Jake. Keep talking to them. Good. I’ll pass you back to your uncle.’ Straightening her elbow, she thrust the instrument hard into his middle.

Adam winced and his mouth twisted in a wry grin as he acknowledged her censorious frown. ‘Hi, Kate.’ He nodded several times and then silently mouthed, ‘Thank you,’ to Anna.

The glow of pleasure was out of all proportion to the token. Trying to subdue the sudden rush of colour that ran over her pale skin, she waited for him to move. He didn’t, and she fought to regain her composure. Literally pushed into a corner, she couldn’t help but be aware of how disturbing his physical presence was; she was only human.

Anna lost track of the situation on the other end of the line. She was unable to concentrate on anything he said before he finally rang off. He straightened to his full height and looked into her flushed, agitated face.

‘The heroine of the hour.’

Suspiciously she searched for mockery but found none. ‘I have a practical turn of mind,’ she said half-apologetically.

‘And a soft heart,’ he murmured, as if he had just made the discovery. ‘Kate says thank you.’

‘You’ll make me blush,’ she replied uncertainly.

‘You already are.

‘I thought I could cope with any crisis of any description.’ He gave a grimace of self-disgust. ‘Some parent…’

‘I think you show great potential,’ Anna said with an intensity that earned her a quizzical look.

His slow, steady regard was hard to bear. When her mother spoke Anna realised she’d forgotten, in the intimacy of the moment, that they weren’t alone. As well for me we’re not, she thought sternly. I’m about as covert as an earthquake.

‘Anna is one of those rare people who have never forgotten how it feels to be a child. That sort of empathy is rare.’

‘
Anna’s
rare.’

It was, she thought, almost as if Adam too had forgotten they weren’t alone, from the way he looked at her. A solid lump of hot emotion welled in her throat. A wave of debilitating weakness that had nothing to do with flu swamped her.

‘I’m glad things worked out,’ she said, with the merest hint of a tremor in her voice. She clenched her fists whilst searching for inspiration to dispel the strange intimacy which had built up. ‘Go on, Mother, you were aching to spill the dirt.’

Looking at her mother helped prevent her eyes from straying to the way Adam’s blond hair curled ever so slightly against his tanned neck. Bad medicine—that was Adam Deacon!

‘Simon Morgan is back!’

Anna knew she had been a caricature of startled dismay for all of twenty seconds before she managed to recover from this piece of news. She shot Adam a defensive glare and he smiled back sunnily, all white teeth and benign disinterest. It was too much to hope he hadn’t noticed her monumental slip.

‘That’s nice,’ she floundered.

‘I knew you’d be pleased,’ Beth continued happily. ‘Anna and Simon were really close all through school,’ she explained helpfully. ‘I always encouraged the girls to have different friends and interests. So many people treat twins and triplets as a single entity. Simon went off to Canada about four years ago now. How time flies.’

‘Is the whole family over?’ Anna asked dutifully, even though it was the last subject she wanted to discuss in front of Adam. The whole family… Simon, Rachel and their baby, who probably wasn’t a baby any more.

‘Split up,’ Beth said in a hushed tone.

Anna swallowed. Having Simon unavailable and married she could accept. Knowing the situation was different and that he was right here needed some quiet time for reflection. How did she feel about it?

‘I’m a bit tired; I think I’ll go back to bed,’ she mumbled, regardless of the impression her hasty retreat would give.

Breathless after taking the stairs two at a time, she threw herself on her bed and inhaled deeply, staring blankly at the ceiling. After all these years Simon was back, without Rachel.

Her best friend from the age of eight, she had imagined she knew him better than anyone else. As things had turned out she couldn’t have been more wrong.

She could still see his laughing face as he’d confessed ruefully to harbouring a passion for her for years. To add insult to injury he’d chosen his own wedding day to make the admission.

‘Only I didn’t want to ruin a beautiful friendship, Anna. You were obviously not interested. It seems ridiculous now. I always knew you didn’t have much time for relationships with your dedication to dancing,’ he’d told her.

The irony of the situation had made her unable to reply without making a total fool of herself. She’d been crazy about him for years! She had vowed at that moment never again to waste an opportunity for happiness by hiding her feelings. Life was filled with ‘if only’s. But sometimes she wondered… Now he was back—and alone!

CHAPTER FOUR

‘W
HAT
are you doing here?’ Anna swung upright, hugging her knees to her chest as she registered a hostile presence in her sanctuary.

‘Your mother sent me with your tea; you forgot it.’ Adam calmly placed the cup on her bedside table and looked around with interest.

‘Don’t let me detain you.’

‘Not very tidy, are you?’ He picked up a delicate bra from the floor and swung it around on his finger.

‘Give that here,’ she snapped, grabbing for it.

Adam took a step back, holding the scrap of peach satin just out of her reach. ‘Please.’

‘Go to hell!’