“I’m not about to sleep with you!”

“You know you want to,” Reece replied.

Darcy gasped. “That,” she snapped, “is an incredibly arrogant thing to say.”

“Maybe, but it’s true,” he returned imperturbably. “I find you quite incredibly exciting.”

Eyes a little wild, Darcy tilted her head to maintain eye contact as Reece came closer…and closer. “I think you must be thinking of someone else.”

Reece took her small face between his big hands. “I don’t say things I don’t mean, so shut up and kiss me, woman….”

KIM LAWRENCE lives on a farm in rural Anglesey, Wales. She runs two miles daily and finds this an excellent opportunity to unwind and seek inspiration for her writing! It also helps her keep up with her husband, two active sons and the various stray animals that have adopted them. Always a fanatical consumer of fiction, she is now equally enthusiastic about writing. She loves a happy ending!

The Playboy’s Mistress
Kim Lawrence

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

DARCY slid her pink feet—the bath had been very hot—into a pair of slippers and padded through the quiet flat to the phone. It was nice to have the flat to herself for once. Jennifer was a great flatmate, but she thought silence was something you filled with noise—preferably the loud, throbbing variety! Music-wise the two were not compatible.

Propping the phone against her ear, Darcy hitched the towel wrapped sarong-style, around her slender body a little tighter and waited for someone to pick up. She was just about to hang up when Jack Alexander answered the phone.

‘Hi, Dad,’ she called cheerfully down the line. ‘Is Mum around?’ She eased her bottom onto the table-top, anticipating a nice long natter.

‘I’m afraid you can’t speak to your mother, Darcy…she…she isn’t here…’

It wasn’t the news that her hyperactive mother wasn’t at home that struck Darcy as strange—her community-minded parent was on more village committees than she had fingers to count them on—it was the peculiar note that bordered on panic in her phlegmatic stepfather’s voice.

Her post-warm-bath, pre-glass-of-wine, mellow holiday mood evaporated. Darcy wasn’t psychic, but she did know Jack, and she had the nasty suspicion that the icy fingers tap-dancing up her spine knew what they were about.

Her heart was thudding as she lightly asked, ‘What is it tonight? Practice for the carol concert or the church roof committee…?’

Jack would tell her what was up in his own good time—he wasn’t the sort of man who could be hurried. An affectionate smile briefly curved her lips as her thoughts rested on the man who had married her mother—Darcy loved him to bits.

Darcy had been five and her elder brother, Nick, seven when Jack entered their lives. After a couple of years Clare had come along and then, much to everyone’s surprise, the unplanned but much loved twins. The Alexanders were a tight-knit family.

‘Neither,’ came back the strangled response.

The line between Darcy’s straight, well-defined, darkish eyebrows deepened; Jack sounded perilously close to tears. This, she reminded herself, is the man who delivered his own grandchild in the back of a Land Rover without breaking sweat. She immediately ditched tactful reticence in favour of the upfront approach.

‘What’s up, Dad?’ she asked bluntly.

‘It’s your mother…’

Anxiety grabbed Darcy’s quivering tummy muscles in an icy fist; eyes wide in alarm, she shot upright from her perch on the console table. All sorts of awful scenarios ran through her head and with some trepidation she put the most alarming of these into words.

‘Is Mum ill…?’

‘No…no, nothing like that; she’s…she’s…’

A noisy sigh of relief expelled, Darcy slid to the floor.

‘She’s gone away.’

‘Away as in…?’

‘She’s spending Christmas in a…a retreat in Cornwall.’

‘But that’s the other end of the country!’ Darcy heard herself exclaim stupidly—as if the where mattered! It was the how and why that were infinitely more important. Her spinning head struggled to make sense of what she was hearing and failed miserably. No matter what else was wrong in her life, there had always been a solid, reliable, constant…Mum… No, this just didn’t make sense—no sense at all!

‘It wouldn’t matter if it was down the road; they don’t even have a phone,’ her stepfather came back in a heavy, doom-laden tone. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do! Everyone’s asking after her. She’s making the costumes for the school Nativity play, the WI want two-hundred mince pies by Thursday… How do you make mince pies, Darcy…?’ he asked pathetically.

‘We’ve got more important things than mince pies to worry about.’ As if he needed reminding of that! ‘Have you any idea at all why has she done this, Dad? Did you have a row or something?’

‘No, nothing like that; she’d been a bit quiet lately…but you’re right; it must be my fault.’

‘Nonsense!’ Darcy meant it. The day she found a man who was half as marvellous as Jack Alexander she was going to stick to him like superglue!

‘Apparently she needs time alone. Are you still there…? Darcy…Darcy…?’

‘Sorry, Dad, I dropped the phone.’ There was a distinctly surreal feel about the entire situation. People like Cathy Alexander didn’t suffer from identity crises, they didn’t walk out on their family with no proper explanation!

‘God, Darcy, what am I going to do…?’ She could hear the escalating panic in her stepfather’s gruff voice. ‘Sam, Beth and the children arrive from the States on Friday. It’s too late to put them off.’

‘No, you mustn’t do that!’ Darcy replied swiftly. Since Jack’s daughter from his first marriage had moved to the States the opportunities for Jack to see her and his only grandchild were few and far between.

‘Nick rang to say to expect him at the end of the week, and no doubt Clare will show up some time.’

Darcy permitted herself a wry smile—it was so like Clare not to commit herself to a date.

‘Your grandmother is likely to drop in on us at any moment. Can you imagine what she’s going to make of this…? At the last count we were doing Christmas dinner for fifteen people that I know of, and the Aga’s gone out and I can’t light it! I never did have the knack with the darned thing like your mother has…’

Darcy could hear him gulp down the line. She took a deep breath; desperate circumstances required drastic solutions.

‘Don’t panic,’ she instructed her harassed stepfather with shameless hypocrisy. ‘If I pack now I should be there about… There shouldn’t be too much traffic at this time of night, should there…?’

‘Your skiing holiday, Darcy!’

Darcy recognised a token protest when she heard it.

‘I know how much you’ve been looking forward to it…’

Darcy allowed herself a final indulgent moment to wistfully visualise crisp snow-covered slopes, twinkling mountain villages and the hunky outdoor type she had been destined to meet amidst the après-ski gluwein before she squared her slight shoulders.

‘With my luck I’d probably have come back with several limbs in plaster.’ You had to be philosophical about these things.

Did her cancellation insurance cover family crises caused by the parent of the policy-holder unexpectedly needing to find herself…? Somehow Darcy didn’t think so.

‘You can’t cancel,’ Jennifer insisted a little later that evening as she sat on Darcy’s bed. Darcy smiled and continued to replace the skiing gear in her suitcase with clothes more suited to Christmas in a remote corner of the Yorkshire Dales. ‘You’ve been looking forward to it all year. I don’t see why it has to be you; why can’t Clare go home to help?’

Darcy laughed. ‘I don’t think domesticity is really Clare’s scene,’ she responded wryly. Her beautiful, talented and slightly spoilt half-sister had a heart of gold, but she needed therapy to recover from a broken fingernail.

‘And it’s yours…?’

Darcy couldn’t deny this. ‘I’ll have to learn, won’t I?’

Jennifer, seeing her friend wasn’t to be dissuaded, sighed. ‘Well, I think you’re being a fool.’

Darcy shrugged. ‘So what’s new?’

Jennifer’s expression darkened. ‘That,’ she said angrily, ‘wasn’t your fault!’

‘Tell that to Michael’s wife and children.’

This year Reece Erskine wasn’t taking any chances. He was going to lose himself in the wilds of deepest, darkest Yorkshire until the so-called festive season was well and truly over!

So he didn’t like Christmas… Why was it considered a crime when a man refused to participate in the manic few weeks that culminated in several days of gluttony in the company of people you avoided for the rest of the year?

Of course, the most insupportable part was the fact that everyone was so understanding. He refused to put on a paper party hat and suddenly he was failing to come to terms with his loss. He’d had it with pop psychology, no matter how well-intentioned!

After the debacle last year, when the girlfriend—and he used the term in the loosest possible sense—of the moment, armed with champagne, sympathy and a criminally sexy nightie, had tracked him down to the hotel he’d holed up in, he wasn’t leaving any clues. She’d proved to be a scarily tenacious woman! She’d had her revenge, though; she’d sold the story of their so-called ‘stormy relationship’ to a tabloid.

Whether he would have been quite so keen to avail himself of Greg’s hospitality if he’d known that the renovations of the big Victorian pile had been at such an early stage was questionable, but that was academic now he was here.

‘God, man, you’re getting soft,’ he told himself in disgust. His deep voice sounded eerily loud in the empty lofty-ceilinged room. ‘What’s a rat or two between friends…? A bit of good old-fashioned frontier spirit is what’s called for here. Who wants to call Room Service when he could pump up the old Primus stove?’ His tone lacked conviction even to his own ears.

Having unrolled his sleeping bag, he made his way into the overgrown garden that stretched down towards what sounded like a river in full spate. He tightened the collar of his leather jacket around his neck; it was almost as cold out here as inside.

From the bone-chilling temperature in the old place even after he’d lit that smoky fire in the cavernous grate, he suspected he’d need to invest in a few thick blankets to supplement his state-of-the-art bedding, which might well live up to its press and be able to withstand a night in the North Pole, but the Yorkshire Dales in December—forget it!

He looked around in distaste at the bleak landscape. God, the place was so grey—grey and extremely wet! It was baffling when you considered how many people waxed lyrical about the area.

The periphery of his vision picked on something that broke the dismal grey monotony. Something suspiciously like a human voice raised in song drifted across from the general direction of that fleeting glimpse of scarlet. Reece immediately felt indignant. Greg had sworn on his very alive grandmother’s grave that Reece wouldn’t see another human being unless he wanted to—and even then it wouldn’t be easy!

Reece had come away with the distinct and very welcome impression that the natives were hostile to strangers.

Eager to defend his solitude against intruders, Reece followed the melody to its source, wrecking his shiny new boots in the process. He discovered the clear, pure sounds actually came from just beyond the boundary of the sprawling grounds. He could no longer eject the songbird, but his curiosity was piqued.

His days as a choirboy enabled him to correctly identify the number as The Coventry Carol. How very seasonal; how very corny, he thought, his lip curling.

Acting on impulse—which wasn’t something he made a habit of—Reece swung himself up onto the lower bare branch of a convenient oak tree. The identity of the owner of the bell-like tones was going to bug him unless he satisfied his curiosity. Besides, if he was going to be carolled on a regular basis it was as well to be forewarned.

From his lofty vantage point he could now see into what must be the garden of the sprawling stone-grey house that sat at the bottom of the lane that led up to Greg’s investment.

In the summer the green-painted summer-house was a magical place, where wisteria tumbled with vigorous old-fashioned roses up the clapboarded walls and over the roof. In Darcy’s childhood it had been the place her knight in shining armour was going to propose. However, the romance was purely a seasonal thing; in the winter it became a cold, unfriendly place her childish imagination had peopled with ghouls and similar nasties—it was still private, though, hence the bit of impromptu choir practice.

Her voice, never in her view solo material at the best of times, was every bit as rusty as she’d expected.

‘I can’t do it!’ she groaned.

That new vicar, she decided darkly, was a dangerous man, who had shamelessly used his spaniel eyes and a judicious amount of moral blackmail until she had almost been falling over herself to volunteer to stand in for her musical mother and perform the solo in the Christmas carol concert.

It wasn’t until she’d been halfway down the lane from the church that the full horror of what she’d done had hit Darcy. She’d suffered from terminal stage fright since that awful occasion in infants’ school when, after she’d been given the linchpin role of the donkey in the nativity play, the strain had proved too much! She’d frozen and had held up proceedings until she had been carried bodily off the makeshift stage.

What’s the worst that could happen…? What’s a bit of public humiliation between friends…?

A loud noise like a pistol shot interrupted her gloomy contemplation of her future as a figure of fun. If she hadn’t automatically taken a startled step backwards the large individual who along with a piece of rotten branch had fallen at her feet would have landed directly on top of her.

As it was, the summer-house didn’t escape so lightly—the jagged end of the branch penetrated the roof, ripping off several tiles, and travelled downwards, gouging a nasty big hole in the side of the structure. But at that moment Darcy’s concerns were reserved for the man lying in a crumpled heap at her feet.

She dropped down on her knees beside him; phrases like ‘recovery position’ and ‘clear airway’ were running through her head. Despite the first aid course she’d completed early that year, she felt completely unprepared to cope with an actual emergency now that one had fallen at her feet.

‘Please, please, don’t be dead,’ she whispered, pressing her fingers to the pulse spot on his neck. To her immense relief, she immediately felt a steady, reassuringly strong beat.

Grunting with effort, Reece rolled onto his back. For only the third time in his life he was literally seeing stars. He ruthlessly gathered his drifting senses, the halo vanished and he realised he wasn’t seeing an angel but a golden-headed schoolboy. Given the clear soprano of his singing voice, the lad had a surprisingly low, pleasing speaking voice.

‘I’ll do my level best,’ the leather-clad figure promised, much to Darcy’s relief.

‘I live just over there.’ The scarf she wore wrapped twice around her neck prevented her turning her head to indicate the overgrown path behind them. ‘I’ll go and get help.’

Darcy froze with shock when a large hand curled firmly around her forearm.

‘No, don’t do that.’ He hadn’t figured out the extent of his injuries yet, and if the boy disappeared who knew if he’d ever come back or get help? The kid looked scared half to death.

‘Give me a hand to get up.’

He seemed determined to get up with or without her help, so Darcy shrugged philosophically and helpfully slid her arm under the shoulders of the tall, dark-headed figure.

It wasn’t as easy as she’d expected; he might be lean, but her unexpected visitor was endowed with a generous share of muscle and there wasn’t a single useful roll of excess flesh or fat to grab onto.

‘Ahh…!’

The involuntary grunt of pain that escaped his firmly clamped lips made Darcy jerk back with a squeamish squeak.

‘Did I hurt you…? I…I’m so sorry.’

If all he’d done was bust his shoulder he’d got off pretty lightly. Reece supported his injured arm with his healthy arm and hauled himself upright, ignoring the sharp, burning pain in his shoulder as best he could. Nostrils flared, he spared the hovering boy a brief glance. The kid had a soft round face, snub nose and big blue eyes, and he looked as if he was going to throw up—which made two of them.

‘Not your fault,’ he gritted. The knowledge that he couldn’t blame anyone but himself for his present situation wasn’t doing anything to improve Reece’s frayed temper.

‘Should you be doing that?’ Darcy wondered fretfully, watching the tall figure get slowly to his feet.

The stranger ignored her query. ‘Listen, I think I might have hurt my shoulder.’

From where Darcy was standing there didn’t seem much ‘might’ about it. It was obvious he was in pain; it was also obvious he was more good-looking than any man had a right to be.

Her slightly awed gaze was tinged with vague resentment as she took in the impressive overall effect of the combination of square jaw, sharp high cheekbones, wide, firm mouth and straight, strong, patrician nose. Even if you took that rich, thick dark hair complete with auburn highlights and those stunning, thickly lashed green eyes out of the equation, he was knockout material; with them he became almost too handsome.

Those spectacular eyes were at that moment slightly dazed as he looked around, obviously trying to get his bearings.

‘I’ve got a phone in my pocket.’ Lifting his arm gingerly from his chest, Reece nodded towards the breast pocket of his leather jacket. ‘Could you fish it out for me…?’

The kid was looking at him as if he had two heads, which, given the cautionary tales that were drummed into the youth of today about strangers, was hardly surprising. He attempted a strained smile.

‘I’m quite harmless.’ He used the tone he normally reserved for frightened animals—perhaps it would work on kids too?

Darcy almost laughed at this preposterous claim—no man with a mouth like his could be classed as harmless! She withdrew her gaze from the said mouth with some difficulty—it was, after all, rude to stare.

She took a deep breath; she felt oddly reluctant to touch him, which was strange because she usually had to repress her naturally tactile nature—men especially could take a spontaneous hug the wrong way, as she’d learnt to her cost!

‘Inside pocket.’

Darcy swallowed and for some reason got a lot clumsier. Her nostrils twitched, and her tummy muscles went all quivery, her twitching nose detected a faint whiff of expensive masculine cologne, but most of all she got a noseful of freshly scrubbed male. He felt warm, and despite the sub-zero temperatures she suddenly felt uncomfortably hot; she averted her flushed face as her fingers skated lightly over the surface of a broad, solid chest.

The sad thing was this was the closest she’d been to a male since Michael—How sad is that? Perhaps I’ll be reduced to tripping up sexy strangers so I can grope them, she reflected with an angry self-derisive sniff.

It was a relief when she finally retrieved the phone and held it up for his inspection. They could both see straight away that the mangled mess was never going to work again.

The stranger swore; considering the circumstances, Darcy thought he was quite restrained. She had no inkling that he was restraining himself in deference to the presence of an impressionable youth.

‘You must have fallen on it,’ she said sympathetically.

He turned his head stiffly, his green eyes gazing directly down into her face. ‘Brilliant deduction,’ he observed nastily.

Darcy coloured angrily; so what if it hadn’t been the most intelligent thing in the world to say? She wasn’t the one who’d been stupid enough to climb up a rotten tree. Which reminded her. Why had he been climbing a tree…? His clothes, which she had noticed straight off were extremely expensive-looking, were not what she’d call accepted tree-climbing gear.

Some people never lost touch with the inner child, but somehow she didn’t think this man was one of them—in fact, it was hard to imagine that he’d ever been a child. He gave the impression of having emerged into this world complete with cynicism and raw sex appeal.

Reece bit back the blighting retort that hovered on the tip of his tongue and forced himself to smile placatingly at the boy.

‘Are there any grown-ups around, lad…? Your parents…?’

Lad! Darcy blinked incredulously. ‘What did you…?’

She’d be the first to admit that she was no raving beauty, but although she’d never brought traffic to a halt, or reduced a crowded room to awed appreciative silence like Clare, she had turned a head or two in her time. Lad…! Nobody had ever implied she was butch before!

True, she hadn’t put on any make-up this morning, and add to that the fact the yellow cagoule she wore was a cast-off from one of the twins and was thickly padded enough to disguise her unchildlike curves completely, then just maybe his mistake was understandable; especially if he’d fallen on his head.

Her lips pursed; for a moment she couldn’t actually decide whether or not she was insulted, then her ready sense of humour came to her rescue.

I’ve always said I don’t want concessions made for my sex, that I don’t want to be treated as a sex object—well, now’s my chance!

Having three brothers, she’d learnt at an early age it was better to laugh at herself before they had the chance.

‘My dad’s at home.’ She couldn’t resist the naughty impulse to raise her normal husky tone to her approximation of a reedy boyish treble.

She gestured towards the path half-hidden by a massive holly bush smothered with red berries. ‘It’s not far; can you manage?’ she wondered, her eyes travelling with an increasingly doubtful frown up and down his tall frame; underneath that naturally olive skin-tone he didn’t look a good colour.

‘You’ll be the first to know if I can’t,’ came the dry response.

‘But your head’s bleeding.’

‘It’s nothing.’

Darcy shrugged; if he wanted to play the macho hard man it was nothing to her.

‘Be careful of the…’ Darcy waited like a worried little mother hen as her unlikely charge avoided the motley collection of dirty boots, Wellingtons and trainers which always seemed to breed in the back porch. ‘Dad!’ she yelled lustily, preceding him into the rustic surroundings of the kitchen.

If he hadn’t been clutching his arm Reece would have clutched his head—the kid’s piercing tone had increased the throb in his head to the point where he found it difficult to focus.

Her three brothers were already in the kitchen, and her yell brought Jack in matter of seconds.

‘Good God, what’s happened…?’ her stepfather gasped, staring in horror at the blood smeared all over her jacket.

‘Don’t worry, it’s not mine,’ Darcy assured him.

The stranger swayed gently; it was a development that alarmed Darcy. ‘It’s his,’ she explained, placing a supportive hand beneath the tall man’s elbow. ‘Part of that oak tree next door fell through the roof of the summer-house.’ She gently led her white-faced charge properly inside.

Reece bided his time, waiting for the tidal waves of nausea to pass.

‘I’ve been telling the new owner’s agent since the summer that thing was dangerous!’ Jack exclaimed. ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Darcy?’ He scrutinised her healthy-looking, pink-cheeked face worriedly. ‘Hurt anywhere?’

‘I’m fine.’ Darcy unwrapped the looped scarf from around her throat.

‘And you, Mr…?’

The dazed-looking stranger with blood running down the side of his face closed his eyes and leaned heavily against the wall. An anxious Jack looked to Darcy to supply the information.

Her shoulders lifted. ‘Don’t ask me—I’ve no idea who he is.’

‘How come you were in the summer-house with a guy and you don’t know his name?’ Nick wondered, regarding the stranger with a suspicious light in his hostile blue eyes.

‘I wasn’t in the summer-house; I was outside.’ Darcy kept her impatience in check—Nick always chose all the wrong moments to play the protective big brother; he was the most infuriatingly inconsistent person she knew.

‘Doing what?’ Nick persisted doggedly.

Darcy rolled her eyes in exasperation before returning her attention to the man beside her. ‘You should sit down,’ she said in soft aside to the object of her brother’s suspicions.

‘Give me a minute,’ the stranger responded tersely, resisting her efforts to point him in the right direction. Darcy was a strong girl but she knew right away that moving this man against his will was beyond her capabilities.

‘Harry, Charlie, could you give me a hand?’ she called to her younger brothers.

The twins shook their identical heads in unison.

‘We’d like to, but…’ Harry began.

‘There’s blood…’ Charlie completed with a shudder of disgust.

Darcy, in no mood on this occasion to see the amusing side of a pair of strapping, beefy specimens who came over ‘funny’ at the sight of blood, gave a snort of exasperation. ‘You’re hopeless, the pair of you!’

‘Wimps,’ Charlie agreed cheerfully.

Harry nodded his agreement. ‘Maybe he’s one of those contractors working on the Hall.’

‘Nah! They’ve all gone home for the holiday,’ his identical twin pointed out. ‘Besides, does he look like a builder to you…? He’s obviously loaded.’

Darcy was inclined to agree with Charlie, but she couldn’t help but reflect that the injured stranger looked more than physically capable of the odd bit of manual labour. Her mind drifted back to the way the hard, muscular contours of his lean torso and broad chest had felt— With a muffled snort of dismay she brought her reflections to an abrupt halt mid-drool.

The tiny sound drew Jack’s concerned attention.

She flushed uncomfortably, shook her head and silently mouthed ‘I’m fine’, which she was, if you discounted the fact she was sleazing over a total stranger who was bleeding on their kitchen floor. She grabbed a clean tea towel from the dresser drawer to stem the flow.

‘Maybe he’s the bloke that bought the place,’ Darcy heard Harry suggest.

Reece, who was feeling less awful, noticed a little hazily that the notion seemed to afford amusement all round.

‘My God, mate, but you’ve been done,’ the instigator of the theory sniggered, digging his twin in the ribs.

Darcy gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘I hardly think now is the right time for a cross-examination,’ she told them repressively.

At first it had felt as if the room was full of a lot of people. On closer examination Reece now realised there were actually only four besides himself and the choirboy, all male. The two youngest, despite being almost his own height, were scarcely more than boys, and either they were identical twins or he was seeing double.

‘Shut up!’ With enviable lung power the diminutive figure beside him silenced the assembly. ‘Let’s not get sidetracked here; it doesn’t matter who he is—he’s had an accident. Charlie, go get the First Aid kit.’

‘I don’t know…’

Darcy, wise to male helplessness ploys, was ahead of him. ‘First shelf down in the bathroom.’ She turned to the younger—by five minutes—of her twin brothers. ‘Harry, get the dogs out of here.’ With a lot of noisy encouragement the dogs eventually removed themselves from the chairs.

Reece remained mildly disorientated while his youthful rescuer continued to throw out a steady stream of orders as if they were going out of fashion to everyone, including himself. The hell of it was he found himself obeying the kid and meekly sitting down in the larger of the two armchairs. The small figure was arguing with the dark-haired male around his own age.

‘How should I know why he was up a tree? Maybe he’s a tree surgeon…?’ Her elder brother had a very suspicious nature and seemed to have jumped to the deeply embarrassing and bizarre conclusion that she was trying to cover up some sort of secret assignation.

Darcy couldn’t help but wistfully wonder what life was like with a few secret assignations—alas, unless she could rid herself of her wholesome image and get herself a bit of glamour it seemed unlikely that she would ever find out!

‘My name’s Reece Erskine.’ So much for anonymity.

Nobody started in recognition at the sound of his name— Maybe I’m not as famous as I think, he wondered. A self-deprecating little smile made his mobile lips quiver as he relaxed a little.

‘I don’t need to trouble you; if I could just use your phone…’ His firm words only elicited a few fleeting glances of benevolent dismissal.

Reece wasn’t used to having his opinion dismissed and he found the novel experience irritating. It was even more irritating that he didn’t have enough functioning brain cells to demonstrate to them how very much in control he really was.

‘Shouldn’t we call an ambulance?’ a worried Jack Alexander appealed to his eldest stepchildren.

‘Was he out long?’ Nick asked his sister.

‘I’m not sure…’

‘I wasn’t unconscious at all.’ Reece’s jaw tightened; he might just as well have spoken to the brick wall beside him for the notice anyone was taking.

‘It would probably be quicker to take him to Casualty ourselves.’ Darcy held out her hand expectantly as young Charlie returned conspicuously empty-handed.

‘I can’t find it.’

She gave a sigh of exasperation and glared up at her tall young brother. ‘Do I have to do everything myself?’ she wondered witheringly.

To Reece’s amazement, the big guy shifted uncomfortably and looked sheepish before he joined his twin at the far end of the room. He was finding the family dynamics of this noisy household deeply confusing. Maybe it’s me…? Maybe I’m concussed, he thought. He closed his eyes and the room continued to spin.

Darcy took the stairs at the far end of the room two steps at a time. She tore along the narrow upper hallway, shedding her layers as she went—the First Aid kit was exactly where she’d said it would be. Why couldn’t men find something when it was right under their noses…?

‘Learnt helplessness,’ she snorted in knowledgeable disgust, and Mum let them get away with it, she thought disapprovingly as she rapidly retraced her steps. Her respect for what her mother accomplished on the home front had increased by leaps and bounds since she’d arrived home.

She ripped the scrunchy thing that had slid down to the slippery end of her shiny pony-tail free and shoved it in her pocket before she gave her head a little shake and lifted her fine hair free of the collar of her ribbed polo-necked sweater.

‘I’ll just clean up this head wound first.’ He endured her cleaning the small but deep head wound with stoicism. ‘I think it might be your collar-bone.’ Darcy bent over the chair, bringing her face almost on a level with his.

He didn’t know where she’d come from but he wasn’t complaining; she was a major improvement on all the brawn. He watched her narrow, slender hands as she set about her task. They were nice hands, and it was an even nicer face. A roundish face with a pointy little chin, a hint of sultriness about the full lower lip…? No more than a hint, he decided, revising his original estimate as she raised the big blue kitten eyes to his face and murmured… ‘Sorry. I broke mine once,’ she continued in a slightly husky, oddly familiar voice. ‘I know how much it hurts. I think it’ll be less painful if it’s supported, but if I hurt you too much, yell.’

‘I will.’

Darcy’s eyes lifted; under the scrutiny of those wide-spaced blue eyes, Reece got that strange feeling of familiarity again as she gave an unconvinced little smile.

‘A fine little nurse our Darcy is,’ the fatherly-looking figure remarked fondly.

Darcy; where had he heard that before…?

‘They’ll want to X-ray you in the hospital, I expect.’

She was halfway through tying the supportive sling gently around his neck before a stunned Reece saw what had been blindingly obvious all along.

The schoolboy and the slender, but very obviously feminine blonde were one and the same person!

‘You’re a girl!’ he blurted out unthinkingly.

The note of resentment in the shocked cry made Darcy’s lips twitch and her stepfather’s expression grow concerned.

‘Perhaps I ought to call that ambulance.’

Darcy put the final twitch to the knot around his neck and straightened up, brushing her hands down the gentle curve of her thighs.

‘I’m Darcy.’

‘Reece,’ he gulped, not meeting her eyes. Since discovering the gender of his rescuer Reece seemed unable to stop looking at her breasts; they were full, rounded and at that moment strained against the tight sweater she wore.

She bent a little closer. ‘34 C,’ she whispered.

His head came up with a jerk; predictably she was smiling.

In someone more fair-skinned the deepening of colour beneath that even olive tone of his skin would have been a full-scale blush.

‘Mr Erskine thought I was a boy,’ she explained solemnly to her family. Having been the victim of this mortifying case of mistaken identity, she didn’t feel inclined to spare her patient’s embarrassment.

After a startled pause, this announcement was greeted with predictable hilarity. The twins cracked up; even Jack looked amused.

‘Now, there’s a novelty.’ Nick lost his habitual sardonic sneer as he grinned in malicious delight at his sister.

Not wanting to come over as someone totally without humour, Reece smiled—it wasn’t the easiest thing he’d ever done.

Darcy wasn’t a vindictive girl—she’d made her point, and she had no wish to see him squirm excessively. She decided to take the spotlight off his mistake.

‘Wasn’t it you, Nick who gave up your seat on the train to the pregnant lady who wasn’t…?’

Nick winced. ‘Don’t remind me.’

Reece’s eyes did another unscheduled detour—this time in the direction of her flat midriff. There was no possibility that anyone would make that particular mistake in her case. Her jeans were cinched in around an impossibly narrow waist by a wide leather belt, and the blue denim clung to a nicely rounded bottom and slender thighs… The more details he took in, the more he felt inclined to think he really was concussed—nothing else could explain the fact he’d mistaken her for a boy!

‘I’ll take him to the hospital.’

‘That’s all right, Darce, I’ll do it,’ Nick offered.

Darcy reached up and ruffled his hair affectionately. ‘No, you’ve just had a long drive—I’ll do it. Always supposing you two filled up my car last night after you used it.’

The blond-haired seventeen-year-olds looked innocently hurt that she’d raised the possibility they might have found a better use for her twenty quid.

‘As if we would.’

The three older members of their family snorted.

‘It’s really not necessary…’ Reece began, getting to his feet. ‘I’ve no wish to impose.’

The pocket-sized blonde looked amused by his attempt to regain a bit of dignity. ‘You’ve already imposed, Mr Erskine,’ she responded bluntly. ‘So you might as well get your money’s worth.’

CHAPTER TWO

REECE levered himself into the cramped front seat of the Beetle. He rapidly discovered there was a soggy patch in the worn upholstery. A quick survey revealed the half-open window was the most likely culprit. He tried to close it, but it seemed as though the ventilation was permanent.

Reece, who liked his cars the same way he liked his women—sleek, racy and maintenance-free—gritted his teeth and settled back to make the best of it.

‘I’ll be with you in a minute,’ the diminutive blonde promised, bending down to peer with concern at him through the window.

Reece saw she’d discarded the yellow cagoule thing in favour of more feminine garb—a dark ankle-length trench coat that billowed as she ran off down the steep path towards the grim-faced big brother, who, it seemed to Reece, was the only one of the family with enough common sense to view him, a total stranger, with even a hint of suspicion.

A heated conversation ensued and, thanks to the broken window and prevailing icy wind, Reece could hear snatches of what they were saying.

‘Give me the keys, Darcy.’

‘Don’t be stupid, Nicky, you’re shattered.’

‘And you’re not?’

A blustery gust snatched away the next section of the conversation but it involved a considerable amount of gesticulation—it seemed to Reece that his colourful neighbours favoured extravagant body language.

‘What if he’s a homicidal psychopath…or a sex maniac? Or worse?’

Reece’s muzzy, throbbing head didn’t immediately make the connection between the sinister character they were discussing and himself until the brother continued in a suspicious growl, ‘…And I’m sure I’ve seen his face somewhere before. Erskine…Erskine…why does that sound familiar…? Don’t laugh, Darce, I’m serious. Your trouble is you’re too damned trusting.’

Under the circumstances, it seemed more than legitimate to eavesdrop. Reece leant casually towards the open window but unfortunately a large dog chose that particular moment to poke his nose through the gap and lick him affectionately on the forehead. He withdrew swiftly to avoid any more displays of overt affection.

‘See!’ he heard the girl cry triumphantly. ‘Wally likes him.’

He assumed the canine approval finally swung it because a few moments later the blonde came jogging energetically down the path towards the car. She fended off the affections of the dog, who bounded over as he saw her coming, and only clicked her tongue in irritation as she brushed off the large muddy paw-prints on her coat.

‘No, Wally, you can’t come today.’

Reece didn’t think he’d miss the large, slobbering dog.

‘Sorry I was so long.’ Darcy’s smile faded as her eyes collided with the large stranger’s green eyes and their gazes meshed. His stare had a heady, narcotic quality, and for a moment Darcy was physically incapable of looking away.

A breathless, confusing moment later she was free of that mesmeric gaze, and other than a heart that was still thudding too fast and loud and a dryness in her throat there were no lasting side-effects. It all happened so fast she wasn’t really sure in retrospect if anything unusual had happened—he certainly wasn’t acting as if it had.

Naturally she was relieved to see that the clouded vagueness had gone from his eyes, but she didn’t consider the cool, analytical detachment that had replaced it to be an unqualified improvement!

‘I’m not in any position to complain…?’ The fleeting smile might have softened his hard eyes but Darcy was making a point of not looking—she didn’t want a repeat performance of that silliness! The little shudder that chased its chilly pathway up her slender spine had nothing to do with the weather.

‘Darcy.’ For a fleeting, selfish moment she almost regretted not letting Nick, even in his exhausted condition, drive him.

‘Of course…Darcy. I’m in your debt, Darcy.’

Darcy could almost hear him thinking, Outlandish name…outlandish family. She had a strong suspicion that had this man not considered himself in her debt he would have had no qualms about complaining; he didn’t give her the impression of someone who had a particularly high patience quotient. She just couldn’t see him suffering in silence.

‘I’m not keeping score.’ She decided to make allowances for his attitude. I probably wouldn’t want to smile either if I’d just bashed my head and bust my arm, she reasoned.

‘You’re just being neighbourly, I suppose?’

This time it was impossible to misinterpret the acerbic scepticism in his voice. She twisted the excess moisture from the ends of her wet hair as she slid in beside him. With a wet splat the hair was casually flicked over her shoulder. There was a faint puzzled line between her feathery eyebrows as she turned in her seat and levelled her thoughtful gaze at him.

‘Is that so unusual?’ she asked, unable to keep the edge from her voice.

‘Only slightly less so than an honest politician.’

Reece had noticed straight off that at some point during the last few minutes she’d paused to anoint those wide lips with a covering of glossy lipstick, and the soft colour clung stubbornly to the damp outline. This evidence of female vanity amused Reece; it also drew his attention to the soft lushness of her mouth.

Through the miasma of dull pain he felt his libido drowsily stir. It was the sort of mouth it was a crime not to kiss. Reece shifted uncomfortably as she gazed trustingly over at him. That was definitely one for the modern-man-is-a-myth school.

‘Well, it looks like your cynicism has survived the crack on the skull intact—congratulations.’

‘You sound disapproving…?’

Darcy shrugged; she didn’t fight with people who were in urgent need of medical attention—even if they were misguided.

‘In my experience people rarely do anything for nothing,’ he announced, authoritatively doling out some more of his homespun cynicism.

This was a man who had very definite opinions, she decided, and a strong belief in his own infallibility. Darcy was beginning to suspect it might be mixed blessings that Reece Erskine had recovered his wits—he was one seriously joyless individual. In a different situation she might have been tempted to put up a strong argument against this jaundiced slant on life, but under the circumstances she contented herself with a gentle, ‘I promise you, I have no hidden motives.’

Despite her assurance, his silent response—this man could do things with an eyebrow that defied belief!—made it abundantly clear that he wouldn’t have taken her words at face value if she’d had her hand on a stack of Bibles.

She found it increasingly hard to hide her growing antipathy as she carefully scraped a clear area in the condensation on the windscreen in a businesslike manner.

Reece couldn’t decide if he was being reprimanded or not. However, there was nothing ambiguous about her disapproval—the stuff was emanating from her in waves! He caught the full force of it almost as clearly as the light perfume that pervaded her smallish person—his nostrils twitched; it was light, flowery and vaguely distracting, but it made a pleasant change from the wet-dog smell that wafted every so often from the direction of the old blanket flung over the back seat.

He watched as she wiped the excess moisture from her face with the back of her hand; her skin was remarkably clear, creamy pale and very lightly freckled.

‘She doesn’t like wet weather,’ Darcy explained defensively as the engine spluttered and fizzled on the first three attempts.

‘Who doesn’t…?’

‘Bingo!’ Darcy gave a gentle sigh of relief when the engine eventually came to life. ‘She’s temperamental sometimes,’ she explained, banging the dashboard affectionately.

Reece wasn’t really surprised that she endowed the rusty pile of metal with human characteristics—it was entirely in keeping with the sentimental, mawkish traits this girl had displayed so far.

‘The heater will warm up in a minute,’ she promised with another trusting beam in his direction—she wasn’t the type to hold a grudge, it seemed. ‘I’ll take the back road and we’ll be there in no time at all.’

‘Good,’ he said, turning his face deliberately to the dismal view through the window. He hoped she’d take the hint and leave him in peace, since there wasn’t any place he could escape if she didn’t.

The snub was deliberate enough to bring a flush of annoyance to her cheeks. There was nothing Darcy would have liked more than to let her moody passenger brood in peace; he wasn’t her idea of the ideal travelling companion—not by a long chalk!

The problem was he’d had a bump on the head; for all she knew, he might have a fractured skull! If he dozed off, how was she to know if he’d just fallen asleep or lapsed into a coma? This alarming possibility made her search his face surreptitiously for signs of imminent collapse—she found none.

But she did discover that in the subdued light her passenger’s to-die-for bone-structure had an almost menacing quality. Nick’s outlandish hypotheses were still fresh in her mind, and Darcy reasoned that this explained the small bubble of anxiety which she sensibly pushed aside—at least she thought it was anxiety that was responsible for the adrenalin surge that had her body on red alert.

The idea of being stuck miles away from medical assistance with an unconscious man had limited appeal for Darcy. No, the fastidious and reserved Mr Erskine was going to stay awake whether he liked it or not!

Trying to keep her growing uneasiness from her voice, she asked, ‘What brings you to this part of the world?’ Only a comment on the weather, she decided, could be less innocuous—not that you’d think so by his tight-lipped, rude response.

‘Solitude.’ Surely she’d take the hint now.

With anyone else Darcy would have felt inclined to put down this display of boorish bad manners to pain and discomfort—with anyone else…!

He considered himself a tolerant, patient sort of bloke, but ten minutes and what felt like several hundred questions later Reece was having trouble controlling his temper.

‘You can’t possibly be spending Christmas at the Hall!’

He hadn’t come right out and said so—actually the gorgeous but tight-lipped Mr Erskine hadn’t come right out and said anything without prompting, and then it had been as vague and uninformative as he could make it—but by a process of elimination Darcy was now pretty sure the injured hunk was actually staying at the semi-derelict Hall for the duration of the holiday.

‘Oh…?’ Reece wasn’t about to let on that he’d been thinking much the same thing himself. After all his furtive planning he was going to end up holed up in some tinsel-decked hotel again this year.

Darcy felt encouraged to pursue her point—by his standards, this response had been positively garrulous.

In the cramped conditions—the car hadn’t been constructed with his length of leg in mind—he lost all feeling in his right foot. Reece slowly shifted his right leg, rotating his ankle. His muscle-packed thigh nudged against the blonde’s leg.

A startled, gusty breath snagged in Darcy’s throat. A sensation that was all fizzing sexual awareness and no common sense dramatically surged through her, coalescing in a squirmy mess low in her belly.

Help, where had that come from?

The momentary distraction almost had disastrous consequences.

‘Hell!’ She braked sharply to allow the bedraggled cat dazed by the headlights to cross from one side of the narrow lane to the other. The feral creature disappeared into the dark undergrowth. ‘Whew! Close call.’ Her heartbeat slowed down to a steady canter as they accelerated away.

You could say that again! The abrupt halt had sent Reece’s head on a collision course with the windscreen—the seat restraint was the only thing that had stopped him making contact. The pressure against his damaged ribs was exquisitely painful. It was becoming obvious to Reece that his chauffeur was the type of bleeding heart who saw no conflict in risking life and limb to save a dumb animal—probably the less appealing the better.

‘Are you all right?’

Now she asks! ‘I’m fine!’

Darcy’s dark brows shot quizzically towards her fair hairline; his taut tone had been several degrees to the right of brusque.

‘You’re obviously not.’ No doubt such stoicism was admirable but in this instance not really practical. ‘Have you hurt yourself some more…? Shall I stop the car…?’

And prolong the agony of sharing space with Miss Sweetness and Light? Anything, he decided, was better than that—even replying to her incessant questions for another five minutes.

She obviously wasn’t going to be satisfied until he owned up to something. ‘I jarred my shoulder. Why can’t I be staying at the Hall…?’ he asked before she could press the point any further.

‘Well, leaving aside your injuries…’

‘Yes, let’s do that…’

Repressing the angry retort that hovered on the tip of her tongue, Darcy jammed her foot on the brake as the lights ahead turned red. ‘And the fact that the place is uninhabitable…’

‘I found it quite cosy.’

‘It’s Christmas!’

‘Your point being…?’

‘Time of good cheer and loving your fellow man… Does that ring any bells…?’

The cynical light in his hooded, secretive eyes intensified. ‘And come the New Year I can go back to screwing the bastards…?’ he queried hopefully.

The sound of an impatient car horn brought her attention to the green light. ‘Are you always unpleasant just for the hell of it?’

‘It does give me a nice glow,’ he admitted glibly.

‘I don’t think you’ve got the hang of the Christmas-spirit thing, Mr Erskine.’

‘It’s Reece, and as far as I’m concerned, Darcy, Christmas is just like any other day of the year…’

‘But…’

‘…except, of course, for the exceptionally high hypocrisy factor.’

‘You mean you don’t celebrate at all?’ Darcy knew that it was none of her business how this man celebrated or didn’t during the festive season, but for some reason she just couldn’t let it go. ‘What about your family…?’

‘I don’t have a family.’ Reece hardly even felt a twinge of guilt as he brutally disposed of his numerous relatives.

‘Oh!’ Darcy, who was pretty blessed in that department, felt guilty at her abundance. ‘That’s sad, but even someone like you must have friends,’ she insisted earnestly. She heard his startled intake of breath. Oh, dear, that hadn’t come out quite as she’d intended.

‘Are you trying to wind me up?’

‘Why would I?’ Even if it was exhilarating in a dangerous sort of way.

‘Sins of a previous life catching up with me…?’

Darcy repressed a grin. Sarcastic pig…!

‘Maybe you don’t have any friends,’ she countered nastily.

‘I have friends,’ he confirmed tightly. ‘The sort who respect my privacy,’ he added pointedly.

‘Then it’s a religious thing…?’

Her swift change of subject made him blink. ‘What is…?’

‘Ignoring Christmas.’

‘It’s a personal-choice thing,’

‘There’s no need to yell,’ she remonstrated gently.

Reece’s nostrils flared. ‘Hard as this might be for you to comprehend, I don’t like the festive season.’

‘It must be pretty spartan inside,’ Darcy mused, thinking about the bleak aspect of the old Hall.

An image of walls stripped back to bare brick ran through his mind; the draught from the open window whistling down his neck wasn’t the only thing that made him shudder.

‘Depends on what you’re used to,’ he responded evasively.

He looked to her as if he was used to the best—of everything. In fact, Darcy thought, shooting another covert glance in his direction, she didn’t think she’d ever met a man who looked more accustomed to the good life and all its trimmings than him.

That wasn’t to say there was anything pampered or soft about him—in fact, the opposite was true. Even in his present battered and bruised condition it was obvious he was in peak physical condition, and he had the indefinable but definite air of a man who would be ruthless to achieve his own ends.

Of course looks weren’t everything, and for all she knew he might be afraid of the dark and give generously to charities. Either way, why would a man like him choose to spend any time, let alone Christmas, alone in a dump like…? It made no sense…unless he was hiding out, or running away…? Perhaps Nick’s suspicions weren’t so crazy after all!

Well, even if he is a sex maniac I should be safe; he doesn’t come over as the type who goes for women who can be mistaken for boys—lucky me!

Darcy gave herself a mental shake and shrugged off the self-pitying direction of her reflections. Whilst there wasn’t much point pretending that physically this man hadn’t seriously unnerved her, there was no point advertising the embarrassing fact—though no doubt he was used to women making fools of themselves over him. As the feeling was obviously one-sided, and they were going to stay strangers, there didn’t seem much point getting bogged down with uncomfortable self-analysis.

‘Well, obviously I don’t know what the Hall is like inside at the moment, but I would have—’

Reece was not used to explaining his actions, and he decided it was time to call a halt to her interminable speculation once and for all.

‘You do surprise me,’ his acid drawl interrupted. ‘I was under the impression the locals keep fairly up-to-date with all the developments around here. I imagined I’d discovered the net-curtain-twitching capital of Yorkshire.’

Two pink spots appeared on Darcy’s smooth cheeks; she sucked in an angry breath and crunched her gears. The faintly amused condescension in his voice made her see red. Why not just call us nosy yokels with nothing better to do than gossip and be done with it? She’d have liked to bop him one on his superior nose.

‘You’ll have to make allowances for me— I’m only home for the holiday, so I’m not completely up to speed yet.’

‘That accounts for it, then.’

Darcy’s eyes began to sparkle dangerously; the man had a very nasty mouth and there were limits to how much she was willing to make allowances for his delicate condition.

‘We’re nosy? That’s pretty rich coming from someone who was spying on me from up a tree!’ She hadn’t been going to mention it because of his injuries, but he was asking for it…

Reece, who hadn’t been in a situation that made him blush for years, felt his colour rise for the second time today.

‘I wasn’t spying.’

‘That’s what all the peeping Toms say,’ she cut back with a provoking little smile.

Reece gritted his even white teeth.

‘I’ve been demoted from sex maniac, then?’

‘You were eavesdropping!’ she exclaimed accusingly, a rush of colour flooding her cheeks. Her memory in playback mode, she tried to recall exactly how bad what they’d said had been.

‘It was hard not to, the way you were yelling.’

‘Yelling is better than spying,’ she countered with undeniable accuracy.

‘I was investigating the noise pollution,’ he gritted with the air of a man on the brink of losing his temper.

At that moment they approached a particularly savage bend in the road. His knuckles whitened as he braced his good hand against the dashboard.

‘Will you do me a favour and keep your eyes on the road?’ he pleaded grimly as her smouldering eyes showed a tendency to linger indignantly on his face.

‘It’s so hard,’ she confessed apologetically, ‘when there’s you to look at.’ She sighed soulfully, placing a hand momentarily over her strongly beating heart.

Actually it was getting increasingly hard to treat the fact she was a long way from immune to his raw brand of physical magnetism as a joke.

He shifted in his seat once more, as if trying to alleviate some discomfort, and his broad shoulders nudged against hers in the restricted space of the small car.

Darcy was conscious of a fleeting feeling of guilt that she was being so mean to someone who was injured and in pain. The other feeling the brief contact created was less fleeting and much more disturbing; the fluttery sensation low in her belly went into overdrive, and pulses had started hammering a loud tattoo in places she didn’t know she had pulses! Her palms felt uncomfortably damp as she grimly gripped the cold steering-wheel.

‘Ha ha.’ Reece’s nostrils flared as he watched the provoking little witch toss her bright head. ‘You were making a racket and I came out here for peace and quiet.’

She’d never claimed to be Kiri Te Kanawa, but a racket—charming! What a great confidence-boost just when she needed it.

‘If this is a sample of your usual behaviour I think I can guarantee you that,’ she promised him drily. ‘It’s true that in the country we do take an interest in what our friends and neighbours are doing; perhaps it can be intrusive sometimes…’ she conceded.

Reece found his wandering attention captured and held by the dramatic rise and fall of her well-formed bosom. The fascination bothered him—it was totally irrational: he’d seen bosoms a lot more spectacular. He worriedly recalled reading somewhere that head injuries could totally alter someone’s personality.

‘…but I’d prefer that to indifference…’

‘God!’ Reece groaned as if in pain and rolled his head from side to side in an effort to alleviate the increasing stiffness in his neck. ‘I knew I should have taken a taxi.’

‘My driving’s not that bad,’ Darcy muttered truculently. The fact he was treating the journey like a white-knuckle ride hadn’t escaped her notice.

‘I’m very grateful for what you’ve done,’ he ground out.

He sounded as if each syllable hurt.

‘Save it! I don’t want your gratitude.’ With an airy gesture that caused the car to lurch slightly towards the centre of the road she brushed aside his protest. ‘We may be nosy in the country, but we don’t step over sick people yet, or ask for payment when we pick them up!’

She shot a disgusted glance at his perfect, slightly bruised profile; anyone would think his movements were front-page news, the way he was acting!

‘I wouldn’t like you to run away with the impression I give a damn if you get triple pneumonia. I was just making polite neighbourly conversation to take your mind off your pain.’

‘I’m not in pain.’

With a lofty sniff Darcy dismissed this transparent untruth. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to.’ An expression of fierce concentration on her face, she stared unblinkingly through the rain-washed windshield.

‘No, I don’t, do I?’

Another five minutes and the hospital came into view. Even as he broke the silence, Reece couldn’t understand what made him do so.

‘I’m being a great deal of trouble.’

As much as he liked to give the impression he didn’t have one, it looked to her as if the cranky Mr Erskine’s conscience was giving him trouble—she was in no hurry to ease it.

‘Yes,’ she agreed sweetly.

Reece was gripped by an urgent and irrational desire to make those wilful lips smile once more.

‘And behaving like an ungrateful monster.’ His efforts were rewarded: her lips twitched.

‘Such perception.’

Truly kissable lips; shame about the sharp tongue that went with them. A nerve along the chiselled edge of his strong jaw began to throb.

‘I came here to escape Christmas…’

‘You should have said.’

‘Should have said what?’ he demanded in a driven voice.

Darcy drew up beside the Casualty doors with her engine running. ‘Christmas has bad associations for you, doesn’t it?’

He stiffened.

She had spoken on impulse; now she wished she hadn’t. For an unguarded moment there she’d seen something in his eyes that made her feel like an intruder. The moment was gone; now there was only hostility and suspicion as he scowled at her.

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

Darcy shook her head. ‘I just got the impression… Forget it; I obviously got the wrong end of the stick. I’ll drop you off here—less far to walk.’ She thought about leaning across him to open the door but, recalling what she had experienced the time she’d touched him, she changed her mind.

When he’d gone Darcy drove around looking for a parking space, and even when she found one she wasn’t sure whether or not her presence would be appreciated. But, personality clashes aside, it didn’t seem quite right somehow to drive off without even finding out how he was. The family would certainly think it very odd if she returned with no news.

It was with mixed feelings she finally presented herself at the reception desk.

‘I’m enquiring about a Mr Erskine,’ she began tentatively as she approached the smart-looking female who presided over the empty waiting area. ‘I came in w—’

‘Did you really?’ The young woman blushed and continued in voice absent of wistful envy this time. ‘I mean, they’re expecting you.’

Darcy looked blank. ‘They are?’ she said doubtfully. It occurred to her this was a case of mistaken identity.

‘They said to send you right on in. Rob!’ The receptionist flagged down a white-jacketed young nurse. ‘Will you take Mrs Erskine through to cubicle three?’

Mrs…? God, they thought…!

‘I’m not!’ Darcy denied hoarsely, but nobody seemed to be listening to her as she trotted obediently along beside the young nurse.

My God, this was so embarrassing. She just hoped Reece Erskine didn’t think the mistake any of her doing.

‘I think there’s been a mistake,’ she began firmly as the young man drew back a curtain and stood to one side.

‘Here she is…Darcy, darling.’

Darling…?

‘Oh, God!’ she breathed, her eyes riveted on the bare torso of the man who had greeted her with such a highly deceptive degree of warmth.

He was standing there, stripped to the waist, in the process of zipping up his trousers one-handed; her makeshift sling had been replaced by a more professional-looking collar and cuff arrangement.

Darcy didn’t make a habit of mentally stripping casual acquaintances, but it seemed she must have made an exception with him because she found herself comparing the reality to that mental image stored in her head and finding it had hardly done him justice. With wide shoulders, amply endowed with muscle in a lean, athletic, unbulky way, his body was way better than good—it was sensational!

Her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth as her hot eyes went into exploration mode. No wonder her emergency stop had made him cranky—there were spectacular darkish-blue bruises all the way down one side of his rib-cage.

‘It looks a lot worse than it is,’ he comforted her.

Blushing wildly, Darcy tore her eyes from his body. ‘Good,’ she croaked hoarsely.

‘I could do with a hand here.’

Darcy almost choked when she realised he was talking about his zip. Eyes wide, she mutely shook her head. The alarmed backward step she took brought her into abrupt contact with a second person in the tiny cubicle, who until that moment she hadn’t even been aware of. No, I was too busy leching over Reece Erskine, she thought shamefully.

‘Sorry,’ she mumbled incoherently.

‘No harm done,’ the white-coated figure assured her cheerfully. ‘Just a few cracked ribs, lots of bruising and the dislocated shoulder, of course.’

‘What?’

The doctor looked bemused for a moment by her alarm, then he grinned. ‘I see what you mean…no, I’m talking about your husband, not me.’ Chuckling over their crossed lines, the doctor held an X-ray film up to the light.

There was that husband thing again. Darcy waited expectantly, sure that Reece would take this opportunity to correct the error—he didn’t, and her confusion deepened.

She felt obliged to respond. ‘A few seems a bit vague.’ Even as she spoke, she was overpoweringly aware of the tall, scantily clad figure who had moved up behind her.

‘Point taken.’ With an unoffended grin, the medic clipped the film onto an illuminated screen and pointed out the defects with his pen. ‘One, two and here’s number three.’

‘I thought he might have broken his collar-bone.’

‘I can see how you might, but no. It was a dislocation. Agony to pop back, of course.’ The disgusting, bloodthirsty popping noise he made to illustrate the point made Darcy shudder.

‘It sounds awfully painful,’ she protested.

‘It was,’ Reece volunteered.

‘We offered him an anaesthetic, but your husband insisted we do it right away.’ The doctor hastily defended his actions. ‘A few days and the shoulder should be back to normal,’ he promised. ‘Actually, it’s on account of the head injury we’d like to keep him in overnight, Mrs Erskine, but he doesn’t seem too keen.’

‘I’m not…’

‘She’s not surprised, are you, darling?’

The warm, caressing note froze her to the spot without the added trauma of hearing her addressed again as ‘darling’. ‘She knows how much I hate hospitals.’

She felt a large competent hand push aside the hair from the nape of her neck. Darcy’s hair was plentiful and incredibly silky, but very fine and inclined to go kinky when exposed to moisture—it had definitely been exposed and right now it was a mass of crinkly curls.

Her breath expelled in a soft hiss as she felt the unmistakable touch of cool lips against the sensitive flesh of her exposed nape. Her eyes closed and the strength drained from her body.

The doctor only gave a slightly benevolent smile as he watched them. ‘Of course, if he hadn’t been going home in the care of an experienced nurse I’d have insisted…’

Darcy’s eyes flickered open. He’s married, married to a nurse, was her first thought. Then it clicked— Me, he’s talking about me!

‘Where are you working at the moment, Mrs Erskine?’

‘I…I’m…’ It was bad enough realising she had a whole new identity created by this madman without being expected to act in character too!

‘Darcy is staying at home. Making a home is a full-time job as far as we’re concerned, isn’t it, darling…?’ A firm hand beneath her jaw turned Darcy’s head so that she was exposed to the full intensity of his green eyes. No desperate appeal for her co-operation there—on the contrary; if anything, there was a hint of challenge.

‘You’re a full-time job!’ she breathed incredulously.

The doctor laughed. ‘I’ll send a nurse in to suture up that head wound,’ he explained, scribbling rapidly on the sheet in front of him.

Darcy waited until he’d gone before she exploded.

‘Are you mad?’ she seethed. Why hadn’t she just told the doctor he was lying through his teeth when she’d had the chance?

‘Hush, darling, or they’ll hear you.’

She saw that he was looking well pleased with himself—and why not? Her anger escalated rapidly as he calmly began to shrug on his shirt as if nothing had happened. The man had the gall to stand there looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, when… Her train of thought skittered to an abrupt full stop—it had been a bad mistake to think mouth; she could still feel the tingling area on her neck where his lips had been moments before.

‘Let them!’

He directed a mildly irritated glance in her direction.

‘I don’t know what you’re playing at…’

‘Sure you do; you’re not that stupid.’

Darcy’s eyes narrowed. ‘Let’s pretend for the sake of argument that I am,’ she suggested sweetly.

‘I think I can just about make that giant leap. They were highly reluctant to discharge me without assurances I have someone responsible to take care of me. Whilst I could have just walked out of here, it seemed less stressful all round if I was married.’ The longer he was here, the more likelihood there was of someone recognising him and then it was only a matter of time before the local Press showed up…in his experience these things snowballed pretty fast.

‘And you thought of me. Naturally I’m deeply flattered,’ she spat sarcastically. ‘Why on earth did I have to be a nurse…?’ she wailed.

‘I thought that was a nice touch,’ he agreed complacently. ‘If the doc had been on the ball he’d have realised you’re not old enough to be experienced.’

‘You’re mad…quite mad!’ she announced with conviction.

‘You’re not a nurse, then?’

‘Of course I’m not a nurse!’

‘Just when your father said you were a great little nurse I thought…’

‘I’ve got brothers—I can stick on a plaster. I’m not Florence Nightingale…!’

‘True. Nobody with an ounce of caring in their body could stand there watching me struggle like this.’ He stood there, one arm inserted in his shirt, wondering what to do next.

‘If that was a hint, you’re really pushing it!’ she growled. ‘What if someone asks me to do something…nursey?’ she worried hoarsely.

‘Is that likely?’ he drawled, managing to project the distinct impression he found her complaints slightly hysterical.

It occurred to Darcy that they were drifting away from the real cause of her simmering anger. ‘Don’t try and change the subject,’ she growled.

One slanted dark brow quirked. ‘Which was…?’

‘I’m not your wife!’

‘This is true,’ he conceded with an expression that suggested he was mightily relieved about this. ‘I didn’t think you’d mind—it’s not like I’m actually asking you to marry me or anything drastic.’

‘For your information, I’ve been proposed to several times!’ she felt goaded into unwisely boasting.

‘Congratulations,’ he drawled, looking amused.

Darcy’s cheeks were burning with humiliation as she discovered a major flaw in his manipulations. ‘What were you going to do if I’d driven straight off?’

‘I knew you wouldn’t do that,’ he stated confidently.

‘How could you possibly…?’

‘You’d be eaten up by guilt if you did. You’re deeply into doing the right thing.’ He made it sound like a flaw in her character. ‘Be a sport, Darcy,’ he cajoled.

‘I’m not lying for you.’

He sighed. ‘Just don’t say you’re not, that’s all I’m asking. It’s no skin off your nose. Walk out of here with me and then you’ll never have to see me again.’

Darcy’s shoulders slumped in defeat. ‘I must be mad…’

A wolfish grin split his lean, dark face. ‘Good girl,’ he approved.

Further comments were made impossible by the arrival of the nurse who’d directed Darcy here originally.

‘I’ve come to suture your head wound,’ the young man explained.

Darcy took the opportunity to excuse herself. ‘I’ll wait outside.’ Halfway through the curtain, she paused. ‘Are you going to give him a local anaesthetic?’ she asked the young nurse.

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