Expectant Mistress

‘I don’t have spare tune,’ he reminded her. ‘No, the millennium time bomb is to do with the way some older computers were programmed, especially the large mainframe ones used by councils and corporations.’

He hesitated, disconcerted by her intentness. It was as though she was mesmerised, her huge eyes, beneath that ludicrous fringe, framed by spiky black lashes. Incredibly lovely, he thought, a little lurch of his heart warning him that he must be staring. But he longed to touch each faint laughter line around her sparkling eyes and work out how many laughs it had taken to produce each one.

‘Go on,’ she said, into the soft night.

To keep his hands from reaching out, he folded his arms firmly across his chest. Her gaze slowly passed over its curve, her lashes fluttering, her mouth emitting a faint sigh. An electric current switched on every nerve in his body. He wanted to kiss those drowsy, parted lips. Run exploratory fingers up the inside curve of her fabulous bare legs. It would take for ever—but it would be a journey worth making.

He sucked in his breath sharply, aware from the straining of his body that he wanted more than that. Appalled, he frowned and tried to drive out all lustful thoughts.

‘The date system,’ he said briskly, ‘was set up on the assumption that it would always be nineteen-something—1959, 1990, and so on. Suddenly everyone realised the millennium was due and panicked.’

He stopped, running out of breath. Because all he could think about was her lithe, shapely body writhing beneath his hands—

Trish took a few steps closer, her brow furrowed. ‘Why?’

‘Why?’ Yes. Why was he carrying a torch for his stepdaughter’s friend? he asked himself savagely. He had Louise. Stunning, clever, computer literate... His heart could remain untouched. What more could he want?

‘Why did they panic?’ she asked, some illusion making her voice sound throaty and infinitely appealing.

‘Because,’ said Adam curtly, finding it almost impossible to concentrate, ‘the systems only pay attention to the last two digits of a date. So to the computer the year 2000 means zero-zero. In other words, back to 1900 again.’

She gurgled with delighted laughter, her eyes twinkling with fun. ‘We’ll all have to leap into hansom cabs and celebrate the relief of Mafeking! How lovely! Technical experts thrown into a muddle! Oh. Sorry, Adam. That includes you, doesn’t it?’

‘Certainly does! And I’ve been trying to sort out the mess. It would be funny,’ he agreed with a crooked smile, ‘if it hadn’t meant that some people’s pensions weren’t going to be paid out—because according to the computer they wouldn’t have been born!’

‘Oh, dear! What a muddle!’ she said with a frown, as if she really cared about people she’d never met. But that was Trish all over.

An urge to kiss her open mouth and plunder its depths forced him to stare vaguely over her head. ‘Megabyte size,’ he agreed. ‘My company’s been flat out re-programming for the past few years. Our priority has been ensuring the smooth running of airlines and railways and other essential services. Without re-programming, they would have ground to a halt.’ Shaking from sexual tension, he passed a hand through his hair, dislodging the cow-lick, which was normally severely repressed. ‘It’s been a race against time itself. We’ve been working sixteen-hour days for as long as I can remember and we’re still picking up the pieces’

She sighed. ‘You look like you need a holiday.’ ‘Is that an offer?’ he asked quietly, before he could stop himself.

There was a pause, as if he’d confused her and she couldn’t think of a polite answer. Her cheeks looked pinker beneath the tan and he realised that she was thinking of a polite way to discourage him. She’d already fled once from his unwelcome advances.

‘On my island? In my guesthouse? Louise was right. You’d hate it,’ she said, her expression distinctly ice-packed. ‘It’s very small. Two doubles, one single. No, I see you in some vast, swanky hotel in the Seychelles—’

‘Lounging on a beach?’ he asked incredulously, his eyes hard and cynical as he dealt with her rejection.

‘No. Not you’ Her neat teeth briefly pulled at her plush lower lip ‘Louise will be sunbathing in a fabulous bikini and you’ll be making everyone furiously envious of your water-skring technique. Or paragliding. Or snorkeling.’

He frowned, taken aback by her perception. She had described the brief working holiday they’d had in Florida a few months ago. It had been something of a disaster.

What would he and Louise do in their leisure hours together? They’d never had any real free time, so it hadn’t occurred to him before how they’d fill it. She occasionally dashed out shopping for clothes; they ate hastily in the best restaurants and fell into bed—separately. They both fitted in their personal training sessions before breakfast and he couldn’t remember when they’d last indulged in a spontaneous passionate clinch.

Honour made him fight to hold onto the promises he’d made to his fiancée

‘I thought honeymoons were for non-stop sex,’ he said shortly, giving himself a point from which there was no return.

Trish winced, as if his directness was in bad taste. Which it was. But he needed to convince himself that he was doing the right thing this time. Her arms came protectively around her body as though she needed to defend herself from his coarseness.

Whereas she was more in danger of being kissed till neither of them could breathe. The moonlight gleamed on the proud Spanish bone structure of her face and shimmered alluringly along her shapely arms. Her defensive gesture had lifted her breasts and they were thrusting against the smooth emerald material. She must be cold, he thought dazedly, because her nipples had hardened into tempting peaks. There was something soft and vulnerable about her expression and he had never wanted anyone more.

God help him! He was sick in his mind. Perverted in his body. Louise was the woman he wanted, had pursued... No. She had pursued him. Made herself indispensable. Become part of his life, apart from his bed.

Maybe that was it. He was sex-starved. Relieved, he gave Trish a slightly sardonic smile and she wilted before him, then rallied.

‘Not non-stop,’ she said earnestly. ‘I agree that honeymoons are traditionally supposed to be the month after your marriage when you drink nothing but mead and—’

‘Do what?’ he asked, startled.

‘Mead. Honey. Where do you think “honeymoon” came from? Mead’s an aphrodisiac—’

‘I wouldn’t need it,’ he said with deliberate cruelty.

Her mouth thinned. ‘I’m sure.’ There was a moment’s awkward silence. Then she sucked in a breath and launched into speech as if she felt driven by compulsion. ‘There’s more to it than that, though! Honeymoons are for getting to know the person beneath the skin!’ she added vehemently. ‘Enjoying being in the same room. Finding pleasure in doing little things for each other—’

‘Trish!’

In his attempt to control his voice, he’d sounded harsh and angry. Amazed by her almost incoherent outburst, he stared at her. Longing to drink mead with her for the rest of his life. Adoring her passion and envying her uninhibited surrender to her emotions. Duty and responsibility holding him fast.

‘Sorry. I got carried away. I’ve no idea why. Champagne in my veins instead of blood, I suppose! I—I’m sure you love Louise in all those ways,’ she said huskily.

All he could think of was a sudden linking in his mind of Christine’s words ‘Love...Trish.’ But he kept his inner thoughts masked by a cold and unfriendly expression.

‘Louise and I are perfectly suited,’ he said with conviction.

‘That’s lovely.’

With her slender jaw set in hard lines, she gave a little grimace of a smile, turned and walked out of his life.

CHAPTER TWO

TRISH ran into the kitchen and flung down the flowers she’d been picking in the cottage garden Then she reached out to open the oven door a crack to check the Dundee cake, her other hand grabbing the ringing phone

‘Hi, Trish! It’s me! Petra! What happened to you?’

Adam had happened!

She closed the oven up. ‘Sorry I bolted. I was worried about Gran, all alone next door. But mostly I hated London,’ she said, shamefaced. ‘I didn’t have anything to say to anyone at the party so I stopped boring everyone with my yokel act, packed my polyester dress and took the sleeper back to Penzance. Caught the morning helicopter. Got back home a few hours ago. Sorry, Pets. I was going to call you when I got a moment.’

‘You rushed off without warning once before, duckie. Adam seems to be the common factor.’

Her friend was too sharp by half! ‘Nonsense! I get homesick.’

‘Yeah.’ There was a sceptical pause. ‘You haven’t got another runaway there, have you?’

Trish gently slid a tray of waiting flapjacks onto the shelf below the Dundee. ‘No, only me, Gran and the chickens. Gran’s watching my exhausted video of Dirty Dancing and the chickens are puzzling their greens.’ She reached into the fridge for the tea bread. ‘Why?’

‘Adam’s gone missing,’ Petra said casually.

The plate in Trish’s hand clattered to the floor. ‘What... what...?’ Confused, she thanked her lucky stars the plate had landed right side up and the bread was intact. ‘You’re joking!’ she cried, fascinated.

‘Nope. Vanished some time in the early hours. Left a note saying a job had come up. Forgot to leave a contact number and his mobile’s switched off. Louise is hopping mad. I wondered if he’d got sick of the rat race and booked in to your isolated pig-house.’

‘It’s a lovely stone cottage in an idyllic setting and you know it. You’ve been four tunes—it can’t be that bad,’ Trish retorted with a grin. ‘As a matter of fact, I do have a last-minute booking which came ten minutes after I’d set foot in the door this morning, but—’

‘Who?’ squeaked Petra excitedly.

‘Oh, put your hat back on. Nobody exciting. It’s a Mr Rowe. Mack Rowe.’

There was a choking sound on the end of the line. ‘Macro!’ Petra said eventually, her voice distorted by a mass of giggles.

‘What’s up with you?’ demanded Trish suspiciously. ‘Is someone tickling you?’

‘I should be so lucky! Gotta go! Give Macro my love—’ ‘Don’t be silly, Pets,’ Trish said fondly. ‘He doesn’t know you from Adam.’

A squeal of laughter ricocheted down the line. Trish realised what she’d said and began to giggle, too.

‘I’ll be in touch,’ jerked Petra, in fits of laughter. ‘Bye!’

With no time to wonder if her friend was cracking up at last, Trish prepared the best guest room. Vases of flowers, home-made biscuits in a tin, orange and cinnamon soap and bath oils ready in the en suite, magazines, soft, fluffy towels... She looked at the chintzy bedroom proudly, then she went to finish the vegetables for the evening meal and to set up a welcoming tea tray.

Trundling down to Church Quay in her borrowed hill buggy, with terns calling overhead and the scent of honeysuckle filling her nostrils, she reflected that it was just as well Adam wasn’t interested in her. He’d never give up city life with all its attractions, and she’d never give up Bryher.

It was still hard, though, coming to terms with the aching sense of loss she’d had, ever since she’d stolen out of the hotel like a thief in the night. She was glad to be busy. From past experience she knew that if she worked non-stop and fell into bed exhausted she’d have less time to feel sorry for herself.

The thought of going home had instantly lifted her spirits. As the train had gathered speed, London’s concrete and tarmac had melted away into the distance. Green fields and trees had flashed by the window and her aching heart had been soothed a little.

She’d even hugged herself when Land’s End came into sight. The end of England. Nothing ahead but the Scilly Islands, scattered like glittering jewels in the vast Atlantic. Together with the tourists on board the helicopter, she’d looked down on the dramatic jagged rocks and Caribbean-white beaches with enormous excitement.

It was good to be home. Tun might not make her feel ecstatic—and they didn’t see one another often, as he lived on the main island. But they were terribly fond of one another. Her future lay with him.

Her decisions made, Trish drove onto the soft white sand by the quay in quite a cheery frame of mind. Parked there already was the Land Rover which belonged to the only hotel on the island. She chatted with Norman, its driver, and watched the afternoon boat from Tresco island heading towards them.

Trish and Norman wandered along the quay to meet their guests. She greeted Bryher’s handful of schoolchildren, smart in their royal-blue sweatshirts, coming home after a day at Tresco Island School. They scrambled off the Faldore with an ease born of a lifetime spent getting in and out of boats. Trish watched them skipping and running happily to their parents. They were followed by a small group of holiday-makers—

And Adam.

She stood on the quay, dumbstruck. He wore what he probably assumed was suitable casual wear: beige linen trousers and a shirt and matching V-neck the colour of sam-phire leaves. But everything was too clean and pressed. He was far too well groomed to fit in. This was a city man to the core. In comparison with the other visitors, in their walking boots, well-worn jeans and sweatshirts, he looked totally out of place.

He put down his cases, smiled faintly and raised his eyebrows in query, as if his presence was the most natural thing in the world. Reluctantly she walked towards him. He intended to stay!

Frantically she looked around for Norman, to take Adam off her hands and sweep him away to the hotel. But Norman seemed content with his quota of guests and was already stacking luggage into the back of the Land Rover.

‘Hello!’ she said, summoning up a cheery tone for Adam’s benefit. ‘You’d better hurry! You’ll miss your lift to the Hell Bay Hotel!’

‘I’m not staying there.’

It was the way he looked at her that made the penny drop. Dismay flooded her face. ‘Oh, no, Adam! No! You’re not... You can’t be...Mack Rowe—!’

‘Macro.’ His features had tightened slightly at her groan. ‘It’s a computer term, Trish. I hoped you wouldn’t recognise it.’

Petra had known, she thought, furious with her friend for not warning her. So she was to give Petra’s love to Macro, was she? Her eyes blazed with anger.

‘Why?’ she forced out fiercely.

He didn’t seem too pleased at her lack of enthusiasm. ‘Because you wouldn’t have given me house room, would you?’

Her expression told him he’d hit the nail on the head with marksman-like accuracy. ‘You had no right to deceive me!’ she said hotly.

‘Needs must,’ he replied, his jaw set like granite. ‘I don’t let anything stand in my way I had to be here; I made sure that happened.’

‘It didn’t sound like you on the phone,’ she muttered crossly.

‘It wasn’t. A colleague fixed it up.’

‘But...’ She had to ask. Defying his alarmingly linked dark brows, she looked him straight in the eyes and asked incredulously, ‘You’re here on business?’

‘What else?’ he replied crjsply, picking up his Louis Vuitton and a black leather briefcase ‘The hotel’s full. I thought of you ’

‘But...apart from the hotel, there’s no one on Bryher with a computer worthy of your personal attention—’

‘How do you know?’

She gave him a pitying look. ‘Because everyone on the island knows everyone else’s business”

‘Why shouldn’t there be someone in one of the self-catering cottages who needs expert help?’

‘Someone important enough to drag you here?’ she demanded.

‘It would have to be, wouldn’t it?’

‘Oh.’

Bemused, she stood staring at him, transfixed by the thought that Adam was here, on her island. Her gaze moved to his smooth Jaw and throat. He swallowed at the same moment that she did. Hastily she flicked her eyes to the high line of his broad shoulder He was tense.

Perhaps he was worried that he’d be left to sleep on the beach, she thought wryly, her confused eyes meeting his.

‘Are you going to leave me here to fend for myself, as a punishment for playing a trick on you?’ he drawled.

‘I’m tempted. You deserve to be tied up and left to sleep in the kelp pit!’

‘Kelp. That’s seaweed, isn’t it?’ he asked uncertainly.

‘Yes.’

He arched one sardonic eyebrow. ‘I’d be very smelly.’

She tipped up her chin. ‘That would be the least of your problems. You’d probably die of exposure before anyone could complain’

A faint smile eased Adam’s hard mouth. ‘Nice to be given island hospitality.’

Trish felt ashamed. ‘I suppose you’ll have to stay with me,’ she said grudgingly. ‘How long are you planning on working here?’ She glanced at her hands in surprise. They were trembling. ‘Your colleague said up to a week.’

Her breath had shortened. A week! In the same house as Adam again, serving him breakfast and dinner, cleaning his room, touching his things’ She’d be a bag of nerves.

‘Depends,’ he said cryptically. ‘I’ll pay for two weeks in advance, Just to keep the room, as a precaution. I should have got the problems sorted out by then.’

‘Two...’ Trish’s eyes glazed. Luckily her hair was blowing over her face so he probably didn’t notice that she was in a state of shock.

‘You’ll hardly know I’m around. Where’s your car?’ He shaded his eyes and followed the progress of the Land Rover till it disappeared around the corner by the church. ‘I thought you said there was no transport?’

Dazed, she motioned for him to follow her to the beach. ‘We only use vehicles to collect and return people who have luggage. And to pick up stores,’ she said faintly. Glum-faced, she strode towards the buggy. There wasn’t another boat till the morning, but maybe she could persuade him to take it. ‘I borrow the ATV—the all-terrain vehicle—from the neighbouring flower farm. I bake a cake or two in return. For the rest of the tune, we walk. Adam, I think you’d be better off on Tresco. Or the main island, St Mary’s. Bryher isn’t your sort of place at all, and if you’ve business here you can commute each day—’

‘I have to be on Bryher,’ he said firmly. ‘Wait a minute.’

He dumped his bags and walked to the edge of the water. It lapped at his city loafer-shod feet in gentle, almost imperceptible waves. The narrow and treacherous waters between Bryher and Tresco islands had never seemed so sparkling and clear. The deep turquoise sea was far more beautiful to Trish than anything the Pacific had to offer.

Adam made a leisurely three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn, drinking in the wild and rugged rocks, the unspoilt beach with its specks of mica glinting like metal, and the small green hills. She watched the tension draining from him and found herself smiling. The wind was toying with his hair and he looked very young suddenly, as if the island had already worked its magic on him

‘It’s..’ He held out his hands in a helpless gesture. She waited for his verdict, her breath suspended. ‘Idyllic’

‘Not in winter,’ she countered, yet felt pleased, despite her decision to deter him from staying more than a night. ‘Hell Bay didn’t get its name for its placid nature, you know. We get the full fury of Atlantic gales and mountainous seas. Sometimes we’re trapped on the island because the boats can’t get out—’

‘Are you politely trying to put me off, Trish?’ he asked, a sardonic smile playing about his lips.

She scowled. ‘Put your luggage in the trailer,’ she said sharply. ‘I’m merely setting the record straight. I hate it when visitors come and decide it’s paradise here, on the basis of a few sunny days. To love Bryher, you have to experience the storms, which tear your roof off and hurl seawater and sand over your house and ruin your sprouts! OK, you can laugh, but it’s serious when your fresh veg are spoiled! You need to face the hardship, all the drawbacks—and yet still love it unconditionally.’

‘Like in a marriage.’ He lifted both cases into the back of the ATV.

There had been significance in that remark. She shot him a quick look, trying to judge what he was up to.

‘I imagine you’d know about that,’ she said testily, failing to muster a smile of indifference. ‘After working together for so long, you and Louise must know each other better than most old married couples.’

Adam’s eyes were searching the ground so she couldn’t see his reaction. He bent and picked up a small tower shell and a wentletrap. He spent a while examining the whorls and ridges before slipping the two shells into his suit pocket.

‘I feel out of place, standing here in these clothes,’ he said with a rather forced laugh. ‘Shall we go? I’d like to change into something more suitable.’

Trish hesitated, loath to invite him to ride the buggy with her. He could stand on the bar behind the single seat, but that would mean having his arms around her waist. She swung a jean-clad leg over the saddle, hiding her amusement as he searched in vain for somewhere to sit

‘Right. Follow the track...’ she began.

‘You mean I’m walking?’ he asked in amazement.

She gave him a pitying glance. He probably did all his walling on a machine in a gym. ‘Toddlers can do it. I think you’ll find it comes back to you after a while,’ she said sarcastically. ‘You can’t get lost. Up the hill, then down to the bay. Kelp Cottage is on the beach Come in the green door. The scarlet one with flowers painted on it is Gran’s. You won’t want to meet her till I’ve primed you about her funny ways.’

Before he could protest, she’d roared off, kicking up clouds of sand. She felt sure he’d miss the benefits of civilisation long before the end of the week He seemed uncomfortable, as if he knew he didn’t fit in. He was a fish out of water, just as she’d been in London, and he’d soon get bored and leave. Till then she’d have to cope with her reaction to having him around.

She’d treat him like a normal guest. Good food, loaves of home-made bread and a decent wine, plus a relaxed and friendly manner. Why should she swan about looking tragic, like Greta Garbo, just because she was struggling with some stupid infatuation?

Adam watched her go, his eyes full of affection, the corners of his mouth tight with regret. Emotions he’d never known he’d possessed were waging a war within him.

His sole purpose in coming was to rid himself of Trish for ever so that he could get on with his chosen path in life. Since meeting her at the party, he thought about making love to her all the time. What he needed was to be rejected so conclusively that his brain and his body got the message If he pushed her enough, perhaps made a pass, he reckoned she’d get snappy, bitchy and lose her temper.

So of necessity he was being devious. What he was about to do would hurt his pride like hell. Rejection had only figured once in his life and it had messed him up for years. But the alternative—launching into a relationship with Trish—would be worse.

Far better to be spared the disastrous outcome of any stupid behaviour. Like imagining she and he could be lovers. Or that he might fancy living with her on a small lump of granite in the Atlantic Ocean.

He grinned. The implications of falling in love with Trish were too appalling to contemplate!

The buggy vanished around a bend in the lane. He set off across the sand and began the gentle climb past the squat church, swallows swooping over his head, competing with the evocative cries of the gulls. And then they were gone.

A deep silence fell. Honeysuckle smothered the tumbled stone walls beside the track, scenting the warm air with dizzying perfume. He passed tiny fields, smaller than tennis courts, hedged to a height of ten feet and blazing with tall purple flowers. The distant thrum of an outboard engine joined the lazy drone of bees, the distant wash of waves on a shore.

His mobile phone burred softly. He’d left it on line after using it on Tresco Island. Out of habit, his hand strayed to the slim holster on his belt and then checked. The sound seemed sacrilegious out here. With a decisive gesture, he slid the phone from the holster, disabled it and replaced it again. Now no one could reach him. He might as well be adrift on a boat, or marooned on a desert island.