A Passionate Proposition

‘Is that what happened, Sean?’ Scott Tyler rapped out, inclining his head but not taking his sceptical gaze off Anya.

The boy shrugged, but he wasn’t too strung out to miss that the cynical edge in the gravelly voice wasn’t directed his way.

‘How should I know why she invited herself?’ he mumbled quickly, his sluggish tongue tangling in the consonants. ‘It was a party, man…chicks have been coming and going all night.’

A cold trickle of dismay ran down Anya’s spine when she saw him leaning back out of his uncle’s peripheral sight, smirking maliciously at her.

‘All I know is, she followed me into my room and wouldn’t leave me alone. Who’da known she was so hot? Ever made it with a history teacher, Unc’l Scott?’

The grubby insinuation with its macho, man-to-man overtones had Anya’s eyes snapping back to Scott Tyler’s face, which was suddenly rigidly impassive, wiped clean of all emotion. She guessed it was the expressionless mask he wore into the courtroom, when he didn’t want anyone to know what he was thinking.

‘Whatever he’s implying didn’t happen,’ she said tartly. ‘You know very well he’s just telling you what he thinks you want to hear…’

One thick, dark eyebrow shot up. ‘Is he?’

He was just playing devil’s advocate, she told herself.

‘You know he is. Look out the window if you don’t believe me. The girls I came here to find are down there waiting for me in my car—’

He sent a fleeting, almost uninterested, glance down towards the turning circle. ‘There’s no smoke without fire,’ he murmured with infuriating blandness.

‘What are you—a fireman now?’ she flung at him witheringly, her slender body vibrating with fury. ‘I thought you were supposed to be a hot-shot lawyer. Why don’t you act like one and make Sean tell you the real truth!’

‘His version, or yours? When there’s two witnesses, the truth is often a matter of perspective.’

It was on the tip of Anya’s tongue to tell him that she had another witness, but she didn’t want to involve Cheryl, and thus Eastbrook, unless she could help it.

‘Are you saying that you actually believe him!’

‘You must admit I’ve ample reason to be suspicious. Don’t tell me you aren’t aware that there’s something inherently erotic about a woman wearing a man’s shirt,’ he said, his eyes sliding down over her silk-wrapped body in a speculative way that made her blood boil, and not entirely with fury. ‘And the little white socks add just the right provocative touch of pseudo-innocence.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, don’t be ridiculous!’ A piercing thrill of guilty pleasure made Anya lash out, trying to douse the treacherous feelings aroused by his words with a drenching of pure scorn. ‘I suppose you’re going to accuse me of trying to seduce you next!’

There was a short, electric silence as they stared at each other, and Anya noticed all the things about him she had always tried very hard not to notice: the smooth grain of his olive skin as it stretched over the strong bones of his face; the almost feminine lushness of the thick dark lashes which framed his compelling blue eyes, and the strikingly masculine contrast of that thin, yet sensual mouth, and harshly chiselled jaw.

The stubbly regrowth of his beard and faint purplish tinge under his sunken eyes—signs of his ‘hellish’ day—made him look rakish rather than merely weary.

When he spoke again his voice was deeper, softer, and more dangerous than she had ever heard it. Too soft for the boy behind him to hear. And he allowed a flare of male hunger to show in the deep blue gaze.

‘You’re welcome to try, but I should point out that I’m a great deal more discerning—and considerably more demanding—than your average randy teenager…’

The sheer wickedness of the barbed challenge sucked the breath out of her lungs, and Anya opened and closed her mouth several times before she summoned the words to prove that she was wasn’t totally vanquished.

‘Oh, you’re impossible! It’s easy to see you’re related—you’re both as bad as each other. Believe what you damned well like; I don’t care!’

And on that resounding lie Anya swung on her heel and stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door violently enough to cause the mirror to shiver on the wall above the basin and several toiletries to fall over on the vanity top.

Muttering to herself to bolster her sense of outrage, she ripped off the silk shirt and pulled on her wrinkled clothes, the damp patches practically sizzling as they hit her burning skin. She finished zipping up her ankle boots with a vicious tug that jammed a piece of her sock in the meshing teeth and swore through tight lips as she tried to work it free.

She had always thought of cotton ankle socks as utilitarian rather than sexy, but now that serene unawareness was gone for ever. She would never be able to put on a pair of white socks again without thinking of him.

He had viewed them as provocative, for God’s sake! A pair of simple, inexpensive white socks! The man was plainly in need of therapy, she thought as she checked herself out in the mirror, looking in vain for the cool, capable, down-to-earth Miss Adams she was used to recognising in her reflection.

With her glittering, storm-darkened eyes, flushed cheeks, and the baby-fine wisps of hair escaping from the pins at her nape and drifting forward to curve around her smooth oval jaw, she looked disturbingly young and flustered. Not in control.

And she had no make-up to repair the damage to her self-image. She did what she could, smoothing back the strands of hair from her glowing forehead and tucking them firmly into place with tremulous fingers. Had her small mouth always looked that rosy and full? She pressed her lips together in a stern line and willed her colour to fade back to normal. She could do nothing about the way her clothes clung where they were wet, but at least they were clingy in fairly non-strategic areas.

She could hear a low murmur coming from the bedroom and she hesitated for a moment before she squared her shoulders, gathered up her ragged dignity, and reached for the door.

She was going to walk back out there with her head held high, and if fault should be admitted she was prepared to be graciously forgiving, as befitted her normally kind and compassionate nature.

But the sight that met her eyes wasn’t promising. Scott Tyler stood beside his seated nephew, his hand resting on Sean’s brawny bare shoulder, whether for reassurance or restraint, she wasn’t sure.

‘Well, has he told you what happened?’ she challenged.

Scott Tyler’s unreadable mask was firmly back in place

‘That could take some time in his present condition,’ he said uninformatively, acknowledging the condition of her clothes with barely a flicker of his eyes. His voice flattened into resolute finality. ‘As I said before, it’s late, and if there are issues to be settled they can wait until a more civilised hour…’

He dropped his hand and moved towards her, obscuring her vision of the boy, imposing himself squarely in the centre of her attention. He was definitely in full protective mode, she decided, and in the split second before his broad chest blocked out her view her heart sank to see that the smirk had returned to the teenager’s face. The obnoxious weasel wasn’t going to accept responsibility for his actions until he was sober enough to appreciate the true consequences of his lies.

‘Well, here’s one issue that can be settled right now,’ she announced, pulling at a clammy spot on her cotton shirt where it had moulded transparently to her skin. ‘As you can see for yourself, I’m going to have to get my clothes cleaned. I’ll be sure and send you the bill.’

His thick lashes veiled his expression as he studied the effect of her makeshift laundering.

‘By all means. But don’t expect me to pay it if there’s contributory negligence involved,’ he told her in that same flat, non-negotiable tone. ‘For all I know you could have dunked them just now in the bathroom, to give credence to your story.’

Anya forgot about being kind and compassionate.

‘I suppose being exposed to the seamy underbelly of society all the time has given you a very nasty and obsessively suspicious mind, and distorted your view of the way normal, innocent, people behave,’ she said, with a cutting disdain that was designed to make him cringe.

He didn’t cringe, but he did back off slightly, leaning a broad shoulder against the painted frame of the casement window in concession to his weariness. ‘I prefer to think of it as trusting to the wisdom of experience. As a history teacher you must believe in using the lessons of the past to avoid repeating future mistakes.’

Her mouth primmed in frustration, for she hated to admit he was right, and for the first time he showed a glimmer of untainted amusement, a faint kick of his mouth which delivered a corresponding kick to Anya’s pulse. His next words were also guaranteed to raise her blood pressure.

‘So be careful you’re not making a mistake, Miss Adams, by riling me when I’ve already told you I’m in a very bad mood. Your position at the moment is rather untenable. It could be construed as contributing to the delinquency of a minor, for example…’

She was quick to scorn his bluff. ‘Apart from the fact that the whole accusation is nonsense—he isn’t a minor.’

He was about to offer a caustic reply when something outside the window snagged his attention. ‘Are you sure you want to argue the point now? Because the natives down there seem to be getting restless…’

She frowned at him, suspecting a trick. ‘What?’

‘There are two girls getting out of a yellow hatchback I presume is yours,’ he said, looking out the window. ‘They seem to be debating whether to approach the house—’

Anya yelped and flew over to see that he was right. Oh, God, she had been so distracted by his presence that she had completely forgotten about the girls! Supposedly her prime consideration on this mission.

She clutched the windowsill, gazing down in dismay as Jessica and Kristin milled uncertainly around the side of the car. Hadn’t she told them not to get out?—but of course by now they must be starting to panic at her extended absence.

‘Perhaps you’d like me to invite them up to join us while we finish the discussion you seem so keen on prolonging…’ came a silky purr.

‘No!’ Anya was too busy castigating herself to notice his openly baiting tone. She could just imagine what four gossipy girls would make of the pernicious scene. She looked at her watch, her thoughts fixated on damage control. If she didn’t get back to camp before Cathy read her note, all hell was likely to break loose. Or, should she say, further hell?

She glared at the cause of her appalling lapse in judgement. ‘I have to go—’

‘Oh, what a pity,’ he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘Just when I was about to offer you a cup of tea.’

She scowled. Naturally he would see her strategic retreat as his victory. ‘When you get him sober enough to tell you that my presence here was entirely innocent—’ she said, nodding in Sean’s direction as she hurried towards the door ‘—I’ll expect to receive a sincere apology. From both of you! And we’ll consider that an end to the matter.’

She thought that she had succeeded in having the last word, but a surly remark referring to frigid temperatures and the devil’s abode floated downstairs in her wake, making her itch to turn around and hit back with an equally vulgar blow. She managed to cling to her decorum but only by locking up her jaw. For a non-violent person she was beginning to have some very disturbing thoughts. All to do with That Man.

‘Where were you, Miss Adams? We were getting worried,’ said Jessica, as Anya herded the girls back into the car and burnt rubber down the drive in her anxiety to escape the invisible laser-beam eyes she was sure she could feel drilling into her back.

‘We saw that big guy go in and break up the party but you didn’t come out with the others. He looked pretty mad when he drove up and saw all the cars. I bet he went totally psycho at his kid for having a party,’ said Kristin in suppressed excitement. ‘I bet there was a big fight. Is that what took you so long, Miss Adams?’

‘You don’t—want—to—know,’ Anya ground out through her still-clenched teeth, her usually gentle voice so awe-inspiringly crabby that there was dead silence all the rest of the way back to the camp, apart from the occasional frightened sniffle from Emma and Cheryl in the back seat as they contemplated their uneasy future.

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