Running From the Storm

She was about to explain how to find it when he said cheerfully, ‘I know Darlington Square. I have a small apartment quite near there.

‘Until seven, then.’ He sketched a brief salute and was gone.

She must be stark, staring mad! she thought, gazing after him. Pressure of work had meant burning the midnight oil for the past couple of weeks, and she had intended to get to Catona in time to have an early night tonight.

So what on earth had made her agree to go out with a man she had only just met, and whose first name she didn’t even know? A man who had proved he could be not only difficult but downright demoralizing? A man she had felt instinctively was dangerous?

The truth was she had found him damn-nigh irresistible, and that element of danger added a dash of excitement and spice that had been sadly missing from her life.

When her doorbell rang promptly at seven, Caris was ready and organized, her evening bag and jacket to hand, her small vacation case and holdall packed and waiting to be put into her car later.

With no idea where he intended to take her, she had been undecided what to wear. In the end, having little else because she so rarely went out, she had put on her one and only cocktail dress, a silky sheath in midnight blue with matching high-heeled strappy sandals.

Needing little in the way of make-up, she had applied a light foundation and a touch of lip gloss, taken her hair up into an elegant chignon and fastened pearl drops to her small lobes.

As she opened the door she wondered if he would approve. She very much hoped so.

His gaze travelled over her slowly and appreciatively. Now she had shed the formal business suit, he could see that, as well as a lovely face, this woman had a stunning figure.

Seeing the open admiration in his eyes Caris was satisfied that he liked what he saw.

Knowing now how attractive he was, she had thought herself prepared, and hadn’t expected to be bowled over by the sight of him. But, looking more handsome than ever in an immaculate dinner jacket and black tie, he made her heart lurch crazily.

Taking a deep breath, she invited, ‘If you’d like to come in for a moment, Mr Devereux …?’

‘Won’t you call me Zander? Everyone else does.’

‘Zander?’ she echoed uncertainly.

‘A mistake on my birth certificate,’ he explained with a twinkle in his eye. ‘My parents had intended to call me Alexander, but somehow Zander went down and the name stuck.’

Following her into the light, pleasantly furnished living-room, he remarked with a smile, ‘A nice place. Do you live here alone?’

‘No, I share. But Mitch is on vacation in Rome and won’t be back for another week.’

‘Mitch?’

‘Diana Mitchell, but everyone calls her Mitch.’

Then, recalling the time, Caris added hastily, ‘I’m all ready. I just need pick up my jacket and bag.’

‘It’s a pleasure to find a woman who’s prompt as well as beautiful.’

His words sent a little thrill of excitement running through her. But, knowing it was necessary to keep her feet firmly on the ground, she observed practically, ‘I need to be prompt. I’m hoping to be back here in time to put my luggage in the car and get down to Catona this side of midnight.’

Glancing at the waiting case and holdall, he asked thoughtfully, ‘Will you be doing much driving while you’re there?’

She shook her head. ‘None at all, I imagine. First thing tomorrow morning, Sam and I will be joining a small group of hikers who’ll be doing a five-day trek along the Rowton Way. But I need my car to get to Catona and back.’

‘If that’s all, I’ve a suggestion to make. The restaurant I’m planning to take you to is well on the way to Catona.’

Feeling suddenly breathless, she waited, wondering what was coming.

‘So, if we take your luggage with us, after we’ve eaten instead of bringing you back here I could drive you down to your friend’s. That would save a good deal of time.’

‘Oh, but …’

‘It would give us the chance to be together longer and have a more leisurely meal.’

The chance to be together longer …

Her heart doing strange things, she pointed out, ‘But then I wouldn’t have a car to get back.’

‘My house is only about twelve miles from Catona, so if you let me know when your vacation’s over I could quite easily pick you up.’

‘I couldn’t possibly put you to all that trouble,’ she protested.

‘It’s no trouble. If it had been I wouldn’t have suggested it.’ Briskly, he added, ‘Is this all the luggage you have?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is there anything else you need to do before we go?’

Common sense told her she ought to dig her toes in and refuse to be hustled but, looking into those green eyes, she was lost.

‘Nothing else,’ she answered.

He put her jacket around her shoulders and handed her her bag, before picking up her case and holdall. ‘Then let’s get started.’

Feeling as if she was being swept along by a prairie wind, Caris allowed herself to be escorted out to a sleek silver sports car that waited by the kerb.

When her luggage had been stowed in the back and she had been helped into the passenger seat, Zander slid behind the wheel. ‘All set?’

She nodded.

The engine purred like a satisfied cat; they traversed the quiet square and joined the busy evening stream of traffic.

Some five minutes later they had left the outskirts of the city behind them and were heading roughly south-west.

Seeing the wooded peaks of the Catskills in the distance, she asked, ‘Where exactly are we going?’

‘The restaurant is called Le Jardin Romarin. It’s rather a special place, and they have an excellent French chef.’

‘How far is it?’

‘Not too far. It’s near the mountains, on the outskirts of a pretty little village called Bright Angel Falls.’

‘Oh, we once drove through Bright Angel Falls!’ she exclaimed. ‘I remembered it because it was such a lovely name.’

‘Do you know the area well?’

‘Not very well. But my father took me that way once or twice when I was younger, and I always thought it was really picturesque.’

‘So it is,’ he agreed. ‘That’s why I chose to buy a house in that area.’

If he had a house, as well as an apartment in town and a luxury car, he must be a relatively wealthy man; the way he dressed seemed to confirm that.

But, even if he hadn’t had a cent, with his looks and charisma it was a wonder he was still free.

They were following a quiet, spruce-lined road when he broke into her thoughts to remark, ‘We’ll soon be at the bridge that spans the Bright Angel Gorge. If you look to your left, you’ll get a good view of the falls. They’re quite spectacular.’

When they dropped down an incline, Caris saw the bridge ahead of them, and on the opposite side a small parking area from which a short but steep and narrow flight of rocky steps led down to a viewpoint guarded by a chest-high railing.

As they crossed the bridge, she glanced left, as she had been bidden. A series of delicate waterfalls, looking like skeins of bright spun silk, plummeted gracefully into the rocky depths; lit by the rays of the sinking sun, a rainbow arched in the air, forming a multicoloured halo.

Her first thought was that he had been right to call them spectacular. In fact even that adjective seemed to be something of an understatement.

When he glanced at her, as if trying to judge her reaction, she said a little huskily, ‘They’re magnificent. Absolutely magnificent.’

‘So is the gorge itself. But it’s so deep you can only see it properly by going down to the viewpoint.’

‘Could we do that? Have we time?’

‘If you want to go down, we’ll make time.’ As he spoke, he was drawing into the car park.

Having helped her from the car, he warned, ‘Better let me go first. Some of the steps are worn and uneven, and could be tricky with those high heels.’ Carefully, she followed him down and, standing by the railings, looked over into the gorge.

The tumbled rocks and surging white water far below took her breath away, and she was still gazing in wonder when her companion reminded her, ‘If you want to get down to Catona tonight we’d better be moving.’

The awesome scene still filling her mind, she held on to the metal handrail and began to climb back up the steps, Zander at her heels.

She had almost reached the top when she missed her footing and slipped off a step.

Her companion stopped her falling and held her steady until she’d had time to gather herself, before asking, ‘Any damage done?’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ she answered.

But when she tried to climb the remaining steps she couldn’t prevent a gasp of pain.

‘What is it?’

Reluctantly, she admitted, ‘I’m afraid I’ve twisted my ankle.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘HOLD on,’ he instructed, and squeezed past her. ‘Now then, put your free arm around my neck.’

She obeyed and, lifting her clear of the steps, he swung her up into his arms.

Though he was no stranger to women, he was unprepared for how the weight of her slim yet curvaceous body lying against his set his heart beating faster.

For her part, Caris felt distinctly awkward. Being carried was an unfamiliar sensation for a woman of five feet seven who weighed a hundred and thirty pounds and she was pleased they had the place to themselves so there was no one to stare.

After a moment or two the awkwardness passed. He bore her weight with such ease that by the time they reached the car she was starting to feel safe, protected and feminine, and to quite like the novel experience.

When she was settled on the front passenger seat, he crouched to pull off her sandal and examine her left ankle and foot. As his long fingers probed, she couldn’t prevent a wince.

He glanced up sharply.

‘It’s all right,’ she assured him.

His examination over, he reported, ‘There doesn’t seem to be anything broken, but it’s started to swell already, and it’s my guess that you have quite a nasty sprain.’

Then, his tone vexed, ‘I’m an absolute fool! I should have had more sense than take you down there in those heels.’

‘It isn’t your fault,’ she assured him quickly. ‘I should have had more sense than go down. But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. And it’s really not too painful.’

As she moved her foot experimentally, a stab of agony made her gasp, giving the lie to her words.

‘Take your stocking off,’ he instructed. ‘I’ve a first-aid box in the trunk.’

While he was gone, on the grounds that it was better to have bare legs than be odd, she took off both her stockings and put them in her purse.

He returned after a moment or two with the box and, having applied an analgesic spray and a crepe bandage, asked, ‘How does it feel now?’

‘Much better, thank you,’ she replied cheerfully as she slipped her sandals back on and swung her legs into the car.

‘That’s good. Though I doubt if you’ll be doing much serious walking for a few days.’

‘Oh Lord!’ In the excitement of the moment, she had given scant thought to her vacation.

‘I suppose I ought to warn Sam that I may not be able to join the group. But I don’t want to disappoint her unless I’m forced to.’

‘Then why not wait until we get to the restaurant?’ Zander suggested. ‘If you leave it for a while you may have a better idea of just how much of a problem the ankle’s going to be.’

‘You’re right, of course.’

When he had slammed the car door, he replaced the first-aid box and got behind the wheel.

As he drove, his thoughts were busy. It was odds on that her ankle would prevent her from joining a trekking party, but would she still want to join her friend in Catona?

He rather hoped not. Past experience told him she was already attracted to him, and he couldn’t wait to get her into bed.

With a lot of women it would have been easy—too easy, in fact. Most of them had been so over-eager he’d soon become bored and only too keen to bring things to an end.

But already he felt certain that this woman was different. Rather than being the worldly, extrovert, anything-goes type, she was quiet and self-contained and, beneath what he guessed was normally a cool, composed exterior, maybe even a little shy.

Suddenly he was looking forward to finding out, filled with anticipation at the thought of getting to know her a whole lot better. Of holding her in his arms and making love to her.

Smiling wryly to himself, he realized he hadn’t felt this interested and eager since he had been a lanky seventeen-year-old and really enamoured of the pretty girl who lived across the way.

By the time they reached their destination the sun had disappeared behind the wooded peaks, and the air was the clear piercing blue that in mountainous regions reigns briefly between sunset and dusk.

‘Here we are,’ Zander said as he came round to help her out. ‘Le Jardin Romarin.’

It was an old and picturesque building, with a jumble of pitched roofs and sloping gables. On each side of the stone steps leading up to the imposing entrance were tubs of spiky purple lavender and dark, glossy rosemary.

‘Careful now,’ he warned as she gathered up her purse and jacket and swung her feet to the ground.

Favouring her bad ankle, she stood up cautiously; so far so good. But when she tried to put weight on it she was unable to prevent an exclamation of pain. ‘Bad, huh?’ he said sympathetically.

‘I don’t think I can walk,’ she admitted.

‘Then put your arms round my neck.’

A sudden excitement surging through her, she obeyed, and once again found herself being swung up and held against a broad chest.

This time she felt less awkward about being carried, but was more affected by it.

She could feel the warmth of his body, the solidness of the bone and muscle she rested against, and, mingling with the clean masculine scent of his skin, the tangy aftershave he used.

Their faces were so near to one another that she could see the faint laughter lines at the corners of his eyes, and a small, vertical scar by the side of his mouth.

Such close contact sent a shiver of excitement through her, made breathing difficult, and set her heart beating faster.

The door was opened for them and, having climbed the steps seemingly without effort, he carried her into an elegant foyer-bar where a small party of people were enjoying a drink while they waited for their table.

Embarrassment washed over her, but when no one as much as glanced their way her discomfort faded.

Feeling her relax, Zander asked, ‘Satisfied I won’t drop you?’

Seeing her cheeks grow pink, and finding it a sweet amusement to tease her, he added wickedly, ‘Or are you starting to enjoy being carried?’

She was saved from having to answer by a sturdy, silver-haired man wearing a dinner jacket and black bow-tie who crossed the foyer to greet them.

‘Zander, nice to see you again, mon ami!’ he exclaimed jovially.

‘Nice to see you, Claude.’

With an unmistakable twinkle in his eye, the Frenchman asked, ‘Do I take it that you and madame are enjoying a lune de miel?’

‘Unfortunately not. I’m afraid mademoiselle has hurt her ankle.’

Claude tutted his concern. ‘Then we will have to try and make up for it with one of our best tables and an especially good meal.’

He led the way through French doors to a rear veranda and over to a secluded table, beautifully set with a low centrepiece of apricot-coloured roses and a squat gold candle.

‘Now do please make yourselves comfortable.’

As soon as Caris had been settled in a chair, an attentive waiter relieved her of her jacket and whisked it away.

Nodding his approval, Claude went on, ‘I will send along a bottle of our best champagne, and if you care to leave the choice of menu in my hands …?’

After giving Caris a questioning glance and receiving her nod of agreement, Zander answered, ‘Thanks, Claude, we’ll be happy to.’

‘Then I will see that chef excels himself on your behalf. Oh, one last thing …’ Turning to Caris he asked, ‘Would mademoiselle like something to rest her injured foot on?’

A little flustered by so much attention, Caris said, ‘Thank you, but it’s really not necessary.’

With a smile and an inclination of his head, the Frenchman hurried away.

The lantern-hung veranda overlooked a steeply terraced garden with winding steps and secret paths, stone benches and pale statues in arbours. Water cascaded over tumbling rocks into fern-hung pools, and dark, glossy rosemary seemed to grow in every nook and cranny.

A solitary bright evening star and a velvety-blue dusk waiting in the wings made the scene seem magical, enchanted.

It set the atmosphere for the whole evening.

Having gazed her fill, Caris remarked, ‘This is a lovely place in a lovely setting.’

‘I rather hoped you’d like it,’ Zander admitted.

As she moved her foot into a more comfortable position he said, ‘Sure you don’t need a cushion? Raising it might help to ease the pain and prevent swelling.’

She shook her head. ‘It only hurts when I put weight on it, and the swelling seems to have stopped. Though I think you were right about the trekking.’

‘Then this might be a good time to call your friend and put her in the picture.’

She sighed. ‘Walking the Rowton Way is something Sam’s been really looking forward to.’

‘So what do you intend to do?’

‘Stay in Albany,’ Caris said decidedly. ‘I don’t want her to call it off on my account, which is what she’ll do if I’m in Catona and not able to go.’

Fishing out her mobile phone, she tapped in the number. After a moment or two she frowned. ‘I’m not getting any answer, which is odd … Oh, wait a minute, I have a text message from her.

‘Oh Lord, she has an even worse problem than I do. Her widowed mother’s been taken ill and she’s having to fly up to Boston to nurse her. She says to go on the trek without her, so I’d better let her know how things are …’

The text sent, Caris dropped the phone back into her bag. ‘I’m sorry about that.’

‘There’s no need to be. It had to be settled. But it’s a pity about your vacation.’

Hiding her disappointment, she said lightly, ‘Oh well, it can’t be helped. I’ll just have a quiet time at home.

‘If I get bored I can always go into the office or ask Kate to drop some work round. There’s always plenty to do.’

At that moment, the wine waiter approached wheeling a trolley. He stooped and with a click of his lighter lit the candle.

Then, having stationed the trolley to his satisfaction, he twirled the bottle of Dom Perignon in its ice bucket and began the little ceremony of opening and pouring the vintage champagne.

‘Go easy on mine,’ Zander said as the wine bubbled into the flutes. ‘I’ll be driving later.’

When the napkin-wrapped bottle had been replaced in the bucket and the waiter had moved away, Zander lifted his glass in a toast. ‘Here’s to us, Caris, and getting to know one another better.’

‘To us,’ she echoed.

Those fascinating green eyes of his fixed on her face. He remarked, ‘You have an unusual name. Who chose it?’

‘My mother.’

‘Caris,’ he murmured softly, making the word sound like a caress. ‘It suits you.’

As she sipped the champagne, emboldened by his toast and wanting to know more about him, she asked, ‘What kind of work do you do?’

‘I’m in the hotel business.’

Of course; she had wondered why the name seemed to be familiar. Now she recalled glancing through a society magazine and reading about the aristocratic Devereux family.

‘I thought I knew the name. Devereux Hotels are famous all over the globe. I read in one of the glossy magazines that it’s been a family concern for more than a hundred years.’

‘Yes. It all started with my great-grandfather, Gerald Devereux.’

‘Wasn’t he the younger brother of a duke?’

‘Yes, but he stopped using his title when he married an American and came to live in the States. Originally he set up his own merchant bank in London, then in the late eighteen-hundreds he acquired a hotel as a bad debt. That sparked his interest and as a business proposition he began to build more.’

‘So do you run the business?’

‘No, my father does.’

‘James Devereux?’

‘That’s right.’

The article had gone on to say that James Devereux, a multi millionaire who owned a chain of five-star hotels worldwide, had been happily married to the same woman for almost forty years.

His son, on the other hand, appeared to be a Casanova, noted for his many high-profile affairs and his ability to remain a bachelor despite the amount of women trying to catch him.

Zander was going on. ‘I’m an architect by training and inclination, so I spend a lot of my time designing and building new hotels or converting existing properties.’

‘In the States?’

‘Worldwide.’

‘Which means you do a lot of travelling?’

‘A fair amount.’

‘Lucky you. Do you have a favourite country?’

‘I have a soft spot for England,’ he admitted.

‘Then you know it well?’

‘Very well. I was born in London and I went to Oxford. You see, though my father is American by birth, my mother, who died last year, was English.’

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Caris said. ‘That is strange, though, as I have an American father and an English mother.’

‘So where were you born?’

‘A little market town called Spitewinter, on the Cambridgeshire border. My grandfather was the vicar there. I got my law degree at Cambridge University.’

‘What made you decide on law as a career?’

‘It was decided for me. It wasn’t something I wanted to do. You see, my father had hoped for a son to follow in hisfootsteps, but it wasn’t to be. My mother died when I was quite young.’

‘And your father never married again?’

Caris shook her head. ‘He’d adored my mother and he never really got over her death. He became morose and bitter.’

‘But you must have been a comfort to him.’

‘Quite the reverse, apparently. I was left in the care of various nannies and sent away to boarding school as soon as I was old enough to go. But, later on, when I proved to be reasonably bright, it became my father’s dearest wish that I should train to be a lawyer and join the firm.’

‘Why did you choose to go to Cambridge?’

‘Once again, the decision was made for me. Though my father is American born and bred, his family, as well as my mother’s, were originally from Cambridgeshire.’

‘How did they end up in the States?’

‘In the early eighteen-hundreds one of our ancestors emigrated and settled in New Jersey, but he sent his eldest son back to England to finish his education at Cambridge. Since then it’s become a kind of family tradition that in each generation the eldest son of the eldest son should go there.

‘My father went. That’s where he met and fell in love with my mother. She was a law student too, but in her second year she was forced to leave when she became pregnant. They got married as soon as they knew, and I was born at my grandparents’ house in Spitewinter.

‘Shortly afterwards, my father graduated and took my mother and me back to the States with him. But it hadn’t been an easy birth—something had gone wrong—and she never fully recovered. After she died, he could scarcely bear to look at me. It was almost as if he blamed me for her death.’

‘I see,’ Zander said slowly. ‘But, now you’ve taken the place of the son he never had, presumably you’ve grown closer?’

Caris shook her head regretfully. ‘I’m afraid you could never call the relationship I have with my father close.’

‘But you get on okay with him as a rule?’