Millionaire Under The Mistletoe

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.