Mr. Right All Along

She smiled back. ‘I doubt that will happen. You look pretty fit to me.’

It was the sort of throwaway comment that anyone might have made; however, the fact that it was Eve who had made it did all sorts of things to his libido. Ryan cleared his throat, terrified that he would do the unforgivable and let her see the effect it was having on him. Eve hadn’t meant anything by it, he told himself sternly. And she certainly hadn’t meant to imply that she found him attractive!

‘I wish I shared your confidence.’ He managed to hold his smile but it was tough. Since he and Eve had met up again he had followed her lead and kept his distance. It was obviously what she wanted yet he couldn’t help wondering if he should have been more proactive. If he’d taken a different approach then maybe she would have found it easier to confide in him? The thought spurred him on even though the voice of reason was telling him to back off. He didn’t have time to worry about Eve when he had so much else on his agenda, reason insisted, but the advice fell on deaf ears.

‘I’ve become a real couch potato during the winter. I don’t think I’ve been out running more than a handful of times since Christmas, in fact. No way will I manage to climb the three highest mountains in Britain unless I put in some serious work.’

‘I see. Are you doing it as personal challenge or for charity?’ she queried, pushing back a strand of red-gold hair as the wind whipped it across her face.

‘Charity,’ Ryan replied thickly. He cleared his throat, doing his utmost to behave sensibly. He liked women and they liked him. He seemed to have a genuine rapport with the opposite sex, in fact, so that he had never really thought about all the nuances of a relationship. If he asked a woman out and she accepted—which she usually did—he simply got on with enjoying her company. If the relationship moved on to something more intimate, that was great. If it didn’t then he had made himself another friend.

What he had never done was stand around dissecting his feelings, totting up how much of what he felt was based on sexual attraction. He always saw a woman as a whole person and yet here he was, awash with lust, because he couldn’t get past the thought of touching that silky strand of hair!

‘I’m raising money to put a couple of portable defibrillators into the local high school,’ he explained hastily. Thinking about Scott, and what he needed to do, always focused his mind, although it didn’t seem to be quite as effective as usual. He hurried on. ‘Once they’re sorted, I’ll make a start on the primary schools.’

‘I see.’ Eve frowned, an almost imperceptible puckering of her brow, and his libido took a giant leap and set off running again. ‘It’s a great idea, obviously, but what made you get involved in a project like that?’

‘My brother.’ Ryan swallowed but there didn’t seem to be even the tiniest drop of moisture in his mouth. He longed to continue, to bombard Eve—and himself—with facts so he could forget how much he would like to smooth away those tiny frown lines, but it wasn’t possible.

‘He’s involved too, is he?’

‘In a way, yes.’

‘Funny, I never knew that you had a brother.’

Her frown deepened, as well it might, Ryan realised bleakly. Although they had been good friends and swapped a lot of confidences, he had never told her about Scott. They had chatted about work, about their ambitions, about music they liked and films they had seen, but never about the one thing that had had the biggest influence on his life. Now he realised with a start that he hadn’t told her because he’d wanted their conversations to be a sort of haven. When he was with Eve, he could forget everything else. He wasn’t Scott’s brother or his parents’ sole remaining child: he was simply himself.

Eve had no idea what was going on inside Ryan’s head and she didn’t want to know either. Something warned her that it would be far too stressful. She summoned a smile, the sort of brightly meaningless smile she had spent ages practising in front of her bedroom mirror. After she had left Damien, she hadn’t smiled for months. There’d been nothing to smile about, but gradually she had realised that she had to play her part for other people’s benefit. They would only ask questions if she went around with a long face.

‘That’s good. It must be nice to share a common interest.’

‘It would be if Scott was around.’

Ryan’s voice was so empty of emotion that it rang hollowly. Eve’s eyes flew to his face and her heart contracted when she saw the expression it held. Even though she really didn’t want to ask the question, she had no choice. She couldn’t ignore the pain in his eyes, couldn’t pretend she didn’t see it even though it was what she longed to do.

‘What do you mean? Why isn’t he around?’

‘My brother died when we were seventeen. We were twins—fraternal, not identical. Not that it makes any difference, of course.’

‘I had no idea …’ She stopped and he shrugged.

‘Why should you? I never told you about him so there’s no way you could have known.’

‘Why?’ The word slid out before she could stop it and she bit her lip. She was falling into the trap she’d wanted to avoid, asking questions, listening to answers, moving that bit closer to another human being. She needed to remain detached, indifferent, uninvolved but it wasn’t possible. Not with Ryan anyhow.

‘Why didn’t I tell you?’ He grimaced. ‘Oh, all sorts of reasons. Because I wanted to enjoy our conversations without having to think about what had happened. Because I didn’t want to be Scott’s brother, i.e. the twin who hadn’t died. Because, selfishly, I just wanted to be myself with all that did and didn’t entail.’

His honesty affected her far more than it should have done. Eve felt a wave of sympathy wash over her. Reaching out, she went to touch his hand then stopped. Even though she longed to comfort him, she needed to maintain her distance.

‘It wasn’t selfish. It must have been … well, very hard for you.’

‘Not as hard as it was for Scott.’ His tone was wry but it didn’t conceal the pain he felt and her heart ached all the more.

‘I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like to lose someone you love, but it wasn’t your fault, Ryan. You weren’t to blame in any way.’

‘I know that.’

He shrugged, his shoulders rising and falling beneath the close-fitting black T-shirt he was wearing, and Eve’s heart performed another odd manoeuvre, one it hadn’t performed for many years. All of a sudden she was aware of him in a way that she hadn’t been since that night when he had kissed her under the mistletoe at the hospital Christmas party. It had started out as a joke. Egged on by their friends, Ryan had rolled his eyes and given in and kissed her. However, the moment his mouth had found hers, everything had changed.

Eve could still recall her shock as wave after wave of sensation had poured through her. Although she’d been kissed before, she had never felt anything like it. Ryan’s lips had awoken feelings inside her that she’d never experienced before, made her feel hot and hungry, made her want more than just a kiss. When he had let her go, she’d felt dazed and disorientated, filled with wonder that a mere kiss could arouse such a response inside her. She’d half expected him to do it again, to kiss her in private this time without their friends cheering them on, but he hadn’t.

If anything, he had become decidedly distant in the days following—taking his breaks separately from her, turning down invitations for them to have lunch together with the flimsiest of excuses. Eve had felt incredibly hurt at first until she’d realised that he was simply acting true to form. Ryan didn’t do relationships, didn’t do commitment, didn’t do anything that might encourage a woman to think he wanted her in his life long term. Maybe he was happy to have her as a friend but that was all.

Now, however, Eve’s eyes widened, her pupils dilating as she found herself taking fresh stock of the crisp dark brown hair clipped close to his well-shaped head, the dark slash of his eyebrows framing equally dark eyes, the firm strength of his jaw. Her gaze swooped lower, running over the broad shoulders, a well-muscled chest, trim waist. He was wearing running shorts cut high at the sides and they made the most of his long legs, showing off well-developed thigh muscles and firm calves. He looked fit and healthy and so incredibly attractive, even to her jaundiced eyes, that she gulped.

She didn’t need this! She had allowed physical attraction to dictate her actions once before and look how it had ended, with her life in tatters and her spirit shattered. All she wanted now was to pick up the threads and weave them together, attempt to get back what she had lost and by doing so find herself. No matter how attractive Ryan was, she wasn’t going to get involved with him. Ever.

‘Good. I’m glad to hear it,’ she said in a cool little voice that was totally at odds with how she felt. She glanced deliberately at her watch and shrugged. ‘Is that the time? I’ll have to go.’

‘Me too.’ He treated her to one of his wonderfully warm smiles and Eve had to force herself not to respond. There was no point encouraging him, after all.

‘See you tomorrow,’ she called, hurrying away. She rounded a bend in the path and slowed, aware that her heart was racing. The one thing she had never allowed for was that she would be attracted to another man but there was no point denying it. She was attracted to Ryan and she had to keep well away from him …

She groaned when it struck her how difficult it was going to be. Avoiding Ryan wasn’t possible when they had to work together but somehow she had to keep a rein on her feelings. The thing she mustn’t do was make another mistake.

Ryan did his best not to think about his encounter with Eve on the riverbank but failed. Miserably. As the week wended its way towards the weekend, he found himself returning to those minutes they had spent together far too often. Maybe Eve hadn’t said anything but he’d have needed to be deaf, dumb and blind not to have noticed her reaction. She had looked at him and he’d known that it had been a lightbulb moment for her the same as it had been for him. Because if Eve had suddenly realised he was a man, he had definitely realised that she was a woman. A very attractive woman too.

Saturday rolled around and he thanked merciful heaven that he didn’t have to go into work. He had the weekend off, forty-eight hours completely Eve-free. If he didn’t manage to sort himself out then it wouldn’t be for want of trying, he decided as he slotted bread into the toaster for his breakfast.

Once he’d eaten, he intended to go for a run and after that he’d do a few dozen laps of the local swimming pool. After that, maybe a little weight training would jolt his mind back into the sensible lane. If that didn’t work either he would think of something else, although it was doubtful if he’d be fit to undertake any more exercise. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Eve that he had let his training lapse of late …

Eve.

Eve.

Red-gold hair.

Grey-green eyes.

Luscious curves.

Ryan cursed roundly as he exited the kitchen. Forget breakfast; he was going running now. And somewhere along the way he was going to outrun these thoughts that plagued him.

He followed the same route he had taken that night too, working on the principle that lightning didn’t strike twice. It didn’t either because he had rounded the bend when he spotted Eve coming towards him. He slowed down, hurriedly debating his options. Should he turn around and head back the way he’d come or would that be too revealing? If he’d spotted Eve, she was bound to have seen him and he didn’t want her to think that he had a problem with her even if he did.

One stride, two, and that was it; the decision was out of his hands. Ryan came to a halt, breathing far more heavily than the effort he’d expended warranted. It was just that seeing Eve made him feel breathless and giddy and all sorts of things he didn’t normally feel. He groaned under his breath. Hell and damnation. He had a really big problem, Houston!

Eve came to a halt, her heart beating in rapid little jerks. She could lie to herself but what was the point? She had chosen to walk by the river because she had thought … hoped … that she might see Ryan here. That was the truth, although it wasn’t all of it. She wasn’t ready to work out why she’d wanted to see him when she had decided to keep well away from him. She would start with the easy bit and work up to the difficult bits later … Possibly.

‘We meet again.’ She gave a little laugh, wincing when she realised that it sounded like a rusty nail being scraped down a blackboard. Ryan was jogging on the spot, obviously keen to keep up the momentum, and she felt a spurt of irritation strike her. He could at least pretend to be pleased to see her, couldn’t he?

‘Looks like it.’ He grinned at her, his handsome face breaking into the same wonderfully warm smile he’d treated her to the other night, and Eve was instantly mollified and smiled back.

‘You’re obviously a glutton for punishment.’

‘Or desperate.’ He laughed, a soft rumble emerging from his powerful chest. ‘Can you imagine how mortifying it will be if I have to drop out after I’ve persuaded everyone else to take part in this challenge?’

He rolled his eyes and Eve laughed more naturally this time. ‘It wouldn’t look very good.’

‘Too right it wouldn’t.’ He chuckled. ‘Marie, for one, would never let me live it down,’ he said, referring Marie Thomas, the paediatric unit’s redoubtable ward sister.

Eve’s brows rose. ‘Is Marie taking part?’

‘Yep. She’s raised almost three hundred pounds in sponsorship pledges too.’

‘That’s fabulous!’ she exclaimed, genuinely impressed.

‘It is. We’re on course to raise almost ten thousand pounds all told, which is a lot of money.’

‘It certainly is. You’ll have to put me down as a sponsor. Will fifty pounds be enough? I’ve no idea what the going rate is.’

‘That would be brilliant. Thank you.’

He touched her hand in a spontaneous gesture of thanks and Eve did her best not to react, but it was like trying to turn back the tide. A rush of panic engulfed her and she gasped. Ryan bent and looked into her face, looked deep into her eyes, into her soul even, and she could see the anger burning inside him.

‘I don’t know who’s responsible for the way you’ve changed, Eve, but whoever it was, he did a real number on you. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do but if there is, you only have to ask.’ He stepped back and his face was set. ‘I want to help you, Eve. If you’ll let me.’

CHAPTER THREE

WHAT WAS SHE doing here?

Eve’s head spun as she stared around the kitchen. There was so much colour in the room that her eyes were dazzled. Deep yellow walls, bright blue cupboards, multicoloured china stacked on the shelves. The kettle was red, the toaster purple, the washing-up bowl an eye-watering green. It was like finding herself slap-bang in the middle of a rainbow and she felt disorientated, confused. Her life was all shades of grey, from washed-out silver to deep, dark charcoal. Colour was something she couldn’t handle. Colour hinted at extremes, at passion, at desire, at all the things she didn’t want to experience.

Colour scared her too because it reflected her feelings for Ryan. She couldn’t see him in terms of black and white or even charcoal and silver. He was imprinted in her head in glorious Technicolor exactly like this room.

‘Sorry about that. It was my mother. She seems to have a knack of phoning when it’s least convenient.’

Ryan came back into the room and Eve forced herself to concentrate. He’d put on a track suit over his running clothes, plain black, unadorned and mercifully lacking in colour. She watched as he headed to the gleaming red kettle and flicked the switch. She could hear the water hissing as it came to the boil, hear it getting louder and louder, and her senses were assaulted once more, only by noise this time. If she didn’t do colour then she didn’t do noise either!

She shot to her feet, almost overturning the chair in her haste to escape. Ryan glanced round, his expression as bland as a baby’s. She knew he could tell how panicstricken she felt but he didn’t ask her what was wrong or offer suggestions to calm her down. He simply accepted her turmoil and for some reason she felt better because of it.

‘At least have a cup of coffee before you go. It’ll only take a couple of seconds to make it.’

He took a pair of mugs off a shelf and spooned instant coffee granules into them then topped them up with boiling water. The milk was in the fridge—the jug was orange—the sugar in a bowl that had multicoloured spots on it. He dumped everything on the table and sat down, leaving her to decide what she intended to do.

She could go or she could stay and it was all the same to him, he was trying to imply, only she knew it wasn’t how he really felt. Not inside. Ryan wanted her to stay. And he wanted her to stay because he cared. That was why he had insisted she should come home with him, but did she want him to care? That was the big question, the one she couldn’t answer now and maybe not ever.

‘Fancy a biscuit? Or how about some toast?’

He half rose but Eve shook her head and he subsided back onto his chair. Picking up his mug, he drank a little coffee, blowing on the glassy black surface first to cool it. Eve averted her eyes, not wanting to watch how his lips puckered as he sucked in air then blew it out in a soft little sigh that seemed ridiculously loud to her hypersensitive ears. She didn’t want her senses to stir from their slumbers again, didn’t want to feel attraction or anything else. She just wanted to be, with all that did and didn’t entail.

Silence fell as she sat down and unconsciously she started counting the minutes. How long would it last, this silence? One minute? Ten? She’d come to dread the silences when she’d been with Damien. When he wasn’t talking, he was thinking and she had learned to fear his thoughts as much as his actions. Damien could turn peace and quiet into terror in the blink of an eye so she had chattered on, inane comments aimed at soothing him, even though they had rarely worked.

Tears started to her eyes as the memories came flooding back and she stared into her coffee, wishing she could sink into its dark heart and disappear. She couldn’t do this. She wasn’t brave enough to gather up the threads and learn how to be herself again.

‘Tell me, Eve. I can’t promise it will help but it might and that has to be better than this.’

Ryan’s voice was so calm, so patient, so free of threat that Eve felt a little of the fear trickle out of her. She shrugged, her hands cradling the mug because it was something to hold onto.

‘What’s to tell? I think you’ve guessed already, haven’t you?’

‘Guessing is one thing. Hearing about what you’ve been through is something else.’

He half reached towards her then stopped and pain rippled under her skin. He wouldn’t touch her again. He knew how she felt about being touched because she had made it clear. Maybe she should be relieved yet it was more proof of how much she had changed. Ryan had often put his arm around her in the past, often hugged her in a friendly fashion, and all of a sudden she missed being on the receiving end of his warmth and kindness, missed being normal. If she could learn to give and receive the odd hug, it would mean she was on her way to finding the person she had been.

‘I was in an abusive relationship. It took me almost two years to pluck up the courage to leave and I’m still getting over what happened.’

‘You did well to get out when you did. A lot of women never find the strength to cut the ties.’

His tone was level. There was no hint of censure for her or for her abuser but Eve wasn’t fooled. Ryan hated the thought of her being treated so badly and a little more fear trickled away and a tiny bit of warmth took its place.

‘I didn’t think I’d have the strength either, which is funny, really, because I always thought that I would never put up with being abused. We used to see women like that when we were doing our rotations, didn’t we?’ She carried on when he nodded, suddenly eager to explain why she had allowed it to happen to her. ‘I could never understand why they let their husbands or boyfriends treat them the way they did, but it’s different when it happens to you.’

‘I remember one woman telling me that she hated what was happening and hated herself even more for allowing it to happen, but she didn’t know how to stop it.’

His voice was still calm, uncritical, relaxed. They could have been discussing the price of fish for all the emotion he betrayed but Eve knew it was an act. Ryan cared. He really cared. She clung to that thought. ‘She loved her partner and couldn’t imagine a life without him, I expect.’

‘It’s all part of it, isn’t it?’ He shrugged. ‘The abuser makes his victim so dependent on him that she finds it impossible to imagine not being with him.’

‘Or her. There are men who are victims of abuse too.’

‘True, although not as many men suffer abuse as women do.’

‘No.’ Eve swallowed, feeling sick. It always happened whenever she had to admit that she was a victim of abuse. Oh, she might know that she was, but knowing it and admitting it were two very different things.

‘How did it start?’ Ryan prompted, and she forced the nausea down. Now that she had got this far, she wanted to carry on to the end, surprisingly enough.

‘Exactly as you read about it in all the textbooks.’ She gave a little laugh and he laughed too and it made her feel better, as though they were in this together. It was such a crazy idea that she immediately dismissed it. Ryan wasn’t part of this and he never would be. She was the one who had to learn to cope, to live, to forgive herself.

‘Damien was so charming, so funny, so sexy, and I was completely smitten. I never realised how controlling he was until it was too late.’ She shrugged. ‘I found it touching that he wanted to see me every night, that he hated me going out with friends, that he loathed us being apart. I thought it showed his vulnerable side and that’s something a lot of women find attractive. I certainly did.’

‘So when did you realise that it wasn’t vulnerability that was making him behave that way?’

Ryan’s voice sounded deeper and she shivered. Was her story getting to him? Was he really thinking how stupid she’d been to be taken in? She tried not to let the idea take hold but it was hard when it was what she herself believed.

‘It was a gradual process. Damien started to object whenever I said I was going out so, to keep the peace, I stopped making arrangements to see my friends. Then, because I always refused to go out with them, they stopped asking me.’

‘So he got what he wanted? He isolated you. Classic behaviour, as you said.’

‘Exactly.’ She managed a little smile. ‘I should write a paper on this, shouldn’t I? Only I doubt it would make any difference. Far too many women are as gullible as me.’

‘It’s not gullible to believe that someone loves you. It’s what everyone wants, to love and be loved.’

‘Is that what you want?’ she asked before she could think better of it.

‘Probably.’

‘But you never went out with anyone for more than a couple of months, did you? You had quite a reputation for playing the field.’

‘Did I?’ He shrugged but she knew that he had taken her comment to heart and wished she hadn’t said anything. She had enough to do with sorting out her own life without trying to find out what made Ryan tick.

The thought that there was something behind his behaviour was intriguing. She had to make a determined effort to dismiss it. ‘Anyway, once Damien had control of my social life, he set about controlling my working life too.’

Eve stopped and took a deep breath as the full impact of that statement assailed her. Losing her friends had been bad enough, but losing her career had been so much worse. She had thrown everything away, given in to the threats and the coercion because she’d been afraid of upsetting Damien. All those years of study, of hard work and determination had been reduced to nothing because she had been a coward.