Читать онлайн книгу «A Nanny Named Nick» автора Miranda Lee

A Nanny Named Nick
Miranda Lee
NANNY WANTED Single mom seeks experienced live-in carer for baby boy. Immediate start. Fly-by-nights need not apply. Nick Joseph was every woman's fantasy: darkly handsome and great with kids. Linda just couldn't say no when he offered his services as temporary nanny to her baby boy. Soon she was as attached to Nick as little Rory was.But Nick had made it clear he was not a marrying kind of man, so how could Linda tell him that she wanted him to look after her , and not just Rory, permanently? What's more, how would Nick react when he learned that he was caring for his own son?NANNY WANTED! They need a nanny - and look what they get!


Excerpt (#u1b924d2f-b098-5bfc-908e-db724a8b91e0)Letter to Reader (#u7b50873b-8bbe-5e3a-9137-d4815a64822e)Title Page (#u0e4b61ab-57ba-5a90-a82d-993257831120)CHAPTER ONE (#u4de42e8e-8e5c-566f-aa72-cabb9d0f59a7)CHAPTER TWO (#ub5d7506c-81e5-5c29-afd1-7ac3754e6640)CHAPTER THREE (#u1ac6ab04-3c6b-5479-a091-0d5a3fe6ffe8)CHAPTER FOUR (#u33735c88-a2eb-529a-b797-7853463164de)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“You need a nanny for Rory. I’d like to apply for the job. ”
Linda didn’t know what to say. She would not have been human if she weren’t tempted. It would be every woman’s fantasy come true to have a man like Nick to come home to every night. But only the very naive would simply accept his proposition at face value.
“Have you returned for a job minding Rory, or to worm your way back into my bed?”
Dear Reader,
A perfect nanny can be tough to find, but once you’ve found her, you’ll love and treasure her forever. She’s someone who’ll not only look after the kids, but who could also be that loving mom they never knew. Or, sometimes, she’s a he and is the daddy they aspire to.
Here at Harlequin Presents, we’ve put together a compelling new series—NANNY WANTED!—in which some of our most popular authors create nannies whose talents extend way beyond taking care of the children! Each story will excite and delight you and make you wonder how any family could be complete without a nineties nanny.
Remember—Nanny knows best when it comes to falling in love!
The Editors
A Nanny Named Nick



Miranda Lee

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE
FROM the street outside came the low rumble of a motorbike as it burbled into the kerb. Thirty seconds later, the bike’s owner appeared in the bar doorway, his tall, broad-shouldered silhouette momentarily blocking out the noonday sun.
Dave glanced up from where he was sitting alone at a table, cradling a schooner of beer. His eyes widened as recognition struck.
Good Lord. Nick! Nick was back from wherever it was he’d disappeared to nearly eighteen months before.
Dave wasn’t sure if he was pleased or not. He liked Nick. A lot. He enjoyed his company more than that of any man he’d ever met. But there had been a measure of relief in having his nephew’s biological father vanish off the face of the map.
Dave had known right from the start that he should not have allowed Linda to coerce him into finding her a suitable sperm donor for the baby she’d suddenly been determined to have.
But he’d been afraid that if he didn’t do what she wanted his headstrong kid sister would simply go off and sleep with someone highly unsuitable.
Her long-term live-in lover had just been tragically killed while on a photographic assignment in Cambodia, and Linda had decided to fill the great hole in her heart and her life by having the baby that Gordon had always promised her but never delivered.
Not just any old baby, of course. She’d wanted her child to inherit the sort of genes that Gordon would have passed on if he’d lived. Consequently, the sperm donor was to be nothing short of a creative genius. And a perfect physical specimen as well. She’d seen some damned programme on TV about an American clinic which had ‘smart’ sperm to give to women who wanted good-looking, gifted children and she’d thought the concept quite wonderful!
Naturally, there wasn’t such an advanced-thinking clinic in Australia. Neither had Linda’s foray to Sydney’s sperm bank found even a remote match to her prerequisites for the prospective father of her ‘gifted’ progeny.
So she’d turned to her big brother—which she only did in moments of dire need—flattering his male ego by saying he must know of someone in his circle of smart, sophisticated friends who would fit the bill. Some clever, creative, unconventional fellow who had looks to burn and no qualms about giving some unknown woman the seed of his loins.
Dave had immediately thought of Nick.
Though most wouldn’t have.
He smiled wryly to himself as the man in question strode further into the bar, bringing his not inconsiderable physical assets under the overhead lighting.
Tall. dark and handsome was hardly an adequate description. It did fit, superficially. Yet it was far too bland to encompass the complex man Dave had found Nick to be.
When people—and especially women—first looked at Nick, they never associated him with either intelligence or creativity, except of the most basic kind. Dave could appreciate their mistake. It was difficult to see past that incredible body to the real man inside, or past the highly sexual gleam in those brilliant black eyes to the brains behind them.
Nick was not what he seemed. Aside from his well-disguised IQ he also looked a damned sight younger than his thirty-five years, which meant he could get away with wearing collar-length hair, skin-tight jeans and a black leather jacket with a fierce-looking eagle emblazoned across the back. Dave was barely two years older than Nick, but knew he’d look damned stupid in that get-up.
‘Okay if I use the piano, Hal?’ Nick asked the barman.
Hal nodded, and those who weren’t long-time regulars stared in amazement as this macho-looking bikie walked over to the battered upright piano in the corner, slapped his leather gloves down on the lid, sat down at the scratched wooden stool and began to play a Chopin polonaise.
His long, lean fingers flew over the keys, passionate and note-perfect in their execution. The hotel patrons grew silent as they listened, amazed and intrigued. Classical music might not have been the usual fare offered in this setting but they recognised the brilliance of the player and the contradiction in terms of what they were seeing and hearing.
Nick’s fingers flew faster till finally the climax of the piece was reached in one last dramatic, flamboyant flourish of notes. For a few moments, he bent over the keyboard as though exhausted, eyes closed, his unruly black hair falling forward.
But then he straightened, pushed back his hair, closed the piano, stood up and gave a mock bow to his partially stunned audience. Dave began to clap, soon followed by the rest of the Saturday afternoon drinkers.
Nick turned to smile at his friend, then indicated he would get a beer before joining him.
‘I see you haven’t lost your touch,’ Dave complimented Nick when his friend scraped out a chair and sat down.
Nick laughed. ‘You’ve got to be kidding. Rusty as hell, I am. There again, I haven’t touched a piano since I was last here.’ He lifted the beer to his lips, drinking deeply. ‘Ah,’ he said appreciatively as he wiped the froth from his top lip. ‘That hits the spot. It’s damned hot outside for early November.’
‘Long time no see, Nick,’ Dave said, trying not to sound accusing.
‘Sure is,’ Nick agreed. ‘You’re looking well, Dave.’
Dave smiled ruefully at the lie. He’d once been a handsome young man, but life now found him overweight and his light brown hair was thinning. Not that he cared too much; his life didn’t revolve around his looks.
‘Where’ve you been?’ he asked his friend.
‘Around and about.’
Dave shook his head and sighed. ‘I see you haven’t changed. Just as communicative as ever.’
Nick grinned. ‘Come now, Dave, that’s not true. You and I have had some of the longest chats in history at this very table. We’ve discussed everything from A to Z. We’ve theoretically solved the world’s environmental problems, picked every politician alive to pieces and critically analysed just about every book worth reading!’
‘That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it. Damn it all, Nick, you could have at least had the decency to inform me before you just took off for destination unknown. I thought we were mates.’
‘We are. But you know me. Never stay anywhere for long. I get bored.’
Dave wasn’t quite sure how long Nick had been a regular here before his disappearance. Only a few weeks, he supposed. It just seemed longer. Nick was a very interesting man to talk to. He’d been to so many places, had seen so many things. He’d done a myriad of jobs as well, from oil-rig worker to short-order cook, from chauffeur to brick-layer. You name it and he’d done it.
‘So how long can we expect to have the privilege of your company this time round?’
‘God knows. A week. A month. A year. Depends.’
‘On what?’
‘Hell, Dave, don’t ask me. I go with the flow.’
‘I’ll bet it was a woman,’ Dave muttered.
Nick’s normally carefree face froze, his dark eyes piercing Dave with a dagger-like glare. ‘What in hell are you on about?’
Dave was taken aback. This was a side of Nick he’d never seen before. The sudden switch of mood from easygoing to coldly aggressive was quite startling. Everything about the man had changed in an instant. His whole demeanour from his body language to his voice, which had dropped to a gravelly growl.
‘Nothing to get het up about,’ Dave hurried to reassure him. ‘I was just hazarding a guess to the reason for the swift exit from Sydney last time. I thought maybe one of your women might have tried to put the hard word on you for some kind of commitment.’
Nick visibly relaxed, immediately back to being the old familiar Nick again, his very engaging smile carrying a degree of amusement. ‘One of my women, Dave?’ He leaned back in the chair and took another deeply satisfying swallow of beer. ‘You make it sound like I have a harem.’
‘Don’t you?’
‘Not at all. I’m a one-at-a-time kind of guy.’
‘Yeah, right, Nick. One night at a time, don’t you mean? I’ve never seen you with the same woman in here two times in a row.’
Nick shrugged. ‘Variety is the spice of life, you know.’
‘Lucky devil. Still, if I looked like you I’d probably be the same. Though to be honest I think I prefer my own quiet and largely celibate lifestyle. Women are nothing but trouble. So you didn’t do a flit because some lovesick dolly-bird was putting the pressure on you for baby bootees and wedding bells?’
‘Heavens, no. I never get tangled up with that type of female. Lord preserve me. It was a lady, though,’ he admitted, ‘who brought me back to Sydney.’
‘Really? I’m all ears. She must be something to bring you back for a second serve.’
Nick laughed. ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’
‘I’d believe anything about you.’
‘She’s a nun.’
‘A nun,’ Dave repeated, shaking his head. ‘Good God, Nick, aren’t there plenty of available women in the world without you hitting on some poor naive creature in a convent?’
Nick laughed. ‘Sister Augustine is rising eighty.’
‘Oh. In that case, perhaps she’s just safe.’
‘She practically raised me.’
‘No kidding? Do tell.’
‘Not much to tell. Her order used to run an orphanage and kids’ home in Strathfield. I was dumped on their doorstep one day thirty-five years ago when I was a few weeks old, with a note saying my name was Nick. The nuns, and especially Sister Augustine, brought me up. They gave me the surname of Joseph.’
“Why weren’t you adopted out if you were so young?’
‘I was supposed to be, but the story goes that every time a couple wanted me, they would take tea with Sister Augustine, after which they would suddenly change their minds and choose another baby. Lord knows what she told them. Maybe that I was mentally deficient, or something equally deflecting. She’s always claimed she never said anything detrimental at all. She claims it was God’s will that I stayed with them. Anyway, by the time I was around two the nuns stopped showing me to prospective parents and I was safe to be spoilt rotten by them all.’
‘See? You had women falling in love with you even back then.’
Nick smiled. It was a soft, sweet smile, giving Dave a glimpse of yet another side to Nick. His sensitive side. ‘I think they were just lonely,’ he said. ‘Especially Sister Augustine. Her maternal instinct was probably starving for someone of her own to mother. Which reminds me, Dave—did I do the trick last year for that couple who couldn’t have a child? Is there some bouncing baby boy or cute little girl to gladden that poor woman’s unhappy heart?’
Dave was taken aback at Nick’s bringing up this subject. After his abrupt disappearance, Dave had never imagined Nick would return, let alone ask about the outcome of his generous act eighteen months before.
Dave wasn’t sure what to say. He’d lied to Nick about who it was who’d wanted a sperm donor back then because he hadn’t thought Nick would be too wrapped in helping a single woman wanting a baby, let alone Dave’s own sister. So Dave had invented an infertile married couple—friends of friends—who were having trouble getting a decent donor from traditional sources.
The temptation to lie again was strong.
Dave pondered his dilemma before rushing into an answer. It didn’t seem likely that Nick would ever meet Linda and son. No doubt he’d take off again soon. But, given the slight possibility of an accidental meeting, he could not risk Nick knowing he’d fathered a child somewhere. Nick might take one look at Linda’s boy and jump to the right conclusion. Then there would be hell to pay.
‘Er ... I’m sorry, but no, it didn’t take,’ he lied again. ‘The woman in question was not all that young, you know, so maybe it was all for the best.’
Nick nodded slowly. ‘You’re probably right. Actually, I did find it a little unnerving later to think I had a child somewhere whom I would never know—and who would never know me in return.’
A mental picture of Linda’s incredibly beautiful baby boy popped into Dave’s mind. Rory was Nick’s offspring through and through: jet-black curls covered his head and his wide dark eyes were bright with intelligence. At nine months old he was already crawling, and even pulling himself up onto furniture. His legs were long and his body strong.
Just like Nick’s.
Whilst sentiment whispered to Dave that it was a pity Nick would never know Rory and vice versa, common sense demanded he keep father and son apart. Linda would kill him, for one thing. She’d demanded everyone’s identities be kept secret all round. No doubt she wanted to live the fantasy that Rory was Gordon’s child.
To be honest, Rory looked nothing like Gordon despite Linda’s lover also having been tall, dark and handsome. Gordon had been more of a pretty boy, with an elegant frame. Linda’s baby was the spitting image of his real father, whose body was all macho muscle and his facial features chiselled in granite. One look at sire and son together and anyone without preconceived ideas might put two and two together—and get big trouble!
No, Nick could never be told the truth, Dave reaffirmed to himself. There was no reason to feel so guilty about it, either. What Nick didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. If Nick had wanted to be a father for real he could have been one by now. He could have married as well.
Dave looked over at his handsome and highly intelligent friend, and wondered why he hadn’t. What was it that had set him upon a rolling stone, swinging bachelor lifestyle? Had something happened in his past to turn him off the idea of family and commitment?
Could be, Dave supposed. There were a lot of emotionally damaged people out there these days.
Nevertheless, Nick didn’t look at all emotionally damaged as he sat there, sipping a beer, his long legs stretched out before him, ankles crossed. He looked happy with himself, and totally relaxed.
Dave sought a more simple explanation for his friend’s rather selfish choice of lifestyle. Maybe that unusual upbringing by nuns hadn’t given Nick the example of a normal family life which would make him want it for himself. He’d admitted being spoiled to death. Perhaps he’d grown up never having to satisfy anyone’s needs but his own.
Still, that was only speculation.
‘Nick?’
Nick took the beer away from his lips and placed it on the table. ‘Yep?’ he replied equably.
‘How come you’ve never married and had kids?’
Was he wrong or did Nick stiffen again, showing another glimpse of that briefly uptight creature Dave had spotted a while ago?
‘Why do you ask?’ came Nick’s curt enquiry.
‘Just curious. You’re a good-looking guy. And you’re certainly not gay, from what I’ve observed at first hand. Most straight men get married at some time or other.’
‘Marriage is not for me,’ he said, again quite curtly. But then he smiled, and the old Nick was back once more. His black eyes gleamed and his mouth was lightly mocking. ‘I could ask the same of you, Dave. Why haven’t you a wife and family?’
‘I did have a wife. Once.’
Nick just stared at him. He looked quite shocked. ‘What happened?’
Dave shrugged. ‘Nothing drastic. Just divorce. But it turned me off marriage for life. As for kids... The truth is I can’t have any.’
‘Oh, God. That’s rotten luck, Dave. You’d have been a great father.’
‘Well, that’s a matter of opinion.’
Actually, Dave was not one of those men who related easily to children. Or babies. He’d made it perfectly clear to Linda from the word go that she wasn’t to expect him to babysit except in cases of extreme emergency. He’d told her quite firmly that if she was silly enough to become a single mother on purpose, then the responsibility was hers and hers alone.
Linda had scoffed at ever needing her brother’s non-existent babysitting abilities. The dear girl had gone into unmarried motherhood with rose-coloured glasses, only to discover it wasn’t nearly as easy as she’d thought it would be.
Postnatal depression and an inability to breastfeed had been dismaying starters, gradually followed by the grim acceptance that good parenting was not something that miraculously happened on the birth of one’s baby, however wanted and loved that baby might be. There were some women who, while they loved their offspring to death, just weren’t cut out to be with them twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
This realisation had depressed Linda all the more.
But, Linda being Linda, she hadn’t wallowed in her own weaknesses for too long. She’d hired her widowed neighbour to be Rory’s minder during the day and had gone back to work. She wasn’t totally happy with the situation, but she was at least sane.
Linda’s experience confirmed to Dave that the Sawyer siblings were not natural parents, and that being childless was not the end of the world.
To be perfectly frank,’ he told Nick now, ‘I’m not unhappy with the status quo. I’ve always been married to my job. And children have never been a priority with me, even before I knew I was sterile. My wife was right to divorce me. She now has a new husband and three incredibly noisy boys.’
‘So how is the job down at the paper?’ Nick asked.
‘Flat out as usual. I came here straight from the office. Worked all night and all morning getting Sunday’s edition ready. I’m just about to go home to bed and I don’t intend resurfacing for the next twenty hours. But first I think I’d better visit the Gents. That beer’s gone straight through me. Mind my mobile, will you? When you’re a journo they never leave you alone for too long. If it rings, answer it and tell whoever it is that I’m in a coma.’
CHAPTER TWO
NICK watched his friend make his way tiredly across the floor. Poor Dave. He felt sorry for him. He had nothing in life but that pathetic newspaper he worked on. Still, he could well understand that Dave might not want to marry again after his first marriage had ended in divorce. One bitten, twice shy was something Nick could relate to.
He frowned darkly for a moment, then shuddered. Don’t start thinking about that, man, he ordered himself.
His mind swung to the news Dave had given him about his failure to father a child for that unhappy, unfulfilled woman. He wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved.
Initially, the thought that he’d given some unknown woman the baby she so desperately wanted had made him feel good. But then his feelings on the matter had changed. The idea of being a father had begun to both disturb and absorb him.
Within a week of handing his specimen over, Nick had felt the urge to find out who this woman was, and what she looked like, whether she would make a good mother and whether he’d done the right thing in giving her the wherewithal to have his child.
His child. Not her husband’s.
That was why he’d fled Sydney eighteen months before. Because he’d known if he stayed, he might put such a search into reality. Yet he’d known that to do so would be very wrong.
So he’d taken off around Australia again, seeking distraction from his disturbingly compulsive feelings. But nothing had totally emptied his mind of thoughts of his unknown offspring, and in the end he’d been forced to return and confront what was eating away at him—only to find out that the mystery child which had haunted his head did not exist! Had never, ever existed!
Again he felt a fierce jab of disappointment.
Male ego, Nick supposed ruefully. That perverse part of the male psyche which drove one to do stupid things and feel stupid things. He should be grateful that he’d failed to impregnate that woman. He didn’t want to bring a child into this world, even an unknown one. What was the matter with him? He’d given up being a masochist ten years ago, and he didn’t aim to start again now!
He was scowling down into his beer when the beep of Dave’s mobile phone made him jump. A quick glance across the room showed no sign of Dave’s return, so he picked up the phone and pressed the answer button.
‘Dave’s phone,’ he said.
‘I must speak to Dave,’ a female voice said impatiently. ‘Is he there? This is Linda. His sister.’
Nick blinked his surprise. He’d had no idea Dave even had a sister. There again, neither of them had spoken to each other on any personal level before today. Their previous Saturday afternoon drinking discussions had always been typically male—competitive, argumentative, analytical. And totally impersonal and objective.
‘He can’t come to the phone at the moment,’ Nick told Dave’s sister. ‘Can I take a message?’
‘Who the hell are you?’ she demanded to know. She sounded irritable.
‘My name’s Nick. I’m a friend of Dave’s.’
‘Where is Dave, damn him? He’s always complaining that he has to keep that phone glued to his side, but the one time I need to talk to him he’s not there!’
‘He’s in the Gents. We’re at the pub. Can I help?’
‘At the pub,’ she said tartly. ‘Would we all be that lucky! At least he won’t be able to tell me he can’t help me out this afternoon if all he’s got to do is drink himself silly.’
‘Help you out with what?’ Nick asked.
‘My front lawn, that’s what.’
‘What about your front lawn?’
‘My mower-man didn’t come today. I just rang him and he’s come down with some bug or other, but I simply have to have that lawn mowed today. I’m having people over tonight, and after all the rain we’ve had this past fortnight the grass is up to my knees. So where is that brother of mine? Surely he’s out of the Gents by now.
‘Yes, Sue, I won’t be much longer!’ she yelled to someone in the background.
‘I hate to tell you this, Linda, but I don’t think Dave’s in a fit state to mow lawns today. He’s absolutely exhausted after working all day and night at the paper.’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake, you don’t think I’ll fall for that rubbish, do you? Put Dave on, please,’ she insisted snippily.
‘I told you, he’s in the Gents. And then he’s going home. To bed. Look, give me your address and I’ll pop over. and mow the lawn for you.’
‘What?’
‘You heard me.’
‘And why, pray tell, would you do that? You don’t even know me!’
Yep. She was definitely irritable.
‘I’m Dave’s best mate.’ A little exaggeration never hurt, Nick thought. Besides, he was rather enjoying sounding noble in the face of the prickly Linda’s lack of compassion. ‘Mates help each other out in times of need.’
‘Oh.’ She sounded mollified. Or perhaps ashamed of herself for her stroppy attitude. ‘All right, then. I won’t look a gift-horse in the mouth. Thanks,’ she added grudgingly, and gave him an address in Balmain, which was blessedly no more than twenty minutes away from the inner-city hotel he was sitting in at that moment. ‘The equipment’s in the garage,’ he was informed brusquely. ‘Just knock and Madge will show you where. I’ll call her and tell her you’re coming.’
‘You’re not at home?’
‘No, I’m at work, worse luck.’
Nick wondered who Madge was. Friend? Flatmate? Another sister?
‘Okay. Don’t you worry, Linda. Your lawn will be done this afternoon. You have my word.’
‘That’s very sweet of you. Nick, is it?’
‘Yep. That’s my name.’
She sighed, and the sound immediately made Nick think of sex. He’d always been partial to women who sighed a lot when he made love to them. Especially afterwards.
‘Look, I’m sorry if I was rude just now,’ she apologised, another sigh doing nothing to lesson the image he suddenly had of her lying back naked in his bed. ‘Life has been damned difficult lately, what with one thing and another. Yes, Sue, I said I was nearly finished! Sorry. An anxious female panting on a call from the boyfriend. Still, I must go. Deadlines.’ And she hung up.
Deadlines? Nick raised his eyebrows. Another journalist in the family, no doubt. He wondered what Dave’s sister looked like, and if she was single. She’d sounded younger than Dave, and not particularly married. A married woman would have had a husband to do her lawns. Unless she was divorced, of course. Women who worked on weekends often found themselves divorced. Being a dedicated career woman was not conducive to harmony in the marital home.
Nick was partial to dedicated career women. They liked their sex without the complications of love and commitment, which was the only way Nick would have it these days.
‘Who was that on the phone?’ Dave asked wearily as he settled back in his chair. ‘Not the paper, I hope?’
‘Nope. Your sister. I didn’t know you had a sister, Dave. You never mentioned her.’
Dave seemed struck speechless for a moment. But then he laughed. ‘You don’t honestly think I’d tell you about any sister of mine, do you?’
‘Ah, she’s a looker, is she? I imagined as much. You’re a fine-looking fellow, and good genes usually run in the family. How old is she, by the way?’
‘None of your damned business. So what did she want?’
Nick could see Dave wasn’t too pleased about his having any personal contact with his sister—and who could blame him? So he decided that a little lie of omission was called for.
‘She was going to ask you to mow her lawn this afternoon. Her usual mower-man is sick.’
‘And?’
‘I told her you were much too tired from working all night at the paper, that you were about to go home to bed and she was to get someone else. She said she would, and hung up.’
Dave seemed amazed. ‘Really? Just like that? Linda hung up just like that?’
Clearly this was not usual Linda behaviour. Nick decided, in the interests of credibility, to elaborate somewhat.
‘Well, she wasn’t too thrilled at first, but I was very forceful in convincing her of your exhausted state. In the end, she quite happily agreed to follow my suggestion.’
‘You’re a true friend, Nick.’
‘You’d better believe it. Now, off home to the kip for you, I think. I’ll see you here next Saturday, if not before.’
‘You’re a good bloke, Nick. I didn’t mean to offend you about Linda. It’s just that...well...’
‘She’s your little sister and you want the very best for her,’ Nick finished wryly.
‘Something like that.’
‘So how old is this sweet young thing you’re so keen to protect?’ he asked, even more curious now.
Nick found Dave’s hesitation to answer really quite odd. Linda hadn’t sounded at all like the sort of woman who needed an older brother for a keeper.
‘Thirty-one,’ he said at last.
‘Hardly a child, Dave,’ Nick reminded him. ‘Besides, she sounded like she could handle herself very well.’
Dave chuckled. ‘She can be a tough little cookie when she’s riled. I’ll give her that.’
‘So stop worrying about her,’ Nick advised. ‘She won’t thank you for it, if I know women.’
‘You don’t know Linda,’ Dave said drily.
‘Wild, is she?’
‘No, not wild. Just bloody-minded at times.’
Nick could believe that. Beautiful women were often strong-willed. And Linda Sawyer was bound to be beautiful. Her brother would not worry so much about her if she wasn’t.
It was a pity, Nick decided, that she was at work today. He would have liked to see this Linda in the flesh.
His own flesh suddenly stirred, surprising him—till he recalled it had been some time since he’d been to bed with a woman.
He wasn’t quite the indiscriminate womaniser Dave believed him to be. Sex was, however, very important to him. He did not like to go too long without the pleasure—and tranquillising effects—of a woman’s body. Regular lovemaking soothed the demons which dozed—not deep enough—within his soul.
‘Go home, Dave,’ he advised, his voice a little sharp. Frustration did not sit well on Nick. It made him edgy.
Dave didn’t seem to notice anything. He nodded, slipped his mobile into his pocket, then left.
Nick’s dark gaze swept the room, noting a woman sitting alone over in a corner, sipping a drink and dragging on a cigarette. When his eyes met hers she stared back boldly, invitingly. She was good-looking enough from a distance. But cheap. Nick was never attracted to cheap. Which was a pity. Cheap was far easier to meet and pick up than classy.
Irritated, he stood up abruptly, stalked over to snatch up his leather gloves from the piano then whirled to stride towards the door.
The sun outside was even warmer than when he’d arrived. Summer was still three weeks away, but the heat and the humidity were oppressive.
Mowing a lawn in this heat would do him good, Nick decided as he straddled his Harley-Davidson and pulled on his gloves. Hard physical labour invariably made him forget about sex. That was why he often worked at physical jobs. Still, he hoped it was a large lawn. A very large lawn!
CHAPTER THREE
IT WAS minute. Two small rectangles of ankle-length grass on either side of a central path. There weren’t any garden beds or bushes, and most of the narrow front yard was taken up with the even wider cement driveway which dipped down to the double garages jammed hard against the left boundary of the block.
The house itself, however, was not at all minute. It was two-storeyed, its flat cement-rendered façade covering the rest of the block from the garages to the right boundary. Brown and white striped awnings broke the expanse of stark white walls, and shaded the west-facing windows. Terracotta tiles covered the pitched roof.
One only had to glance at all the other dark brick nineteen-twenties federation-style houses which lined the street to know that this particular residence was a recent and very modern renovation and addition.
Nick could not believe for a moment that Dave’s sister owned this place. A new house this size in Balmain, down near the water, would cost the earth! Journalists, unless of the famous television variety, did not earn enormous salaries.
Which turned his mind to the mysterious Madge. Was she a wealthy girlfriend with whom Linda lived? One of those sleekly groomed and glamorous women who believed you could never be too rich or too thin?
Nick pressed the bell on the super-stylish recessed door and waited for Madge to show her wares. He kept a superbly straight face when a very plump elderly lady answered the door. She had short grey permed hair and was puffing with exertion, probably from hurrying down the steep staircase Nick could see behind her.
When she looked him up and down with a hint of old-fashioned disapproval in her narrowed eyes, Nick was glad he’d left his leather jacket and gloves stuffed in his rucksack on the back of his bike. He didn’t think he looked too disreputable in jeans and a white T-shirt, though nothing could hide his unshaven state—which seemed to be capturing Madge’s critical attention.
Nick was glad the Harley was out of sight as well. He’d left it on the other side of the high, cement-rendered wall which enclosed the block and hid the offending lawn from the street.
‘Nick, is it?’ she speculated at last.
‘That’s me.’ He smiled, having slotted her happily into the role of maiden aunt or pensioner boarder. Much better than lesbian lover. ‘And you must be Madge!’
His easy smile seemed to do the trick. She smiled back, all her earlier wariness disappearing.
‘Yes, it is. My, but it’s hot out here, isn’t it?’
‘Sure is.’
‘Come inside. Would you like a cool drink before you start on the lawn? Or should I lead you straight through to the garage and the mower?’
‘I think I’d better mow first and drink afterwards. I wouldn’t be surprised if it storms later.’
She peered past his shoulder up at the clear blue sky. ‘Really? Oh, I hope not. Linda will be so disappointed if it rains. She wants to serve dinner out on the back terrace tonight.’
Maybe Madge is a cook, Nick reassessed.
‘Come through this way,’ she said, and bustled off to her right.
Nick followed, closing the front door against the hot afternoon sun and quickly heading in Madge’s wide wake. The downstairs interior was pleasantly cool and had one of those open-plan designs, with polished parquet floors, high ceilings and no doors, only tall, wide archways.
Nick glanced around as they moved into a huge rectangular living room which was divided into two distinct areas by three wide wooden steps. In the middle of the closest area, sitting on a multicoloured Persian rug, was a very expensive-looking black leather sofa with matching lounge chairs grouped around a glass-topped coffee table.
Down the dividing steps, in the slightly smaller sunken area, rested a matching glass-topped dining table surrounded by six black leather chairs. A huge black stone figurine of a panther crouched in the centre of the table top. Even from a distance the big cat looked both original and priceless.
Other than that one piece, however, there were no other objets d’art in the sparsely furnished area. No sculptures in the bare corners. No paintings on the stark white walls, which were only broken by a fireplace framed in black ironwork.
Still, Nick liked the stark simplicity of the decor. He’d never been one for clutter.
‘Nice place,’ he murmured.
‘Linda hasn’t finished decorating the downstairs yet. But it’s going to be lovely.’
Nick absorbed this information with a degree of surprise, for it certainly sounded as if Dave’s sister did own this house. You didn’t go to so much trouble decorating a rented establishment. Had she won the lottery? Or been a workaholic since the year dot and saved all her pennies?
Perhaps she and Dave had inherited money, Nick speculated. He knew next to nothing of his friend’s finances. Just because Dave frequented a very ordinary hotel, that didn’t mean he and his sister weren’t wealthy.
But money could never buy style, and that was what this place had—style. Nick hoped that ‘finishing decorating’ didn’t mean putting curtains up at the far wall, which was ninety per cent glass and gave a spectacular view of the highly original back yard and the harbour beyond.
The block sloped very steeply at the back, the land covered by a series of flagged terraces. On the top level sat an eclectic but attractive selection of outdoor furniture flanked by huge pots full of flowering plants. Nick could imagine that sitting out there on a balmy spring evening would be very pleasant, provided it didn’t rain. But the dark clouds already gathering on the horizon did not herald well for Linda’s outdoor dinner-party plans.
‘This way,’ Madge said, opening a white door which had been well camouflaged in the white wall. It led down several steps into the double garage, which housed more crates and cardboard boxes than Nick had ever seen. No car, but there was room for one. Just. Either Linda didn’t have one or she’d driven it to work.
‘The mower’s in the corner over there,’ Madge pointed out. ‘Try not to be too noisy—I’ve just got the baby to sleep.’
Nick looked up, startled. ‘Baby? What baby?’
‘Linda’s, of course.’ Madge frowned at him, while Nick tried not to look too taken aback. ‘I thought you were a friend of the family?’
‘Not really. I’m Dave’s friend. Linda and I have never met.’
‘Oh, Dave.’ Madge pulled a face. ‘He’s been absolutely useless, that man. He acts like he’s scared stiff of Rory, but I think it’s all just a ploy to get out of babysitting.’
Nick deduced that Rory was the baby.
‘And the baby’s father?’ Nick asked, intrigued. No wonder Dave was worried about his sister. Being an unmarried mother was not uncommon these days, but it was still not an ideal situation.
Madge tut-tutted. ‘Now that’s a sad story. The baby’s father was killed—blown up by a land-mine in Cambodia. Linda was with him at the time. She’s a journalist, you know, and he was a very famous photographer. They went everywhere together. They simply lived for each other.’
Madge suddenly became a little teary. ‘Poor thing. She didn’t even know she was pregnant when the accident happened. Not only that, they’d been finally going to get married when they came home.’
Nick’s heart contracted. What a bloody rotten world it was. He shook his head sadly. ‘What terrible luck.’
‘Yes. I don’t know how Linda’s coped, I really don’t. But she’s a very brave lady. We’ve been neigh-bours for ages, you know, but, strangely, I didn’t get to know her till some time after Gordon was killed. They bought the original house together some years back, then had it done up. Actually, they were as good as married. I used to think they were. Of course, they weren’t here all that much. Always flitting around the world on some assignment or other, those two. He’d take the photographs and she’d write the stories.’
Nick didn’t say a word for fear of stopping the woman’s flow of gossip.
‘Anyway, one day late in her pregnancy Linda appeared on my doorstep and asked if she might come in for a cup of tea and a chat. She was so lonely, the poor love. As I said, that brother of hers is useless. And her parents have passed on, so she has no mother to turn to.
‘After that she used to visit me nearly every day and we became firm friends. When Rory was born and she had so much trouble with him it was me she turned to for advice. Quite desperate she would get some days. I did all I could to help her, but, quite frankly, Linda’s just not one of those girls who took to motherhood and staying at home all the time. It drove her crazy.’
‘It can’t be easy with no father te-help,’ Nick murmured sympathetically.
‘Yes, you’re quite right. Still, with a bit of luck Linda will find someone else to marry her eventually, and to be a father to Rory. She’s a good-looking girl. Meanwhile, I was only too happy to come in and mind Rory when she went back to work,’ Madge raved on. ‘Though he’s a bit of a devil at times. High-spirited, like his mother. Oh, goodness, listen to me, gossiping away and probably boring you to death. I’d better check on Rory, and you’d better get on with mowing that lawn!’
Nick did just that, but his mind remained with Linda’s story. It was really tragic, he thought. Dave’s sister didn’t sound as if she was coping all that well. But he didn’t think the answer was for her to race out and marry again. He’d seen some disasters with unsuitable stepfathers who didn’t have it in them to love and care for another man’s child.
Still, it wasn’t any of his business, was it? He was only here to mow the lawn.
It only took him fifteen minutes to complete the job. When he stopped the mower and wheeled it back into the garage, the muffled sound of a baby crying filtered through the door which led back inside the house.
Nick sighed his regret at waking the child, but there was nothing he could have done about it. Mowing lawns was a noisy occupation. It was also a hot one. Even in that short space of time, beads of perspiration had pooled all over his upper body, and the T-shirt was clinging to his back. He decided to take up Madge’s offer of a cool drink before he got back on his bike and headed home to the convent.
The baby’s crying seemed to grow louder and more frantic in the minute it took Nick to return the mower to its place in the corner of the garage then pull down the rolling door. When he opened the door which led into the interior of the house, his ears were blasted with high-pitched cries which alternated between shrieks and sobs.
Why in God’s name didn’t Madge go and see to the child?
Nick frowned as he strode across the living-room floor. He did not approve of the idea of letting a baby cry itself back to sleep—not when that crying had gone beyond crying to hysteria.
The unexpected sight of a very still Madge lying at the bottom of the stairs was self-explanatory. Nick sucked in a shocked breath then raced to see to the inert figure’s plight.
A pulse reassured him she was still alive. Her colour wasn’t good, however. He wondered if she’d had a fall or a coronary. He was about to start resuscitation procedures when Madge groaned, her eyelids fluttering open.
‘What happened?’ Nick asked swiftly.
Her eyes closed for a moment, then opened painfully again.
‘Fell,’ she rasped. ‘Dizzy. My side hurts. I think I might have broken something.’
‘I’ll call an ambulance straight away,’ he said, glancing around. ‘Where’s the phone? Right, I see it. Hang on, Madge. We’ll have you in hospital before you can say lickety split.’
‘Rory,’ she croaked weakly as the baby’s cries heightened even further, if that were possible.
‘Is he in a cot?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Then he’ll live. You come first, Madge. After I’ve rung the ambulance I’ll go get him.’
‘All right,’ she agreed, sighing.
Nick dialled the emergency number and was assured an ambulance would be dispatched immediately. Then he dashed up the stairs, following the racket to a bedroom where a red-faced infant of perhaps twelve months was standing in his cot, screaming and shaking the sides as though the hounds of hell were after him. Nick took one look at the fury of the child’s tantrum, at his big liquid dark eyes and thick mop of black curls, and decided his father must have been in the Mafia.
On sighting Nick, Rory stopped mid-scream for a split second, as though assessing this stranger who didn’t look at all like his mother or Madge. And then he found his second wind and began to bawl again, even more fortissimo than before.
Nick shrugged, walked over and scooped him up, balancing him on his hip and ignoring his piercing protests.
‘Do shut up, Rory,’ he said sternly. ‘Madge is hurt and the last thing she needs is to listen to your infernal wailing.’
Rory fell silent a second time, round eyes inspecting this person who knew his name and who spoke with such authority. Nick noticed there wasn’t a real tear in sight on his chubby cheeks.
He smiled wryly. ‘You old faker, you.’
Rory suddenly smiled back, a gloriously brilliant smile which showed the beginnings of a tooth just breaking through his gummy mouth.
Nick felt something curl around his heart, then squeeze tight. The sensation shocked then annoyed him.
‘Not on your life, you little con man,’ he muttered as he carried the child from the room. ‘You can’t get round me as easily as that.’
But it seemed he could.
As could Madge.
Nick found himself promising her all sorts of things—the main one being that he would stay and look after Rory till his mother got home.
‘If you think you can manage, that is,’ Madge added faintly.
Unfortunately, Nick had already shown how well he could manage during the fifteen minutes it took the ambulance to arrive. In that short space of time he’d made Madge comfortable on the floor, changed Rory’s nappy and given him some orange juice. The child had really taken to him, too. Either that or he liked playing with his hair, which, though not really long, was a darned sight longer than Madge’s tight frizzy curls.
Whatever, there was not a peep of further protest from his rosebud mouth, which was apparently unusual. Rory, Nick was beginning to appreciate, had a reputation not dissimilar to Linda’s—he could be...difficult.
Unfortunately, however, his mother could not be contacted before Madge’s departure. Her work number was engaged. So Nick’s promise to stay with Rory till his mother got home looked like being more than a simple half-hour of emergency babysitting. Madge said Linda should be home by five at the latest, but that was a couple of hours away.
Still, what else could he do? Madge was in pain and had enough to worry about. Luckily, he’d been able to contact Madge’s eldest daughter, who lived on the North Shore and said she’d go straight to the hospital.
After the ambulance left, Nick carried Rory outside where with one hand he wheeled his much valued bike inside the walled-in front yard. He didn’t mind playing knight to the rescue, as long as he didn’t lose his trusty steed. Tossing his equally trusty rucksack over his spare shoulder, he went back inside and set about filling in the time till Rory’s mother came home.
He found a television in a family room upstairs, and sat watching a football match with Rory on his lap. By half-time Rory was beginning to droop, so Nick put him back in his cot and was gratified when those big dark eyes closed.
He watched the sleeping child for a while, fascinated by the way his baby lips made little in-and-out movements as he slept. He wasn’t twelve months old, as he’d first thought. He was just on nine months, Madge had informed him.
‘Cute little beggar,’ he said as he turned and tiptoed from the room.
Nick tried Linda’s number again. Still engaged. Frustrated, he rang Sister Augustine and explained he might not arrive tonight after all, giving him plenty of leeway. He didn’t explain what he was doing, for fear of all the wrong conclusions she might come to. Sister Augustine had for too long tried to talk him into settling down, and Nick did not want to give her false hopes. He just told her he’d been held up on the road with mechanical difficulties.
After he hung up, he tried Linda’s work number again. Still engaged. He bet it was an office full of women. Women sure liked to talk. Sister Augustine would rattle on for hours whenever he visited, questioning and probing, wanting to hear about everything he’d done since his last visit. But she wasn’t content with finding out the whats and wheres; she always wanted to know the whys and the wherefores.
And she always asked him how he was feeling these days. Didn’t females know a man liked to keep his feelings to himself? Why did they always have to chip away at you till you either exploded or simply walked away?
Nick was scowling as he marched back upstairs to check on Rory. But his scowl softened to a smile when he peeped over the side of the cot. Sleeping like a baby. All that yelling must have tired him out.
Nick’s watch showed three-twenty—still ages away from Linda’s anticipated home time. He rubbed the stubble on his chin. A shave was called for, he decided. And a shower. He couldn’t have the lady of the house thinking he was some kind of yobo.
But first he did a swift reconnoitre of the top floor. There was a bathroom right next to Rory’s room, separating the nursery from a large bedroom which opened out onto a back balcony with an even better view of the harbour than downstairs. On the other side opposite the nursery lay a third, smaller bedroom plus the family room where Nick had already spent some time and which also led out onto that same back balcony.
The decor upstairs was cosy and comfy as opposed to the starkly modern look of downstairs. Wall-to-wall smoky grey carpet covered all the floors. The spacious family room was especially relaxing, and very functional.
A huge wrap-around sofa covered in royal blue velvet faced the large entertainment unit which contained a television, video and sound system. There was a large grey granite-topped bar in one corner which doubled as a kitchenette. Besides the small built-in fridge, there was a long counter against the wall behind, carrying all sorts of cooking equipment from a microwave to a kettle and a toaster. Spacious under-counter cupboards carried a supply of drinks, glasses. crockery, cutlery, coffee, tea, biscuits and baby foods.
Nick assumed there was another. larger kitchen downstairs—he hadn’t looked around down there properly yet. But for now this one sufficed his and Rory’s needs. If Linda didn’t come home by dinner time he might have to go down and see what other food supplies were in stock. But he figured she would be home long before then since she was planning a dinner party tonight.
Another glance at his watch showed three-thirty. Time for that shower, he thought, and headed for the bathroom.
Nick had a tendency to sing in the shower. Opera. mostly. Or one of those old Mario Lanza numbers the good sisters had fed him on during his growing-up years. Especially the religious ones.
He had a good tenor voice too, and launched into one of his favourites while he soaped and shampooed. He entirely forgot about Rory, and was still in full voice when he snapped off the water and heard the baby’s cries.
The next line of his song was immediately replaced by an expletive which would have made both Sister Augustine and Mario Lanza blush. Nick swiftly wrung out his dripping hair, wrapped a navy blue bath sheet around his hips and strode from the steam-filled room.
‘Keep your nappy on!’ he called out as he reached for the doorknob to Rory’s room. Once again, Rory shut up the second Nick appeared in the doorway.
Nick halted, his big hands finding his hips. His mock glare was accompanied by glittering black eyes. ‘I have a feeling you need some discipline, young man. I’ve a good mind to leave you there while I go and get dressed.’
When Rory gave him one of those glorious grins of his, Nick relented. ‘You’re worse than even the most beautiful woman,’ he said, shaking his head as he came forward to scoop the child up again. ‘I just can’t say no to you. Come on; you can watch me make myself respectable for your mother.’
Once settled on Nick’s hip, Rory immediately picked up a wet lock of Nick’s hair and stuffed it in his mouth, sucking on it as if he were dying of thirst.
‘Oh, so it’s a drink you’d be wantin’, is it?’ Nick teased in an Irish accent as he made his way from the room. ‘It wasn’t more of me fine singin’?’
He came through the doorway and was about to turn right to go down to the family room when something at the top of the stairs caught his eye.
His head jerked round to encounter a woman with eyes like steel daggers bearing down on him with a very heavy-looking brass lamp base in both her hands, raised up over her right shoulder like a fairway wood about to claim a divot or two. In Nick’s head.
‘Hey!’ Nick shouted, and jumped back out of her way.
She stopped bearing down, but not the glaring. And that lamp remained threateningly raised. ‘You’d better have a damned good explanation of what you’re doing with my baby,’ she warned in gravelly tones. ‘Or you’re dead meat, mister!’
Nick almost smiled. The mother tigress was coming to the defence of her cub, regardless of the odds. Didn’t she know she wouldn’t have stood a chance against him if he really had been a bad man intent on murder and mayhem? He was six feet four inches tall, weighed over one hundred kilos and had black belts in karate and judo. She looked about five-four and could weigh no more than fifty kilos.
But, of course, she didn’t know that, he realised wryly. Neither did she care. She would fight to the death for her child.
Nick warmed to her immediately. No surprise, really. He’d known from the first moment he’d spoken to her on the phone that he’d like Dave’s spirited sister.
‘I’m waiting,’ she snarled.
Nick suppressed another smile of admiration. ‘I’m Nick,’ he said. ‘You know. Dave’s friend who came to mow your lawn?’
Her fierce expression didn’t relax for a second. ‘In that case, what are you doing inside, half-naked and holding my baby?’ she demanded to know. ‘And where the hell is Madge?’
‘Madge fell down the stairs. She might have broken her hip. She’s in hospital.’
‘Oh, no!’ Her fierce face finally fell. The lamp base was lowered and she just stood there, looking shattered. Her head drooped, and she began shaking it from side to side.
It gave Nick the opportunity to look her over without appearing to be rudely staring.
She would be a really striking woman if she ever took some trouble with her appearance. As it was, she was wearing no make-up and her honey-brown hair was scraped back from her face and twisted into a knot so tight that not a single hair would dare to escape. But nothing could disguise the fine features in her face.
Her figure was another matter. Although obviously slim, it was impossible to gauge her shape, hidden as it was in severely tailored navy trousers, a plain white shirt and an oversized navy linen jacket.
If she’d been trying for a feminist look, then she’d almost succeeded. Nick itched to take her hair down and get those hideous trousers off her.
Suddenly, her quite lovely blue eyes snapped up to glower at him once more. ‘And just when did this all happen?’ she demanded to know.
Nick shrugged. Rory had stopped sucking his hair and was looking at his mother, but he was making no indication that he wanted to go to her. He seemed very happy where he was.
‘A little over an hour ago. After I’d finished doing the lawn, Rory here was crying his head off. When he didn’t stop, I came inside to check and found Madge at the bottom of the stairs. She’d fainted after her fall. But she came round.’
‘Why didn’t you call me at the office?’ Linda continued accusingly. ‘Madge knows my number.’
‘I tried. It was engaged. In fact, I’ve tried on and off ever since but it’s always engaged.’
‘Sue!’ Linda spat, practically stamping her foot at the same time. ‘She thinks that phone’s her own personal social line. I’ll have something to say to her when I get in to work on Monday.’
She glared at him again with furious blue eyes. Nick wasn’t sure if they were for him or the hapless Sue. ‘That doesn’t explain why you’ve got no clothes on,’ she persisted, all the while looking him up and down with decided disapproval.
Nick was beginning to feel a tad irritated, despite understanding her reaction. ‘I was taking a shower,’ he explained in level tones. ‘And I was going to shave.’
She stared at the two-day growth on his chin, then at his hair, which, uncombed and wet, probably looked as wild as the rest of him.
‘Is that your motorbike in the front yard?’ she quizzed.
‘Yeah. Why?’
‘And you’re a friend of Dave’s?’ she asked sceptically.
He could see the way her mind was working, and didn’t like it one bit. His earlier admiration for her took a nosedive. Nothing turned Nick off a woman quicker than her looking down her nose at him.
‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ he countered icily. ‘You got something against blokes who ride bikes? Yeah, I see you have. Pity. Don’t worry, honey, it’s not contagious. Here. Take your kid. Thank God he’s still at that age where his parent’s prejudices don’t affect his judgement.’
Nick took an angry step towards her, holding Rory out at arm’s length. Rory immediately started to cry. His mother reached to take him when something happened which stopped the two grown-ups in midstream.
The navy towel which had been roughly slung around Nick’s hips slipped its moorings and slithered to the grey carpet, leaving him standing there in all his natural glory.
CHAPTER FOUR
NICK froze, embarrassment consuming him. He had an awful feeling it would also shortly consume his natural glory. Linda’s wide-eyed staring at his private parts unnerved him totally, especially when he realised they weren’t shrinking. Just the opposite, in fact.
If only she would stop looking at him like that!
But she didn’t. She kept on looking and he kept on growing. Swiftly. Startlingly.
Nick clenched his teeth down hard in his jaw, shoved Rory into his mother’s arms, then bent to sweep the towel up from the carpet. Rewrapping his loins proved somewhat difficult when he found that his hands were shaking.
Anger combined with frustration at this totally alien clumsiness. What in God’s name was the matter with him? Fancy letting some female reduce him to this!
‘If you’ve finished gawking,’ he snapped, ‘I’ll go get dressed and be on my way.’
Scowling, he whirled round and stalked back down the hallway and into the bathroom, banging the door behind him. A shave was now off the agenda. He was simply not capable of holding a razor to his throat. He was too angry, both with himself and with her.
‘Mug,’ he muttered as he began dragging on his clothes. ‘Serves you right for playing good Samaritan in the wrong town. City girls don’t know how to be grateful, only suspicious. And they have no sense of decorum!’
His anger had cooled somewhat by the time he was fully dressed; the sight of his reflection in the vanity mirror brought a rueful smile to his face. If Madam Linda thought he looked dangerous semi-naked, then wait till she got a load of him like this!
His clean top was black and body-hugging as opposed to his earlier simple white T-shirt. It looked wicked above his tight black jeans, the sleeveless style emphasising the bulging muscles in his arms.
Normally, Nick despised people who judged by appearances, but even he might not have invited the character staring at him in the mirror home for dinner. All that was missing were some tattoos to complete the picture of primitive masculine aggressiveness. An earring or two would not have gone astray as well. Even without those added touches, he could appreciate that he was still far removed from the sort of man a classy woman like Linda would normally associate with.
Not really wanting to scare her half to death, he combed his hair neatly back from his face then dragged his leather jacket on to cover his possibly menacing body. Though, damn it all, she hadn’t found a certain part of it menacing a minute or two ago. She’d ogled him like a woman starved of sex.
Which she probably was, came the interesting and provocative realisation. A woman living alone with her baby... Her long-time lover dead... Nothing sexual in her life nowadays but memories.
Hard to live on memories, Nick knew. Eventually, no matter how much you told yourself you would never look at another member of the opposite sex—let alone want them—the day invariably dawned when you did.
Linda was a young woman. Young and healthy and presumably heterosexual. Had she looked at him just now and wanted him?
Nick decided he didn’t want to know. Dave would kill him if he touched his precious sister. Hoisting his rucksack over his shoulder, he swung round and reached for the doorknob.
Linda paced the family room, trying to quieten the purple-faced Rory—not to mention her own whirling thoughts. Her face was still flaming from those ghastly moments when she hadn’t been able to drag her eyes away from Nick’s naked body, her gaze remaining riveted to his blatantly male appendages which had nowhere to hide and which had responded shamelessly to her ogling.
No, not shamelessly. Nick had obviously been annoyed and embarrassed by his involuntary arousal, whereas she was the one who’d been shameless. She’d been fascinated then excited by the sheer speed and power of his erection. He’d looked like an animal, standing there stark naked with his legs apart. A beautiful, big male animal.
The female animal in her had been stirred, then challenged by the sight of his obviously unwilling desire. And for a split second she’d wanted him as she’d wanted no other man—not even Gordon. Her mind had burned with the image of her going up to him and touching him; of her doing more than just touching ; of her leading him right to the edge till he lost all control and took her where they were, right there in the hallway.
Rory had somehow disappeared from the scene in her head and she’d imagined Nick dragging her back up and stripping her roughly before pinning her naked and panting up against the wall. He’d imprisoned her hands above her head and prised her legs apart with his before manoeuvring himself into her by then frantic flesh.
He’d moved powerfully within her with deep, voluptuous thrusts, lifting her up onto her toes and propelling her into a previously unknown world where reality receded and she was nothing but a body, searching blindly for release.
Love had nothing to do with her feelings. It wasn’t tenderness she sought but passion. And pleasure. Oh, yes, pleasure; a wild, selfish, sweet pleasure which would blot out everything, everything but the feel and smell of him taking her up against a hard, cold wall and making her moan as she had never moaned before.

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