Elizabeth Power - Back in the Lion's Den

Wouldn’t! she vowed grittily, aching under the weight of it.

‘Thanks, Dad,’ she murmured gratefully, and rang off.

‘So who’s this guy you’re going to be spending the summer with?’ Jodie Fisher asked as Sienna, returning from some last minute shopping before Conan arrived to pick them up, joined her on her porch after locking up her clapped out little red saloon.

‘He’s my brother-in-law—and I’m not spending the summer with him, as such,’ she corrected, keen to dispel any hopes her neighbour—a wild-haired blonde, who was noticeably pregnant and the mother of a four-year old—might be harbouring about her having designs on any man … least of all Conan Ryder. ‘Well I am, but not in the way you think. My mother-in-law’s sick,’ she outlined, feeling a nagging unease about how the woman would receive her. She didn’t elaborate to Jodie. Although Jodie was a good friend, often looking after Daisy at a moment’s notice—as she had done today—Sienna hadn’t confided to her exactly what the situation was with her late husband’s family. Such things were private. She had simply told Jodie that they lived miles away and she didn’t see them very often.

‘You wouldn’t be lying to me now, would you?’ Jodie’s attention was caught by something over Sienna’s shoulder. ‘Great Jumping Jacks! Wowee! Is that a BMW? Or is that a BMW? Is that him? No, don’t tell me! Let me guess! He’s pulling in here. It’s him! What I wouldn’t give for a brother-in-law who looked like that!’

Jodie was clearly knocked sideways. But why the man made every woman who cast eyes on him want to swoon at his feet was beyond her, Sienna though grudgingly, with a careless glance over her shoulder. Yet the dark magnetism of the man behind the wheel of the graphite grey monster that had just pulled up in front of her own pathetic little excuse for a car caused a peculiar fluttering way down in her stomach.

‘It isn’t what you think, Jodie,’ Sienna told her when her friend continued to stand there agog. ‘You’ve got a one-track mind where anyone who isn’t hitched and as happy as you are—i.e. single and content—is concerned.’

‘Don’t give me that!’ Jodie pooh-poohed, sending her a sceptical glance. ‘You’re too young to settle for contentment, and you can’t hang on to the past for ever.’

‘Well, perhaps content’s the wrong word, but I’m adjusting to my life,’ she admitted, only just stopping short of telling Jodie that the last thing she wanted was another man in her life. ‘So if you’re thinking I’d consider making a match with Niall’s brother, then I’m afraid you’re going to have to think again. He’s far too arrogant, overbearing and too darn cocksure of himself ever to qualify as a contender for my affections, and—’ She broke off, enquiring of her friend, ‘What’s wrong with your mouth?

Jodie was pulling faces, Sienna decided, as Shadow would have done, if he’d been able to, the day he’d rolled on that wasp-infested chocolate wrapper. When Jodie didn’t answer, however, she went on, ‘He’s too rich, he’s got a freezer cabinet for a heart and is about as approachable as a turned on water cannon. I wouldn’t sleep with Conan Ryder if he was the last man on— What? ’

Jodie’s eyes had come into the equation now. But even as it dawned on Sienna what her neighbour was trying to tell her, too late she felt that prickling awareness she always felt when Conan Ryder was close, and caught his deep voice, low in her ear, as he told her, ‘Don’t worry. You won’t have to. We have enough rooms in Provence for the family not to have to share with the guests.’

Those cool words were at variance with the warmth of his breath against her hair—an unintentional caress that sent tingles along her very nerve-endings. Or was it so unintentional? she wondered, her pulse quickening ridiculously. Because she didn’t think he’d miss a single trick to try and unsettle her.

Impelled by good manners to introduce him to Jodie, she tried to shake off the devastating effects of Conan’s nearness. But before she could find her voice Jodie was shooting out a hand for him to take.

‘I’m Jodie Fisher,’ she pre-empted, smiling broadly at the dynamic-looking man whose bronzed chest oozed virility through a fine and fitted short-sleeved cream shirt, and whose long legs were encased in dark tailored trousers. Her cheeks were unusually flushed. Even being happily married and pregnant didn’t stop a woman trying to get herself noticed by him, Sienna thought despairingly.

‘The pleasure’s all mine, Jodie.’ His manner was charm personified. Never once in all the time she had known him had he smiled at her like that—with such sincere warmth—Sienna realised, annoyed with herself for even thinking it, and telling herself she hardly cared.

‘Well, I’ll be getting back to my hovel …’ Still beaming, Jodie gestured towards the immaculately painted house next door for Conan’s benefit. It made Sienna’s look rather tired and dull in comparison. ‘Daisy’s in the garden with Shadow,’ she told Sienna. ‘Have a lovely time, won’t you?’ From the look she angled towards Conan as she was going out of the gate it was obvious what she meant.

‘You’d better come in.’ Alone with him, Sienna was determined not to let it bother her. ‘We’re nearly ready.’

Daisy was standing mixing play dough on a low table as they came out through the little galley kitchen, chattering happily to her pink hippopotamus, seated on a tiny chair, and the dog, which was stretched out with its head raised, listening interestedly to every word of the childish patter.

‘You’ve got no qualms about leaving a four-year-old with that animal?’ Conan’s disapproval was obvious.

‘No. Why should I have?’ Sienna shot back at him over her shoulder. ‘Shadow would protect her rather than cause her any harm. “That animal”—as you call him—is as gentle as a lamb!’

Peeved by his attitude, which even now questioned her suitability as a mother, she had to bite back the desire to tell him to mind his own business as she plastered on a smile and called out to Daisy, ‘Come here, poppet! There’s somebody I want you to meet.’

Grabbing her hippopotamus, the little girl ran up to them.

‘Do you remember … Mr Ryder?’ Sienna queried after some hesitation. For some reason Uncle Conan didn’t spring easily to her lips—which was crazy, she realised, because that was who he was.

The little girl gazed coyly up at him, her hazel eyes studying him with a seriousness way beyond her years. Eventually she asked, ‘Are you my daddy?’ and something squeezed painfully around Sienna’s heart.

Daisy had never known Niall—not properly anyway. And she certainly couldn’t remember him. So wasn’t it an obvious mistake for her to imagine that Conan might be her father?

Dropping to his haunches, Conan gazed—transfixed—at the little girl who was studying him so intently, and something ripped through him, taking his breath away.

It was Niall at four years old! Niall with his shock of bright hair and his sturdy little body and his frowning bewilderment at the world as he’d looked to him—his older brother—for answers …

The feeling in his chest was almost suffocating. Somehow, though, he recovered himself enough to respond to her question about being her father. ‘No, Daisy, I’m not,’ he murmured huskily.

Had she imagined that crack in his voice? Sienna wondered, noticing how long and tanned and utterly masculine his hands were as they clasped the tiny arms, although he stopped short of actually catching Daisy to him. But she was his late brother’s child, and for the first time it struck Sienna just how much pain the separation between her and Niall’s family might have caused them—all of them. It was something far too uncomfortable to dwell on.