Penny Jordan - A Time To Dream

Her heart was thumping frantically. As always she felt a mixture of panic and shame fill her at the thought of having to admit that she had no family. A feeling of guilt, as though she were somehow to blame…as though her lack of family somehow made her a second-class citizen.

The years of institutionalised living had left their mark, and a very deep sense of loss and pain that no amount of mature logic could entirely overcome.

‘There really is no need for you to do this,’ she repeated huskily, ignoring his question about her family.

If he was aware that her avoidance was deliberate he gave no sign of it, telling her cheerfully, ‘None at all, other than the fact that it gives me the opportunity to be with you.’

Before she could react to such a blatant piece of flattery he added thoughtfully, ‘In fact, I’d have thought you’d have preferred to hire a decorator.’

‘I wanted to do it myself,’ Melanie told him, unwilling to admit that it was necessity as much as anything else that forced her to tackle the redecoration herself.

‘Really? Personally I’ve always found that when it comes to wallpapering two pairs of hands are always better than one.’

He had reached the top of her stairs and, even though he had only been in the house once before and then only briefly, he seemed to know instinctively which door to open.

But, then, in his job Melanie imagined that he must need to have a good eye for details and the memory to go with it. She wondered what had made him choose such a career. A private detective. She had always imagined such men as small, anonymous characters who could slip unnoticed about their business. He was anything but unnoticeable.

‘Mm,’ was all he said as he surveyed her attempts to remove the crooked pieces of wallpaper. ‘If I could make a suggestion?’

Melanie waited, realising that he was going to do so whether or not she gave him her permission.

‘Because of the slope of the ceiling and the dormer windows, it might be an idea to take the paper right up over the wall, along the ceiling and down the other side. A room like this would probably at one time have had a dado rail at chair height. We could, if you like, break up the busyness of the floral paper by fixing a new rail and taking the patterned paper down to that level, and then putting a toning plain paper on the lower half of the walls.’

We…Was there any sweeter or more emotive word in the English language, especially when it encapsulated the two of them in a small private circle of intimacy, when it seemed to bond him to her almost, when it seemed to suggest that he—?

With a tiny gasp of shock, Melanie shook herself free of the insidious pull of her own weakness, and said breathlessly, ‘I don’t think I could tackle that kind of thing…and…’

‘No need. I wasn’t suggesting you should,’ he told her drily. When she made no response, he told her casually, ‘Look, this case I’m working on down here has gone off the boil a bit, so to speak, and I’m likely to have some time on my hands. How would it be if I took over as your decorator?’

‘Oh, but I couldn’t let you do that,’ Melanie objected, but her heart was racing with frantic excitement as she acknowledged how much she already wanted the dangerous intimacy he was promising her.

‘At least not without…not without paying you.’

‘Paying me?’ Suddenly he was frowning at her, his eyes curiously cold where they had been warm. The way he was looking at her made her shiver as she reacted automatically to the sharpness of his voice by stepping back from him.

It seemed he had read the meaning of her body language because immediately his expression changed, his eyes softening back to their original warmth. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that…well, the kind of relationship I had in mind for us wasn’t exactly one of business. However, if you really feel you have to offer me some form of repayment, how about payment in kind?’

She couldn’t help it. She looked immediately and betrayingly at his mouth, blushing vividly as she remembered how it had felt against her own. It was a very masculine mouth. Looking at it made her tremble inside and dig her teeth quite sharply into her own bottom lip, as she fought to banish the dangerous images tormenting her senses.

‘If you would agree to allow me to use your phone until my own is installed, that would be more than payment enough,’ she heard Luke saying, and instantly her fair skin flamed with guilty heat as she prayed that he hadn’t realised what she had been thinking.

Desperate to distract his attention, as if she were a vulnerable creature of the wild seeking sanctuary, she said quickly, ‘That’s…that’s fine by me. But this dado rail; do you really think—?’

‘I’m sure of it,’ he interrupted her. ‘Come over here and look at these marks on the wall.’

In order to do as he suggested she would have to stand so close to him that their bodies would be touching. A small shudder of sensation burned through her and she knew that if she did as he suggested, if she felt the heat and strength of his flesh against her own, she would be helpless to control the foolish response of her own flesh.

‘Yes, I can see them from here,’ she fibbed, adding nervously, ‘What do you suppose happened to it—the rails?’

‘Who knows? The old boy who used to live here probably ripped them out and used them as firewood,’ he told her wryly.

Melanie frowned. How had he known about John Burrows? Almost instantly she chided herself. Why shouldn’t he know? But did that mean that he knew about her, about how she had inherited the cottage? But no, he couldn’t do so, otherwise he would not have asked her about her family.

‘Right, then, let’s get started, shall we?’

AT ONE O’CLOCK, with three strips of immaculately aligned paper adorning the ceiling, Melanie suggested hesitantly, ‘Would you care for some lunch? It’s only salad and cold meat.’

‘Sounds like a great idea, but I’ve got a better one. Why don’t you let me drive you into Chester? There’s a good DIY place there where we can get the rail, and we could stop somewhere on the way for something to eat to save you doing anything.’

Melanie opened her mouth to ask him how he knew about the DIY centre and then closed it again, telling herself that she of all people ought to know better than to pry into someone else’s life, and, taking her silence as acceptance of his suggestion, Luke said warmly, ‘Good, that’s all settled, then. If I could just use your bathroom to clean up a bit?’

‘Er—yes, of course.’

The bathroom was shabby and uncomfortable like the rest of the house. It was also cluttered with her personal toiletries, her make-up and her hairbrush, since it was the only room in the house with a decent mirror in it.

Perhaps she was being foolish and naı¨ve to be embarrassed as she thought of him seeing such intimate possessions, and she had no doubt at all that he would be openly amused if he could read her mind; but the idea of any man—but especially this man—using the room which she considered to be her most personal domain brought a tingle of dangerous sensation racing down her spine.

As he washed his hands free of the sticky wallpaper paste, would he visualise her in the small confines of the bathroom, stepping out of the large old-fashioned bath, her body slick and wet?

The shock of her own thoughts was mirrored in her eyes as she turned quickly away from him.

What on earth was happening to her? She had never had these kinds of thoughts before. Never. They both shocked and excited her, opening secret doors within herself which she had never even known existed.

‘The bathroom,’ Luke reminded her quietly.