KIM LAWRENCE - The Thorn in His Side

His eyes darkened at the memory of that moment when he had thought he was going to hit her. ‘What did you think you were doing? I can’t decide if you are a lunatic or just suicidal.’

The fact she fully deserved the reprimand and his anger did not make it easier to stand there meekly and take it.

‘I didn’t jump out, well, I did, but only because you were about to run over the dog and, anyway, if you hadn’t been driving like an idiot this wouldn’t have happened.’

He raised an eloquent brow. ‘So this was my fault.’

Libby felt the guilty heat rush to her cheeks. ‘Not totally,’ she admitted reluctantly.

‘And as for a dog …’ he made a show of looking around before lifting his shoulders in an expressive shrug ‘… I see no dog.’

The pink in her cheeks deepened to an angry red. ‘Are you calling me a liar?’ she asked in a dangerous tone.

He arched a brow and looked amused. ‘I am simply saying that I saw no dog …’ He turned his head from one side to the other and shrugged. ‘I see no dog.’

‘Just because you don’t see something doesn’t mean it wasn’t there!’ retorted Libby, really angry now. Did he really think the dog was a figment of her imagination?

‘Let’s for argument’s sake say there was a dog—’

Libby gritted her teeth. ‘There was a dog. He’s a golden Lab who answers to the name of Eustace.’

Libby saw no reason to add that he rarely answered to his name. In fact the daft animal was far more likely to run in the opposite direction.

‘So where is this dog now?’

Good question, thought Libby, scanning the lane with a worried frown. ‘God knows,’ she admitted honestly. ‘He’s not very … He was a rescue dog—he’s a little bit … highly strung.’ It sounded better than the truth, which was he was as mad as a box of frogs!

‘If a dog is badly behaved it is the owner’s fault and not the animal’s.’

Libby, her chin angled defiantly, tilted her head back to meet his golden stare. His superior attitude was really setting her teeth on edge.

‘I’m not blaming the dog for anything and I am quite prepared to admit that the accident is my fault,’ she told him haughtily.

He shook his head and flashed a wolfish white grin. ‘Has no one ever told you that you should never admit guilt?’

Libby gave a disdainful sniff and retorted, ‘No, I was taught to tell the truth and take responsibility for my own actions.’

‘Very noble, I’m impressed,’ he said, looking deeply unimpressed. ‘Not everyone realises that all actions have consequences.’

Libby regarded him warily.

‘In the litigious world of today such painful honesty can be an expensive luxury.’

Libby shivered and, hugging herself, rubbed at the goose bumps that had broken out on her arms. Some women, she was sure, would have found the resulting suggestion of something approaching cruelty in his smile attractive; she was glad she was not one of them.

But, God, he knew how to kiss!

‘Is that some sort of threat?’

Before he could reply the sound of an excitedly barking dog bursting through the bushes the other side of the road made them both turn.

‘Is he real enough for you?’ Libby raised a sarcastic brow and threw him a challenging glare of triumph as she dropped gracefully down to dog level.

‘Eustace, good boy!’

The dog continued to bark from an elusive distance.

Rafael watched her efforts to lure him closer with a critical scowl. ‘At heart a dog is still a wolf, a pack animal who needs to know who is in charge.’

Libby cast him a sideways look of dislike as she continued to make encouraging noises. ‘And that I suppose would be you.’ Admittedly if any man had pack alpha written all over him it was this one.

‘My lifestyle is not conducive to owning pets.’ That was the life he had chosen for himself, the life that suited him. No baggage, nobody to feel responsible for.

He had given responsibility a go and he had failed; the guilt of failing the person he had tried to protect had stayed with him through the years.

He had failed the only person he had ever loved.

It didn’t matter to Rafael that most people would have considered it the mother’s job to keep the son safe and not vice versa. His mother had been one of life’s fragile souls worn down by rejection and hungry for the approval of whatever man was in her life, eager to gain their approval even when pleasing them meant dumping her inconvenient child with whoever would take him.

She had always come back for him eaten up with guilt, calling him the only man in her life, and for a while things were good, but there was always another man. And then finally she had not come back and Rafael had gone in search of her, arriving too late.

She had died alone in a remote village that did not even have clean water, let alone a doctor, and Rafael had not been able to afford a headstone.

He had been fifteen at the time and it had taken him two years to return with a headstone. The village now had clean running water and last year he had laid the foundation stone of a clinic.

‘But that doesn’t stop you being an expert,’ Libby drawled. ‘Why aren’t I surprised? For your information Eustace was badly abused. He needs TLC, not bullying and he—’ Just warming to her theme, Libby suddenly stopped as the tension he was vibrating reached her. She tilted her head back to look at his face.

‘Are you all right?’

She was confused as much by her reaction to the shocking desolation she had glimpsed in his heavy-lidded eyes as by the cause of it, and her questioning gaze went to a possible source: his head wound.

‘Your head?’ Not that physical pain would explain the awful anguish she had glimpsed in his eyes.

Rafael looked into her wide eyes, blue as a summer sky and warm with concern, and fought the illogical impulse to lash out, punish her for seeing more than she was meant to.

‘My head is fine,’ he said, taking a step forward while mentally taking several backwards, pushing away the dark memories and focusing instead on the pleasant present and the more than pleasant tantalising glimpse of cleavage revealed as he stared down the neck of her loose necked sweater.

‘So you understand about animals.’

Catching the direction of his bold stare, Libby felt her breasts tingle. And for a moment there she had been in danger of imagining he had some depth! She gave a disgusted snort and swung away. The fact her body continued to react without her consent increased her self-disgust.

‘Let’s put it this way—I find them infinitely preferable to men,’ she gritted, feeling impelled to add, ‘Some men.’ She pretended not to hear his husky laugh. ‘So if you don’t mind.’ She turned back to him and mimed a zipping motion across her lips.

After a startled moment Rafael grinned and inclined his dark head. ‘Be my guest.’

Libby, aware of her silent critic, continued her attempt to coax Eustace to her until her patience snapped. She rose to her feet, muttering under her breath as she dragged a swathe of hair back from her face before directing a frustrated glare his way.

‘Fine, if you’re so clever …?’ she snapped, irrationally hoping he was equally unsuccessful.

Of course he wasn’t.

He stepped forward, said a couple of authoritative-sounding words in his own language, and the dog—suddenly he could speak Spanish—trotted forward meekly looking sheepish.

Libby gritted her teeth and thought, Traitor, as after another word the dog sat down at his feet, wagging his tail while he gazed adoringly up at the man who condescended to pat his head and murmur a word of praise before bending to gather the lead from the ground.