DONNA ALWARD - The Girl from Honeysuckle Farm / One Dance with the Cowboy - The Girl from Honeysuckle Farm / One Dance with the Cowboy

‘As I live and breathe—the lesser-spotted superior Allardyce,’ she waded in. ‘Now who’s trespassing?’

To his credit, he took her remark equably. ‘I should like to talk to you,’ he said for openers.

‘Tough! Get off my—er…’ damn ‘…doorstep.’

His answer to her command was to ignore it. And, much to her annoyance, he did no more than push his way into what had been her sitting room-cum-kitchen.

‘You’re leaving tomorrow?’ he suggested, his eyes moving from her suitcases to the boxes of packed teacups, plates and ornaments.

Phinn fought to find some sharp comeback, but couldn’t find one. ‘Yes,’ she replied, belligerent because she saw no reason to be any other way with this man who wanted to curtail her right to use and respect his grounds as her own.

‘Where are you going?’ he enquired, and she hated it that, when she could never remember any man making her blush before, this man seemed to be able to do so without the smallest effort.

‘I—er…’ she mumbled, and turned away from him, walking towards the window in a vain hope that he had not noticed she had gone red.

‘You’re looking guilty about something,’ he commented, closing the door and coming further into the room, adding, as she turned to face him, ‘I do hope, Miss Hawkins, that I’m not going to wake up on Saturday morning and find you camping out on my front lawn?’

The idea amused her, and despite herself her lips twitched. And she supposed that ‘Miss Hawkins’ was one better than the plain ‘Hawkins’ he had used before. But she quickly stamped down on what she considered must be a quirk in her sense of humour. ‘To be honest, that was something I hadn’t thought of doing,’ she replied.

‘But?’

This man was as sharp as a tack! He knew full well that there was a ‘but’. ‘But nothing,’ she replied stiffly. She didn’t want a spanner thrown into the works of her arrangements at this late stage. But Ty Allardyce continued to look back at her, his mind fully at work, she didn’t doubt. ‘Well, I’ve things to do. Thank you for popping by,’ she said coolly, moving towards the door, knowing full well that this wasn’t a social call, but at a loss to know what else one would call it.

‘What you would need,’ he stated thoughtfully, his glance lighting briefly on her long length of leg in the short shorts, ‘is somewhere you can lay your head, and somewhere where at the same time you can stable that—’

‘Her name is Ruby,’ Phinn cut in, starting to bridle. ‘The flea-bitten old nag, as you so delight-fully called her, is Ruby.’

‘I apologise,’ he replied, and that surprised her so much she could only stand there and blink. And blink again when he went on. ‘Do you know, I really don’t think I can allow you to go back to Honeysuckle Farm? It—’

‘How did you know I intended to go there?’ she gasped in amazement. Surely Mickie hadn’t…?

He hadn’t. ‘I didn’t know. That is I wasn’t sure until you just this minute confirmed it.’

‘Clever devil!’ she sniffed. Then quickly realised that she was in a hole that looked like getting bigger and bigger—if she couldn’t do something about it. ‘Look,’ she said, taking a deep breath, ‘I know you’re cross with me—full-time, permanently. But I wouldn’t harm the place. I’d—’

‘Out of the question,’ he cut in forthrightly.

‘Why?’ she demanded, when common sense told her she was going about this in totally the wrong way.

‘There aren’t any services up there for a start.’

‘I won’t need any. I’ve got a supply of candles. And it’s too warm for me to need heating. And…’

‘And what if it rains and the roof leaks?’

‘It doesn’t. I was up there the other…’ Oh, grief—just think before you speak!

‘You’ve been inside?’ he demanded. ‘You still have a key?’

‘Yes and no.’ He looked impatient. She hated him.

‘Yes, I’ve been inside. And, no, I haven’t got a key.’

‘You got in—how?’

It wouldn’t have taken much for her to tell him to get lost, but she was still hopeful of moving back to Honeysuckle Farm tomorrow. ‘I—um—got in through one of the bedroom windows,’ she confessed.

‘You climbed in…’ He shook his head slightly, as if hardly believing this female. ‘You include breaking and entering in your list of skills?’

‘I’m desperate!’ she exclaimed shortly. ‘Ruby’s not well, and—’ She broke off. Damn the man. It must still be shock—she was feeling weepy again. She turned her back on him, wanting to order him out, but ready to swallow her pride and plead with him if she had to.

But then, to her astonishment and to her disbelieving ears, she discovered that she did not have to plead with him at all. Because, staggeringly, Ty Allardyce was stating, ‘I think we can find you somewhere a bit better than the present condition of Honeysuckle Farm to live.’

Things like that just did not happen for people like Delphinnium Hawkins—well, not lately anyhow. She stared at him open-mouthed. He didn’t like her. She definitely didn’t like him. So why? ‘For Ruby too?’ she asked slowly.

‘For Ruby too,’ he confirmed.

‘Where?’ she asked, not believing it but desperately wanting to.

‘Up at the Hall. You could come and live with—’

‘Now, wait a minute!’ she cut in bluntly. ‘I don’t know what you think I am, but let me tell—’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ He cut her off irritably. Then, taking a steadying breath, let her know that she could not be more wrong. ‘While I’ll acknowledge you may have the best pair of legs I’ve seen in a while—and the rest of you isn’t so bad either…’ She refused to visibly blench, because he must be referring to the sight he’d had of her well-proportioned breasts, pink tips protruding. ‘I have better things to do with my free time than want to bed one of the village locals!’

Village locals! Well, that put her in her place. ‘You should be so lucky!’ she sniffed. But, with Ruby in mind, she could not afford to be offended for very long. ‘Why would you want me living up at the Hall?’

‘Shall we sit down?’ he suggested.

Perhaps her legs would be less on display if she sat down. Phinn moved to one chair and he went and occupied the other one. Then, waiting until she looked ready to listen, he began, ‘You did me a service today that will render me forever in your debt.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that.’ She shrugged off his comment, but realised then that he now knew all about his brother’s attack of cramp. ‘See where trespassing will get you!’

‘Had you not trespassed…had you not been there—’ He broke off. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about,’ he said, his jaw clenching as if he was getting on top of some emotion.

‘Ash wasn’t to know that that part of the pool is treacherous. That you have to stick strictly to the shallows if you want to swim,’ she attempted lightly.

But Ty was not making light of it, and seemed to know precisely how tragic the consequences could have been. ‘But you knew it. And even so—according to Ash when he was able to reflect back—you did the finest and fastest running racing dive he’d ever seen. He said that you dived straight in, not a moment’s hesitation, to get him out.’

‘Had you arrived a little earlier than you did, I’d have happily let you go in,’ she murmured, starting to feel a touch embarrassed. With relief she saw, unexpectedly, the way Ty’s mouth had picked up at the corners and knew her attempt at humour—her intimation that she would quite happily have let him take his chances on drowning—had reached his own sense of humour.