SARA WOOD - Expectant Mistress

Frantically she looked around for Norman, to take Adam off her hands and sweep him away to the hotel. But Norman seemed content with his quota of guests and was already stacking luggage into the back of the Land Rover.

‘Hello!’ she said, summoning up a cheery tone for Adam’s benefit. ‘You’d better hurry! You’ll miss your lift to the Hell Bay Hotel!’

‘I’m not staying there.’

It was the way he looked at her that made the penny drop. Dismay flooded her face. ‘Oh, no, Adam! No! You’re not... You can’t be...Mack Rowe—!’

‘Macro.’ His features had tightened slightly at her groan. ‘It’s a computer term, Trish. I hoped you wouldn’t recognise it.’

Petra had known, she thought, furious with her friend for not warning her. So she was to give Petra’s love to Macro, was she? Her eyes blazed with anger.

‘Why?’ she forced out fiercely.

He didn’t seem too pleased at her lack of enthusiasm. ‘Because you wouldn’t have given me house room, would you?’

Her expression told him he’d hit the nail on the head with marksman-like accuracy. ‘You had no right to deceive me!’ she said hotly.

‘Needs must,’ he replied, his jaw set like granite. ‘I don’t let anything stand in my way I had to be here; I made sure that happened.’

‘It didn’t sound like you on the phone,’ she muttered crossly.

‘It wasn’t. A colleague fixed it up.’

‘But...’ She had to ask. Defying his alarmingly linked dark brows, she looked him straight in the eyes and asked incredulously, ‘You’re here on business?’

‘What else?’ he replied crjsply, picking up his Louis Vuitton and a black leather briefcase ‘The hotel’s full. I thought of you ’

‘But...apart from the hotel, there’s no one on Bryher with a computer worthy of your personal attention—’

‘How do you know?’

She gave him a pitying look. ‘Because everyone on the island knows everyone else’s business”

‘Why shouldn’t there be someone in one of the self-catering cottages who needs expert help?’

‘Someone important enough to drag you here?’ she demanded.

‘It would have to be, wouldn’t it?’

‘Oh.’

Bemused, she stood staring at him, transfixed by the thought that Adam was here, on her island. Her gaze moved to his smooth Jaw and throat. He swallowed at the same moment that she did. Hastily she flicked her eyes to the high line of his broad shoulder He was tense.

Perhaps he was worried that he’d be left to sleep on the beach, she thought wryly, her confused eyes meeting his.

‘Are you going to leave me here to fend for myself, as a punishment for playing a trick on you?’ he drawled.

‘I’m tempted. You deserve to be tied up and left to sleep in the kelp pit!’

‘Kelp. That’s seaweed, isn’t it?’ he asked uncertainly.

‘Yes.’

He arched one sardonic eyebrow. ‘I’d be very smelly.’

She tipped up her chin. ‘That would be the least of your problems. You’d probably die of exposure before anyone could complain’

A faint smile eased Adam’s hard mouth. ‘Nice to be given island hospitality.’

Trish felt ashamed. ‘I suppose you’ll have to stay with me,’ she said grudgingly. ‘How long are you planning on working here?’ She glanced at her hands in surprise. They were trembling. ‘Your colleague said up to a week.’

Her breath had shortened. A week! In the same house as Adam again, serving him breakfast and dinner, cleaning his room, touching his things’ She’d be a bag of nerves.

‘Depends,’ he said cryptically. ‘I’ll pay for two weeks in advance, Just to keep the room, as a precaution. I should have got the problems sorted out by then.’

‘Two...’ Trish’s eyes glazed. Luckily her hair was blowing over her face so he probably didn’t notice that she was in a state of shock.

‘You’ll hardly know I’m around. Where’s your car?’ He shaded his eyes and followed the progress of the Land Rover till it disappeared around the corner by the church. ‘I thought you said there was no transport?’

Dazed, she motioned for him to follow her to the beach. ‘We only use vehicles to collect and return people who have luggage. And to pick up stores,’ she said faintly. Glum-faced, she strode towards the buggy. There wasn’t another boat till the morning, but maybe she could persuade him to take it. ‘I borrow the ATV—the all-terrain vehicle—from the neighbouring flower farm. I bake a cake or two in return. For the rest of the tune, we walk. Adam, I think you’d be better off on Tresco. Or the main island, St Mary’s. Bryher isn’t your sort of place at all, and if you’ve business here you can commute each day—’

‘I have to be on Bryher,’ he said firmly. ‘Wait a minute.’

He dumped his bags and walked to the edge of the water. It lapped at his city loafer-shod feet in gentle, almost imperceptible waves. The narrow and treacherous waters between Bryher and Tresco islands had never seemed so sparkling and clear. The deep turquoise sea was far more beautiful to Trish than anything the Pacific had to offer.

Adam made a leisurely three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn, drinking in the wild and rugged rocks, the unspoilt beach with its specks of mica glinting like metal, and the small green hills. She watched the tension draining from him and found herself smiling. The wind was toying with his hair and he looked very young suddenly, as if the island had already worked its magic on him

‘It’s..’ He held out his hands in a helpless gesture. She waited for his verdict, her breath suspended. ‘Idyllic’

‘Not in winter,’ she countered, yet felt pleased, despite her decision to deter him from staying more than a night. ‘Hell Bay didn’t get its name for its placid nature, you know. We get the full fury of Atlantic gales and mountainous seas. Sometimes we’re trapped on the island because the boats can’t get out—’

‘Are you politely trying to put me off, Trish?’ he asked, a sardonic smile playing about his lips.

She scowled. ‘Put your luggage in the trailer,’ she said sharply. ‘I’m merely setting the record straight. I hate it when visitors come and decide it’s paradise here, on the basis of a few sunny days. To love Bryher, you have to experience the storms, which tear your roof off and hurl seawater and sand over your house and ruin your sprouts! OK, you can laugh, but it’s serious when your fresh veg are spoiled! You need to face the hardship, all the drawbacks—and yet still love it unconditionally.’

‘Like in a marriage.’ He lifted both cases into the back of the ATV.

There had been significance in that remark. She shot him a quick look, trying to judge what he was up to.

‘I imagine you’d know about that,’ she said testily, failing to muster a smile of indifference. ‘After working together for so long, you and Louise must know each other better than most old married couples.’

Adam’s eyes were searching the ground so she couldn’t see his reaction. He bent and picked up a small tower shell and a wentletrap. He spent a while examining the whorls and ridges before slipping the two shells into his suit pocket.

‘I feel out of place, standing here in these clothes,’ he said with a rather forced laugh. ‘Shall we go? I’d like to change into something more suitable.’

Trish hesitated, loath to invite him to ride the buggy with her. He could stand on the bar behind the single seat, but that would mean having his arms around her waist. She swung a jean-clad leg over the saddle, hiding her amusement as he searched in vain for somewhere to sit

‘Right. Follow the track...’ she began.

‘You mean I’m walking?’ he asked in amazement.