Sophie Weston - Catching Katie

The dog backed off and began to charge the wall. He gave the impression, thought Katie sourly, that he had not had a game like this in months. The tree swayed further.

‘Shut up, you stupid animal,’ she yelled.

Peering through the branches, she tried to quell the dog with a basilisk glare. It was a bad mistake. The ground was much too far away. Her branch dipped towards it.

‘Stay-calm,’ she told herself. Her shaky tone belied the heartening words.

The dog thudded rhythmically against the wall. The tree creaked. Katie gave a squeak of pure terror and shut her eyes.

Haydon gave up the unequal struggle. He opened his eyes. Something was pounding in his head. He should not have let himself fall asleep in the chair like that. At least, not on an empty stomach and a week’s jet lag, he thought muzzily. He could feel the beginnings of one of his infrequent but devastating migraines.

He regarded the extravagance of early summer with blurred indignation. The garden was deserted. In the windless air, the branches were still. A few early bees buzzed. The guard dog his insurance company insisted on was chasing one along the wall. But that was all.

Or was it? He stood up, rather unsteadily, and went to the summerhouse entrance. Bracing himself against the lintel, he tried to focus.

The Great Dane was flinging itself up the wall, barking. Either the target bee had no sense of self-preservation at all or something strange was happening. Haydon’s eyes narrowed. Yes, there was definitely something wrong with the lilac tree next door. In spite of the windless day its blossoms were waving wildly.

Haydon was a scientist. It cost him a wince, but he swung round to check the apple trees, just to be certain. He liked to be in control of his facts. Yes, he was right, the branches of his own trees were as still as stone. So there had to be someone in that lilac tree.

Haydon came suddenly and sharply alert. He forgot his incipient migraine. He stood very still, listening.

Was it her imagination or was the tree beginning to tilt into the wall? Katie opened her eyes and scanned the neighbouring garden feverishly. The bully might have gone about his business, the millionaire might be away—she prayed that he was—but was there not supposed to be a couple who looked after him? What she needed here was a friendly man with a long ladder. If—

The tree definitely lurched. Katie stopped thinking.

‘Help!’ she yelled.

The sound sliced through his brain. Haydon swung back to the tree. He was suddenly, blindingly angry. He began to run.

Katie was clinging like a monkey to the wildly dipping branch. Her foothold had gone; the dog was hitting the garden wall with the regular thump of a pile-driver; she felt sick.

And then, out of nowhere, a furious voice shouted. It was shockingly close. And everything seemed to go into slow motion.

The branch touched the ground. Her grazed hands began to slip. Katie flung her weight forward desperately. But it was too late. With what seemed to her incredible slowness, the branch splintered. It broke.

Katie hurtled to the ground. On the wrong side of the wall.

Frantically, she tried to remember from long-ago gymnastics classes the best way to fall. Don’t brace yourself. Was that it? And roll when you hit the ground.

So Katie was rapidly turning herself limp as a rag doll when she received another, deeper shock. A pair of muscular hands took her round the waist as she whooshed past. And then there were two of them rolling as they hit the ground.

Katie forgot all about gymnastics classes and trying to minimise the physical damage. She yelled like a banshee.

Her captor brought their headlong tumble to an abrupt halt.

‘This,’ he said in tones of barely controlled fury, ‘is too much.’

For a moment Katie found herself on top of a deeply rising chest, staring down into the bluest eyes she had ever seen. The bluest and the most coldly angry. Then he gave a lithe twist and she was underneath him. For a shattering moment Katie breathed in the hot scent of his skin. Then his head blotted out the sun.

As a kiss, it was more like a declaration of war.

‘No,’ said Katie.

Or at least that was what she tried to say. It did not come out quite like that. To her fury it sounded, even to herself, like a groan of surrender.

Her tee shirt had rucked under her as she landed. Now one hand found her naked skin. Normally just the touch of alien fingers on her waist would have had Katie cold with horror. But she was beyond thinking about her normal reactions. And she was certainly not cold.

She felt his hand splay out against her spine: hot as fire, strong as steel. Then he was lifting her effortlessly against him. He was not brutal. But the sheer power of the movement made her tremble. Not with fear.

She groaned again. It did not sound like a protest this time either.

The man’s mouth lifted. Katie knew vaguely that she ought to wrestle her way out of his arms. Get to her feet. Escape.

She did not move.

It was as if the unaccustomed hand on her skin had scrambled her brains. She was all sensation. Hot and cold and utterly bewildered. With a little sigh her head fell back.

Haydon stared down at his captive. He was shocked at the primitive fury that had shaken him. Even more shocked at the no less primitive feelings that had succeeded it. They surged through him now. The girl was not even trying to get away. Suddenly he wanted—oh, God, he wanted. . .

Katie felt oddly remote. She was helpless to resist the magnetisation of her senses and she knew it. It gave her a pleasant sense of irresponsibility. She lay there, delighting in it, every nerve quickened in expectation. Her eyes drifted shut, her lips parted—

Haydon hauled himself off her and stood up in one furious leap.

Katie’s eyes flew open in shock. The tall figure was blocking the sun, hands on hips. Against the glare of the summer sky, his face was in shadow. But there was no doubt of his feelings as he looked down on her. He was incandescent with rage. Her remoteness evaporated. She came back to the present with a bump.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ His voice was harsh with strain and he flexed his hands as if he did not know what to do with them.

Katie hardly noticed. She was too shocked. Coming back to the present was like walking into a cold shower. Instinctively her hand went to her midriff and encountered bare flesh.

For a moment she was absolutely still with horror. Her tee shirt was tangled under her armpits. He would have seen. He had to have seen.

Distress held her immobile for a moment. Then she gave a little sob and jack-knifed upright. She was shaking so much she had trouble hauling her tee shirt back into place.

The man said nothing. That made it worse. She bent her head so she did not have to see the disgust in his eyes.

But disgust did not seem to be uppermost in his mind. He was ferociously angry. More than angry.

‘Nice try.’ He flung at her. The irony was biting.

Katie was bewildered. So bewildered she almost forgot her distress.

‘What?’

Haydon was bringing himself under control. He was still furious but it was a colder, more deliberate fury.

‘Diversionary tactics,’ he said. ‘Brilliant.’

‘Diversionary—?’

Katie was so confused she forgot she was not going to look him in the face. She tilted her head, shading her eyes against the sun.

He hunkered down beside her as if they were having a friendly conversation.

‘I’ve met some skilled operators in my time. But you are up there with best,’ he told her pleasantly.

Katie shivered. She did not like his tone.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

And he was much, much too close. She leaned away from him as far as she could. She winced. The sun was beginning to make her eyes water.