Unknown (13 page)

'Prentice. . .'

'What?' He leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose.

'I don't think…'

'You don't think what?' His lips touched first one cheek and then the other. Dani pressed herself further back against the work surface and felt it digging into her flesh.

'I think maybe you should go home,' she said, as firmly as she could.

'Go home?' One of the well-defined black eyebrows slid upwards in mocking surprise. 'The evening's only just beginning. Oh,' he smiled knowledgeably, 'is this the standard protest you feel you have to make? Would you like to be persuaded? All right.'

'Prentice!' This time there was a definite warning in her voice, but he only laughed and closed the small gap between them, pressing his body hard against hers and finding her mouth with his own with arrogant ease.

Prentice! She screamed the word inside her head, but her mouth opened under the pressure of his in docile acknowledgement of his superior strength, and her arms encircled his shoulders, ignoring the warnings inside her mind.

Prentice. She said his name again, but this time with an agony of longing waking inside her. He was fire and flame and she was going to get burned if she was not careful.

Careful? How could she be careful with this man claiming her mouth, her body and her heart? How could she be careful when she ached to answer the unspoken passion that was now flaring between them, making her feel hot and
co
ld at the same time.

'No!' She levered her hands between them and turned her face suddenly to one side so that his lips grazed along her jaw. 'Stop it!' She pushed against him with all her strength, feeling the thud of his heartbeat under her hand.

'What's the matter now?' His jade eyes scanned her face, as if he wanted to reach inside her mind and read her thoughts. 'You're behaving like a blushing virgin, and we both know you aren't that.'

'Just what does the fact that I'm divorced, . .' She flung the word at him defiantly. '. . . have to do with this?'

For a second she thought he hesitated, and the thump of his heart against her palm seemed to echo her own as she struggled to regain her composure. He was like a chameleon, seeming to be able to change his colours to suit the circumstances in which he found himself. Polite and formal with people he did not know, delightfully casual with people he was at ease with, devastatingly attractive to her, and now another facet of his personality was emerging. Prentice the lover. Prentice who wanted something that she knew she did not want to give. At least, not yet, and not like this. She hated the smile of anticipation that she saw on his face, as if he was just waiting for her token protest to slide into capitulation.

'Get out of here!' She was surprised at the anger in her own voice, but anything was better than betraying the hurt she felt inside her. Did she really give the impression that she would go to bed with him at his first suggestion? Did he really believe that of her?

'Temper, temper!' Now he was mocking her, and that smile was twisting wryly. 'You're nearly as bad as me.'

'Only where you're concerned.' It was true. She was an equable person and she knew it. The girl who had pushed him into a duckpond and aroused his anger so many times was not the real Dani Robertson. Yet he was banking the fires of her fury once again with the way he raised one devil's eyebrow, and she had to restrain the impulse to lash out at him, to hurt him as much as he was hurting her, to report to physical violence before she broke down and cried in his arms.

For once his own temper appeared to be under total control. He looked almost amused as she ran her fingers through her hair distractedly and restrained an impulse to stamp her foot, but she kept her other hand firmly on his chest to try to stop another unwanted kiss, and his heart was still pounding. On the surface he seemed calm, but she was aware that this was a subterfuge. Inside he was not as relaxed as he appeared to be.

'Please go away,' she said calmly, clutching the last remnants of her self-control and holding on desperately. 'I don't—I didn't...'

'You didn't what?'

'I invited you in here for a cup of coffee,' she said flatly. 'Just that. If you thought something else, then I'm sorry, but you were wrong.' Grave-faced she watched him steadily, not realising how vulnerable she looked with her hair ruffled and her eyes huge in her pale face.

'What else is a man to think?' He shrugged but let his hands fall to his sides, releasing her from her trap. 'There's that picture downstairs in Brian's studio lying around for anyone to see. Will it be displayed in some
gallery somewhere? Damn it, Dani!' For the first time he began to let his awesome temper have freer rein. 'Any man who looks at it will know exactly where you have a birthmark!' She had no birthmark. Tricia, Brian's girlfriend, did. 'If you're willing to let Brian paint you like that, why shouldn't. . .'

'Prentice, please!' A niggling pain was beginning to make itself felt above her left eye. It would only take a few words to dispel this particular argument of his, but that small streak of stubbornness inside Dani—the same small streak that had made her refuse to listen to her parents when they had tried to persuade her not to marry in such a rush—refused to let her tell the truth.

'Dani,' his voice softened dramatically and became silky and tender, 'come here.'

She was confused by the sudden change of mood and she tilted her head to one side as she stared at him, wondering whether he was sorry for what he had said or whether this was just another attempt to get his own way. She tried to equate Prentice McCulloch with the gentleness of seduction and failed, sensing rather than knowing that his mood had not really changed.

'No thanks,' she said quietly, and the harsh kitchen light reflected sparks of fire in his hair that matched the glint in his eyes. His mouth curved into a smile.

'Whatever you say.' The words were matched by an elaborate shrug. 'It seems I had the wrong idea.'

'You did,' she agreed woodenly, and she wondered tiredly why she suddenly felt cold and sick inside. She just had not expected this from him. Somehow she had thought he might be different. But no, it seemed that he was not, and it brought back memories of other men who had, through the years, thought that because she was divorced she would be only too happy to go to bed with them after an evening out.

'You're a puzzle, Dani Robertson.' Before she could move, his hand reached out and his fingers trailed a line from her ear around to her throat. 'I've never met anyone quite like you.' Had he really never met a woman who had said no to him before? Dani smiled and the fingers that caressed her throat moved a little lower. 'I wish you'd never married him.' The words were a quiet admission of defeat. 'Why couldn't you have made it work? Or why couldn't you have waited . . .'

'Prentice . . .' She could feel her defences crumbling as she looked into his face and she ached to touch it and ease the frowning uncertainty she saw there. 'This is just no good. I cannot help what's happened in the past, and every time I see you, you can't forget it either. Why don't. . .'

' . . . why don't I just go away and forget all about you?' He swung away from her and she heard the quiet laugh that had no humour in it. 'I've tried. I know you're divorced. I've seen that picture downstairs and I've walked into Brian's flat and seen you sitting on his bed with your shoes off and his jacket around you.' The words that he uttered seemed to make his temper flare again. 'What the hell does my brother mean to you?'

He still would not look at her, but the implication was obvious. Dani felt herself going rigid with anger as she wondered just how long that particular question had been in his mind.

'Brian is a friend,' she said evenly. 'He just happens to be my landlord, too, but that's all.'

'Women like you don't have friends like that.' The . sea-green eyes were furious and from the harsh tone of his voice Dani knew that his unpredictable temper was threatening to blow up again. Only this time it would be matched by her own.

'Get out of here!' She spoke the words between her teeth. 'Get out of my life and stay out! I'm tired of being accused. If you really think that, then what are you doing here?'

Unshed tears were burning at the back of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. Her hands sought the comforting strength of the work top behind her, and she struggled against unleashing any more words. She had told him the truth and he would not, or could not, believe her.

'Please go away.' She sensed that her defeat matched his own. He still would not turn and look at her, and his head was bent as he seemed to be inspecting the toaster that stood on the work surface on the other side of the kitchen.

'All right.' He turned back suddenly and, as she watched nervously, he ran his hand over his face. 'You win.'

'It isn't a question of winning or losing.'

'Isn't it?' He smiled grimly. 'I rather thought it was. I keep thinking I've got a winning trick and you keep trumping my ace.'

Dani had played enough whist to appreciate the simile. He had thought she would go to bed with him, probably relying on his dislike of divorced women to lull him into a belief that he could win her over, and she had foiled him with her obvious and genuine anger.

'I'm sorry you feel like that.' If he thought she had won some kind of victory, then she could afford to be generous. And she did feel sorry; for both of them.

'Oh, you don't have to be.' A crooked, rather endearing little smile crossed his face. 'It's my fault. I should never have underestimated you.' Once again he came closer and Dani resisted the impulse to move away. 'You're very beautiful.' He reached for her hand and lifted it. 'Beautiful and maddening.' He raised her hand to his lips and Dani caught her breath as, slowly and deliberately, he kissed each one of her fingers. 'One day, Dani-girl . . .' It was only later that she realised he had used Brian's affectionate name for her.'. . . maybe you and I will be able to say goodnight without shouting at one another.'

He was changing yet again! His voice had dropped to a low whisper and the jade eyes were soft as he combed his fingers through her short hair and then cupped the back of her head with his hand and drew her towards him.

Dani could not resist the lure of the gentleness, and as their bodies fitted tightly together, like a latch dropping into place, his mouth met hers and promised her so much if only she would change her mind. She sighed and swayed toward him and heard the chuckle of laughter deep in his throat, but nothing mattered then but the kiss and his arms around her. Dani closed her eyes.

Later, much later, as she sat in her window-seat in the darkness of her room and watched the rain beating down against the cold glass, she wondered how arid why she had still managed to resist him.

Idly she let her finger follow the pattern of one particular raindrop as it weaved an unsteady path towards the window sill, but her mind still saw his face, and the enigmatic expression that had crossed it when she had once more, firmly, told him to go. This time he had accepted what she said and had left almost immediately, and in the hour that had followed, Dani had alternately congratulated herself on her strength of will, and cursed herself for not giving in.

In his arms she had felt alive. His own strength and vibrancy had been like a jolt of electricity, stunning her and vitalising her at the same time. She had felt so safe, cocooned and protected from the world, and yet desire had been there, too. She had wanted him, her body had cried out for him, and yet her brain had overridden it all.

If there had been love . . . Dani sighed and watched her raindrop roll out of sight. Oh yes, if there had been love it might have been very different. Was that why she had finally held back?

Another drop of rain captured her attention and she watched it with curious detachment remembering how, as children, she and Marina had both chosen a raindrop and had raced them down the window. Life had been simple then.

Dani turned her head slightly and her attention was caught by an orange flicker. She stared hard, but it was gone before she could focus her tired eyes on it properly. Perhaps it had been the winking of a car's indicator as it turned on to the Sudbury road. No, there it was again! Dani frowned, narrowing her eyes to try to sharpen her vision, and the orange flicker suddenly became a flame.

Fire! Even as the word crossed Dani's mind, and her brain clicked into gear to register the place where the flame was coming from, Dani was getting to her feet. It was the school, her school, and it was burning.

There was no time for coherent thought. The old school was important to her and it had to be saved. Dani raced for the telephone, still seeing that flame in her mind's eye, and rang the fire brigade. She gave them the details while pulling out the flat running shoes that she used for jogging, and as soon as she put the receiver down again, she opened her front door and plummeted down the stairs, jumping two or three at a time and bringing her heart into her mouth when her foot slipped on the wet wood halfway down.

The pavements were glassy with water from the sudden heavy shower of rain, but Dani ran through the puddles as if they did not exist while her mind checked over the facts and tried to sort out what to do.

Mrs Rowett had to be her first priority. The head teacher of the school lived in a small cottage attached to the actual building. Perhaps she had already been alerted by Rusty, her bright-eyed collie who was the darling of the children, but on the other hand the fire might have started inside the cottage itself. Dani increased her pace, trying to lengthen her stride and grateful for the slight downhill gradient that aided her speed as she pounded over the concrete slabs.

The school was well set back from the main road and the houses and shops that lined the street along which Dani was running impeded her view. It was only when, gasping and sobbing for breath, she caught hold of the pillar that supported the open gate leading to the school and used it to stop her headlong flight and swing into the drive, that she saw the flames again.