hair was so thick and dark now that she could see it properly, the grey among the darkness more noticeable now that it curled down on to his shoulders. His face seemed harsher in profile as he looked out of the window, those incredible-coloured eyes narrowed, his mouth a thin slash of displeasure between clenched jaws.
Some of that displeasure was due, Fin would hazard a guess, to the fact that he was now fully aware of the fool he had made of himself minutes ago, concerning her identity, some of it was due to the colossal hangover he probably now realised he had—and the rest was due to a hard cynicism that certainly hadn’t materialised overnight!
One of his hands still rested on the window-sill when he turned back into the room, challenge in every line of his hard body, cold assessment in his eyes as his gaze raked over her without mercy. ‘Just who are you?’ he repeated his initial question, this time with impatience.
Fin, still squirming from the impact of that harsh scrutiny, felt as if he had looked at her, from the top of her bright red curls, her heart-shaped face with its liberal smattering of freckles, down over the slenderness of her body in the T-shirt and denims—and found her wanting. God, she didn’t just feel as if he had, she knew damn well that he had!
She straightened, drawing herself up to her full five feet in height, moving forward slightly to hold out her hand in formal greeting. ‘Fin McKenzie,’ she introduced herself. ‘And this is Ella Morgan, one of my assistants.’
He made no effort to take the proffered hand, his gaze moving sharply to Ella as she stepped reluctantly away from the doorway. ‘And what does she assist you at?’ he drawled disparagingly, making no effort to give her his own name either.
He thought they were the intruders! No, he didn’t; Fin immediately rejected that idea: intruders would hardly have gone to the trouble of waking him up in the way they had. He was deliberately trying to make them feel uncomfortable because of his own earlier embarrassment.
Well, Fin, for one, didn’t feel in the least at a disadvantage. She knew she had a perfect right to be here, and she wanted an explanation as to why he was here. ‘I believe we are the ones who should be asking the questions, Mr …?’ She paused pointedly, but once again he chose to ignore her prompting to give his own name, meeting her gaze coolly, one brow raised in calm challenge. ‘We’re contracted to keep watch on the cottage whenever Gail is—– She didn’t tell us you were going to be here,’ Fin added stubbornly, refusing to be the one put in a position of explaining herself.
He shrugged unconcernedly, crossing his arms in front of his bared chest, a plain gold watch on the wrist of his left arm. ‘That’s OK; she didn’t tell me about you either!’
Impasse, Fin realised frustratedly. What should she do now? As far as she was aware, the man had done nothing but get drunk, very drunk, and fall asleep in Gail’s bed—without Gail. Naked. Fin mustn’t forget that, couldn’t forget it. Even now, with the denims resting low down on his hips to cover most of his nakedness, the tanned hardness of his chest caused her pulse to give a leap!
And there was still that disturbing feeling she had that she knew this man. While he was standing up like this, his very size dominating the small confines of the room, that feeling was all the stronger. But she had been so young that she couldn’t remember exactly …
‘I’ll get in touch with Gail and have her call you,’ he added with arrogant dismissal.
You may go now, Miss Whatever-your-name-is, Fin realised resentfully. He certainly had the damned arrogance of—– ‘I shall be telephoning her myself, Mr …?’ Once again she paused, and this time the determination in her face brooked no argument; she would at least know his name before she agreed to leave.
‘Danvers,’ he came back smoothly. Too smoothly? Had he taken those few minutes’ respite to give himself time to think of another identity for himself that would protect his anonymity …? ‘Jac—Jake Danvers,’ he added more confidently.
But Fin had noted the slip, couldn’t help wondering if it really was significant or if she was just imagining things where there was nothing. But there had been that ‘Jac’, and, although the name was different, the initials were the same, J.D. …
She nodded abruptly, frowning, deeply disturbed. ‘We’ll leave you in peace now, Mr Danvers.’ She gave a strained smile. ‘If you should need to contact us, we’re in the book,’ she offered with a politeness she was far from feeling. But if he really was a friend of Gail’s …
‘Under Little People,’ he acknowledged drily, the humour evident in his voice not reaching the coldness of his eyes.
‘Under Little People,’ she confirmed tersely, deciding then and there that she would try to contact Gail herself as soon as she got back to the office. The sooner the puzzle over this man’s identity was cleared up, the better it would be for everyone.
Not least Fin’s mother …
‘… JUST thought I should let you know, so that there’s no confusion, that my uncle will be staying at the cottage for a while,’ the recorded message told Fin dismissively. ‘He’s pretty capable of looking after himself, so I don’t think you’ll need to go to the cottage again until after he’s left,’ Gail added hastily. ‘But if you could just keep a distant eye on him …?’
Fin switched the machine off as she realised that was the end of the message. The ‘confusion’ had already occurred. And Fin would hazard a guess on the reason Gail had asked for a ‘distant’ eye to be kept on Jake Danvers—that she was well aware of the fact that he wouldn’t welcome any intrusion into his privacy!
She had tried to contact the other woman, once she’d got back to the office, at the telephone number she had for her in London, but there had been no reply. Gail was an actress, had been playing in a supporting role in one of London’s longest-running plays for the last nine months, and so at the moment she found it easier to stay in town during the week, and usually only managed to get down to the cottage on a Sunday overnight, hence her need for Fin to keep an eye on the cottage while she was away. Fin could only assume that the other woman was either sleeping at the moment after a late night at the theatre the night before, or else she was actually out; either way, Fin hadn’t actually been able to talk to her personally yet. What she had found, when she’d decided to leave calling Gail again until later in the day and got down to listening to the rest of her overnight messages, was that one of them was from Gail herself!
It didn’t bother Fin that the check on the cottage was no longer necessary at the moment; they had always had a flexible arrangement on that—no doubt when Gail was ‘resting’ once again she would move back to the cottage permanently anyway. But uncle? It wasn’t exactly that Fin doubted the other woman’s word, it was just—well, Gail was a tall, leggy blonde with an effervescent personality, none of which, except perhaps the height, bore any resemblance to the taciturn man Fin had encountered at the cottage earlier. The facial characteristics of the two were dissimilar too, Gail’s eyes a deep, deep brown, her complexion fair, her mouth wide and smiling. But if Jake Danvers wasn’t really Gail’s uncle, then what was he? What, indeed …?
It was really none of her business, Fin supposed ruefully; Gail was twenty-five, old enough to know exactly what she was doing. And take the consequences for it!
Nevertheless, Fin’s own curiosity about Jake Danvers continued, and she
