too heavy for you. Besides, the miserable, misbegotten hound is quite capable of walking under his own steam.’
To demonstrate this he placed the animal on the floor. ‘I just didn’t want to risk him sloping off again and killing some poor unsuspecting motorist.’ He pointedly snapped shut the door behind him.
‘Oh!’ Tess’s anxiety retreated slightly as Baggins began to behave like the puppy he no longer was. ‘I fixed the fence, only he’s started burrowing under it. You hit him with that flashy car of yours, I suppose?’ Her full lips pursed in disapproval.
‘Barely.’ He noticed that Tess’s narrow feet were bare too. Like the rest of her they were small, and though she was skinny it wasn’t a matchstick, angular sort of skinniness, more a pleasing, rounded, supple svelteness…all over.
Rafe was unprepared for the mental postscript, only once the thought was out there it seemed natural to speculate on what was underneath the skimpy shirt thing. He cleared his throat and managed to drag his wayward thoughts to a slightly less tacky level—it wasn’t thinking about sex that bothered him, it was thinking about sex and Tess simultaneously!
‘Spare me chapter and verse on your lightning reflexes…please.’
Rafe, who was working up a cold sweat getting other reflexes under control, smiled grimly, displaying a set of perfect white teeth. ‘Your gratitude for my sacrifice is duly noted.’
‘What sacrifice?’
‘One smashed headlight, and, yes, thanks for your concern, I did escape uninjured.’ Testosterone surge firmly in check, Rafe found to his intense relief he could look her in the eye and see Tess, his friend, not Tess, a woman. It was a well-known fact that rejection could make a man act and think weird.
‘I can see that for myself.’
‘Why am I getting the distinct impression you’d have preferred it if I was sporting the odd broken bone or three?’ he mused wryly. ‘If this is the sort of welcome your guests usually receive, I’m surprised you get any.’
‘I might be happier if I didn’t,’ she snarled.
‘Thinking of becoming a recluse, are we?’
‘You may be lord of the manor and the product of generations of in-breeding, but isn’t the royal we a bit over the top, even for you?’
‘I wasn’t actually referring to myself.’ He flexed his shoulders and rotated his head slowly to ease the tension in his neck. ‘But what’s a bit of poetic licence between friends?’ Another shrug. ‘And that was a great line.’
This drew a rueful laugh from Tess. ‘It was, wasn’t it?’
‘Before you fling any more stones, try and remember, angel, that beneath this strong, manly inbred exterior there lurks a sensitive soul.’ He took Tess’s hand and planted it with a slap against his chest. ‘See, I’m flesh and blood.’
Tess couldn’t feel any evidence of a soul, but she could feel his body heat and the slow, steady beat of his heart. She stared at her own fingers splayed out against his shirt for what seemed like a long time; it was a strangely enervating experience to stand there like that. The distant buzzing in her head got closer. Feeling slightly dizzy, even a little confused, she lifted her eyes to his face…it swam dizzily out of focus.
Rafe looked down into her wide-spaced jewel-bright eyes and he hastily removed his fingers from around her wrist. Her hand fell bonelessly to her side.
He cleared his throat. ‘And, incidentally, you may not be aware of the difference, but there is a big one between class and flash.’
‘Toys for boys.’ I really should have eaten something, she decided, lifting a worried hand to her gently spinning head.
‘Insult my car, insult me.’
She gave a relieved sigh and grinned; she was no longer seeing him through soft focus. ‘I’d prefer to insult you.’
‘I thought you were.’
Tess gave a concessionary shrug—he was actually taking her nastiness pretty well, which made her feel even more guilty than she already did. She knew perfectly well that it was Chloe she wanted to yell at…only she wasn’t here and Rafe was…Just as well he had a broad back—very broad, as it happened, she mused, her eyes sliding briefly to the impressive muscular solidity of his powerful shoulders. Her empty stomach squirmed uncomfortably.
‘Well, Baggins doesn’t seem to be holding a grudge,’ she admitted. The undiscriminating animal’s juvenile performance was obviously for Rafe’s benefit, not her own. ‘You naughty, naughty boy,’ she clucked lovingly.
Rafe didn’t make the mistake of thinking her affectionate scolding was meant for him. ‘You always did have a novel approach to discipline, Tess,’ he observed drily.
Tess sniffed. ‘I’m glad I’m not a blustering bully,’ she retaliated. ‘I saw you being incredibly horrid to that poor man last night.’
‘I thought you didn’t have a telly. Not in keeping with your green, eco-friendly, lentil-eating, brown-rice lifestyle…?’
His amused scorn really got under her skin. How dared he look down his autocratic nose at her? It obviously hadn’t occurred to him that she might actually miss the odd trip to a concert or the theatre that had once been an important part of her life.
‘Gran didn’t have a telly, I have a small portable, and just because I grow vegetables I resent the implication I’ve turned into one,’ she told him tartly. ‘Besides, you’ve room to talk. At least when I do things it’s out of personal conviction.’ Or in this case a desire to cut down on the grocery bill—fresh organic vegetables cost the earth to buy!
‘Meaning I don’t…?’
‘Well, you didn’t show much interest in saving the planet before Nicola.’ Nicola, the environmental activist, had been one of Rafe’s first serious girlfriends. Along with strong convictions Nicola had possessed—in common with all the girlfriends who had followed her—endless legs, a great body and long, flowing blonde hair. ‘You haven’t forgotten her, have you?’
Nicola had been a long time ago and in point of fact his recall was a little hazy.
‘A man doesn’t forget a girl like Nicola.’ He gave a lecherous grin just in case she’d missed the point—Tess hadn’t.
‘That girl had boundless enthusiasm.’
Not to mention a D cup had she chosen to wear a bra, Tess recalled cynically. ‘Some might call it fanaticism.’
She was distracted from her theme when at that moment Baggins’ tail caught a pile of plates and sent the top one spinning towards the floor. Rafe neatly caught it just before impact.
‘This dog’s a liability,’ he grunted.
‘Insult me, insult my dog,’ she responded, mimicking his earlier retort. ‘Perhaps,’ she fretted anxiously, ‘I should call the vet just to be absolutely sure…?’ She ran an exploratory hand over the dog’s back.
‘If he was a horse he’d
