take him to redecorate the hall, stairs and landing. Fliss knew a momentary—and totally unjustified—feeling of alienation at being cut out of the process. Matt had said nothing about his plans to her, and she consoled herself with the thought that he’d very likely find the pompous Mr Freeman rather hard to take.
However, she said nothing, getting on with her work as usual, and on Thursday morning it was Matt who came looking for her. She was cleaning out one of the store cupboards in the kitchen when his lean dark frame appeared in the doorway, and she was instantly conscious of him in every fibre of her being.
Fliss was standing on the top of the steps that had been rusting in the garden shed since old Colonel Phillips’s time, and she was unhappily aware of her bare legs below the cuffs of her khaki shorts.
It was ironic really, because for most of the week she’d sweated in her jeans and T-shirt. But today it was so hot, she’d decided to go with a sleeveless vest and shorts. It wasn’t as if Matt noticed what she was wearing, she’d assured herself. Most of the time, he barely seemed to notice she was there.
Except for that first morning…
But she didn’t want to think of that now, not when Matt was standing staring up at her with those dark, inscrutable eyes. He was wearing loose-fitting cotton trousers and an open-necked chambray shirt folded back over muscular forearms. Both the trousers and the shirt were black and accentuated the sombre cast of his expression.
‘D’you have a minute?’ he asked, and she wondered with an uneasy pang if he was going to give her notice. Finding out that her father wrote a column for the weekly newspaper had definitely angered him. It was only because he’d developed those muscular pains in his back and shoulders that the subject had been dropped.
The fact that that was several days ago now didn’t reassure her. He had been avoiding her, and he might have thought he had to let her work a week before finding fault with her efforts. Whatever, he was waiting for her to get down before telling her what he wanted, and, dropping the cloth she’d been using into the bucket, she turned, her foot groping blindly for the second stair.
The sudden crack as the support that had been holding the steps together snapped sounded like a gunshot in the quiet room. Almost in slow motion, it seemed, the two sides of the steps parted company, sliding away in opposite directions, leaving Fliss to flail uselessly for something to hold on to.
She was going to fall onto the steps, she knew. She couldn’t avoid it. A vision of herself hitting the floor, of her limbs crumpling onto broken ribs and bare metal was all too vivid in her imagination, and there was nothing she could do about it.
It didn’t happen. Somehow, Matt managed to grab her around the waist and haul her back out of harm’s way. For a heart-stopping moment she was in his arms, the hard muscles of his chest and thighs pressed close to her back. Then he lost his balance and they both went down, Fliss landing heavily on top of him.
He grunted as her weight knocked most of the air out of his lungs, but for a moment Fliss couldn’t move. She was so relieved that she’d escaped serious injury, that she wasn’t nursing any broken bones, that it wasn’t until she heard his stifled groan that she scrambled off him.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she cried, only just resisting the urge to run her hands all over him. Just to reassure herself that he was still in one piece, she told herself fiercely, ignoring the other urges his supine form engendered in her. ‘I’m such a fool. I should have had more sense than to use those old steps!’
Matt shifted a little uneasily, as if testing his own resistance to injury, and said weakly, ‘It’s not your fault. You didn’t know they were going to break at that moment. Where the hell did you get them, anyway?’
Fliss pulled a wry face. ‘From the shed.’
‘Whose shed?’
‘Colonel Phill—I mean, yours,’ she amended lamely. ‘They’ve been there for years.’
‘I believe it.’ He managed to get an elbow under his body and levered himself up onto it. ‘I guess I need some new ones.’
Fliss sat back on her heels. ‘I suppose you do.’ She bit her lip. ‘Are you all right? I haven’t—damaged anything, have I?’
Matt’s lips twitched with reluctant humour. ‘Well, you’re not as light as you look,’ he conceded mildly, and faint colour entered her cheeks. He winced as he moved again. ‘I may have need of your other services, however.’
Fliss blinked. ‘My other services?’ she echoed, not understanding what he meant for a moment. ‘What other services?’
Matt gave her a dry look. ‘What are you offering?’
Fliss swallowed. ‘I don’t know what—’
‘Physiotherapy?’ suggested Matt innocently, though his eyes were giving her a decidedly sensual appraisal. ‘I’m afraid I’m not in the market for anything else at present.’
‘Oh!’ Fliss’s face burned. ‘I wasn’t—I mean I never thought—’
‘No.’ His gaze had dropped to her mouth and she felt a flame ignite deep down in the pit of her stomach. ‘I know that. I was only kidding.’
He didn’t look as if he’d been kidding, she thought, knowing she should scramble out of reach before this situation got any more embarrassing. She wasn’t used to this. She wasn’t used to dealing with a man as sophisticated as he was, and if she wanted to save herself further humiliation she should move before he realised it.
Getting hurriedly to her feet, she said awkwardly, ‘Do you need help getting up?’
‘Do I look as if I do?’ Matt pushed himself into a sitting position and seemed to be assessing his injuries. ‘Yeah, why not?’
He held out his hand towards her and Fliss had no choice than to take it. His fingers were long and hard, his palm slightly callused—possibly the result of his incarceration. She’d read somewhere that he’d been kept in a cell barely big enough to lie down in, and she doubted he’d slept in a bed. God knew how he had kept himself sane, let alone anything else.
His hand fairly engulfed hers and she hoped he wouldn’t notice how damp her skin was. Well, she had been using a wet cloth, she assured herself, hoping he’d put her sweating palm down to her exertions. But, looking into his knowing eyes, she rather doubted it.
She heaved then, stepping back as she did so, and with very little effort, it seemed, Matt came to his feet. He grunted, which might have been in protest, and clutched her other arm as he gained his balance.
‘Thanks,’ he said, his warm breath invading her mouth and nostrils, making what should have been a casual act of kindness into something personal and intimate. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Me?’ The word was hardly more than a squeak and she struggled to recover her voice. ‘Yes,’ she said, intensely aware of his hand gripping her bare forearm. ‘You—er—you cushioned my fall.’
‘Oh, right.’ Humour lurked at the corners of his mouth, but for some reason he didn’t immediately let go of her. ‘I knew it was only a matter of time before somebody used me as a doormat.’
‘I didn’t—’ she began and then broke off abruptly, pressing
