hadn't drawn a breath since the moment Rand had burst in with her cases. No man had ever had this effect on her, and she found the feeling very disquietening. She didn't go around thrusting her body at men she had just met either. But then, she had never wanted a man like this before! Something was definitely making her act out of character, because she came from a family that masked their emotions, that didn't make any overt shows of feeling. Thrusting herself at Rand had been positively blatant!
The hot shower she took soothed the chill from her bones, it also stopped her teeth from chattering, what it didn't do was dampen that inner heat she had known from the moment she set eyes on Rand, as if her body knew and recognised him.
It was so ridiculous, had to be part of some sort of fever. For the first time in her life she wished flu on herself— she certainly couldn't actually want to make love with a complete stranger.
Pointedly keeping her gaze averted from the bed that had given her such erotic thoughts a few minutes ago, she gratefully pulled on dry denims and a warm jumper, although in the centrally-heated house the latter would probably be too hot once she was thoroughly rid of the chill that still racked her body. Her hair was already part-way dry, and she brushed it loosely down her back, ruefully accepting that it would become a mass of thick curls without the use of her hair-dryer to style it. In a profession where appearances often counted for everything, she had forgotten the last time her hair had been allowed to dry in this wild way. Oh well, what was the point in worrying about that now, when there wasn't a thing she could do about it? And she couldn't possibly look any worse than she had when she arrived!
The door to the bedroom opposite hers stood open now and, her curiosity piqued, Merlyn couldn't resist a glance inside. Like the rest of the house it was a splendidly furnished room, very masculine, and obviously belonged to her reluctant host, the huge bed easily able to accommodate his large frame, the peach and brown decor warm but lacking any femininity. It was a man's room, and—–
Merlyn felt as if the breath had been knocked from her body as she stared at the photograph on the table beside the bed. It was of a beautiful, dark-haired woman with laughing blue eyes, love glowing in those eyes for the person on the other side of the camera.
Merlyn was drawn like a magnet to the inscription in the bottom right-hand corner of the photograph. ‘Darling, I love you'. It didn't say who darling was, but because it was Rand's bedroom it had to be him, there was no signature to the declaration, but there didn't need to be one; no one who had lived in England the last ten years could help but know the woman who had dominated both British screen and theatre for that time. Suzie Forrester …
He had said his name was Rand, but—Brandon? Was that man downstairs Brandon Carmichael, Suzie's husband?
It wasn't surprising Merlyn hadn't recognised him, the only photographs she had seen of him had him dressed like the millionaire businessman that he was; the man downstairs wore faded and old clothes, and he didn't look as if he had shaved or had his hair cut for years. Years? Two years? Since the death of his wife …
Suzie Forrester's illness and then tragic death had been a blow to everyone who had ever seen her act, but to her husband of eight years it had been a loss from which he was reported never to have recovered.
He was never going to believe that Merlyn's arrival here had been accidental. He was going to think the whole thing had been staged so that she could meet him!
SHE looked at her host with new eyes when she joined him in the lounge, able to see some remnants of styling left in the overlong dark hair, also able to see the grey among the black on closer inspection. She knew Brandon Carmichael, or Rand Carmichael as he seemed to prefer to be known by those he chose to admit into the intimacy of his friendship—and after the way she had blundered in here she doubted she would ever be admitted into that small circle—was thirty-nine years old and, despite the youthfully overlong hair and the lean muscularity of his body, he looked it!
He was watching her in return, those silver eyes narrowed speculatively as she eyed him nervously. ‘You'll want to telephone the hotel,’ he spoke with sudden impatience.
‘Will I?’ She blinked cat-like eyes, wondering where all her confidence had gone when she needed it so desperately. ‘I mean, I will. Of course I will,’ she dismissed, irritated with herself for acting like a bumbling idiot. ‘Anne will be worried about me.'
Those silver eyes glinted warily now. ‘You're a friend of hers?'
She wouldn't recognise the other woman if there were only the two of them in the same room together! But she didn't stand a chance of persuading this man into letting her play the part of his wife now, had ruined any chance of that the moment she struggled to open those iron gates and drove inside. She should have known a hotel wouldn't shut its gates in that way, and she probably would have done if she hadn't felt so wet and cold by that time that she just wanted to take shelter somewhere, anywhere. Christopher was going to be far from amused when she told him what she had done, she didn't find it all that amusing herself!
‘Sort of,’ she answered Rand evasively, avoiding going into the details of that acquaintance as she frowned up at him. ‘Is the hotel far from here?'
He shrugged. ‘A couple of miles. It's at the other end of the estate.'
Merlyn knew from her research on Suzie Forrester that the Forrester sisters had been the only children of wealthy land-owner John Forrester, and that his estate had been left jointly to his daughters on his death. As she had initially guessed, this was the main house, so Anne must have built her hotel on her half.
‘Don't worry,’ Rand mocked, positioned to the left of the fireplace, a cheery fire burning there in the chill of this mid-summer day. ‘You're far from the first person to make this mistake, this house is called The Forresters, the hotel, The Forest.’ He shrugged. ‘They're too similar. Although usually the wall and gates keep people out of here,’ he added dryly, seeming to imply as he did so that there was nothing ‘usual’ about her!
She was blushing more today than she had the last eight years, and she felt incredibly stupid. ‘I'm sorry,’ she grimaced. ‘I've driven up from Manchester, taken so many wrong turns that I must have added twenty miles on to my journey; I was just desperate to reach the hotel by the time I spotted your gates.'
He nodded. ‘I'll pour the coffee while you call Anne. You aren't going to be able to make it there tonight, I'm afraid.'
‘What?’ she gasped, her horror reflected in her eyes. ‘But you said it's only a couple of miles away.’ She shook her head. ‘I can leave straight after I've had my coffee.'
‘Unfortunately not,’ he drawled, pouring the coffee.
‘Why not?’ she attacked. She had driven up here, she could drive back out again!
‘You remember the ford you crossed about half a mile from here?’ He arched dark brows, down on his haunches beside the low table.
She had been so blinded by the rain by that time that she had been lucky to stay on the road, let alone remember crossing a ford; the whole road had looked like a river to her. But if he said there was a ford then she believed him; she doubted many people disbelieved what this man said. If they did they were fools.
‘It's flooded.’ Rand straightened, the silver eyes cold at her dismayed expression.
‘You
