could explain all this hostility.’ He exchanged a conspiratorial grin with Nick.
‘So could being verbally and physically abused,’ she replied frigidly. Didn’t she have the bruises on her arms to prove it?
‘The guy certainly has muscles in all the right places,’ Nick agreed solemnly.
‘I didn’t notice.’
Her brother laughed out loud at this one. ‘Maybe you’re going back for another look.’
A sharp image of a big bronzed body rose up in her mind to add insult to the injury of her brother’s warped humour. A girl didn’t go through life without seeing images of male perfection, and Drew Cummings had to fall into that category, but none of those images had assaulted her senses with a raw, earthy sexuality. Of course not. None of them had ever grabbed hold of her whilst half naked, she told herself crossly.
‘It’s nice to know who your friends are.’ She treated them both to her best display of icy dignity as she stalked out of the room.
‘I don’t think she appreciated the joke,’ Nick surmised. ‘You don’t think she really…?’ He looked with comical dismay at the older man beside him. ‘Nah,’ he said shaking his head.
‘Maybe the walk will cool her down?’
‘Do you think so?’ Nick asked sceptically.
‘Not really. I was trying to cheer you up.’
CHAPTER TWO
EVE’S cheeks were tinged pink with exertion after ten minutes of furious pedalling. Serve Nick right if he thought his bike had been stolen. How many times had she told him to chain it up?
Actually, she was forced to acknowledge a definite sense of exhilaration at being the one behaving recklessly for once. It was really quite a liberating feeling, she decided thoughtfully as she ran her fingers through her short, fashionably tousled hair.
She propped Nick’s pride and joy against the gleaming paintwork of a big shiny four-wheel drive drawn up on the gravelled forecourt and walked purposefully up to the porticoed entrance. She regarded the pair of stone lions guarding the entrance defiantly.
The door was slightly ajar, and she experienced the first twinge of apprehension as she rang the bell. Her nerves were primed for the offensive, however, and all it took was a quick mental replay of her earlier departure through this very door and the generous lines of her mouth firmed into a line of steely determination and her shoulders squared.
She’d show Uncle Drew she wasn’t the sort of girl he could push around, the sort of girl who ran away meekly, the sort of girl who was reduced to inarticulate compliance by a set of bulging biceps and a few harsh words! She liked a joke as much as the next person, but she hadn’t found anything humorous in Theo and Nick’s appalling suggestions. Chemistry indeed!
‘Come on through!’ A disembodied voice instructed. 26
Startled, Eve looked over her shoulder, half expecting to find someone these words were directed at standing there.
‘Through here!’ Impatience this time, and also the distinctive touch of gravel she’d noticed before. A man who didn’t suffer fools gladly—or at all.
You heard what the man said, Evie. Don’t just stand there, girl. She hadn’t expected it to be quite this easy to get back into the Beck residence.
‘It’s the card table by the door. Can you do it in situ,or will you need to take it away? If that’s the case I need it back by Thursday at the latest.’
Somehow the top of his dark blond head managed to convey harassment. When his head finally lifted, this impression was reinforced. His hands were still immersed in a bucketful of soapy water as he spoke. ‘Well?’
‘You don’t recognise me, do you?’
‘Should I?’ he began impatiently, pushing aside a wing of fair hair that had flopped in his eyes. ‘You’re not the French polisher? Dear God!’ he breathed, his eyes widening in recognition. ‘It’s the femme fatale. Not looking very femme or fatale,’ he added unkindly, getting to his feet and rubbing his wet hands against the legs of his jeans.
Eyebrows raised, he let his curious glance run incredulously over her simple stripy top and sleeveless fleece jacket. The loose lines of her khaki pants blurred the outline of her long legs and the flat, practical boots were about as far removed from the strappy stilettos she’d worn earlier as was possible.
It was ironic, considering his initial assessment, that she could now easily be taken for a schoolgirl—and he knew for sure she wasn’t. She had a freshly scrubbed, wholesome quality that some men found attractive. Personally, he found the long-limbed athletic look attractive on racehorses rather than women.
Is this display of masculine bad manners meant to make me feel uncomfortable? Dream on, she thought scornfully. Lips pursed, she deliberately mimicked his action and let her eyes rather obviously wander critically over his body. She didn’t actually hold out much hope of finding anything to criticise—she was right.
He was wearing a light-coloured cotton shirt, not tucked into the waist of his jeans. His wet hands had left dark marks on the paler material which outlined thighs that Eve already knew were powerfully muscular. She noticed two wet marks where he’d been kneeling on the floor. He was the sort of man who looked good in any clothes, she reflected, but better without them. Just when her confidence was riding high this random thought sent a flurry of panic zinging along her nerve-endings.
To her surprise, when her flustered glance returned abruptly to his face, she found amused appreciation of her retaliatory action in his expression. A couple of deep breaths and she was able to dismiss her embarrassing observation as an aberration. Stress did things like play havoc with your concentration. She comforted herself with this widely accepted fact.
‘What do you want?’
‘You can ask that?’
‘Oh, you’ve come to apologise…sorry, I still don’t know your name.’
Apologise! Her eyes widened. The cheek of the man! ‘I was under the impression that you didn’t want to know my name.’
He didn’t pretend not to understand her. ‘Earlier I was trying to dispel—shall we say, any sense of intimacy.’
Not even a shred of embarrassment, she decided, searching his face. The man was totally shameless. Nick hadn’t gone into details—well, actually, honesty forced her to acknowledge she hadn’t exactly given him the chance—but this man must know by now she was innocent of sinister intentions towards his nephew.
‘Tell me, are you planning to use that?’
‘What…? Oh.’ She followed the direction of the inclination of his head and flushed deeply as she saw the trowel she was brandishing in her hand. ‘I didn’t realise…it was in my pocket,’ she mumbled in explanation.
‘Got anything else muddy and lethal I should know about in there?’ he asked, sounding insultingly amused as she shoved the tool back into the capacious pocket of her warm fleece.
‘Not muddy.’ She took
