of her head, as if to hold it on her shoulders, as she rasped out thinly, ‘What are you doing?’
Sprawled out in a chair while Evie was missing somewhere on the bleak, cold mountainside! Oh, how could he? Long legs in soft dark cords stretched out endlessly, only the tense, hard line of the hunky shoulders beneath the Aran sweater testifying that his pose wasn’t as relaxed as he was trying to pretend it was.
‘You tell me,’ he came back, talking through his teeth. ‘I’m in your hands. You win, for the moment.’ He gave her a thin, completely humourless smile. ‘Remove the distributor cap, take the rotor arm and no one’s going anywhere. Evie’s final chore before she high-tailed it back to civilisation? Neat. But not neat enough. I’m walking out of here at first light. You can do what you damn well like!’
CHAPTER THREE
‘I’LL go with you,’ Bella said in a tight, emphatic voice. She would begin the long walk right now; her need to get away from here, and him, was enormous. But she knew it would be madness. Better and far less hazardous to make the trek in daylight.
A strange calmness filled her. A kind of numbness. Everything began to slot into place, like the pieces of a hitherto exasperating jigsaw puzzle. She didn’t feel any pride in the achievement. On the contrary, she felt used, betrayed. A fool.
‘We’ve both been set up.’ Was he feeling the same way? she wondered with a stab of sympathy. But she would need to develop a far more inventive mind to imagine him feeling foolish. Or used. He was always very much in control. Of everything.
She glanced up at him, but his features told her nothing. Blank. So what was new? Hadn’t he always closed her out, guarding his emotions, keeping them to himself? Except when they’d been making love, she recalled unwillingly, feeling the colour come and go on her face. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, her voice thick.
She didn’t know why she was apologising. His sister was just as much to blame as hers. She heaved another log onto the fire, for something to do with her hands. She didn’t know where to put herself; the sudden, swamping embarrassment at having been forced into this situation was intense.
He said nothing. Just stared at her. Bella verbalised her thoughts, putting everything in order, hoping that that would help her cope.
‘They’ve been friends ever since we married. But you know that, of course. They obviously hatched the idea of getting us back together.’ She smiled thinly, an acknowledgement of the vain futility of that forlorn hope. ‘Kitty was to get you here, on some pretext or other, while my devious sister drove me down and dumped me. It would have been Evie who hung around until she knew you’d arrived, then spiked your car.’
She saw one dark brow slowly rise at that, but didn’t grasp the significance—not then. She moved, heading for the kitchen. ‘I’ll make tea. But I warn you, there won’t be any milk.’ She was trying to be adult about this—this dreadful situation. They were in it together whether they liked it or not, until the morning anyway, and there was no point in behaving like a pair of squabbling children, sulking and not speaking to each other.
‘Try the fridge,’ he offered drily. He’d followed her through. She wished he hadn’t. It was easier to act normally if there was space between them.
Bella plugged in the kettle she’d filled earlier. It felt more like a hundred years than a couple of hours ago since she’d heard the car arrive and had confidently expected Evie to come in out of the cold, needing a hot cup of tea.
She shook her head slightly at his suggestion, even managing a small, condescending smile. There would be no fresh provisions; she already knew that. But she crossed to the fridge and opened it, simply to humour him.
No one could have crammed another item in, even with a shoehorn. Her wretched sister’s doing! She’d been nothing if not thorough! She’d been out all day yesterday—Christmas shopping, she’d said. When in reality she must have come up here, stocked the fridge, made sure everything was ready.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she said thinly.
Jake standing beside her now, murmured, ‘No?’
Bella closed her eyes. Her head spun as the warm, intimate male scent of him overpowered her, forcing her to remember how it had once been for them: the deep, endlessly intense need, the hopes, the dreams, the loving—oh, the loving...
‘Aren’t you going to read it?’
The laid-back taunt made her eyes flip open, erotic memories thankfully slipping away, extinguished by his obvious and habitual disbelief in her which released her to enquire breathlessly, ‘Read what?’
‘Oh, come on, honey!’ He reached for the stainless steel handle and reopened the door.
Bella bit her lip. Why dredge up that old endearment? Why employ that tone—half-amused, half-exasperated? The tone he’d used when he’d continually brushed aside every last argument she’d ever produced whenever she’d tried to make him see things her way.
‘This is the next step in the game, I imagine.’ He indicated a rolled up piece of paper tied to a leg of the fresh turkey with a festive bow of scarlet ribbon. He removed it, closed the door with his foot and handed her the paper, his eyes coldly mocking. ‘Your cue to straighten things out, I guess. Exonerate yourself and put me in the picture—just in case I’ve lost the wits I was born with and am still staring into space, wondering why you’re here and Kitty isn’t.’
She dropped the paper as if it were contaminated. She was going to scream, have hysterics—she knew she was; she could feel the pressure building up inside her!
Turkey legs tied up with red ribbon! Cryptic notes he seemed to know all about! His attitude—oh, his attitude! Pitying yet contemptuous...
The paper was back in her hand almost before she knew it, his steely fingers closing over her own. ‘Read it,’ he demanded, his voice hard, intolerant of argument.
Hand on hand, fingers on fingers. The slight contact immediately became the core of her very existence. Every atom of her body, every beat of her pulse, was centred on his touch, the abrasive warmth of his skin, the underlying steel of sinew and bone.
A whole year, and nothing had changed—not for her. She only had to look at him to need him, and his touch—ah, his touch...
Her breath quivered in her lungs, fighting against the sudden, biting constriction of throat muscles, and his hand moved abruptly away, leaving her cold with a creeping coldness that invaded every part of her.
‘Well?’ he prompted cuttingly. ‘Don’t you want to know what it says? Or perhaps you already know? Dictated it, did you?’
Her eyes moved to his, locking with the black, glittering depths until she could no longer stand the pain. A deep shudder raked through her, and her fingers were shaking as she unfurled the note.
Despite everything, he still believed she was the prime mover, that she’d set this thing up. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? When had he ever believed a word she said?
It was the final straw, she thought, her eyes blurring as Evie’s distinctive scrawl danced around on the paper. Her hands flew to her face, hiding the scalding outpouring of silent, unstoppable tears, the paper fluttering to the floor again. And through the storm of her emotions she heard Jake move, heard
