the ladder balanced effortlessly on his shoulder.
She watched him set it against the tree and wedge it securely, then stepped forward. ‘You’d better let me go up for her. She’s not very good with strangers.’
‘I wonder where she learned that,’ he murmured, his mouth slanting. ‘All the same...’
He put his foot on the bottom rung, and started to climb.
Melusine watched his approach, back hunched.
He’d either be scratched or totally ignored, Tara thought, smouldering with annoyance at his highhanded performance. And either would be more than acceptable to her. Serve him right for being an arrogant swine.
He reached the branch, stretched out a hand, and made a soft chirruping sound.
And Melusine, treacherous bloody animal that she was, rose gracefully, picked her way towards him, and jumped lightly on to his shoulder.
He murmured to her soothingly, then descended swiftly and competently, bending slightly so that Tara could retrieve her purring feline.
‘I have to thank you again,’ she said, her voice so wooden she could have spat splinters.
‘I’m sure it won’t become a habit,’ he returned. He scratched gently under Melusine’s chin, which she arched ecstatically to accommodate him. ‘She’s friendlier than you give her credit for.’
‘Not usually.’
He grinned again, the cool blue gaze looking her over with unashamed appraisal. ‘Then she’s like most women—contrary.’
‘And you’re like most men—sexist,’ Tara shot back at him.
‘Guilty as charged,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I believe in two genders, and thank God for each and every difference between them. But it doesn’t make me a bad person,’ he added his eyes fixed on the swift tightening of Tara’s mouth.‘So, what’s her name?’
‘Melusine,’ she said curtly.
‘A witch name,’ he said musingly, then laughed softly. ‘Now, why does that not surprise me?’ He stroked the cat’s glossy head with his forefinger. ‘How do you do, my proud beauty? I’m Adam Barnard. And I hope you’re none the worse for your ordeal.’
Adam Barnard Tara felt the name stir in her mind with something like pleasure.
She hurriedly covered her involuntary reaction with waspishness. ‘You’d better leave the ladder where it is. When your dog gets loose, Melusine will be back up the tree again, looking for sanctuary.’
‘I may join her.’ His tone was grim, the tanned mobile face suddenly austere as he looked her over. ‘Did no one ever tell you the Cold War is over?’
Tara’s lips tightened. ‘I didn’t come down to play good neighbours.’
‘Just as well.’ He shrugged. ‘Clearly you’d be lousy at it. As a matter of interest, why are you here looking for splendid isolation?’ The blue eyes quizzed her. ‘Hiding from something?’
‘Certainly not.’ Tara returned his gaze levelly. ‘I came to do some work on the house. It’s a while since anyone’s been here, and I don’t want it falling into rack and ruin...’
‘Like Dean’s Mooring,’ he suggested.
‘Yes, actually. I think it’s a tragedy to leave the place abandoned like that, with no one to care for it.’
‘Is that what the previous owner did? Cared?’
There was an odd note in his voice.
‘I—I don’t know,’ Tara said defensively. ‘I didn’t know Mr Dean very well. No one did. He hardly ever went out, and no one came to see him. Even when he was ill he wouldn’t have the doctor, or the district nurse. But I suppose he was happy in his own way.’
‘Keeping himself to himself.’ He nodded reflectively. ‘It seems to be catching.’
Tara bit her lip in annoyance. Her arms must have tightened on Melusine too, because the cat began to wriggle.
‘I’d better take her indoors,’ she said quickly. ‘Well—as I said—thank you.’
‘Is that all?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I was thinking you could offer me some rather more—tangible form of gratitude.’ The blue eyes watched her coolly, consideringly, lingering, it seemed, on the curve of her mouth.
She felt a shiver of tension curl down her spine. She’d been a fool to hang around out here, allowing him to needle her, she thought grimly. She should have stuck with cold and dismissive, and got the hell out of it.
She took a step backwards, trying to be casual. ‘I’ve already been as grateful as I’m likely to get.’
‘Are you quite sure about that?’ He sounded faintly amused.
She thought longingly of her mobile phone, in a desk drawer at her flat in London.
‘Convinced,’ she said curtly. ‘Now you must excuse me.’
If she made it to the front door, she promised herself, she would walk straight through the house, grabbing her bag and Melusine’s basket on the way, out through the back entrance, into her car and off. Destination unknown and unimportant.
‘That’s a shame,’ he said softly. ‘You see, for the past hour I’ve been having these amazing fantasies, and you’re the only one who can fulfill them.’
She must have heard the words ‘her blood ran cold’ hundreds of times, without beginning to guess what it could feel like to have ice crawling below the surface of her skin. But she knew now. Felt the ache of it paralyse her. Stultify her reasoning.
‘So, Miss Tara Lyndon.’ His voice was barely above a whisper. ‘Are you going to make all my dreams come true?’
‘When hell freezes over.’ Her tone was ragged, but she lifted her chin and stared at him with contempt and antagonism. Maybe if she defied him, let him see she was no one’s push-over, he’d back off.
He sighed. ‘I was afraid of that. Mrs Pritchard will be so disappointed.’
Tara had the curious impression she was involved in some kind of alternative reality. Or had her opponent simply escaped from somewhere?
She said hoarsely, ‘What’s Mrs Pritchard got to do with anything? And how did you know my name?’
‘Well, you can’t possibly be Becky. You’re not wearing a wedding ring.’
He made himself sound like the voice of sweet reason, Tara thought furiously. Was there any family detail Mrs Pritchard hadn’t confided to him?
‘And she told me she’d made you one of her steak and kidney pies, because you like them so much,’ he went on, then paused. ‘I got the
