beauty as if by heart, hair as black as her own, black brows jutting out over icy grey eyes, a long straight nose, high cheekbones that looked as if they could have belonged to some unclaimed Indian ancestry, a sculptured mouth that rarely laughed, his smiles cynical at best, and a square chin that laid claim to his arrogance. He was wearing a black, Western-style suit, although the jacket was dangling over his shoulder held by a single finger in the heat of this August day, the black and white checked shirt stretching tautly across his chest as he did so, the black boots slightly dusty from his walk from the road to the cove. Brenna knew that at a couple of inches over six feet, he stood a foot taller than her, but at the moment it looked like three times that!
While she had been studying him he had taken the same time to look at her, his eyes narrowed as he met her challenging gaze.
Had he noticed any changes in her since their parting at the airport all those months ago? She could see none in him, he looked as harshly forbidding as usual. She knew there had been few changes in her either, except perhaps that her hair was even longer than before, impractically reaching almost to her waist. And unfashionably too, when all her friends were going for a variety of much shorter styles. But it was a vanity that she was loath to part with, a gentle breeze from the sea behind her stirring the slightly wavy tresses about the small oval of her face.
‘I'm not running away,’ she told him firmly, almost defiantly, she realised angrily. But Nathan had always had the power to put her on the defensive, and she realised their months apart hadn't changed that. ‘And I'm perfectly happy where I am,’ she added with dismissal for his claim of her home being in Canada.
Nathan chose to read her claim literally, dark brows rising as he looked pointedly at her precarious position on the rock. ‘I think perhaps you might be a little more comfortable up here,’ he drawled, reaching out a hand to help her up beside him.
Brenna looked at that hand as if it were a snake about to strike, not wanting any sort of physical contact with him. So instead of taking his hand, she slapped her leather pouch into it before scrambling up the cliff beside him, dusting the dirt from her hands as she realised her flat trainers put her on a level with his shoulder. Great, now she felt like a twelve-year-old again!
She kept her distance from him, her head tilted back to look at him. ‘How did you find me?’ she asked.
‘I went to the cottage where you're staying, your friend told me,’ he watched her with pebble-hard eyes.
Brenna stiffened at the way he said ‘friend'. ‘What's wrong, Nathan? Aren't my friends good enough for you?’ she said scornfully.
‘Is he good?’ he bit out harshly.
‘He?’ she frowned.
‘Your lover,’ he said contemptuously.
Her frown darkened ominously. ‘Just who did you talk to at the house?’ she snapped.
Nathan shrugged dismissively. ‘I believe he said his name was Nick.'
Brenna shot him a resentful glance, hating him more than ever for his assumption. ‘Carolyn happens to be my friend,’ she bit out precisely. ‘Nick Bancroft is her fiancé.'
‘That's very liberal of her,’ he rasped.
‘You—–'
‘Let's not get into an argument here,’ he told her patronisingly. ‘I would hate one—or both—of us, to go over the side of this cliff.'
It didn't surprise her that he had known that was just what she would like to do to him. ‘Then don't make assumptions,’ she ground out angrily.
‘I'll try not to,’ he drawled. ‘But when a young man answers the door of the cottage I've been told you're a guest at, what else was I supposed to think?'
Ever since she had reached sixteen years of age she had had to contend with Nathan's over-protectiveness where boys were concerned, when, after years of taking no notice of her, he had suddenly decided to offer her a big brother's protection, a protection she hadn't wanted then and deeply resented now. Even if Nick had been her lover instead of Carolyn's it was none of this man's business—she was twenty-two, not sixteen! Besides, it was protection from him she had needed—and not received.
‘Maybe you should have asked.’ Her eyes flashed her resentment.
Grey eyes warred with green for several seconds, until finally Nathan sighed heavily, running an impatient hand through the overlong hair he was somehow always forgetting to have cut. But the longer style suited the harshness of his face, slightly softening those intimidating features, the lines that indicated that he had lived a hard thirty-six years for all his wealth. ‘I didn't come here to discuss your lovers—or lack of them,’ he added at her rebellious expression.
Somehow even that sounded like an insult. ‘Then why are you here?’ she asked impatiently, taking her leather pouch from him to begin walking up the hill to the cottage Carolyn had rented for the month.
‘Lesli has walked out on Grant and I have reason to think she's coming to you.'
If Nathan, a man who lashed with his tongue rather than his hands, had struck her hard across the face she couldn't have been more stunned, coming to an abrupt halt before she whipped around to face him. He hadn't moved, silhouetted against the grey-green sea now. ‘Lesli has left Grant?’ she repeated disbelievingly; Lesli had always worshipped the ground Grant walked over.
Nathan gave an abrupt inclination of his head. ‘Three days ago. You obviously knew nothing about it,’ he sighed at the realisation.
Lesli had left Grant? It was unthinkable. Her sister adored the man, had given up the idea of law school as soon as he had asked her to marry him, and had never seemed to regret that decision, becoming the perfect rancher's wife only three months before their parents were killed in a light aeroplane crash only five miles from the ranch. She had continued that way for the last four years.
‘I don't believe it,’ Brenna shook her head. ‘Lesli would never leave Grant.'
‘Believe me, she has,’ Nathan drawled.
‘But why?’ she groaned.
He shrugged. ‘They had an argument—and don't ask me what about, Grant told me to stay out of it when I asked him,’ he revealed drily.
Brenna could believe that; Grant was as arrogant as his brother. ‘You said you believe she was coming here?’ she prompted faintly.
‘She was booked on the flight that should have landed two days ago.'
‘Then she's in London,’ Brenna groaned.
‘All I know is that she was booked on the flight, the airline wouldn't tell me whether or not she actually got on it,’ he explained grimly.
‘Wouldn't or couldn't?’ she scorned.
‘Wouldn't,’ he repeated softly, dangerously. ‘The dictates of security. Do you really think now is the time for an argument about what the Wade money can or cannot buy?'
Colour darkened her cheeks as he correctly guessed the reason for her derision. She had learnt early in life what power the Wade name and money wielded, and even ten years later she hadn't been able to bury her bitterness. In fact, it had increased.
