felt sensational nestled into him and, he reflected ruefully, he had better get himself out of this situation before a certain claim he’d made earlier proved to be incorrect.
But, as he moved Jo Lucas gently away from him, she murmured softly, a small sound of protest, and she buried her head against his shoulder.
A spark of humour lit his eyes. You’re going to hate me when I make mention of this, Josie, and if you get on your high horse again, as you most likely will, I shall no doubt bring it up…won’t be able to resist it!
The humour died as he stared down at the sleeping girl in his arms. Not only the perfume of her hair, but her smooth, soft skin and her warm, lovely body teased his senses.
His memory took flight again, not to a bottle of shampoo this time, but the vision of her without her cargo pants and the high, rounded swell of her hips beneath a pair of no-nonsense Bonds Cottontails. If she was a pleasure to study from the front, he thought, it would surely be a sheer pleasure to watch her walking away from you with those hips swinging beneath a flimsy skirt…
He dragged his mind back with an effort. Who the hell was she? Not only that, how often had he used women to make him forget, only to find they were an anodyne but not the real thing?
He got out of the bed less than gently and stretched vigorously. When he turned back, Jo’s eyes were open, and completely bewildered.
‘Morning, Miss Lucas,’ he said briskly. ‘Time to get back to the fray.’
Jo stayed exactly as she was for a long moment, then she sat up abruptly and combed her hair back with her fingers. ‘Good morning.’
‘Sleep well?’ he enquired with a mocking tinge of irony.
‘I…er…must have. I don’t seem to remember much about it.’
‘Just as well.’ He waited, bastard that he was, as her eyes looked confused again, then he changed the subject completely. ‘You may not have noticed but it’s still raining. Here’s what I suggest—we make use of your fold-up umbrella to visit the outhouse, then you can do what you like while I do a recce.’
‘Do what I like?’ Jo repeated uncertainly.
‘Get dressed in peace, perhaps heat some water on the stove for a wash—I’ll build up the fire—or, contemplate your navel if that’s what you prefer to do at this hour of the morning.’
Her eyes darkened and he knew it would have given her great pleasure to tell him to get lost, but in much more colourful language. She kept her mouth shut, however, and climbed out of bed.
‘Here.’ Something made him take pity on her, and he reached for her anorak. ‘Wear this.’
She accepted it but refused to look at him, even when he pulled her bags and boots down as well.
Fifteen minutes later Jo was on her own in the hut, bolted in from the outside to her intense annoyance, but he had got the fire going and there were both the coffee-pot and a pot of water for washing simmering on the stove.
After a brief wash and dressing in a fleecy-lined grey tracksuit, she felt a lot better. She brushed her hair and tied it back and made herself a pot of coffee. And she pictured Gavin Hastings reconnoitring with, not only her fold-up umbrella, but the plastic poncho she always carried—neither of which would afford him great protection, but they had to be better than nothing in the downpour outside.
Gavin Hastings, she reflected, who had made a nasty little remark about something it was just as well she couldn’t remember—what?
She surely couldn’t have slept through his taking advantage of her in any way. She surely wouldn’t have taken advantage of him in any way so…?
She glanced over at the two beds. Only one of them, narrow as it was, still bore the sagging imprint of being slept on. She clicked her teeth together in sheer annoyance.
She must have spent the night in his arms, right up close and personal. Only two bodies in one dilapidated old bed made for one body would cause it to stay sagged like that. To make it worse, the sagging bed was his, the bed on the outside, so she must have been the one to move over.
Clearly a tactical error, she thought, even if I was half asleep. I must have been cold and scared—I must have been mad!
The coffee-pot bubbled at that point, so she poured herself a mug and tried to turn her mind away from things she couldn’t change. Then she remembered her idea of doing his portrait in a bid to prove she was who she’d said she was.
It turned out to be an exercise with curious side effects as she opened her pencil box and tore a piece of cartridge paper in half…
She’d always been a sketcher. For as long as she could remember, she’d doodled and etched and found it a great comfort, but paints had never particularly appealed to her. She’d tried watercolours, oils and acrylics but found that none of them was her medium.
At eighteen, however, her life had changed dramatically and she’d gone to art school for a year. That was where she’d discovered oil crayons—and it had all fallen into place. It had not been a lack of colour appreciation, her failure with paint, it had been her difficulty in merging the two techniques, drawing and painting.
Oil crayons allowed her to draw in colour, and she virtually hadn’t stopped since the discovery. So that now, at twenty-four, she had a small but growing reputation in portraiture.
Of course, doing portraits had its downside. You were often at the mercy of less-than-likeable characters and your fingers itched to portray them that way. It had, however, gained her recognition, and once that reputation was well established she would be able to draw what she pleased and sell it—landscapes and particularly children, whom she loved to draw, although not necessarily as their parents wanted them portrayed.
As she organized herself as best she could, she practised a familiar technique. She breathed deeply and cleared her mind—and she called up her captor.
As always, some emotions came with the image she was seeing in her mind’s eye, her reaction to her subject, but what caused her to blink in surprise was the veritable kaleidoscope of emotions that came along with Gavin Hastings’s dark, good-looking face.
She discovered that her fingers longed to score and slash lines and angles onto the paper with her crayons in a caricature of the devil with very blue eyes.
Jo, Jo, she chided herself, if he’s to be believed, he’s been subject to a kidnap attempt so he’s bound to be antsy!
Doesn’t matter, she retorted. I don’t like him, but I especially don’t like the way I do like some things about this man I don’t like. And I resent wondering, actually wondering, what he thinks of me!
She stared down at the still-pristine piece of paper beneath her fingers and was horrified to find herself breathing raggedly. This isn’t going to work, she thought. There’s only one way I can draw Gavin Hastings with any peace of mind and that’s asleep.
She had no idea how much later it was when she heard the bolt being withdrawn on the other side of the door, but some instinct made her throw her anorak over all the evidence of her endeavours.
He came in looking as mean and nasty as any demented bushranger, daubed with mud
