blast of turbulent air whipped long strands of black hair from the neat coil at the back of her head, tossing it around her cold face. Jake dumped the cases, and in spite of her protests lifted Aline into the machine.
The way her eager flesh reacted to his impersonal grip finally robbed her of any chance of reaching that barren, emotionless refuge she longed for. She might have been able to put the swimming in her head down to the thud of the rotors, but what set her heartbeat pummelling her breastbone was Jake’s touch, the faint salty fragrance of his skin, and his effortless strength.
She pushed the tangled locks from her face with shaking fingers.
By then in the front, Jake turned. ‘Seatbelt,’ he mouthed, pointing to the belt with one imperative hand.
Biting her lip, she nodded and groped for the straps. After watching until she’d buckled them across her waist, Jake pushed the door closed before reaching for a pair of headphones. Beneath the fine material of his shirt his body flexed with spare masculine grace.
Aline watched his lips move as he said something to the pilot. Was she being incredibly stupid to go with him?
Well, if she was, who cared? She closed her eyes. Michael, she thought drearily, oh, Michael…
Yet deep in her innermost heart she’d always known she wasn’t enough of a woman to keep Michael satisfied. Lauren’s ripe femininity was what men wanted.
A howling increase in the blast of the engines was followed by a sudden lurch and then lift-off. Aline settled back and let her eyelids drift up. With bent head, Jake was checking something in his lap. The westering sun painted a wash of gold over his face, emphasising its bold stamp of authority, its stark, forceful command.
Heat seared through her, smashing past the layers of weary grief. She shivered with muted apprehension as they flew away from the sunset over water the colour of wine, heading over peninsulas and bays and islands. How on earth had she let herself be hijacked like this?
Cowardice, she decided, and Jake’s uncompromising will. She should have seen it coming; she’d soon learned to respect his intelligence and his grasp of business. He’d known exactly what he wanted from his association with the bank, and he’d used his clout and a certain amount of ruthless power in negotiation, although the final deal satisfied both partners.
Yet beneath the civilised—if aggressive—businessman, she thought with an odd primitive thrill, lurked a warrior, a man with hunting instincts as keenly honed as those marauders who’d swept periodically out of the desert or the forest, or from frozen wastes to plunder and loot and enslave. In spite of his mask of civilised discipline, Jake Howard radiated a primal intensity that slashed through her misery and humiliation, homing in on the basic need of a woman for a man.
When he caught her watching him the arrogantly handsome face didn’t change expression, but his unreadable eyes narrowed when he mouthed, ‘OK?’
Bitterly angry at the betraying tug of sensation deep in the pit of her stomach, she nodded and glanced away. How odd that she should be torn between grief at the shattering of her memories and this heated awareness of another man.
From their first meeting she’d reluctantly responded to Jake’s sexual energy, the supercharged physicality that his expensive tailoring didn’t hide, but she’d done her best to ignore it, seeing her unwilling response as treachery to the memory of the man she’d loved with all her heart.
And if that thought didn’t hurt so much she’d be laughing at her own naïve foolishness.
Once more she closed her eyes and tried to sink into nothingness. It didn’t work.
Angry and tense because Jake’s presence kept jerking her back into the real world, she peered sideways, picking out places she recognised—various islands and the intertwined arms of sea and land. The helicopter rode through a sunlit canopy while darkness overtook the land, and in its wake sprang scatterings of golden pinpricks. Trying to keep her mind from fixing obsessively on the man in front, Aline named every cluster and string of lights.
At last it was too dark to see, and she closed her eyes again, only opening them when the helicopter banked.
They landed in a purple and indigo night that bloomed with stars. Jake pushed the door back and swung long legs down; turning, he beckoned Aline.
She fumbled with the seatbelt; once free she hunched her shoulders and eased herself across to the door. Jake didn’t move, and when she looked into his face he gave a sudden humourless smile and lifted her down. Frustrated by her involuntary response she stiffened, knocking her temple against the side of the opening.
It hurt, and she said, ‘Ouch,’ putting up a hand to the slight contusion as he carried her easily across the grass, setting her down well away from the helicopter.
‘What happened?’ he demanded, running his fingers through her hair to discover the small bump. Frowning, he traced its contours gently.
Shaken by his nearness and his unexpected gentleness, Aline stepped back and shook her head.
‘Stay there,’ he commanded, and strode back to collect two bags, hers and one that must have been waiting for him on the chopper.
‘Thank you,’ she said bleakly when he dumped them at her feet.
She picked them up and turned towards the dark bulk of a house. After two or three steps she realised he wasn’t with her. A swift glance over her shoulder revealed him unloading a couple of cartons from the helicopter.
Food, of course; he’d have organised it while she’d packed. No, he’d planned this holiday before he’d gone to Emma’s christening, so supplies would already have been seen to.
She dropped the bags and started to go back to help unload, but Jake, his rangy body outlined in light from the helicopter, had almost reached her. As he put the cartons down the helicopter rose like a squat, noisy beetle, its lights blinking steadily while it banked above them and then soared away.
Jake straightened up. ‘How’s your head?’ he asked abruptly. ‘No headache?’
‘No, it was just a small bump.’ She cleared her throat. ‘It’s fine.’
‘Welcome to my bach,’ he said, and took her hand.
Automatically Aline pulled back, but the warm, strong fingers didn’t release her. ‘The grass is uneven,’ he explained, scooping up the bags and urging her towards the house.
‘What about the cartons—?’
‘I’ll come back for them. Come on, you’re cold.’
‘I’m not.’
He brought her hand up to his face, pressing it for one tense second against heated skin and the subtle abrasion of his beard. That fleeting contact seared through every quickening cell in her body.
‘Definitely cold,’ he said calmly. ‘Let’s get inside.’
And because she didn’t want to get involved in an undignified tug of war she couldn’t win—not because his clasp was strangely comforting—she let her fingers lie in the warmth of his and walked beside him towards the house.
Behind them the chop-chop-chop
