sheer vibrancy of the man. He had that relaxed yet vivid air of someone who spent his life in the sun. Just looking at him was like getting a blast of ozone. He was the sort of man who ought by rights to be at the helm of a yacht or plunging into the ocean waves with a surfboard under his arm, not standing in this grey south London street evidently wondering why she was staring at him.
Recollecting herself, Phoebe stepped back and held open the door. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said awkwardly.
Gib stayed where he was on the doorstep. ‘The thing is, I’ve got a bit of a problem,’ he admitted, and turned to indicate the taxi which was waiting in the street with its meter ticking at a rate of knots.
‘I lost my wallet somewhere between LA and the arrivals hall at Heathrow. I think someone might have lifted it in the baggage hall, but anyway it’s gone. I reported it to the police and have cancelled all my cards but I thought the best thing I could do would just be to get a taxi here and hope someone was in.’
He looked back at Phoebe with a rueful smile that she was sure was perfectly calculated to have most females swooning at his feet. ‘You wouldn’t have some cash to pay the taxi driver, would you? I’ll pay you back, of course, as soon as I’ve sorted something out.’
Phoebe forced herself to resist the smile. It was just a little too like Slimy Seb’s, who only ever came round when he wanted something and who was always patting his pockets and discovering that he had ‘forgotten’ his wallet, knowing quite well what a soft touch Kate was.
This Gib looked as if he was out of the same mould, one of those cocky, charming types that thought all they had to do was smile and everyone else would fall over themselves to do whatever they wanted. Phoebe didn’t trust men like that. She had met too many of them, and seen too many friends like Kate hurt by their selfish behaviour to ever succumb herself.
Gib was watching her expression and reading her lack of enthusiasm without difficulty. ‘Hey, it’s no problem,’ he said. ‘I’ll just get the taxi to take me to Josh’s office. I’m sure I’ll find someone there to bail me out.’
It was lucky that he had mentioned Josh. As Bella’s best friend, Josh spent a lot of time in the house, and Phoebe was very fond of him. If Josh vouched for Gib, she had better not leave him to sort out his own problems the way she was strongly tempted to do.
‘There’s no need for that.’ She managed a brittle smile. ‘I’ll just go and get my purse.’
‘Thanks, I really appreciate that,’ said Gib as the taxi drove off. ‘I’ll let you have the money back tomorrow.’
That was what Seb always said to Kate, too.
‘Everything’s a bit of mess,’ said Phoebe stiffly as she led the way to the kitchen at the back of the house. ‘We were going to tidy up for you tonight.’
They had planned a special welcoming meal as well. Bella was doing the shopping on her way home, but of course spontaneous types like Gib never thought of how they might mess up anyone else’s plans, did they?
‘Hey, I didn’t want anyone to go to any trouble,’ said Gib, alarmed by her frosty manner. ‘Josh said you’d just treat me like a friend and let me muck in with the rest of you.’
‘Now that you’ve turned up early, it looks like that’s what you’re going to have to do,’ said Phoebe, carrying the kettle over to the sink to fill it.
Gib eyed her warily, picking up on the hostility but not quite sure what he had done to provoke it. Maybe she was cross like this with everyone, which would be a crying shame with that warm, creamy skin and that lush mouth, he thought and then remembered that he wasn’t supposed to be thinking like that. All you’ve got to do is be a friend, Josh had said. What could be easier than that?
Clicking on the kettle, Phoebe turned to face him, and Gib looked quickly away. ‘Nice kitchen,’ he said.
It was a big, cluttered room with fitted cupboards at one end and at the other a shabby sofa and deep armchair covered with an ethnic-looking throw. In the middle was an antique pine table submerged beneath a welter of half-read newspapers, magazine cuttings, recipe books and files with papers spilling out of them. Gib spotted an iron, a collection of nail varnishes, a sequin bag, and—he did a double take—yes, a huge tabby cat curled up in a nest of papers.
The kitchen run by his housekeeper at home had gleaming steel surfaces and was so intimidatingly tidy that Gib rarely ventured in there. This room was messier and a lot less hygienic, he thought, glancing at the cat, but infinitely more inviting. The kind of room where you could sit down with a bottle of wine and relax without worrying about what anyone else was thinking of you.
‘It’s the warmest room in the house,’ said Phoebe, looking around and trying to see it through his eyes. ‘We spend all our time in here, as you can probably tell.’
‘Whose is the cat?’
‘Kate’s.’ Phoebe regarded it without affection. ‘She’s got the softest heart in the world. She’s always coming back with these poor bedraggled creatures she’s rescued, and then we all have to run around finding homes for them, but no one will take that cat, worse luck. Anyway, it probably wouldn’t go,’ she sighed. ‘It’s much too comfortable here. Kate spoils it, and Bella and I are terrified of it. Which reminds me,’ she added, ‘be careful when you come down in the mornings. It bites your ankles until you feed it!’
Josh hadn’t mentioned savage cats when he made his bet, Gib thought a little sourly. He hadn’t mentioned Phoebe’s frosty manner either. Gib just hoped that there weren’t any other nasty surprises in store for him.
As if understanding that they were talking about it, the cat got to its feet and stretched. Seeing the size of it, and the ferocious-looking teeth, Gib gave it a wide berth, but it only gave him a contemptuous stare and jumped off the table to land with a thud on the kitchen floor.
Phoebe watched it stalk out of the room and for the first time ever she warmed to it. Here at least was one other creature unlikely to be impressed by Gib’s smile and spontaneity. Kate and Bella were bound to fall for his charm, but Gib would find that she and the cat were made of sterner stuff!
CHAPTER TWO
PHOEBE had been pouring boiling water into a teapot, and now got out a couple of mugs. ‘Kate and Bella will be back later,’ she said. ‘Would you like some tea?’
‘Great,’ he said with the suggestion of a smile. ‘Now I know I’m back in England!’
‘How long have you been away?’
Gib thought a bit. ‘Nearly eighteen years now.’
‘That’s a long time,’ said Phoebe, trying to calculate how old that made him. It was difficult to tell just by looking at him. He had the solidity of an older man, and there were definite creases around the edges of his eyes. He had to be in his late thirties at least, but he had a disconcerting mixture of dynamism and lazy good humour that seemed to belong to someone much younger.
She wished Kate or Bella would come home. Something about him made her feel tongue-tied and awkward and—worse—boring. It was a feeling that reminded her all too painfully of that terrible time when she had wept as she had asked Ben ‘why?’, and he had told her that Lisa was sweet and feminine and fun.
