Shadowed Stranger Read online

‘He did?’ She couldn’t even begin to hide her eager pleasure.

  ‘Mm. He seemed concerned that you hadn’t been back to visit him. He mentioned that you’d had an argument.’

  Robyn bit her lip. ‘Did he say what about?’

  Her mother shook her head. ‘Just that it was something petty.’

  Petty! Oh, if only it had been! But perhaps to Rick it had been. His words to her mother seemed to imply that the incident had been forgotten by him. Had her rudeness this morning also been forgotten?

  ‘He would like you to go round tomorrow if you have time,’ her mother told her casually.

  This did seem to indicate that Rick was willing to overlook her behaviour this morning too. ‘I—er—I suppose I could go round in the evening.’ She made her words as casual as she could in her excitement.

  Her mother nodded. ‘I think Mr Howarth might like that.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really,’ her mother nodded. ‘He seems very lonely, Robyn.’

  Just her luck that the back tyre on her bicycle burst on the ride home the next evening. One minute she had been pedalling happily along the road, eager to get home, eat her dinner and get over to Rick’s, the next minute there was a thumping noise as her back tyre flattened to the rim, and the whole thing wobbled precariously.

  ‘Damn!’ she muttered as she climbed off to look helplessly down at the flat tyre.

  She had only gone as far as the outskirts of Ampthull, which meant she still had almost three miles to go. She would never get to Rick’s tonight now. It had been her late night at the library, and was past eight now. By the time she had walked home it would be after nine, much too late to go over to Rick’s then.

  ‘Damn, damn, damn!’ she muttered again, beginning the long weary walk home.

  Only a few cars passed her on the long country road, and none of them were familiar. She was very late, and surprised that her father hadn’t come out looking for her. Her father had always worried about her if she wasn’t home on time. She remembered one embarrassing occasion when she and another girl had met two boys in town and agreed to go for a coffee with them, her father had suddenly appeared in the café, his concern rapidly giving way to anger.

  But even he didn’t appear tonight, and as she had predicted, it was after nine when she reached home. Her mother was surprised to see her flushed and harassed face. Robyn mumbled an explanation, having no appetite for the dinner her mother put down on the table for her.

  Her mother frowned. ‘I never thought—I just thought you’d gone straight to Mr Howarth’s from work.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ she gasped.

  ‘Not normally, no, but I thought … Never mind,’ she smiled brightly. ‘You’re back now.’

  ‘But it’s too late,’ Robyn said sulkily.

  ‘To visit Mr Howarth? Yes, I suppose it is. But you can always go and see him tomorrow.’

  She didn’t want to see him tomorrow, she wanted to see him today. But she couldn’t, and it was all the stupid bicycle’s fault, the bicycle that had been the reason they had first met, and was now the reason they couldn’t. ‘I think the tyre from your bike must have perished,’ she told her mother.

  ‘Probably,’ she nodded. ‘It was quite old. Eat your dinner, Robyn.’

  She ate with great reluctance, mainly to please her mother, certainly not because of any real desire for the food.

  ‘Your father has gone to the school to watch Billy play football,’ her mother explained his absence. ‘So he wouldn’t have been here to come and collect you even if we had realised there was something wrong.’

  Robyn pushed away her half-eaten meal with an apologetic smile. ‘I suppose I can always go over to Orchard House tomorrow evening.’ Although that seemed a very long time away.

  ‘I’m sure Mr Howarth will understand, although I did mention to him earlier that you might find the time to go over for a few minutes—’

  ‘Oh, Mum!’ she giggled. ‘You didn’t say that, did you?’

  ‘Exactly that.’

  ‘Oh, Mum!’ There was a certain amount of dismay in her voice now.

  Her mother smiled. ‘Never be too eager, Robyn, especially with a man like that. He won’t appreciate it, believe me.’

  ‘Is that how you got Dad, by playing hard to get?’

  Her mother looked coy. ‘Sometimes you have to be devious.’

  Robyn felt happier after that, enjoying a generous portion of the trifle her mother had made for dessert. Her mother had just endorsed her idea of playing it cool where Rick was concerned, and maybe tomorrow wouldn’t be so long coming after all.

  It just wasn’t her week! She missed the bus by seconds the next morning; for once it had arrived early, and it was half an hour later before her father could be spared from the shop to take her into Ampthull. She telephoned Mr Leaven and told him of her expected lateness, receiving a cool reception from him. Not that she could blame him; her work, when she did arrive on time, hadn’t really been up to standard the last few weeks. She had been constantly brooding about Rick, longing to go and see him but expecting only contempt from him if she did.

  She was almost an hour late getting to the library, and Mr Leaven’s disapproving frown wasn’t exactly undeserved. If she had been at the bus stop at the right time, instead of expecting the bus to be the five or ten minutes late it usually was, then she wouldn’t have missed it.

  ‘You’ll have to stay on tonight and make up for this lateness,’ Mr Leaven warned her.

  Staying on would mean she would miss the only bus home, and as tonight was the late night opening for the shop her father wouldn’t be able to call for her. That meant another three-mile walk. And another late night home. It was the latter she hated; it seemed everything was against her going to see Rick!

  Just her luck that it should start to rain when she got halfway to Sanford. Probably her father would come out for her now, and perhaps he would have mended her bicycle for tomorrow. Thank goodness the day after that was Sunday. She was going to need that day off to get over this week.

  She was absolutely drenched before she got much farther, and she promised herself that she would accept the next lift offered to her, having turned down two offers already, the memory of her mother’s dark warnings about accepting lifts from strangers still with her from a child.

  But she was sure when her mother had given the warning that she hadn’t taken into account the fact that she was likely to catch pneumonia if she didn’t take the next lift that came her way.

  The arc of the approaching headlights picked out the light raincoat she wore, and the car swished to a halt several yards behind her. Even in this dull light of the heavy rain it was possible to pick out the light blue Jaguar. Not a stranger at all, not any more. Rick …

  He got out of the car, walking around the front of it to stand easily recognisable in the car lights. ‘My God, it is you,’ he scowled. ‘What the hell are you doing now?’

  What an auspicious beginning! ‘Getting wet!’ she snapped at him, rain dripping off the end of her nose.

  He gave an impatient sigh. ‘You’d better get in, before we both drown. One of us is bad enough,’ he muttered as he helped her into the warm comfort of the Jaguar.

  She knew she looked like a drowned rat, she didn’t need him to tell her that. Her hair was slicked to her scalp, the excess water now dripping down her neck. Not that her clothes could be any wetter, her raincoat had long ago stopped being waterproof, being only what they called ‘water-resistant’, which meant it kept the rain off you for about two minutes!

  But Rick didn’t have to make her quite so aware of how awful she must look. Resentment at once flared within her. ‘I hardly chose to get wet,’ she told him in a stilted voice. ‘If you’re worried about your leather car-seats getting wet—’

  ‘I’m not,’ he cut in grimly. ‘If I were I wouldn’t have stopped in the first place.’

  ‘Thanks!’

  ‘What did you expect? Sympathy?’
He shook his head in disgust. ‘It must have been obvious before you left Ampthull that the sky was going to open up.’

  It had been a bit dark for this time of evening, but she had been in such a rush to get home, to perhaps be able to go and visit this hateful man, that she hadn’t really taken that much notice of the impending rain or its consequences.

  ‘Well?’ he barked as she made no comment.

  Robyn sighed. ‘Okay, so I realised it was going to rain, but I left anyway. I could hardly spend the night in Ampthull.’

  ‘What happened to the bicycle?’

  She explained why she couldn’t use it. ‘Although I would have got just as wet if I had,’ she added moodily.

  ‘Maybe,’ he nodded. ‘Although you would probably have been home by now.’ He reached into his denims pocket. ‘Here,’ he held something out to her.

  Expecting to see a handkerchief, she was surprised when she realised it was two ten-pound notes. She frowned. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘For the new wheel you should have bought in the first place,’ he said dryly, his face harsh in the gloom of the car.

  ‘No, thank you,’ she told him indignantly.

  ‘Take it!’ Rick ordered tightly.

  ‘I said no!’

  He gave her an impatient glare. ‘You argue about everything!’

  ‘And you’re too damned bossy!’

  Their mutual anger could clearly be felt in the tense silence in the car. Robyn shot Rick the occasional resentful glance, but facing only his rigid profile. Arrogant, overbearing creature!

  ‘What happened to you last night?’ he suddenly rapped out.

  Robyn blinked, startled by the suddenness of the question. ‘Last night?’ she repeated.

  ‘Yes,’ he rasped. ‘Your mother said you would come round to the house.’

  She frowned. That she hadn’t gone seemed to have greatly annoyed him. But why? She hadn’t been to see him for weeks, and it didn’t seem to have bothered him before then.

  ‘I believe my mother said I might come round,’ she said slowly, watching the angry tightening of his jaw, the cleft in his chin all the more noticeable.

  ‘If you had time,’ he finished grimly.

  Robyn shrugged. ‘Well, obviously I didn’t have time.’ Her tone was deliberately casual as she kept to her decision to play it cool.

  ‘Obviously,’ his mouth twisted. ‘Who was he?’

  ‘He?’ He couldn’t actually be jealous because he thought she had been out with another man last night, someone she preferred to him? She certainly hoped that was the reason for his strange attitude.

  ‘The man you spent the evening with,’ he said tightly.

  He had to be jealous, surely there could be no other explanation. ‘I spent the evening quietly at home with my family,’ she told him softly.

  Rick’s mouth thinned. ‘I see.’

  ‘I didn’t realise it was a firm promise,’ she rubbed salt into the wound, enjoying his anger.

  ‘It wasn’t,’ he snapped.

  ‘Then I’m sure you weren’t too disappointed,’ she said sweetly.

  ‘Not at all.’ His tone was terse as he brought the car to a halt outside her home.

  Robyn bit her lip as Rick turned in his seat, obviously waiting for her to get out. And she didn’t want to, not now. ‘I—I could always come back with you for a while now,’ she offered tentatively.

  He eyed her mockingly. ‘Like that?’ he taunted.

  She put up a selfconscious hand to her wet hair, having momentarily forgotten her bedraggled appearance. She flushed. ‘After I’ve changed.’

  ‘I think not,’ Rick shook his head. ‘Not tonight. I’m busy.’

  She went pale at his rejection. ‘Who is she?’ she returned his question of a few minutes ago.

  He relaxed back in his seat, completely at ease. ‘She is a typewriter, the one you saw in my bedroom.’

  His reference to his bedroom reminded her all too vividly of the painful scene that had taken place there. And she had the feeling that Rick knew just how embarrassing she found the memory.

  ‘What are you doing on it?’ she asked waspishly.

  ‘Typing,’ he supplied dryly.

  Robyn flushed. ‘If you don’t want to tell me then just say so,’ she snapped.

  ‘All right,’ he sighed, his grey eyes calmly meeting the fire in her violet ones. ‘I don’t want to tell you,’ he added curtly.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Satisfied?’ he drawled.

  She would never be that, not while she continued to be taunted by this man. He would reveal nothing of himself he didn’t want to, making a mystery of his life both before he came here and now. And she wanted to know the answer to that mystery, although she doubted he would ever tell it to her.

  ‘I think you should get indoors and out of that wet clothing,’ he said at her continued silence. ‘Take a bath and have a hot drink,’ he advised.

  ‘I—’

  ‘Don’t argue, Robyn,’ he interrupted impatiently. ‘You know I’m right.’

  ‘According to you you always are,’ she glared at him. ‘Will you also be having a bath and a hot drink?’

  ‘I didn’t get as wet as you.’

  He might only have been standing out in the rain a matter of a few seconds, but like most summer storms the rain was absolutely pouring down, and Rick’s shirt clung to his powerful chest and tapered waist, and even his denims were damp.

  ‘I still think—’

  ‘Okay, I’ll have a drink,’ he cut in abruptly.

  ‘But not tea or coffee,’ she guessed.

  His mouth twisted. ‘I doubt it.’

  Robyn bit her bottom lip, knowing she couldn’t delay getting out of the car any longer. ‘Do you want me to come over tomorrow after work?’

  He shrugged. ‘Please yourself.’

  Pain constricted her throat at his complete uninterest in seeing her again. ‘Do you want me to?’ she persisted.

  ‘Like I said, please yourself.’

  Her eyes flashed, her hands clenching at her sides as she fought down the urge to hit him. ‘God, I hate you!’ she choked.

  Rick’s mouth tightened. ‘I’m not too keen on you either.’

  She paled once again. ‘That wasn’t very nice.’

  He sighed, pushing the damp swathe of his dark hair from his forehead. ‘You certainly don’t bring out the best in me,’ he admitted. ‘For instance, right now I—’ he broke off. ‘Never mind,’ he dismissed grimly, and turned away, his jaw rigid.

  Robyn sat forward, her expression one of eagerness. ‘Right now … ?’ she prompted.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said tersely, his profile stern.

  ‘Rick, please!’

  ‘All right!’ His tone was savage as he turned fiercely to face her, grasping her arms painfully between his fingers. ‘You asked for this!’ His eyes glittered triumphantly before his head bent and his lips claimed hers.

  His possession of her was complete, enfolding her roughly against his chest, bending her back over his arm to plunder her mouth with a passion that was instantaneous.

  Robyn kissed him right back, uncaring that his roughness was bruising her, that her lips already ached from the contact, that Rick allowed no respite for her inexperience. She didn’t feel inexperienced at that moment, arching against him as their bodies fused together in mutual longing.

  Suddenly he thrust her away from him, his mouth twisting contemptuously. ‘Why don’t you stay away from me?’ he rasped furiously. ‘Haven’t you learnt yet that where you’re concerned I’m dangerous?’

  She swallowed hard, still dazed from his kisses. ‘Dangerous …?’

  ‘Yes!’ Rick turned away, his face harsh. ‘God knows why, but I want you.’ He looked at her with agonised eyes. ‘And I don’t want to take you.’

  Robyn bit her lip, her eyes wide with bewilderment. ‘Why not?’ she asked quietly, her senses still alive from his fierce onslaught.

  ‘You know damned we
ll why not!’ he explained.

  ‘Tell me.’

  He drew a ragged breath. ‘When I take a woman to my bed I want exactly that—a woman.’ He looked her over insultingly. ‘Maybe in a couple of years you might qualify.’

  She closed her eyes so that he shouldn’t see the pain he was deliberately inflicting. ‘There has to be a first time for everyone,’ she choked, looking at him pleadingly.

  He turned to flick the key in the ignition. ‘Yours isn’t going to be with me,’ he dismissed abruptly.

  ‘But you want me, you said you did!’ Her desperation was unhidden, her love for this man glowing in her deeply violet eyes if he would just turn and look at her.

  She had half guessed at the emotion the last time she had been with him at the house, but now she knew it to be fact. She had fallen in love with a man she hardly knew, a man who made no secret of the fact that he didn’t love her in return. But he wanted her! Surely most relationships started off with wanting first? She had felt that quicksilver emotion the first time she had seen him, had been physically attracted to his lithe body and dark good looks from that moment. Maybe it had taken him a little longer to feel the same way, but he wanted her now.

  Rick’s expression was grim. ‘I’d want any attractive willing female at the moment. I told you, my sex drive is higher than most, and I’ve been here seven weeks already.’

  ‘You mean you—’ she licked her suddenly dry lips.

  ‘You just want me because I’m here and—and willing?’

  His mouth twisted, his appraisal insulting. ‘You are, aren’t you?’

  ‘I was,’ she corrected quietly, suddenly feeling numb.

  Rick looked straight ahead, revving up the engine of the car as if impatient to be gone. ‘Goodbye, Robyn,’ his tone was almost gentle. ‘You’ll thank me for this one day.’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ she choked.

  His hand moved to cover one of hers as it rested on her thigh. ‘You will,’ he assured her.

  ‘Rick, I—’

  ‘Goodbye, Robyn,’ he repeated pointedly.

  Her bottom lip trembled. ‘You aren’t leaving?’

  ‘No, you are. Out you get.’

  ‘I meant leaving Sanford.’

  ‘No, I’m not leaving, not yet. But don’t come to Orchard House any more, not if you have any sense at all.’