One Chance at Love Read online

  He shrugged. ‘I saw a light under your door and, remembering how you couldn’t sleep last night …’

  She couldn’t take this. Her friends were kind, always considerate, but they understood that she needed to be alone sometimes, and they never intruded. No one had ever brought her milk and biscuits in bed because they knew she couldn’t sleep.

  The tears weren’t welcome and she cursed them, but she couldn’t stop them.

  Zach’s rueful smile faded as he saw the well of tears she wasn’t quick enough to hide, and he looked suddenly alarmed. ‘If you really want the pilchards, I could—’

  ‘I don’t want the pilchards,’ she choked with a watery smile. ‘I want—I want—’ She looked up at him beseechingly.

  He drew in a ragged breath, then took a step towards her, hesitating slightly before his arms came around her and drew her fiercely against him. ‘Oh, God, how I’ve wanted this too!’ he groaned into the softness of her fly-away hair. ‘Dizzy!’ he breathed softly, as if he couldn’t believe this was happening.

  Dizzy didn’t believe it was happening either, their hearts thundering loudly together in the silence of the room, their arms about each other as not even a wisp of air could come between them.

  Held against him like this she could feel the hardness of the rippling muscles she had witnessed that first day, knew the strength of him, knew what it felt like to feel cherished, as if she were a fragile butterfly he had to protect.

  He captured her chin as she looked up at him, staring deeply into her eyes, flames flickering in the depths of honey-brown. And then his head lowered, and his lips claimed hers.

  Dizzy had never been kissed before. Whenever she went out, it was always with a crowd of friends, and the men were always as much friends as the women, treating her like ‘one of the boys’. For any of them to think of her in a romantic light would have been laughable. And so, in her twenty-one years, she had never been kissed.

  But she was being kissed now, and by a man who knew exactly what he was doing, if the gentle way he pulled lightly on her chin, so that her lips were open to his, was anything to go by!

  Pleasure rippled through her body at the gentle movement of his mouth against hers, and she clung to the broadness of his shoulders as the caress deepened.

  The kiss went on and on, and she literally felt dizzy by the time Zach’s mouth moved to her cheek and then down to her throat, nuzzling against the silky skin there as Dizzy quivered with response, her senses heightened to fever-pitch. She had never felt so alive, so—so sensitised, trembling as Zach’s hands caressed her back and sides in rhythmic motions.

  ‘Dizzy, I—’ Whatever he had been about to say was cut off by the sound of an eerie scream echoing up the stairway and bouncing off the walls.

  ‘Kate!’ Dizzy tensed, her face flushed as she pulled out of Zach’s arms, unable to meet his gaze as she moved away from him. ‘She must have had a nightmare. I—I have to go to her.’

  Zach straightened, the flames dying in his eyes, a frown to his brow as if he, too, were puzzled at what had just happened between him and the unwanted guest of his niece. His mouth tightened. ‘Of course,’ he nodded tersely. ‘I’ll come down with you.’

  ‘No!’ She swallowed hard at the scowl that settled on his brow. ‘I—of course you must come down—if you want to.’ She moved jerkily to the door, still shaking very badly.

  He nodded again. ‘I want to,’ he bit out.

  Dizzy preceded him out of the room, amazed that her legs could support her. She gave a rueful glance at Christi’s closed bedroom door; her friend might like to go to bed late, but once she was asleep it would take the house falling down to wake her before she was ready!

  She was very conscious of Zach just behind her all the way down the stairs and through to Kate’s room. The little girl could be heard sobbing quietly now, and Mrs Scott looked grateful to see Dizzy when she entered after a brief knock, although the poor cook looked more than a little disconcerted when her employer entered the room directly behind Dizzy. Clasping her nightgown to her buxom figure, she put up a self-conscious hand to the rollers in her hair.

  ‘Dizzy!’ As soon as Kate saw her she pulled out of her grandmother’s arms and launched herself at Dizzy. ‘I want my mummy,’ she sobbed, her arms tightly clasped about Dizzy’s neck.

  Dizzy spoke to her softly, reminding her that her mother was in the hospital, getting well again, but that her daddy would be here tomorrow to take care of her.

  All the time she spoke to the distressed child she was aware of Zach as he stood across the room. He had come to an abrupt halt in the doorway, as if realising his presence here was more than a little unexpected. He frowned as he watched her holding and soothing Kate.

  Mrs Scott had managed to pull on her robe, obviously still uncomfortable with the intimacy of the situation, but doing her best not to show it. ‘I hope we didn’t wake you both.’ She sounded flustered. ‘She just woke up screaming,’ she apologised lamely.

  ‘It’s all very strange for her,’ Zach excused softly, his hands thrust into the pockets of his robe, his hair falling rakishly over his forehead in golden waves.

  Dizzy blushed as she remembered the way her hands had run through the softness of that hair only minutes earlier. She turned quickly away as she realised he had evaded answering Mrs Scott’s query about having woken them, although she doubted it had crossed the other woman’s mind that the two of them might have been awake together!

  Dizzy was doing her best to pretend it had never happened, and she was sure Zach felt the same way about it—that the lateness of the hour and the intimacy of her bedroom had brought about the situation. In future, she would make sure the light didn’t show under her door when she lay awake at night!

  Kate’s sobs quietened as she held her, and she was relieved to see tired lids drooping over the deep blue eyes.

  Suddenly Kate jerked herself wide awake, her arms tightening about Dizzy once again. ‘Stay with me,’ she pleaded brokenly.

  ‘Of course, darling,’ she assured her unhesitatingly. ‘Nanny and I will both be here.’ She looked up as she saw a movement out of the corner of her eye, realising by the tension in Zach’s body that he had taken the remark to be a dismissal. And he looked far from pleased about it! She hadn’t actually meant it that way, had meant only to reassure Kate, but after what had happened between them a short time ago it would be a relief to have his presence removed. Her head went back defensively. ‘I’m sure we can manage here, Professor,’ she told him with quiet firmness. ‘If you would like to get back to bed …’

  He seemed about to say something, and then obviously changed his mind, nodding abruptly. ‘But I’d like to see you in the morning, Dizzy.’ He spoke softly but, nevertheless, the fact that he would brook no argument to his request was clearly apparent.

  She swallowed hard. ‘Yes. Of course.’

  ‘In the library. At ten o’clock,’ he added precisely.

  ‘Not in the library!’ She blushed at the unmistakable vehemence of her tone, although she was relieved to see she hadn’t woken Kate. But Zach and Mrs Scott were giving her frowning looks, and she made a concerted effort to relax herself. ‘I have a horror of all those books.’ She was deliberately flippant. ‘I’d prefer to talk over a cup of coffee in the lounge.’

  Despite his incongruous appearance, Zach was every inch the professor at the moment, as remote and disapproving as he had been when Christi introduced the two of them the day before yesterday. God, was it really only then? So much seemed to have happened since then.

  ‘Very well,’ he agreed distantly. ‘Goodnight, ladies,’ he added with a slight softening of his expression as he looked at Mrs Scott.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ the cook groaned, once she and Dizzy were alone with the sleeping Kate, Dizzy settling the little girl back on the pillows before tucking the bedclothes in around her. ‘I hope he isn’t too angry about all this.’ She looked worried.

  Dizzy straightened. ‘He isn’t ang
ry at all,’ she assured with certainty, knowing Zach wasn’t angry about Kate’s having woken up in this way. His feelings concerning what had happened in her bedroom a short time ago were, however, a different matter altogether! No doubt he wanted to see her in the morning so that he could tell her succinctly that he would not appreciate her telling Christi what had taken place between them. He needn’t worry about that; telling Christi was the last thing on her mind! ‘Now you get some sleep,’ she soothed the older woman gently. ‘You need your rest after being awake most of last night. I’ll just sit with Kate for a while, if you don’t mind.’

  Mrs Scott looked down lovingly at the angelic little girl, her dark hair splayed out across the pillow as she slept. ‘I don’t think there’s any need now,’ she spoke softly. ‘I’m sure she’ll sleep until morning.’

  ‘I’d like to sit with her for a while, if I’m not intruding?’

  ‘Of course not,’ the cook smiled. ‘Promises mean so much to children, don’t they?’ she said understandingly. ‘But I think I will just try and snatch a few hours’ sleep, if that’s all right?’

  ‘I’d rather you did,’ she smiled encouragingly. ‘I’ll just sit beside Kate until I’m sure she’s going to stay asleep.’

  She knew by the even breathing several minutes later that the exhausted cook had gone back to sleep, relaxing slightly herself now that she didn’t have to put on that cheerful act for anybody.

  Mrs Scott was right, promises did mean so much to children, and she had had far too many of them broken when she was a child not to appreciate how hurtful it was when an adult let you down. And she had no intention of being guilty of that herself.

  Besides, she had no wish to return to her bedroom just yet, for she was hoping that, by the time she did return, her time in Zach’s arms would all seem like a dream.

  But when she returned to her bedroom several hours later, she knew that it hadn’t been. The cold milk and biscuits that stood on her dressing-table reminded her all too vividly that it had really happened.

  And a few hours from now she was going to have to face Zach across the lounge and pretend she had been as unaffected by it as he was …

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘BUT what does he want to talk to you about?’ Christi persisted.

  The two of them were eating a late breakfast together and, although Dizzy hadn’t relished telling her friend about her appointment with Zach this morning, she had realised it had to be done.

  She had told Christi about Kate waking up the night before, how both she and Zach had gone down to investigate, what she hadn’t told her friend was that she and Zach had been together in her bedroom when they had heard Kate cry! Without that relevant piece of information, his asking to see her this morning seemed slightly out of context.

  ‘Maybe he’s thinking of asking me to take over full-time as cook, while Mrs Scott goes off to take care of her family?’ she teased. ‘At least I’d be earning my keep!’

  ‘I hate it when you’re flippant,’ Christi reproved gently.

  Dizzy shrugged unconcernedly. ‘Well, then, maybe he wants to ask me to leave so that there’s one less mouth to cater for.’

  ‘I don’t believe that.’ Christi shook her head, looking very beautiful in the rich blue sun-dress that perfectly matched the colour of her eyes. Next to her, in her denims and green vest-top, Dizzy felt less attractive than she usually did!

  She sipped her coffee. ‘Then I’m as much in the dark as you are,’ she dismissed, not quite truthfully, for she was sure that last night in her bedroom would enter into the conversation somewhere.

  Christi chewed on her bottom lip, uncaring of the fact that the act removed her lipgloss. ‘Maybe I should have a word with him—’

  ‘No!’ Dizzy drew in a steadying breath as Christi looked at her sharply for her outburst. She really would have to calm down, or Christi would have the truth out of her, and then there would be no stopping the other woman from her matchmaking! ‘I’m sure it’s nothing important,’ she said brightly.

  Christi gave her a suspicious frown, but she didn’t pressure her any further. ‘I shall expect a full report when you’re through,’ she warned, as Dizzy went off to keep her appointment.

  She hesitated outside the lounge. She knew Zach was in there, because Mrs Scott had just performed her last duty before she and Kate went off to meet her son-in-law at the airport, the coffee just waiting in the lounge for Dizzy to go in and pour it.

  She straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath, before firmly opening the door and entering the room, faltering only slightly as Zach looked up at her without the screen of his glasses to lessen the impact of those beautiful honey-brown eyes.

  The baggy tweed jacket was back today, with an open-necked shirt that didn’t look as if he had slept in it—something she knew he didn’t do, anyway—and a pair of neatly pressed brown trousers. The clothes still didn’t fit him that well, but they were an improvement on that first day.

  Dizzy’s heart skipped a beat as her gaze once more returned to his face, affected as she usually was by the male perfection she found there.

  She tensed as he crossed the room towards her, watching him warily as he firmly removed her hand from the door and closed it behind her.

  His mouth twisted as he looked down and saw her apprehension. ‘Come and sit down, Dizzy,’ he invited softly. ‘I don’t bite. Although perhaps you can’t be too sure of that after last night.’ His gaze shifted to the lobe of her ear before quickly moving away again.

  Dizzy felt a quiver down her spine as she remembered the ecstasy of having him nibble on her earlobe. She hadn’t known there could be such pleasure from such a simple act.

  ‘Come and have some coffee,’ Zach prompted as he saw her uncertainty, gently touching her arm.

  At the first touch of his fingers against her bare flesh she moved into uncoordinated action, almost running across the room to sit on the sofa in front of the coffee tray.

  Zach followed more slowly, a deep frown between his eyes. ‘Dizzy—’

  ‘Coffee?’ she suggested sharply.

  He sighed, thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets. ‘Maybe it would help ease the tension a little,’ he nodded slowly.

  Tension? What did he have to feel tense about? Dizzy wondered dazedly. She had been the one to turn a simple gesture of friendship into something neither of them were comfortable with. She should have just accepted the tray of milk and biscuits and let Zach go back to his own room, not looked at him with such longing that he had felt compelled to take her into his arms!

  ‘Thanks.’ He accepted the cup of coffee she handed him, walking over to the window. He turned suddenly, as if he had just come to a decision. ‘I realise I owe you an apology for last night,’ he bit out abruptly. ‘But, somehow, in the circumstances, an apology doesn’t seem enough.’ He looked grim.

  Dizzy sat back in puzzled surprise. He owed her an apology?

  Zach shook his head self-disgustedly. ‘You’re a guest in my home,’ he rasped. ‘I had no right to take advantage of your situation here.’

  Take advantage? She had almost been begging him to make love to her last night!

  ‘I’m not surprised that you don’t feel you have anything to say to me.’ He put his untouched coffee cup back on the tray with controlled violence. ‘I’m pretty disgusted with myself right now,’ he bit out grimly. ‘I can only apologise again, and hope that you’ll believe me when I say it won’t happen again.’

  Dizzy was still speechless; this was the last thing she had been expecting when she had kept this meeting with him this morning. She had thought it might be somewhere nearer what she had teasingly told Christi: that he wanted to ask her to leave. She just didn’t know what to say.

  ‘That’s all I had to say,’ Zach told her abruptly, moving awkwardly to the door. ‘Please believe it won’t happen again,’ he said again before leaving the room, closing the door behind him, as if to give her a few moments’ privacy.


  She blinked dazedly, realising that during the whole conversation all she had said was ‘Coffee?’.

  Zach had apologised for kissing her. He wasn’t angry with her, didn’t believe she had deliberately encouraged him, as she had been afraid that he would. It was incredible, unbelievable, but he had taken full responsibility for those kisses.

  For the first time, she allowed herself to remember what he had said just before he kissed her, how he had ‘wanted it, too’. He really had wanted to kiss and caress her, long before last night in her bedroom?

  As far as she knew, no man had ever wanted to kiss her before, let alone apologised afterwards for taking advantage of her.

  Had Zach really wanted it as badly as she had? It put a whole new aspect on their relationship if he had. Zach had been hurt in the past, too, a different sort of hurt, but he had known the pain of losing someone he loved, and stayed away from involvement since that time. But last night he had taken a chance on her, had allowed her to see the emotions behind the man. It was going to be up to her to make the next move. If there was a next move…

  ‘Well?’ Christi burst unannounced into the room, her face alight with curiosity. ‘Uncle Zach went to his study ages ago. I’ve been waiting for you to come and tell me what he said!’ she complained as she threw herself into the chair opposite Dizzy.

  She smiled. ‘What were you doing, lurking about in the hallway, waiting for him to leave?’

  ‘Nice. Very nice,’ Christi drawled with sarcasm. ‘Actually, I was “lurking about” in the dining-room,’ she admitted ruefully.

  Dizzy chuckled. ‘At least you’re honest about it.’ And she wasn’t about to be quite so honest, for if she told Christi the truth there would be no stopping her! ‘Your uncle just wanted to check that everything went all right last night with Kate,’ she invented lightly.

  ‘Is that all?’ Christi looked disappointed. ‘I imagined him inviting you out to dinner, at least.’