offers accommodation to a strange man—tongues wag. You should have thought of that before you issued your invitation.’
She froze in the act of slicing her grilled tomato, large mauve-blue eyes simmering with annoyance.
‘You know, I could almost get the idea that you’re enjoying this!’
He shrugged slightly. ‘Having a blank slate for a memory is no joke. But watching you tiptoeing around your own conscience, juggling with your guilt complexes, is reasonably entertaining.’
‘Oh, is it?’
‘Perhaps the word “entertaining” is too offensive, Carla. Sorry. Maybe “intriguing” is a better word.’ He didn’t sound particularly sorry. The sea-green gaze was amused, and irritatingly aloof. Carla pushed her plate away, and regarded him balefully. What kind of viper had she opened her doors to?
‘Tea or coffee? And what guilt complexes would these be?’ she enquired at last, adopting her sweetest tone.
‘Coffee, please. Black, no sugar.’ He grinned remorselessly. ‘What guilt complexes? At a guess, they’re all to do with your marriage…’
So he had been eavesdropping! There was a hot wash of colour in her cheeks. She was glad to hide behind her dark swath of hair as she poured boiling water into two white china mugs. Tipping milk into hers, she carried both back to the table, and clicked Daniel’s down with scant grace in front of him.
‘My marriage is none of your business,’ she pointed out, ‘and I think your time would be best spent delving into your psyche, prying into your past, don’t you? Not snooping around overhearing conversations and poking your nose into my life!’
‘Ouch. Firmly put in my place.’ Daniel laughed shortly. The wry twist of his lips as he eyed her furious expression struck an answering chord somewhere inside her. Despite her fury, she found herself attempting a weak smile back.
‘All these arguments, and we hardly know each other.’ She raised her eyebrows mockingly.
‘Yeah,’ he agreed, deadpan, ‘just think what hell we’d be if we were a couple.’
‘Quite.’ Carla found that she couldn’t hold the cool, expressionless gaze. With a jerk, she switched her eyes to the view from the window. The silence intensified to the point where she could feel it clamping down on her, like an invisible vice. Then Daniel said easily, ‘How long were you married?’
She sighed, then managed a slight laugh.
‘Three years. You don’t give up, do you? I think I’ve guessed your identity for you. Your interrogation skills have given you away. You’re the real-life incarnation of my Detective Inspector Jack Tresawna!’
‘Anything’s possible. That’s what’s so unnerving.’
‘What’s so unnerving about being my fictional character come to life?’
Daniel grinned, but looked thoughtful.
‘You’re not suggesting I’m a myth? A psychic disturbance created by your overheated imagination, Carla?’
‘You never know,’ she said flippantly. ‘Stranger stories have been recorded in this part of the world. Cornwall is full of myths…’
‘But I’m flesh and blood,’ he confirmed coolly, catching hold of her wrist across the table. ‘Feel me…’
The physical contact jolted her. Sitting quite still, she stared down at the lean brown fingers circling her arm. She was trembling, she realised dimly. Surely something as simple as a hand on her arm couldn’t make her feel like this? She stared at Daniel’s hand, registering the well-shaped, strong-looking fingers, short, clean nails, the scattering of black hair at the wrist. His palm was warm, clasping the pulse-point in her wrist. Could he feel the faster rhythm? Feel her tension?
‘Yes, I believe you,’ she said hurriedly. She twisted away, pulled her wrist away, and stood up, before he could see the confusion in her eyes.
Just the touch of his hand on her arm had triggered a buried warmth in her stomach. Shivers of response in her thighs. A tingling in her breasts, thankfully well-protected from view beneath her voluminous blue jumper. But even more confusing was this unnerving sense of déjà vu. As if she’d met him before, somewhere, somehow, without remembering where or when. He seemed alien but familiar…
‘The hint of strange, other-worldly happenings,’ he was teasing calmly. ‘Isn’t that the style that made your Carl Julyan books well-known? Detective novels with a suggestion of the supernatural?’
‘Yes. I suppose it is…’ Dragging her frayed emotions together, she caught her breath, forced her thoughts back on to a logical course, furious with her own idiocy. She managed a commendably direct look. ‘You seem remarkably alert and well-informed for a man suffering from memory-loss, you know.’
‘Do you think I’m faking?’ The cool challenge held a gleam of mockery. She shook her head.
‘I didn’t say that. What possible motive could you have for faking amnesia?’
‘What indeed? I imagine that I’d have better methods of occupying my time.’
There was a pause. Carla collected the coffee-cups and began stacking dirty crockery into the dishwasher. Daniel’s presence was like an invisible electric charge in the air behind her.
‘What made you choose a male pseudonym?’ He spoke calmly, breaking the silence. ‘Does this have any connection with your habit of dressing like a boy?’
She paused as she stacked the last breakfast plate. Froze into stillness. Don’t get angry, she urged herself silently. He obviously gets his kicks out of baiting people. Straightening up, she turned a cool, expressionless smile towards him.
‘As a matter of fact, it probably does. I should have been a boy. Or so my parents always said.’
‘Meaning that you always acted like one? Or that they would have preferred to have one?’
Carla gazed at him, her throat abruptly constricting. How often had she heard her father bemoan the fact that his longed-for son had turned out to be an unwanted daughter? Worse still, an unwanted daughter who didn’t even grace the family snapshots with beauty and talent? She had a brief mental vision of herself growing up. Plump, plain, spotty, teeth in a brace until she was seventeen, hair stick-straight, that flat, uninteresting shade of dark brown which no amount of waving or styling seemed to transform.
‘A bit of both,’ she said aloud, with a casual shrug. ‘And I’m sorry if you don’t approve of my clothes.’ She glanced down at her baggy denims, and equally baggy jumper. So what if their bulk and lack of cut did hide her figure? She hadn’t the least interest in her figure. Catching a glimpse of her face, pale and devoid of make-up, in the mirror over the sink, she looked quickly away. Dressed like a boy? Did this horrible man have to be so intensely personal all the time? Couldn’t he just make polite conversation and mind his manners?
‘One thing you’re certainly not is a diplomat!’ She grinned, determinedly retrieving her poise. ‘But whatever your profession you’re definitely an amateur psychologist!’
‘It doesn’t take a psychologist to detect that you’re unhappy with your femininity, Carla.’ It was drawled softly. Suppressing the urge to throw something at him, she shrugged again, fighting an annoying heat in her cheeks.
‘I’m a full-time writer, not a…a photographic model. And you’re wrong. Whatever I am, I’m perfectly happy with it, thanks. Now, can I get you some more coffee?’
He shook his head, and then winced as if he wished he hadn’t.
‘Do I gather this place used to be a farm? Before your husband died?’
‘Yes…this was one of several places my father owned and rented out. He gave it to us as a wedding present.