She did not look at him. ‘It’s a long story.’
She was rubbing her shoulder again as if it hurt her. Jack watched. He had seen an unconscious movement like that before. He suspected he knew what it meant. Out of sight, his hands clenched.
But his voice was neutral, utterly uninvolved. ‘Has he some hold over you? Legally?’
What a minefield that question was, thought Holly wearily. She sipped her coffee and said at last, ‘Maybe.’
Jack was silent for an unnerving minute.
She lifted her chin. ‘What?’
‘I don’t think it is very clever of you to play games with me,’ he said softly. ‘I’m not likely to help you if you don’t tell me the truth. And at the moment I’d say I’m your best bet.’
Probably my only bet, thought Holly. If Brendan could track her down to the Club Thaïs so quickly, he could probably track her down anywhere she went. He must be making Donna throw money into the search.
Poor Donna! Not knowing her own father, she had clung to her stepfather. And then to find that he’d left his company to the blood daughter he had only just discovered! Donna had felt rejected, but Brendan was, quite simply, furious. And Donna, hurt, loving and blind, did what Brendan told her.
Holly shivered. Oh, yes, so much better to pack your heart in ice. And not let any man take you over.
‘So?’ prompted Jack.
Holly brought herself back to the present with an effort.
She selected quickly from the miserable complications of her personal history.
‘I don’t know whether he has any legal claim to be my guardian and that’s the honest truth.’
Jack preserved an unimpressed silence.
‘Look,’ she said, half-exasperated, half-desperate, ‘he is married to my stepsister. My parents died within a couple of years of each other—’ and what a continent of complications she skipped over there ‘—and I ended up living with them.’
It telescoped a bit but it was basically true.
‘That doesn’t explain why you’re afraid of him.’
Holly flinched.
‘Well?’
Her eyes fell. ‘We—er—didn’t agree on my future. So I left.’
‘What did you disagree about?’
That was the crux. Holly resolutely refused to admit the image of her father. She had an odd feeling that if she thought about him, Jack would know it. It was as if Jack were a mind-reader. Or could read her mind, at least.
She said woodenly, ‘I wanted to continue my education.’
Jack’s deep-set dark eyes bored into hers as if he were the judge and she were a criminal. Holly narrowed her own eyes and stared straight back at him defiantly.
‘All right,’ he said at last. He didn’t sound as if he believed her; just as if he was letting it go for the moment. ‘So how can he stop you? Money?’
She shook her head violently. ‘No. I’ve never taken any money from them. I don’t want any.’
She sounded as if the very idea filled her with horror, thought Jack. He stored the information away for future consideration.
‘So—how can he have any hold over you? If you really are twenty-two.’
Quite suddenly, Holly laughed. Sweet and true and startlingly youthful, her laugh rang round the little bar, waking up the drowsy barman with its genuine amusement. Jack was surprised and, for once, it showed.
‘You’re probably right,’ she said ruefully. ‘Only they live in Smallville, USA, and my father left a crazy will. I know I ought to have challenged it. But, frankly, I wasn’t ever going to convince a local court to see it my way.’
Jack raised his eyebrows. ‘Why not? I should point out that I’m from Smallville, USA myself,’ he said drily.
‘Then I shouldn’t need to explain,’ retorted Holly. ‘There isn’t a lawyer in the county who would take me as a client in a case against the family. They’re respected citizens.’ Full of irony, her eyes met his. ‘Which means big local employers. Pretty well the only employers.’
‘Ah,’ said Jack in immediate comprehension.
She sighed. ‘It’s understandable, I suppose. I was only seventeen and I’d lived in Lansing Mills for less than two years. Everyone had known Donna since before she was born. And Brendan since he married her. I suppose people thought they were just trying to take care of me. Stopping me doing silly things. All for my own good.’ For a moment she looked unbearably sad.
Jack knew that look. He had seen it too many times. It was the look of a prisoner resigned to the trap she was in. It always turned something over in his stomach, making him rage, making him want to make the prisoner rage.
Instead he said woodenly, ‘So you took the law into your own hands. You ran.’
The sad look dispelled. For a moment she looked naughty—and very young.
‘Yup.’
‘Why, exactly? Why then?’
She evaded that. ‘My daddy left a will saying that Donna was to look after me until I’m twenty-five unless I get married.’
All the bright naughtiness vanished. She looked as if she were tasting poison.
Jack said slowly, ‘And no one gets married at seventeen, right?’
She evaded that too. ‘They thought that meant I should stay at home, not go to college or travel or anything. Donna,’ she added, ‘never travelled.’
‘They were unkind to you?’
Holly stared into the fire.
‘They wouldn’t have thought so,’ she said at last, carefully.
Jack pondered in silence. ‘You were afraid of that man this afternoon,’ he said at last. ‘I saw it.’
Holly’s head reared up. Startled hazel eyes met his. They were unguarded for a moment and very, very wary.
And blazing.
‘You don’t trust me an inch,’ Jack said on a note of discovery. ‘Do you?’
Her lids fell, veiling the betraying expression. She gave a shrug.
‘Why should I?’
He made an exasperated noise. ‘I got you away from Brendan Sugrue. Twice.’
‘Yes, you did,’ she said coolly. ‘I ask myself why.’
There was a blank silence. ‘Not an inch,’ Jack repeated.
She shrugged again. ‘Why should I trust you?’
‘Because you don’t have many choices. And you need help.’
Her spine snapped vertical. ‘No, I don’t.’
He ignored that. ‘What made you run away from home?’
Their eyes met: hers alarmed, furious; his impassive. Hers were the first to fall.
She said flippantly, ‘I didn’t like having to be in by ten.’
A longer silence this time. She turned her head away but his eyes never left her profile.
Then Jack said very softly, ‘Why don’t I believe you?’
The barman interrupted. ‘Mr Armour. There is a phone call for you.’
Jack hesitated, not taking his eyes off her. Holly sat still under the raking inspection. But when he shrugged and went to the bar she sagged in the