much she already wanted the dangerous intimacy he was promising her.
‘At least not without…not without paying you.’
‘Paying me?’ Suddenly he was frowning at her, his eyes curiously cold where they had been warm. The way he was looking at her made her shiver as she reacted automatically to the sharpness of his voice by stepping back from him.
It seemed he had read the meaning of her body language because immediately his expression changed, his eyes softening back to their original warmth. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that…well, the kind of relationship I had in mind for us wasn’t exactly one of business. However, if you really feel you have to offer me some form of repayment, how about payment in kind?’
She couldn’t help it. She looked immediately and betrayingly at his mouth, blushing vividly as she remembered how it had felt against her own. It was a very masculine mouth. Looking at it made her tremble inside and dig her teeth quite sharply into her own bottom lip, as she fought to banish the dangerous images tormenting her senses.
‘If you would agree to allow me to use your phone until my own is installed, that would be more than payment enough,’ she heard Luke saying, and instantly her fair skin flamed with guilty heat as she prayed that he hadn’t realised what she had been thinking.
Desperate to distract his attention, as if she were a vulnerable creature of the wild seeking sanctuary, she said quickly, ‘That’s…that’s fine by me. But this dado rail; do you really think—?’
‘I’m sure of it,’ he interrupted her. ‘Come over here and look at these marks on the wall.’
In order to do as he suggested she would have to stand so close to him that their bodies would be touching. A small shudder of sensation burned through her and she knew that if she did as he suggested, if she felt the heat and strength of his flesh against her own, she would be helpless to control the foolish response of her own flesh.
‘Yes, I can see them from here,’ she fibbed, adding nervously, ‘What do you suppose happened to it—the rails?’
‘Who knows? The old boy who used to live here probably ripped them out and used them as firewood,’ he told her wryly.
Melanie frowned. How had he known about John Burrows? Almost instantly she chided herself. Why shouldn’t he know? But did that mean that he knew about her, about how she had inherited the cottage? But no, he couldn’t do so, otherwise he would not have asked her about her family.
‘Right, then, let’s get started, shall we?’
AT ONE O’CLOCK, with three strips of immaculately aligned paper adorning the ceiling, Melanie suggested hesitantly, ‘Would you care for some lunch? It’s only salad and cold meat.’
‘Sounds like a great idea, but I’ve got a better one. Why don’t you let me drive you into Chester? There’s a good DIY place there where we can get the rail, and we could stop somewhere on the way for something to eat to save you doing anything.’
Melanie opened her mouth to ask him how he knew about the DIY centre and then closed it again, telling herself that she of all people ought to know better than to pry into someone else’s life, and, taking her silence as acceptance of his suggestion, Luke said warmly, ‘Good, that’s all settled, then. If I could just use your bathroom to clean up a bit?’
‘Er—yes, of course.’
The bathroom was shabby and uncomfortable like the rest of the house. It was also cluttered with her personal toiletries, her make-up and her hairbrush, since it was the only room in the house with a decent mirror in it.
Perhaps she was being foolish and naı¨ve to be embarrassed as she thought of him seeing such intimate possessions, and she had no doubt at all that he would be openly amused if he could read her mind; but the idea of any man—but especially this man—using the room which she considered to be her most personal domain brought a tingle of dangerous sensation racing down her spine.
As he washed his hands free of the sticky wallpaper paste, would he visualise her in the small confines of the bathroom, stepping out of the large old-fashioned bath, her body slick and wet?
The shock of her own thoughts was mirrored in her eyes as she turned quickly away from him.
What on earth was happening to her? She had never had these kinds of thoughts before. Never. They both shocked and excited her, opening secret doors within herself which she had never even known existed.
‘The bathroom,’ Luke reminded her quietly.
‘Oh, yes.’ She told him where it was, and then hurried into her own bedroom. It had a narrow single bed, a small chest of drawers and a wardrobe that wobbled because it was missing one foot. It also had a tarnished mirror into which she peered rather desperately after she had changed her jeans and top for a more formal pleated skirt and a toning jumper.
She didn’t have a lot of clothes, and most of those she did own had been chosen with her job in mind rather than for attracting admiring males’ glances.
Luckily she had washed her hair that morning and it hung in a clean, sweet-swelling, shiny fall on to her shoulders. She frowned as she stared at herself, wishing despairingly that she was taller and prettier, that her hair was curly and her nose straight.
Then she heard the bathroom door open and she grabbed the jacket she had put on the bed and hurried out to meet Luke on the landing.
Was it her imagination, or did his glance linger for just a split second longer than necessary on the soft swell of her breasts? Was that why they seemed so oddly tender as though they had actually been caressed and aroused by the firmness of a man’s hands?
‘If you’re ready,’ Luke was saying politely beside her as she battled against the shocking wantonness of her thoughts.
‘Er—yes…yes…I am.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘TELL me something about yourself.’
She was sitting in the passenger seat of Luke’s car while he drove them towards Chester. His question unnerved her, tightening her defences. She remembered how, over the years, she had been subject to a great many unkind comments because of her orphaned state, especially when she was at school. They had hurt, those comments, leaving tender scars.
‘There isn’t very much to tell.’ She hesitated, her mouth dry as she fought with her reluctance to reveal her own vulnerabilities to him.
There was a small silence during which he gave her a discomfitingly sharp look before saying, ‘Or not much you want to tell.’
He was shrewd, she had to give him that, but then his job would of course incline him to look beneath the surface, to probe and go on probing, to query and question.
She was starting to feel uncomfortably conscious of how little she would want to be the subject of his enquiries. Not that she had ever done anything in her life that would make her of any interest to a private detective.
‘I hope that one of those things you don’t want to tell me isn’t that you’ve got a husband and half a dozen offspring hidden away somewhere.’
His voice sounded lighter, teasing, but even so the shock of his charge caused her to turn automatically towards him, denying, ‘No, of course it isn’t.’
‘So you’re not married then, or otherwise involved?’
The look he gave her made her heart turn over. Even though she warned herself that she was being a fool, exposing herself to heaven alone knew what potential danger and unhappiness, she heard herself saying huskily, ‘No. No, I’m not.’
‘That’s something else we share in common, then,’ he told her, but before she could question him, could ask exactly what else it was they shared, he was adding more briskly, ‘This looks like the turn-off coming up for the DIY place.’
It was,