It sent flares of danger shooting through Kane’s blood.
‘I think it’s time we got out of here,’ he urged.
Surprisingly, though, she shrugged away the hand clutching her elbow. ‘I don’t think I need—’ she started to say, but her sentence was punctuated by a small cry as a piece of jagged wood glanced across her forehead. ‘Ohh!’
As she crumpled, Kane’s arm shot out around her bare middle. He couldn’t contain the vehement little oath as he caught her, holding her upright. She felt as light as a sparrow against his own strength. ‘Are you all right?’
For a few split seconds everything looked as squidgy as the liquid in a plastic water bottle.
‘Shannon!’ Kane’s worried command fell hazily across her semi-dazed senses, like a shaft of light through a long, dark tunnel. She nodded and heard his heavily drawn sigh of relief.
‘Now will you listen to me?’ He sounded angry again, which was much more in keeping.
‘Why are you angry? You’re always angry with me.’ The words escaped her as if she had had too much to drink. Perhaps, she thought, this was what they meant by punch-drunk.
‘Shut up and walk. You can walk, can’t you?’
‘Of course I can walk,’ she asserted as her spirits returned. What she didn’t think she could do, though, was put up with the sensuous warmth of that soft-sleeved arm around her bare middle. It made her want to lean against him, let him take control, wallow in the comfort and protection he offered as the only link with home. ‘I’m fine,’ she breathed in protest, striving mentally and physically to liberate herself. Physically was easier.
‘Come on, then,’ he insisted, soundly oddly hoarse as he took her elbow again and, grabbing the grubby canvas shoulder bag she had dropped as she’d staggered, propelled her in front of him, away from the imminent danger zone.
‘My orchid!’
She glanced back, saw it lying there, crushed and broken on the pavement.
‘Leave it!’ he ordered, and she felt the unexpected rush of foolish tears prick her eyes as he hustled her away.
At the end of the pedestrian thoroughfare, he was bundling her into a taxi.
‘Why are we going to the marina?’ she asked when he climbed in beside her, having heard him giving the driver their destination.
‘Because I came in on the boat.’ The car door slammed ominously shut behind him. ‘You can rest aboard until all this chaos dies down.’
‘The boat?’ A pulse in Shannon’s temples began to throb. What boat?
Seeing her frown, he smiled. ‘A mixture of business and pleasure,’ he told her as the taxi began nosing its way through the clogged street towards the harbour. ‘Fortunately most of the business has been taken care of, for today at least.’
She didn’t think she could handle this—being marooned with Kane Falconer in something so confining as a boat. Not that she was worried he would treat her with anything but his usual cool courtesy. It was just the unsettling intimacy that the whole thing implied.
‘I really think I should try and get home,’ she stressed, glancing anxiously back over her shoulder.
‘And just how do you propose to do that? On the bus? Or are you hoping for a cab with wings to get you back through town?’
He’d obviously assumed—and correctly—that she didn’t have her own transport. Her Porsche, like most of her possessions, had been left behind when she had fled England and the life she had been unable to face any more.
He had a point though, she thought, looking back again at the city’s gridlocked traffic. The scene behind them had turned frightening and, back beyond the waterfront, not a vehicle was moving, every bus, coach and taxi stuck with private and commercial vehicles in one impossible jam.
‘I can walk,’ she said.
‘With that bang on the head?’ Incredulity laced his words. ‘You feel up to that, do you?’
She wished she could say she did, but the truth was, she didn’t.
‘Why the rush?’ he asked a little more gently when she didn’t respond. ‘Do you have some hungry pet waiting at home?’
‘No.’
He laughed softly, sensing her lingering reluctance. ‘Don’t worry,’ he advised. ‘If you’ve got a date tonight, I’m sure we can get you back there before he thinks you’ve stood him up.’
‘Thanks,’ she snapped, averting her head so that the hot June sun shining through the open window played across the bright gold of her hair, accentuating the tense beauty of her profile.
‘Have you?’ he prompted suddenly.
‘Have I what?’
‘Got a date?’
Whatever his motive for asking, she was sure it wasn’t for any magnanimous reason like helping her to keep it, and quietly she responded, ‘I don’t see that that’s anything to do with you.’
They were crossing the bridge, the imposing monument of Columbus that dominated the skyline catching his attention for a moment.
‘You’re right, it isn’t,’ he said.
‘Why did you ask, then?’ she challenged and, wanting to throw him off balance, tagged on, ‘Or was that an overture to asking me out yourself?’
He laughed then, a harsh, cynical sound that assured her of what he thought of that idea. He didn’t have to say anything. After all, he had had ample opportunity to ask her in the past, and he never had.
Suddenly, feeling ridiculously desperate for his approval, she murmured, ‘Believe it or not, Kane, even I stay at home sometimes to wash my hair.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I wasn’t doing anything in particular.’
The look he shot her was one of pure scepticism, which just showed her how pointless it was, she thought, even trying to change his mind about her.
‘Must be tough,’ he observed, his mouth turning mocking, ‘doing nothing all day and then having nothing to do all night.’ His eyes were more serious now, uncomfortably assessing. ‘I would have credited you with more intelligence than to drift around the world—as you admitted in your own words—“killing time”.’
Would he? She looked at him quickly. Did he consider her intelligent? Worth something? That her life had some value? Something warming and utterly reckless stole along her veins.
‘Who says I’m drifting round the world?’
‘Aren’t you?’ he said grimly. And before she could answer, ‘Life isn’t all one whopping big party, Shannon. I’d hoped you would have learnt that by now.’
She glanced out of the window, biting her tongue to stop herself hurling back just how big a party life had been for her. A little way ahead, rows of countless masts pointed skywards from the bobbing dinghies in the marina; small sailing craft, moored alongside the gleaming hulls of more powerful motor vessels.
‘Isn’t it?’ Hair stirring in the wind, she brought her attention back to him again. ‘Maybe not for you, Kane, but, as we both know, I’m one of the privileged few. I’ve never been required to work. Daddy foots the bill for my every need through direct debit once a month—and I sleep late most days so I can get my kicks out of enjoying myself every night!’
Something in her outburst made him gravitate towards her, broad shoulders turning, mouth firming in disdain. He was altogether too big, too dominant and too disturbingly sexy, she thought with a tightness in her throat, noticing the way the soft fabric of his trousers pulled across his thighs as he breathed in a voice low enough so that their