at night, the temperatures meant that shorts and tee shirts could be comfortably worn. For Rafael, who lived most of his life in his tailored, handmade suits, a pair of shorts and a faded tee shirt constituted the highest form of luxury.
‘That’s very rude.’ Amy withdrew her hand and pulled herself up so that she could fix him with a gimlet eye.
‘What’s very rude? You know what? I’m not really all that interested anyway.’ Outside, in the balmy air, a very gentle breeze lifted the breathtakingly blonde curls and made them dance.
‘I don’t care whether you’re interested or not! I’m going to tell you anyway! It’s rude to look at someone as though they’ve got a contagious disease when they’re doing nothing more than attempting to introduce themselves! If you don’t want to tell me your name, then that’s fine! It’s no skin off my nose! It’s not as though I’m—’
‘Rafael.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Rafael. My name is Rafael Vives.’ He held out his hand and as Amy took it she felt a strange quiver of awareness dart its way through her body like a sudden, unexpected jolt of electricity, then the feeling was gone.
‘I’m Amy.’ As quickly as her temper had surfaced, it was gone. Anger was something she had never been able to hold onto for very long. ‘Rafael…unusual name…Is it…what? Italian?’
‘Spanish,’ Rafael said abruptly. ‘Will you be able to find your way back to the house?’
‘Oh, yes? How did a Spanish gardener come to be working in America?’ She fished into a pocket, pulled out an elastic band and expertly tied her hair back into a loose pony tail.
‘Buy yourself a potted history guide book, speed read it and you’ll discover how we Spaniards managed to find our way over here. Now off you go.’
‘You’re very arrogant, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. Yes, I am, and now that we’ve cleared that up you can be on your way.’
To his relief she took the hint and for a few seconds he watched her head off, pause, glance around her, head off, but this time in a different direction. Her antics would have been amusing had he not known that sooner or later he would have to point her in the right direction. The grounds to the house were extensive and the verdant lawns were interspersed with grassy dunes and dense trees. There was even a tiered pond with a waterfall set in richly colourful gardens. When you knew the property, you knew easily how to find your way around, but to the uninitiated it could be bewildering, especially in the dark. And the guest cottage, which had been indeed built to house the head of the domestic staff when the house had been fully utilised, was not easy to find.
With a deeply impatient sigh, Rafael fetched the key, slammed the door behind him and caught up with her as she veered off on her fourth aborted attempt to locate the right way back.
He circled his hand around her arm and ushered her in the opposite direction.
‘Good God, woman! Where’s your sense of direction?’
‘I would have found my way eventually! And do you mind letting me go? You’re not a policeman and I’m not under arrest!’
‘I’m just making sure that I get you off my property!’
‘Your property? That’s a bit rich considering you’re only the gardener! I know the gardens are unusually big so you must be an unusually important gardener, but hey! You’re just still a gardener!’
‘Do you ever shut up?’ Rafael muttered under his breath.
‘Are you ever polite?’ He still had his hand wrapped around her arm like a steel clamp and Amy had given up on trying to shake him off. ‘It’s not my fault these grounds are so big! Well, actually, it is kind of my fault. I suppose I could have stayed put at the house with everyone else.’
‘Yes. That you could have done. Why didn’t you?’ She was very slight. Her arm felt fragile in his hand. He imagined that if he were to ever pick her up, she wouldn’t weigh a thing. He released her and shoved his hands in his pockets.
‘I was tired.’ She shrugged. ‘Normally I’m up for any party but I just fancied a little bit of time on my own.’
‘There was a party going on when you left?’ Rafael’s ears pricked up. ‘What kind of party?’
‘Oh, the usual. Loud music. People passing out in the flower beds. Skinny-dipping in the pool.’
Rafael spun her around to face him. ‘You’re kidding, aren’t you? I would have heard if there was loud music. It’s a still night.’
Amy looked up at him in astonishment and then burst out laughing. ‘Of course there was no party, Mr Gardener! I just meant that, after the “getting to know you” over the cocktails, I decided that a little walk in the garden might wake me up! It was all perfectly civilised. The flower beds are all still intact, in case that was what you were worried about.’
‘Of course I wasn’t worried about the damned flower beds!’
‘Then you don’t take your job as seriously as you should!’ Amy chided teasingly. ‘Anyway, why on earth should you care whether James has a party up at the house or not? It’s not really your business, is it?’
‘If you peer into the distance you can see the lights of the house. Follow them.’
‘You mean you won’t do the gentlemanly thing and walk me to the front door? And before you start glowering, it was just a joke. Do you ever get lonely?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Do you ever get lonely? You know…stuck up there on your own from dawn to dusk…’
‘What makes you think that I’m stuck there on my own?’ Rafael couldn’t resist asking. Even without benefit of light, he could see the embarrassed surprise on her face. ‘Don’t you think that there’s a woman who wouldn’t mind helping while away the occasional lonely night?’ he drawled.
Amy could feel hot colour flood her cheeks as she struggled to find a suitably composed reply. Eventually she stammered, clearing her throat, ‘Well, you just seemed to overreact to the idea of a party, so I thought that maybe…perhaps you…’
‘Perhaps I was a complete bore who enjoyed nothing more than pruning the rose bushes while pouring scorn on other people’s good times?’
‘No, of course not!’
‘I know how to enjoy myself, little Amy.’
The way he said that sent shivers running up and down her spine. From somewhere, she managed to dredge up the image of James, smiling, blond-haired James with his teasing blue eyes and ready grin, and just about managed to ward off the more disturbing one of Rafael the arrogant gardener in bed with a woman who wanted to help him while away a lonely night.
‘I just don’t happen to be a party animal. Drinking myself into a stupor has never held much appeal.’
Rescued from her sudden, acute embarrassment and over-active imagination, Amy was happy to be diverted back to her healthy opinion of him as an arrogant bore.
‘No, I could tell.’ His body language was letting her know in no uncertain terms that he couldn’t particularly care less what she thought of him, but Amy couldn’t seem to let it go. Arrogant bore or not, there was something curiously fascinating about him. ‘You’ve probably never been to a really good party’ she said, consolingly. ‘It’s not all about drinking yourself into a stupor. It’s about good company and good music and lots of dancing.’
She grinned at him, amused at his expression of distaste. ‘Which bit of that do you find off-putting?’
‘The bit that reeks of excess,’ Rafael told her coolly.
‘Which is where you’re in