Flowers for My Love (8 page)

Idiotically, she looked for some change in him since they had last met and found none.

The magic of his presence was as strong as ever, so was the usual need for few words between them. All too soon Nick was slowing down into a car park and ushering her into an oak-beamed jewel of a pub impregnated with the smell of well polished wood and beer barrels.

They went to a well polished table in a corner by a window and the waiter brought their order. Nick lifted his glass to hers. ‘Cheers,’ he said. ‘You’re looking great. There isn’t a discordant note about you.’

‘I could say the same for you,’ she said. ‘Why this interest in me all of a sudden?’

He made a pretence of being hurt. ‘Don’t you think I’ve been very kind in leaving you alone?’

Davina listened to the beating of her own treacherous heart.

She ached with loving him so much. Her love had been like a nocturnal animal quietly sleeping until he had jogged it back into life. Her small white teeth sank into the delicious sandwich. What utter bliss it was to sit leisurely for once in no hurry to go anywhere. The daffodils in the centre of the table were caught in the same beam of sunlight slanting on Nick’s well-shaped head from the window. His eyelashes were thick and golden as were the fine hairs on the backs of his hands.

She giggled suddenly and he looked at her narrow-eyed.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t possibly tell you why I laughed.’

He had demolished his sandwich and reached for another.

‘You’re laughing because you’re happy to be here with me?

Right?’

She shook her head. ‘No. Wrong.’

‘Then I insist upon knowing why you were laughing,’ he warned her darkly. ‘You’re living dangerously, my girl.’

‘You asked for it, and it’s your fault if I embarrass you. I was thinking what a good thing it is that you aren’t dark. You’d look terribly hairy.’

‘Ah yes, you prefer dark men.’

Davina sighed. ‘I’m afraid it’s something I grew up with.

Someone dark, dashing and daring.’

‘Hypocrite,’ he teased. ‘You’d run a mile from anyone who was dashing and daring.’

‘I would not!’

Davina had cider with her lunch. It was the most enjoyable day she had ever spent. Nick took her for a run in the country after lunch, and a good hour’s driving brought them to tree-lined country roads and the sweet smell of summer.

Parking the car in a layby, he took her hand and walked with her to a grassy knoll surrounded by trees where he spread his jacket on the ground for her to sit down.

With the birds singing in the trees above them and the muted sound of traffic on a motorway in the distance, Davina lay on her back to squint up at the blue sky.

‘Heavenly, isn’t it, to take a break and return to sanity away from the jungle of concrete?’ she murmured.

Using her folded arms to cast a shade on her face from the eye-watering sky, she laughed up at him. Too late she saw her mistake.

Catching hold of her wrists and drawing her arms down on either side of her, he bent over her lips.

‘No, Nick. Behave yourself!’ She struggled.

‘I am behaving myself very nicely, and keep still.’

She turned her head away quickly and his kiss landed on the side of her neck. Then his lips sought the hollow between her breast and she turned her head back in sudden revolt.

Her second mistake. He took her lips gently at first. Her brain reeled as he drew her tight against him, and her lips responded to the deepening pressure of his. She was fast losing her resistance as her body grew limp against his harder one.

Then the peal of girlish laughter came from a long distance away sounding just like Cheryl, and she struggled to free herself. She grew rigid and, gradually, Nick let her go.

‘It’s ... no use ... Nick,’ she gasped. ‘Let’s go.’

He stared down at her as though she was some mathematical problem that he had a difficulty in solving.

Harshly he said, ‘I told you you were a hypocrite. All this talk about a dashing and daring hero. What are you made of anyway?’

He sprang to his feet and walked away a short distance to stare over the rural landscape, presenting his wide shoulders to her anguished gaze.

She sat up and cried helplessly, ‘I’m sorry, Nick. You ... you wouldn’t understand. Cheryl doesn’t either.’

Her voice grew more and more wobbly as she struggled on to talk to his unyielding back. Then, to her own dismay, she began to weep silently into her hands.

Instantly Nick was kneeling beside her, taking hold of her slender wrists to draw her hands down from her face.

‘There’s nothing to cry about,’ he said gruffly. ‘Here, take my handkerchief and dry your tears. Here—blow. Then we can talk in the car.’

Davina blew her nose and with his arm around her walked with him to the car. He had thrown his jacket over one shoulder to leave the other arm free to place around her.

At the car he helped her in, slipped on his jacket and sat beside her.

‘Have you fallen out with Cheryl?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Not really.’

‘By the way, has she made it up with Rex?’

‘Yes. He wants her to get engaged. She’s thinking about it.’

He shook his head. ‘Dear, dear, these Mawne sisters are sure hard to drag to the altar!’

Indignantly, Davina said, ‘Cheryl isn’t yet seventeen.’

‘She needs someone to look after her. Hasn’t that occurred to you?’

‘It occurs to me all the time.’

He said wryly, ‘You need someone to look after you too.’

‘I’m doing very well as I am. I do my best.’

‘Of course you do.’ He shifted in his seat to turn and face her. ‘But you’re only a couple of babes.’

‘We’ll grow up, and now will you take me home?’

Nick made no move. His tones were ragged. ‘You’ll burn yourself out in the process. What’s wrong in having a husband’s broad shoulders to cry on? Women alone are always at a disadvantage—I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that.’

Davina looked up at him frankly. He was much too near and it was so easy to weaken. She loved him, there was no doubt about that, but there was Cheryl. If her sister was in love with him as she suspected then how would she react to a friendship that would only result in marriage breaking up the family?

Cheryl might easily marry Rex on the rebound, and what kind of a marriage would that be? Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap and she gazed down on them helplessly.

They would be tied if she married. Right now they were free.

‘I don’t want you to tell me anything. I want to go on as I’ve been doing until I see this thing through,’ she murmured stonily.

‘But it might take years—years that you could never recall to enrich your own life. You need a husband and children. Are you going to deny yourself the things that matter to a woman?

Are you always going to be on the outside looking in on other people’s happiness?’

The eyes she lifted to his were clear and resigned.

‘If that’s how it has to be, yes. I don’t think it will, though. I think if you do what you think to be the right thing something comes for you.’

He laughed then groaned. ‘My sweet, what am I to do with you? I could be that certain something that has come to you.

I’m going to see you whether you want it or not. You’re going to have me around for a very long time, but I might as well tell you that I’m not a very patient man when I want something very much.’

He bent to kiss the tip of her nose. ‘I asked you to a sandwich lunch because this evening you’re going out with me to a party.’ His eyes had steely glints in them at the shake of her head, and he went on, ‘I shall call for you at seven o’clock—and you’d better be ready.’

He started the car, muttered something unprintable under his breath as a motorist travelling at an excessive speed came too far over the layby to miss them by inches, and drove on.

One thing that Davina had discovered about Nick was the fact that he never sulked. Soon he was talking about things he knew would interest her, funny incidents on his travels abroad, of which there were many.

Soon he had her laughing helplessly, unaware of him getting under her guard. Wiping tears of mirth from her eyes, it had almost been her undoing as she cried weakly, ‘Oh, Nick, I ...’

She had been on the verge of saying, I love you, and stopped in time.

‘Yes?’ he prompted. ‘Finish what you were going to say.’

‘It ... er ... it was nothing important,’ she stammered, thankful that he did not take his eyes from the road to see her telltale blush.

‘Don’t forget. Seven this evening.’

Those were his last words when he dropped her off at the flat over the shop. Cheryl had not come back when Davina washed and dressed to go out with Nick that evening. Being on her own had given her time to look at things in their true perspective.

She could manage without Nick, but if she did then she had to come to terms with this terrible feeling of being isolated not only from her small family but from everything else. Like Nick had said, being an onlooker while other people lived.

Dear Nick! He was everything she wanted in a man—

exciting, witty, dashing, daring with a wonderfully built body which made her feel weak with primitive needs which frightened her.

Her decision to go out with him again brought its own difficulties of how she was going to keep him in check. He was a virile and full-blooded man who could, no doubt, discipline his own desires up to a certain point.

Davina had a bath, slipped on fine underwear and a dress utterly feminine in its swirl of frothy elegance. Her newly washed hair was fragrant and soft as silk. The glow on the creamy delicate skin of her face had a radiance inspired by thoughts of seeing Nick.

She was ready when he called, tripping out to him with a wrap around her slenderness that gave her an

ethereal look.

Tall, rangy with an impression of curly fair hair, and grey eyes that stared right through her, Nick,

heartbreakingly handsome in evening dress, helped her into the car.

It took her an age to collect herself, to put up her armour against that handsome arrogance that was so mind-shrivelling and dangerous to her.

At last she said lightly, ‘You haven’t told me where we’re going.’

‘Juleen’s place,’ he replied laconically.

‘Does she know you’re bringing me?’

He raised a brow. ‘I don’t, as a rule, describe the girl I take to her parties.’

‘That isn’t what I mean and you know it!’

‘I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about,’ he replied with maddening calmness. ‘You like Juleen, don’t you?’

‘Of course I do, but she’s far better off than I am and we don’t move in the same circle of friends.’

‘Nonsense! You’re going as my guest.’

The party was in full swing when they arrived. The room was jam-packed with people swaying together to the music from a record player.

Nick met her gaze with a grimace. ‘Want to go?’ he asked, extricating her from between two groups of people who stood chatting over drinks.

Quivering at the thought of being in some dim intimate place with him, Davina shook her head emphatically. It was then that Juleen bore down upon them.

Agitatedly, she caught Nick by the arm. ‘Glad you’ve come,’

she told him with heightened colour. ‘We have gatecrashers—

about two dozen of them over there by the door.’

A scruffy gang of youngsters were tipping back drinks and dancing in one corner of the room. They were making a terrific noise and Nick’s face set.

‘I’ll soon get rid of them,’ he said grimly.

‘Do be careful!’ Juleen wrung her hands nervously as she spoke, but Nick was already shouldering his way through the guests.

Davina turned her back and refused to look as Juleen appeared to notice her for the first time.

‘Hello, Davina,’ she said. ‘Did you come with Nick?’

‘Yes.’

Juleen looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Is Nick dating you?’ she asked abruptly.

‘He’s trying to,’ she admitted.

‘Trying to?’ Juleen echoed. ‘That’s unusual for Nick. He normally has no trouble in persuading girls to go out with him.’

‘I can quite believe it,’ Davina said wryly.

Juleen smiled. ‘Are you playing hard to get?’ she queried sweetly.

‘No.’

‘Just cautious? I don’t blame you.’

Davina sensed an atmosphere. ‘I have a feeling that you don’t approve of me going with Nick.’

Juleen’s smile was enigmatic. ‘Let’s say you’re a nice girl who expects marriage, and Nick ... he just isn’t the marrying kind.’ She shrugged bare shoulders. ‘I’ve introduced him to the most beautiful girls and he’s never taken any of them seriously.’

‘Perhaps he hasn’t met the right one yet. In any case I haven’t anything as tying as marriage in mind at the moment. I’ve too many commitments at home,’ Davina assured her.

To her relief Nick came back in that moment, having got rid of the gatecrashers. Both women looked at him anxiously as he grinned.

Davina said, ‘No black eyes?’

‘Disappointed?’ he drawled.

Juleen said playfully, ‘That was very clever of you. Where are they, and how did you manage it so quickly?’

His grey eyes held a wicked twinkle. ‘I told them there was a much better party next door.’

Juleen was suddenly convulsed with laughing. ‘The two Daker brothers?’ she croaked in glee.