Melting Ms Frost (38 page)

In a heartbeat, the relaxed stupor had left her and she tensed against him. ‘That won’t be necessary. I’ll be fine.’

‘Doctor’s orders, Annabel.’

‘But—’ she started to argue.

‘Non-negotiable,’ he interrupted to save her wasting her breath. He wasn’t budging.

‘So what happened to “rules were made to be broken”? You’re suddenly a stickler for them now?’ she huffed.

‘I’m always a stickler for the rules that matter.’

‘Meaning mine don’t?’

He sighed but kept his spike of frustration out of his tone. He knew this wasn’t about her rules. ‘Why do you do this? Push people away when they want to help?’

She was silent, stiff as a board against him now.

‘Annabel, relax,’ he murmured, pressing his lips into her hair. ‘Let me in. You can’t keep living your life this way.’

‘And one weekend together doesn’t give you the right to tell me that. You have no idea about my life,’ she said in a flat voice, closing herself off.

He was damned if he was going to let her, not when they were lying there pressed naked against each other from top to toe. ‘Then talk to me.’ He dropped the cloth into the water so he could grasp her chin and tilt her face up to his. ‘Tell me how a beautiful, intelligent woman ends up with no friends in the world.’ He looked into her eyes, caught her before she could slam that cold green curtain down over the swirl of conflict and confusion in their depths. ‘Tell me.’ He lowered his lips to press them softly against hers. ‘Because I can’t understand it at all.’

‘You
don’t
understand. That’s exactly my point,’ Annabel said, twisting her head to escape his grip. She lowered it back to his shoulder, tucking her forehead into his neck. ‘How could you? You grew up surrounded by a big family. You’re handsome and charming, you’ve got everything. I was an only child, a red-headed one at that. Do you know the sort of shit that gets piled on a “ginger”, how you’re judged on and defined by your looks over everything else? How you’re made to feel ashamed of your own appearance, like it’s something you have any control over?’

No, he didn’t know, but he could imagine. Kids were cruel. He picked up the wash cloth again, started slowly stroking over her hip, gentling her.

‘It’s bad enough if you’re confident, outgoing, but for a shy kid …’ She stopped and he felt the careful breath she sucked in. ‘The only place I ever felt really safe, really accepted was with my parents. My dad loved redheads, after all.’

Aidan felt her cheeks shift, as though she was smiling at the memory and rubbed his jaw over her hair. ‘He was a man of very good taste, then.’ He wasn’t sure whether it was because of the meds, the trauma or the fact that she was beginning to trust him – hell, it could even be the comforting smell of the baby bath, whatever – but he couldn’t quite believe that Annabel was opening herself up when a minute ago she’d been on the verge of shutting him out.

‘Everything was all right when he was around. I didn’t need anything else. I loved him and Mum, loved the inn, had my life planned out where I’d work alongside them, learn the business, eventually take it over.’

He could picture her as a little flame-haired girl, full of dreams and determination.

‘Then the day after my ninth birthday everything changed. My father left to meet with a new supplier and died in a car crash. It didn’t seem real – that one day he could be there, and the next gone forever. I think the only thing that got me through it was clinging to those plans – like the inn was a way of staying connected to him. I lost everything when Mum sold it. She had to, I know that now. She felt the opposite, couldn’t bear the memories, found it too heartbreaking to stay. But at the time I couldn’t see past my own grief. I swore I’d find a way to get the inn back – it was all I could think about. When we moved I was so stuck in the past that I had no chance of starting afresh. Not only was I shy and ginger, but I was angry and difficult too. Hardly friend material.’

His heart ached for the matter-of-fact way she said it, as though it meant as little to her as she pretended it did. He didn’t dare say anything, though. He’d never been in her shoes, could only imagine what it must have been like. Any attempt at comforting her would be taken as pity or sympathy and savaged accordingly.

‘By the time I hit my teens, well I told you, I was so focused on getting back my life plan – working, saving – that I didn’t have the time or inclination for anything else. And by that time I was so used to getting along on my own that I actually preferred not to have anyone getting in the way. It’s paid off too, because I’m nearly there. Another year or so and I’ll be in a position to buy my own place.’ She stopped as a yawn overtook her. ‘So now you know.’

Yeah. Now he knew all right. Knew she deserved better than she allowed herself.

‘Thank you. Come on, the water’s getting cold. Let’s get you dry and fed. You must be starving after a day of hospital food.’

Annabel woke in a dimly lit room and for a moment couldn’t place where she was. Then it came back to her. Aidan’s place, Aidan’s bed. But no Aidan beside her where he had been last night.

The diffused glow of daylight surrounding the drawn blinds told her she’d slept the night through. Hardly surprising on the drugs the hospital had given her. They packed a punch worthy of a horse tranquilliser. They also left her mouth feeling beyond foul. From the nest of pillows Aidan had built to stop her inadvertently rolling onto her broken arm in her sleep, she stretched over to the bedside table and grasped the glass of water sitting there, bringing it shakily to her lips and taking a couple of blissful swallows, letting the cool liquid wash the rank fuzz from her mouth.

Putting the glass back, she misjudged and knocked the plastic bottle of pills off the table, which clattered loudly onto the floor.

‘Hello?’ a female voice called out a moment later. ‘Are you all right in there?’

Annabel had time to register a soft Irish lilt to the words, similar to Aidan’s, before a black-haired head popped around the semi-opened bedroom door.

‘Hi, Annabel. I’m Ciara, Aidan’s sister. He asked me to come and sit with you while he went to work today. Can I help you with something?’

‘No, I’m fine.’ Annabel made to swing her legs over the side of the bed to pick up what she’d dropped, but getting her limbs to move seemed to be really slow going and Ciara was there in a flash.

‘Here.’ She handed the bottle to Annabel. ‘I’ll get you some fresh water so you can take one.’

‘No. I don’t want one.’ Annabel eased limply back into the pillows. Her arm and head were throbbing, her face aching, but not enough to make her want to knock herself out again.

‘Oh, OK.’ Ciara smiled. ‘How about a cup of tea or coffee then? I’ve just boiled the kettle.’

Coffee. Yes, maybe caffeine would help clear this thick cloud in her head. ‘Coffee would be great. Thank you.’ She scratched at an itch behind her ear. ‘What time is it?’

‘Just after one,’ Ciara said, turning to leave the room. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

It took what seemed like an age for Annabel to work out she’d slept for a solid ten hours, like her brain was grinding slowly through rusty gears. How come she felt thick-headed and exhausted instead of refreshed?

Ciara came back with a tray which she set down across Annabel’s thighs. ‘I don’t know if you’re hungry but Aidan said you like these.’ She pointed to an almond croissant sitting on a plate. ‘He picked up a bag of them this morning.’

How did he know she liked them? Of course – breakfast in Vienna. Seriously, was there anything that Mr Observant didn’t notice? She wasn’t feeling particularly hungry as the medication left her feeling queasy, but if she had to force something down, she could think of worse things.

‘He also said you’d probably feel like shit and not to talk your ears off. I’ll be just out here. Give me a shout if you need anything.’

It sounded to her like Aidan was just too high-handed for words, she snarked internally and then immediately felt ungrateful for everything he was doing. If it wasn’t for him, she’d still be stuck in the hospital – or worse. She hated to think what Tony Maplin would have done to her. Aidan had thrown himself into the midst of a dangerous situation for her, looked after her. She’d tried to show him how much that meant last night in the bath, tried to repay him by giving him the trust he seemed to value so highly. Lying there with his heart beating steady and strong beneath her ear, the feel of his body providing gentle yet solid support, she’d felt secure enough to open up to him, let him see parts of her that she’d never showed anyone else.

She drank the coffee, which was made just as she liked it, and picked at half the croissant. The first did clear her head a bit and the second settled her stomach. After a while she started to feel restless but attempting to move the tray with one arm ended with her nearly tipping the lot over the bed.

Obviously hearing the clank of the crockery, Ciara reappeared. ‘Oh, good. You managed to eat.’ She came up to the bed. ‘Aidan won’t kill me.’

‘He’s set you to report on me?’ Annabel asked as Ciara righted the fallen mug and lifted the tray away, allowing her to move her stiff legs.

‘Of course. Don’t worry, it’s not as control freakish as it sounds. He just gets a little overprotective sometimes.’

Personally, Annabel thought it had control freak written all over it. ‘I told him I didn’t need you to come today,’ she said, scratching at another tickle on her scalp. ‘I appreciate it but you don’t have to stay, really.’

Ciara looked at her with grey eyes a few shades darker than Aidan’s and not nearly as penetrating. ‘You haven’t known my brother very long, have you?’ she asked with a laugh. ‘We’re stuck with each other until he gets back tonight. Can I get you something else – help with anything?’

‘Actually, I’m going to get up,’ Annabel said, sliding her legs to the side of the mattress. She sat for a moment while her head pounded from just that minimal movement. Then scratched some more. ‘What I really want to do is wash my hair.’

Ciara shook her head. ‘That’s going to be virtually impossible for you to manage on your own with that splint. Unless you want to bend over the sink and I could do it for you?’

The thought of bending over made Annabel’s head pound even more. ‘No,’ she sighed, resigned to an itchy scalp.

‘Hang on a tick,’ Ciara said. ‘I think I might have an alternative.’

She disappeared with the tray and came back a minute later with an aerosol can. ‘Dry shampoo,’ she announced triumphantly. ‘It’s not the same as the real thing I know, but it should help.’

‘Yes!’ Annabel reached for it.

Ciara handed the can over and watched her struggle to untangle the remnants of the braid Aidan had done for her.

‘I’m happy to help,’ she said.

‘No.’ Annabel was horrified. ‘It’s dirty and knotty and disgusting.’

‘It doesn’t look anywhere near as bad as Aidan’s when he was taken ill, believe me. We couldn’t wash it for ages after the surgery – the half that hadn’t been shaved off, in any case.’ She picked up Annabel’s brush from the bedside table. ‘Honestly, it’s not a problem. Do you want to come and sit at the table and I can do it for you?’

Annabel gave up her struggles. Yes, she really did want that. Incapacitated as she was, she knew she’d only make a mess of doing it herself.

‘This was when he had the stroke you’re talking about? He had half his hair shaved off?’ That beautiful hair!

She pushed herself to her feet as Ciara nodded. ‘He had a haemorrhagic stroke, where the blood vessels burst rather than get blocked by a clot. He needed emergency surgery to repair the damage and stop the bleeding. His hair had to be shaved so the surgeon could cut away a section of his skull.’

Annabel wobbled over to where her suitcase sat on an upholstered stool. Aidan had been back to her flat to pick up some essentials and she noticed that he’d done quite well as she pulled on her robe and a pair of woolly socks. ‘I’ve seen the scar. It must have been a terrible time.’

Ciara nodded and fell into step beside her as they made their way out to the main living room. ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared. We knew he’d been under a lot of stress with his job, but his neurologist said that it took dangerously high blood pressure to cause that sort of damage. To start with we didn’t even know if he’d pull through, or what state he’d be left in if he did. I could hardly bear to look at him after the operation when he’d been put on a ventilator. Seeing him lying there unconscious, hooked up to machines that were basically keeping him alive …’ Ciara shuddered as though trying to shake off the memory. Aidan radiated such force of energy that Annabel couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to see all that vitality drained from him. ‘But he’s Aidan. He pulled himself through, though he was no picture, I can tell you. As soon as we were able, we shaved off the other half of his hair.’

‘I bet he wasn’t happy about that,’ Annabel said as they reached the table and she lowered herself into a chair. ‘I know I wouldn’t have been if I had such fabulous hair.’

‘It’s not fair is it? I’m jealous.’ Ciara came up behind her, hands gentle as they began to untangle the braid. ‘He’s only started wearing it long since it grew back. He didn’t like that his scar was all people could talk about when they saw it. At the time, though, he didn’t mind being shorn; it was easier all round while he was bed-ridden.’

Thinking of her mother currently stuck in bed in traction, Annabel was thankful that her own injuries had at least left her mobile. She’d go mad being confined to bed for any length of time.

‘Was he in hospital for long?’

‘The family wanted him home so we could care for him. We got him back to Ireland as soon as we could. And I have to say he was a pretty easy patient until he started to improve. Then he was a bit like you, raring to go, wanting to do things for himself, frustrated not to find himself bouncing straight back onto his feet.’

Annabel felt the first soft stroke of the brush as Ciara continued to chat away, making sense of the reference Aidan had made regarding his ‘especially’ noisy twin sisters yesterday.