Turning the Tide (35 page)

Matthew laughed softly, making it impossible for her to control her shaking legs. ‘You know, I was afraid you wouldn’t turn up tonight. By the time nearly every table was full and the waiters had started running around, I thought, well, that’s
it, Corrigan, she’s not coming. And then you walked in and took my breath away. You look beautiful, Harry.’

‘It’s all right, Matthew.’ Harry sighed heavily. ‘You can save all the soft soap; it doesn’t wash with me. If you wanted to talk to me, couldn’t you just have come over to the yard?’

‘Yes, but then you wouldn’t have known what a success the film festival’s been. I wanted you to see for yourself how much everyone was enjoying themselves. Look at who was there tonight. It wasn’t full of strangers, or people looking down on the town; it was folks who live in Little Spitmarsh letting their hair down and having a good time. It’s still the same town – only better, more optimistic.’

‘So you wanted to gloat.’

He laughed softly and her stomach did a little flip. She wanted to stuff her hands in her pockets but she didn’t have any.

‘That’s my Harry,’ he said, drawing her to him. ‘You’ve no idea how jealous I was of Jimi before I discovered he was your half-brother. That’s one of the reasons I was so furious when you wouldn’t come up and see George that day. I’d seen you wrapped in Jimi’s arms and I just saw red!’

Pressed against his chest, Harry wondered if her hearing was suffering. Matthew jealous of Jimi? About her?

‘But what about Teeth and Hair?’ she mumbled before she could stop herself.

‘Who?’

‘The woman George saw leaving your house when he couldn’t sleep. The woman who met you at the yard?’

‘Oh, Gina.’ She felt him laugh. ‘Gina and I were always going to go down different tracks; we both knew that we’d run our course. That was the reason she was there, to tell me she was taking a job in the States.’

Harry was starting to feel relieved to be there, safe in the warmth of his arms, but she thought she ought to raise a token protest. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘Something I’ve been wanting to do since you walked in tonight wearing that dress. Mind you, I have to say the dungarees have been getting to me a bit recently – I did warn you I might want more than your land.’

‘That’s not very romantic,’ said Harry, enjoying being pinned in his embrace.

‘That’s a bit rich coming from you. Anyway, Ms Watling, how do you explain your behaviour? Hmm? How come you’re in my arms and not trying to break them? I’m not getting much resistance here.’

‘I’ve been wrong about a lot of things,’ Harry said, with a nonchalance she certainly didn’t feel.

‘You’re not the only one,’ Matthew said, stroking her back. ‘I never thought I’d get this close to you.’

Harry pinched him.

Matthew squeezed her tightly.

‘Harry?’

‘Hmm?’

‘There’s a lot we need to put right. Shall we go back to my place and clear up a few misunderstandings?’

Clearing up a few misunderstandings would be good. Some meaningless sex wouldn’t be too bad either. Although it wasn’t exactly meaningless to her, that was the problem. Matthew Corrigan had invaded her life, her territory and she was pretty certain her body was next on the list. Is that what she wanted? Harry did a quick check. Yes, she did. As if her life wasn’t in a big enough mess already.

In the soft light of Matthew’s bedroom, Harry watched in the mirror as his fingers traced the nape of her neck and travelled down to the zip at the back of her dress. His face was so sexy; those dark, mysterious eyes, the sharp planes of his cheekbones, his jaw, just touched with stubble, grazing her skin as he bent his mouth to her shoulder.

The dress floated to her ankles and she heard Matthew gasp as she stepped out of it and was reflected back at him in only her tiny lacy knickers and silver sandals.

‘My God!’ Matthew said throatily. ‘Why have you been hiding such a beautiful body?’

Harry met his gaze in the glass. She felt strong, proud and not the slightest bit embarrassed by the fact that, whilst she was wearing next to nothing, he was fully clothed. If she was giving him her body as well as her land, she was damn well going to make sure he appreciated exactly what he was getting. Shivering with anticipation, she waited as, almost reverently, he ran his hands up from her slim hips round her tiny waist and was about to cup her full breasts when she turned to face him.

‘Now,’ she said, pulling off the black evening tie, unbuttoned round his neck, ‘it’s your turn.’

Matthew was shocked to see what he’d been missing all this time. How had he not noticed how beautiful Harry was? Freed from her normal brutally cropped thatch, she looked so much softer with sexy wisps of hair framing her face and a reckless ‘Guess what I’m about to do to you?’ sense of promise in her eyes. Along with the helmet hair, Harry seemed to have shed a few layers of armour. Looking up at him from under sweeping black lashes, she regarded him with none of her usual challenge; instead, her eyes met his with a shy sense of her own worth.

And then there was that body. Matthew took a long look at it because it was certainly worth a second, third, fourth, fifth … He shook his head, still baffled by what she’d been concealing so well. A man could spend a lifetime looking at that body and still want to come back for more. Maybe it was the combination of strength and vulnerability, the toned tanned arms and taut stomach against the lush softness of breasts and hips, which drew him so powerfully. A curvy pale bum and a scattering of freckles across her tanned shoulders and back – where did Harry do her secret sunbathing and how come he hadn’t spotted her? And whilst he’d always been a legs man – the longer the better – there was nothing wrong at all with Harry’s. No, he thought, stepping back for a better look, these were perfectly in proportion with her height and, set off by those high silver sandals, just crying out to be wrapped around his body.

Still amazed by her, he ran his hands across her hips and upwards until she wriggled round to face him and reached for his tie. He heard her whisper something about it being his turn, before she pulled him to her and his mouth found hers. Looking had been good, very good, but tasting was even better.

Aah!
When Harry’s lips traced the line of dark hair running down from his navel, Matthew’s mind went blank. As his Levi’s and boxers hit the deck, he pulled himself back by concentrating on trying to kick them surreptitiously out of the way without ruining the mood. Harry’s mouth was hot against him – he plunged his hands into the silkiness of her hair, felt the blood pounding through his body and almost lost control.
Control?
He came back to earth with a thud. Wasn’t that just typical of Harry to want to take the lead everywhere she went? Apparently she even thought she could push him around when they were making love.
Jesus!
Harry’s tongue did another little flick and nearly did push him over the edge. Yeah, that would suit her nicely, wouldn’t it, to have the satisfaction of being the one waiting whilst he went out of his mind? Well, Harry, he thought, pulling her to her feet. I’m calling all the shots now.

Harry came to in the half-light of dawn. She stared at the little netsuke figure on the bedside table, a Japanese girl diver wrestling with an octopus. Harry had heartfelt sympathy for her; they were both grappling with problems far too big for them. The Japanese diver only had the octopus to worry about, but Harry had to come to terms with the discovery that she’d just spent the night with Matthew Corrigan.

And what a night – her body ached with all the arching and shuddering it had done. Even thinking about it set everything tingling again, so she decided that the best plan was just to lie there, with Matthew spooned into her back and his arm flung round her waist, and think about it a bit more. She closed her eyes – and there was Matthew balancing her naked on his hips, pushing her against the wall, spreading her on the bed. A kaleidoscope of sensation: fierce kisses, tender bites, the sweat on his body, the sound of her name on his lips. And then there was coming back from a deep, dark, all-consuming vortex to find him waiting for her, warm and welcoming, bringing her into the safety of his arms. Where next, though? That was the puzzle now – where did they go from here?

Matthew didn’t wake as Harry moved from under his arm and turned over, propping herself on one elbow to study the face she suddenly knew so well. She marvelled at how little awkwardness there had been between them – even with the condoms – and how much pleasure there was in discovering that they worked so well together. They’d certainly sorted out something, even if it wasn’t what to do about the boat yard. Harry smiled; the boat yard could wait, she was sure of it. Whatever their motives for sloping off to spend the night together, something had changed. It wasn’t possible to be this close to someone and not be changed by the experience. If she had gone with him tonight because of a hopeless crush, and if he had taken her because he could, something good had come out of a questionable beginning.

Matthew murmured and rolled onto his back; and Harry, tempted by the long lean lines of his body, had to force herself not to touch him. Not until she’d had a drink of water, at least.

She slid out of the bed and padded down to the kitchen, her body feeling well-used and ready to repeat the performance. No wonder she was so thirsty, she grinned to herself; her body
was obviously crying out to replace all the lost moisture. She
gulped down a glass of water, then looked in the fridge. Chilled
champagne – very nice, perhaps they could open it with their
breakfast in bed? As she took out a carton of orange juice and
went to put it on the black marble work surface, she glanced at a document lying next to the phone – and froze.

It was a solicitor’s letter typed on expensive-looking paper, explaining something to do with the boat yard; but there was also a matching compliments slip, on which someone called Piers had written in large flowing script, ‘Matthew, you might want to think about another way to get what you want; it might be cheaper to be nice to her!’ Slowly, with shaking hands, Harry put down the orange juice and picked up the letter, then sank onto a kitchen chair to read it.

As she did so, she felt the blood drain from her face and her mouth turn dry. No wonder this Piers had advised Matthew to back off. It seemed that Matthew wasn’t the only businessman buying up ancient rights and invoking feudal laws as a means of trying to bully ordinary people into parting with large sums of money. Another self-styled ‘Lord of the Manor’ had been quite successful at it, buying up paper titles and spreading alarm and despondency because of his manorial rights over tracts of land – until he tried to claim ownership over sand, mudflats and the riverbed of a major estuary. A lengthy legal battle had ensued, with claim and counterclaim, finally going to appeal where three eminent High Court judges decreed that the true owner was the Crown. Having been in unchallenged possession of the area for centuries, the court ruled that ownership rested firmly with the Queen and, just to rub salt in the wound so far as the Lord of the Manor was concerned, that he was responsible for the substantial legal costs.

You might want to think of another way to get what you want!
Dropping the letter back on the worktop, Harry managed to make a noise somewhere between a laugh and a hysterical sob. Matthew Corrigan had been taking her breath away all night, and now she was having to take great lungfuls of air just to stay upright. Worse still, he’d known exactly where he stood when he’d invited her back to his house. All those sweet nothings, all the ‘Harry, you’re so beautiful’, all the ‘God, you don’t know how long I’ve been dreaming of this’, must have given him a particularly perverse thrill as he realised that he had her exactly where he wanted her – in every sense of the word.

Harry had two choices: she could slink home and crawl under the duvet and cry, or she could go upstairs and kill him.

Chapter Thirty

The first pale-lemon light was just filtering through the veil of night as George loitered by the creek to watch the rising waves. Noting with satisfaction the absence of lights at Harry’s house, he decided there was only one place she could be. They’d make a good couple; Matthew was strong enough to keep coming back for more every time Harry turned him away, and perceptive enough to see the loyal, loving woman who could keep him by her side.

There would be another big spring tide today. Later on he’d have a potter round to see that all was well. Had Matthew, he wondered, worked out that the car park down at the restaurant might be a bit prone to flooding? Be a right shame if any of those BMWs got washed away, wouldn’t it? But for now, George yawned, it was high time he got some kip.

Matthew panicked when he stretched out and Harry wasn’t beside him. What if, after everything they’d shared, all the intimacy and tenderness, she’d packed up and left? A quick look around the bedroom revealed a dress crumpled on the floor by the mirror, a pair of lacy knickers on his side of the bed and one sandal. God knows where the other one was, he thought before settling down again. Unless Harry had hopped off down the road in her birthday suit, she’d be back any minute and they could pick up where they’d left off.

What a thought! Matthew entertained himself by imagining what he was going to do to that hot, strong body of Harry’s as soon as she returned. Making love with Harry was a mystery and a revelation; a journey across an unmapped landscape when she kept herself from him, the joy of discovery as he unlocked another secret part of her. ‘Oh my America! My newfound land,’ he murmured.