Cinderella's Desert Baby Bombshell by Lynne Graham, Louise Fuller

CHAPTER FOUR

LEANINGBACKINHISCHAIR, Arlo extended his arm over his back, grimacing as he stretched out his neck. A pulse of frustration beat down his spine. They were back in his office, and as a gust of wind shook the house he stared out of the window to where the waves were flinging up foam.

Usually, he found it easy to work. But not today, he thought, glancing down at the cursor blinking reproachfully at the top of the blank page on his computer screen. Today he’d struggled to find one word that could hold his attention long enough for him to forget that Frankie was in the room.

His eyes narrowed on the halo of auburn curls that was just visible over the piles of books on the other desk. It was unconscionable to let a woman—this woman—distract him from work. Work that was, after all, the only reason she was here in his office. Although now he was finding it hard to remember why he had ever thought that was a good idea...

Shifting back in his seat, so that he could no longer see the top of her head, he watched his screen go black.

He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Frankie that he was on a break from women. A long break, as it happened—maybe too long. But it was through choice rather than lack of opportunity. He’d deliberately let the expeditions, the lecturing, the research, take precedence over his love life.

It was easier that way...less painful.

Love was for fools. Or maybe it made people into fools. Either way, he’d decided a long time ago that it was too unpredictable to make it the basis of any relationship other than a familial one.

Of course, familial love was no less painful. But at least it played by the rules. It was logical. Naturally, a mother might love and support her child, a father his son, a boy his brother. It was hardwired into their DNA.

Love between a couple was different: dangerous. It didn’t matter if it was based on duty or desire, it lacked any real scientific foundation. Lust, on the other hand, was the engine in the juggernaut of life. It was a simple compulsive force—like gravity. Potent. Persuasive. Undeniable.

Thinking back to the uppity put-down Frankie had thrown at him after lunch, he felt anger coil up inside him like a snake. He had felt like running after her and shaking her. Or, better still, kissing her. Kissing her until she melted into him as she had done that morning.

‘I’ve practically forgotten it ever happened.’

Who was she trying to kid?

Unclenching his jaw, he shifted forward.

‘Could you please stop fidgeting?’ Frankie’s voice floated up from behind the desk. ‘Some of us are trying to work.’

A rush of heat tightened his muscles. ‘Are you talking to me?’

She sighed audibly. ‘Well, I’m not talking to Nero.’

As the dog lifted its head from the floor Arlo hesitated and then, pushing back his chair, stood up and walked across the room.

‘It wouldn’t matter if you were. You see, unlike you, he prefers it when people bark.’

‘And I prefer it when people are straight with me.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘I thought you wanted my help.’

‘I do.’

‘Then what’s with all the huffing and puffing?’

‘I wasn’t aware I was huffing and puffing,’ he lied. ‘It’s just transitioning back to working behind a desk...it’s hard after so many weeks out on the ice.’

His jaw tightened. She was looking at him as if she thought that level of sensitivity was beyond him. But he could be sensitive when required. In fact, he could be anything she wanted—

His body tensed as he remembered her breathless little gasp when he’d pulled her hips against his body.

‘I haven’t changed my mind. You’re doing a good job.’ Clearing his throat, he gestured towards the shelves behind her desk. ‘Actually, I need to check something in one of those files. The blue one,’ he said, pointing at one at random.

She got to her feet, her eyes travelling over the haphazardly stacked shelves. ‘You have really great organisational skills.’

He tapped his head. ‘It’s all up here. I know where everything is. No, I can get it myself. No, let me—’

Reaching up, he made a grab for the file, but she was already tugging at it.

‘Ouch!’

Books and files were tumbling from the shelf, and he swore as one hit him squarely on the bridge of his nose.

‘Why don’t you ever do what you’re told?’ The pain was making his eyes water. ‘I said I’d get it.’

Frankie glared up at him. ‘You know, I’m getting really tired of how everything is always my fault with you,’ she snapped.

‘Not as tired as I am of nothing ever being your fault,’ he snapped back.

‘I didn’t say that...’ Pressing her hand against her head, she winced.

‘Are you hurt?’

She shook her head, but as she lifted her hand, he felt his pulse jump into his throat.

‘You’re bleeding—’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘It’s not nothing.’ He led her to the sofa. ‘Sit.’

She pushed against his hand. ‘I’m not a dog.’

Damn, she was stubborn. She was also bleeding. He took a breath. ‘Please could you sit down?’

With relief, he watched her drop down onto the cushions. Angling the lamp to see better, he grabbed her chin between his thumb and forefinger.

‘Look up. Please,’ he added as she stiffened against his hand.

He parted her hair. ‘Okay, it’s a small cut. It’s not bleeding much, but you’ll probably have a bit of a bump.’

She sighed. ‘I don’t need a nurse.’

‘Lucky I’m a doctor, then,’ he said.

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Of rocks. And ice. Not people. Now, if you’ve finished?’

‘I haven’t.’ He fished out a handkerchief from his pocket. ‘Press this here. I’m just going to get the first aid box. And don’t even think about moving.’

Leaning back againstthe sofa cushions, Frankie closed her eyes and breathed out shakily. It was Arlo’s fault, she thought angrily. If he had organised his shelves like any normal person this wouldn’t have happened.

Her head was throbbing and there was a metallic taste in her mouth, and she felt a nauseous rush of déjà vu. Clutching the arm of the sofa, she opened her eyes and steadied herself.

That had been her first memory after the accident that had killed her entire family. Eyes closed, her head hurting inexplicably. She hadn’t understood at first. She had felt as if she was dreaming, only then she’d opened her eyes and realised the nightmare was real.

‘Sorry I took so long. How are you feeling?’

Arlo was back. She gazed up at him, frowning. ‘Fine. It’s really not that bad.’

‘I’ll just spray some antiseptic on—’

He was being so nice, and his touch was gentle in a way that made her throat ache more than her head.

‘What happened here?’ he asked.

His fingers had stilled against her head, and she knew that he had found the thin line of puckered skin.

According to the French media it was a miracle she had survived the crash. Afterwards, when she’d seen photographs of the plane, it had been hard to believe she had not just survived but walked away with just one tiny reminder of what had happened that night in France.

Only one visible reminder, anyway.

Balling the handkerchief in her hand, she shrugged. ‘I was in an accident. A couple of years ago.’

She couldn’t see his expression, so she didn’t know what he was thinking, but she did know she wanted to stay in control of this particular conversation.

‘I banged my head. It left me with a healthy respect for safety belts and this scar.’

That was true. Not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But she had never told anyone that except at the inquest, and that had been an experience that had taught her not to expect justice even from those charged with dispensing it.

‘So we have something else in common,’ she said lightly. Looking up into his face, she widened her eyes. ‘Oh, but you’re hurt too.’

‘What? This?’ Reaching up, he touched the dark bruise at the bridge of his nose. ‘It’s nothing.’ He smiled. ‘It’s hardly going to mar my good looks, is it?’

‘You are good-looking.’

His forehead creased into a frown. ‘Maybe I need to take a closer look at that bump...’

She bit into her lip and he held her gaze.

‘It’s okay. Johnny’s my brother. I know what beauty looks like.’

Conventional beauty, she thought. Or perhaps it would be better named conformist beauty.

Johnny was Michelangelo’s David. All perfect lines and symmetry. And yet for some reason she couldn’t quite picture his face anymore.

Her heart smacked against her ribs.

There was nothing symmetrical about Arlo. He was a rough draft, formed by a more urgent hand. An Easter Island profile chipped in bone, not rock. A man who corrected the course of everything in his path.

Glancing up, she felt a jolt of electricity crackle up her spine as their eyes met.

‘Beauty is God’s handwriting. It’s not legible to everyone.’

There was a long pause, and then his eyes fixed on her face. ‘But it is legible to you?’

Her heart thudded hard. She felt something stir inside her, as if there was a storm building there...

‘Doctor’s daughter,’ she said, breaking the taut silence. ‘So, Arlo, tell me—what made you want to go to Antarctica?’

For a fewhalf-seconds, Arlo didn’t reply. Not because he didn’t know the answer. He had been trying to work out why she had changed the subject, only the sound of his name on her lips seemed to have momentarily stopped his brain working.

Just seconds earlier he’d been trying to remember why he’d thought it a good idea to give her a job.

Something about putting her off-limits—that was it. An imbalance of power.

Now that decision felt premature on so many levels...not least because he felt uniquely and perilously at a disadvantage.

Hoping his silence suggested that he was taking her question seriously, rather than taking leave of his senses, he dragged his gaze away from her soft pink mouth.

‘When I was twelve years old, I read The South Pole by Roald Amundsen. I found it gripping. The menace and the mercy of nature. There’s a copy in the library if you want to read it. Second shelf on the level as you walk in.’ His eyes met hers. ‘Don’t worry. The books are a lot better behaved downstairs.’

She smiled then, and suddenly it was his turn to change the subject.

‘So how are you finding the work? Not too dry, I hope?’

‘Not at all.’ She hesitated, then, ‘Actually, your notes are surprisingly interesting.’

‘Thank you. I think,’ he said, the corners of his mouth pulling up very slightly.

‘It’s just that there’s a lot of numbers. You know...percentages of this and metric tons of that.’

He frowned. ‘In other words, facts.’

‘Exactly.’ She stared at him impatiently, as if he was missing something glaringly obvious. ‘I know you love facts, but most people find them really intimidating, so you have to make them interesting and understandable. And you have. I mean, if someone like me can understand them you must have done.’

‘What do you mean, “someone like me”?’

She bit her lip. ‘You know... Someone who lacks “discipline and diligence”.’

There was a small, stiff silence as he replayed her words—his words, in fact—inside his head. ‘Look, I wasn’t thinking straight this morning. I was still angry and scared—’

Her chin jerked up. ‘Scared?’ She screwed up her face as if she didn’t believe him. ‘Of what?’

He hadn’t meant to admit his fear out loud, and now he felt his body tense as he remembered that grey wall of water rising up around her. Remembered, too, the promise he had made to himself all those years ago. Never to let fear overrule facts. Never to let the preventable become the inevitable.

‘Scared that you’d be hurt.’ Or worse.

Frankie was staring at him in silence. ‘I thought you hated me...’

They were so close he could see each and every freckle on her face. He wondered how long it would take to count them. And where exactly they stopped on her body.

He cleared his throat. ‘I don’t hate you.’

He heard her swallow. ‘I don’t hate you either.’

His breath stalled as her eyes rose to his face. Gazing down, he could see the pulse at the base of her throat beating in time with the blood pounding through his veins.

He was powerless to look away.

Time seemed to soften and then stop.

Their legs were touching at the knee...her hand was just inches from his. Never in his life had he wanted to kiss a woman so badly...

But before he could wrap his hand around her neck and bring her mouth to his, the grandfather clock at the end of the room chimed the hour.

She blinked, as if waking from a dream. ‘It that the time? Constance said supper was at a quarter past.’

As she got to her feet Arlo frowned up at her. ‘You know what? I’ve just remembered I need to call a couple of people back. But you don’t need to wait for me—in fact, you shouldn’t. Tell Constance I’ll sort myself out in a bit.’ Standing up, he walked over to his desk. ‘And take Nero with you, will you? Otherwise, he’ll just bug me to feed him.’

He made his calls and then, wanting to prove to himself that he could, he sat down and waded through his notes.

Finally, Nero came padding back upstairs. It was ten o’clock. ‘Okay, then.’ Pulling the dog’s silky ears, he followed him downstairs, but instead of heading to the kitchen, Nero trotted down the corridor.

He followed him into the library. It was dark, but the fire was still glowing, and opposite the fire Frankie was asleep on the sofa, a disorder of curls framing her face, the Amundsen book open beside her.

His shoulders tensed.

Should he move her? Probably not. She might freak out—and anyway that would mean taking her up to her bedroom.

He felt his body grow taut. He’d been shot, punched, and he’d suffered frostbite, but the idea of sliding Frankie’s body beneath the sheets and then having to walk away was a new, excruciating pain.

Leaning forward, he gently added a couple of logs to the fire and then, tugging a throw off the back of the sofa, he draped it over her body.

His jaw tightened. Now what? Sleeping on one of the other sofas seemed like a bad idea, but he didn’t want to leave her alone.

He glanced down at Nero. And he didn’t have to. ‘Up,’ he said quietly, watching the dog jump up onto the sofa and curl into a ball. ‘Now, stay.’

Body twitching, Arlo turned and walked swiftly out of the library, and away from a sudden, inexplicable desire to trade places with his dog.

When Frankie wokethe sky was light.

She had been dreaming of Antarctica, sleepwalking across blue-shadowed frozen oceans, and for a few half-seconds the light pressing against her eyelids felt like the solid white sun shimmering above that endless polar landscape.

Except it was far too warm to be Antarctica.

Yawning, she opened her eyes and sat up.

At the end of the sofa Nero lifted his head, his tail thumping against the armrest. Her body tensed. Nero meant Arlo.

Heart pounding, she glanced over her shoulder. But the library was empty. She was alone.

She felt a flush heat her face. She hadn’t been alone last night—at least not in her dreams. Arlo had been with her, always just out of reach and hazy, as if he was walking through mist.

Her stomach did a clumsy little flip. It sounded weird, putting it like that, but dreams told you what you already knew. Her dream was simply proving that she found Arlo baffling.

Satisfied with that explanation, she patted the dog’s tousled head, her eyes following his gaze to the windows.

Surprise chased away her unease.

The trees in the garden were no longer bending over like supplicants and the sky was a dirty white instead of battleship grey.

Glancing at the clock above the fireplace, she frowned. It was too early for breakfast.

‘Come on, then,’ she said softly. ‘Let’s go and get some fresh air.’

Outside on the slopes a fine mist was making it hard to see the sea, but beneath her feet the short salt-soaked grass was speckled with tiny vivid pink-and-blue flowers.

Up ahead, Nero was bounding around in circles, clearly ecstatic at being able to have a proper run, and he was barking, yelping in excitement at something—

Not something. Someone. Arlo.

She felt a buzz go through her body.

He was walking out of the mist towards her, just as he had in her dream, his dark hair falling in front of his eyes, his long legs making short work of the springy turf.

She stared up at him, her blood turning to air, her vision shuddering in and out of focus. He was bare-chested, with a black sweater tied around his waist and, incongruously, a dark sheep, complete with curling horns, draped over his shoulders.

Her mouth felt as if it had been sandpapered.

He looked like someone from another age and he seemed completely at ease—as if he often stripped off to the waist and carried livestock around. Her gaze dropped to his chest...to the acreage of pale muscle.

When he had picked her up on the causeway, and then again when she had kissed him, she’d had a sense not just of physical strength but of a potent, untapped power.

Now she knew why.

He was not just ‘ripped’, there was a kind of organic solidity to his physique—almost as if his upper body was made of stone. And yet there was nothing clumsy about the way he moved. On the contrary, he had the same easy, loping gait as the dark dog that was now trotting beside him.

At that moment Arlo looked up, and her stomach clenched as if it was being squeezed by a giant hand. She watched him come closer, nervously trying out various half-finished sentences in her head. And then he was stopping in front of her, and suddenly it was a struggle to fill her lungs, much less think in sentences. Above them, the sky seemed to shrink back on itself.

‘Good morning.’

He gave her a slight almost-smile and, even though he was the one who was half naked, she felt herself blushing.

‘Are you looking for me or just out for a walk?’

His dark grey eyes rested on her flushed face and, trying to control the hammering of her heart, she said quickly, ‘A walk.’

Dragging her gaze away from the thin line of dark hair that disappeared into the waistband of his jeans, she looked up at the sheep. ‘What happened to it?’

His forehead corrugated into a frown. ‘It’s difficult to say. Either she hunkered down in the wrong place or she got blown over by the wind. She doesn’t seem hurt, but she didn’t want to move. She’s probably just winded.’

‘Where did you find her?’

‘Just over there.’

She followed his gaze. The mist had cleared, and she felt a kick of horror. Maybe the slope was less steep when you were standing on it, but from this angle the gradient looked almost vertical.

‘You went down there?’ Her horror morphed into outrage. ‘Imagine if I’d done that.’

His eyes met hers. ‘Why would you? You don’t have anything to prove.’

And he did?She stared at him in confusion. He was a decorated soldier, an expert in his field, and a polar explorer.

‘What do you have to prove?’ she asked.

He tilted his head back, an impossible to read expression on his face.

‘The other day someone told me I wasn’t quite the hero I thought I was.’

She stared at him, her heart suddenly pounding so hard against her ribs she thought the force of it might send her flying down the hillside.

Trying to play it cool, she held his gaze. ‘Is that right?’

He nodded. ‘Unfortunately, there’s a major shortage of damsels in distress on the island, so I had to resort to rescuing sheep.’

Watching Frankie’s lipscurve up into one of those tree-felling smiles she seemed able to produce at will, Arlo felt his stomach go into freefall. He had slept badly again, woken early, and even though he’d felt exhausted his body had been twitchy, his mind too restless to let him even try falling back to sleep.

It was only as he’d walked downstairs that he’d realised why he was finding it so difficult to sleep. The storm was passing, any day now the causeway would be safe to cross, and Frankie Fox would be free to leave.

Yesterday morning he would have greeted that statement with relief. But a lot had changed in the twenty-four hours since he’d found her semi-naked in his bed—not least, his opinion of her.

His chest tightened. He hadn’t expected her to do so, but she had impressed him yesterday. She’d worked hard, listened, and asked questions where necessary. In another life he might have given her a real job, or he might even have—

Have what?

He stopped mid-thought, but it made no difference. His body was already answering the question.

Gritting his teeth, he stared past her to where the waves were tumbling against the rocks. He had to get a grip. Frankie might not be the flaky little chancer he’d thought she was, but she was not his type.

For starters she was already involved in some way with Johnny, but even if she wasn’t, she was only twenty-one—little more than a kid.

Except she hadn’t kissed like a kid.

She’d kissed like a woman.

His shoulders tensed as he remembered the soft, breathy moans she’d made as his tongue had parted her lips. He’d wanted her, and he was pretty sure she had wanted him at that moment. But he’d tried living in the moment before, blindly trusting to what Frankie called ‘planetary forces’, and it had been an out-and-out disaster.

Only it was a lot easier to think that when Frankie wasn’t actually standing in front of him, looking ridiculously swamped and yet frustratingly sexy in one of his old jackets.

Conscious of her gaze and needing to do something to shift the restless energy inside him, he swung the sheep down from his shoulders onto the grass. As it trotted away without a backward glance, he unwrapped his sweater from around his waist and pulled it over his head.

Heart beating fast, he glanced up at the sky. For the first time since he’d returned home there was a tiny patch of blue. By tomorrow, aside from the battered-looking gorse bushes, it would be as if the storm had never happened. The causeway would open. Life would go back to normal. Some parts of it, anyway.

He cleared his throat. ‘By the way, you were right about Johnny. He did leave a message—two, actually—but they only came through yesterday evening. He said you needed to have some fun.’

But why? he wondered. She was young and beautiful, and she lived in London. Surely fun was at her fingertips.

Johnny had also said Frankie needed some TLC, but he didn’t want to think about that. Not when the only kind of tender loving care he could think of offering her involved both of them naked and in his bed.

He looked down at her, not prompting, just waiting. She shrugged. ‘Johnny’s a good friend. He worries about me but I just needed a few days away from London. I feel fine now.’

She had chosen her words carefully but the sharp stab of relief he felt at hearing her describe Johnny as a friend was forgotten when he looked down at her.

Her mouth curved up at the corners, but there was something forced about the smile and he felt a prickle of guilt spread out across his skin. Unless TLC stood for total loss of control, he’d massively under-delivered.

‘How could I not feel fine when I’m surrounded by all this?’

Now her smile seemed real, and some of the tension seemed to have left her face.

‘You like it?’

She frowned at the surprise in his voice. ‘Of course. It’s beautiful. All nature’s beautiful. It’s so calming and uncomplicated.’

Smiling, he shook his head. ‘Not all nature, I can assure you.’

‘Are you talking about Antarctica?’

As she looked over at him, he saw a flicker of curiosity in her blue eyes.

‘What’s it like?’

It was a question he’d been asked so many times, but for some reason he wanted to give her more than just a generic answer.

‘It’s exhausting. Terrifying. Intoxicating. And heartbreakingly beautiful. A lot of the time it feels like a dream.’ He tilted his face upwards, towards the sky. ‘Everything is so extreme out there. The sky is bigger, the wind is stronger, the cold is like nothing you’ve ever felt, and the sea is this beautiful endlessly changing blue...’

She looked over at him and he felt his heartbeat stumble.

Not as blue or as beautiful as Frankie’s eyes.

Forcing his gaze away from her face, he stared down at the jagged rocks. ‘There are icebergs there that are the size of countries. And the air...it has texture. You feel like you could scoop it up in your hands.’

Her face was flushed. ‘It sounds amazing. But I guess it would have to be for you to want to leave this place so often.’

He gazed down at the chimney stacks of the Hall. Leaving the island, leaving his home, always filled him with sadness. He loved everything about it. But some things were more important than feelings—his or anyone else’s. He’d learned that the hard way.

He hadn’t always felt like that. As a child, his parents’ adoration for each other had seemed like a mythical power. Only watching that power wither away during his mother’s illness had been devastating, and his father’s furious grief almost more so.

He should have realised then that it didn’t matter what you felt or how strongly you felt it—the power of love was no match for cold, hard facts. But he had been young and desperate, and so, driven by an incoherent need to save an ideal, he’d impulsively married a woman he barely knew.

Now he understood that if you wanted to save something—someone—you needed more than feelings. In fact, feelings were just a distraction.

He shrugged. ‘It’s addictive. It demands so much of you. And yet in other ways it’s so fragile. I think that’s what makes it so incredible...unique. There’s nowhere like it.’ He felt her gaze on his face. ‘But you don’t need me to tell you about it. Go and see for yourself.’

‘Me?’

‘Why not? The poles aren’t some snow-covered men-only club for boffins or billionaires with frozen beards and thousand-yard stares.’

She burst out laughing. ‘Is that how you see yourself?’

It was disconcerting how much he liked making her laugh. ‘More importantly, is that how you see me?’

The air between them seemed to thicken and he felt his body tense as she bit into her lip.

‘You are a bit intense. But your beard isn’t frozen.’

He shook his head. ‘You know, having you around is doing wonders for my ego.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t think your ego needs bolstering.’ Squinting up at the sky, she sighed. ‘It’s so lovely out here, but I suppose we’d better get back to work.’

For the briefest of moments his disappointment vied with his shock that work had slipped his mind, but then he nodded. ‘Yes, we should.’

Constance had seen them coming and was waiting by the back door.

‘Apparently the storm warning’s been reduced to yellow,’ she said. ‘So, am I right to assume that this will be the last night of your stay with us, Frankie?’

A small silence bled into the hallway as Frankie glanced up not at Constance but at him.

Was it? Was it her last night?

But before he could open his mouth she said quietly, ‘Yes. It’s been lovely, but I have to get back to London and I would have been going back tomorrow, anyway. Nothing’s changed.’

‘No,’ he agreed, holding her gaze. ‘Nothing’s changed at all.’