Reasons Of the Heart Page 6

  'You can take the boy out of the country, Princess...' he said mirthfully, and again she had the uncomfortable feeling that he was laughing at more than just the present conversation. 'But you're right, the pickings are richer in the cities... more women to the square metre.' He took another swig of his soup and eyed her provoca­tively. 'But you're very cleverly evading my question. Never mind, we both know the real reason you agreed to go out with Neville...'

  Fran gave him a haughty look. She wasn't going to touch that one with a barge-pole. Besides, she knew he intended to enlighten her anyway. And so he did.

  'Actually there are two. The first is that you don't trust yourself alone with me... and the second is that you're dying to pump poor old Nev for information, or should I say ammunition, you can use against me.'

  'You arrogant hulk!' Fran snapped, furious that he had caught her out in the latter, and insulted her by the former. 'It's you I don't trust.' She thought of adding that he left her cold, but the words suddenly stuck in her throat. Also, his gross male ego might take it as a challenge. 'I happen to think that Neville is an extremely attractive man.'

  Her dignity cut little ice. 'Oh, sure, and you have no intention of even mentioning me during your hot date.'

  'Why should I spoil a nice evening?' Fran flared. 'But maybe I ought to warn him about how you make a living, if he doesn't already know. The police might want to issue a warning to people to lock up their daughters.'

  'And wives,' he told her with outrageous cheerful­ness. 'And mothers and grandmothers. No woman is turned from my door.'

  'Except those who can't afford your fees,' she said, certain that he was exaggerating just to rattle her. With his looks, Ross could probably pick and choose his 'clients' very carefully.

  'Oh, I do a certain amount of charity work,' he laughed. 'Ask Neville. I bet you won't be able to resist. Admit it, you're as curious as a cat about me. Why don't you just forget about going out with Neville and stay home with me? That way you cut out the middle man.'

  A flash of headlights shone through the kitchen window and rescued Fran from a fast degenerating situ­ation. 'That's him now,' she said with visible relief, taking the cabin key from the top of the fridge and putting it in her slim clutch bag. 'We might be late, so don't bother to wait up for me.'

  'Don't do anything I wouldn't do,' he chuckled, toasting her with his mug.

  'That really narrows the field down, doesn't it? Sarcasm dripped from every syllable as she threw open the kitchen door and stepped outside, pursued by his laughter.

  'Ten bucks says you won't get through the night without giving in to your insatiable desire to know me better, Princess!'

  The throaty challenge rang in her ears as she greeted Neville's appreciative hello. Unfortunately he had heard Ross's laughter, if not his comment, and, as she got into the car, asked her what the joke had been. The date was only five seconds old and already the subject was that wretched man. Well, she would eat poison before she would let him be proved right! She would forget all about her insufferable house-guest and just enjoy her night out.

  It wasn't easy. The consciousness that she wasn't going to mention his name kept in the forefront of her mind, an invisible third person at the dinner table, monitoring her conversation. In spite of that, the evening was pleasant. In a way, Neville reminded her of Brian; they both had the same, rather complacent view of their lives stretching ahead of them, from point A to point B, like a neatly kerbed and well sealed highway. Fran, who had just taken an abrupt turn on to a sharply rutted side-road, felt the faint stirrings of impatience even as she enjoyed the comfortable tenor of Neville's unthreatening flattery. He was obviously interested in seeing her again, but Fran was politely non-committal. She had just es­caped one dead-end relationship; she didn't want to embark, even briefly, on another. She needed to reserve her energy for more important things...

  '...coincidence that you're both up here from Auckland convalescing at the same time. Did you ever run into each other in the big city?'

  Francesca suddenly registered what he was saying, and her firm resolve vanished on the instant. 'Has Ross been ill?' she enquired sharply.

  'Didn't he tell you?' He looked surprised, then grinned. 'I suppose he's fed up with all the sympathy— he was always so savagely healthy, I guess being laid up has been driving him crazy. Remember that time he broke his nose? The coach had to practically manhandle him off the football field. Never say die, that's Ross's motto.'

  'How—?' Fran took a sip of wine to stop herself forming the question. If Neville chose to tell her she would listen, but she would not ask.

  'Sky-diving,' he obliged genially. 'His 'chute tangled and wouldn't detach, and so did his emergency. Smashed himself up pretty badly...oh, about four months ago, I think it was.'

  'He was lucky even to survive,' said Fran, tight-lipped, her surge of horror overtaken by anger. If he was conva­lescing, what was he doing sliding down cliffs? Not that his pig-headedness was anything she could control. She felt thoroughly sorry for the doctors and nurses who had looked after him; he had probably made their lives hell. Or, in the case of the nurses, heaven—the traitorous thought sneaked into her mind.

  Determinedly she managed to get through the rest of the evening with her curiosity under tight rein. In a com­plete volte-face she decided that she didn't need to know anything personal about Ross Tarrant—she didn't want to know anything. She would just hang on grimly to her hopes and soon he would be back firmly where he be­longed ... in her past.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Ross tarrant lowered his book and stared broodingly towards the clatter in the kitchen which had penetrated his concentration. Francesca was attacking the evening dishes as though to leave them a second longer would herald the death of the civilised world. His eyes moved from the set of her shoulders to the long line of her back. Apart from its uncomfortable stiffness it was rather a sexy back.

  His connoisseur's eye slid to the swerve of her hips, recalling how she had looked nude and steamy, flushed and feminine in her weakness.

  He frowned. Three days ago it had seemed such a simple, foolproof plan: drive out the irritatingly neat Sister Lewis by driving her up the wall. But the fool­proof plan had backfired. He was the one quietly going up the wall!

  How could one woman be so infuriatingly obstinate and yet so easy to manipulate? He lifted his book again to hide a slow grin. It might be childish of him, but he enjoyed fuelling her misconceptions about him. She was so deliciously easy to provoke into a passion that belied that prim exterior.

  His grin faded. There was the rub. He was curious about her. Before she had turned up, the peace and quiet had begun to pall and yet he had known he wasn't ready, physically or psychologically, to ease back into the swing of his life. Thwarting Francesca had been in the nature of a diversion that, once his initial temper had cooled, amused his restless mind. He had not felt in the least guilty. Francesca had proved that she could look after herself, and at least she came alive at his taunts. Flaring back at him she didn't look quite so much like a wind-up doll marching stiffly towards some predetermined fate. He was doing her a favour, loosening her up.

  Liar! he told himself disgustedly. His motives were entirely selfish. He never could resist a challenge and Francesca was the most flagrant one he had come across in a long time. What marvellous irony to be penned up with one of the few women who had ever rejected him outright! Actually, Francesca had the distinction of being the first, and as such had earned herself a special place in his memory. For another reason too, one that she would no doubt be astonished to hear, but he intended to save the telling until the right moment. She had earned the embarrassment. It might teach her a little humility to realise how gullible her rigid thinking made her. And in the meantime he wanted to explore the fascinating perversities of human biology.

  To his amused chagrin Ross had realised that the old chemistry still existed and that, if he was any judge of body language, it wasn't only one-sided. Fran was
giving out unmistakable signals to a man who had built part of his professional reputation on his ability to read and interpret the nuances of female expression. She resented the undercurrent of attraction, that much was obvious, and he shared her reluctance. Francesca was not the sort of woman he sought out for male/female games. He liked women who were frank and open about their de­sires and emotions, women who preferred lovemaking to fighting, who were fun to be with and didn't tax his patience by demanding too much of his valuable time. Francesca was the total opposite. She was rather like a locked room... perhaps the female equivalent of Black-beard's lair, he speculated mischievously, littered with the bodies of past unfortunates who had been chewed up and spat out by that discreetly sexual, but tightly controlled personality. What was the key to Francesca? he wondered. What might he release if he found it? He had the time, but did he have the inclination—or the courage?

  Francesca was aware of the strange vibrations from across the room. What was he thinking about? New ways to drive her up the wall? Surprisingly he hadn't even mentioned her date with Neville. Instead of baiting her mercilessly about his bet he had greeted her the next morning with a slightly expectant silence. She had ig­nored him until driven to point out that he hadn't even bothered to wash his few dishes from last night's dinner, adding snidely that perhaps he might find work as a dishwasher if nothing else. That had restored his acid humour and it hadn't faltered since.

  Francesca had to concede that she had overestimated her ability to outstay him. As a nurse she had frequently lived in shared accommodation, but fellow nurses were quite different from a man. A man, more-over, who didn't want you there, who had no sense of organisation, who was sullen and uncooperative and didn't seem to know one end of a broom from the other. The only other man that Francesca had lived with had been her grandfather, and he had been a rigidly correct man who never came to a meal unless he was fully dressed, and liked every­thing to be in its rightful place.

  Ross Tarrant was a creature of impulse. He slept when he was sleepy, ate when he was hungry and had a discon­certing habit of walking around half-naked. He was untidy and inconsiderate and refused to share the chores.

  Francesca had caught on very early. He was doing it deliberately. No one could be that slovenly and not have died of some certifiable disease years ago!

  She extracted her revenge by carrying her desire for neatness to obsession point. The fact that her constant nagging of him to tidy up got on her own nerves as well as his was beside the point, although sometimes she forgot entirely what the point was supposed to be!

  Francesca was drying the last dish when the telephone rang. She turned automatically. Although Ross was well within reach of the phone it would be just like him to let it ring and ring until she was forced to answer it. But this time she had misjudged him.

  'Tarrant.' He listened for a moment. His eyes shot to Fran and a devilish grin lit out across his lips. 'Yes, you have, and she is here, but she's just...er...got other things on her mind at the moment, if you know what I mean...'

  Propelled by that leering innuendo Fran scooted across the room and grabbed at the receiver. Ross fended her off from his chair with mocking ease.

  'Who am I? Her live-in boyfriend. Who are you?'

  'Stop it! Give that phone to me!' Francesca hissed furiously, rushing in under his guard and wrenching the phone away from him. 'Hello?'

  'Hi, Fran. Who's the hunk?'

  'Oh, hello, Christina.' She had rung her friend from the lawyer's office to let her know of the hiccup in their plans. Christina had been less upset than Fran, pointing out that they couldn't do anything anyway until the Council had made up its mind about the Change of Land Use application, and the bank had officially notified them of their loan approval. 'No panic, just relax for a few days. You need it,' had been her cheerful advice.

  'Look, I can call back if you and the hunk are—'

  'We're certainly not!' snapped Fran, giving her tor­mentor a killing look. 'That was his idea of a sick joke. He's just a co-tenant, that's all.'

  'Pity, he sounds nice.' Like a true friend Christina took the hint in Francesca's terse reply and dropped the subject. 'I just called to let you know that the Council came up trumps. Now we only have the loan to worry about.'

  'That's great!' Fran's face lit up, her whole body ex­pressing delighted relief to her interested audience. She listened while Christina brought her up to date with the rest of her activities, feeling buoyant again after the frustration of the past few days.

  'Doug and I had a spat, and Brian phoned, full of remorse, wanting to know where he could reach you. I told him, politely of course, to bug off.'

  'Thanks.' Christina had never really taken to Brian, although she had always been pleasant to him.

  'Perhaps I should tell him you're living with someone up there. That should ram home the message.'

  'No, thanks,' Fran shuddered. Things were compli­cated enough. She looked at Ross, unashamedly listening, and buoyancy made her rash. 'I don't think he'd be very impressive, he's the immature pretty-boy type.' Ross's eyes narrowed as he realised who she was describing. 'He fancies himself as a lady-killer,' said Fran gleefully, 'but he's handicapped at the moment... smashed himself up in a sky-diving accident. He's pretty seedy all round, but I guess when he's not sulking or flexing his beach-boy muscles he has a certain frayed charm.'

  She hung up on Christina's laughter, suddenly nervous at the smug look that Ross was directing her way. He didn't look at all disturbed by her insults.

  'Who told you about my accident?'

  Dammit, she had forgotten she wasn't supposed to know! She flushed guiltily, turning on her heel and fleeing back to the kitchen. Ross followed her crowing with triumph. 'You owe me ten bucks!'

  'Oh, no, I don't.' Fran grabbed the dishcloth and began wiping the bench diligently. 'I never bet. You're the gambler around here.' She'd been waiting thirteen years to make that taunt, but of course it sailed right over his thick head.

  'And what other tidbits of information about me did you wheedle out of my unsuspecting chum?'

  'I didn't wheedle. He mentioned it, that's all.' She crossed her fingers in the folds of her skirt. 'That's the only time I even thought of you all night.'

  He grinned so jauntily she wanted to hit him. Instead she poked a stick into his weak spot. She had noticed how impatient he was for total recovery, it showed in the way he pushed himself and stubbornly refused to make concessions to his injuries or admit to feeling pain, snarling at her if she dared comment.

  'How long do you think you'll have to take it easy? What will you do when you're completely recovered?'

  'I'm practically recovered now,' he was quick to answer, scowling at her.

  'Maybe you'd better think about finding yourself a proper job, then,' she said scathingly. 'Your old one might not support you in the style to which you're ac­customed. You might find that women baulk at paying top price for damaged goods.'

  She saw his mouth tauten on a quick intake of breath. 'Bitch,' he said softly. 'That was below the belt.'

  Francesca was suddenly ashamed. How could she, a nurse, an ex-nurse, mock someone's affliction? It went against every principle of her training, as well as viol­ating common human decency. It was just that he made her so mad!

  'I'm sorry,' she said gruffly, avoiding the sudden darkness of his eyes. 'Er...what were your injuries, anyway?'

  He continued to look at her for a moment in silence, as if to judge her sincerity, then leaned on the breakfast bar and told her, with an almost clinical detachment that both fascinated and repulsed her. He was talking about himself, not some nameless textbook case.

  'I was lucky that I landed in bushy scrub which cushioned my fall; I was lucky, in fact, that most of the breaks were clean. I had a compressed fracture of the vertebrae but there were no complications. It's my left arm that's the problem, a vertical fracture of the hu­merus is pretty difficult to deal with.'

  Fran wasn't interested in technica
l details, she was trying to cope with a rush of complex emotions—fear, relief, a bewildering empathy with his pain. 'You're lucky to be alive at all, let alone walking around,' she said shakily.

  'I know,' he said gently, sunning himself in the brief warmth of her compassion. 'It's going to make the next jump that much more difficult.'

  'You're going back up, after what happened?' Fran was milk-pale in disbelief. How could he risk putting himself, his friends and family, through that all over again?

  'I have to.' He smiled wryly at her blank incompre-hension.

  'Weren't you warned?' she asked feverishly. 'Didn't the doctors tell you that there'll probably always be a

  slight weakness on that side—'

  'What thoroughly boring, predictable lives we'd all lead if we allowed ourselves to be governed by probably,' he replied calmly. 'You wear blinkers, Princess, if you think you can make life safe by sticking to the straight and narrow. Hasn't your profession taught you that one can never be completely safe, that death, disease and accidents are appallingly random?'

  'It's taught me a certain amount of fatalism,' she said, not entirely truthfully. When you're busy carving your own fate, fatalism doesn't have quite the same meaning.

  He sighed and shook his head. 'Princess, you need drastic loosening up. You need to relax, or you're going to turn into one of those arid, iron-skinned, sour-tongued martinets that nurses and patients alike love to hate.'

  What would he know? Francesca gave him a sharp look. Perhaps he had had one on the ward he had been in? It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that of­ficially she was no longer a nurse, but he would probably give her that wretchedly smug grin and make jokes about abdication. And then he would ask what she was going to do and be even more impossibly smug that she was doing exactly as he told her she should.

  She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but that con­versation seemed to mark a turning point in her re­lationship with Ross. His teasing became lighter, lacking the sullen, threatening undertones it had had since she had announced her decision to stay. However, instead of making her relax it made her more suspicious of him than ever, convinced it was merely a ruse to lull her into thinking he no longer cared whether she stayed or went.