SOS: Convenient Husband Required / Winning a Groom in 10 Dates: SOS: Convenient Husband Required / Winning a Groom in 10 Dates

Been threatened with it?

‘Are yours?’ she asked.

‘I imagine so. I pay good money for a PA to deal with stuff like that,’ he said, running the taps, testing the water beneath his fingers.

‘Efficient, is she?’ May asked, imagining a tall, glamorous female in a designer suit and four-inch heels.

‘He. Is that too hot?’

She tested it with her fingertips. ‘No, it’s fine,’ she said, reaching for the soap. ‘Is that common? A male PA?’

‘I run an equal opportunities company. Jake was the best applicant for the job and yes, he is frighteningly efficient. I’m going to have to promote him to executive assistant if I want to keep him. Hold on,’ he said. ‘You can’t do that one-handed.’

She had anticipated him taking Nancie from her, but instead he unfastened his cuffs, rolled back his sleeves and, while she was still transfixed by his powerful wrists, he took the soap from her.

‘No!’ she said as she realised what he was about to do. He’d already worked the soap into a lather, however, and, hampered by the baby, she could do nothing as he stood behind her with his arms around her, took her scratched hand in his and began to wash it with extreme thoroughness. Finger by finger. Working his thumb gently across her palm where she’d grazed it when she’d fallen. Over her knuckles. Circling her wrist.

‘The last time anyone did this, I was no more than six years old,’ she protested in an attempt to keep herself from being seduced by the sensuous touch of long fingers, silky lather. The warmth of his body as he leaned into her back, his chin against her shoulder. His cheek against hers. The sensation of being not quite in control of any part of her body whenever he was within touching distance, her heartbeat amplified so that he, and everyone within twenty yards, must surely hear.

‘Six?’ he repeated, apparently oblivious to her confusion. ‘What happened? Did you fall off your pony?’

‘My bike. I never had a pony.’ She’d scraped her knee and had her face pressed against Robbie’s apron. She’d been baking and the kitchen had been filled with the scent of cinnamon, apples, pastry cooking as she’d cleaned her up, comforted her.

Today, it was the cool, slightly rough touch of Adam’s chin against her cheek but there was nothing safe or comforting about him. She associated him with leather, rain, her heartbeat raised with fear, excitement, a pitiful joy followed by excruciating embarrassment. Despair at the hopelessness of her dreams.

There had been no rain today, there was no leather, but the mingled scents of clean skin, warm linen, shampoo were uncompromisingly male and the intimacy of his touch was sending tiny shock waves through her body, disturbing her in ways unknown to that green and heartbroken teen.

Oblivious to the effect he was having on her, he took an antiseptic wipe from the first aid box and finished the job.

‘That’s better. Now let’s take a look at your arm.’

‘My arm?’

‘There’s blood on your sleeve.’

‘Is there?’ While she was craning to see the mingled mud and watery red mess that was never going to wash out whatever the detergent ads said, he had her shirt undone. No shaky-fingered fumbling with buttons this time. She was still trying to get her tongue, lips, teeth into line to protest when he eased it off her shoulder and down her arm with what could only be described as practised ease.

‘Ouch. That looks painful.’

She was standing in nothing but her bra and pants and he was looking at her elbow? Okay, her underwear might be lacy but it was at the practical, hold ’em up, rather than push ’em up end of the market. But, even if she wasn’t wearing the black lace, scarlet woman underwear, the kind of bra that stopped traffic and would make Adam Wavell’s firm jaw drop, he could at least notice that she was practically naked.

In her dreams…Her nightmares…

His jaw was totally under control as he gave his full attention to her elbow.

‘This might sting a bit…’

It should have stung, maybe it did, but she was feeling no pain as his thick dark hair slid over his forehead, every perfectly cut strand moving in sleek formation as he bent to work. Only a heat that began low her belly and spread like a slow fuse along her thighs, filling her breasts, her womb with an aching, painful need that brought a tiny moan to her lips.

‘Does that hurt?’ he asked, looking up, grey eyes creased in concern. ‘Maybe you should go to Casualty, have an X-ray just to be on the safe side.’

‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s fine. Really.’

It was a lie. It wasn’t fine; it was humiliating, appalling to respond so mindlessly to a man who, when he saw you in public, put the maximum possible distance between you. To want him to stop looking at her scabby elbow and look at her. See her. Want her.

As if.

These days he was never short of some totally gorgeous girl to keep him warm at night. The kind who wore ‘result’ shoes and bad girl underwear.

She was more your wellington boots kind of woman. Good skin and teeth, reasonable if boringly brown eyes, but that was it. There was nothing about her that would catch the eye of a man who, these days, had everything.

‘You’re going to have a whopping bruise,’ he said, looking up, catching her staring at him.

‘I’ll live.’

‘This time. But maybe you should consider giving up climbing trees,’ he said, pulling a towel down from the pile on the rack, taking her hand in his and patting it dry before working his way up her arm.

‘I keep telling myself that,’ she said. ‘But you know how it is. There’s some poor creature in trouble and you’re the only one around. What can you do?’

‘I’ll give you my cell number…’ He tore open another antiseptic wipe and took it over the graze on her elbow. Used a second one on his own hand. ‘Next time,’ he said, looking up with a smile that was like a blow in the solar plexus, ‘call me.’

Oh, sure…

‘I thought you said you were going to South America.’

‘No problem. That’s what I have a personal assistant for. You call me, I’ll call Jake and he’ll ride to your rescue.’

In exactly the same way that he was using her to take care of Nancie, she thought.

‘Wouldn’t it be easier to give me his number? Cut out the middle sidekick.’

‘And miss out on having you shout at me?’

First the blow to the solar plexus, then a jab behind the knees and she was going down…

‘That’s all part of the fun,’ he added.

Fun. Oh, right. She was forgetting. She was the clown…

‘My legs are muddy. I really need to take a shower,’ she added before he took it upon himself to wash them, too. More specifically, she needed to get some clothes on and get a grip. ‘There’s a kettle in the kitchenette if you want to make yourself a drink before you go.’

She didn’t give him a chance to argue, but dumped Nancie in his arms and, closing her ears to the baby’s outraged complaint, shut the door on him.

She couldn’t lock it. The lock had broken years ago and she hadn’t bothered to get it fixed. Why would she when she shared the house with her invalid grandfather and Robbie, neither of whom were ever going to surprise her in the shower?

Nor was Adam, she told herself as, discarding what little remained of her modesty, she dumped her filthy shirt in the wash basket, peeled off her underwear and stepped under the spray.

It should have been a cold shower, something to quench the fizz of heat bubbling through her veins.