Looking After Dad

‘If they came through,’ Jess said.

After the twelve-hour flight with an in-transit stop in the Seychelles, all three of them were weary. It had been an early morning departure and a daytime journey, and no one had slept.

Jess circled a look around. A crowded arrivals hall seemed an unlikely place for villains to strike, but she was being paid to be on the alert—and she refused to screw up this time. Her brow creased. Though who or what she was on the alert for she did not know. His daughter’s ever listening presence had prevented her from asking the architect why, when the job had been cancelled as expected, there had been a last-minute request for her services.

‘We’d better make enquiries,’ Lorcan said, when most of the cases had been claimed and fresh items were no longer appearing.

Jess wiped a slick of moisture from her brow. Outside the rain was sheeting down and the atmosphere in the hall was as hot and humid as a sauna.

‘I suppose so,’ she acknowledged.

At a desk on the back wall, an Indian clerk checked the baggage slips stapled to her ticket, made a phone call and reported the damning news that all goods from their plane had been cleared.

‘Oh, no!’ she groaned.

‘Now you must fill in this form and the airline will put the tracing procedure into operation. Most bags are retrieved within a few days,’ the clerk told her, with a comforting smile, ‘but until then you may buy immediate needs and claim the cost against the allowance.’

By the time they emerged through Customs, the afternoon had slithered into early evening and the airport concourse was almost deserted. A four-wheel drive was parked at the entrance under cover from the rain, with a young man half-asleep inside it.

‘Mr Hunter?’ he called, rousing himself when he saw them.

He was waiting to deliver the Jeep Cherokee which Lorcan had hired, and after paperwork was completed and the luggage loaded they climbed inside.

‘Would you like me to navigate?’ Jess asked, eyeing the map of the island which the car hire representative had handed to her.

Lorcan started the engine. ‘No need, thanks. The house is just a few miles from the hotel site, so I know my way.’

‘My daddy’s been here before,’ Harriet said importantly, from where she was buckled into the rear seat. ‘Three times. When he came my grandma and grandpa looked after me. And Senga. Senga was my nanny, but she’s gone back to Scotland to get married. And now you’re going to look after me.’

Jess darted a glance at her chauffeur. The supposed reason for her presence was just one of a whole raft of questions which she needed to ask and matters which they had to discuss. Soonest.

She smiled at the child. ‘And Naseem,’ she said, referring to the local woman whom Lorcan had told her he had employed as a housekeeper-cum-childminder.

‘S’right,’ Harriet agreed, and smiled back.

The little girl’s original suspicion had gone and she was prepared to be friendly. This could be thanks to the goggles, which had been brought with other treasured possessions in her haversack and which continued to cast a spell, or, more realistically, Jess thought, it was because Harriet had marked her down as paid help. When her status had been unsure she had threatened—who was this strange lady with her daddy?—but now she had become acceptable. Her thought train jumped track. What was the threat which she had been recruited to deflect?

When they first left the airport Jess kept a discreet check to see that no particular vehicle appeared to be trailing them, but after a few miles she gave up. They were almost the only people out on the road. Besides, the relentless tropical rain would deter ninety-nine per cent of kidnappers, she reasoned—and she would take her chance with the remainder. Her gaze went to the strong hands which so deftly controlled the steering wheel and down to the gear-changing flex of a muscled thigh. Though it would take a determined gang to remove his beloved daughter when the well-built Lorcan Hunter was around.

She peered out through the window. The continuous driving rain had made it impossible to see anything of the island when their plane had landed, and now all she could make out were rolling fields where sugar cane had been harvested and the occasional blurred outline of a sharp, rugged mountain. Mauritius was grey, washed of colour, wet.

What was she doing here? Jess wondered. As her luggage seemed to have remained at home, wouldn’t she have done better to have stayed home, too?

‘Sorry, Kev, I’m not interested,’ she had said yesterday morning, when her brother had rung to announce that the Warwick Group had performed an eleventh-hour about-turn and wished to use her. Yet within minutes she had allowed him to talk her into it.

The windscreen-wipers moved in a rhythmic swish-swish. Why had she agreed? Was it a case of old habits dying hard—though she had insisted that this was her very last assignment—or because she had recognised that a stay in the sun did have its uses? Tropical island pictures were perennially popular and during her residence she would be able to build up a portfolio of local scenes. A hopefully saleable and lucrative portfolio.

Jess sighed. Whatever the reason, she had committed herself to joining forces with a man who was iron-willed and bolshie. And a man who, whilst he must have sanctioned her employment, still resented it.

Lorcan Hunter’s resentment was subtle. From meeting her at the airport, he had acted the civilised adult and been polite, amiable and—yes—at times even charming. Yet although they had chatted together and laughed she had been aware of a tightness within him. A basic irritation. He did not want her here disrupting his life and, whilst her presence might be necessary and he was currently co-operating, she sensed there would be battles ahead.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Lorcan said, all of a sudden.

Jolted from her musing, she shot him a startled look. ‘Sorry?’

‘I’m sure your cases will turn up soon.’

‘Oh... yes,’ Jess agreed, thinking that if she was destined to do battle with him she would survive. He might be a cussed individual, but she could be tough-minded, too.

‘Even if you do seem to be accident-prone,’ he added.

Recognising a reference to the champagne debacle, she flashed a synthetic smile. ‘It only happens when I’m with you.’

‘You’ll have a change of clothes in your hand luggage to tide you over?’

Visualising the sports bag which she had brought, she shook her head. ‘No.’

‘But if you’re travelling long haul it’s common sense to carry a spare set. I do. I have.’

‘Don’t you ever get just the teeniest weeniest bit sick of always being right?’ Jess enquired sweetly.

Lorcan’s mouth quirked. ‘Nope.’

‘Amazing. Even if I’d thought about it, which I didn’t,’ she said, ‘there wouldn’t have been room for spare clothes because my bag is full of painting gear.’

‘You must’ve brought one heck of an amount.’

‘Enough sketchpads, brushes, water colours, pencils, pens and inks to last me for three months.’

His brows lifted. ‘Sounds like you’re keen.’

‘I am.’ She looked down at the white-on-white long-sleeved body which she wore, her slim-fitting black skirt, her black-stockinged legs. ‘But I’m even keener to find a dress shop.’

Because she had felt like a slob at their first meeting, Jess had been determined to be elegant the second time around. The previous evening, she had applied a face pack, waxed her legs and colour co-ordinated her finger and toenails with ‘Pearl Sirocco’ lacquer. And that morning she had swept into the airport with her hair blow-dried into a silky blonde cap and teased into wisps across her brow, her face painstakingly made up and clad in a smart black suit with a sculpted high-necked jacket and high heels.

Her efforts might have been a touch over the top, but they were worthwhile. Lorcan Hunter had looked, done a double take, and looked again. He had seemed bewitched, until he had remembered that La Stupenda was the pesky bodyguard. But after he had brought himself to heel other admiring male glances had swung her way. Glances which, satisfyingly, she knew he had noticed.

However, her elegance had its drawbacks. At the airport, she had been one of a chic minority amongst the ubiquitous jeans and anoraks, and now... Jess shifted and felt her back sticking clammily to the seat. Before they’d landed, Lorcan had shed his sweater to reveal a short-sleeved navy shirt which, worn with stone-coloured cotton chinos, conceded to the climate. She had removed her jacket, but the tight white body, hip-hugging skirt and nylon stockings meant that despite the Cherokee’s air-conditioning she was bathed in steam heat.

The white body was clinging to her damp skin, outlining the high curve of her breasts and—she abruptly realised—drawing her chauffeur’s attention. Jess sat very still. The stroke of his eyes seemed as tactile as the stroke of fingers and she felt her nipples pinch and tighten. She gulped in a breath. He was arousing her with just a look. How could he do that?

‘Is the house which you’ve rented near a town? Close to shops?’ she rattled off. ‘Because I’d like to buy a change of clothes as soon as I can tomorrow.’

‘No, it’s on the outskirts of a small fishing village,’ Lorcan said, frowning as though being bewitched by her again had been an irritating—and curious—lapse. ‘There are a few shops, though I’m afraid I couldn’t say what they are. But until you get fixed up you can wear one of my shirts and a pair of shorts. They’ll be far too big, but you can hoist up the shorts with a belt.’

Jess shot him a glance. The offer of his clothes seemed surprisingly free and easy.

‘You’re trying to impress me with your kindness,’ she said.