Elusive Lover

‘Now don’t apologise, you’re spoiling the whole effect.’

She frowned at him, feeling like a mouse being tormented by a cat. ‘Effect?’ she blinked her puzzlement.

‘For a while there I thought you must have a permanent stammer,’ he drawled. ‘That little show of temper showed me you don’t. So don’t start babbling like an idiot again.’ He sat down on the bed, leaning back against the headboard, his dusty, boot-clad feet on the bedcover.

Erin gasped her indignation. ‘Don’t call me an idiot! And get your feet off the bed!’

He smiled, revealing very white teeth. ‘You haven’t changed the bed yet, have you?’

‘You know I haven’t!’

‘Then my feet stay where they are. At least this way I’ll know you changed all the bed-linen.’

Her hands clenched into fists at her sides, and she could quite cheerfully have hit him in that moment, regardless of the consequences. ‘I always change all the bed-linen,’ she snapped.

He put his hands up behind his head and leaned back. ‘Don’t let me keep you from your work,’ he taunted.

‘You aren’t!’ She marched angrily into the bathroom, beginning to wash the bath in hard angry strokes. Arrogantly, mocking man! He was just what she needed at the end of a long, hard day!

‘Calmed down yet?’

She turned to see him standing in the open doorway, seeming to fill most of it. ‘I’m perfectly calm,’ she said in her most haughty English accent.

‘Mm, I can see that,’ he mocked, coming to sit on the side of the bath as she moved to clean the sink.

He was overwhelming this close to, smelling of a mixture of some tangy masculine cologne or aftershave and a much more basically male smell, one that stirred the senses, one that warned you to beware of this man. Erin didn’t need any warning, she could see he was dangerous!

She pointedly ignored him as she continued to clean the bathroom, which wasn’t all that easy with those lazy green eyes watching her so closely. He leant casually against the doorjamb now, his arms folded across his muscular chest. Erin was aware of his every movement without even having to look at him.

She brushed past him on her way out to the main room, coming into contact with the hardness of his thighs before moving sharply away, the hot colour flooding her cheeks.

Again he followed her, sitting down on one of the double beds. ‘What’s a sweet little baby like you doing in a place like this?’ he asked suddenly.

Erin flashed him a resentful glance. ‘That isn’t very original!’

His expression hardened. ‘It wasn’t meant to be,’ he rasped. ‘It was a sincere question. Little girls like you have been known to be gobbled up and never heard of again in this city.’

She could believe it; she seemed to have done nothing but fight off one man or another since she had been here—and for all of his lightly teasing manner she wasn’t so sure this man’s intentions were any different!

He gave her a scathing look. ‘I don’t happen to be “hungry” for skinny little English girls,’ he taunted, seeming to read her thoughts.

She flushed fiery red. ‘I’m as Canadian as you are!’

His dark eyebrows rose. ‘Really?’ he obviously doubted her claim.

‘Yes, really.’ She gave up all pretence of working, knowing she was only making a mess of it anyway. ‘I was born in Calgary,’ she told him with a certain feeling of triumph.

‘Then why do you sound like a prissy English girl?’

Erin gasped. ‘Because I was brought up a pris—I was brought up in England,’ she amended at his taunting smile. Her chin Vent up in challenge. ‘Where they obviously taught me more manners than you were ever taught in Canada!’

He gave a shout of laughter, tiny lines appearing beside his twinkling green eyes, the cleft in his chin more pronounced. ‘What’s your name, funny face?’ he sobered.

‘Erin Richards,’ she revealed stiffly.

He held out his hand. ‘Joshua Hawke—Josh to you.’

His hand was firm and strong, sending an electric thrill tingling up her arm and down her spine. She felt mesmerised by the warmth of those emerald-coloured eyes, then suddenly realised he hadn’t released her hand, and snatched it away as if he burnt her.

She licked her suddenly dry lips. ‘I—I’d rather call you Mr Hawke,’ she said stiffly.

He grinned. ‘I’m sure you would, hon—sweetheart, but——’

‘I don’t like being called sweetheart any more than I enjoy being called honey,’ she cut in firmly, deciding the time had come to put this conversation on a more businesslike footing.

Joshua Hawke still grinned at her. ‘You’re acting prissy again,’ he taunted.

She drew in an angry breath. ‘And you’re being rude again!’

He pursed his lips together thoughtfully. ‘Okay, Erin, truce. Now, tell me how a native Calgarian talks with that precise English accent. Was that bordering on the rude again?’ he quirked an eyebrow mockingly.

‘You know it was!’

He sighed. ‘So just tell me. The less I say the less chance I have of offending you.’

‘I don’t have the time to talk.’ She began stripping the beds. ‘I have to finish getting your room ready, and I work quicker if I don’t talk.’

‘Then I’ll help you.’ He marched over to her trolley and picked up the clean sheets, spreading one of them on the mattress.

‘But you—you can’t do that!’ she gasped.

‘I just did.’ He calmly continued to make the bed. ‘You look as if you’ve done enough already.’ He stopped to frown at her pale cheeks and slender body. ‘Do you eat?’

‘Of course I eat!’ she snapped her resentment.

He stood up to survey the too-slender curves below faded denims and light cotton sun-top, seeming to strip this fragile covering from her body and see the gauntness below. His eyes narrowed to steely slits. ‘How often?’ he demanded to know.

Not as often as she should. For one thing she didn’t have the time, and for another she didn’t have the money, not to eat the nourishing food that she needed anyway. French fries and hamburgers were cheap, but after cooking and serving them for six weeks she couldn’t even look at them, let alone eat them.

‘Well?’ he rapped out.

Erin scowled at him, wishing he would just mind his own business. ‘I eat as often as I’m hungry,’ she evaded.

His look was considering. ‘And how often is that?’

‘Once, sometimes twice a day,’ she admitted grudgingly.

His expression darkened. ‘And did you eat today?’