Private Lives

Ella sat on the grey stone wall outside the picturesque cottage in this little Bedfordshire hamlet, although her bicycle was propped up against the wall beside her, just in case of a quick getaway being necessary, Fin guessed wryly.

The cottage looked peaceful enough from the outside; in fact, it looked lovely in the early-June sunshine, with a lot of the flowers in the garden in bloom, a wild rose trailing above the arched doorway and pretty pink roses blooming there; Fin couldn’t really take seriously the possibility that at any minute some drunken homicidal maniac was going to come lurching out of that green-painted door and attack them.

Ella obviously found it a little hard to believe too with hindsight, looking shamefaced as she climbed down off the wall to join Fin as she got out of the van. ‘Maybe I should just have woken him and—–’

‘No, no, you did the right thing in calling me,’ Fin told her with a reassuring smile, her short red curls gleaming in the sunshine, a sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks, as she squinted up at the cottage.

She stood barely five feet in height even in her white track-shoes, was as slender as a teenager, and certainly didn’t look the twenty-one years she was, with her face bare of make-up and dressed in close-fitting jeans and a white T-shirt with a disparaging remark about mornings printed on its front.

‘Don’t worry,’ she laughed softly as she saw Ella’s look of uncertainty at her ability to deal with the ‘intruder’ with the disadvantage of her diminutive size, ‘I’ve taken a course in self-defence.’ It had been necessary when she’d first set up in business; some men had been mistaken about the type of ‘services’ she provided then, and hadn’t been prepared to take no for an answer! That didn’t happen very often nowadays, thank goodness, most people in the area knowing exactly what she was prepared to do and what she wasn’t. And that was one of the things she wasn’t!

‘I’ll come with you anyway,’ the older woman offered with a frown.

‘It really isn’t necessary,’ Fin told her with a dismissive laugh, but making no further protests when she saw that Ella was determined to accompany her, trailing behind Fin as she entered the low-beamed kitchen.

Everything looked as neat and tidy as usual in here, no porridge that was ‘too hot, too cold, or just right’, no chair that was ‘too hard, too soft, or just right’ either, and so Fin knew she had been right about the fairy-tales. Although she didn’t think Ella would appreciate her humour over the matter just now!

And Ella had been right about one thing: there was a man in the bed, Fin discovered when she looked in the nearest of the two bedrooms at the top of the stairs. It was Gail’s own bedroom, but there was indeed only one person in the bed. He was spread-eagled across the middle of it, and looked as if he had been so for some time, by the disarray of the duvet.

The room was in shadow, with the curtains drawn across the window, shutting out the bright sunshine, the man in the bed no more than an untidy lump beneath the duvet. A fact, Fin acknowledged with a frown, that must have been very disturbing for Ella when she had first arrived.

The man was big and tall—Fin could tell that much from the amount of space he took up in the bed—and his hair was thick and dark as it lay against the cream-coloured pillow-case. And his breathing was low and even, not quite a snore, as he slept. An alcohol-induced sleep, from the smell of whisky in the room and that empty bottle and glass on the floor, Fin guessed too.

Their entrance to the cottage hadn’t disturbed him in the least. And he was equally unaffected by their presence in the bedroom!

If they had had any idea of who he was there might have been something amusing about the situation. Might …

Well, whoever he was, at the very least they were perfectly within their rights to demand an explanation from him for his presence here, Fin decided, crossing the room to pull back the curtains with a determined movement of her hands, sunlight instantly flooding the cheerfully furnished bedroom with its cream and red colour-scheme.

The only reaction from the man in the bed was a disgruntled snort before he rolled over and buried his face in the pillow to shut out the intrusive light.

Fin ruefully raised her brows in Ella’s direction as the other woman still stood in the doorway. ‘That achieved a lot,’ she murmured self-disgustedly, moving to shake the man as he lay burrowed beneath the duvet now. “Wake up,’ she instructed briskly, hoping the tone of her voice would penetrate, at least. When it didn’t she shook him again. ‘We would like to talk to you.’ That ‘we’ was put in just in case he could hear her, the two women at least protection for one another. She hoped!

Another grunt was her only reply, the duvet pulled more firmly about his shoulders.

It was this defensive action that spurred Fin on to her next move. ‘Obviously more drastic measures are needed here!’ she told Ella wryly, reaching out for the bedclothes.

Ella’s eyes widened in protest as Fin’s meaning became clear to her. ‘Fin, I don’t think—– Oh, dear,’ she groaned weakly as Fin wrenched the duvet away to reveal that the man who lay beneath it was completely naked! ‘Oh, dear. Oh, dear, oh, dear,’ Ella gasped breathlessly.

Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear, indeed!

The man was lying face-down on the bed, but nevertheless the naked width of his shoulders, tapered waist, perfectly moulded buttocks, and long muscular legs, all covered with fine dark hair, showed that he was a fine specimen of mature manhood.

And still he didn’t move!

‘Wow,’ Ella breathed softly into the complete silence that had fallen over the bedroom in the last few seconds.

Fin looked at Ella. Ella looked back at Fin. And suddenly they were grinning at each other like bemused adolescents.

But the grins suddenly turned to alarm as the man in the bed finally began to move, the sudden chill perhaps, the bright sunshine, obviously now having made an impression on his numbed senses. And Fin heard Ella catch her breath anew as the man rolled over on to his back.

He was beautifully, magnificently male, looked like Michelangelo’s ‘David’. And yet Fin’s own gasp was for quite another reason than his male beauty.

Not him! Any other man in the world but him!

It couldn’t be him, not here. This was sleepy Bedfordshire, miles away from London. Although, a mocking little voice inside her head reminded, the trains in this area now ran directly into London, which was the reason Gail had bought the cottage here in the first place!

But it wasn’t him. It couldn’t be. The longer Fin stared at that harshly hewn face, the more she convinced herself that she had to be mistaken, that there was merely a facial resemblance.

His hair was thick and dark but streaked with grey, over-long, almost down to his shoulders. Long eyelashes rested on cheekbones that looked as if they were carved out of granite, the nose long and straight, perfectly sculptured lips, slightly parted as the deepness of the breathing increased now that he was lying flat on his back, the angle of his chin thrusting and aggressive even in sleep.

He didn’t look quite the same, Fin decided, the hair more unkempt than she remembered, and this man looked older—of course he looked older, she rebuked herself impatiently; if this was the man she thought it could be then he was years older, must be in his late thirties now. But it couldn’t be him, she tried to convince herself again, at the same time continuing to look down at him with that same initial fascinated horror.

‘This doesn’t seem quite—fair,’ Ella announced firmly, moving to cover the man’s nakedness with the duvet, obviously misunderstanding Fin’s interest for one of voyeurism!

When it wasn’t this man’s nakedness—magnificent as that might be!—that held her enthralled, but the terrible sense of familiarity that just looking at this man gave her …!

But before she could make any attempt to defend her interest to the other woman the man in the bed finally began to stir, Ella stepping back from the bed almost guiltily now, leaving Fin in his direct line of vision as the man’s lids were raised above the most incredible pair of aquamarine-coloured eyes she had ever seen! Thick dark lashes added to the incredible depths of that colour, a dark ring of blue encircling the iris to add to their uniqueness, the gaze so piercing, even on waking, that Fin felt pinned to the spot. She was the one who had a perfect right to be here, and yet she felt like fleeing—at the same time knowing she couldn’t have moved if she had tried!

He blinked up at her for several seconds, frowning darkly, obviously aware, somewhere at the back of his mind, that she shouldn’t be here, that she definitely hadn’t been when he’d fallen asleep. He didn’t seem to have seen poor Ella at all as she stood at the back of the room near the door, concentrating on Fin with effort. ‘Who are you?’ he asked gruffly, as if just the effort of talking hurt the dryness of his throat.

Now they were back to the original fairy-tale, only this one didn’t seem to be running true to form at all; wasn’t she supposed to be the one asking the questions? And there was such a lot she would have liked to ask …! ‘I’m one of the Little People—–’

‘Oh, my God …!’ He gave a pained groan, his pallor increasing, his cheeks looking grey now. ‘Oh, God!’ he groaned again, his eyes wide now as he stared at her disbelievingly. ‘I don’t believe this is happening to me!’ He shook his head, looking up towards the ceiling, his gaze returning reluctantly to Fin, heaving a shuddering sigh as he saw she was still there. ‘Most people imagine they see pink elephants; I have to see “little people”!’ His gaze turned sharply towards the door as Ella gave a snort of laughter she tried to control but couldn’t quite manage to. ‘Another one!’ he gasped his dismay, his skin seeming to take on a green sheen now.

Fin had realised the mistaken assumption he had made almost as soon as Ella had, and had trouble restraining her own laughter; this man really thought she was a hallucination brought on as the result of too much alcohol. One of the ‘little people’, indeed. She might not have explained herself very well, but really …! ‘You don’t understand—–’

‘Of course I do,’ he nodded firmly. ‘You’re one of the “little people”. Are you an elf, or a pixie, or—–?’

‘I run a business called Little People!’ she snapped tautly, bright spots of colour in her cheeks, her freckles standing out against the livid colour. She might be small and delicately made, but she wasn’t in the least fairy-like, and her very delicacy hid a strong-willed determination.

‘Hm?’ The man still looked totally befuddled by the conversation, running a hand through the length of his hair.

‘Little People,’ Fin repeated through gritted teeth. ‘It’s the name of the business I run. It’s on my van outside if you would care to look,’ she added exasperatedly as he still didn’t look convinced by this explanation.

‘It is?’ He began to look hopeful that he wasn’t going insane after all, although the suspicion still remained in his expression. ‘Perhaps I had better—– Ah.’ He halted in the act of getting out of the bed as he looked down and obviously realised that he didn’t have any clothes on.

Fin spied a pair of denims on the bedroom floor that had obviously been discarded there some time the night before, studiously avoiding looking for any other clothing he might have thrown down so carelessly as she hurried over to pick the denims up for him. ‘Here.’ She held them out towards him.

He took them slowly, frowning as his suspicion deepened. ‘How did you know …?’

She kept her gaze determinedly turned away from Ella as she heard the other woman give a choked cough to hide her squeak of guilt. ‘Logic,’ Fin dismissed with a briskness that defied questioning, turning away discreetly as he pulled the denims up his long legs, standing up to fasten them before padding over to the tiny window across the room that looked out over the driveway.

God, he was tall, well over six feet, powerfully built, moving with all the feline grace of a caged tiger.

Strange she should liken him to that particular animal, Fin realised with a startled jolt; the tiger had always been the animal she considered the most beautiful!

His hair was so thick and dark now that she could see it properly, the grey among the darkness more noticeable now that it curled down on to his shoulders. His face seemed harsher in profile as he looked out of the window, those incredible-coloured eyes narrowed, his mouth a thin slash of displeasure between clenched jaws.