Carmichael's Return

There was a heavy sigh, then, ‘That’s OK. But, Miss Halstead…’ He eyed her minutely, assessingly, from the top of her head to her thighs, then down over her shapeliness, outlined plainly beneath the stretch fabric of her nightdress, to her tightly curling toes. ‘Nevernever do that to me again…’

Lauren fled.

Lauren stared through the kitchen window, listening to the kettle coming to the boil. The flowers glowed, the lawn radiated light. In the brilliant morning sun the cedar tree looked less intimidating, throwing its shadow away from the house.

The kitchen, as Marie had declared, possessed all the ‘mod cons’ a girl could want, but their modernity was in stark contrast to the roughly plastered stone walls, the oak dresser displaying blue and white crockery and the old-fashioned iron stove which had been left in place.

Should she, or shouldn’t she, Lauren wondered, consult her guest about breakfast? Guest? she asked herself. Well, she could hardly think of him as ‘the stranger’, could she, now that she knew his name, not to mention other—well, things about him? The colour in her cheeks came and went at the thought.

She climbed the stairs again, but outside his room she hesitated, then her knuckles knocked tentatively on the solid wood door. She opened it on hearing a weary, ‘Please enter.’

He lay back in a low chair, dressed, she noted to her relief, in jeans and an open-necked shirt. He looked washed out.

‘How are you feeling now, Mr Carmichael?’

Broad shoulders lifted and fell. ‘I think the fever’s passed, but I feel lousy.’

‘Would you—would you like some breakfast?’

‘Thanks, no.’ Then his head lifted and his gaze skated with male appreciation over her casual clothes—wellwashed jeans and a cotton top which, to her annoyance, no matter how baggy it became with wear, could not hide her shapeliness.

So he was OK in that specific area of his life, she thought with some amusement.

‘Tea—cup of? Any chance?’ he asked, letting his head fall back again.

‘Of course.’ She swung to the door. ‘I’ll go and make it’

‘Call and I’ll come.’

The faintly mocking note made her turn. Fever or no fever, there was no mistaking the glint in his eyes, and her inner self cautioned, Oh, no, you don’t, Mr Carmichael. Then, more insistently, Oh, no, you don’t, Lauren Halstead.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_d52f3472-3f8e-5d7a-8885-2f4f66fae80c)

HE DID come at her call, one slow step after the other. He dropped into an upright chair at the scrupulously scrubbed wooden table then looked around m a lacklustre way, wrapping his hands around the mug of tea which Lauren had put in front of him.

How long, she wondered, did he intend to stay? It was a question she could not yet ask of this man who, even now, was far from well.

Catching the browned bread as it jumped from the toaster, she spread it with butter and sat on the other wooden chair.

‘How was it,’ she asked, as much out of curiosity as to fill the taut silence, ‘that you turned up in the garden of Old Cedar Grange?’

Carefully, precisely, he lowered the mug to the table, as if the movement gave him time to process his thoughts.

At last he said, ‘I knocked at the front doorhammered would be a better description—but over the racket no one heard, so I did the only sensible thing and found my way to the rear.’

She nodded, chewing thoughtfully. ‘But why?’ She had to ask. ‘Why here?’

There was another long pause. Had the fever, she wondered, slowed his mental processes? But there was no lack of brightness in his eyes, no absence of spontaneity in his reactions.

‘I had a drink at the local pub,’ he answered at last, ‘and asked if they had any accommodation available. No room at the inn—but there was a house on the edge of the village, they told me, with plenty of empty rooms. A girl by the name of Marie Brownley lived there with her fiancé. She was looking after it in the owner’s absence. They said she might put me up.’

He took a frowning mouthful of tea. He was choosing his words again. Lauren sensed it. ‘Hence my appearance unannounced in the rear grounds of the property.’ His mouth curved in his first real smile, and Lauren’s heart lurched drunkenly at the transformation of his features.

‘Totally unarmed,’ he added. ‘As you’ve no doubt discovered after going through my belongings.’

Lauren smiled too. ‘Sorry about the invasion into your backpack privacy. And the “might have a gun” nonsense.’

His shoulders lifted. ‘My apologies, too, for collapsing in the garden. I only flew in from South America yesterday morning. The fever, plus jet lag, caught up with me.’ He straightened in the chair. It had plainly been an effort for him even to do that. ‘I should leave here.’ He glanced at her. ‘Any chance of public transport?’

‘In which direction?’

His shoulders lifted heavily. ‘Any which way.’

Lauren was swept by a curious disappointment. She didn’t want the man to leave, which worried her, but then she rationalised her feelings. He was company; his presence was stopping her from feeling lonely in this big house, that was all.

She was puzzled, too, by his apparent inability to make up his mind as to his eventual destination. ‘I could take you to the nearest town. Where would you want to go?’

His answer was a shake of the head, a lift of the shoulders—all with his eyes closed.

‘Mr Carmichael…’ She had intended to sound firm, in order to penetrate the mists which appeared to be clouding his mind, but her voice held a strange tremor. ‘You’re not in a fit state to go anywhere.’

His glance at her was direct, almost speculative. He must have heard that vocal tremor and be trying to analyse its cause. He’d be clever if he found it, she thought ruefully, because she didn’t know that herself.

‘You’d allow me to stay another night?’

‘However long it takes for you to get well again.’

Her words surprised even herself. The statement had almost been an open invitation to stay as long as he liked. Also, her own reaction was puzzling her. It had nothing to do with the man, she told herself, with the charisma he undoubtedly possessed even m an unfit state, the magnetism in his deeply intelligent eyes, the deep-down reflex action of her feminine responses to his masculinity every time he was near.

No! It was because she was sorry for him—plainly brought low, as he was, by circumstances and illness. It was compassion, wasn’t it…? Wasn’t it? her brain persisted.

An eyebrow arched. ‘You have it in your power to play hostess to an uninvited guest? Moreover, to someone who, twenty-four hours ago, you didn’t know even existed?’

But she had known, hadn’t she? Although how, she could not explain at all.

‘If you mean would the owner mind if I took you in, I very much doubt it.’

‘As a paying guest?’

Paying? The thought of payment hadn’t occurred to her. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Payment to the owner, not to me. I spoke to him earlier this morning and he seemed a very nice man.’

‘He did? Have you ever met him?’

‘How could I have? I only took over from Mane last night. Anyway, he’s her uncle—or quasi-uncle.’

‘Quasi.’ He rolled the word around his tongue. ‘I like that. Seemingly, almost, but not really.’

Lauren smiled, glad that he appeared to be reviving a little. ‘You’re talking like a dictionary.’