Too Short A Blessing

What did it matter? her mind demanded bitterly. He was alive and Rick was dead, and she resented and hated him for that alone.

CHAPTER THREE (#u1386205a-dc00-5ff7-a430-d4ee966f29d2)

SARA was in the sitting-room later that morning, crouched down on all fours trying to measure the floor for new carpets, when she heard a vehicle draw up outside.

Frowning, she turned round to glance out of the window, her body freezing with shock and dislike as she recognised the man clambering easily out of the rather battered Land Rover.

Luckily, Sam was in the front garden chatting with Carly, and would unwittingly delay their visitor.

No doubt it was the same spirit of curiosity that had prompted him to clamber over their hedge this morning which had brought him round now, thought Sara nastily as she hurried into the kitchen, snatching up her handbag and car keys as she did so.

It wasn’t as though she was doing something she hadn’t planned to do anyway, she reassured herself as she slipped the car into gear and slowly drove out into the lane. She had already mentioned to Sam this morning that she needed to stock up the kitchen cupboards. He had supplied the information that the village boasted only one very small all-purpose shop, and that her best bet would be to drive into Dorchester itself.

The town was a good twenty miles away—plenty far enough for their visitor to have taken himself off long before she returned, Sara thought, pleased by the adroit way in which she had avoided meeting him. Common sense told her she couldn’t go on avoiding him for ever, but if he thought that what had happened this morning meant that she would welcome further sexual advances from him, he was very quickly going to be disabused of that idea, she decided grimly, gritting her teeth as her car bumped uncomfortably down the rutted road that was dry after several weeks without any rain.

The sun had risen enough to be hot now, and once she had gained the main road she paused to roll back the roof of her Mini. To her left lay the village through which she had driven the previous day—and to her right? She frowned slightly, noting the massed trees and red-bricked wall. Beyond them lay Jonas Chesney’s house. What was it like? That was something she was not likely to discover, nor should want to, she told herself firmly as she turned the car in the opposite direction.

That life in the country proceeded at a somewhat slower pace than it did in London was brought home to her as she did her shopping. Even in the large supermarket, the girls on the till took time to chat to those who were obviously their regular customers. Once she had accustomed herself to it, it was rather pleasant, reflected Sara as she loaded her purchases back into her trolley and wheeled it out to the car.

She was in no hurry to rush back, so she spent a leisurely half-hour wandering round Dorchester, buying some magazines and books for Sam and herself and a story-book tape for Carly. It was well after lunchtime when she eventually set off back stifling her pangs of guilt as she left the carpet shop with a book of samples tucked under her arm.

There was still some salad and cold meat in the fridge. Sam would have been able to knock up a meal for himself and Carly, and she would make it up to them tonight. For a treat she had bought some fresh salmon—too much, really, but what they didn’t eat, she could always freeze for a later date.

It was much hotter as she drove back through the country lanes; the hedgerows were green with spring leaf, and ragged robin and ladies’ lace mingled patches of deep pink and white by the roadside. She had the road to herself, and with the top rolled back and the windows down she could actually hear the birdsong.

As she headed back home, her earlier tension lifted; she could even mock herself a little for her slightly ridiculous flight from Jonas Chesney. What could the man do to her, after all? All that panic over a kiss. It had been so long since any man had kissed her that she had quite naturally over-emphasised the effect he had had on her.

By the time she turned off the main road into the rutted lane she was feeling pleasantly relaxed and calm, a feeling which disappeared as she swung round a bend and had to brake hard to prevent herself colliding with the Land Rover slewed arrogantly across the road, preventing her from getting past.

Although she wasn’t yet sufficiently familiar with her new habitat to recognise one Land Rover from another, she guessed immediately to whom this one belonged. With her heart pumping at something approaching twice its normal rate, she got out of her car and hurried angrily towards the Land Rover. How dared he leave it there like that? Had he no thought for others … no consideration? No doubt while the cottage had been empty he had got used to considering the road his private property.

The resentment and anger that had fuelled her impatience exploded into furious disgust as she rounded the Land Rover and then came to an abrupt stop, almost unable to belive what she was seeing.

Jonas was half kneeling, half crouching on the far side of the vehicle, the wriggling body of a small boy face down across one hard thigh. Momentarily too shocked to do or say anything, Sara was freed from her temporary stunned paralysis as one calloused hand descended on the boy’s jean-clad rear end.

Sara didn’t stop to think or to check her words, her horrified, ‘Stop that at once!’ causing the hand to pause in mid-air.

As Jonas turned a grim and unrepentant face towards her, the child took advantage of his momentary lack of concentration to wriggle free and dart off into the trees at the side of the road.

Swearing briefly, Jonas stood up and, fearing that he was going to pursue the child, Sara grabbed hold of his forearm, her eyes snapping with anger and disgust.

‘Don’t you dare go after him, you bully!’ she said fiercely. ‘I ought to report you to the police for what you were just doing.’

‘Go ahead,’ she was told bitingly, the grey eyes arrogantly disdainful where they should have been guilty. ‘I’m sure Sergeant Rowson would be most grateful to you.’

The sarcasm in his voice grated on her nerve endings. Staring up at him, Sara suddenly became aware of the fact that her fingers were still clenched round his arm. His skin felt warm and firm, the dark hairs sensually rough against her palm. She had the most extraordinary desire to let her fingertips stroke along his skin. Releasing him as though his flesh burned, she stepped back from him with flushed cheeks.

‘Why were you hitting that child?’ she demanded breathlessly, hearing the weak unsteadiness in her voice, and resenting him for causing it.

His mouth curled disdainfully as he drawled, ‘Firstly for trespassing on my land …’ He watched as the indignant colour burned her skin, and then stopped the impulsive protest trembling on her lips by adding, ‘but most importantly for this …’

He kneeled down again, his lean hands parting the thickly luscious grass with a gentleness that was oddly in contrast to the determined way he had been punishing the boy.

Puzzled and apprehensive, Sam looked down, her stomach tensing as she saw the small cluster of eggs lying on the grass.

‘Robbing birds’ nests isn’t something we approve of round here,’ he told her grimly. ‘That young lad just happens to be Sergeant Rowson’s nephew. His parents have recently been divorced, and the Sergeant and his wife are looking after the boy for a while. He’s been city born and bred, and naturally he’s having some trouble adjusting. This isn’t the first time I’ve caught him doing this. Last time I warned him what the punishment would be. I wasn’t doing it for the pleasure of it, you know,’ he told her with a grimace of disgust. ‘But the boy needs to know that rules have to be obeyed.’

‘I can understand that,’ agreed Sara stiffly. ‘But you’re not related to him; why not leave it to his uncle to punish him?’

‘Because by the time I’d found and told the Sergeant and he had got round to dealing with him, the boy would probably have forgotten what he was being punished for. I don’t believe in torturing kids with the threat of punishment to come,’ Jonas said bitingly, ‘whatever you might choose to think. Besides, punishment on the scene of the crime is invariably more effective. The first time I caught him stealing eggs I explained to him just exactly what he was doing, and I had hoped that would be enough. Obviously it wasn’t.’

He saw her face and smiled sardonically. ‘That doesn’t suit you at all, does it?’ he mocked. ‘You’d much rather see me as the villain of the piece, the sort of man who enjoys inflicting physical pain.’ He grimaced slightly and came towards her, saying softly, ‘I thought this morning that I detected a certain amount of animosity towards me, cerebrally, at least. Well you know what they say about giving a dog a bad name, don’t you?’

She was in his arms before she could move, her brain too dazed to comprehend what had happened. She shuddered as his hand cupped her jaw, tilting her face up to meet the hard pressure of his mouth, her body knowing that he was going to kiss her before her mind could assimilate the knowledge.

Shockingly, her pulses quivered frantically at the first touch of his mouth.

He was kissing her in anger, Sara recognised, making her take the place of the boy she had unwittingly helped to escape, but something was going wrong, because although his mouth was hot and hard, it wasn’t anger but passion that fuelled its aggressive demands on her own, and, horrifyingly, she was responding to it. A thick moan was stifled in her throat as his teeth bit sharply into the fullness of her lower lip, tugging on it so that his tongue could touch the inner softness of her mouth. He pushed past her firmly closed teeth as she was forced to draw breath, unleashing a dark need in her that couldn’t be controlled by reason.

Helplessly, Sara clung to him, shocked to discover that her arms were round his neck, her fingers clutching at his hair, her body pressed intimately along the length of his.

The kiss went on and on, her lips clinging hotly to his, her tongue powerless to resist the erotic sucking motion that drew it into the heat of his mouth.

A terrible weakness made her tremble against him, the sound he made deep in his throat as he tugged her shirt out of her jeans and slid his hands against the bare skin of her back distantly touching her consciousness.

His heart slammed erratically against his ribs, its unsteady beat driving into her own body, his legs parting so that he could cradle her against the aroused heat of his thighs as he leaned back against the bulk of the Land Rover.

His mouth left hers to explore the pale column of her throat, his fingers deftly unfastening the buttons of her shirt.

She knew she ought to stop him, but the effect he was having on her was too overwhelming, the shock of what was happening to her so immense that she couldn’t bring herself to believe it was real. This couldn’t really be her, standing in plain sight of anyone who happened to walk past, allowing a man she neither liked nor really knew to practically tear the clothes from her body with one hand while the other gripped her hip and crushed her possessively against the pulsing force of his body!

While Sara’s brain fought to comprehend what was happening to her, her treacherous body was awash with the erotic pleasure of Jonas’s hand against her breast as it slid inside her shirt and cupped her silk-covered fullness.

She gasped and shivered at the sensations his touch aroused, feeling her nipples tighten and thrust against the frail barrier of her bra. Her head fell back beneath the pressure of Jonas’s mouth on her throat, hot and demanding as it found her fluttering pulse.

His own shirt was half unbuttoned, and somehow her hands were inside it, feverishly stroking the moist heat of his skin. His mouth seemed to burn where it touched her, moving hotly along the line of her open shirt. A shudder of physical need convulsed her stomach as his thumb probed roughly at the edge of her bra. Her body’s fierce ache to experience the sensation of his mouth against her breast obliterated everything else.

When his impatient fingers finally freed the taut arousal of her nipple, exposing it to the hungry demand of his mouth, Sara wasn’t sure which of them made the hoarse cry of satisfaction that reached her shocked ears.

Her brain, trying to come to terms with what was happening, logged with shocked disbelief that the compulsive way in which Jonas’s mouth tugged on the swollen softness of her breast was not the sort of caress one would expect from a mere acquaintance. His hips moved rhythmically against hers, drowning out her brief moment of lucidity, and as his hands moved impatiently down her body, holding her fiercely against him, she experienced a shatteringly intense desire for much more than the frantic movement of his body against hers. She wanted him inside her, she acknowledged shakily. She wanted him deep within her with a primitive urgency she had never experienced with Rick.

Rick!

Reality splintered through her fog of physical desire, making her wrench away from Jonas’s hands and mouth with a shocked cry of outrage.

She could hear the harsh unsteadiness of his breathing as she fumbled with her shirt buttons, her face brilliantly flushed as the enormity of what she had been doing engulfed her. Totally unable to look at him, she hurried back to her car on dreadfully unsteady legs, disgusted and humiliated by her incomprehensible response to him.

She heard him call out to her, and panicked into turning round and cry out to him, ‘Keep away from me, do you hear? Just keep away from me!’