Last Chance Marriage. Rosemary Gibson
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Название: Last Chance Marriage
Автор: Rosemary Gibson
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
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‘It’s just over there.’ As she spoke the music was abruptly silenced, raised voices beginning a countdown. Ten, nine...
Eight seconds to midnight. Clemency stared up at the house. Was Simon standing beside Lisa? Had he even noticed she was missing or was he too lost in his own misery even to care?
‘One...’ As the exuberant voices reached a crescendo, she turned to look up at the figure towering by her side, his dark face as strained as her own.
‘Happy New Year,’ she murmured wryly, and felt an inane bubble of laughter rising in her throat, the words so hopelessly inappropriate under the circumstances.
‘Happy New Year,’ he returned, and she saw his own mouth quirk as he too recognised the absurdity of their seasonal exchange. His eyes moved slowly over her face. ‘Take care, hmm?’
‘You too,’ Clemency said unsteadily. Once this man turned and walked away she would never see him again. The tightness in her chest had nothing to do with Simon.
Impulsively she stood up on tiptoe, intending to plant a swift, chaste kiss on his cheek. Simultaneously he lowered his head to bestow a similar parting gesture, but as she unexpectedly tilted her face upwards his mouth, instead of grazing her forehead, closed over her lips.
The warm, firm mouth barely brushed hers and yet it acted like a touch paper, heat instantly pooling in the pit of her stomach, flaring up, gathering momentum, scorching through her veins. She heard his sharp intake of breath as he lifted his head, his dark face rigid with shock.
For a second she could hardly breathe, let alone think, stared up at him with wide, stunned eyes, drawing desperate gulps of air into her burning lungs. Then she turned and ran.
With a tiny, convulsive shiver, Clemency jerked herself to her feet and paced across the garden, coming to a standstill by the wooden fence that separated her garden from the open farmland beyond.
More than five years on and she could still remember that mindless panic with which she’d fled Joshua Harrington that night. Her hands tightened over the fence and then relaxed. She’d been in a total daze that night, emotionally completely off-balance, vulnerable to anyone who’d shown a modicum of sympathy and understanding.
Turning around, she began to make her way briskly up the garden and faltered, her eyes drawn like a magnet to the red-tiled roof adjacent to her own. Why of all people did her new neighbour have to be him? She’d made a new life for herself with which she was perfectly content.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, Clemency. She pulled herself up irritably. There was no earthly reason why her orderly existence should be remotely affected by her new neighbour. Joshua Harrington, she reminded herself firmly, had made it perfectly clear that he had no intention of intruding into her life, let alone changing it.
CHAPTER THREE
MUFFLING a yawn, Clemency zipped up her jeans and tugged a green cotton sweater over her rumpled red curls. Barefoot, she padded across to her bedroom window and flung it open, surveying the cloudless blue sky. It looked as if it was going to be another glorious day.
Yawning again, she slipped on her sandals and made her way downstairs. She bent to retrieve the newspaper and mail from the front doormat and headed down the hall, coming to an abrupt halt as she heard the sound of breaking glass.
One of the cats from the local farm knocking down a milk bottle? Except she didn’t keep her empty bottles outside her back door. She took a tentative step forward and froze. Someone was breaking into her kitchen...
‘Please, Daddy, let me do it.’
‘Sorry, old chap. Back you go. You too, Tommy, please.’
She expelled a long, deep breath. Did prospective burglars normally bring their four-year-old sons along as witnesses? Tiptoeing to the door, she stealthily eased it open a crack and peeped through.
Armed with gloves and a small hammer, Joshua Harrington was casually knocking out the glass in her open back door onto a plastic sheet. From the safety of the lawn, the twins, identically dressed today in the brown uniform of the village school, watched with expressions of utter longing on their small faces.
Clemency’s eyes dropped to the football at their feet and her eyes darkened reflectively. One hell of a kick for such small legs—over the hedge with still enough force to smash her window.
Pushing open the door, she stepped into the kitchen.
‘Good morning,’ she said breezily.
If she’d hoped to throw Joshua Harrington even marginally off-balance, she was disappointed.
‘I thought you’d be at work by now,’ he murmured mildly, the navy blue sweatshirt hugging the wide, powerful shoulders intensifying the brilliance of his eyes. Knocking out the last fragment of glass, he stooped to gather up the plastic sheeting.
Normally she would have been, Clemency conceded, but it wouldn’t have hurt him to ring the doorbell and check. ‘I’m on leave for a week.’
Waggling her fingers at the twins, who were waving to her enthusiastically from the garden, Clemency retrieved the strong refuse bag from the floor and held it open.
‘Thanks.’
As he deposited the plastic sheeting deftly into the bag, her eyes flicked over the strong contours of his face, absorbing the weariness etched into it. For a second her hard-won composure almost cracked completely, the muscles of her stomach coiling into a fierce knot. Had he endured an equally troubled night? Lain awake for hours, like her, eyes open, staring into the past?
‘Daddy’s going to put a lovely new window in your door,’ trebled a small voice. Evidently deciding that their temporary banishment had been lifted now the glass had been safely removed, the twins scampered across the grass.
‘That’s really kind of him, isn’t it?’ The second voice piped, with unconcealed hero-worship.
‘Yes, it certainly is,’ Clemency agreed solemnly, her muscles relaxing as the small boys bounded into the kitchen.
‘Especially as Daddy broke the damn window,’ Joshua Harrington murmured sotto voce, the corners of the firm, straight mouth twitching.
Unable to keep it straight any longer, Clemency’s face broke into a warm, wide grin, the wariness in her eyes of which she’d been quite unconscious clearing briefly.
‘Where’s your lunch box, Tommy?’ Joshua enquired, straightening up.
‘Left it in the garden.’
‘Go and fetch it, please.’
‘Yes, Daddy.’ The boys started for the door and then, as if some invisible hand had tapped them on the shoulder, turned back towards Clemency.
‘Bye, Clemency,’ they chorused dutifully.
‘An’ thank you for having СКАЧАТЬ