Second Chance For Love. SUSANNE MCCARTHY

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СКАЧАТЬ this was delicious. Jethro lifted his head, sniffing hopefully at her hand, hinting that perhaps she might like to share her good fortune with a friend. She stroked his sleek head, laughing.

      ‘Are you allowed tit-bits like this?’ she asked him. ‘I’m not sure that cake’s very good for you.’ His liquid eyes—so like his master’s—gazed at her meltingly, and she could not be immune. ‘All right,’ she conceded, breaking off a small piece and holding it out for him. ‘But don’t tell.’

      The telephone began to ring, but she ignored it. Vi had told her that the answering service would cut in, and after a moment it did. With a sigh she laid her head back on the cushions, and closed her eyes. Sooner or later she was going to have to ring Colin, an let him know about the accident, and where she wa . But not yet.

      The clicking of the latch on the front door brought her awake as she was beginning to slide away into sleep again, and she lifted her head, expecting Tom. But Jethro clearly didn’t—there was no bark of welcome. He simply shifted his head, turning it away from the door in a manner of bored contempt.

      The woman who appeared in the doorway was about the same age as Josey herself, a willowy blonde with the fine bone-structure and peaches-and-cream complexion of the English upper classes. Her white kid jodhpurs and leather riding-whip gave the same impression, and her voice had the cut-glass diction of the county set.

      ‘Oh…’ She regarded Josey with refined astonishment, rather as if she were something naughty the Labrador had done on the carpet. ‘I called to see Tom.’

      That haughty manner made Josey’s hackles rise. ‘He’s out,’ she responded, deliberately unhelpful.

      ‘I see…’

      Josey felt the sharp scrutiny of those ice-blue eyes, missing nothing, and sensed a hostility that was a little puzzling—unless this young madam regarded the local vet as her personal property, and resented the interloper. ‘Can I give him a message?’ she enquired, cuttingly polite.

      ‘Oh…No, it’s all right. I thought perhaps Zella had thrown a spavin, but it’s probably nothing. I’ll walk her home gently, and if that doesn’t do the trick I’ll call him out later.’

      The smile was confident enough, but the voice held just a hint of uncertainty. It had clearly unsettled her to find another woman ensconced in Tom’s kitchen, apparently very much at home. And Jethro, bless him, decided at that moment to start licking Josey’s hand, as if to demonstrate a bond of deep affection.

      ‘Fine—I’ll tell him you called,’ she responded casually.

      So who was that? she wondered as the door closed behind the visitor. A proper little lady of the manor—was she a regular girlfriend of Tom’s? But clearly, in spite of the impression she had tried to give, she wasn’t quite sure of him—and that gave Josey a kind of perverse satisfaction.

      But of course it was all just a daydream. She would only be here for a few days—as soon as she was well enough, she would be leaving. Besides, he wasn’t remotely attracted to her anyway—he had made that more than clear.

      Automatically her hand reached out for her cigarettes, but then with a muttered curse she remembered that she had smoked the last one half an hour ago. She had known that she was running short, but she hadn’t liked to ask Tom to buy some for her.

      But now she was beginning to feel that uncomfortable craving. How far was it to a shop that might sell cigarettes? It was so frustrating to feel so weak—even to think of walking a hundred yards made her want to cry with exhaustion. And first she would have to get upstairs to her bedroom to fetch her purse.

      If only she could give the horrible things up. She knew the unpleasant smell of tobacco smoke clung to her hair and clothes, and she had lately noticed that her teeth were starting to turn yellow from the nicotine. And she had read somewhere that smoking caused the skin to age prematurely—she’d used to have good skin. But she needed a smoke—needed it as a starving man needed food.

      The stairs seemed like Mount Everest, but with grim determination she managed to climb them. She had to sit down on the edge of the bed to recover, and at that moment the sound of a car drawing up beside the house came to her ears, and from Jethro’s excited barking she guessed that it was Tom. Damn, why did he have to come back now, and catch her?

      She heard him come in, and speak a few words to Jethro, and then he was coming up the stairs two at a time. She rose to her feet, ready to confront him, feeling as guilty as a naughty schoolgirl—though she knew she had every right to go out and buy herself a packet of cigarettes if she wished to.

      On the threshold he paused, a look of angry impatience crossing his face. ‘What are you doing up here?’ he demanded.

      ‘I…I’m sorry.’ Automatically she was apologising again. ‘I didn’t mean…I just came up to——’

      ‘You shouldn’t be climbing the stairs when there’s no one in the house,’ he grated. ‘What if you’d fallen?’

      Her temper—strained by the nicotine craving—was close to snapping. ‘All right—I’m not completely stupid, you know,’ she retorted tartly. ‘If I’d thought I might fall, I wouldn’t have tried it.’

      The sharpness of her response had startled her as much as it did him, and as he frowned at her she sighed inwardly, waiting for him to bite her head off. But instead, quite unexpectedly, that incredible smile unfurled. ‘I’m sorry,’ he conceded wryly. ‘I was just worried—you should be resting.’

      She couldn’t quite meet his eyes, conscious that her cheeks were tinged a delicate shade of pink. ‘I…I’ve been resting all day,’ she managed, trying hard to keep her voice steady. ‘I ought to be ready for a five-mile run.’

      A little stiffly, she rose to her feet. She would go without the damned cigarettes now. Maybe he was right—if she could manage to give them up when she was at such a low ebb, she would never need them again. ‘Oh…by the way,’ she added, slanting him a covert look from beneath her lashes, ‘there was a woman here to see you a little while ago. Something about her horse. She said she might call you later.’

      ‘She didn’t leave a name?’

      ‘No. She…seemed to think you would know who it was.’

      A flicker of some expression passed across his eyes, but it was gone too quickly for her to read it. ‘I see,’ was all he said.

      Having asserted that she was sure she wouldn’t fall, she was alarmed by how dizzy she felt as she gazed down the steep flight of stairs. But she wasn’t going to let him see that—he might offer to carry her again. Resolutely gritting her teeth, she took hold of the banister and slowly made her way down.

      It was quite a relief to get back to the settee. She sank down a little more heavily than she had intended, leaning back and closing her eyes. It was hard to believe that just that small amount of effort could be so exhausting. Beside her she heard Tom laugh drily.

      ‘You’re not quite as fit as you think you are, are you?’ he remarked, a sardonic glint in his eyes.

      ‘No, I’m not,’ she conceded. ‘I feel perfectly all right when I’m sitting down, but when I try to move around it catches up with me.’

      ‘You’ll СКАЧАТЬ