Kiss Me Forever/Love Me Forever. Rosemary Laurey

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СКАЧАТЬ had chosen an elegant country restaurant with oak paneling, pitched ceilings and mullioned windows. Another time, and in different company, the atmosphere, the starched linen on the tables and beeswax candles in the silver candlesticks might have charmed, instead Dixie felt shanghaied.

      “Do you bring all your clients here?” The devil made her ask that.

      He looked up from his sweetbreads in sherry. “No.” In the silence that followed, his fork scraped his plate three times.

      Two waiters appeared with their main courses. Dixie tried to concentrate on the chartreuse of vegetables in front of her and ignore the steak Diane sizzling inches from her elbow. She should be gracious and enjoy the meal but couldn’t squelch the suspicion that she was paying even though Sebastian might sign the check.

      Their knees banged again, just as the waiter slid the steaming meat onto a warmed plate. “Aren’t you concerned about Mad Cow disease?” she asked.

      Sebastian’s hand froze, poised over his knife. “They only use Charolais beef, imported from France.” Yes, she was paying for it. “More champagne?”

      At his signal, a waiter refilled her glass before she could refuse. “You’re not having any?” Sebastian had covered his glass.

      “I’m driving.” He expected her to finish the bottle? Gran warned her about men like him. She refused his suggestion of dessert wine with her flan and liqueur with her coffee.

      As they crossed the parking lot, his palm warmed the small of her back. His fingers slid over the silk and up to her neck. She’d had enough. More than enough. “Thanks for dinner and the evening out. I did enjoy meeting so many new people.”

      “The evening isn’t over. How about coming back for coffee?”

      Coffee? “No, thanks. It’s late. I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.”

      He had one last try as they pulled up at Emily’s gate. “I can’t change your mind?” His sweaty hand cupped her knee.

      She opened the door and got out. Fast. And spoke from the safety of the sidewalk. “Sebastian, I need a good lawyer more than I need a romance.” He finally got the message. After she practically hit him over the head with it.

      Upstairs, she kicked off her shoes and took out her earrings. The phone rang, echoing in the silent house. After a few minutes, Emily ran downstairs. The front door opened. Dixie couldn’t help herself; she peered from behind the curtain, just in time to see Emily get in the car before Sebastian drove away. What next!

      The night quiet settled on the house. Dixie felt tempted to wait up and ask Emily if she’d enjoyed her “coffee.” This village was better than a soap opera. She would stay her month and then return to the normalcy of the good old U. S. of A.

      Dixie opened the window and leaned out sideways, recognizing the dark outline of her house across the Green. That light again! Someone was in her house!

      It took just minutes to pull on tennis shoes and a sweatshirt. She took the Metro. Ten minutes’ walk took three by car. She turned off her lights and crept the last thirty yards in low gear. Stopping in the narrow lane beside the house, she grabbed the black flashlight. She’d use it against whoever had dropped it.

      The house was dark now. Had she been a fool to come? A call to Sergeant Grace would have made better sense. Her hand tightened over the flashlight. Two steps inside the gate she saw a dark silhouette ahead of her. “Got you, buster!” Dixie shouted and shone her flashlight full beam ahead. The beam lit up a pale face and a dark leather eye patch. Christopher! So all that talk about wanting to buy books was a front.

      “Dixie, turn out the damn light!” He sounded more irritated than guilty. The nerve of the man!

      “No way. Get off my land and don’t ever come back,” she yelled, feeling like a heroine in a Western romance, waving a flashlight instead of a six-shooter.

      He stared straight at her, unblinded by the light. “Hush, Dixie,” he said and took a step forward.

      “No way. Go now, or I’ll scream.”

      “And alert whomever’s in your house?”

      He’d whispered but she heard him as clearly as the night. One glance confirmed the light still moved upstairs. As she watched, confused, his hand closed over hers and switched off her flashlight as he pulled her between two scratchy shrubs. She tried the evasion techniques she’d learned in self-defense. They didn’t work. Something scraped her ankle and a twig grazed her cheek. His arm closed round her shoulders and held her tight against his hard chest. She flattened her hand and tried to push away. His chest felt like steel and his arm tightened like a vice. “Let me go.”

      “I will.”

      Not a muscle moved.

      “When? Next week? Someone’s in my house and I’m finding out who.”

      “This Englishman’s-home-is-his-castle act is impressive, but foolish.”

      That did it. “I’m female and American. If you haven’t noticed.”

      “Oh, I’ve noticed.” She didn’t doubt it. Her breasts were half-flattened against his chest.

      “You’ll let me go this week or next?”

      “Now, if you promise not to go rushing out to protect your property.”

      “That’s my house getting broken into.”

      “Yes, and burglars today carry guns, knives, tear gas and bicycle chains. Stay here,” he whispered, “trust me.”

      “Give me one good reason.”

      “I’m not the one thieving your great-grandfather’s first editions.” He had a point. The light moved again, disappeared, then appeared lower.

      “He’s having a good look,” Christopher whispered in her ear and pulled her beside him against the wall, his arms loosely circling her shoulders.

      “Who?”

      “You know it’s not me. Who else could get in?”

      “Sebastian, but he’s giving Emily a cup of coffee.”

      She heard his chuckle but his chest never moved. “You resisted his blandishments then?”

      “It wasn’t hard.” Even laughter didn’t ripple a muscle in his chest. Where did he work out? “Enough of that.” She’d come to waylay an intruder not discuss Sebastian’s advances.

      “Whoever it is, they’re not afraid of being in a haunted house at night.”

      “Oh, please!”

      “The villagers believe your aunts haunt the house.”

      “Well, I don’t. I don’t believe in ghosts. Especially ones that carry flashlights.”

      “They also believed they were witches.”

      “I don’t believe in witches СКАЧАТЬ