Summer At Villa Rosa Collection. Kate Hardy

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ he pulled his shirt over his head, stepped into his trousers and had just made it to the kitchen when there was an ear-splitting scream.

      He dropped the bag and ran in the direction of the sound, bursting through the door into what, disconcertingly, was a bedroom.

      ‘Miranda!’

      There was a whimper and he found her in the en-suite bathroom, teeth chattering, backed up into the corner of the bath, her gaze fixed on a seriously impressive spider on the wall behind the shower.

      He picked up a towel that was out of her reach on a wicker chair and offered it to her. Frozen to the spot, she made no move to take it. This was a full-on case of arachnophobia.

      He draped the towel over her and as he lifted her clear of the bath she clung to him as he had clung to her.

      ‘It j-just appeared out of n-nowhere,’ she said, regaining the power of speech now the spider was out of sight.

      ‘I’ll handle it,’ he promised. ‘Can I put you down?’ She nodded and he set her down and walked her through to the bedroom but she continued to cling to him. ‘Will you be all right on your own in here while I get rid of it?’

      ‘Don’t kill it! It’s unlucky to kill spiders.’

      ‘Is it?’

      ‘Don’t laugh!’

      ‘I’m not laughing, I promise.’ He might just be smiling but then, with his arms unexpectedly filled with a naked woman who was clinging to him for dear life, he had a lot to smile about. That spider deserved to live a long and happy life. ‘I’ll put it out of the window.’

      ‘No!’ She pulled back a little, looked up at him, her eyes desperate. ‘It’ll just climb back in through the air vent. You have to take it right away. Outside the gates.’

      He didn’t think it would be a good idea to point out that a spider could just as easily climb the gates and make its way back inside. There was nothing rational about her fear.

      ‘Outside the gates,’ he promised.

      ‘Not just outside the gates.’

      ‘I’ll take it over the road and set it free in the trees. Will that be far enough?’

      She looked doubtful but she nodded and said, ‘I suppose so.’

      ‘You’ll have to let go,’ he said with regret but the last thing he wanted was for the spider to take the opportunity to disappear.

      ‘Yes...’ Her fingers were bunched tight around his shirt front and it took a mental effort for her to open them, to take a step away from the protection of his arms. He had his own battle with the desire to wrap his arms around her, hold her, never let her go. Instead he caught the towel, which was the only thing between her and decency, before it dropped to the floor and, his eyes not leaving her face, he wrapped it around her and tucked the end between her breasts.

      ‘I won’t be long,’ he said, his voice struggling through a throat stuffed with hot rocks.

      Andie fought against the urge to grab him, keep him with her. Working in such a male environment, she’d had to put on the anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better façade. The slightest sign of weakness would have been ruthlessly exploited.

      That didn’t matter here and she didn’t take her eyes off Cleve until he disappeared into the bathroom, backing as far away from the door as physically possible.

      He left a few moments later with the spider caught in a towel and, released from her terror, she scrambled into the first clothes that came to hand: a pair of cropped trousers and a vest top.

      She combed through her hair, tied it back with a hairband and went to the kitchen. The kitchen was old-fashioned, with a dresser that would have to be stripped down, the china washed, and a large wooden table that they’d sat around for supper.

      A search of the cupboard under the sink revealed an inch of liquid soap in a plastic container and she filled a bowl with hot water. By the time Cleve returned she’d stripped one shelf of china and piled it in and was giving the draining board and plate rack a thorough going-over.

      ‘Can I help?’

      ‘You already have.’ Deeply embarrassed by the exhibition she’d made of herself, she cleared her throat. ‘Thank you for rescuing me.’

      ‘Any time.’ He picked up the kettle and leaned in close to fill it at the tap. She was still shaky and the brief touch of his shoulder made her feel safe all over again. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he asked, moving away to put the kettle on the hotplate. ‘Miranda?’

      ‘I’ve tried the talking cure. It didn’t help.’

      ‘Talk to me.’

      She glanced up. He’d turned his back on the stove and was looking at her so intently that she forgot what she was going to say. The only thing in her mind was how it had felt to be held, trembling, in his arms. The beat of his pulse against her ear, his hands spread across her naked back, keeping her safe.

      ‘It can’t hurt.’ He moved away from the stove, was one step, two steps closer and all she could see was his mouth... ‘I don’t want to scare you but this house has been empty for a while. That spider is not going to be the only creature crawling out of the cracks in the walls.’

      ‘The lizards don’t bother me.’ She forced herself to look away, look up at the little gecko sitting high on the wall near the ceiling. ‘They eat mosquitoes and flies.’

      ‘So do spiders.’

      ‘They also have a million legs and eyes.’

      ‘A million?’

      She heard the teasing note in his voice, knew that a tiny crease would have appeared at the corner of his mouth and, unable to help herself, she responded with a smile.

      ‘Okay, eight,’ she said as, suddenly self-conscious, she began rubbing at a stubborn spot of dirt, ‘which is at least four too many and when they move it looks like a lot more. Plus they’re hairy. And they have fangs.’

      ‘That’s all you’ve got?’

      Still teasing.

      How long had it been? Not since a party in the mess, when one of the engineers had had a crush on her and she’d had to hide in the ladies’. Rachel hadn’t been there that night and Cleve had smuggled her out the back way.

      Unable to help herself, she gave him a sideways look. His face was thinner, the crease deeper than she remembered.

      ‘In my head I can rationalise it. I know that they’re more frightened of me than I am of them. But then I see one and all that goes out of the window.’

      He leaned back against the drainer and folded his arms. She’d seen him do that a dozen or more times when someone was rambling on, full of excuses. He never said anything, just waited until it all came out.

      ‘When I was eight a boy at school put a huge spider down my back. I could feel it wriggling inside my blouse and I was hysterical, tearing СКАЧАТЬ