She would ring for help, but her mobile was in her rucksack. On the ground, right where she was heading. Which left two options: praying to God for help, or making an even bigger fool of herself. She shut her eyes, which always helped with thinking. And praying.
‘What-’ there was a God, with a wicked sense of humour seeing as she just about fell off the precarious perch, ‘-are you doing?’ Well, maybe not a God. She turned as far as she could, cricking her neck in the process, and could just about make out a tall, lean figure. The low sun behind him made everything but his outline pretty much indiscernible, so she screwed up her eyes to try and focus on him. Which didn’t help.
‘Are you going to give me a hand, or just stand there?’
‘No to the first, yes to the second.’ He didn’t just stand there, though. He took a couple of steps nearer, so that she could make out quite clearly that this wasn’t some mysterious God, just a mysterious mortal. With a soft voice, which had an undertone that was making her skin prickle.
‘Very helpful, not.’ It was muttered under her breath, but she had the distinct feeling, from the look on his face, that he’d heard. Kezia didn’t believe in love at first sight, or hate either. But right now this guy was making her think that the second was maybe an option. He stood, arms folded, feet astride and just looked through narrowed eyes while she clung to his gate. Well, she assumed it was his gate, seeing as he was on the other side.
Black t-shirt, black pasted-on jeans, black hair, black face. Or at least a not-very-pleased face. Inscrutable was probably the word, inscrutable in quite a brooding way, which made her feel even more of a dishevelled mess.
‘This is private property.’ His tone was mild, but he was obviously used to people taking notice of it. Which riled her. She’d been invited here, for fuck’s sake.
‘What do you think I am? Stupid? I did actually realise that, for a start the bloody big padlock’s a bit of a giveaway. But, I was told to come here, today, by Marie.’ And I feel bloody silly having a conversation while I’m wobbling on a gate. ‘You know? Marie, who runs the place?’ Okay, sarcasm was the lowest form of wit, but right now it worked for her.
‘We’re shut.’
‘Well that’s bloody obvious by the mega-duty chain. But I. Have. Got. An. Appointment.’ She spoke slowly, hoping it would help.
‘Sorry, there are no appointments until September.’ He took a step back, arms still folded across his body and looked like he was about to go.
‘You have got to be joking!’ Kezia couldn’t believe it. He stood there and replied, calmly ‘we’re shut’. Just like you would say a shop is shut. And she’d just travelled over a thousand bloody miles for this! He didn’t look like the kidding type, though. Closer up he looked like the strong, silent, ‘I’m sexy and I know it’ type. Except the corner of his mouth had tipped slightly into a shape that looked vaguely promising; almost a smile. All she had to do was work out how to humour him, and still get in. ‘You can’t be shut, buster. I might not be sure I want to be here and you sure as hell don’t look like you want me to be. But I am. And I’m going to do this if it kills us both. So do me a favour and either help me down or shut your eyes, because me climbing over isn’t going to be a pretty sight.’
‘Is that your stuff?’ He nodded his head towards her well-worn rucksack and battered guitar case.
She nodded. Two long strides and he’d laid his hand on the guitar case, and she just knew what he was going to do. Throw it back over, and then probably her with it. ‘Don’t you dare.’ Nobody touched her guitar. The rucksack, yeah, but not the guitar. She made a grab to stop him, forgetting she needed to hang on, heard the unmistakeable sound of tearing fabric and fell. Shit, torn dress and face. Shit, shit, shit. Except she didn’t hit the ground.
How anyone could move that fast she didn’t know. But his warm hands were on her waist, which meant her feet hit the ground before her body. ‘Oo.’ She was inches from him, and his hands were still on her body and it didn’t feel like any touch she could remember. It was a lulling touch, a warmth that held a kind of promise that she didn’t quite recognise.
And she still had her mouth open. She snapped it shut. He let go, in his own time, but didn’t move away.
‘Are you okay?’
She nodded. Her tongue didn’t work. It was stuck to the roof of her mouth because this man was pure unadulterated sex. He was surrounded by an aura that was screaming out ‘touch me, want me.’ She reached out tentatively without thinking. And then he moved. One step away. Out of arms’ reach.
‘I’m…’ Well, she was red hot for one. All over. The first flush was down to the way he held her, the second was please-earth-swallow-me-up embarrassment.
‘You are?’
‘I’m Kezia Martin, how do you do? I do have an appointment, and please don’t throw me back over the gate. You see I talked to Maria when we were in Capri and she said that if I came here now, well as soon as I’d finished in Italy, which she knew was two days ago, she said she’d be able to—’
He held up a hand. ‘Whoa. Do you always go at that speed? Slow down, you’re giving me a headache.’
She was babbling, she knew she was babbling. It was a bad habit she had when she felt stupid or embarrassed. She would always talk too much to cover for herself.
‘So…’ He paused. Studying her with eyes that appeared black in the dimming light, he looked her over with a lazy smile that brought out a rash of goose bumps over her arms. No, it couldn’t be his smile; smiles didn’t do that. It had to be the fact that it was getting cooler. She wrapped her arms across her chest and tried to ignore the prickle of her nipples through the fine silk of her dress. His gaze drifted briefly over her body and she shivered involuntarily. Her hair had to be a mess, her dress had a rip somewhere – she wasn’t quite sure where yet, and she daren’t look. Her body was on full alert, as though any moment now she expected him to pounce.
‘You’re cold.’
If it’s the nipples you’ve spotted, that’s nothing to do with the temperature. ‘I’m fine.’ There was a slight tremble in the words and she swallowed, trying to clear her throat, get back to normality and break the spell that he’d woven.
He ignored the words. Looked her over slowly again and seemed to come to an abrupt decision.
‘Seeing as you seem to be on the wrong side of the gate now…’ He paused. Wrong side, right side, depends on whose saying the words, mate. ‘You might as well come and explain in the house.’ He picked her rucksack up, swung it over one shoulder as though it was feather-light (which she knew for a fact it wasn’t as she’d hauled it across half of Europe, frequently cursing the fact that it was crammed full with most of her worldly goods) and she made a grab for her guitar, which he seemed to know was off limits. Then he walked off with an effortless stride that ate up the ground silently.
She felt like a dog scampering after him, trying to keep up, across a yard she barely had time to take in, except for the fact that it had to be the cleanest yard she’d ever seen. Down a path between immaculate flowerbeds that led to a slightly faded, but obviously once-imposing, farmhouse.
He slowed briefly, to push the large oak door open wider, and had marched across the worn flagstones, dropped the rucksack and was pouring coffee before she’d even had chance to get her bearings. Or catch her breath.
‘So?’ He passed her a mug, then placed his own on the table between them and waited. For an explanation. She opened her mouth, then closed it. Thing was, why did she have to explain at all? He obviously lived here, and he obviously, from his reaction, knew Marie. But now she had her hands wrapped around a warm mug and her heart rate had returned to normal she was beginning to feel that hate, well, dislike, again. Who did he think he was? At least at this distance, with a table between them, the intensity had dwindled to a gentle simmer.