Was her nervousness just a natural response to events? she couldn’t help wondering. Was it just the sort of fear that anyone else might experience if they had been subjected to the sort of pressures, the harassment that she had endured, or was it something more? Was it something more personal, more directly involved with Evan Lindsay himself?
She had acknowledged that shivering sense of reaction when she’d looked at him, the intuitive recognition of a streak of something dangerous in him that had lifted the tiny hairs on the back of her neck in the instinctive reaction of a wary cat faced with a hostile intruder into its territory, but could she trust that? Did that sense of recognition come from her own inner turmoil or some other, more primitive response to his own individual aura?
‘Can I carry something through for you?’
The voice sounded suddenly behind her, making her start violently and drop the spoon she had been holding, letting it fall from nerveless fingers to land on the tray with a clatter that sounded appallingly loud in the quiet of the early evening. Reacting purely spontaneously, she swung round sharply, blue eyes blazing furiously.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, sneaking up on me like that? How dare you invade my privacy in this way? I—’
‘Hey!’
Evan’s hands shot out, catching her flailing arms in a powerful grip, stilling their wild gesticulations.
‘Calm down, lady! There’s no need for this.’
‘No need!’
If he hadn’t touched her then perhaps she might have been able to rein in her temper, get a grip on her self-control, but with the pressure of those strong fingers on her skin, sending electrical impulses shooting through every nerve, it seemed as if something had exploded inside her head, threatening to blow off the top of her skull.
Her vision hazed and she didn’t see Evan Lindsay as a man but as the personification of the male force—big and dark and ominously threatening.
‘No need! You creep in here—’
‘I said, calm down!’
He actually shook her—not hard, but firmly enough to drive the message home, sweeping the panic from her mind and replacing it with a calmer, more logical way of thinking.
‘You were a long time getting the coffee, and your father seemed concerned so I came to see if you needed any help. I wasn’t creeping around anywhere!’ he added more emphatically. ‘It isn’t my fault if you were so lost in a dream world that you didn’t hear me come into the room.’
If she needed bringing back down to reality, then the look in those cold, sea-coloured eyes was enough to do just that. It was like having a bucketful of icy water thrown straight into her face, and it shocked her out of her panic without a second’s hesitation, leaving her gasping in reaction.
‘I—I’m sorry,’ she said stiffly. ‘I was—thinking of something else.’
‘Obviously,’ was the sardonic response. ‘And something none too pleasant from the looks of things. Just what—?’
But Catherine had remembered exactly what she had been thinking in the moment that he had come up behind her, and with that half-formed fear of him still shadowing her mind she wasn’t prepared to reveal any of her innermost feelings to him.
‘My thoughts are my own, Mr Lindsay,’ she returned tartly. ‘I’ll thank you not to poke your nose in where it’s not wanted.’
‘Fine.’ The single syllable was cold and curt, like the smile that he switched on and off as briefly as a flashing neon sign.
It was only when he let go of her hands that she realised he had still held them, the jarring abruptness of the movement as her arms fell to her sides aggravating her already disturbed state of mind. But she was totally unprepared for the devastating and bewildering sense of loss that ripped through her as cold air reached the spot where the warm strength of his hands had been only seconds before, so that it was all she could do to keep herself from crying out in distress.
‘Would you like some help with the tray, or would that be an invasion of your precious privacy too?’
‘What? Oh, no-’
Catherine struggled to regain some composure, feeling as if the tattered shreds of her self-control were fluttering wildly round her like the remains of some torn and ragged garment.
‘Thanks—that would be kind…’
Her voice faded as Evan moved forward, coming into the full glare of the fluorescent light for the first time, his features being thrown into harsh relief as if someone had directed a spotlight full on to his face.
He was definitely not a pretty man, or even a handsome one, she reflected privately. That strongly carved bone-structure was too harsh, too forceful to be described in any such way. He was a very tough-looking man—a man whose face seemed to be carved out of hard, unpolished wood, all knots and angles and…
‘What happened to your nose?’ The question escaped before she had time to consider whether it was wise to show an interest in such a personal matter.
‘My nose?’ He looked as startled as she felt to hear the words on her lips. ‘Oh—that?
Strong brown fingers touched the definite bump that marred the straightness in the centre of his face.
‘I broke it.’
‘Obviously.’ She echoed his own sardonic tone of moments before. ‘Any fool can see that—but how did it happen?’
A grin curled the corners of his mouth, mocking her indignation.
‘In the army—on a training exercise.’
The smile grew, became devastating in its megawatt brilliance.
‘I had to climb a rope that I believed had been fastened securely—it hadn’t, and I fell—hard. Result—one broken nose and a badly bruised ego. Needless to say, I never trust myself to anything without double-checking now.’
‘You were in the army? When? For how long?’
‘A couple of years. I went in straight from school. My father felt I needed the discipline, and at the time I would have done anything to get away from home. It didn’t last long, though,’ he added drily. ‘Let’s say that the army and I didn’t exactly—suit one another.’
Catherine could well believe it. Even from the little she had seen of Evan she had gained an impression of someone who was too much his own man to submit willingly to the sort of unquestioning routine that was part of army life.
‘And I suppose that’s where you learned about security techniques—I understand that a lot of ex-army men go into that sort of job.’
‘The ones who don’t become night-watchmen or bodyguards.’
He was deliberately probing now; she knew that from the laser-like intensity with which those changeable eyes were fixed on her face. He was echoing her own comment earlier, wanting to push her into explaining.
‘We’d better get this coffee through to the lounge before it gets cold,’ she said, carefully ignoring his pushing. ‘Dad will be sending out a search-party for me.’
‘Is he always this over-protective?’
The question came deceptively casually, with Evan’s head turned away as he picked up the tray, but it was enough to stop her