The removal men were long gone; the furniture all in place. Sam was in his study with Phil discussing his plans for the future. Both men had insisted on helping her with the washing up after dinner, and although she had found Phil pleasant enough she had been glad to excuse herself on the pretext of needing to put Carly to bed.
Now all she wanted to do was to go to bed herself. It had been a long day and she was tired out. The cottage was much larger than Sam’s London house, and soon she would have to get down to buying furniture and carpets.
She had been so busy that she hadn’t even had time to explore the garden, a treat she had been promising herself all day. Sara had a thing about gardens. She had always loved them, and as a child had longed for one of her own, but her parents had never lived anywhere long enough for her to watch the seeds she had sown grow.
The garden was to be her province; Sam had promised her that. In her mind’s eye she could already see a productive kitchen garden, and kitchen shelves filled with bottled fruits and jams. Rick had teased her about her dream of becoming a busy country wife; his future lay in the city, and Sara had willingly abandoned her own girlhood dreams to share it with him. But the garden surrounding the cottage was something that would give her life a new purpose, something of her own that she could cherish and nurture. She wanted that—needed it, she acknowledged, as she gently pulled the covers up round her sleeping niece.
In her own room she stood for a long time looking out into the dark silence. No cars … no traffic sounds … nothing. It was bliss. Tomorrow she would get up early and explore the garden. Suddenly she felt almost childishly excited, full of anticipation she had not felt in a long, long time.
A flash of orange beneath the green of the lily pad caught her eye and Sara bent to look a little closer, childishly delighted to see the fish. It was only half past six, and she had been awake since five.
Unable to deny herself the treat of exploring the garden any longer, she had sneaked downstairs in her cotton nightdress and bare feet, forgetting that the lawn would be damp with dew.
The sky was a bowl of pale blue edged with lemon where the sun was starting to climb; the garden was so still and peaceful.
The fish rose to the surface, searching for food, its round eyes observing her with calm indifference. Sam was right about one thing: they would need to cover the pool with something to make it safe for Carly.
She had resented Sam’s decision to uproot them, but now that she had seen the house and the garden, she knew that nothing could drag her away from it. Smiling wryly at herself, she stood up and moved backwards, the breath leaving her lungs as she cannoned into something solid and warm.
‘Careful!’
Calloused brown fingers circled her wrist, the shock of the unfamiliar male voice behind her sending ripples of sensation quivering down her spine. She wrenched her wrist free and swung round, anger sparkling in her eyes.
He was standing so close to her that she had to tilt her head quite a long way to look up into his face.
And what a face! she acknowledged on another wave of shock. Lean and tanned, and so totally masculine that she could feel the tendrils of antipathy curling through her stomach. Whoever he was, she didn’t like this man; he was far too male and sure of himself. Beneath the lazy mockery, the grey eyes were regarding her in a way that made her skin prickle. He was looking at her the way a man looks at a woman he finds sexually desirable. She was shocked by the discovery. It affronted her that he should dare to look at her like that. Her throat felt tight with anger. Didn’t he know that he had no right to look at her that way? She belonged to Rick—Rick, who was dead, and who could never again look at a woman with desire in his eyes.
A searing, penetrating pain engulfed her, making her stumble back from the concern she saw unexpectedly darkening his eyes. His hand came out and she dashed it away, trembling with fury and dislike.
‘What is it?’
His voice was low and urgent, his fingers curling imprisoningly round her wrist as she tried to jerk away.
Tension seized her as she suddenly realised her vulnerability. Her cotton nightdress did nothing to conceal her body from him; she had forgotten how inappropriately dressed she was. Hot colour seared her pale skin as she looked up into his face, demanding to be set free, and saw the way he was studying her body. No one, not even Rick, had ever looked at her with such open sexuality. She could almost smell the maleness of him, she recognised on a wave of revulsion.
‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’ she demanded huskily, dragging her eyes away from his jeans-clad figure. The jeans were old and worn, the check shirt open over his chest and rolled up to reveal powerful forearms roughened by dark hairs.
‘I’m your neighbour,’ he told her easily, confounding her. ‘I saw you standing by the pool as I walked down the lane, and I thought I’d come and introduce myself.’
He was laughing at her now, and Sara felt her skin burn. She hadn’t realized she was so highly visable. Anyone could have walked down the lane and seen her standing there.
Almost as though he knew what she was thinking, he added softly, ‘Don’t worry about it. The lane only goes as far as my property and no one other than me uses it at this time of the morning.’
‘I wasn’t worried.’
His intimation galled her, all the more so because he had guessed so accurately at her thoughts. That was another intrusion that she resented. He had no right to read her mind so easily; Rick had been the only man she permitted to do that. It was all wrong that this arrogant, over-confident man should be alive and healthy while Rick … A sob of resentment rose in her throat. She had felt like this before, but only in the first weeks after Rick’s death, illogically resenting that other young men should be alive while he was dead—but that feeling had faded in time. It disturbed her that this man should be the means of resurrecting it, and she glared up at him, willing him to release her and go away.
‘Not exactly friendly, are you?’ he murmered wryly, watching the emotions chase one another across her face. ‘I wonder why?’
‘Perhaps because I don’t like you,’ retorted Sara waspishly.
The dark eyebrows rose. His hair was almost black and very thick. It was also too long, she thought disparagingly.
‘Really? But you don’t know me, do you?’
His good-humoured amusement increased her sense of ill-usage.
‘I don’t want to know you,’ she told him through gritted teeth, ‘and if you would kindly release my arm …’
‘In a moment.’
He wasn’t amused now. In fact, there was a distinctly disturbing glint in his eyes, a warning that his temper was not perhaps as equable as she had first supposed.
He moved towards her, crowding her against the pool so that she could not escape, the fingers of his free hand drifting lightly along her arm. She shivered beneath the light caress, watching his eyes darken with sexual awareness as his head bent towards her.
He was going to kiss her, she recognised disbelievingly, hardly able to understand what was happening. But it was happening. His parted lips were touching hers, coaxing and very, very experienced.
She wanted to reject him and pull away, but frighteningly, her body wouldn’t respond to her will. And worse, it did respond to the sexual expertise it was being subjected to.
Her lips seemed to melt and flower against the seductive male warmth of his, rivers of heat flooding through her veins as his arms went round her to draw against his body.
She could feel the hard jut of his hips through the thinness of her nightdress, and the powerful movements of his chest against her breasts as he breathed deeply.
His