It was only when she was back on terra firma that her breathing had gone to pot and he’d delivered her to the school nurse, convinced she was having an asthma attack. And she had been too mortified—and breathless—to deny it.
He was right. Nothing had changed. She might be less than a month away from her thirtieth birthday, a woman of substance, respected for her charity work, running her own business, but inside she was still the overweight and socially inept teen being noticed by a boy she had the most painful crush on. Brilliant but geeky with the family from hell. Another outsider.
Well, he wasn’t an outsider any more. He’d used his brains to good effect and was now the most successful man not just in Maybridge, but just about anywhere and had exchanged the hideous flat in the concrete acres of a sink estate where he’d been brought up for the luxury of a loft on the quays.
She quickly disentangled herself, clambered to her feet. He followed with far more grace.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘No bones broken?’
‘I’m fine,’ she said, ignoring the pain in her elbow where it had hit the ground. ‘You?’ she asked out of politeness.
She could see for herself that he was absolutely fine. More than fine. The glasses had disappeared years ago, along with the bad hair, bad clothes. He’d never be muscular, but he’d filled out as he’d matured, his shoulders had broadened and these days were clad in the finest bespoke tailoring.
He wasn’t just fine, but gorgeous. Mouthwateringly scrumptious, in fact. The chocolate nut fudge of maleness. And these days he had all the female attention he could handle if the gossip magazines were anything to judge by.
‘At least you managed to hang onto the kitten,’ she added, belatedly clutching the protective cloak of superiority about her.
The one thing she knew would make him keep his distance.
‘I take no credit. The kitten is hanging onto me.’
‘What?’ She saw the blood seeping from the needle wounds in his hand and everything else flew out of the window. ‘Oh, good grief, you’re bleeding.’
‘It’s a hazard I expect whenever I’m within striking distance of you. Although on this occasion you haven’t escaped unscathed, either,’ he said.
She physically jumped as he took her own hand in his, turning it over so that she could see the tiny pinpricks of blood mingling with the mud. And undoing all her efforts to regain control of her breathing. He looked up.
‘Where’s your bag?’ he asked. ‘Have you got your inhaler?’
Thankfully, it had never occurred to him that his presence was the major cause of her problems with breathing.
‘I’m fine,’ she snapped.
For heaven’s sake, she was nearly thirty. She should be so over the cringing embarrassment that nearly crippled her whenever Adam Wavell was in the same room.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘I’ll walk you home.’
‘There’s no need,’ she protested.
‘There’s every need. And this time, instead of getting punished for my good deed, I’m going to claim my reward.’
‘Reward?’ Her mouth dried. In fairy tales that would be a kiss…‘Superheroes never hang around for a reward,’ she said scornfully as she wrapped the struggling kitten in her jacket.
‘You’re the superhero, Danger Mouse,’ he reminded her, a teasing glint in his eyes that brought back the precious time when they’d been friends. ‘I’m no more than the trusty sidekick who turns up in the nick of time to get you out of a jam.’
‘Just once in a while you could try turning up in time to prevent me from getting into one,’ she snapped.
‘Now where would be the fun in that?’ he asked, and it took all her self-control to keep her face from breaking out into a foolish smile.
‘Do you really think I want to be on the front page of the Maybridge Observer with my knickers on show?’ she enquired sharply. Then, as the teasing sparkle went out of his eyes, ‘Don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll survive the indignity.’
‘Having seen your indignity for myself, I can assure you that tomorrow’s paper will be a sell-out,’ he replied. She was still struggling with a response to that when he added, ‘And if they can tear their eyes away from all that lace, the kitten’s owners might recognise their stray.’
‘One can live in hopes,’ she replied stiffly.
She shook her head, then, realising that, no matter how much she wanted to run and hide, she couldn’t ignore the fact that because of her he was not only bloody but his hand-stitched suit was covered in mud.
‘I suppose you’d better come back to the house and get cleaned up,’ she said.
‘If that’s an offer to hose me down in the yard, I’ll pass.’
For a moment their eyes met as they both remembered that hideous moment when he’d come to the house with a bunch of red roses that must have cost him a fortune and her grandfather had turned a garden hose on him, soaking him to the skin.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said, her insides curling up with embarrassment, killing stone dead the little heart-lift as he’d slipped so easily into teasing her the way he’d done when they were friends.
She picked up her shoes, her bag, reassembling her armour. But she wasn’t able to look him in the eye as she added distantly, ‘Robbie will take care of you in the kitchen.’
‘The kitchen? Well, that will be further than I’ve ever got before. But actually it was you I was coming to see.’
She balanced her belongings, then, with studied carelessness, as if she had only then registered what he’d said, ‘See?’ she asked, doing her best to ignore the way her heart rate had suddenly picked up. ‘Why on earth would you be coming to see me?’
He didn’t answer but instead used his toe to release the brake on a baby buggy that was standing a few feet away on the path. The buggy that she had assumed belonged to a woman, bundled up in a thick coat and headscarf, who’d been holding onto the handle, crooning to the baby.
Chapter Two
‘ADAM? What are you doing?’
‘Interesting question. Mouse, meet Nancie.’
‘Nancy?’
‘With an i and an e. Spelling never was Saffy’s strong point.’
Saffy Wavell’s strong points had been so striking she’d never given a fig for spelling or anything much else. Long raven-black hair, a figure that appeared to be both ethereal and sensual, she’d been a boy magnet since she hit puberty. And in trouble ever since. But a baby…
‘She’s Saffy’s baby? That’s wonderful news.’ She began to smile. ‘I’m so happy for her.’ The sleeping baby was nestled beneath a pink lace-bedecked comforter. ‘She’s beautiful.’
‘Is she?’
He leaned forward for a closer look, as if it hadn’t occurred to him, but May stopped, struck by what he’d just done.
‘You just left her,’ she said, a chill rippling through her. ‘She’s Saffy’s precious baby and you just abandoned her on the footpath to come and gawp at me? What on earth were you thinking, Adam?’
He looked back then, frowning; he stopped too, clearly catching from her tone that a grin would be a mistake.
‘I was thinking that you were in trouble and needed a hand.’
‘Idiot!’ For a moment there she’d been swept away by the sight of a powerful man taking