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His firm mouth twisted. ‘She sometimes rides her, but I bought her for Liz.’
Once they left the fields behind, Jake gave the stallion his head and Kitty followed suit, as confident in the saddle as he had taught her to be. Misty responded with an enthusiastic gallop which still failed to keep her anywhere near the powerful stallion. Out on the moor, Jake reined in and waited for them. ‘It’s going to rain. We should turn back.’
‘No, I’m enjoying myself,’ she protested.
‘All right, we’ll head for the Tor.’ He indicated the overhanging rocks that had transformed the brow of the hill into a cliffside. ‘We’ll get some shelter there.’
‘How’s Tina doing?’ she asked quietly.
‘Yesterday she was down with a twenty-four-hour flu bug, but she’s fine this morning,’ he told her, interpreting her anxious glance.
‘She’s very…shy,’ Kitty selected carefully.
He dealt her a perceptive scrutiny. ‘Liz wasn’t much of a mother. Once the novelty of a baby wore off, she found child-rearing a drag. Tina was only two when Liz walked out. It made her very insecure.’
Kitty’s head was swimming. The assumption of years were taking a beating. ‘Liz left you?’
‘Liz was a spoilt and very demanding only child. When we married I was up to my eyes in work and responsibilities.’ He sighed. ‘I didn’t have the time to give her the attention she wanted so she looked for it elsewhere. Her flirtations were intended to make me sit up and take more notice of her but I’m afraid I’m not one of Pavlov’s dogs.’
Kitty bent her head. ‘No,’ she acknowledged.
He smiled grimly. ‘I was twenty-three years old and I didn’t have a lot of patience. There just wasn’t enough of me to go round. Liz raved about the country life until she experienced the reality and then she wanted me to sell up and move. At the time I couldn’t have afforded to do that. I worked an eighteen-hour day and I came home to hysterical scenes. At some stage I stopped listening to her. I switched off.’
‘I don’t think you can blame yourself for that,’ she whispered ruefully.
His nostrils flared. ‘Can’t I? Liz lived on the periphery of my life and she knew it. Having Tina was a last-ditch attempt at a reconciliation. It didn’t work,’ he confessed harshly. ‘Liz felt trapped by Tina and she had an affair. To tell you the truth, I didn’t give a damn when I found her out.’
Kitty paled under the fierce challenge of his dark eyes as he continued, ‘Sometimes I hated her for the way she treated Tina. When she left, she never once came back to visit her. Tina was devastated. I started divorce proceedings. Liz phoned me up in a passion to tell me that she was leaving the man she was with and coming back. She was heading for Torbeck when she crashed her car.’
‘That wasn’t your fault,’ Kitty argued. ‘It takes two to mess up a relationship.’
His golden gaze narrowed. ‘It also takes two to make one work again.’
She evaded that look. Ominous drops of rain were dampening her cheeks. ‘I think we need that shelter now fast,’ she teased.
She reached the Tor a minute behind him. He lifted her down out of the saddle. ‘Hell, you’re soaked!’ he grated angrily.
The rain lashed down a few feet away, streaming off the weathered canopy of rock above. She shivered in the clammy embrace of her thick wool sweater and blinked the moisture out of her eyes. Jake stripped off his weatherproof jacket. ‘Take it off.’
‘I’ve got nothing on underneath it!’
An earthy grin slashed his damp features and her heartbeat accelerated. ‘I’m not about to offer to stand out in the rain.’
‘It’ll dry on me,’ she muttered, folding her arms.
‘Tease,’ he whispered, draping his jacket round her shoulders.
‘I think this is on for the day. There’s no point in hanging on here.’ Rounding breathlessly, Kitty was trapped in the circle of his arms. The stroking caress of his thumb laid her lips apart. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she said jerkily. ‘I hate it when you touch me.’
‘God, what a liar you are,’ he murmured appreciatively and the hot, hard seizure of his mouth annihilated her response with a savage demand that both tortured and triumphed over her. She went up in flames, heat burning between her thighs, her hands clinging to him, tugging him feverishly closer, wanting to be absorbed into his flesh.
A few feet away Misty snickered restively and Kitty reared back from him, wildeyed. He reached for her again. ‘Relax.’
Kitty backed off. ‘No! I won’t let you do this to me!’
Mahogany eyes fastened on to her in an almost physical current. ‘Do you ever intend to take responsibility for your own sexual urges? Or are you always going to be the victim of elements and circumstances nobody could possibly expect you to control for yourself?’ he derided.
‘I’m going home. I should never have come here,’ she gasped strickenly.
The rain was slackening off and she vaulted back on to Misty in a surge of frantic energy. He would destroy her if she let him. Well, she wasn’t about to let him do that to her again. Fearfully she repressed the knowledge that when he had talked to her about Liz out on the moor, she had felt the strengthening of bonds she had long denied, drawn forth by his blazing candour.
In the yard at Torbeck, she dismounted and headed straight for her car.
‘Will you have dinner with me tonight?’
Arrested by the invitation, she swung round, trembling. Her lips framed an answer they didn’t want to frame. ‘No.’
The aggressive set of his jawline hardened. ‘I won’t ask you again.’
Kitty laughed but it didn’t come out right. She was closer to tears. ‘I just wanted you to ask me once.’
She crunched the gears driving off, and at the foot of the lane she crammed her knuckles against her wobbly mouth. Something she had wanted and dreamt about and been ready to die for eight years ago had finally been offered to her when it was too late.
Drew arrived promptly the next day to take her to lunch. She got ready in a mad scramble. She had completely forgotten about him. For twenty-four hours her thoughts had been scampering round like mice on a treadwheel, never reaching a destination, never resting for a moment.
The fire in the lowlit lounge of the Bardsley Inn put out a welcoming blaze. The barman brought over their drinks quickly. Drew grinned at her. ‘That was snappy service. I’m sure it wasn’t for my benefit.’
They had the bar to themselves. Kitty stretched out her legs and slowly sank lower in her comfortable wing-chair. Drew’s easy banter unwound her tightened nerves. When a burst of voices announced new arrivals, he lifted a hand in acknowledgement of whoever had entered and continued talking.
‘Not quite your usual lunchtime haunt, Drew.’ It was unmistakably Jake’s husky drawl, mocking in tone. Kitty’s hand jerked
in reflex response. She almost spilt her drink.
Jake saw her at the last possible moment. The high-backed chair had hidden her from view. His hard-boned features clenched, his eyes narrowing to glittering shards. He held on to his smile with difficulty.
‘It makes for a change.’ Drew laughed, seemingly impervious to the sardonic twist of Jake’s mouth. ‘And, given the company and the weather, I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself.’
‘Drew’s been telling me some very funny stories.’ Maintaining her attitude of total relaxation, Kitty treated Jake to a languorous smile.
He looked spectacular in a fine dark tailored suit, one hand thrust in the pocket of well-cut trousers that accentuated his narrow hips and long, lean thighs. He ignored her conversational opener. His hooded gaze smouldered down the length of her carelessly extended body. Wicked little tongues of flame scorched wherever his dark intent scrutiny lingered. Her mouth ran dry. He couldn’t control that need to stare. He sent her a single electrifying glance of damped-down fury, his eyes damning her to hell and back for the effect she was having on him.
Only at that point did she consciously appreciate what she was doing. She drained her drink in one gulp, shamed by the recognition of her own instinctively provocative behaviour. With one glance she could freeze a polar bear at sixty paces, but when Jake looked at her she burned.
‘I’ll leave you to it, then,’ Jake drawled softly. He strode down the room and joined two older men at a table.
‘I see he’s not with Paula,’ Drew commented.
‘Did you think he would be?’ Kitty prompted. ‘Is that why you brought me here today?’
His pleasant features were drenched by a slow tide of colour. Her curiosity satisfied, Kitty decided to let him off the hook. ‘Have they been together long?’
He studied his glass. The pink was only retreating from the tips of his ears. ‘Paula only moved up here last autumn. She had just come through a rather messy divorce. At the time I didn’t think she was looking for a serious involvement, but I suspect her feelings have changed,’ he said more evenly. ‘And I don’t believe that Jake’s even aware that Paula’s in the same room when you’re in his vicinity. She would be better off without him.’
