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There was no time for refinements, even the most basic ones such as bathing, or brushing her hair. She wouldn’t put it past him to be walking out of here right now, creeping out, because he wouldn’t want her to wake and come racing after him! He had certainly made it perfectly clear that he didn’t want her tagging along, under any circumstances. He didn’t want her anywhere near him.
Well, he couldn’t force her to stay. So she’d dog his footsteps every inch of the way, and if he didn’t like it he could lump it!
Already breathless from her haste, she flew down the stairs and arrived in the kitchen with a clatter. The room was filled with clear bright light and the enticing fragrance of coffee. Jake, wearing the bulky sweater and warm dark cords he’d had on yesterday, was staring out of the window.
‘No need to break your neck. Nobody’s going anywhere,’ he said drily.
He turned from the window, his mouth curling. But it wasn’t a smile, Bella saw. That tight-lipped grimace could easily have developed into a full-blown snarl if he’d let it; she didn’t have to be an expert in facial expressions to recognise that. But it didn’t stop her wretched body responding to him as if the reaction had been programmed in, right from the day of her birth.
He hadn’t shaved, and the darkness of his tough jawline was more than the mere affectation of designer stubble. It made him look more dangerous, more forbiddingly exciting than ever before. And what was he talking about? Why had he altered his plans?
Answering her unspoken questions, he narrowed his eyes and drawled softly, ‘You even have the weather on your side. So how did you manage that? Magic?’
He turned abruptly away, bunching his hands in the pockets of his trousers, staring bleakly through the window at the winter wasteland.
Pushing past the hurtful contempt of his words, Bella made sudden sense of what he was implying and went to stand beside him at the window, careful not to brush against him—because touching him would be her undoing, she knew dam well it would.
Stealthy snow had fallen silently in the night, blown into drifts by the howling wind. Drifts of the glittering, pure white stuff were piled up against the sturdy cottage to the height of the window-frame. Imprisoning them here together. Evie and Kitty couldn’t have hoped for a better result!
‘There’s coffee in the pot.’ He stepped back quickly, away from her. She could sense the tension in his hard body, hear it in his dark, gravelly voice.
She was right; he couldn’t bear her to be anywhere near him. Finding her with Guy on that fateful night had made her physically repulsive to him. Yet t
here had been moments when she’d hoped...
‘We’re going to have to try to live with this impossible situation.’
She could hear him moving about, and she could detect resignation in his voice now. A toneless monotone that told her quite plainly that being forced to endure her undiluted company was not something he was wildly excited about.
She could have done without his earlier sarcastic implication that she’d magicked up a snowstorm to keep him here. Very much against his will. She didn’t know which hurt the most, bitter sarcasm or bleak resignation, but she wasn’t going to give him a clue to the way he was tearing her to pieces.
Turning reluctantly to face him, her eyes went wide. He was shrugging into his sheepskin coat, already turning up the collar against the bitter weather outside.
He was going to try his level best to get out of here, preferring to take his chances in the arctic wilderness out there rather than spend another moment with her. He was leaving her stranded, walking out on her, dismissing her from his life all over again!
She knew he didn’t love her, or trust her. But she hadn’t realised just how much he hated her.
‘Where are you going?’ Her voice sounded tinny, frantic even, and her face had gone red. She could feel heat creeping all over her skin. She had sounded like a nagging wife, but she couldn’t help it She didn’t want him walking out on her. Not again.
‘Don’t worry. You and the weather have me neatly trapped.’ His voice sounded as cold as the snow on the mountain tops. ‘Though what you hope to achieve is beyond me, particularly since you refuse to be honest enough to tell me.’
Bella narrowed her eyes into slits and glared right back at him, her temper rising rapidly now. How could you hate a person yet want him with a force that was pretty near overwhelming? Were love and hate really the different sides of the same coin, as people said?
He went to the outer door and drew back the bolts. ‘I’m going to dig a way through to the fuel store. I’d appreciate it if you did your part and fixed breakfast.’
He sounded weary, Bella noted crossly. Weary of the situation he found himself in. Weary of her. She watched him force the door open against the weight of snow, her chin jutting mutinously.
Anger was her only defence. She dredged up every last bit she could find. Do as you’re told; she mimicked his voice inside her head. And vowed she wouldn’t. Not ever again.
Besides, would it hurt him to offer her a kind word? Or, if he really couldn’t manage that, simply a civil one would do! Didn’t the insensitive brute remember what day it was? Christmas Eve—their fourth wedding anniversary! Did the date mean so little to him that he’d blanked it out of his mind?
Tears welled in her eyes and she blinked them furiously away, despising herself for the weakness of wanting things he could never give her—his love, his trust, the way things had been for them at the very beginning, when it had been as if he had known she was his woman, and had reached out and taken her.
And she’d gone willingly because, almost from the time they’d met, she’d known she was his—for always.
But it hadn’t turned out that way. The veneer of perfection had been very thin. Scratch it, and something ugly was staring you in the face.
As soon as he was out of sight she reached for her padded coat. She hadn’t wanted him to walk out on her, but she was going to walk out on him. She couldn’t and wouldn’t endure the situation a moment longer!
