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By now the helicopter was directly overhead and she glimpsed the distinctive yellow livery as it heeled around to the landing circle down by the jetty.
‘I’d better go and see what he wants.’ Dylan was out the door like a rat down a drainpipe.
‘We know what he wants—’ she yelled after him, and he paused on the steps to grin back up at her.
‘You mean you hope you do!’
‘Your head on a pike—traitor!’
She slammed the door and went to spy out the window. The brothers met at the halfway point on the flight of steps and she expected to see a sharp altercation, and then both of them coming up towards her, but instead, after a brief exchange of words, Dylan bounded on down to the jetty and untied the boat. Slinging on his life-jacket, he jumped into the driving seat and was smoothly powering away across the wicked chop.
Heart beating nervously in her breast, Emily waited for the door to slam open and battle to commence, but instead there was a long wait for a very soft knock.
Running shaking hands through her curls and plucking her damp pants away from her legs, but resigned to looking like a wind-blown scarecrow, Emily tentatively opened the door.
Ethan had one hand propped on the side of the door-frame, his other hooked into his leather belt, one hip canted, the other leg bent casually at the knee. In the khaki shirt and jeans, with slight shadows under th
e ice-clear eyes, he looked like an everyday Joe, home from a hard day’s work. His long, pale feet were bare, his scuffed brown boots sitting on the mat, looming over her dainty slip-ons.
‘Ethan…’
‘I forgot my key,’ he said wryly, and, after a pause during which neither moved, ‘May I come in?’
She blushed, colour moving swiftly into her bloodless cheeks as she almost tripped in her haste to make way. ‘Of course…it’s your house, after all.’
‘I’m glad you clarified that,’ he said, brushing past her. ‘Because for a moment there I had my doubts.’
‘Ethan—’
He forestalled her breathless rush of explanations, slowly revolving in the centre of the living space. ‘You like it?’
Her bare toes curled nervously to grip the polished floorboards, which seemed to tilt under her feet as she watched him spread his arms, his shirt pulling taut against the muscles of his chest, his short sleeves cutting into the strong biceps. ‘Like what?’
‘The house?’
‘Yes, yes, of course, it’s beautiful, especially the—’
‘The what?’ he said, dropping his arms.
She bit her lip, hoping he thought she’d been wandering around outside. ‘The rose garden.’
‘Ah, that…’ He prowled back towards her and she found her hands twisting together, her blue eyes enlarged with confusion and regret, her soft mouth barely under control as he came to a halt barely a breath away. ‘What do you have to say for yourself?’
She knew he wasn’t asking about roses. ‘Ethan, I’m sorry…’
But he wasn’t interested in apologies. ‘Don’t ever do that again,’ he said with measured softness.
‘Run away with Dylan?’ she joked weakly, but his face remained sternly intent, his body relaxed yet spring-loaded with inner tension.
‘Make assumptions about me.’
‘But—Peter—he did tell you—’
‘He told me—he and Andrew—the whole, long, gory story. He showed me all his so-called reports. But whichever which way you cut it, you are not in any way related to me,’ he said with a ruthless emphasis.
‘I never claimed—’
‘You think I don’t know that!’ he said, showing the first flash of his repressed fury. ‘No matter who or what you are, you think I don’t know that all this has arisen from Uncle Peter’s own unresolved guilt? I know you didn’t approach him trying to pass yourself off as his granddaughter, because no one even knew he damned well had one! Yet you immediately assumed I would jump to the wrong conclusions. I thought you knew me better than that by now. Apparently you need a fresh lesson.’ The icy fire in his eyes changed to another kind of heat as he made a dismissive gesture with his hand.
