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Impossible to believe now that she had initially rejected Drake’s suggestion that she spend a few more leisurely weeks at the beach, but he had been very persuasive and hadn’t hesitated to use her area of greatest vulnerability.
‘You’ve just gone through a very emotionally draining experience; you owe it to yourself to fully recover before you plunge back into the fray,’ he had lectured. ‘Didn’t the doctor say something about your stress levels helping to send your hormones all out of whack? Marcus will work you into a nervous breakdown if you’re not careful. I know he regards you highly but that doesn’t mean you should let him persuade you that you’re completely indispensable—that’s just his way of cracking the whip and making least-work for himself. Another month isn’t too much to ask when you’ve worked for him continuously for so long, and your health is at stake. I bet you’ve hardly had a day of sick leave in your whole career. He owes you a long-service sabbatical at the very least—’
‘Well, I suppose I could phone and ask…’ she said uncertainly, tempted by the thought of a few more stolen weeks alone with her lover, and yet at the same time mistrustful of her current state of blissful irresponsibility. This was her healing time and she and Drake were consciously living it from moment to moment, taking each day as it came and carefully putting aside any reference to the future.
‘Don’t ask him, tell him!’ And when she baulked at that he shrugged and seemed to give up.
But when she finally borrowed Drake’s phone to make the toll-call, she found Marcus strangely affable, chuckling fatly in her ear and reassuring her that her job would be waiting for her however long she decided to stay away, that she was worth her weight in gold and that any research she wanted to do for a private client while she was away was okey-dokey with him.
‘You went behind my back!’ Kate confronted Drake as soon as she’d hung up the phone, trying hard to be angry.
‘It was for your own good. Someone had to play hard-ball on your behalf.’
‘How would you like it if I negotiated one of your contracts without telling you?’ she demanded.
‘Be my guest, sweetheart, I hate all that hoopla,’ he drawled, taking the wind out of her sails. ‘I could fire my agent and save myself twenty per cent!’
The next tussle between them was that Drake had decided it was silly for her to continue to pay her holiday rental when she was sleeping nearly every night in his bed. ‘Since you’re spending so much time over here you may as well stay for the next few weeks,’ he tossed out casually. ‘With the high season coming, I think you’ll find you won’t be able to renew your rental for another month, anyway.’
‘I think it’s better if I keep my own space. If I can’t, and there isn’t another rental somewhere nearby, I’ll just go home,’ said Kate with firm finality, her heart in her mouth as she rejected his offhand invitation. But she wasn’t going to make any more life-changing decisions based on foolish assumptions. She knew all too well how dangerous wishful thinking could be, and Drake’s offer had been only for her to stay, not to move in with him. There was a subtle, but enormous difference, particularly when the phrase was used by a man whose business was subtle shades of meaning.
‘Besides, I know how vital your privacy is to you when you’re working,’ she reminded him. ‘So, thanks for the offer, but it’s better this way for both of us.’
Fortunately, when she contacted the rental agent, he shuffled his files and came across a note about the unexpected cancellation of his next booking, so to her relief she and Koshka were able to settle in for the duration.
‘Why don’t I come and see what the problem is with your water,’ he said now, switching off his computer monitor and lunging out of his chair.
‘But your door was shut,’ she said guiltily, following him downstairs with Prince.
‘And it would have stayed shut if I hadn’t been stuck in a rut. A bit of he-man stuff on the side might kick something loose,’ he said, fetching a few tools from his garage and stuffing them into his jeans pockets.
‘Is it going badly, then?’ she said sympathetically.
He gave her a slightly defensive sidelong look. ‘No, actually, in general it’s going rather well.’
Which was more than could be said for her shower.
‘Do you know anything about plumbing?’ she asked dubiously as she watched him tinker and curse at the shower head.
He bristled as if she had challenged his manhood. ‘I helped build irrigation systems in the desert—what do you think?’
She threw up her hands in surrender. ‘Just asking. Er…I’ll leave you to it, then,’ she said, hurriedly backing out of the bathroom as he pinched the skin between thumb and forefinger in the wrench and swore even more viciously.
Some time later he sought her out in the lounge, where she was reading with Koshka dozing on her lap.
‘It’s no use. You’re not going to have water any time soon. Your pump has packed up.’
‘What pump?’ asked Kate, depositing the sleeping cat on the couch.
‘You’re on bore-water here. The pump sucks it out of the ground and then pumps it from a tank through to your pipes. It may be a major job to fix it. Even if the plumber gets onto it right straight away he’ll probably have to wait for parts.’
‘Oh, so what do you think I should do?’
‘There’s nothing you can do at the moment. You obviously can’t stay here without water. Unless you fancy ferrying a bucket from next door every time you want to flush your toilet,’ he added sarcastically as he watched her open her mouth to protest.
Within an hour he had her packed up and installed in the large, ground-floor bedroom at the front of his house, looking on with folded arms as she hung her clothes in the big walk-in closet.
‘This is only temporary—until the pump is fixed,’ said Kate, turning to place a stack of her folded underwear into the chest of drawers and catching the quiet look of satisfaction on his face.
