Page 2 of Reasons Of the Heart

'Is this your robe?' He lifted the towelling wrap off the railing that ran around the wooden deck and stood up again, shaking it open for her. 'Come on. Unless you want me to come in there and give you mouth to mouth. If you faint, you'll go under.'

'Just leave it there and I'll get out when you go,' she said weakly.

He made a rude noise. 'Princess, I'm a full-grown man. I've seen more naked women than you could shake a stick at.'

'I'll bet you have!' Annoyance momentarily cleared her head. She wished now that she hadn't turned on the deck light. It was directly above his head and made it look as though he was wearing a halo of light. Ross Tarrant, angelic? Preposterous! 'I don't suppose you've changed much in that respect. The boy most likely to score, weren't you, both on and off the field?'

'And you were the girl most likely to stay on the shelf,' he reminded her brutally, his eyes flickering briefly to the ringless left hand that clutched the tiles. 'Prediction right, I take it?'

She glared at him. 'I have better things to do with my life than be some man's domestic slave.'

'Ah, yes, the selfless career...'

'At least I have one. What do you do for a living?'

'At the moment, nothing.'

'Huh!' She would have said more, but suddenly his face was all hazy again.

'We can't all be model citizens, Princess, and in my

experience it's often the model citizens who are the worst hypocrites. . .'

Fran had been unaware of her head, like her thoughts, drifting downwards, until she suddenly felt cold, hard hands grasp her upper arms, completely encircling the overheated flesh and hauling her unceremoniously out of the water. His left hand slipped as he lifted her out on to the decking and they staggered for a moment in an ungainly dance, almost falling. Fran didn't have time to be embarrassed about her glistening nudity, for Ross Tarrant stooped and picked up her thick robe, wrapping her up in it without glancing at her body and plucking a towel from the deckchair for her hair.

'You're hurting,' she complained as he briskly rubbed the sodden mass.

'At least you're alive to feel. You've been ill, haven't you?' She nodded reluctantly. 'Don't you know better than to lie around in hot water when you're not up to par? And you a nurse!'

He leant over, keeping a supporting hand on her shaky frame, and twitched the pool cover back into place. Then he pushed her across the deck and through the sliding glass doors into the warmth of the cabin.

'Get into your night things and wrap up warm.' He gave her a little shove. 'I'll put my gun away and stoke up the fire.'

Fran went unsteadily into the small bedroom to find her long, practical nightgown and thick blue robe. It was a measure of her state of mind that she hadn't even noticed the new pot-belly in the corner of the living-room when she had arrived. She looked at herself in the mirror. How had Ross known that she was ill... because of her slimness? A militant sparkle entered her eyes. Francesca had battled plumpness for most of her life and she was proud of her current lack of weight, even though she was resigned to it being only temporary. As soon as she was fully recovered her natural metabolism would reassert itself and repad her five-foot-seven frame with its over-generous curves.

Now, you go out there and get rid of him, she told herself sternly. Be gracious and polite, but firm. The trouble was that her darkened eyes and nervous mouth gave the lie to her confidence. Ross Tarrant was an un­comfortable reminder of an embarrassing naïveté and, what was more, she sensed he knew it.

She sighed with relief when she finally ventured out to find the cabin empty. Calling it a log cabin was a bit of a misnomer, she thought, as she crossed to warm her hands over the pot-belly. Although the exterior was con­structed of split-logs, inside it was more like a luxury apartment, completely panelled in native timber, thick scatter-rugs softening the gleam of polished-wood floors. With twin beds in the bedroom and two lounge-settees in the open-plan living area it could comfortably sleep six. The kitchen was spacious and well equipped, opening out on to a small, covered deck at the back and the sep­arate bathroom and laundry, which meant that summer residents didn't have to track sand through the house when they wanted to shower off after a swim. It was usually only in summer that the cabin was rented out. In the winter it was closed up, for Ian Lewis had been determined to preserve the unspoiled nature of the few acres he had retained when he retired from farming.

Intent on some melancholy memories, Fran was almost startled out of her skin by a movement behind her.

'It's only me.' Ross Tarrant closed the back door and hefted a cleaned fish on to the tiled kitchen bench which jutted out to form a breakfast bar. Using a wicked-looking curved knife he began to expertly fillet the fish.

'I thought you'd gone.'

'You mean, you hoped I had,' he informed her with annoying perception, and she tightened the cord of her robe nervously as she noticed the frying pan heating on an element on the stove, and the flour and butter and seasonings standing ready on the bench.

'What do you think you're doing?' she demanded sternly.

'Fixing dinner.'

'Dinner!' Her voice was thin with dismay. She should have known that Ross Tarrant would delight in up­setting her.

'That meal you have in the evenings,' he added help­fully, intent on the flashing knife. 'I caught this off the beach earlier. You haven't eaten yet, have you?'

'Now, look here—' She stopped, suddenly thinking that he seemed very familiar with the layout of the place, and very cool for a man who had been ordered off the premises. 'Did you have some sort of an arrangement with my grandfather about using

the facilities here?'

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