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‘Rick said you wanted to speak to me?’ She was slightly breathless as she presented herself, her long black hair lashing across her face in the wind and rain.
Straight away Jake noticed Caitlin shiver in her insubstantial raincoat. He knew a way to warm her up. Another place, another time, he might have given into such an urge. God knew Caitlin Ryan had been testing all his powers of self-control from the very first moment he’d set eyes on her.
‘So, are you going to join us for a drink or what?’ he asked tersely.
‘That’s what you wanted to talk to me about?’
Catching the ends of her raincoat belt, she twisted it tightly round her waist. In vain she tried to shove her long hair out of her eyes and noticed her hands were trembling. What was it about this man that could unravel her so easily?
‘I already told Mike that I wasn’t coming. I’m going home to get an early night.’ she said. ‘Don’t worry I’ll make sure I’m here at three o’clock on the dot for rehearsals tomorrow.’
‘I want you to come for a drink.’
The pupils of Jake’s eyes had turned unsettlingly dark…so dark that there was just the palest blue circle ringed round them.
‘It’s a good opportunity for us to get to know each other. Tomorrow’s Sunday. You can have a lie-in.’
Caitlin could hardly argue with his reasoning, even if her heart was fluttering madly at the very idea of spending the rest of the evening in the company of the charismatic band manager. But there was also the not exactly small matter of her showing up at the Pilgrim’s Inn. There was always a small influx of visitors from outside the village, but generally customers were mostly a local crowd, and there were bound to be people there who remembered how Sean had humiliated her.
‘I—I’d rather not come, if you don’t mind.’
‘The invitation was an order, not a choice. You’re going to have to get used to late nights if you’re going to sing with this band. Get in the car. You can ride with me and Rick’
So that was how Caitlin found herself squeezed into a worn red velvet corner seat in the pub, with Rick on one side and Jake on the other, as the band members stood round the cosy fire in the iron grate, hogging the heat and nursing their pints of beer.
From the jukebox Sting’s voice boomed out: something about not standing so close… Caitlin could easily have echoed the sentiment. Rick had hung her raincoat over the back of a chair but she wasn’t bereft of warmth—not when Jake’s hard-muscled thigh was pressed against hers. A full-on radiator couldn’t have made her hotter. Every time he shifted even slightly the renewed contact made Caitlin’s heart miss a beat.
‘So tell me, Cait. What music do you like to listen to?’
Rick had been shortening her name ever since they’d arrived at the pub and she tried not to flinch, because her ex, Sean, had always called her that. Her gaze anxiously swept the room. There were several groups of young people seated around the tables, clearly enjoying themselves. Thankfully nobody had paid her any particular attention. Behind the bar two barmaids were busily serving customers, and one of them, a voluptuous blonde named Tina Stevens, was wearing a neckline so low that if she wasn’t careful she’d be arrested for indecency.
Bringing her attention back to Rick, Caitlin answered. ‘Oh, I have such a wide taste you wouldn’t believe it. If I had to sum it up I’d say I love music with a good beat and great songs with good lyrics. How about you? What do you enjoy listening to?’
Shrugging, Rick took a sip of his beer then put it carefully back down on the cork beer mat. ‘My taste is very similar to yours, honey. It’s clear that you and I have a lot in common, a hell of a lot in common, in fact.’
‘That’s the beer talking,’ Jake observed wryly.
The gravelled intonation of his deep voice made all the hairs stand up at the back of Caitlin’s neck. Was it her imagination or had his thigh moved even closer to hers?
‘He’s just trying to get into your good books.’
‘That’s unfair. A man like me doesn’t have to try to get into any woman’s good books. They naturally gravitate towards me. I’m gifted like that. Talking of which…’
