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‘You’re welcome. I’m...um...I’ve got to go out of town tomorrow.’
She nodded as if it was of no consequence. But, then, she didn’t know where he was going and he couldn’t quite find the words to tell her. ‘I’ll see you on Saturday. At Kathryn House,’ she said.
‘You’re coming to help?’ A group of volunteers was going to start on the decorating there this weekend.
‘Try and keep me away.’ She grinned up at him. This was what Euan loved about her. Despite everything, you couldn’t keep Sam down. She’d been rejected and wounded all her life, but when she got knocked down she just picked herself up and tried again.
‘I’ll take you down there. About nine?’
She nodded. ‘Yeah, that would be fine.’
‘In the meantime...’ he shrugged, as if it were nothing ‘...you’ve got my mobile number. Call me if you want to talk. About anything. If my phone’s switched off, leave a message.’
For a moment time seemed to stand still, silence hanging in the air between them, like an awkward guest at a party. Then she stood on her toes to brush a brief, almost formal kiss on his cheek. ‘Yeah. And I’ll see you on Saturday morning.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EUAN HAD BEEN up since six. Yesterday had been difficult, and this morning all he could think about was the night before last. The way that Sam had kissed him. The way he’d wanted her.
When he turned up at the office, at half past eight, he could already hear her moving around upstairs. Five minutes later she appeared in the doorway to David’s office, looking more beautiful than he remembered, and more tired than she should be.
‘Hey, there. Are you ready?’ He stepped forward, his fingers brushing her elbow in a gesture that hovered somewhere between friendship and something else. Then all hell broke loose.
‘Don’t you dare touch me!’ She snatched her arm away, turning with such abruptness that she jabbed him in the ribs.
‘Ow! Sam...?’ Clearly she’d also had time to think, and it appeared that whatever conclusion she’d come to wasn’t particularly favourable.
‘How could you, Euan?’ Tears glistened in her pretty eyes, held in check by the anger on her face.
‘What? Sam, what is it?’
‘You know perfectly well what. I’m here for another week, and we’re going to have to work together, but if you lay one finger on me...’ she thrust one of her fingers in front of his face, in case he was unclear what she meant ‘...you’ll be walking with a limp for the next month.’
Euan took a step back, just in case she changed her mind and decided to take another swipe at him again anyway. ‘Sam, just calm down.’
‘Calm down!’ His words only served to make her even more angry. ‘You...you sleaze merchant. I know where you were yesterday.’
Yesterday. Okay, so he hadn’t told her where he was going. He had his reasons for that. But even if she had found out, surely that wasn’t enough to provoke this kind of reaction.
‘I trusted you, Euan.’ She was crying now, wiping the tears away as if they were badges of shame.
‘You can trust me now. Just talk to me, Sam.’
‘There’s nothing to say. Just go downstairs and get into your car. I’ll get a taxi out to Kathryn House.’
This was ridiculous. ‘No, you won’t. We’re going to sort this out, here and now.’
‘There’s nothing to sort out, Euan. Nothing you can say is going to make any of this any better, so you might as well save your breath.’ She turned abruptly, flinging the door open and slamming it behind her.
‘Oh, no, you don’t.’ He muttered the words under his breath and followed her, catching her in the hallway, blindly trying to open the door to the flat upstairs. ‘Sam, will you just stop it, and start from the beginning? What’s going on?’
She turned around, icy cold this time. ‘Maya asked me whether I was going down to the clinic yesterday. I said no, because it was your day off.’
‘Right. Then what?’
‘And then she told me.’
‘Told you what?’ If she didn’t get to the point soon, he was going to shake it out of her, even if that did involve touching her.
