Modern Romance March 2019 5-8

‘No, but we do have drying facilities if you venture out on the hills, though obviously not recommended in this weather,’ she added hastily. It was amazing how sometimes you had to spell out the obvious and amazing how little respect some city types had for either the elements or the terrain of the island.

‘Oh, and there are Ordnance Survey maps in all the bedrooms, though some of guests make use of a local mountain guide service. And if you’re interested in geology there are some fascinating—’

‘I’m not, and I have quite a good sense of direction.’ It had enabled him to be one of only a handful of entrants to complete the arduous desert trek against the clock and the elements for charity, but perversely right now the only place it was taking him was the curve of her lush lips—every road led to the same place.

The awkward silence stretched. Flora filled it with a cheery, ‘So, you’re here for the fishing?’ As much as they desperately needed the money, Flora found herself wishing that he wasn’t here at all.

His jaw clenched. ‘I’m not here for the fishing.’

Fighting the childish urge to tell him she wasn’t really interested anyway, she smiled. ‘Well, I hope you enjoy your stay.’ She hesitated a moment before admitting, ‘The truth is I wasn’t aware we had any bookings. Have you come far?’

‘Yes.’

I’ve had more interesting conversations with a brick wall, she thought, keeping her smile in place until she discovered he was staring at her hair. She fought and lost the impulse to lift a hand to smooth the tangled curls, which at some point today had come free of the tight, efficient ponytail. The time when she was working in Edinburgh and spent the twenty minutes required in the morning to religiously straighten it to a smooth, shiny, straight river seemed a million years ago.

Luxury in this life was applying some lip balm.

‘Well, I think you’re very brave to make the journey in this storm, or possibly very foolish...?’ As the addition slipped past her guard she added a smile, which hopefully robbed the comment of insult.

You did have to wonder, though, who in their right mind made a journey in this weather, ignoring advice from every agency out there including the stretched police force, who were begging people not to make unnecessary journeys until the storm abated.

It took a special sort of arrogance, and on their brief acquaintance Flora suspected this man possessed that quality in abundance.

‘Right, well, if you’d just like to check in? Card, or...’ She looked towards the table where the old-fashioned leather ledger was kept beside a book inviting guests to add their hopefully complimentary comments.

The book and the flowers and twigs she’d arranged in the old zinc jug the previous day were there, but not the leather ledger.

Ivo watched as she pressed a finger to the groove above her nose, her smooth brow puckering in concentration, but it was the dark purplish smudges beneath her blue eyes that drew his attention. He pushed away a waft of feeling that fell short of being empathy but nevertheless was distracting.

And he didn’t need any more distraction, he decided, the initial gut-punch reaction when the door had opened to reveal a diminutive flame-haired figure still raising some uncomfortable red-line-crossed feelings that he felt the need to rationalise. He had clearly subconsciously been expecting a replica of her sister, the tall willowy blonde who had bewitched his brother, and he was still adjusting to the reality. Add that to him not factoring in the possibility he might find the woman that stood between him and his nephew attractive.

He had acknowledged it now and moved on... It would only be a problem if he allowed it to be.

And he wouldn’t.

His confidence was justified: the last time Ivo had allowed his libido to rule him he’d been a teenager and his brother had not yet abandoned everything for a woman. Ivo had been in lust a number of times but had so far avoided anything that could be termed in love. He’d never been in what people would call a long-term relationship, because, in his experience, before he’d ever got close to long term the woman in his bed, who had begun by telling him how much she loved him the way he was, had begun chipping quietly away, trying to change what she had claimed to like about him.

A massive red line of a deal breaker; the woman did not exist that he would change for. The woman did not exist that he could not live without. Even the thought drew the corners of his lips into a cynical smile.

‘You are the person in charge?’

His words brought Flora’s chin up. Obviously this guy’s personality was not as perfect as the rest of him.

‘I am the person in charge,’ she confirmed, sounding a lot calmer than she felt while she wondered what sort of write-up punching him on his nose would earn her.

Actually, during the past nightmare weeks, in charge was the last thing she had felt, but luckily she could put on a good act. She did so now as she walked confidently across to the bar, as if there were no doubt in her mind that she would find the old-fashioned bookings diary where it lay concealed on a shelf.

Luck was on her side.

‘Here we are,’ she said, laying it on the reclaimed wood surface.

The satellite dish meant to connect them to the Internet and the twenty-first century was arriving next week, which might make this old-fashioned ledger redundant. It was another of the outstanding bills that was keeping her awake nights.

She turned from the back where the restaurant bookings were written down, all this evening’s cancellations highlighted by a red line drawn through them, to the front where room bookings were recorded. Sure enough, above one of the cancellations one of the rooms had been booked out for tonight.

She looked up, struggling to feel the professional warmth she had infused her smile with. ‘I’m sorry I missed this one, Mr...?’ She shook her head unable to decipher Fergus’s scrawl or throw off the peculiarly strong antipathy the man had evoked in her.

‘Rocco,’ Ivo responded, giving his middle name as he had on the telephone when booking. He hadn’t wanted to commit himself to a course of action before he’d read the situation.

‘Right, Mr Rocco, sorry about the miscommunication and the welcome.’

‘Or lack of it,’ he inserted smoothly.

‘Just so, afraid I’d assumed that everyone had cancelled due to the storm.’

His dark gold-flecked gaze slid to the window where relentless rain was lashing. ‘You mean it’s not always like this?’

The comment was delivered without the leavening humour which would have made it acceptable. Flora resisted the impulse to rush to the defence of her beloved home.

Her smile frayed a little at the edges as her sister’s face floated into her head. Sami would have had this man eating out of her hand by now. She flinched at the physical impact as the fresh loss hit her all over again. She almost wished that Jamie would wake up so that she would have something practical to focus on to dull the pain. Maybe being too tired to think was not such a bad thing, she mused, ignoring the bleak voice in her head that told her she was only delaying the inevitable, she’d have to feel at some point.

‘Would you like a wee dram to warm you after your journey?’ She bent down to reach the forty-year-old single malt they kept behind the bar for occasions such as this.

The bottle of last resort, Bruno had called it, to be used when everything else failed with awkward or upset customers. They had very few of those, and so far it had been brought out to toast special occasions, like newly engaged couples.

Ivo watched, with what he told himself was academic interest, as the denim of the redhead’s jeans stretched attractively over her taut, rounded rear as she bent over. There was nothing academic about the flash of heat down his front.

Flora straightened up, planted the bottle on the bar so that he could see the label, but his expression did not melt... Could granite melt? ‘On the house, of course,’ she added hastily.

‘No.’ The guest responded to the generous gesture with a look that flattened her smile. ‘If I could see the menu?’

Her expression fell. ‘Menu...?’

He arched a sardonic brow and watched the angry colour wash over the fair freckled skin.

She bit her lip. ‘Fergus, the chef, has gone home actually...’ She stopped. Was it such a good idea to tell this bad-tempered beautiful stranger with his indefinably menacing air that they were alone but for a baby lying asleep upstairs? Feeling ashamed of the sudden flurry of fear, she lifted her chin, squared her shoulders and added a very unconvincing, ‘Sorry.’

‘So your kitchen is closed?’ Of course it was. Ivo had stopped trying to imagine the urbane sophisticated brother he remembered living in this cold, misty, uninviting backwater. He sent up a silent apology to his grandfather, who he had assumed was guilty of over-exaggeration when he’d described the place his great-grandson needed rescuing from. Ivo no longer needed convincing.

From his expression she could see there was no five-star rating heading their way. ‘I could make you a sandwich?’ It wasn’t that she couldn’t cook, but Flora was intimidated by the restaurant’s industrial-looking catering kitchen with its shiny stainless-steel surfaces and latest top-of-the-range gadgets.

She didn’t ask for a translation of the sound he made in his throat, quite happy to take it as a rejection.

‘Right, then,’ she said briskly. ‘Shall I show you to your room? We’re having a little storm-related problem with the heating,’ she explained putting an awful lot of effort into the lie. It was glaringly obvious by his attitude that he didn’t actually believe a word she was saying. ‘But I’ll bring up an electric heater and you’ll be toasty in no time.’ She crossed her fingers while making the over-optimistic prediction. ‘If you’ll follow me?’

One foot on the bottom step of the staircase, she stopped as the fire chose that moment to belch a fresh flume of acrid smoke that filled the entire room. Flora stopped cursing long enough to cough. ‘The wind must be in the wrong direction,’ she excused hoarsely.

‘There is a right direction?’ he asked sardonically.

Before she could react to the sarcasm she was distracted by a sighing sound broadcast from the baby monitor, followed by a sleepy murmur.

Ivo watched as the redhead literally held her breath for a full thirty seconds before her tense shoulders sagged with visible relief.

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOU HAVE A CHILD?’

He watched the shock widen her eyes. Fascinated, Ivo observed the play of emotion across her fine-boned features. His fascination was mingled with disquiet that anyone could wear their emotions so close to the surface; the idea of exposing your vulnerabilities to the world the way she appeared to was anathema to Ivo.

When her reply came a moment or so later it was tinged with surprise underlain with a hint of defiance evident in the straightening of her slender shoulders.

‘Yes, that is my child.’

Flora had accepted the doctor’s verdict. It hadn’t been easy, and for a time she had been angry, but she had come to terms with the fact her endometriosis was so bad that her fertility was severely impaired.

She could have carried on being angry and bitter or hoped for a medical miracle. She supposed it was one of those events in life that everyone reacted to differently. Her way had been to accept what had happened, and save her energy for fights she could win, not lost causes.

That didn’t mean she hadn’t dreamt of saying those words...my child.

Ironic that when she got to say them it wasn’t because of a miracle or a dream-come-true scenario but because she was living a waking version of a nightmare Flora would have given everything she possessed not to be saying those words now, but when she did verbalising them brought home the full reality of the situation crashing in.

It was something that happened several times a day and each time the impact felt like walking into a wall of loss and pain, and, yes, fear that she just wasn’t up to the job.

Flora had never felt more desperately inadequate to any task in her life. Sure, her career had held challenges, and some were scary with an inbuilt possibility of failure, but this was different. Parenthood was different. Being responsible for a life was the scariest thing she had ever imagined. Could any training prepare you for it?

Or were good mothers born?

Sami had been one of those, she thought, her eyes misting as she thought of her sister, who had made it look so easy. Pushing her way through the jumble of conflicting emotions, she took a deep breath.

Doubts were distractions she couldn’t afford. She needed to stay in ‘one foot in front of the other’ mode, and firmly focused on mundane things like paying the bills and staying awake!

Feelings and doubts were a luxury she didn’t have time for.

‘Oh, sorry,’ she said brightly. ‘Can I take your bag?’ She glanced towards the overnight holdall he had dropped inside the door when he’d arrived.

Even standing on the second step, she had to tilt her head back to look him in the face. The action made her bright hair spill backwards in a tangled silky coil down her narrow back.

He knew from the file Salvatore had compiled—his grandfather was nothing if not thorough—that Flora Henderson had been forced by the recent tragic events to walk away from what was probably her dream job. He’d anticipated there might be resentment he might utilise to achieve his objective, that the role thrust on her might make her vulnerable.

Yes, she was, it was there to see in the hollows in her smooth cheeks, the shadowed unhappiness reflected in the shocking blue of her eyes and the dark circles underneath.

Yet instead of feeling satisfaction Ivo was conscious of something that came close enough to compassion to jolt him free of those blue eyes. A moment later he reassessed his reaction. Compassion required a degree of caring, and he did not care for this woman; there was nothing personal between them.

He only did personal with family and, aside from his grandfather, his only family now was the child sleeping upstairs. This woman stood between him and that child.

‘I think I’ll manage, Ms...?’

‘Oh, it’s Henderson.’ Then, because they were listed on all the websites as providing a relaxed, informal environment, she fought her innate reluctance to provide this man with any personal details and added, ‘Flora.’ Facing ahead, she started up the stairs, not needing the creak behind her to tell he was following. The hairs on the back of her neck told her that.

By the time they reached the top she was breathless, in part because she had attacked them like an athlete out to break records, but mostly because of the unnerving way he had looked at her, as though he could see inside her head.

They reached the top and she paused, opening the door of the store cupboard at the top and reaching in to pull out an electric fan heater, relieved to be able to look efficient, or at least slightly less inefficient. No need for him to know that she had only remembered where they were stored halfway up the stairs.

‘Your room is the other side of the house.’ Flora tucked the light heater under her arm and pushed aside a tendril of red hair that was tickling her nose. ‘So, hopefully you won’t be disturbed. Fingers crossed.’

‘That’s a very scientific attitude to customer service.’

Flora smiled through gritted teeth, rather glad she had only imagined the sympathy she had seen in his face. ‘We aim more for the warm personal touch.’ Not that personal, Flora, said the voice in her head when she realised the she was staring at the firm, sensual outline of his mouth. ‘If you’d like to follow me, Mr Rocco,’ she offered primly.

The selection of the room farthest from the nursery had seemed a good choice. It was the biggest and it had the best views; the size meant tonight it was also the coldest.

‘I hope you’ll be comfortable,’ she huffed, watching her warm breath mist in the cold air as she bent forward to plug in the heater before switching it to the maximum setting. ‘It’ll warm up in no time,’ she promised him optimistically.

‘So, tea and coffee making facilities.’ Her fluttering gesture indicated the tray complete with cafetière on a side table. She picked up the tin beside it. ‘The shortbread is homemade.’ Most guests looked impressed by this; he didn’t, but Flora doggedly persevered despite the lack of reaction. Heavens, would it kill him to smile? ‘Drinks and milk in the fridge,’ she added, ticking off the items in her head. She opened the wardrobe door. ‘Fresh robe and extra towels and blankets. Just let us know when you check out what you had. The prices are the same as the bar. I hope you have a comfortable night, Mr Rocco,’ she said formally as she backed towards the door. ‘Oh, would you like a hot-water bottle tucked in your bed?’

If there was anything he would like tucked...

He stopped the thought dead but had no control over the blood-warming image that followed in its wake, an image that involved him being warmed by her smooth limbs wrapped around him. A slow steady throb of heat slid through his body. When he was finally able to force the words out past the lustful fog that had seeped into his head, his voice had a throaty rasp.

‘Do I look like I need a hot-water bottle, Flora?’ What he needed was some resistance to the magnetic pull of her plump rose-coloured lips.

His grandfather’s plan might have involved seduction but his wouldn’t. Emotions complicated things, and expecting someone who showed every nuance of emotion on her face to have any degree of emotional continence was unrealistic.

His plan would be a business deal plain and simple...in theory at least. He was beginning to wonder if this woman could do plain and simple. Was she capable of looking through anything without distorting the image through an emotional prism?

It was his task to make sure she did. He didn’t doubt his ability to make this happen and, given the fact her options were limited, it should not be difficult.

His delivery was deadpan, the tone sardonic, but it was the predatory glow in his dark eyes... She wanted to look away. She wanted to run from the room in which the uncomfortable factor in the atmosphere she’d coped with up to this point by simply pretending it didn’t exist had hiked up several notches.

Ignoring was no longer an option.

But growing a backbone was.

Focusing on the sound of distant alarm bells and not the ache in her stomach, she lifted her chin and wrenched her eyes free of his molten stare. Or was it molten? Was she just seeing what she wanted to?

The mortifying idea that she wanted him to look at her that way cooled the sexual pulse that beat low and hot in her belly. Her initial antipathy had not been irrational but spot on. Her chin lifted. He might remind her of a sleek, well-fed predator, but she was damned if she was going to act like some little cowering mouse for his amusement.

Hope you freeze!

For one awful moment she thought she’d voiced the vicious and uncharitably spiteful thought out loud. She almost felt ashamed. She was neither vicious nor spiteful.

‘Goodnight, Mr Rocco.’

* * *

Flora waited until she had cleared the guest wing of the house before she leaned against the wall and released the tension that had her body in a stranglehold grip in a series of long hissing sighs.

Her legs felt like lead as she went back to the store cupboard and pulled out the heaters for Jamie’s room; her energy levels seemed to have seeped away along with the tension. She headed for the baby’s room. There were no heaters left for her own bedroom but then cooling down was probably not such a bad idea.

On tiptoe, barely breathing, Flora plugged the heaters in one of the sockets in Jamie’s room. She looked at the sleeping baby, the swell of love that tightened in her chest physically painful.

She might be a poor substitute for what he had lost but she was determined to give this baby all the love his parents would have if they had lived. If only, she mused wistfully, there were a handbook somewhere for people who had zero parenting skills.

Her mum was there to help and pass on her parenting skills and Flora was thankful for that, but she was also reluctant to rely on her too much. It was easy to forget sometimes, given her very youthful outlook and zest for life, that Grace Henderson had had her share of health problems. Typically, she played them down but losing Sami had taken a massive emotional toll and then she’d had her own accident... No, her mum needed to be resting and healing, not running to the aid of her pathetic daughter, which was why Flora had been glossing over any difficulties she was having and not confiding her doubts. She would tell her mum about the nightmare financial problems she had inherited after she had worked out a solution...or they foreclosed on the mortgage.

Pushing away the depressing thought, she took one last look at the sleeping baby, wondering if it was possible the baby just knew there was an amateur in charge, that at some instinctive baby level he knew that the two people who loved him most were gone.

But he’d know his parents; they would be real people to him. Flora had already begun putting items, photos and mementos in a memory book to show him when he was older. She had pasted photos of her sister growing up on the first few pages; she just wished she had more memories of his father to put in.

‘Sleep tight,’ she whispered, checking the red light on the baby monitor one last time before she quietly left the room, then slipping downstairs for a last-minute check. She switched off the outside light and peered through the window just as the moon appeared through the clouds.

Her stomach gave a little lurch of dismay and her eyes grew round in horror as the silver light revealed the water level; the waves were lapping in the middle of the road just feet from the low wall.

Was this the perfect storm moment, the once every twenty years that they would flood?

She pushed away the thought. She was not the sort of person who assumed the worst, though, after the worst had happened to their family, her built-in optimism was feeling more than a little battered and bruised. It was weariness and not optimism that enabled her to dismiss the potential disaster and make her way up the stairs.

* * *

With the heater turned up full the room became, if not toasty as his hostess had optimistically predicted, at least tolerably warm enough to make him feel able to strip down to his shorts before he got into the surprisingly comfortable bed with the pristine white sheets.

His head had barely made an indent in the pillow before he heard the sound, the soft but unmistakable sound of a baby’s cry above the sounds of the storm that continued to rage outside.

Ten minutes later the baby was still crying.

Did healthy babies cry this much?

Ivo had always possessed the ability to tune out background noise and distractions. He could sleep anywhere—at least he’d thought so. But it turned out there was a nerve-shredding noise that he couldn’t tune out. Twice over the next half an hour the sound stopped only to start up again just as he had been lulled into a false sense of security and relaxed.

When it happened a third time he snapped; throwing back the quilt, he bounced out of bed and over to the door.

The temperature in the hallway was several degrees colder than his room. At some point, he supposed, this had seemed like a good idea, if for no other reason than anything was better than lying there listening to the racket that was driving him crazy. Now you’ll just look crazy!

Quite suddenly the noise stopped. Aware it could be another false alarm, he didn’t relax, neither did he turn around and crawl into his comfortable bed and get what sleep he could. He was committed to the course of action that took his feet towards the flickering light he could see spilling out into the hallways ahead.

The compulsion that drove him was stronger than logic. His brother’s child, his nephew, was inside that room, the only part of Bruno that remained.

When he reached it, the door was ajar. On well-oiled hinges it swung silently inwards when he touched it. The room it revealed was small, painted a bright in-your-face yellow. The heat blasting out from the heaters that were positioned either end of it made the mobiles hanging from the ceiling spin, bringing the clowns and seals and cats to life. The effect when you added the stars and moons the night light projected on the ceiling was all a little surreal.

Ivo barely noticed.

His attention was completely focused on the spot where Flora Henderson was standing, her back turned to him, for the moment oblivious of his presence. She was holding the child, who seemed to be sleeping now; all he could see was the dark curly top of his head and his legs encased in blue, hanging limp.

He watched as she walked barefoot across the room to where the cot was situated under a curtained window. She was wearing a thin blue cotton nightdress that ended just below her knees and was held up by thin straps that revealed the curve of her delicate shoulder blades. The fabric billowed a little as she walked, allowing him to see the narrowness of her waist and the firm curves of her bottom through it.

Later, when he examined the moment he viewed it in the light of a long, very bad, incredibly frustrating day, but at that moment he could not apply logic to the scalding heat of the hormone rush that blanked his mind totally. Just wiped it clean of everything but the sense-destroying lust that for a few moments utterly consumed him.

He had begun to claw his way back to a semblance of control when she lifted her head, the upper half of her body half turning towards him, allowing him a view, through the gaping neck of her nightdress, of the smooth slopes of her breasts and the darker shadow of her nipples through the fabric. Their glances connected, blue on black, and he felt the control he had fought for slipping through his fingers like a wet rope burning flesh as he clung on.

Then he saw the wetness on her face, absorbed the evidence of tears that she didn’t seem conscious of and the gleam of intent in his eyes faded. He swallowed.

‘Let me help.’ Ivo had no idea where the words came from; he was immune to female tears.

So why was he reacting to them now?

The answer threw up a lot more difficult questions.

He’d first set eyes on the woman a couple of hours ago so how could he be so sure, so absolutely bet-your-life-on-it positive, that the tears were not there to gain sympathy? Why did he know she’d crawl before she’d ask for help?

Flora’s chin went up in response. She opened her mouth, the huffy rejection ready to deliver with the right degree of ‘I can take care of myself’ ice, when on her shoulder the baby shifted and gave a sleepy sigh.

She reacted automatically, shifting his weight so that he lay against her chest in the crook of her right arm. She flexed the fingers of her left hand, still numb and tingling from the time she had taken his weight there.

Oh, God, what was she doing, and what place did pride have in the situation? She needed a helping hand even if that hand, with the long tapering brown fingers, did seem to exert a weird and worrying fascination. Help, even if it came from a totally unexpected and frankly disturbing quarter, was still help.

And on the plus side, accepting his offer would mean hopefully he’d vanish a lot quicker.

And Flora needed him to vanish. He was too big and too...everything for the room. His presence seemed to alter the constituents of the air she was breathing, making it heavy, making breathing require a conscious effort.

‘I have kind of lost the feeling in my left arm. If you could just pull the cot sheet back?’ Her chin resting on Jamie’s dark curls, she stretched out, letting out a tiny but revealing gasp as her hand felt the brush of his long brown fingers.

The electrical surge that made her eyes widen left her knees feeling weak and reawakened the shivery sensation that had originally alerted her to his presence a few heavy heartbeats before she actually saw him standing there, carrying off the tumbled-out-of-bed look like only your average sex god could.

She supposed that she should be grateful that he didn’t sleep naked, though the boxer shorts he wore were not substantial enough to help her!

‘Thank you.’

She had no defence mechanism to deal with the compulsion to stare at his long, lean, golden, totally magnificent body. There was not an ounce of surplus flesh to hide the perfect definition of his toned body. Her eyelids fluttered and her throat grew dry as her glance slid again over the broadness of his muscled shoulders and chest to the slabbed muscles of his belly. His legs were long, the muscular thighs slightly dusted with dark hair. The same dark hair that formed a directional arrow that vanished beneath the waistband of his boxer shorts.

Pulling in a sharp, tense breath, Flora lifted her gaze and found it connecting with his, dark shadowed and deeply disturbing. His olive skin looked warm, his carved mouth looked... She blinked hard and took a step back like someone who had just discovered they were standing on the edge of a precipice, which explained the dizziness.

He watched her lift a fluttering hand to her face, looking bemused as it came away wet. She frowned at her fingers, not seeming to make the connection between the salty moisture and her own tears.