LITMIR.BIZ

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to raise her normal husky tone to her approximation of a reedy boyish treble.

      She gestured towards the path half-hidden by a massive holly bush smothered with red berries. ‘It’s not far; can you manage?’ she wondered, her eyes travelling with an increasingly doubtful frown up and down his tall frame; underneath that naturally olive skin-tone he didn’t look a good colour.

      ‘You’ll be the first to know if I can’t,’ came the dry response.

      ‘But your head’s bleeding.’

      ‘It’s nothing.’

      Darcy shrugged; if he wanted to play the macho hard man it was nothing to her.

      ‘Be careful of the…’ Darcy waited like a worried little mother hen as her unlikely charge avoided the motley collection of dirty boots, Wellingtons and trainers which always seemed to breed in the back porch. ‘Dad!’ she yelled lustily, preceding him into the rustic surroundings of the kitchen.

      If he hadn’t been clutching his arm Reece would have clutched his head—the kid’s piercing tone had increased the throb in his head to the point where he found it difficult to focus.

      Her three brothers were already in the kitchen, and her yell brought Jack in matter of seconds.

      ‘Good God, what’s happened…?’ her stepfather gasped, staring in horror at the blood smeared all over her jacket.

      ‘Don’t worry, it’s not mine,’ Darcy assured him.

      The stranger swayed gently; it was a development that alarmed Darcy. ‘It’s his,’ she explained, placing a supportive hand beneath the tall man’s elbow. ‘Part of that oak tree next door fell through the roof of the summer-house.’ She gently led her white-faced charge properly inside.

      Reece bided his time, waiting for the tidal waves of nausea to pass.

      ‘I’ve been telling the new owner’s agent since the summer that thing was dangerous!’ Jack exclaimed. ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Darcy?’ He scrutinised her healthy-looking, pink-cheeked face worriedly. ‘Hurt anywhere?’

      ‘I’m fine.’ Darcy unwrapped the looped scarf from around her throat.

      ‘And you, Mr…?’

      The dazed-looking stranger with blood running down the side of his face closed his eyes and leaned heavily against the wall. An anxious Jack looked to Darcy to supply the information.

      Her shoulders lifted. ‘Don’t ask me—I’ve no idea who he is.’

      ‘How come you were in the summer-house with a guy and you don’t know his name?’ Nick wondered, regarding the stranger with a suspicious light in his hostile blue eyes.

      ‘I wasn’t in the summer-house; I was outside.’ Darcy kept her impatience in check—Nick always chose all the wrong moments to play the protective big brother; he was the most infuriatingly inconsistent person she knew.

      ‘Doing what?’ Nick persisted doggedly.

      Darcy rolled her eyes in exasperation before returning her attention to the man beside her. ‘You should sit down,’ she said in soft aside to the object of her brother’s suspicions.

      ‘Give me a minute,’ the stranger responded tersely, resisting her efforts to point him in the right direction. Darcy was a strong girl but she knew right away that moving this man against his will was beyond her capabilities.

      ‘Harry, Charlie, could you give me a hand?’ she called to her younger brothers.

      The twins shook their identical heads in unison.

      ‘We’d like to, but…’ Harry began.

      ‘There’s blood…’ Charlie completed with a shudder of disgust.

      Darcy, in no mood on this occasion to see the amusing side of a pair of strapping, beefy specimens who came over ‘funny’ at the sight of blood, gave a snort of exasperation. ‘You’re hopeless, the pair of you!’

      ‘Wimps,’ Charlie agreed cheerfully.

      Harry nodded his agreement. ‘Maybe he’s one of those contractors working on the Hall.’

      ‘Nah! They’ve all gone home for the holiday,’ his identical twin pointed out. ‘Besides, does he look like a builder to you…? He’s obviously loaded.’

      Darcy was inclined to agree with Charlie, but she couldn’t help but reflect that the injured stranger looked more than physically capable of the odd bit of manual labour. Her mind drifted back to the way the hard, muscular contours of his lean torso and broad chest had felt— With a muffled snort of dismay she brought her reflections to an abrupt halt mid-drool.

      The tiny sound drew Jack’s concerned attention.

      She flushed uncomfortably, shook her head and silently mouthed ‘I’m fine’, which she was, if you discounted the fact she was sleazing over a total stranger who was bleeding on their kitchen floor. She grabbed a clean tea towel from the dresser drawer to stem the flow.

      ‘Maybe he’s the bloke that bought the place,’ Darcy heard Harry suggest.

      Reece, who was feeling less awful, noticed a little hazily that the notion seemed to afford amusement all round.

      ‘My God, mate, but you’ve been done,’ the instigator of the theory sniggered, digging his twin in the ribs.

      Darcy gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘I hardly think now is the right time for a cross-examination,’ she told them repressively.

      At first it had felt as if the room was full of a lot of people. On closer examination Reece now realised there were actually only four besides himself and the choirboy, all male. The two youngest, despite being almost his own height, were scarcely more than boys, and either they were identical twins or he was seeing double.

      ‘Shut up!’ With enviable lung power the diminutive figure beside him silenced the assembly. ‘Let’s not get sidetracked here; it doesn’t matter who he is—he’s had an accident. Charlie, go get the First Aid kit.’

      ‘I don’t know…’

      Darcy, wise to male helplessness ploys, was ahead of him. ‘First shelf down in the bathroom.’ She turned to the younger—by five minutes—of her twin brothers. ‘Harry, get the dogs out of here.’ With a lot of noisy encouragement the dogs eventually removed themselves from the chairs.

      Reece remained mildly disorientated while his youthful rescuer continued to throw out a steady stream of orders as if they were going out of fashion to everyone, including himself. The hell of it was he found himself obeying the kid and meekly sitting down in the larger of the two armchairs. The small figure was arguing with the dark-haired male around his own age.

      ‘How should I know why he was up a tree? Maybe he’s a tree surgeon…?’ Her elder brother had a very suspicious nature and seemed to have jumped to the deeply embarrassing and bizarre conclusion that she was trying to cover up some sort of secret assignation.

      Darcy couldn’t help but wistfully wonder what life was like with a few secret assignations—alas, unless she could rid herself of her wholesome image and get herself a bit of glamour it seemed unlikely that she would ever find out!

      ‘My name’s Reece Erskine.’ So much for anonymity.

      Nobody started in recognition at the sound of his name— Maybe I’m not as famous as I think, he wondered. A self-deprecating little smile made his mobile lips quiver as he relaxed a little.

      ‘I don’t need to trouble you; if I could just use your phone…’ His firm words only elicited a few fleeting glances of benevolent dismissal.

      Reece wasn’t used to having his opinion dismissed and he found the novel experience irritating. It was even more irritating that he didn’t have enough functioning brain cells to demonstrate to them how very much in control

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