LITMIR.BIZ

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holding a few plates and dishes. He dared bet she spent most of the time at home working.

      Melanie had turned as he’d entered and now she followed his glance, saying quickly, ‘I didn’t have time to wash up this morning before I left and I was too tired last night.’

      Forde pulled up one of the dining chairs, sitting astride it with his arms draped over the back as he said easily, ‘You don’t have to apologise to me.’

      ‘I wasn’t. I was explaining.’

      It was curt and he mentally acknowledged the tone. Ignoring the hostility, he smiled. ‘Nice little place you’ve got here.’

      Her eyes met his and he could see she was deciding whether he was being genuine or not. He saw her shoulders relax slightly and knew she’d taken his observation the way it had been meant.

      ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. ‘I like it.’

      ‘Janet sends her regards, by the way.’

      Janet was Forde’s very able cook and cleaner who came in for a few hours each day to wash and iron, keep the house clean and prepare the evening meal. She was a merry little soul, in spite of having a husband who had never done a day’s honest work in his life and three teenage children who ate her out of house and home. Melanie had liked her very much. Janet had been with her on the day of the accident and had sat and held her until the ambulance had arrived—

      She brought her thoughts to a snapping halt. Don’t think of that. Not now. Woodenly, she said, ‘Tell her hello from me.’ Drawing in a deep breath and feeling she needed something stronger than coffee to get through the next little while, she opened the fridge. ‘There’s some wine chilled if you’d prefer a glass to coffee?’

      ‘Great. Thanks.’ He rose as he spoke, walking and opening the back door leading onto the shadowed courtyard. ‘This is nice. Shall we drink out here?’

      She was trying very, very hard to ignore the fact she was stark naked under the robe but it was hard with her body responding to him the way it always did. He’d always only had to look at her for her blood to sing in her veins and her whole being melt. Forde was one of those men who had a natural magnetism that oozed masculinity; it was in his walk, his smile, every move he made. The height and breadth of him were impressive, and she knew full well there wasn’t an ounce of fat on the lean, muscled body, but it was his face—too rugged to be pretty-boy handsome but breathtakingly attractive, nonetheless—that drew any woman from sixteen to ninety. Hard and strong, with sharply defined planes and angles unsoftened by his jet-black hair and piercing silvery eyes, his face was sexy and cynical, and his slightly crooked mouth added to his charm.

      Dynamite. That was what one of her friends had called him when they’d first begun dating, and she’d been right. But dynamite was powerful and dangerous, she told herself ruefully, taking the opportunity to run her hands through the thick silk of her hair and bring it into some kind of order.

      When she stepped into the scented shadows with two glasses and the bottle of wine, Forde was already sitting at the bistro table, his long legs spread out in front of him and his head tilted back as he looked up at the riot of climbing roses covering the back of the house. They, together with the fragrant border plants in the pots, perfumed the still warm air with a sweet heaviness. Another month or so and the weather would begin to cool and the first chill of autumn make itself felt.

      It had been snowing that day when she’d left Forde. Seven months had passed. Seven months without Forde in her life, in her bed …

      She sat down carefully after placing the glasses on the table, pulling the folds of the robe round her legs and wishing she’d taken the time to nip upstairs and get dressed. But that would have looked as though she expected him to stay and she wanted him to leave as soon as possible.

      The thought mocked her and she had to force her eyes not to feast on him. She had been aching to see him again; he’d filled her dreams every night since the split and sometimes she had spent hours sitting out here in the darkness while the rest of the world was asleep after a particularly erotic fantasy that had left her unable to sleep again.

      ‘How are you?’ His rich, smoky voice brought her eyes to his dark face.

      She reached for her glass and took a long swallow before she said, ‘Fine. And you?’

      ‘Great, just great.’ His voice dripped sarcasm. ‘My wife walks out on me citing irreconcilable differences and then threatens to get a restraining order when I attempt to make her see reason over the next weeks—’

      ‘You were phoning umpteen times a day and turning up everywhere,’ she interrupted stiffly. ‘It was obsessional.’

      ‘What did you expect? I know things changed after the accident but—’

      ‘Don’t.’ This time she cut him short by jumping to her feet, her eyes wild. ‘I don’t want to discuss this, Forde. If that’s why you’ve come, you can leave now.’

      ‘Damn it, Nell.’ He raked his hand through his hair, taking a visibly deep breath as he struggled to control his emotions. A few screamingly tense moments ticked by and then his voice came, cool and calm. ‘Sit down and drink your wine. I came here to discuss you taking on the garden at Hillview and making it easy for my mother to manage it. That’s all.’

      ‘I think it’s better you go.’

      ‘Tough.’ He eyed her sardonically, his mouth twisting.

      Her nostrils flared. ‘You really are the most arrogant man on the planet.’ And unfortunately the most attractive.

      Forde shrugged. ‘I can live with that—it’s a small planet.’ He took a swallow of wine. ‘Sit down,’ he said again, ‘and stop behaving like a Victorian heroine in a bad movie. Let me explain how things stand with Mother at present before you decide one way or the other, OK?’

      She sat, not because she wanted to but because there was really nothing else she could do.

      ‘Along with her damaged hip she’s got a heart problem, Nell, but the main problem is Isabelle herself. I actually caught her trying to prune back some bush or other a couple of days ago. She’d sneaked out of the house when the nurse was busy. I’ve offered to get her a gardener or do the work myself but she won’t have it, although under pressure she admits it’s getting overgrown and that upsets her. When I suggested it needs landscaping she reluctantly agreed and then flatly refused to have what she called clod-hopping strangers tramping everywhere. You can bet your boots once the nurse is no longer needed in a couple of weeks she’ll be out there doing goodness knows what. I shall arrive one day and find her collapsed or worse. There’s nearly an acre of ground all told, as you know—it’s too much for her.’

      He was really worried; she could see that. Melanie stared at him, biting her lip. And she knew how passionate Isabelle was about her garden; when she had still been with Forde she and his mother had spent hours working together in the beautiful grounds surrounding the old house. But what had been relatively easy for Isabelle to manage thirty, twenty, even ten years ago, was a different story now. But Isabelle would pine and lose hope if she couldn’t get out in her garden. What needed to be done was a totally new plan for the grounds with an emphasis on low maintenance, but even then, if they were to keep the mature trees Isabelle loved so dearly, Forde’s mother would have to agree to a gardener coming in at certain times of the year to deal with the falling leaves and other debris. And she really couldn’t see Isabelle agreeing to that, unless …

      Thinking out loud, she said slowly, ‘I’d obviously need to make a proper assessment of the site, but looking to the future, James, the young man who works for me, is very personable. All the old ladies love him.’ The young ones as well. ‘If Isabelle got to know him, perhaps she’d agree to him coming in for a day or two once a month to maintain the new garden, which I’d design with a view to minimum upkeep.’

      Forde shifted in his seat. ‘You’ll do it, then?’ he said softly. ‘You’ll take on the job?’

      Melanie

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