into gardens to provide as green an environment as possible.’
‘It sounds wonderful, Jack.’
‘When it’s nearer completion I’ll take you over it.’ He leaned over to read her fortune. ‘New horizons are opening for you,’ he intoned solemnly.
‘Pretty general sort of forecast,’ said Kate, and handed him a cookie.
Jack broke it open. ‘You are about to receive your heart’s desire!’ he read.
‘You’re kidding!’
‘Alas, yes,’ he said, grinning. ‘Mine’s the same as yours.’
Kate bundled the debris into a waste sack and ran hot water and detergent into the kitchen sink. ‘You go up to the bathroom and wash—last door on the landing at the back,’ she told Jack. ‘I’ll scrub my grease off down here.’
He returned a few minutes later. ‘I resisted the temptation to explore,’ he said self-righteously.
‘You can take a look if you like.’
‘I’d rather you showed me round.’
Kate felt like a proud parent showing off its child as she led the way upstairs.
‘This is where I work,’ she said, at the threshold of her study. ‘ Jo is next door, in the blue and yellow room. And I’m through here.’ She led him across the landing to her newly painted bedroom, then opened the door on the bathroom with the tub Ben had found for her in a reclamation yard.‘ That’s the lot. If you were a prospective buyer, how would it strike you?’
‘Any smart young couple would go mad for it,’ Jack assured her. ‘But you don’t intend to sell, surely?’
‘No. I just wanted an objective opinion. I’ve never done any decorating before.’ She pulled a face. ‘The preparation is the hardest part. Once I get to the actual painting, it’s easy.’ She held out her hands ruefully. ‘They’ll never be the same again.’
‘Wear gloves!’
‘I do, most of the time. But you can’t wear them for everything.’
‘True,’ said Jack, and turned to look at the mahogany sleigh bed visible through the open doorway to Kate’s room. ‘I assume that belonged to the famous Aunt Edith?’
She nodded. ‘Impressive, isn’t it! They make good copies these days, but this is the real McCoy. The auctioneer who came here to value the other furniture salivated when he saw it and offered me a good price, but I refused to part with it.’
‘Very wise. If he was salivating, the price was probably half of what it should have been.’
‘Cynic!’
‘Realist,’ he contradicted, and took her hands in his.
‘Shall I kiss them better?’
Kate stood very still, suddenly aware that the door to her bedroom stood open in invitation. She looked up into Jack’s eyes and felt her knees tremble.
‘Shall I?’ he repeated, his voice deepening.
Kate watched mutely as he lifted each hand to his lips in turn, the touch of his open mouth on her skin sending her pulse into overdrive. ‘Thank you,’ she said hoarsely. ‘Much better—’
The rest of her words were smothered against his mouth as Jack pulled her into his arms and kissed her hungrily, his lips and tongue so irresistible she melted against him, her heart pounding as his hands slid beneath her sweater. She felt a familiar, liquid rush of hot response as his kiss deepened and, without taking his lips from hers, Jack picked her up and carried her through the door of her room. But when he laid her down on the bed Kate rolled to the far side and stood up, shaking her head in vehement rejection.
Jack stood breathing heavily, his eyes hard as flint. ‘Why not?’ he demanded harshly.
Kate brushed past him out of the room and hurried down the steep staircase, her knees trembling. It was her fault. Jack Logan was a man, after all, and a man who had once been her lover. She didn’t blame him for wanting to make love to her, but she couldn’t let that happen. She wasn’t laying herself open to that kind of pain again.
Jack came into the kitchen behind her and picked up his jacket. ‘Kate,’ he said harshly, ‘all you had to do was say no.’
She turned on him, eyes flashing. ‘I know that.’
He raked a hand through his hair, his eyes angry. ‘Then why in God’s name make me feel like a rapist?’
She let out a deep, unsteady sigh. ‘I told you that friendship with me would be hard work, Jack.’
‘So you did.’
Kate eyed him uncertainly as he shrugged into his jacket. ‘If you’d rather I didn’t turn up tomorrow, I quite understand.’
He stared at her in disbelief. ‘And what reason will you give your friends for staying away?’