and warm, and like she didn’t want to move for a hundred years.
‘You’re not a bachelor,’ she said sleepily. ‘You’re a widower.’
There was a pause. ‘So I am,’ he said, cautious.
‘“Widower”’ is much sexier than “bachelor”.’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘It’s true,’ she said, labouring a point that suddenly felt important. ‘A widower is very, very sexy.’
‘Widower with five kids?’
‘Hmm.’ She thought about that. ‘It’s a hitch,’ she said. ‘But I’m prepared to overlook it.’
There was a long, drawn out silence. She was watching the flames. They were forming shapes. ‘I can see a bull in there,’ she said.
‘A bull…’
‘A sort of bull in the inferno. A little something from Dante. I think I might paint it.’
‘What’s in those pills?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Nothing.’ He grinned and rose, joining her in the lovely warm haze radiated by the stove. ‘Bedtime.’
‘I want to stay here.’
‘I can see that you do. But I have work to do, and you’re distracting me.’
‘You’re distracting yourself.’
‘Thank you,’ he said gravely. ‘Is your shoulder still hurting?’
‘My shoulder’s lovely.’
‘Then it’s bedtime for you, princess,’ he said, and he bent and lifted her with the effortless ease he’d used before.
She should take umbrage. She should…
She wound her arms round his neck and held on. ‘Nice.’
‘So Ruby tells me.’
‘Ruby’s right. She says you’re the nice one. You’re certainly the one with the sexiest pyjamas.’
‘Have you been on the whisky?’
She thought about that. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘Should I have? Can we have one?’
‘If I give you a whisky you’ll be out for the count,’ he told her. ‘I have a feeling you don’t take painkillers too often.’
‘Pain?’
‘That’s what I mean, sweetheart.’ He was climbing the stairs. She was cradled against him. He had the nicest pyjamas, she thought hazily. They were made of the same soft fabric as her pink pigs. She put her cheek on his shoulder and it felt really, really soft…
‘Do you mind?’ he asked in a voice that was none too steady.
‘Do I mind what?’
‘Not taking any more of those damned pills,’ he said. ‘I’m having a word with the doctor tomorrow.’
‘The doctor was really, really sorry.’
‘Was he?’
‘Yes, cos he thought the children were yours and he thought you should have got them inoculated. But I told him you were a hero.’
‘Thanks.’
‘It’s true.’ They’d reached the girls’ bedroom. He pushed the door wide with his foot and strode across to the last bed in the row. The empty bed. Her bed.
‘It’s a very, very good thing you’re not sleeping in Maureen’s big bed,’ he said, setting her down on the pillows. Then, as she clung, he reached up and carefully unentwined her fingers from behind his neck.
‘Why?’
‘It just is. Shanni, let me go.’
She let him go. Just.
‘Widowers are very, very sexy,’ she whispered.
‘So are artists in pyjamas with pink pigs.’ He smiled, that magic smile that warmed places within her she hadn’t realized were cold.
‘Goodnight, Shanni,’ he said. He placed a finger on her lips.
‘Goodnight yourself,’ she whispered. She lifted her hand to his finger and held it where it was, trapped against her lips.
‘Shanni…’
‘Very, very sexy,’ she whispered. ‘Are you going to kiss me goodnight?’
He nearly didn’t. She saw him retreat, just a little. But he couldn’t resist. She knew it with the same cosy certainty that said the night was safe, and life was good, and this house was the most splendid house she’d ever stayed in, and this was the most comfortable bed and…
He kissed her. It was meant to be a feather kiss, over before she knew it, but she wasn’t interested in a feather kiss. She put her arms around his neck and tugged him close, finding his mouth, kissing him long and languorously and wonderfully. It felt so right-an extension of the warmth and the wonder of the night. He felt…hers. Her man. She held him close and kissed and kissed, and felt him respond as she knew he must…
Pierce…
But he was pulling away. Unlooping her arms. Forcing her back onto the pillows and moving back.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘What did I tell you? Sexy as hell.’
He was backing to the door.
‘Kiss me again?’ she pleaded, and he shook his head. He smiled but his smile was strained.
‘You need to sleep.’
‘Don’t.’
He grinned then. ‘Yes you do, princess,’ he murmured. She could still see his face. He hadn’t turned the light on, so the only light was the moon, but she could see his features. He didn’t want to leave as much as she didn’t want him to go.
‘Pierce?’
His smile faded. ‘Goodnight,’ he said, and he turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE drive to the castle took three hours, and Shanni blushed the whole way.
Part of the problem was she had too much time to think. She was driving her father’s car, unwilling to join the mob in Maureen’s wagon and be trapped with no transport at a place she didn’t know. Pierce had fretted about her driving with her bad shoulder but she’d ignored him. Her shoulder was better, she’d decreed.
Donald elected to go with her. Pierce was driving Maureen’s wagon, and she and Donald followed.
She was never touching those blue pills again.
If the pills had made her act out of character, the least they could do was erase the memory so she didn’t know what a fool she’d made of herself the next morning.
Stupid pills.
She’d forced him to kiss her.
And there was the hub of the problem. The kiss was replaying in her head, over and over. Donald was no help. Her small companion hummed a tuneless little ditty over and over, refusing to talk, refusing to help her divert herself.
So she blushed and she gave herself lectures and she blushed again.
She was supposed to be following Pierce, but even seeing the back of his car did her head in. So she fell back, so far that she ended up in Dolphin Bay with Pierce’s car nowhere to be seen. She had to stop and ask
