heart was close to bursting and she could feel the pinpricks of tears behind her eyes. The long years of loneliness were over, her heart was singing. She had found her home.
‘If you don’t want me…If you don’t want me tonight then I’ll understand,’ Niall said tenderly. ‘But know, Jess, that this is the beginning of a long, long courtship. I intend to lay siege to your heart-for however long it takes. Until death do us part, if it comes to that.’
She met his eyes. They locked onto hers and the tenderness she saw behind his gaze made her heart swell.
This man…
Her heart…
Her home…
‘My little joey needs his bed,’ she whispered tremulously. ‘Please, Niall…Will you take him to his bed?’
‘I’ll do that.’ His eyes still asked a question.
Jess took a deep breath and made her lips move. ‘And then…’ she whispered. It was right. There could be no doubts in her heart when he looked at her like this. Her home.
‘And then, Niall, will you take me to mine?’
‘Jess…’
She was lifted in his arms, cradled against him, and Niall’s lips met hers in a long, slow kiss of exultation.
‘You won’t regret this, my love,’ he murmured as he carried her back over the lawn to the big French windows-and the wide bed waiting just beyond. ‘I give you my word. I give you my heart that you won’t regret this. From this night on…’
Jess woke to happiness.
Euphoria was all around her, drifting as a cloud of warmth and light and laughter. She woke with a smile on her lips and as Niall’s strong arms tightened in loving possessiveness the smile grew.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Niall’s voice growled as she stirred and she twisted within his arms so that she could see those wicked eyes. They devoured her naked body with transparent hunger.
And she wanted to be devoured. And to devour in turn…
‘My babies…’ she whispered.
‘You fed those pesky orphans at four o’clock and again at six,’ Niall murmured into her hair. ‘According to my watch it is just after seven. Therefore…Therefore, my Jess…you are my own private property for fifty more precious minutes. Agreed?’
She ran her finger lightly down his face, feeling the sheer strength of him. Glorying in the fact that he needed a shave-and he would every morning. From this day forth. This was how he would feel…All the wonderful maleness of him.
‘What will you do with me if I say yes?’ she asked him wickedly.
‘Do you have any suggestions?’ Niall nibbled one ear, her nose, her lips-and then his mouth moved downward with an intent that made her gasp.
‘N-no…’
‘Then we’ll just have to think of something,’ he murmured, sinking lower and lower and Jess opened her mouth to reply.
And couldn’t.
She was all his.
He was her man.
The day intruded all too soon.
The phone rang just on eight.
It was Niall’s mobile phone, tucked beneath the pillow.
Tucked beneath two heads.
Geraldine.
Jess heard the nurse’s voice come down the line and imagined how the nurse’s eyebrows would rise if she knew where Niall was lying as he talked to her.
Heaven forbid the introduction of video phones.
Jess lay cradled in Niall’s arms as he talked She could hear both sides of the conversation with ridiculous ease.
‘Dr Mountmarche, I’m sorry to bother you but Ethel’s started vomiting,’ Geraldine was saying. ‘I was wondering whether I could give maxolon with the next pethidine injection.’
‘I’ll be right with you,’ Niall told her. ‘I’d like to examine her before the next injection.’
‘Oh…’ There was a short silence. ‘Are you out at the farm?’
‘No.’
‘But I knocked on your flat door,’ Geraldine said. ‘There wasn’t an answer. I thought…Well, Sarah’s due to take over and I wanted to give Ethel the injection before going off duty. If it’s going to take you fifteen minutes to get here…’
‘I’m closer than you think,’ Niall told her and leaned over to kiss Jessie lightly on the nose. ‘Almost…’ He kissed again, this time aiming for Jessie’s lips ‘…almost under your nose. Two minutes, Geraldine.’
‘So what’s she going to make of that?’
Jess lay and watched Niall dress, torn between anxiety and laughter.
‘If I know our Geraldine she’ll have two and two added up before I reach the ward,’ Niall smiled. He buttoned his shirt, then stood and looked down at Jessie’s nakedness. She didn’t cover herself. She should, she guessed-but not while Niall was looking at her like that. He was glorying in her body and she wanted nothing more. ‘Do you mind, my lovely Jess…?’
‘I…I guess…’
‘You’d better not,’ he warned her…’because I’m not good at being kept in a cupboard. For one thing, I’m too damned big. For another…’ He touched her face with a finger. ‘For another, every second I’m away from you is too darned long. Will you have breakfast with me, my Jess?’
‘Breakfast?’ Jessie’s eyes widened in startled enquiry. Her body was languorously sated. She felt like staying exactly where she was-for a very long time.
‘Today’s Saturday,’ Niall smiled. ‘No clinic. And I need to go home to Paige. Feed your orphans, arrange to have them cared for for the rest of the day and come to the vineyard. OK?’
Jess smiled tremulously up at him.
‘O-OK.’
‘My Jess.’ He paused. ‘You’d best stop looking at me like that because…’
‘Because?’
‘Because you have the power to distract me like no other. Come to the farm fast, my love. I’ll be waiting.’
‘There’s a few things I have to do.’ Jessie’s voice sounded strange-not her own. It was as if she’d changed in the night. ‘I…I have to see to Ethel’s dog. Maybe after breakfast…’
‘Come when you can,’ he told her. ‘I’ll be waiting.’
Jess fed her animals, showered and dressed in the same lazy euphoria. She couldn’t make her body move fast for the life of her.
Niall was waiting.
Even that incentive wasn’t enough to shift the haze of blissful languor.
She needed time to adjust. To savour. To convince herself that this was right. She’d committed herself body and soul and this time…this time Jessica Harvey was being no fool. She was entrusting herself to a man who was absolutely to be trusted. Who accepted his responsibilities with all due care…
Someone she could give her heart to and know it would be cherished…
She needed to see Ethel. Sarah was in the corridor when Jess emerged. She smiled at Jess and Jess knew by her smile that Geraldine had been talking.
By tonight the whole darned island would be talking.
‘Is Ethel fit to see me?’ she asked a trifle breathlessly.
‘She’s fit to see you, I reckon,’ Sarah told her, her smile broadening at Jessie’s obvious discomfiture. ‘No policemen, though. I’m under strict orders to say she’s sedated if Sergeant Russell wants to interview her.’
‘Is she sedated?’
