Don't Hurt Me by Elizabeth Moss Read Free Book Online

was not entirely certain
in which direction the house lay but it would not have been too hard to find
once she had located the boundary fence.
       ‘About half a mile that way?’
       His smile was terse. ‘There’s
nothing in that direction for more than five miles. You could have been
wandering there for hours. Longer perhaps, if the mist hadn’t cleared.’
       ‘Oh come on. This isn’t the
Antarctic, for God’s sake. Someone would have found me in the end.’
       ‘Probably,’ he conceded, inclining
his dark head. ‘But not before you developed hypothermia.’
       Her temper flared. ‘Don’t be so
ridiculous.’
       ‘In that jacket?’
       ‘What’s wrong with it? I’m not
cold,’ she lied, shrugging the flimsy material closer against her skin. ‘Just a
bit damp from the rain.’
       He sighed impatiently, shaking his
head as if he did not believe a word she was saying, then bent to take her by
the elbow. Her face flushed with anger at his interference, she tried to stay
where she was, but those strong fingers curled about her arm as he pulled Julia
to her feet, his grip irresistible. ‘Come along, we can’t waste any more time
arguing. I’ll help you walk back to the house. Victoria’s on her own there and
God knows what she’ll get up to while I’m gone.’
       ‘Your daughter isn’t as badly
behaved as you like to make out,’ Julia flashed back, limping beside him.
       ‘What does that mean?’
       ‘Perhaps if you spent more time
with her -’
       ‘I beg your pardon?’ he interrupted
her, his teeth gritted and the tawny eyes furious. ‘What on earth could a
stranger like you possibly know about my relationship with Victoria? You’ve
only been here five minutes.’
       ‘It didn’t take long to see what
the problem was.’
       ‘To jump to conclusions, you mean.’
       She sighed. ‘Look, it’s none of my
business ...’
       ‘Damn right it isn’t.’
       He indicated the stile just ahead
of them and she picked her way irritably across the rough ground towards it.
Her exposed sock was now the same colour as the marsh she had pulled it from,
the muddy hems of her jeans flapping miserably about her ankles. Suddenly
embarrassed at the thought of how she must appear to him - unattractively dirty
and dishevelled, no doubt - Julia stopped talking and concentrated on following
the path back through his estate. She could see the grey roof line of the house
now, just showing above the trees in the distance. It could not be more than
half a mile away, she thought, filled with relief as she imagined the steaming
hot bath she would soon be sinking into.
       Yet although the mist had cleared
over the moors, the skies ahead of them were still dark with rain. She was
beginning to wonder if they would make it back to the house before the heavens
opened when Marshall touched her arm and pointed to their right.
       ‘It’s going to pour down any
minute. There’s an old lean-to over there if you want to avoid ... ’
       In that instant, they both felt
several large drops of rain on their faces and the backs of their hands. His
warning had come just slightly too late. Seconds later the clouds above them
broke and it began to rain down hard, leaving them drenched and breathless as
they stumbled through the downpour towards a ramshackle structure built low
against the trunk of an ancient tree. The side wall seemed to be nothing
sturdier than a row of rough wooden poles stacked one beside the other and
lashed together with thick twine. The roof was simply a collection of grasses
and loose bundles of twigs, haphazardly wedged under the branches of the tree
above.
       The whole structure seemed
dangerously precarious. Julia pulled back from the ancient green tarpaulin
covering the entrance, shaking her head. ‘You must be kidding,’ she gasped.
       ‘What’s the matter now?’
       ‘It looks like it’s going to
collapse any minute.’
       ‘Get