Unexpected Pleasures by Penny Jordan Read Free Book Online

candour.
    ‘I just don’t want to get involved,’ Rosie had responded quietly.
    Outwardly she had been calm, and even slightly withdrawn, but only because that was the sole way she had of controlling her inner pain.
    She ached to be able to confide in her sister, to tell her what she was suffering, but she had been too embarrassed, and besides, keeping her emotions, her fears, the truth hidden had become so much a part of her that the mere thought of discussing it with anyone else caused her to feel acute terror and panic.
    Instead of having some lunch she made herself a cup of coffee and then, changing into her jeans and a
T-shirt, she went outside and connected up the hose-pipe.
    She had a small vegetable plot which she was diligently tending at the bottom of the garden.
    She was working busily in it and just starting to relax, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the peace, when suddenly she heard children’s voices as some people walked past, and immediately she began to feel her tension return.
    This was getting ridiculous, she told herself shakily, as she put down her fork. She was getting ridiculous.
    Even so, she couldn’t stay where she was. She hurried back to the house, angry with herself and frightened at the same time. If she couldn’t bear to hear the sound of other people’s children, things were getting worse, she acknowledged as she stripped off her gardening gloves outside the back door. It was the news about Chrissie’s baby that had thrown her into this mood, but somehow she must come to terms with it to...
    She tensed as she heard someone walking down the path that ran alongside her house.
    She heard the gate squeak as it was opened, and firm, male footsteps.
    She moved forward to see who her visitor was at the same moment as he came round the corner.
    Jake Lucas!
    Rosie froze.
    ‘I couldn’t get any answer when I rang the bell at the front,’ she heard him saying. ‘But your car was outside, so I thought I’d just check to see if you were in the garden.’
    The shock was beginning to recede now, slowly and painfully, so that it was as though her numbed brain was only gradually coming back to life; her thought processes were slow and disjointed.
    ‘I’ve brought you this. You left it at the Hopkinses’ last weekend.’
    Rosie stared at the hat he was holding in his hand. Her hat.
    She lifted her head and looked at his face.
    Why had Jake Lucas brought her hat back? What was he doing here? What did he want?
    Suddenly her thoughts began to accelerate and then to skid frantically out of control as panic gripped her.
    ‘There’s something else I wanted to discuss with you as well.’
    His voice was deep and calm...controlled...but Rosie still caught the note of hidden tension within it, her perceptions sharpened by her own tension and fear.
    ‘There isn’t anything you and I could possibly have to discuss,’ she told him fiercely.
    It was too much, his coming round here like this, invading her privacy, her peace...just as his memory constantly invaded her thoughts...her dreams...or, rather, her nightmares.
    She saw that he was frowning and her heart gave a frantic bound, but she wasn’t going to let him intimidate her any more with his disdain...his contempt...
    Like her he was dressed casually in jeans and a cotton T-shirt but, where hers was large and loose, his clung lovingly to a torso that was surely far too athletically, firmly muscled for a man of close to forty.
    His arms—tanned, no doubt by the time he spent in Greece—made his T-shirt look even whiter in contrast.
    It was all very well knowing that pale skin was far healthier, safer than that which was tanned, but even so she couldn’t help contrasting the cream pallor of her own arms with the warm golden-brown of his, and feeling slightly envious, Rosie admitted.
    As she spoke, she stretched out her hand to take her hat from him, making no attempt to conceal her hostility and bitterness.
    Why should she, after all? He had