Page 16 of One Bridegroom Required!

‘No, I never knew my father—’ Holly met his curious stare with a proud uptilt to her chin, feeling oddly compelled to answer his questions. Maybe it was something to do with the penetrating clarity of his blue eyes. Or maybe it was just because he actually looked as though he cared.

She ran a finger down the cold beer bottle. ‘And no, I’m afraid that it’s nothing heroic like an early death—I mean it literally. My mother didn’t know him either. According to her, he could have been one of two people and she didn’t care for either of them—so she never bothered to tell either of them that she was pregnant.’

Luke expelled a slow breath of air ‘Hell,’ he said quietly, realising that he didn’t have the monopoly on unconventional childhoods.

‘I suppose I must be grateful that she saw fit to give birth to me.’ Her gaze was unblinking ‘Have I shocked you?’

‘A little,’ he admitted. ‘But that was part of your intention, wasn’t it, Holly—to shock me?’

She looked at up at him, her eyes partially shaded by thick dark lashes. ‘And why would I want to do that?’

‘Because illegitimacy hasn’t always been accepted the way it is now. When you were growing up, it was probably even a stigma—something to be ashamed of. Wasn’t it?’ he probed gently.

The memory of it was like a knife, twisting softly in her belly. Little girls taunting her in the playground. The sense of always being different. ‘Yes.’

Her reply was so quiet that he had to strain his ears to hear it. ‘So maybe you got used to relating the facts as starkly as possible—to pre-empt that kind of reaction. And if you said the worst possible things about not having a father, then th

at way no one could hurt you. Or judge you.’ He paused, and the piercing blue eyes were as direct as twin swords. ‘Am I right?’

She put her fork down quickly. ‘Yes, you’re right.’ He was very perceptive. Too perceptive. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,’ she said. ‘Just because you’ve been a Good Samaritan. I don’t normally open up to people I’ve only just met, you know.’

He smiled through the ache that had haunted him since he had first laid eyes on her. ‘Maybe it’s because we’re strangers. And because we’ve been thrown together in bizarre circumstances.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Like people trapped in lifts, or stuck on the side of a mountain—that sense of isolation makes the rest of the world seem unimportant. You break rules.’ He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Sometimes you make new ones in their place.’

Holly badly needed to distract herself—wasn’t he aware that when he looked at her that way she just wanted him to kiss her? ‘I may have told you things about me,’ she corrected him. ‘But it hasn’t been very reciprocal. You’ve told me very little about you!’

‘There’s my inheritance,’ he said blandly. ‘You know about that.’

‘Oh, that!“ she scoffed. ’That’s boring! I want to hear about real life.‘ She tried an impersonation of his distinctive drawl. ’Life on the ranch!’

He laughed. It would be so easy to stay here, to bask in the firelight and the soft, green light of her eyes. Easy and dangerous...

‘It’s late and it’ll keep,’ he said, swallowing the last of his beer and wondering why it tasted so sour. ‘And if I tell you about cheetah kills before bedtime—then you might have nightmares, mightn’t you?’

‘I suppose so!’ She laughed nervously.

But then, Holly suspected that she might have trouble sleeping in any case. Because surely the thought of a big, virile man like Luke Goodwin sleeping in the same house would cause any normal woman to be restless.

Especially a woman whose green-eyed and naturally foxy appearance often gave people a totally misleading view of her true nature...

CHAPTER FOUR

DESPITE her reservations, Holly slept soundly and undisturbed in a beautiful high-ceilinged bedroom painted in palest blues and greys. It overlooked the rain-soaked lawn at the back of the house, which sloped down to a fruit orchard at the far end of the garden.

When she woke up it was almost nine, and she stretched luxuriously in the bed, rubbing her sleepy eyes as she threw back the duvet and padded over to the window.

The garden was like an illustration from a child’s story book, and Holly could almost imagine the trees being able to speak, the fruits full of enchantment.

Her room had its own bathroom, a luxury she decided she would never take for granted! She showered and washed her hair again, put on Luke’s white towelling gown, and was just thinking about going in search of her clothes when there was a rap on the door and she opened it to find him standing there, his eyes all shadowed, as though sleep had been at a premium.

His hair was still damp from the shower and he was dressed casually—still in a pair of faded blue denims with a thick, navy sweater pulled down low onto his hips.

‘Hello, Holly,’ he said softly, and just the sight of her stirred the memories of erotic dreams which had given him one of the worst nights in memory. ‘Sleep well?’

She beamed at him with a sunny smile. ‘Like a log!’

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