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‘Oh, I’m sure Matthew will love you.’
Nothing could have been more heartily confident than Drusilla’s firm tone… So why was Kat getting the distinct impression things weren’t quite as straightforward as the older woman was implying?
‘He does know that you’re…?’
‘You might find Matthew a little…erm…resistant…’ Drusilla was obviously choosing her words with care. ‘But you must promise me one thing.’ Her blue eyes gleamed with urgency as she caught hold of Kat’s hand. ‘Don’t listen to him if he tells you he doesn’t need you. Promise me, Kathleen!’
Kat felt slightly uneasy and a little embarrassed by the older woman’s intensity. ‘You’re the boss,’ she agreed, a shade of unease in her voice.
Kat had appreciated that her mother’s childhood friend had married money, but she hadn’t appreciated how much money until she arrived at that lady’s country cottage. A shooting box for some titled lord originally, its rooms were all on a grand scale and the opulent decor which was sympathetic to the period was out of this world. She just knew she’d live in constant fear of breaking some priceless ornament.
After the housekeeper—Kat’s idea that her ill-defined duties might need to stretch as far as the kitchen and the odd bit of light housework were fast fading—had shown her to her room, where she’d found a large bouquet of flowers and a warm letter from Drusilla apologising for her absence, Kat had explored the neatly kept grounds.
She was repelling the over-friendly advances of a large bee which had detached itself from the low lavender hedge that ran the entire length of the neatly trimmed lawn when a gleaming black Jag drew up on the gravelled forecourt.
The opportunist bee took advantage of Kat’s lapse in concentration and stung her on the inner part of her exposed forearm—great timing! She was vaguely aware that a good deal of door-slamming and gravel-crunching was going on whilst she was hopping around biting her lips stoically.
Kat was just getting on top of the pain when she heard a deep gravelly voice bad-temperedly demand, ‘Well, don’t just stand there, Joe, get rid of her!’
The strong clipped tones didn’t fit with the firm image in her mind of a wan, pain-ravaged invalid. She opened her eyes and blinked back the tears of pain to find a tall gangly chap of about thirty looking anxiously down at her. He looked nice, but a picture of health.
‘Are you all right?’
‘I was stung by a bee.’ She peered towards the area of her arm which was already puffy and inflamed.
‘You poor thing. Let me have a look…’
So much for all the elaborate subterfuge to ensure his privacy! Someone at the hospital must have passed on the information to the press. Matt Devlin quickly got tired of waiting for Joe to get rid of the unwanted visitor and eased himself slowly from the low-slung vehicle. By the time he was standing on the gravelled forecourt beads of sweat stood out on his brow.
Matt propelled himself with the assistance of the much-despised crutches to find out what was taking so long. Once he was in a position to get his first proper view of the girl he stopped wondering.
Honey-blonde hair pulled back into a cute ponytail to reveal a simpering smile—that was no way genuine—pinned on a face that was all scrubbed cheeks, innocent big eyes and sexy lips. Then, last but not least—definitely not least—there was the body. No anorexic waif, this one; Lara Croft meets the girl next door! In short, the babe of dopes like Joe’s collective dreams.
Joe had a vacuous grin on his face. It made Matt feel embarrassed just to look at it; he’d seen sheep that looked more intelligent than his best friend did at this moment! A superior sneer tugged at the corners of his lips. The women in his dreams had more going for them than insipid prettiness.
‘Matt,’ Joe hailed him. ‘Kat here has been stung by a wasp.’
Matt watched sourly as he held the babe’s slim arm out for his inspection.
‘Bee,’ the babe said in a brisk, un-babe-like voice.
Matt found she was looking critically at himself, not Joe. Her eyes were large, clear grey, lushly fringed by dark curling lashes and tilted ever so slightly at the outer corners.
Bimbo, yes…brainless, no… No amount of mascara or cheesy grins could disguise the intelligence lurking in those crystal-clear depths.
‘Are you another one from that damned woman’s magazine? I’ve already told your editor where she can stick her story!’ He felt a surge of grim satisfaction as he watched her high-voltage smile gutter.
The reference meant nothing to Kat, so she could shake her head in vigorous denial with a clear conscience.
‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’ His silence oozed disbelief. ‘You are Matthew Devlin…?’ A case of mistaken identity…? The optimist in her soared before his abrasive response brought her crashing down to earth with a thud.
‘I know who I am. Who are you?’
Kat blinked several times, and tried not act as if she felt slightly singed by those blazing blue eyes. He was tall without being lanky, broad of shoulder without being bulky, and darkly beautiful in a dangerous Byronic hero sort of way…in short, a knock-out! She felt a spurt of indignation. Why hadn’t someone warned her?
In the masculine beauty stakes she’d have rated him, on a scale of one to ten, at a conservative twelve and a half! She couldn’t help but reflect that it would have been an aesthetic tragedy if a face like that had been scarred; as it was, the only immediate evidence of his injuries was a thin scar that ran from a point midway along his prominent cheekbone to his temple.
He’d probably laugh when she explained…they’d laugh together. Another look at that lean uncompromising face with its intriguing planes and angles told her that was taking optimism too far! Whatever else this job was going to be, it wasn’t going to be a laugh a minute.
To prove that she wasn’t intimidated—an uphill battle—she smiled serenely, and the dark fallen angel face didn’t budge. There wasn’t even the suggestion of a quiver around the beautifully sculpted lips.
Faced with belligerent antagonism on the face of her patient—and Kat was getting the distinct impression this wasn’t the sort of man who would respond to gentle understanding—she felt a twinge of nostalgia for the pale, pliable, mummy’s boy of her imagination.
There was nothing even faintly pliable about the man who was looking at her with the sort of affection most folk reserved for something nasty they’d discovered on their shoe! He might be using crutches but nothing about him said vulnerable. Even in less than full working order he exuded an almost tangible aura of restless vitality.
‘I’m Kathleen Wray.’
Illness must have taken its toll, but he wasn’t making any concessions to it. Probably those lines around his eyes and hard but sexy mouth hadn’t been so deeply ingrained before his accident; long-term pain probably had a lot to do with the faint blue smudges under those fairly spectacular eyes too. Those deep-set, heavy-lidded orbs were just as startlingly blue as his mother’s, but whereas hers sparkled with humour his held a restless almost explosive quality. In fact there was something combustible about the entire man!
‘Is that supposed to mean anything to me?’
‘I think maybe the sting’s still in,’ Joe fretted. ‘What are you supposed to use for bee stings—vinegar…?’
The babe firmly repossessed her arm. ‘I’ve got some hydrocortisone cream in my bag.’ She dismissed the throb in her arm with a careless shrug.
‘And where might your bag be?’ Matt asked, looking around for any sign of transport.
‘In my room.’ Her eyes innocently sought the second-floor window in an effort to locate the charming room she’d been allocated.
The significance of the gesture wasn’t lost on Matt. ‘Are you trying to tell me you’re actually staying here? What the hell’s going on?’ he barked.
‘I assumed you’d be expecting me. I’m your physiotherapist, Mr Devlin.’
‘Not the best cover story. I don’t have a physiotherapist.’
‘You mustn’t worry. Your mother…’ Matt watched as she gave a self-conscious glance towards Joe. The composed little voice with the husky rasp dropped to a confidential whisper. ‘She’s paying my salary.’
‘Hah!’ Matt wasn’t sure why he should be worried about her salary, but at the mention of his parent things started to make a lot more sense.
His mother was untiring in her determined efforts to fling females she considered suitable mates in his path, in the mistaken belief that a grandchild was the key to healing the rift between father and son.
‘My mother. I should have guessed.’
His scrutiny slid over Kat from head to toe in a boldly insolent way that had her chin automatically rising to an aggressive angle.
‘Impressive.’ His eyes lingered on the contours of her full breasts.
Which was more than could be said for his manners! But Kat could cope with crude sexual innuendo; she had stopped rounding her shoulders in a futile attempt to hide her womanly attributes when she was about fifteen. She squared said shoulders proudly and clung onto her temper with difficulty.
‘I’m terminating your contract, Blondie.’
That was the best news she’d heard for some time, and it was on the tip of her tongue to tell him so when she recalled the promise Drusilla had wrung out of her. Concentrating on the state of her debts made it easier to retain her composure.
‘My name is Kathleen Wray. You can call me Miss Wray, or, at a push, Kat. I don’t answer to Blondie. And I’m not leaving until your mother tells me my services are no longer required.’ Her rigid stance faded as her stormy grey eyes softened. ‘Pride is all well and good, Mr Devlin,’ she announced in a kindly way. ‘But, whether you like it or not—’ she cast a swift professional eye over his tall, broad-shouldered figure ‘—you do need me.’
Matt looked baffled by her response.
‘Are you slow or what…?’ He didn’t need this, not now. He was in pain, hot, tired and had a damned hank of hair in his eyes and no free hand to push it away. As always the mortifying consequences of illness made him mad enough to yell and curse. It took a lot of self-control to restrain his inclination to indulge in both.
‘It’s probably the pain that’s making you so tetchy.’ She kept her tone objective, not that it made his reaction any the less hostile. From the way his eyes flashed and his jaw tightened, she assumed he took any reference to his physical weakness as a direct insult; some men were like that.
‘I’m not in pain!’ Matt bellowed, throwing self-restraint to the winds. The muscles down his left leg chose that precise moment to go into painful spasm. Matt swore under his breath and gritted his teeth against the pain.
‘I told you you shouldn’t have gone into the office.’ There was a concerned note in his friend’s voice.
‘Save your sanctimonious I-told-you-sos.’ Matt closed his eyes and forced himself not to fight the wave of pain. Experience had taught him tensing up only prolonged the spasms.
‘You didn’t bring him straight here from the hospital…?’
‘He wouldn’t let me.’
‘I really don’t see there was much he could do to stop you!’ Kat responded crisply.
Her eyes were compassionate as she looked at the tall figure who was obviously suffering considerable pain. When he tried to shrug off the supportive hand she placed beneath his elbow she diplomatically pretended not to notice his efforts to dislodge her light grip.
‘You don’t know Matt,’ Joe returned wryly.
Kat resisted the childish impulse to assure him she didn’t want to.
‘Let’s get him inside, shall we?’ Matt heard the bimbo say, just before he had to endure the ultimate indignity of being hustled like a baby through the door between his best friend and Blondie.
Dear God, it had been bad enough when those damned nurses had fussed and fretted; this was more than flesh and blood could be expected to take!
‘When did he last take his medication?’
Matt lifted his dark head from the brocade-covered chaise-longue they’d deposited him on. ‘What are you asking him for? I’m not dumb!’ he snarled.
‘We should be so lucky,’ his friend breathed quietly.
‘What was that, Joe…?’ Matt growled.
‘When did you last take any pain relief?’ You didn’t need to be psychic to figure out that wiping the sheen of perspiration from his furrowed brow would not go down well. Fortunately his colour was looking more healthy than it had outside.
Kat’s eyes slowly worked their way up the strong column of his throat to his lean, angular face. Though pale after his hospitalisation, Matthew Devlin had the sort of olive skin tones that would darken given the first hint of sunlight.
She had a sudden and deeply distracting image of him stretched out on a beach, his skin gleaming with a healthy glow. She gave her head the tiniest of shakes to dispel the unprofessional hallucination.
She gave a whimsical but worried grin. Just as well he didn’t have a personality to match his looks or she might have trouble staying impersonal! If someone had forced her to produce a fantasy lover he would have looked remarkably similar to Matthew Devlin—which just went to show that looks weren’t everything!
‘I need a drink, not a pill. Pass me a Scotch, Joe.’
Kat wondered if he ever said please as she laid a restraining hand on Joe’s arm.
‘I don’t suppose there’s any reason you can’t have both, but it depends on what sort of painkillers you’re taking.’
‘I’m not taking pain relief…I don’t need crutches of any sort,’ he announced with scornful and not strictly accurate distaste.
Lips compressed into a stubborn white line, he rose to his feet. Deliberately ignoring the crutches and his audience’s combined concern, he walked over to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a whisky.
Kat was pretty sure that every step he took was agony, but the only external evidence of this in his drawn face were the beads of sweat that appeared across his upper lip. The man had guts—she had to hand him that. It was just a pity he didn’t channel his energies into something more constructive than thumbing his nose at the world in general and her in particular!
He lifted the glass in a mocking salute before downing the amber liquid in one swallow.
‘A pill to go to sleep, another to wake…I’m not buying into that merry-go-round. I thought pain was the body’s way of telling a person something.’
Matt had been the soul of restraint up until very recently. Even when they hadn’t known how bad the spinal damage was, and life in a wheelchair had been a nightmare possibility, he’d managed to retain control of his stiff upper lip.
It had been the killing slowness of the whole convalescence thing that had finally made him snap. He was used to setting himself a goal and working towards it; he didn’t see why getting back to full fitness should be any different, but the blasted medics were constantly holding him back.
‘Going on the evidence so far, I rather doubt you’ve been listening to your body at all this morning, Mr Devlin.’
She’d seen his type before—though not quite so spectacularly packaged—the sort of man who’d push himself and his body to the limit of endurance and beyond. That sort of willpower was all very laudable, and probably made the person successful at anything he set his mind to—but it also made him a terrible patient!
‘My mother may think I need the attentions of some sultry little nursey…’
To Kat’s intense discomfort he did that undressing thing with his eyes again. She didn’t doubt for a second it was meant to unsettle her, but she’d not give him the satisfaction of showing how well the crude tactics worked.
‘…but I can assure you I don’t. So ignoring the fact I’ve fired you isn’t going to change my mind.’
It wasn’t a comfortable experience being pinned down by those arrogant eyes but Kat knew it would be fatal to back down at this point. However, facing down this man was proving to be one of the hardest things she’d ever done. It made her shudder to think how difficult it would be to thwart him when he was fully fit. She didn’t think she’d ever come across anyone who had such an ingrained aura of command.
‘I’m a physio, not a nurse.’
‘If you say so…’
Did the man think she was pretending, for God’s sake? Kat repressed the strong inclination to dig out her certificates and wave them under his infuriating nose.
‘Ignoring the fact you’ve got pain isn’t going to make it go away,’ she responded serenely.
Did she think he didn’t know that? Matt ground his teeth.
‘And being rude and unreasonable isn’t going to make me go away, either. I’ve worked with some very difficult children…’
A choking noise emerged from Joe’s throat. Matt was too stunned to notice his friend’s heaving shoulders.
‘Are you suggesting I’m acting like a child?’ he grated incredulously.
‘You’re only a child to your mother, Mr Devlin,’ she explained kindly. ‘To me you’re simply a client.’
