Wild Enchantress

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Catherine sighed. ‘Sometimes those articles are just rubbish! I just thought that particular one had some merit.'

‘Oh, it did.’ Jared passed her and walked indolently across the room, kicking aside a tube of paint which oozed stickily on to the bare boards. He indicated a divan in one corner, half hidden from her view by other paraphernalia. ‘I sleep here sometimes. It's quiet, and I don't mind the sound of the ocean. And, as you say, I enjoy the chaos.'

He looked at her as he spoke, and she felt a curious warning sensation in the pit of her stomach. When he was not using the sharp edge of his sarcasm against her, he was disturbingly attractive, and the girlish feelings he had aroused all those years ago did not seem quite so distant after all.

As though realising that for a few moments he had forgotten his antipathy towards her, he withdrew his gaze from hers and hauled a couple of surfboards out from behind the door. One was bigger than the other, but they were both made of fibre-glass and very light.

‘Are you sure you want to try this?’ he asked, his voice hard and slightly impatient, and she nodded eagerly.

‘Of course. Is this one mine?’ She indicated the smaller board. ‘Hmm, smell that scent of the sea!'

They came down the steps on to the beach and looked towards the ocean. The sun glittered and danced on the water, dazzling the eyes, jewelling the foam to sparkling brilliance. The sun was rising higher, and its heat was making the sand warm beneath their feet.

Catherine bent her head to unzip her jeans and Jared gave her an angry look. ‘What are you doing?'

She looked up in surprise. ‘I don't normally go swimming in my jeans,’ she answered innocently.

He expelled his breath noisily. ‘You can change in the beach house.'

‘I don't have to change.’ She wriggled the jeans down over her hips, revealing the narrow band of the bikini. ‘I came prepared.’ She smiled. ‘Didn't you?'

Jared said a word which she wouldn't have liked to repeat, and unfastened his own jeans and slid them down his legs. His swimming trunks were black and came beautifully low on his lean hips. Catherine couldn't help admiring the powerful muscles so displayed, but he obviously disliked her eyes upon him. Picking up a surfboard, he strode away down the beach, and she stood there folding her jeans and watching him.

He carried the surfboard into the waves until the water was up to his waist, then he straddled the board before stretching his length upon it, paddling out towards the line of the reef with steady progression.

Catherine was hardly aware that she had bent and picked up the untidy pile that was his jeans, or that as he approached the turning point, she pressed them closely to her chest, watching for the surf to catch him with such intensity that her eyes ached from the glare.

He had turned. He was kneeling on the board now, coasting down the inside of the crest which threatened to engulf him. Her heart leapt into her throat as the board was lifted high on the swell, and then he was on his feet, balancing himself with an expertise she couldn't help but envy, driving diagonally in towards the shoreline at what seemed an incredible speed. If he should lose his balance, if he should fall…

She closed her eyes and when she opened them again, he had disappeared. She took several involuntary steps forward, her heart hammering so loudly it seemed audible. Then she saw the surfboard tossed carelessly by the waves, and her heart seemed to stop beating altogether. She ran towards the water's edge, blinking as shafts of green brilliance obscured her vision. The sun was reacting on her unguarded eyes, making them water just when she wanted to see clearly.

She moved her head from side to side, searching for a glimpse of him, and then gulping with relief when he appeared some distance to her left, thrown upon the sand like the surfboard beside him. She ran eagerly towards him, still clutching his jeans, but he was getting to his feet and his expression was not encouraging.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ he demanded, and she blinked at him bewilderingly. ‘What's the matter? Why are you looking at me like that? And what are you doing with my pants?'

He tugged the offending jeans out of her grasp, and she stood there before him, still wearing her smock, still too shocked to say much at all.

‘I—I—you disappeared. I thought—I thought—'

‘You thought I'd drowned?'

‘Well, I—I wasn't sure…'

Jared tossed his jeans on to the sand, and Catherine noticed inconsequently that they had landed in the same heap as before. ‘I dived off the board, before it reached shallow water,’ he told her impatiently. ‘I'm sorry if you were alarmed, but I didn't know you were watching me.'

Catherine was gradually recovering her composure, and resentment gave her a welcome barrier against the feelings she had just experienced. ‘I'm sure you knew perfectly well that I was watching you,’ she retorted, aware as she did so that she was not sure of any such thing.

Jared sighed. ‘Why? Why aren't you in the water yourself?'

‘I'm no expert. You must know you are.'

‘Thank you.’ His tone was sardonic. ‘So why were you so concerned?'

She stared up at him angrily. Without the platform soles she was used to, he was several inches taller than she was, a new experience for her because she was a tall girl. ‘I really don't know!’ she told him feelingly, and marched away along the beach.

Her desire to swim had left her. Her eyes still ached from the glare of the water, and an awful empty feeling was making itself felt in the region below her rib-cage. After all, she had not eaten since yesterday afternoon, and then only two of the diminutive sandwiches. She sat down on the sand beside the other surfboard, drawing up her legs and wrapping her arms around them, resting her chin on her knees.

She was hardly aware of him coming to join her, until his weight disturbed the sand beside her, and she permitted herself the knowledge that he was standing beside her.

‘I'm sorry if you were upset,’ he said quietly, and ridiculously, his apology moved her to tears.

‘It doesn't matter,’ she mumbled into her knees, but he must have discerned the break in her voice, and he uttered an expletive before coming down on his haunches beside her.

He remained there silently for several seconds just looking at her, and eventually she felt compelled to look at him. He was very close, his skin still damp with sea water, smelling slightly of the salt. There was hair on his arms and legs, fine dark hair, the ends bleached golden by the sun. She knew the strongest impulse to put out her hand and stroke the taut muscles of his thigh, to feel that smooth brown skin beneath her fingers. She didn't seem capable of lifting her eyes, and with another exclamation he got to his feet.