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‘The cat obviously isn’t here and I need to get back…’ She stumbled to a halt, edging her way round the chair.
‘Not yet, you don’t,’ he said, but to her astonishment his lips quirked.
She blinked, not believing her eyes. Was that a smile?
‘I got the brownies, by the way. They were tasty.’ He rubbed his belly, his lips lifting some more. The smile became a definite smirk.
‘Why didn’t you answer my messages, then?’ And what was so damn funny all of a sudden?
‘They probably got lost in translation,’ he said easily. ‘My cleaner doesn’t speak much English.’
He straightened, swayed violently and grabbed hold of the work surface.
‘What’s wrong?’ Daisy stepped towards him. His face had drained of colour and looked worn and sallow in the harsh light.
He put a hand up, warding her off. ‘Nothing,’ he growled, all traces of amusement gone.
She could see he was lying. But decided not to call him on it. After the way she’d been treated he could be at death’s door for all she cared.
He let go of the counter top, but didn’t look all that steady. ‘I know what happened to your cat.’
It was the last thing she’d expected him to say. ‘You do?’
‘Uh-huh, follow me.’
Gripping the edge of the centre aisle, he made his way across the kitchen. He moved with the fragile precision of someone in their eighties, his bare feet padding on the floor.
Daisy tramped down on her instinctive concern as she followed him. She hated to see people suffering, and for all his severe personality problems this guy was obviously suffering. But he’d made it clear he didn’t want her sympathy, or her help.
He shuffled to a small door in the far wall and opened it. Leaning heavily on it, he beckoned her over with one finger.
As she stepped forward he pulled the door wide. She heard the soft mewing sound and glanced down. Gasping, she dropped to her knees. Nestled in an old blanket beneath a state-of-the-art immersion heater was Mr Pootles—and his four nursing kittens.
Make that Mrs Pootles.
‘The cat showed up after I moved in.’ She glanced up at the husky voice, saw the hooded blue eyes watching her. ‘She had no collar and didn’t want to be petted so I took her for a stray.’
Daisy studied the cat and her kittens. A saucer of milk had been placed next to the blanket. She reached out a finger and stroked one of the miniature bodies. The warm bundle of fluff wiggled. Daisy sat back on her haunches.
Maybe the Big Bad Wolf wasn’t as bad as he seemed.
A little of Daisy’s anger and indignation drained away, to be replaced by something that felt uncomfortably like shame.
‘She had the kittens ten days back,’ he continued, the hoarse tone barely more than a whisper. ‘The cleaner’s been looking after them. They seem to be doing okay.’
‘I see,’ she said quietly.
Daisy stood, resigned to eating the slice of humble pie she’d so cleverly served herself by climbing over his garden wall in the middle of the night.
Still, she took a few seconds to collect herself, brushing invisible fluff off Cal’s jeans and then folding down the waistband so they’d stay up without her having to cling onto them. Humble pie had always been hard for her to swallow. Having delayed as long as possible, she cleared her throat and made eye contact.
He was studying her, his expression inscrutable. She might have guessed he wasn’t going to make this easy for her.
‘I’m awfully sorry, Mr…?’
‘Brody, Connor Brody,’ he said, a penetrating look in those crystal eyes. Her pulse skidded.
‘Mr Brody,’ she murmured, her cheeks flaming. ‘What I did was unforgivable. I hope there are no hard feelings.’
She held out her hand, but instead of taking it he glanced at it, then to her astonishment his lips curved in a lazy grin. The slow, sensuous smile softened the harsh lines of his face, making him look even more gorgeous—and even more arrogant—if that were possible.
Daisy held back a sigh as her heart rate kicked into overdrive.
How typical. When Daisy Dean made an idiot of herself, it couldn’t be in front of an ordinary mortal. It had to be in front of someone who looked like a flipping movie star.
‘So are your cat burgling days behind you, now?’ he said at last, the roughened voice doing nothing to hide his amusement. He tilted his head to take in every inch of her attire, right down to Juno’s Doc Martens. ‘That’d be a shame, as the outfit suits you.’
She dropped her hand. Make that a movie star with a warped sense of humour.
‘Enjoy it while you can,’ she said dryly, trying hard to see the humour in the situation—which was clearly at her expense. She knew perfectly well she looked a complete fright.
‘And what would your name be?’ he asked.
‘Daisy Dean.’
‘It’s been a pleasure, Daisy Dean,’ he said, still smirking as if she were the funniest thing he’d ever seen.
‘I’ll come back tomorrow to get the cats, if that’s okay?’ she said stiffly, clinging to her last scrap of dignity.
‘I’ll be waiting,’ he said. The hacking cough that followed wiped the smirk off his face, but only for a moment. ‘I’ve a question, though, before you go.’
‘What is it?’ she asked warily, the teasing glint in his eyes irritating her.
Honestly, some men would flirt with a stone.
He didn’t say anything straight away. Instead, his gaze roamed down to her chest and took its own sweet time making its way back to her face. ‘Did you lose the bra on your way over the wall?’
Colour flared in her cheeks and her backbone snapped straight. That did it. ‘I’m glad you find this so hilarious, Mr Brody.’
‘You have no idea, Daisy,’ he said, coughing out a laugh, his pure aquamarine eyes sparkling with mischief.
‘I’m off,’ she said through clenched teeth, not even trying to keep the frost out of her voice.
She might have been wrong about the cat, but she hadn’t been wrong about him. He was an arrogant, overbearing, insufferable, full-of-himself—
A hissed expletive interrupted her cataloguing of his many character flaws.
She turned, watching in astonishment as he stumbled and then collapsed. The thud of his knees hitting the laminated floor made her wince.
She crouched beside him, her resentment fading fast as she took in his pallid complexion and the tremors racking his body. ‘Mr Brody, are you okay?’
‘Yes,’ he hissed, a thin sheen of moisture popping out on his forehead.
She pressed the back of her hand to his brow, felt the scorching heat as he jerked back. ‘You’re burning up, Mr Brody.’
‘Stop calling me that, for Christ’s sake.’ His head snapped up, the headache clear in his bloodshot eyes. ‘The name’s Connor.’
‘Well, Connor, you’ve got yourself a very impressive fever. You need to see a doctor.’
‘I’m okay,’ he said, gripping the work surface. She offered her hand, but he shrugged it off as he struggled onto his feet, the muscles in his arms bulging as he hauled himself upright.
She could see the effort had cost him as he stood with his hands braced on the polished wood. His chest heaved in ragged pants and the fine sheen of sweat turned to rivulets running down his temples.
‘You can leave any time now.’ He grunted without looking round.
She came to stand next to him, could feel the heat and resentment pulsing off him. ‘What? When I’m having so much fun watching you suffer?’
The tremor became a shake. ‘Get lost, will you?’
She rolled her eyeballs. Men! What exactly was so terrible about asking for help? Propping herself against his side, she put an arm round his waist. ‘How far to your bedroom?’
‘There’s a spare room across the hall.’ The words had the texture of sandpaper scraping over his throat. ‘Which I can get to under my own steam.’
She doubted that, given the way he was leaning on her to stay upright. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said briskly. ‘You can hardly walk.’
To her surprise, he didn’t put up any more protests as she led him out of the kitchen and across a hallway. The spare room was as palatial as expected, with wide French doors leading out into the garden. She eased him down onto the large divan bed in the dim light, his skin now slick with sweat. He shivered violently, his teeth chattering as he spoke.
‘Fine, now leave me be.’
He sounded so annoyed she smiled. The tables had certainly turned. She didn’t have long to savour the moment though as brutal coughs rocked his chest.
‘I’m calling the doctor.’
‘It’s only a cold.’ The protest didn’t sound convincing punctuated by the harsh coughing.
‘More like pneumonia,’ she said.
‘No one gets pneumonia in July.’ He tried to say something else, but his shadowy form convulsed on the bed as he succumbed to another savage coughing fit.
She rushed back into the kitchen, spotted the phone on the far wall and pumped in the number for her local GP. Maya Patel lived two streets over and owed her a favour since the mother-and-baby club fund-raiser she’d helped organise a month ago. Her friend sounded sleepy when she picked up. Daisy rattled out her panicked plea and Connor’s address.
‘Fine,’ Maya said wearily. ‘You need to get his temperature down. Try dousing him with ice water, open the windows and take his clothes off. I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ she finished on a huge yawn and hung up.
Daisy returned to the bedroom armed with a bowl of ice water and a tea towel. The hideous coughing had stopped, but when she got closer to the bed she could feel the heat pumping off her patient. He’d sweated right through the track pants, which clung to his powerful thighs like a second skin.
She flipped the lamp on by the bed to find him watching her, the feverish light of delirium intensifying the blue of his irises.
‘The doctor said to try and get the fever down,’ she said.
She took his silent stare as consent and dipped the cloth in the water. She wrung it out and draped it over his torso. He moaned, the sinews of his arms and neck straining. She wiped the towel over his chest and down his abdomen. Her heart rate leaped as he sucked in a breath and the rigid muscles quivered under her fingertips.
The cloth came away warm to the touch.
‘Dr Patel’s on her way,’ she said gently. ‘Is there anyone you want me to call? Anyone you need here?’
He shook his head and whispered something. She couldn’t hear him, so she leaned down to place her ear against his lips.
Hot breath feathered across her ear lobe and sent a shiver of awareness down her spine. ‘There’s no one I need, Daisy Dean,’ he murmured, in a barely audible whisper. ‘Not even you.’
She straightened, looked into his face and saw the vulnerability he was determined to hide.
He might not want to need her, but right now he did and Daisy had a rule about people in need—you had to do your best to help them, whether they wanted you to or not.
She rinsed the cloth, wrung it out and placed it on his forehead. He tensed against the chill, his big body shivering.
‘That’s a shame, tough guy,’ she said as she stroked his brow. ‘Because I’m afraid you’re stuck with me until you’re strong enough to throw me out.’
Connor closed his eyes, the blessed cool on his brow beating back the inferno that threatened to explode out of his ears. Every single muscle in his body throbbed in agony but those cool, efficient strokes, over his cheeks, across his chest, down his arms, doused the flames, if only for a short while.
He’d always hated it when his sisters had fussed over him as a kid, trying to tend the wounds their father had inflicted in one of his drunken rages. Even then he’d hated to be beholden to anyone. Hated to feel dependent. But as his eyes flickered open he was pathetically grateful to see his pretty little neighbour leaning over him. He stared at her, taking in the clear, almost translucent skin and the serene, capable look on her face as she soothed the brutal pain. She reminded him of the alabaster Madonna in St Patrick’s Church, which had fascinated him as a boy, when he’d still believed prayers could be answered.
But then his Virgin bit into her full lower lip and shifted on the edge of the bed to dip the cloth back in the water bowl. His gaze dropped, taking in the enticing movement of her breasts and the outline of erect nipples against her skintight top. Despite the heat blurring his senses and the pain stabbing at his skull, Connor felt the rush of response in his loins.
He shifted uncomfortably and she turned towards him. Flame-red curls outlined her head like a halo and the vivid jade-green eyes grew larger in her gamine face.
She placed gentle fingers on his forehead, pushed back the hair that had fallen across his brow. ‘Try to get some sleep, Mr Brody. The doctor will be here shortly.’
The desperate urge to take back what he’d said, to ask her not to leave, overwhelmed him. He opened his mouth to say the words, but nothing came out other than a guttural murmur. He grasped her wrist, grimacing as his shoulder cramped. He had to get her attention, make her stay, but however hard he tried he couldn’t make a coherent sound.
‘Don’t talk, you’ll only tire yourself out.’ She took his hand in hers, folded her small fingers round his palm and squeezed. ‘It’s okay, I won’t leave you,’ she said, as if she’d read his mind.
He shut his eyes, let himself fall into the fiery oblivion, his mind clinging onto one last disturbing thought.
Would wanting to see his angel of mercy naked send him straight to hell?
CHAPTER THREE
DAISY placed Connor’s hand carefully by his side, listened to the harsh pants of his breathing as he fell into a fitful sleep and then ran all three of Maya’s instructions back through her mind—one of which she’d been pretending she hadn’t heard.
She nipped over to the room’s French doors, unlocked the latch and flung them wide. Maybe two out of three would do the trick. But the evening air was suffocatingly still, creating no respite from the heat.
Daisy sat back on the bed. She chewed her lip and concentrated on wiping the cloth over the contours of Brody’s upper body. She applied the cooling linen to his arms and shoulders, and listened to the low groans as he struggled with the fever.
After five agonisingly long minutes, it was clear the fever had no intention of abating. If anything it seemed to be getting worse, the ice water now lukewarm in the bowl. Daisy wiped her own brow, cursing her smothering outfit for the umpteenth time that night.
Where was Maya? Shouldn’t she have been here by now? But even as she registered the thought she knew it was a delaying tactic.
Brody shifted on the bed, his movements stiff and uncomfortable.
