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‘They were my friends,’ squawked Katie in protest. Even now, her mother’s single-mindedness could shock her.
She could almost see her mother shrug. ‘Never thought about anything but clothes or boys,’ she said, dismissing them.
Since that had been exactly the cause of their acrimonious break-up, Katie could not really argue with that.
She did, however, point out, ‘That’s life, Mother.’
There was a giant snort from the other end of the telephone. ‘Not for a serious artist,’ said her mother with conviction. ‘It’s time you faced up to it and did something about your talent.’
She rang off, briskly convinced that she had done her best for her only child.
‘Thank you, Mother,’ said Katie to the buzzing line.
Telling her father the news took an even shorter time. As usual, he was not at home. As usual, the crisp message on his answering machine reduced her to monosyllables. Katie left him the bare details of her new home. Her father always seemed to reduce her to a curt little voice, she thought, despairing. Even when she wanted to sound friendly she could not.
A drip detached itself from her hair and ran down her spine.
‘Sun,’ Katie told herself aloud. She shook her shoulders, as if that would get rid of the uneasy feeling talking to her parents always gave her. ‘I have a new home and the sun is shining. All is well with the world. Believe it.’
Haydon tipped his head back and watched the sun dance off the edge of the apple blossom. When he half closed his eyes the light refracted off his eyelashes into a thousand rainbows. His body felt light. He picked up the glass and drained his juice, then heard the glass fall to the floor as his hand missed the teak table. God, I must be more tired than I realised, he thought.
That must be why those girls in their battered van had irritated him. The redhead had looked as if she’d wanted to hit him. Shame, that. She’d been quite impossible, of course, with her travelling junk shop of belongings and her nasty temper. But still there had been something about her. He could not quite remember what. But something.
Bees hummed. The sun was warm on his skin. Haydon’s eyelids drooped. He slept.
Katie took a sketchpad and her chalks onto the lawn. Any other girl would have donned a bikini and stretched out in the sun, but Katie had her own reasons for not sunbathing. She did not even possess a bikini.
Instead she folded her long legs under her and began to sketch the lavish prospect: sky-blue grape hyacinths under a fall of star flowered jasmine, golden iris, wallflowers the colour of imperial velvet and perfumed like a night in paradise; lilac. . .
Katie drew a long breath of sheer happiness.
Her fingers flew. She forgot her parents, both the old tensions and new difficulties alike. Flowers bloomed on the paper. She hardly seemed to touch it and the image was there: half-formed, enigmatic, but somehow utterly the thing it was supposed to be. Katie worked like lightning, hardly believing her luck.
It was the lilac that was her downfall.
The tree was heavy with the drooping white blossom, but, try as she could, she could not get the curve of branch and flower. She left them and went on to draw the little lilies of the valley, cat-faced pansies, waving grasses. But time and again dissatisfaction drove her back.
She uncoiled herself. There was a branch about half-way up. It looped over the wall into the neighbouring garden but it had exactly the right arc, the right fall of blossom. It was out of reach from the ground but not impossibly high. It was touching the wall, though. Katie had done some conscientious research for her gardening responsibilities and she remembered that trees could get fungus if their branches were allowed to rub against brickwork.
‘Pruning,’ she said aloud. ‘That’s what it needs.’
And, incidentally, she would get her branch of lilac to paint without risking a terminal crick in the neck. Benefit all round, she thought, pleased. She went in search of secateurs.
Ten minutes later she was regretting the whole idea.
The lilac tree was old and sturdy. But it was not exactly the sort of tree you climbed when you were five foot ten and had never been a champion gymnast. Nevertheless, it had stood a long time, and one unwise assault was not likely to bring it crashing to the ground. Or so Katie found herself trying to believe.
‘I can do this,’ she said between clenched teeth. ‘I can.’
She looped an escaping swatch of soft hair behind her ear and applied herself to the problem. She also held onto the branch for dear life.
It had not looked this difficult when she’d started. The branch had looked nearer, the lilac tree had definitely been half its present height and there had been no sign at all of the dog on the other side of the wall. The dog was now jumping excitedly against the wall that divided the gardens. As it did so, it showed a fine set of healthy teeth.
Normally Katie liked dogs well enough. But she averted her eyes from those teeth. If only someone would come out of the house and put a muzzle on the wretched creature. Even the bad-tempered man who had not liked Andrea’s van would have been better than no one.
‘Hello?’ she called out tentatively.
Haydon Tremayne stirred, not opening his eyes. He frowned. Something had disturbed him. He did not know what it was. He did not like it.
Somebody wanted him to do something. No, not somebody: a woman. Again. Why wouldn’t they leave him alone? He turned his head away from the source of the noise.
‘No,’ he muttered.
No response. The house looked as deserted as the summer garden. No sign of this morning’s bully. No one to catch her if she fell out of the lilac tree. Katie set her teeth. She was on her own.
‘I got myself into this. I can get myself out of it. I can.’ She said it aloud. It seemed more convincing that way.
The tree wobbled. She clutched convulsively at her branch. There were twigs in her hair and her bare arms would carry the scratches for a long time. If she got down at all.
‘Nonsense. Of course I’ll get down.’ It was, Katie thought, the bracing tone she used to her least talented pupils. It did not convince them either.
Below her the dog reared up on its back legs. At its full height both paws reached high enough up the wall to come within touching distance. It barked once. It was not reassuring.
‘Good dog,’ said Katie without conviction.
It seemed to encourage the animal, she saw dismally. Not taking its eyes off her, it set up a pleasurable barking that would, surely, have roused the neighbourhood—if there was anyone about to be roused. The dog began to drool.
Haydon was not sure whether he was dreaming. He turned his head restlessly. He knew he should be moving, doing something. Even on this warm Saturday, he had a load of work. So maybe it was the voice of conscience sounding through his head like a wild hunt. He became aware of a vast indignation at a world which would not even let him drowse in his own garden for half an hour. He stirred angrily, trying to burrow into the canvas cushions under his head and shut out the noise.
The barking increased to decibels a rock band would envy. If she had not been clinging desperately to the trunk of the tree, Katie would have put her hands over her ears. She could only pray that the touchy millionaire was not at home. Or her tenancy of the house would be over in less than twenty-four hours.
‘Hush,’ Katie hissed.
The dog took no notice. The tree seemed to sway. She grabbed. She heard an ominous cracking.
The dog backed off and began to charge the wall. He gave the impression, thought Katie sourly, that he had not had a game like this in months. The tree swayed further.
‘Shut up, you stupid animal,’ she yelled.
Peering through the branches, she tried to quell the dog with a basilisk glare. It was a bad mistake. The ground was much too far away. Her branch dipped towards it.
‘Stay-calm,’ she told herself. Her shaky tone belied the heartening words.
The dog thudded rhythmically against the wall. The tree creaked. Katie gave a squeak of pure terror and shut her eyes.
Haydon gave up the unequal struggle. He opened his eyes. Something was pounding in his head. He should not have let himself fall asleep in the chair like that. At least, not on an empty stomach and a week’s jet lag, he thought muzzily. He could feel the beginnings of one of his infrequent but devastating migraines.
He regarded the extravagance of early summer with blurred indignation. The garden was deserted. In the windless air, the branches were still. A few early bees buzzed. The guard dog his insurance company insisted on was chasing one along the wall. But that was all.
Or was it? He stood up, rather unsteadily, and went to the summerhouse entrance. Bracing himself against the lintel, he tried to focus.
The Great Dane was flinging itself up the wall, barking. Either the target bee had no sense of self-preservation at all or something strange was happening. Haydon’s eyes narrowed. Yes, there was definitely something wrong with the lilac tree next door. In spite of the windless day its blossoms were waving wildly.
Haydon was a scientist. It cost him a wince, but he swung round to check the apple trees, just to be certain. He liked to be in control of his facts. Yes, he was right, the branches of his own trees were as still as stone. So there had to be someone in that lilac tree.
Haydon came suddenly and sharply alert. He forgot his incipient migraine. He stood very still, listening.
Was it her imagination or was the tree beginning to tilt into the wall? Katie opened her eyes and scanned the neighbouring garden feverishly. The bully might have gone about his business, the millionaire might be away—she prayed that he was—but was there not supposed to be a couple who looked after him? What she needed here was a friendly man with a long ladder. If—
The tree definitely lurched. Katie stopped thinking.
‘Help!’ she yelled.
The sound sliced through his brain. Haydon swung back to the tree. He was suddenly, blindingly angry. He began to run.
Katie was clinging like a monkey to the wildly dipping branch. Her foothold had gone; the dog was hitting the garden wall with the regular thump of a pile-driver; she felt sick.
And then, out of nowhere, a furious voice shouted. It was shockingly close. And everything seemed to go into slow motion.
The branch touched the ground. Her grazed hands began to slip. Katie flung her weight forward desperately. But it was too late. With what seemed to her incredible slowness, the branch splintered. It broke.
Katie hurtled to the ground. On the wrong side of the wall.
Frantically, she tried to remember from long-ago gymnastics classes the best way to fall. Don’t brace yourself. Was that it? And roll when you hit the ground.
So Katie was rapidly turning herself limp as a rag doll when she received another, deeper shock. A pair of muscular hands took her round the waist as she whooshed past. And then there were two of them rolling as they hit the ground.
Katie forgot all about gymnastics classes and trying to minimise the physical damage. She yelled like a banshee.
Her captor brought their headlong tumble to an abrupt halt.
‘This,’ he said in tones of barely controlled fury, ‘is too much.’
For a moment Katie found herself on top of a deeply rising chest, staring down into the bluest eyes she had ever seen. The bluest and the most coldly angry. Then he gave a lithe twist and she was underneath him. For a shattering moment Katie breathed in the hot scent of his skin. Then his head blotted out the sun.
As a kiss, it was more like a declaration of war.
‘No,’ said Katie.
Or at least that was what she tried to say. It did not come out quite like that. To her fury it sounded, even to herself, like a groan of surrender.
Her tee shirt had rucked under her as she landed. Now one hand found her naked skin. Normally just the touch of alien fingers on her waist would have had Katie cold with horror. But she was beyond thinking about her normal reactions. And she was certainly not cold.
She felt his hand splay out against her spine: hot as fire, strong as steel. Then he was lifting her effortlessly against him. He was not brutal. But the sheer power of the movement made her tremble. Not with fear.
She groaned again. It did not sound like a protest this time either.
The man’s mouth lifted. Katie knew vaguely that she ought to wrestle her way out of his arms. Get to her feet. Escape.
She did not move.
It was as if the unaccustomed hand on her skin had scrambled her brains. She was all sensation. Hot and cold and utterly bewildered. With a little sigh her head fell back.
Haydon stared down at his captive. He was shocked at the primitive fury that had shaken him. Even more shocked at the no less primitive feelings that had succeeded it. They surged through him now. The girl was not even trying to get away. Suddenly he wanted—oh, God, he wanted. . .
Katie felt oddly remote. She was helpless to resist the magnetisation of her senses and she knew it. It gave her a pleasant sense of irresponsibility. She lay there, delighting in it, every nerve quickened in expectation. Her eyes drifted shut, her lips parted—
Haydon hauled himself off her and stood up in one furious leap.
Katie’s eyes flew open in shock. The tall figure was blocking the sun, hands on hips. Against the glare of the summer sky, his face was in shadow. But there was no doubt of his feelings as he looked down on her. He was incandescent with rage. Her remoteness evaporated. She came back to the present with a bump.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ His voice was harsh with strain and he flexed his hands as if he did not know what to do with them.
Katie hardly noticed. She was too shocked. Coming back to the present was like walking into a cold shower. Instinctively her hand went to her midriff and encountered bare flesh.
For a moment she was absolutely still with horror. Her tee shirt was tangled under her armpits. He would have seen. He had to have seen.
Distress held her immobile for a moment. Then she gave a little sob and jack-knifed upright. She was shaking so much she had trouble hauling her tee shirt back into place.
The man said nothing. That made it worse. She bent her head so she did not have to see the disgust in his eyes.
But disgust did not seem to be uppermost in his mind. He was ferociously angry. More than angry.
‘Nice try.’ He flung at her. The irony was biting.
Katie was bewildered. So bewildered she almost forgot her distress.
‘What?’
Haydon was bringing himself under control. He was still furious but it was a colder, more deliberate fury.
‘Diversionary tactics,’ he said. ‘Brilliant.’
‘Diversionary—?’
Katie was so confused she forgot she was not going to look him in the face. She tilted her head, shading her eyes against the sun.
He hunkered down beside her as if they were having a friendly conversation.
‘I’ve met some skilled operators in my time. But you are up there with best,’ he told her pleasantly.
Katie shivered. She did not like his tone.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
And he was much, much too close. She leaned away from him as far as she could. She winced. The sun was beginning to make her eyes water.
‘Oh, well done,’ said the hateful voice softly.
