Freedom To Love

Freedom to Love

Carole Mortimer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

KATY knew she had made a mistake about this holiday as soon as the plane took off from Heathrow. She was on her way to Calgary, one of Canada’s fastest growing cities. She had wanted to see the country for so long that when Gemma and Gerald had suggested she accompany them she had jumped at the chance.

‘But surely I’ll just be in the way?’ She had tried not to show her excitement.

‘Probably,’ agreed Gemma, her sister of twenty, the elder by two years, callously. ‘But you know how old-fashioned Mum and Dad are. They’ll never let Gerald and me go alone, even if we are getting married in a couple of years.’

Katy hadn’t relished the idea of being taken along merely as a smoke-screen to her parents, and her reluctance must have shown.

‘Oh, do come,’ Gemma added persuasively. ‘You know you’ll love it out there.’

Canada beckoned, all that beautiful unspoilt country, and yet sharing it with Gemma and Gerald, her sarcastic boy-friend, didn’t appeal at all.

‘It’s the only way you’ll ever be able to go,’ Gemma had told her cruelly. ‘Your job as Dad’s receptionist doesn’t exactly pay well. Gerald and I will be paying for the camper, all you’ll have to find is the money for your air fare and some spending money.’

‘Only!’ Katy scorned. ‘Even that’s out of my budget.’

‘All right!’ Gemma was becoming angry now, her green eyes narrowed. ‘I’ll help you pay for your air fare too, okay?’

Gemma must really have been desperate to have made such an offer, but Katy knew she could never accept it. ‘I think I can just scrape through,’ she refused the offer. ‘If you really mean it about the camper?’

‘Of course we do.’ Gemma’s eyes glowed now. ‘You’re an angel, Katy!’

That wasn’t what her parents had called her when the idea was put to them. ‘Oh, if Katy’s going then that will be all right,’ her father agreed unhesitantly to the idea. ‘Katy’s sensible. She’ll see that no harm comes to you.’

Ever since she was a child Katy had been called the ‘sensible’ one, and she hated it! It wasn’t even true. She was the one who at five had been playing ‘Dare’ with Gemma and had fallen off the diving-board at the local swimming-pool and had nearly drowned; she was the one who at ten had been balancing on the handlebars of Gemma’s bicycle and had fallen off and knocked out her front teeth; she was the one who at sixteen had believed the married man who was giving her a lift home when he had told her he had run out of petrol as the car came to a halt on a deserted road. She was also the one who had ended up walking the five miles home when she realised his intention of seducing her.

And now here she was on this jumbo jet, setting out on an eight-and-a-half-hour flight to Canada when she hadn’t ever flown before. Talk about going in at the deep end! And Gemma and Gerald didn’t seem to give a damn about her welfare, totally engrossed in each other as they whispered and chatted together.

Katy was petrified, staring straight ahead as she felt the plane leave touch with the ground, her stomach seeming to be about four feet below the rest of her body and having great difficulty in catching up. Her fingers dug into the armrests; the one to her left seemed harder than the right. She looked down to see her nails digging into the arm of the person sitting next to her, a definite male arm covered in faded denim. Oh no, she had done it again!

Her grey eyes slowly raised to meet the deepest blue eyes she had ever seen, the lashes thick and dark, as was the over-long hair, the skin a deep mahogany, the features seeming to be carved from granite. He was the hardest-looking man Katy had ever seen, possibly in his mid-thirties, those deep blue eyes the only redeeming feature against the hawk-like nose and firm forbidding mouth, the body lean and muscular, the denims he wore old and faded, matching the partly unbuttoned shirt he wore. He looked wealthy, despite the easy arrogance with which he wore the casual clothing, his whole bearing one of haughty assurance.

Katy realised she was still digging her nails into him. ‘Sorry,’ she quickly removed her hand, ‘I didn’t realise what I was doing’ She gave a nervous laugh. ‘Silly to be frightened. I feel all right now.’ And strangely enough she did; the plane seemed to be on an even keel, giving her stomach time to catch up with the rest of her body. ‘I’m sorry about your arm. Did I hurt you?’

Blue eyes looked her over coldly for several long seconds, as if the man were surprised at her having spoken to him. ‘No,’ he answered finally, turning slightly in his seat, and if not actually turning his back on her giving a very good impression of it. He closed his eyes just for good measure.

Katy glared at him angrily. Rude, arrogant man! Digging her nails into him had been an accident, the least he could have done was acknowledge her apology. And yet by the look of the even rise and fall of that wide muscular chest, he had already fallen asleep. She felt dismissed by an expert.

She unfastened her seat belt when told to do so, accepting the orange juice the air hostess brought round minutes later, knowing her stomach was still too shaky to take the alcohol offered.

The air hostess looked at the sleeping man at Katy’s side. ‘Would your husband care for a drink, do you think?’ she asked her politely.

Katy flushed, glancing nervously at the face that appeared cold and hard even in sleep. ‘Er—I—I’m not——’

Suddenly the man sat up, moving with quiet grace and favouring the air hostess with a slow sensual smile, his eyes appreciating her slim beauty. ‘I’ll have a Scotch, thanks. And just for the record, I’m not her husband. I’m not her father either,’ he drawled, his voice as English as Katy’s own, only more so, indicating a private schooling.

‘Sorry about the mistake, sir.’ The air hostess gave him a dazzling smile back and handed him his drink before going on to the next row.

He turned to look at Katy. ‘Well?’ he quirked one dark eyebrow.

She blushed as she realised she was staring at him, watching in amazement as he drank the whisky straight down without even a wince. The first and only time she had ever tried the spirit it had seemed to burn all the way down to her stomach.

‘Sorry,’ she mumbled, turning away and pretending an interest in the rather silly lovers’ talk Gemma and Gerald were indulging in. They had been served by another hostess on their side, and it appeared that as they were sitting in a row of four seats Katy would continue to be grouped with the arrogant stranger at her side all during the flight.

As they had taken off just after midday it wasn’t long before they were being served lunch, but the man at Katy’s side only opened his eyes long enough to refuse his meal. Katy had to admit she was a little piqued by his attitude. Okay, so she was a little young for him to interest himself in, but she wasn’t exactly unattractive.

Her hair was what Gemma cattily called the colour of fudge, although she preferred to say caramel-coloured, her eyes wide and grey, her nose small and to her relief, un-freckled, her mouth wide and smiling. Her complexion was good too now, the hated teenage spots had seemed to fade the year before, as had her puppy fat, leaving her tall and slender.

Perhaps this man would prefer to sleep than eat the food, although Katy didn’t think it anything like the cardboard food she had been led to expect; it was in fact quite enjoyable. Or maybe this man was just trying to cut down on calories, perhaps that was how he managed to stay lean and firmly muscled when most men his age would be well on their way to middle-aged spread. Whatever his reason his eyes stayed firmly closed as those around him ate their meal, the first excited chatter beginning to die down as the long flight stretched in front of them all.

Once again the man at her side seemed to know when the drinks were being brought round, although this time he opted for coffee, several cups of it, black. The air hostess, a girl probably in her late twenties, returned to him again and again to see if he required anything else. And by the invitation in her eyes she clearly meant anything.

Katy pointedly ignored the man, although this left her fairly isolated, shut out by her sister and Gerald, and determined not to even notice the man on her other side. She was glad therefore when the film came on the screen in front of her, a screen that appeared to be the back of the painting that had recently been displayed there. She had hired the earphones from the’ air hostess at the start of the flight, intending to listen to the radio later, but the film would be much more interesting. Besides, it would take up a couple of hours of the flight.

The film was one that had recently toured the cinemas, one that she hadn’t had the time to go and see. It looked strange without the necessary sound. She looked down for the place to plug in her ear-phones, realising she should have thought to do it before the window-blinds were lowered and the lights dimmed. Where on earth was the hole for the other end of her earphones?

Impatient fingers pushed her hand away as she sought frantically for the right place, dealing with the plugging in within a matter of seconds. Katy looked up shyly to thank the man she had so far thought rude and arrogant.

He was watching her with narrowed eyes, eyes that no longer seemed deeply blue but were glacial. ‘Are you always this helpless?’ he asked contemptuously.

She flushed. ‘I——’

‘Don’t bother,’ he impatiently dismissed her reply. ‘Just watch your film. Maybe then I’ll be able to get some rest without your fidgeting about beside me.’

‘I wasn’t fidgeting!’ Katy told him indignantly, looking about them almost guiltily as she realised other people could hear this conversation. Luckily no one was listening, all seemingly engrossed in the film, and so all other sound was blocked out. ‘Anyway,’ she added resentfully, ‘you’ve been sleeping since we left London.’

‘Sorry!’ His sarcasm was blatantly obvious. ‘I wasn’t aware I was here to entertain you.’

‘You aren’t,’ she blushed.

‘Thank God for that!’ He leant his dark head back, closing his eyes again. ‘Idiotic females, particularly young ones, bore me silly.’

‘Ooh!’ Her mouth set mutinously.

He opened one eye to look at her. ‘Shut you up?’

‘Yes!’ Katy snapped.

‘Good.’ He smiled, closing his eyes again.

Well, really! Katy stuck the ear-phones on, turning the sound down as it roared into her eardrums. For all the notice she took of the film, or the dialogue, she might just as well not have bothered. She was too angry and upset to concentrate on anything at the moment. This man must have taken lessons on how to be unpleasant, he was so good at it.

She shot him a resentful glance, having to admit an unwilling attraction to his dark good looks. It was probably his looks that enabled him to be this highhanded with her; most people, particularly women, would forgive him anything. So might she have done if he had turned the charming smile on her that he had given the air hostess. But he had decreed her too young for his attention, and had dismissed her from his mind accordingly.

The film was almost halfway through when she realised her orange juice and after-lunch coffee were taking their toll on her. She could see the sign for the toilets; the only trouble was, she couldn’t get out. Gemma and Gerald were engrossed in the film and wouldn’t thank her for disturbing them, and the sleeping man at her side would thank her even less.

After another half an hour of moving restlessly about in her seat, giving up any attempt to concentrate on the film, she was feeling desperate. She had to get up, the question was whose wrath was she going to evoke by asking them to let her out.

‘For God’s sake, woman!’ the man at her side exploded, sitting upright in his seat to glare at her with angry blue eyes. ‘Don’t you know how to sit still?’

‘Of course I do!’ Katy was angry herself now, having put up with his boorishness long enough. ‘But it isn’t easy when you want to go to the loo!’ She blushed at having to talk about such intimacies to this stranger.

‘Why the hell didn’t you just say so?’ he snapped, already beginning to stand up to let her pass.

She drew a deep angry breath. ‘Maybe because I knew this would be your reaction. You are without doubt the rudest man I’ve ever met!’ With this comment she flounced off.

Her bravado lasted her as long as it took her to reach the privacy of the toilets, staying there much longer than she needed to because she dreaded returning to her seat. She took her time over renewing her make-up and tidying her hair, finally bracing herself to go back and face that awful man.

The blinds had been lifted and the lights were fully back on, and people were wandering about the plane talking to each other. Kate almost heaved a sigh of relief as she saw the seat next to hers was empty.

‘What’s his name?’ Her sister turned to look at her.

Katy looked startled. ‘Whose?’

Gemma gave her an impatient look. ‘The man sitting next to you. I’m sure I’ve seen him somewhere before. Gerald thinks he has too.’

Now she came to think of it he did look slightly familiar, although she felt sure she wouldn’t have forgotten him if she had ever met him before. He wasn’t the sort of man you could forget! ‘Why should I know his name?’ she asked tersely.

‘You seem to have been talking to him.’

Talking? What they had been doing certainly couldn’t be called talking, it was more like an argument. ‘A few casual words,’ she evaded. ‘Nothing as revealing as names.’

‘Yours wouldn’t reveal much,’ Gemma scorned, turning back to her boy-friend.

Charming! Katy was surrounded by them. She had even been dismissed as a nonentity by her sister now. She was getting a definite feeling of rejection.

The long length of her arrogant stranger coiled down into the seat next to her and she forced herself not to even look at him. She wasn’t risking any more rebuffs from him. She stared rigidly down at the paperback in her hand, not taking in a word of it.

‘You aren’t safe to be let out on your own,’ that silky voice taunted as he bent to retrieve something off the floor. ‘Here,’ he held out her purse to her. ‘It is yours, I presume?’

Katy paled, almost snatching it out of his hand. All her money was in here, all her travellers cheques. The only things she had kept separate were her passport and her return air ticket. ‘Thank you,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I—It must have fallen out when I got my book out.’

‘Obviously,’ he said dryly. ‘Is someone meeting you at the other end?’ he added thoughtfully.

Her eyes widened. ‘I beg your pardon?’

Her reaction seemed to amuse him. ‘I wasn’t propositioning you. But you don’t appear to be safe to let cross the road, let alone the Atlantic,’ he said insultingly.

‘No one is meeting me,’ she answered stiltedly. ‘I happen to be going to Canada on holiday—with my sister and her boy-friend. They’re sitting the other side of me,’ she added at his sceptical look.

He glanced around her, sitting back with a shrug. ‘She’s nothing like you to look at.’

Katy knew that, had always known that Gemma was the beautiful one of the family. Gemma was honey-blonde where she was caramel, had deep green eyes where Katy’s were grey, and her sister had never been troubled by spots or puppy fat, seeming to the younger Katy to have always been slim and petite.

‘I know that,’ she snapped at this man. ‘But that doesn’t make it any less a fact that she is my sister.’

‘Prickly little thing, aren’t you?’ he taunted. ‘Rather like the wild rose the Canadians are so fond of.’

‘Are they?’ Katy frowned.

‘Mm,’ he nodded. ‘Especially where we’re going. Alberta is its home. It’s very common up there on the mountains just below the timberline.’

‘Timberline?’ she echoed dazedly.

‘Tut, tut, tut,’ he mocked, seemingly fully awake now, and even more taunting than he had been before. ‘You haven’t done your homework on Alberta. I take it you intend touring the National Parks there?’

‘Yes,’ she nodded.

‘Then you should know that the timberline is where it becomes too cold up in the mountains for the trees to survive, they just suddenly stop growing, hence the term timberline. Make sense?’ he quirked an eyebrow questioningly.

‘Oh yes,’ her eyes glowed. ‘Thank you.’

‘Don’t mention it,’ he dismissed. ‘Your name wouldn’t happen to be Rose?’

She shook her head. ‘Katy—Katy Harris.’

‘Shame. Rose suits you so much better.’

‘I don’t think so,’ she said crossly. ‘I don’t consider it prickly just because I don’t like your taunting behaviour.’

‘Was I taunting you?’ He sounded amused again.

‘You know you were.’

‘Maybe.’ He frowned. ‘Where’s your boy-friend?’

She flushed. ‘I don’t have one,’ she told him resentfully.

‘No? So it’s just a cosy little threesome, is it?’

‘I don’t like your implication,’ Katy snapped. ‘Gemma and Gerald are engaged to be married. It was very kind of them to invite me on this holiday with them.’ She knew that kindness hadn’t entered into it, but she wasn’t about to tell this man that.

‘Gemma and Gerald!’ he taunted mockingly. ‘How nice.’

‘God, you’re sarcastic!’ She turned her back on him, hearing his throaty chuckle behind her.

What an unpleasant creature he was! But how dangerously attractive, with that wicked gleam of amusement in his blue eyes, albeit cruel amusement.

‘You lucky devil,’ Gemma told her in a fierce whisper. ‘Gerald and I have just realised who you’re sitting next to,’ she explained at Katy’s puzzled look. ‘Well, Gerald realised it first,’ she grudgingly admitted.

‘Well?’ Katy asked patiently.

‘He’s Adam Wild!’ Gemma announced triumphantly.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Katy instantly dismissed the idea. ‘He would be in the first class, not back here with the rabble.’ Adam Wild was the top photographer in England, usually specialising in photographs of beautiful women, both clothed and unclothed. He was also rich enough not to have to travel in economy class.

Gemma scowled. ‘Maybe there weren’t any first class seats left. Anyway, you were talking to him for some time just now, didn’t he tell you his name?’

‘It wasn’t that sort of conversation.’

Her sister sighed. ‘Trust you to miss an opportunity like that! Well, if he talks to you again find out if we’re right.’

‘I don’t intend talking to him again. I don’t like him.’

Gemma gave her a pitying look before turning away, and Katy knew she had gone down even further in her sister’s estimation. But surely this man couldn’t be Adam Wild? He was dressed so casually, for one thing, and as she had pointed out to Gemma, he was hardly likely to be sitting here.

Minutes later the air hostess came round with their afternoon tea, and Katy gratefully accepted the refreshing cup of tea that went with the light fare. She almost dropped her cup as she heard the girl call the man at her side ‘Mr Wild’, and as it was she spilt some of the hot liquid over her denims. It was him—Adam Wild!

She looked at him with new eyes, seeing the lines of dissipation and cynicism beside his nose and mouth, the worldly air that encircled him despite his casual clothing. God, no wonder he had coldly dismissed her; she was passably attractive, but the women he photographed were beautiful and sophisticated.

‘It’s soaking into your denims,’ he turned to her to remark patiently.

‘I—I beg your pardon?’ Katy jumped nervously as he spoke.

‘Your tea—you’re spilling it all over you.’ He took her cup out of her unresisting fingers and began mopping her up with his paper napkin. ‘Couldn’t you feel it dripping down on you?’ he asked, as if she were a particularly stupid child.

‘I—er——’ She licked her lips nervously, completely overwhelmed as he touched the inside of her thigh, purely to mop up the liquid, of course. ‘Yes,’ she nodded vigorously.

He shook his head. ‘Then why the hell didn’t you stop doing it?’

‘I—I—You see, Mr Wild, I——’

‘Ah,’ he nodded understanding, ‘you know who I am.’

‘I heard the air hostess,’ she confirmed, wishing he would stop touching her like that.

‘And you would like to take your clothes off for me.’ He finally sat back, discarding the tissue paper with a certain amount of disgust.

‘Certainly not!’ Katy gasped.

He studied her critically for several minutes. ‘You’ll never make it on the face alone. The bone structure is good, but it isn’t enough on its own. The clothes would have to come off. I’m sure that under that loose shirt and denims there’s a beautiful body just waiting to show itself.’

‘And I’m sure there’s no such thing!’ she told him indignantly, the totally assessing look in his eyes making her feel like wrapping her arms protectively about herself. ‘I’m not taking my clothes off for you or any other man!’

‘Why not?’

‘Why not? Because—well, because I—I don’t even know you!’

Once again he seemed amused by her. ‘What difference does that make? I think you could be very photogenic. Are your eyes really grey or is it my imagination?’

‘They’re grey,’ she snapped confirmation.

‘A lovely smoky grey. And hair the colour of toffee.’

‘Caramel!’ Katy corrected crossly.

He shrugged. ‘Okay, caramel. And there’s a beautiful body under all those clothes, right?’

‘Mind your own business!’

‘Beautiful bodies, female ones, are my business.’ He pulled a card out of his denim shirt pocket and handed it to her. ‘When you get back to London give me a call and we’ll try some practice sesssions.’

‘Practising for what?’ she asked spitefully.

His mouth hardened, his eyes glacial. ‘I’m thirty-six years old, give me sense enough not to chase after schoolgirls!’

‘I’m not a schoolgirl. I’m eighteen.’

‘Wow!’ he taunted sarcastically, picking up the card she had put on the arm of his seat and bending forward to put the card down the open vee of her shirt, leaving it nestling between her breasts. ‘If the rest of you looks as good as they feel,’ he removed his hand, ‘then I think I may be able to put some work your way.’

‘You can keep your work!’ She took out the card and ripped it into tiny pieces in front of him before putting it in the ashtray. ‘And anything else you have to offer.’

‘Okay,’ he shrugged. ‘If that’s the way you want it.’

‘It is,’ she told him firmly.

She didn’t know whether she was relieved or not when he finally seemed to fall asleep again. Her thoughts were much too chaotic for her to even attempt to sleep herself. No man had ever touched her so intimately, and especially so publicly. Colour flooded her cheeks as she remembered his suggestion that he photograph her nude.

‘Well?’ Gemma turned to her expectantly.

Katy didn’t even pretend not to know what her sister meant. ‘You were right, it is him.’