The Millionaire's Marriage Claim
Two hours later, the hut was quiet and dim.
Jo had eaten a few spoonfuls of baked beans, she’d attended to a call of nature in the rough outhouse attached to the hut, and been attended in turn by her captor. When she’d finished, they’d both stood outside for a short time, listening and trying to probe the dense, chill darkness for any sign of life, but there had been none.
In Jo’s case, she’d also been trying to get her bearings just in case an opportunity to escape came up.
Then he’d shepherded her inside and told her to go to sleep.
The beds were along the walls at right angles to each other, their thin grey and white ticking mattresses unadorned by sheets, although each bed had one dismal-looking pillow and one hairy-looking blanket.
She took her anorak off again and her boots, and prepared to lie down, but he stopped her suddenly.
‘Get your night gear on,’ he ordered.
‘What for?’
‘You are going to bed.’
She gestured contemptuously. ‘You call this a bed?’
‘It’s all there is.’
‘Perhaps, but I’d feel much happier in my clothes. There could be fleas, there could be ticks, there could be—anything.’
‘All the same, Jo, I’d rather you got into your PJs. I’ll get them for you.’ He picked up her bag.
‘No—hang on!’ she protested with her hands planted on her hips. ‘If you think I’m going to afford you some kind of a peep show, if that’s why you want me to change into pyjamas, you’re mistaken, Dick!’
He raised a lazy eyebrow and scanned her from head to toe. Her hands-on-hips posture and her straight back made the jut of her breasts particularly enticing beneath the fine pale blue wool of her jumper.
‘What a pleasant thought,’ he said softly, eyeing the outline of her nipples and the narrowness of her waist. ‘But—’ his lips twitched as she looked downwards and hastily amended her stance ‘—sadly, it wasn’t what I had in mind. I fully intended to step outside while you changed.’
‘So why…what…?’ She stared at him in confusion.
‘It’s simple, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘You’re much less likely to be running around the countryside in your nightwear, should you devise some devilish plan of escape. Apart from anything else—’ he smiled at her with pure devilry ‘—you’d freeze. Don’t be long,’ he added. ‘I’m not too happy about freezing either.’ He stepped outside.
Jo unclenched her jaw and said every swear word she could think of beneath her breath. But there was nothing for it other than to retrieve the least revealing of the two pairs of pyjamas she’d packed, and change into them.
‘Decent?’ he called.
‘Yes.’
‘Decent and—mad,’ he murmured as he came in, closed the door behind him and rearranged the blanket. ‘Mmm.’ He scanned her from head to toe. ‘I see you kept your bra on. Not much protection against—anything, I would have thought.’
Jo looked down at her pyjamas. In a fine white cotton, with bands of filigree embroidery, her bra was visible beneath the top, but the alternative had been a pair of short, sleeveless pyjamas in a sensuous lilac satin.
She raised her gaze to his face. ‘I’ll get even with you one day for all this if it’s the last thing I do.’
‘Should be interesting. Go to bed, Jo.’
‘What…what are you going to do?’
‘Wait and watch, what else?’
‘If you dare try crawling into my bed—’ she began, but he cut her off.
‘I don’t actually hold with rape, whatever else you may think of me. I prefer my women warm and willing. Unless—’ he cocked an eyebrow at her ‘—a bit of hostility is what turns you on?’
‘You’re disgusting,’ she said through her teeth.
He laughed softly. ‘There is quite—a body of evidence that would disagree with you.’
‘I can imagine. Gangster molls, no doubt.’
His expression cooled. ‘Certainly none of them have been as good an actress as you are, my dear.’ He turned away to pick up her boots, her anorak and her bag of clothes and he slung them onto the loft.
Jo could have screamed from frustration. Instead, with an expression of rigid distaste but supreme self-control, she lay down on the bed and pulled the blanket up.
Sleep, of course, was the furthest thing from her mind, although she closed her eyes a couple of times as the fire in the stove burnt low, and her captor lounged back in the armchair—with his gun across his knees.
If she could feign sleep, she reasoned, perhaps he would lower his guard, even fall asleep himself? But what could she do if she managed to sneak out of the hut? He had her car keys in his pocket and he’d locked the car; her clothes and boots were out of reach. And, as he had so diabolically foreseen, running around the rough terrain outside in her bare feet and pyjamas was highly unappealing if not to say inviting pneumonia and injury.
But perhaps I could hide, she mused. He doesn’t appear to have a torch and perhaps I could sneak a blanket out with me?
She strained her eyes in the gloom and stared at the door. There was no lock, only a bolt on the inside and—her heart started to beat faster as she remembered—a bolt on the outside as well. How much better if she could not only sneak out and find a place to hide, but lock the man inside the hut as well? If he was trying to escape detection for whatever reason, he’d hardly shoot his way out of the hut…
She took some deep breaths to compose herself and moved slightly. The bed squeaked a bit but he didn’t stir.
Gotcha, she thought, but decided to wait a while longer in case he was only cat-napping.
Ten minutes later, she sat up cautiously, and waited. No movement from the armchair, so she eased herself off the bed and flinched at the series of squeaks. Still no movement from the chair, though, but she stood quietly, trying to adjust her eyes to the gloom. The fire was nearly out in the stove but eventually she could see him. He was sprawled out with his head back and one arm hanging over the side of the chair.
The gun was still in his lap and an almost overwhelming temptation came to her—she only had to steal forward and grab it—but she had no knowledge of guns at all. What was there to know, though? Anyone could pull a trigger, not necessarily at him, but if he knew she was prepared to fire the damn gun wouldn’t that be enough?
Then he moved and she froze. But all he did was turn slightly and bring his arm up so that his hand rested across the gun. And he muttered something unintelligible, but slept on.
Almost weak with relief, Jo stayed where she was for a few minutes, but decided that grabbing the gun was out—she could get herself shot. And she lifted the blanket off the bed and tiptoed towards the door where, with infinite care, she moved the blanket covering it aside and eased the bolt ever so slowly backwards.
‘Nice try, darling.’
She nearly jumped a foot off the floor and lurched round to find him standing behind her with the gun pointed straight at her heart. How he’d got there so soundlessly was a mystery.
‘Wh-what woke you?’ she stammered.
‘Don’t know. Some sixth sense, maybe. What—’ he looked at her ironically ‘—did you hope to achieve, Jo?’
Her shoulders slumped. ‘I don’t know. But,’ she said with more spirit, ‘I couldn’t just lie there and accept—fate or whatever!’
He stared down at her. There was an agitated pulse thudding at the base of her throat and her eyes were wide and terrified but also stubborn.
He heaved an inward sigh and lowered the gun. Whatever she was, this woman was getting to him, he acknowledged. There were things he couldn’t help admiring about her. You had to be brave to try to escape out into an unknown landscape on a frigid night with no shoes and only an old blanket.
But he still couldn’t afford to take the chance that she wasn’t who she said she was, however brave and—all the rest.
He turned away to put some more wood in the stove, then he stretched and studied his options. He had no idea what had woken him but one thing he did know—over twenty-four hours without sleep was taking its toll and his gaze fell longingly on the beds.
‘OK,’ he said, ‘here’s what we’ll do.’ He pushed her bed lengthwise against the other one, closing it in against the wall. ‘You hop into that one—’ he indicated the one against the wall ‘—and I’ll use this one.’
She opened her mouth to protest but he forestalled her wearily. ‘Jo, you’re in no physical danger from me. However, I should warn you that the only way you can escape from that bed is to climb over me, and you mightn’t find me in as conciliatory a mood were you to try. Now will you hop in?’
She hesitated, then did as she was told, to lie with her back to the second bed. He put her blanket over her and lay down, grappling with his own.
He was right, she realized. There was probably two inches’ leeway from the other walls at the head and the foot of both beds so she was effectively penned in. She sighed and wriggled a bit to get comfortable.
A sleepy voice behind her said, ‘You’re right. These are only an apology for beds. You’ll be pleased to hear, if you are Joanne Lucas, wandering portrait painter, that the beds up at the homestead are much more comfortable.’
‘How would you know?’
‘I’ve tried ’em.’
Jo frowned. ‘These people you imagine I’m part of—who are they? And why are you running from them?’
‘Kidnappers, as if you didn’t know.’
Jo cast her blanket aside and sat up. ‘Oh, this is ridiculous! Why would anyone, but particularly me, want to kidnap you?’
‘For my sins,’ her captor said, ‘I happen to be Gavin Hastings the Fourth.’
CHAPTER TWO
JO WAS struck speechless for several minutes, but her mind was jumping as she recalled her several conversations with Mrs Adele Hastings, his—if he was who he said he was—mother!
She could only describe Adele Hastings as talkative. A child called Rosie had featured frequently in her conversations, but Jo had never been able to work out whose child she was.
Her son Gavin had also featured prominently, so that Jo was in the possession, quite ancillary to the business of doing the lady’s portrait, of a store of knowledge about Gavin Hastings.
He was an excellent son, a bit high-handed at times, mind you, a bit prone to getting his own way, but extremely capable, he could turn his hand to just about anything, which he needed to be able to do to run the vast Hastings empire inherited from his father…and so Mrs Hastings had gone on, although admittedly in very well-bred tones.
Jo had done a bit of research on the family and discovered that it was quite a dynasty. The first Gavin Hastings had been a pioneer. His grandson, Gavin’s father, had not only extended the family holdings, he’d diversified into cattle. He’d also married Adele Delaney, daughter of a press baron. Jo hadn’t researched any further since it was Adele’s portrait she was doing.
How come, though, she wondered, Adele hadn’t told her excellent, high-handed—that bit was quite believable!—son about the portrait? And how come Mrs Hastings wasn’t on Kin Can? On the other hand, if he was who he said he was, it explained the fine clothes, the watch, the cultured accent, although it still seemed incomprehensible he didn’t know about the portrait.
She looked down at her captor to pose this question to him, but Gavin Hastings the Fourth was fast asleep.
Jo sank back to her pillow thoughtfully. The light from the stove was stronger now and she didn’t have to peer through the gloom to make out his features. In repose, he looked younger, but she guessed he was around thirty-four.
Sleep, however, didn’t diminish his good looks, although it did present him as much less arrogant. Above the bristles his skin was lightly tanned, his dark eyebrows less satanic, and his mouth that could be so hard or smile so sardonically, insolently, ironically—she had a whole range of less-than-pleasant expressions to recall even after such a short acquaintance—was relaxed and well cut.
One couldn’t doubt, she decided, that, all spruced up, Gavin Hastings would be dynamically attractive.
He could also be extremely unpleasant, she reminded herself. He could be cutting and unforgivably personal even if he was being pursued by a gang of kidnappers—and she still had to prove to him she was no ‘gangster’s moll’.
Perhaps if she drew his portrait he’d believe her? Not now, of course, but at the first opportunity. As for being in a kidnap situation with him…
Her tired brain gave up at that point, and she fell asleep.
She had no idea how much later it was when she was wrenched awake by a drumming sound. She sat up with her hand to her throat and a dry mouth, only to feel someone’s arm slide around her and hear a voice say, ‘It’s rain. Good news, really.’
‘Who…what…?’ It all came tumbling back to her. ‘Rain! It sounds like a machine gun!’
‘Old tin roof, no insulation, that’s all.’
Jo shivered. There was no sign of light coming from the stove and it was very cold. ‘Why good news?’ she asked.
‘Should make it harder for them to find us, assuming they’re still looking—I don’t know about you, but I’m freezing.’
‘You could always build up the fire,’ she suggested.
She heard a low chuckle. ‘Got a better idea. Lie back, Miss Lucas—I presume it is Miss?’
Jo ignored the question and asked one of her own. ‘Why?’
‘So we can cuddle up and put both blankets over us.’
‘That is not on my agenda!’
‘Well, it is on mine.’ And Jo found herself being propelled backwards into his arms.
‘I always suspected it would come to this,’ she said bitterly.
‘What?’
She swallowed.
‘You have a bad mind, Josie,’ he said into her hair. ‘Are you off men for some reason? Is that why there’s this intense suspicion?’
‘Sharing a bed with a stranger—being forced to,’ she amended, ‘is enough to make any woman suspicious, surely? Not to mention all the rest of it. After all, you were the one who brought up seduction in the first place.’
‘For my sins again,’ he murmured. ‘But you have to admit it’s warmer like this.’
It was. It also felt—she couldn’t quite work out why—safer. Because she knew who he was now? And knew she was on the side of the ‘goodies’? Still very much suspect, of course, she reminded herself, but talk about a series of incredible coincidences!
One thing she was certain of, though, she had not missed Kin Can’s main gate, so what had happened to it?
She opened her mouth, not only to bring that up, but so much more. Did he have any idea who his potential kidnappers were? How had he escaped them? But his deep, slow breathing and the relaxation of his arm about her waist told her he was asleep again.
She smiled unexpectedly. So much for seduction. But if you could believe what he himself had alluded to, a body of evidence—a whole lot of women who found him attractive, in other words—suggested he was a much safer bet asleep.
What kind of women appealed to him? she wondered suddenly. Gorgeous? Definitely. Sexy? Had to be. Joanne Lucas?
She moved abruptly and removed herself from beneath his arm and slid cautiously onto the other bed, still trying to share both blankets. He didn’t move at all.
It was barely dawn when Gavin Hastings stirred and lay still again. Then he sniffed and frowned. His cheek was resting against someone’s hair, hair that felt silky soft and gave up the faint fragrance of—what?
For some reason, a bottle of shampoo swam into his mental vision, a clear plastic bottle decorated with apples and pears and filled with green liquid—of course! Amongst Joanne Lucas’s toiletries had been just such a bottle of shampoo; it was her hair and it smelled very faintly of pears.
Something else from her toiletries swam into his mind; a pink lady’s razor with which, no doubt, she shaved those long, lovely legs. He rubbed his jaw wistfully. Even a pink razor would be extremely welcome to someone who hadn’t shaved for two days.
Then his mind wandered onto another pleasure—the woman sleeping peacefully in his arms. Her body was soft and warm against his, in fact her curves felt sensational nestled into him and, he reflected ruefully, he had better get himself out of this situation before a certain claim he’d made earlier proved to be incorrect.
But, as he moved Jo Lucas gently away from him, she murmured softly, a small sound of protest, and she buried her head against his shoulder.
A spark of humour lit his eyes. You’re going to hate me when I make mention of this, Josie, and if you get on your high horse again, as you most likely will, I shall no doubt bring it up…won’t be able to resist it!
The humour died as he stared down at the sleeping girl in his arms. Not only the perfume of her hair, but her smooth, soft skin and her warm, lovely body teased his senses.
His memory took flight again, not to a bottle of shampoo this time, but the vision of her without her cargo pants and the high, rounded swell of her hips beneath a pair of no-nonsense Bonds Cottontails. If she was a pleasure to study from the front, he thought, it would surely be a sheer pleasure to watch her walking away from you with those hips swinging beneath a flimsy skirt…
He dragged his mind back with an effort. Who the hell was she? Not only that, how often had he used women to make him forget, only to find they were an anodyne but not the real thing?
He got out of the bed less than gently and stretched vigorously. When he turned back, Jo’s eyes were open, and completely bewildered.
‘Morning, Miss Lucas,’ he said briskly. ‘Time to get back to the fray.’
Jo stayed exactly as she was for a long moment, then she sat up abruptly and combed her hair back with her fingers. ‘Good morning.’
‘Sleep well?’ he enquired with a mocking tinge of irony.
‘I…er…must have. I don’t seem to remember much about it.’
‘Just as well.’ He waited, bastard that he was, as her eyes looked confused again, then he changed the subject completely. ‘You may not have noticed but it’s still raining. Here’s what I suggest—we make use of your fold-up umbrella to visit the outhouse, then you can do what you like while I do a recce.’
‘Do what I like?’ Jo repeated uncertainly.
‘Get dressed in peace, perhaps heat some water on the stove for a wash—I’ll build up the fire—or, contemplate your navel if that’s what you prefer to do at this hour of the morning.’
Her eyes darkened and he knew it would have given her great pleasure to tell him to get lost, but in much more colourful language. She kept her mouth shut, however, and climbed out of bed.
‘Here.’ Something made him take pity on her, and he reached for her anorak. ‘Wear this.’
She accepted it but refused to look at him, even when he pulled her bags and boots down as well.
Fifteen minutes later Jo was on her own in the hut, bolted in from the outside to her intense annoyance, but he had got the fire going and there were both the coffee-pot and a pot of water for washing simmering on the stove.
After a brief wash and dressing in a fleecy-lined grey tracksuit, she felt a lot better. She brushed her hair and tied it back and made herself a pot of coffee. And she pictured Gavin Hastings reconnoitring with, not only her fold-up umbrella, but the plastic poncho she always carried—neither of which would afford him great protection, but they had to be better than nothing in the downpour outside.
Gavin Hastings, she reflected, who had made a nasty little remark about something it was just as well she couldn’t remember—what?
She surely couldn’t have slept through his taking advantage of her in any way. She surely wouldn’t have taken advantage of him in any way so…?
She glanced over at the two beds. Only one of them, narrow as it was, still bore the sagging imprint of being slept on. She clicked her teeth together in sheer annoyance.
She must have spent the night in his arms, right up close and personal. Only two bodies in one dilapidated old bed made for one body would cause it to stay sagged like that. To make it worse, the sagging bed was his, the bed on the outside, so she must have been the one to move over.
Clearly a tactical error, she thought, even if I was half asleep. I must have been cold and scared—I must have been mad!
The coffee-pot bubbled at that point, so she poured herself a mug and tried to turn her mind away from things she couldn’t change. Then she remembered her idea of doing his portrait in a bid to prove she was who she’d said she was.
It turned out to be an exercise with curious side effects as she opened her pencil box and tore a piece of cartridge paper in half…
She’d always been a sketcher. For as long as she could remember, she’d doodled and etched and found it a great comfort, but paints had never particularly appealed to her. She’d tried watercolours, oils and acrylics but found that none of them was her medium.
At eighteen, however, her life had changed dramatically and she’d gone to art school for a year. That was where she’d discovered oil crayons—and it had all fallen into place. It had not been a lack of colour appreciation, her failure with paint, it had been her difficulty in merging the two techniques, drawing and painting.
Oil crayons allowed her to draw in colour, and she virtually hadn’t stopped since the discovery. So that now, at twenty-four, she had a small but growing reputation in portraiture.
Of course, doing portraits had its downside. You were often at the mercy of less-than-likeable characters and your fingers itched to portray them that way. It had, however, gained her recognition, and once that reputation was well established she would be able to draw what she pleased and sell it—landscapes and particularly children, whom she loved to draw, although not necessarily as their parents wanted them portrayed.
As she organized herself as best she could, she practised a familiar technique. She breathed deeply and cleared her mind—and she called up her captor.
As always, some emotions came with the image she was seeing in her mind’s eye, her reaction to her subject, but what caused her to blink in surprise was the veritable kaleidoscope of emotions that came along with Gavin Hastings’s dark, good-looking face.
She discovered that her fingers longed to score and slash lines and angles onto the paper with her crayons in a caricature of the devil with very blue eyes.
Jo, Jo, she chided herself, if he’s to be believed, he’s been subject to a kidnap attempt so he’s bound to be antsy!
Doesn’t matter, she retorted. I don’t like him, but I especially don’t like the way I do like some things about this man I don’t like. And I resent wondering, actually wondering, what he thinks of me!
She stared down at the still-pristine piece of paper beneath her fingers and was horrified to find herself breathing raggedly. This isn’t going to work, she thought. There’s only one way I can draw Gavin Hastings with any peace of mind and that’s asleep.
She had no idea how much later it was when she heard the bolt being withdrawn on the other side of the door, but some instinct made her throw her anorak over all the evidence of her endeavours.
He came in looking as mean and nasty as any demented bushranger, daubed with mud and soaking wet.
Her eyes widened, then she looked at her watch and realized he’d been away for over an hour. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
‘Concerned for me, maybe even missed me?’ he queried sardonically. ‘No, I’m not all right. Put some water on to boil.’
Jo opened her mouth to take issue with his manner, then changed her mind, and he started to peel off his clothes.
‘Uh—what happened to the umbrella and the poncho?’ she ventured.
‘They were about as useless as a pocket handkerchief so I threw them away.’
Joanne listened to the rain pounding on the roof for a moment. ‘Yes, well, they weren’t designed for this kind of downpour.’ She refilled the coffee-pot and set it on the stove. ‘Did you—achieve anything?’ She turned to look at him, but turned away abruptly—he was down to his underpants and socks. Then she took hold and told herself not to be spinsterish. ‘Here.’