The Last Woman He'd Ever Date. Liz Fielding

poor. Sending the undeserving to the devil…

      That wasn’t how it was meant to be.

      But she hadn’t waited for an apology.

      After that first stricken look, she’d turned around and walked away from him without a word, without a backward glance as if he was still the village trash her father—taking his cue from Sir Robert—had thought him. As if she was still the Cranbrook estate’s little princess.

      The battered wheel ground against the mudguard and stuck, refusing to move another inch. Cursing the wretched thing, he propped it up out of sight behind a tree, then grabbing her shoe he strode after her.

      ‘Claire! Wait, damn it!’

      * * *

      Claire wanted to die.

      No, that was ridiculous. She wasn’t an idiot kid with a crush on the local bad boy. She was a responsible, sensible grown woman. Who wanted to die.

      How dare he!

      Easy… Hal North had always done just what he wanted, looked authority in the eye and dared anything, defying them to do their worst.

      How could she?

      How could she just stand there and let Hal North kiss her? Respond as if she’d been waiting half her life for him to do exactly that? Even now her senses were alight with the heat of it, the blood thundering around her body at the thrill of surrendering to it, letting go in a world-well-lost moment when nothing else mattered. Not her dignity, not her child…

      It had been everything her youthful imagination had dreamt about and more. Exhilarating, a dream-come-true moment to rival anything in a fairy tale.

      Appalling.

      She clung desperately to that word, closing her eyes in a vain attempt to blot out the warm, animal scent of his skin, the feel of his shoulders, solid beneath her hands as she’d clutched at them for support. The taste of his hard mouth lighting her up as if she’d been plugged into the national grid; softening from punishing to seductively tender as her lips had surrendered without a struggle to the silk of his tongue.

      ‘Didn’t you hear me?’

      Of course she’d heard him.

      “Wait, damn it…”

      He’d sounded angry.

      Why would he be angry? He was the one who’d kissed her without so much as a by-your-leave…

      ‘I brought your shoe,’ he said.

      She took it from him without slowing down, without looking at him. It was caked in wet sticky mud and she tossed it defiantly back into the ditch.

      ‘That was stupid.’

      ‘Was it?’ Probably. Undoubtedly. She’d come back and find it later. ‘What’s your on-the-spot fine for littering?’

      ‘Are you sure you want to know?’

      She stubbed her toe on a root and he caught her arm as she stumbled.

      ‘Get lost, Hal,’ she said, attempting to shake him off. He refused to be shaken and she glared up at him. ‘Are you escorting me off the premises?’

      Bad choice of words, she thought as his mouth tightened.

      ‘It’s for your own safety.’

      ‘Safety? Archie isn’t going to bother me now I’m on foot, but who’s going to keep me safe from you?’ she demanded, clearly not done with ‘stupid.’

      ‘You’ve had a shock,’ he replied, all calm reason, which just made her all the madder.

      ‘Now you’re concerned!’

      Too right she’d had a shock. She’d had a shock right down to her knees but it had nothing to do with Archie and everything to do with crashing into Hal North. Everything to do with the fact that he’d kissed her. That she’d kissed him back as if she’d been waiting to do that all her life. Maybe she had…

      How dare he be all calm reason when she was a basket case?

      ‘It’s a bit late to start playing knight errant don’t you think?’

      ‘You’re mistaking me for someone else.’

      ‘Not in a hundred years,’ she muttered, catching her breath as she stepped on a sharp stone, gritting her teeth to hold back the expletive, refusing to let him see that she was in pain.

      The last thing she needed was a smug I-told-you-so from Hal North.

      It did have the useful side effect of preventing her from saying anything else she’d regret when Hal moved his hand from her arm and looped it firmly around her waist, taking her weight so that she had no choice but to lean into the solid warmth of his body, allow him to support her.

      The alternative was fighting him which would only make things worse as she limped the rest of the way home, her head against his shoulder, her cheek against the hard cloth of his overalls. The temptation was to simply surrender to the comfort, just as she’d surrendered to his kiss and it took every crumb of concentration to mentally distance herself from the illusion of safety, of protection and pray that he’d put her erratic breathing down to ‘shock.’

      When they reached her gate, she allowed herself to relax and took the fishing rod when he handed it to her, assuming he meant her to give it back to Gary.

      ‘Thank you…’ The word ended in a little shriek as he bent and caught her behind the knees, scooping her up like some bride being carried over the threshold. Hampered by the rod, she could do nothing but fling an arm around his neck and hang on as he strode along the gravel path that led around the house to the back door.

      ‘Key?’ he prompted, as he deposited her with an equal lack of ceremony on the doorstep.

      ‘I’m home. Job done,’ she said, propping the rod by the door, waiting for him to leave. She was damned if she was going to say thank you again.

      ‘Are you going to be difficult?’ he asked.

      ‘You bet.’

      He shrugged, glanced around, spotted the brick where she hid her spare key. ‘My mother used to keep it in the same place,’ he said, apparently oblivious to her huff of annoyance as he retrieved it and opened the door. ‘In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s the same brick.’

      ‘Go away,’ she said, kicking off her remaining shoe in the scullery where the boots and coats were hung.

      ‘Not before the statutory cup of hot, sweet tea,’ he said, following her inside and easing off his own boots.

      Her suit was damp and muddy, her foot was throbbing and her body, a jangle of sore, aching bits demanding her attention now that she’d come to a halt, responded with a tiny ‘yes, please’ whimper. She ignored it.

      ‘I don’t take sugar.’

      ‘I do.’

      Behind her, the phone began to ring. She ignored it for as long as she could, daring him to take another step then, with what she hoped was a careless shrug—one that her shoulder punished her for—she limped, stickily, into the kitchen and lifted the receiver from the cradle.

      ‘Claire Thack…’

      Hal pulled out a chair, tipped off the two sleeping cats and, taking her arm, eased her down into it before crossing to the kettle.

      ‘Claire?’

      ‘Oh, Brian…’

      ‘Is there a problem?’ Brian Gough, the news editor, sounded concerned rather than annoyed, but then she had always striven to be one hundred per cent reliable—hoarding those Brownie points that every working mother needed against the days when her daughter was sick and her needs had to come before everything, even the desperate necessity of making a career for herself. ‘Only I’ve just had