Private Lives. Carole Mortimer

own earlier embarrassment.

      Well, Fin, for one, didn’t feel in the least at a disadvantage. She knew she had a perfect right to be here, and she wanted an explanation as to why he was here. ‘I believe we are the ones who should be asking the questions, Mr …?’ She paused pointedly, but once again he chose to ignore her prompting to give his own name, meeting her gaze coolly, one brow raised in calm challenge. ‘We’re contracted to keep watch on the cottage whenever Gail is—– She didn’t tell us you were going to be here,’ Fin added stubbornly, refusing to be the one put in a position of explaining herself.

      He shrugged unconcernedly, crossing his arms in front of his bared chest, a plain gold watch on the wrist of his left arm. ‘That’s OK; she didn’t tell me about you either!’

      Impasse, Fin realised frustratedly. What should she do now? As far as she was aware, the man had done nothing but get drunk, very drunk, and fall asleep in Gail’s bed—without Gail. Naked. Fin mustn’t forget that, couldn’t forget it. Even now, with the denims resting low down on his hips to cover most of his nakedness, the tanned hardness of his chest caused her pulse to give a leap!

      And there was still that disturbing feeling she had that she knew this man. While he was standing up like this, his very size dominating the small confines of the room, that feeling was all the stronger. But she had been so young that she couldn’t remember exactly …

      ‘I’ll get in touch with Gail and have her call you,’ he added with arrogant dismissal.

      You may go now, Miss Whatever-your-name-is, Fin realised resentfully. He certainly had the damned arrogance of—– ‘I shall be telephoning her myself, Mr …?’ Once again she paused, and this time the determination in her face brooked no argument; she would at least know his name before she agreed to leave.

      ‘Danvers,’ he came back smoothly. Too smoothly? Had he taken those few minutes’ respite to give himself time to think of another identity for himself that would protect his anonymity …? ‘Jac—Jake Danvers,’ he added more confidently.

      But Fin had noted the slip, couldn’t help wondering if it really was significant or if she was just imagining things where there was nothing. But there had been that ‘Jac’, and, although the name was different, the initials were the same, J.D. …

      She nodded abruptly, frowning, deeply disturbed. ‘We’ll leave you in peace now, Mr Danvers.’ She gave a strained smile. ‘If you should need to contact us, we’re in the book,’ she offered with a politeness she was far from feeling. But if he really was a friend of Gail’s …

      ‘Under Little People,’ he acknowledged drily, the humour evident in his voice not reaching the coldness of his eyes.

      ‘Under Little People,’ she confirmed tersely, deciding then and there that she would try to contact Gail herself as soon as she got back to the office. The sooner the puzzle over this man’s identity was cleared up, the better it would be for everyone.

      Not least Fin’s mother …

       CHAPTER TWO

      ‘… JUST thought I should let you know, so that there’s no confusion, that my uncle will be staying at the cottage for a while,’ the recorded message told Fin dismissively. ‘He’s pretty capable of looking after himself, so I don’t think you’ll need to go to the cottage again until after he’s left,’ Gail added hastily. ‘But if you could just keep a distant eye on him …?’

      Fin switched the machine off as she realised that was the end of the message. The ‘confusion’ had already occurred. And Fin would hazard a guess on the reason Gail had asked for a ‘distant’ eye to be kept on Jake Danvers—that she was well aware of the fact that he wouldn’t welcome any intrusion into his privacy!

      She had tried to contact the other woman, once she’d got back to the office, at the telephone number she had for her in London, but there had been no reply. Gail was an actress, had been playing in a supporting role in one of London’s longest-running plays for the last nine months, and so at the moment she found it easier to stay in town during the week, and usually only managed to get down to the cottage on a Sunday overnight, hence her need for Fin to keep an eye on the cottage while she was away. Fin could only assume that the other woman was either sleeping at the moment after a late night at the theatre the night before, or else she was actually out; either way, Fin hadn’t actually been able to talk to her personally yet. What she had found, when she’d decided to leave calling Gail again until later in the day and got down to listening to the rest of her overnight messages, was that one of them was from Gail herself!

      It didn’t bother Fin that the check on the cottage was no longer necessary at the moment; they had always had a flexible arrangement on that—no doubt when Gail was ‘resting’ once again she would move back to the cottage permanently anyway. But uncle? It wasn’t exactly that Fin doubted the other woman’s word, it was just—well, Gail was a tall, leggy blonde with an effervescent personality, none of which, except perhaps the height, bore any resemblance to the taciturn man Fin had encountered at the cottage earlier. The facial characteristics of the two were dissimilar too, Gail’s eyes a deep, deep brown, her complexion fair, her mouth wide and smiling. But if Jake Danvers wasn’t really Gail’s uncle, then what was he? What, indeed …?

      It was really none of her business, Fin supposed ruefully; Gail was twenty-five, old enough to know exactly what she was doing. And take the consequences for it!

      Nevertheless, Fin’s own curiosity about Jake Danvers continued, and she went out of her way later in the morning to drive past the cottage, just to see if she might not get another glimpse of him. And reassure herself of how ridiculous her thoughts concerning his identity this morning had been, she tried to convince herself.

      She could see a movement out in the garden at the front of the cottage, hesitating only fractionally before turning the van down the gravel driveway, telling herself she was only making the call to let Jake Danvers know she had heard from Gail, and knew who he was now. It was a valid enough reason, but it wasn’t the true one …

      It was him out in the garden; he was pulling up weeds from the flowerbeds, didn’t acknowledge the arrival of the van, or her footsteps on the gravel as she crossed to stand beside the wall, looking over at him, by even so much as a brief break in his concentration on the back-bending work.

      He looked less strained than he had this morning—less hung-over, perhaps!—that grey tinge gone from his cheeks now, and instead sweat glistened on his face and body from his exertions, his skin seeming to have gone an even deeper brown just in this short time he must have spent out in the sun today, his hair falling untidily to his shoulders.

      Fin’s pulse skipped a beat just from her looking at the sheer animal magnetism of him, colour burning in her cheeks as he turned suddenly and caught her watching him with avid interest.

      He straightened abruptly, eyes narrowing almost accusingly, almost as if he really hadn’t been aware of her presence there, his attention so intent on something else. But surely not on weeding the garden, Fin doubted sceptically.

      ‘You again!’ he rasped harshly, looking down his arrogantly long nose at her. ‘Maybe you aren’t really one of the “little people”, but you certainly can creep around like one!’ he told her disgustedly.

      The name of her business had been a talking point from when she had first started out, but one of her advertising slogans at the time had been that ‘she came in, did the job, and left again, without bother or hindrance to her client. Almost as if she had never been there at all’. Just the way the ‘little people’ were reputed to do. There had been the added factor of her name, but she had always skimmed over that particular part of it.

      ‘I didn’t try to hide the fact that I was here,’ she defended a little indignantly. ‘I came down the driveway in the van.’ She pointed to the yellow-coloured vehicle parked a short distance away.

      His mouth