The Girl from Honeysuckle Farm / One Dance with the Cowboy. Jessica Steele

underwear she was conscious that her waterlogged bra and briefs were now transparent, the pink tips of her breasts hardened and clearly visible to the man staring at her.

      Her face glowed a fiery red. ‘A gentleman would turn his back,’ she hissed, with what voice she could find.

      Ty Allardyce favoured her with a hard stare, but was in no hurry to turn around. ‘So he would—for a lady,’ he drawled.

      Phinn wanted to hit him, but she wasn’t going any closer. And he, surveying her from her soggy braided hair down to the tip of her bare toes, took his time, his insolent gaze moving back up her long, long shapely legs, thighs and belly. By this time her arms were crossed in front of her body. Strangely, it was only when his glance rested on her fiercely blushing face that he gave her the benefit of the term ‘lady’ and, while still holding Ruby’s rein, turned his back on her.

      In next to no time Phinn had retrieved her dress and sandals and, having been careless how her dress had landed, found that her hands were shaking when she went to turn it right side out.

      But once she had her dress over her shoulders, she felt her former spirit returning. She had to go close up to him to take Ruby’s rein, and, as embarrassed as she felt, she somehow managed to find an impudent, ‘Lovely day for a dip!’

      His reply was to turn and favour her with one of his hard stares. It seemed to her as if he was deciding whether or not to pick her up and throw her in for another dip.

      Attempting to appear casual, she moved to the other side of Ruby. Not a moment too soon, she realised, as, not caring for her insolence, ‘That’s it!’ he rapped, his eyes angry on her by now much paler face. ‘I’ve warned you twice. You’ll receive notice from my lawyers in the morning.’

      ‘You have my address?’ she enquired nicely—and felt inclined to offer him her new address; but at his hard-eyed expression she thought better of it.

      Ty Allardyce drew one very harsh, long-suffering breath. ‘Enough!’ he snarled. ‘If you’re not on your way inside the next ten seconds, I shall personally be escorting you and that flea-bitten old nag off my land!’

      ‘Flea-bitten!’ she gasped. How dared he?

      ‘Now!’ he threatened, making a move to take Ruby’s rein from her.

      ‘Leave her alone!’ Phinn threatened back, her tone murderous as she knocked his hand away. She was not sure yet that she wasn’t going to hit him—he was well and truly asking for it! Emotional tears sprang to her eyes.

      Tears he spotted, regardless that she’d managed to hold them back and prevent them from falling. ‘Of for G—’ he began impatiently. And, as if more impatient with himself than with her, because her shining eyes had had more effect on him than her murderous threat, ‘Clear off, stay off—and leave my brother alone!’

      Only then did Phinn remember Ash. A quick glance to the other side of the pool showed he had recovered and was getting to his feet, which told her she could safely leave him. ‘Wouldn’t touch either of you with a bargepole,’ she told Ty loftily, and turned Ruby about and headed in the direction of the spinney.

      With everything that had taken place playing back in her mind, Phinn walked on with Ruby. She had no idea how long it was since she had seen Ash in trouble—ten perhaps fifteen minutes? A glance to her watch showed that it did not care much for underwater activity and would never be the same again.

      She felt ashamed that she had very nearly cried in front of that brute. Flea-bitten old nag! But she started to accept—now that she was away from him, away from the pool—that perhaps she had started to feel a bit of reaction after first seeing Ash in difficulties, taking a header in to get him out, and then, to top it all, being confronted by Ty Allardyce.

      Yes, it must be shock, she realised. There was no other explanation for her thinking, as she had at the time, that Ty Allardyce had been sensitive to a woman’s tears.

      Sensitive! She must be in shock still! That insensitive brute didn’t have a sensitive bone in his body! How could he have? He had actually called her darling Rubes a flea-bitten old nag! Oh, how she wished she had hit him.

      Well, one thing was for sure. She would take great delight in marking any lawyer’s letter that arrived for her tomorrow ‘address unknown’, before she happily popped it in the post box to be sent speedily straight back whence it came!

      CHAPTER THREE

      AS SOON as she had settled Ruby, Phinn went to the stable flat, stripped off, showered and washed the pool out of her hair. Donning fresh underwear, a pair of shorts and a tee shirt, she wrapped a towel around her hair and made herself a cup of tea. She admitted that she was still feeling a little shaken up by the afternoon’s events.

      Although, on reflection, she wasn’t sure which had disturbed her the most: the unexpectedness of coming upon Ash Allardyce without warning and her efforts to get the drowning man to the bank, or the fact that his hard-nosed brother had so insolently stood there surveying her when she had stood as near to naked as if it made no difference.

      He quite obviously thought she had taken advantage of the hot weather to strip off to her underwear and have a swim in waters that belonged to his lands. And he hadn’t liked that, had he? He with his, ‘Clear off, stay off—and leave my brother alone!’

      She cared not whether Ash ever told him the true facts of her swim. She had always swum there—weather permitting. Though she did recall one marvellously hysterical time when it had come on to rain while she and her father had been swimming, and he had declared that since they couldn’t get any wetter they might as well carry on swimming.

      Barefooted, she padded to get another towel and, because her long hair took for ever to dry naturally, she towelled it as dry as she could, brushed it out, and left her hair hanging down over her shoulders to dry when it would.

      Meantime, she packed her clothes and placed a couple of suitcases near the door, ready for when Mickie Yates would come round at three tomorrow afternoon. Now she had better start packing away her china, and the few ornaments and mementoes she had been unable to part with from her old home.

      The mantelpiece was bare, and she had just finished clearing the shelves, when someone came knocking at her door. Geraldine coming to check that she was truly leaving tomorrow, Phinn supposed, padding to the door. She pulled it open—only to receive another shock!

      Finding herself staring up into the cool grey eyes of Ty Allardyce, Phinn was for the moment struck dumb. And as he stared into her darkening blue eyes, he seemed in no hurry to start a conversation either.

      The fact that she was now dry, and clad in shorts and top, as opposed to dripping and in her underwear as the last time he had studied her, made Phinn feel no better. She saw his glance flick to her long strawberry-blonde hair, free from its plait, and pulled herself sharply together.

      ‘As I live and breathe—the lesser-spotted superior Allardyce,’ she waded in. ‘Now who’s trespassing?’

      To his credit, he took her remark equably. ‘I should like to talk to you,’ he said for openers.

      ‘Tough! Get off my—er…’ damn ‘…doorstep.’

      His answer to her command was to ignore it. And, much to her annoyance, he did no more than push his way into what had been her sitting room-cum-kitchen.

      ‘You’re leaving tomorrow?’ he suggested, his eyes moving from her suitcases to the boxes of packed teacups, plates and ornaments.

      Phinn fought to find some sharp comeback, but couldn’t find one. ‘Yes,’ she replied, belligerent because she saw no reason to be any other way with this man who wanted to curtail her right to use and respect his grounds as her own.

      ‘Where are you going?’ he enquired, and she hated it that, when she could never remember any man making her blush before, this man seemed to be able to do so without the smallest effort.

      ‘I—er…’