The Pleasures of Summer (19 page)

‘Carry it yourself. I don’t want to break another nail.’

Flynn turned. ‘Summer, I’m your bodyguard. I have to keep my hands free at all times. Now, fetch the box.’

Muttering under her breath, she went to the back of the Jeep and hefted out a cardboard box. She watched as Flynn pushed his way into the cottage. It wasn’t locked. How could it be a safe house if it didn’t even have a lock on the front door? She followed him inside. A large cobweb brushed against her hair and she screamed and shook her head, trying to brush it away. Summer blinked, trying to adjust to the lack of light.

Flynn grabbed it, and dropped her on a rough-hewn table and a cloud of dust rose into the air. ‘Make yourself at home.’

‘Home? This is your home?’ She could barely get the words out. Flynn was joking. Any minute now he would laugh.

He wasn’t smiling.

Summer stared into the dim recesses of the cottage. The ground floor consisted of one room. A large stone fireplace took up half of one wall. An iron hook was suspended over the hearth and on it hung a blackened cauldron. She had seen one just like it in photographs of
her great-grandmother’s house. There was no cooker. No shiny microwave oven. No stainless steel floor-to-ceiling fridge, just a deep Belfast sink with a single tap. A rickety wooden ladder led to a loft.

Flynn looked around as if seeing it for the first time. ‘You’re probably thinking that it needs a bit of work,’ he said, without a trace of irony.

‘Work? It needs to be demolished.’

‘My great-grandmother gave birth to four children here. This croft has been in the family since 1745.’

‘And it obviously hasn’t been redecorated since then. Take me home.’

The look he gave her was frankly dangerous. ‘For the next month, this is your home. Now get the rest of the stuff from the Jeep while I get the fire started. It gets a bit chilly here at night.’

Jeep. The Jeep! Why hadn’t she thought of that? Flynn could play at being king of the wild frontier; she was heading for the nearest five-star hotel. She allowed her shoulders to slump in defeat. ‘Fine, but I need the bathroom first.’

His mouth was twitching again and that usually meant that something nasty was coming. ‘Be my guest. It’s this way.’

She hadn’t noticed the other doorway behind the ladder. It creaked as he opened it outwards onto an overgrown path behind the cottage. Twenty feet away was a small tin hut. Some wit had painted the word ‘spa’ in red paint on the door.

With a murderous glance in his direction, she strode up the path. Kill him. She wanted to kill him.

Flynn whistled. ‘Hey, Princess, you might need this.’

A roll of toilet paper sailed through the air, landing in a patch of nettles beside her. As she scrambled to retrieve it, she could hear Flynn’s laughter echoing in the hills behind. He was going to pay for this.

Summer waited until she was sure he was inside the cottage then she retraced her steps, crouching low when she neared the window. He probably wouldn’t see her through the glass anyway, it was so filthy.

She opened the door of the Jeep and slid into the driver’s seat. It had been a while since she had driven something this ancient. She eyed the gear stick, hoping she remembered how to drive stick shift. Summer reached for the ignition. There were no keys. She looked around her, checking the glove compartment, behind the sun visor. They weren’t here.

‘Looking for these?’ Flynn dangled the leather key fob in front of her.

‘Did anyone ever tell you that you were a bastard?’

‘Frequently.’ Flynn grinned at her. ‘It’s almost a term of affection. Now, stop messing around and get the rest of the stuff.’

He sauntered away, carrying the dark holdall she remembered from London. Could life get any better? She was stuck in the wilds of god knows where with a man who wouldn’t travel anywhere without his gun.

She struggled into the croft, carrying a cardboard box of what felt like weights. Summer huffed a breath as she slid the box onto the table. Curiosity got the better of her and she opened the lid. Tins of soup, meat and vegetables stared back at her. She pulled out one tin. The cheerful yellow label
announced that it was alphabet spaghetti in tomato sauce. Great. All she needed now was a white rabbit.

‘I need to set up the perimeter alerts,’ Flynn said. He took a handful of short metal posts from his bag. They had something electronic on top of them.

‘What is that?’ she asked. She had never seen anything like them before.

‘They’ll warn us if anyone approaches.’

She must have looked puzzled.

‘They’re a bit like breaking the electronic line when you win a race. They’ll trigger an alarm.’ He headed outside with them.

‘I need to lie down,’ she said to herself.

Summer looked around her. Bedroom. She hadn’t thought about sleeping arrangements. There was barely room to swing a cat down here. That only left …

She eyed the rickety ladder. It was too much to hope that there was a king sized bed with an en suite up there. There was no point in putting it off.

The open platform overlooked the room below. A large wooden chest sat against the gable wall of the house. On top of it was a dusty china basin and matching jug; the cheerful red roses were at odds with the rest of the cabin. A cracked shaving mirror completed the facilities. Worst of all was the iron frame resting against one wall. It gave the phrase ‘making the bed’ a whole new meaning. Flynn would have to put it together before they could sleep.

Downstairs she heard him whistling cheerfully as he stacked the tins on a shelf beside the sink. Summer sank down onto a low, three-legged stool. She was in the middle of a nightmare. A month in the country? More like a
month in hell. Tears pricked behind her eyelids but she wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

Flynn probably thought it was hilarious. Well, he could laugh on the other side of his face. Compared with what she had been through the previous year, this was nothing. She could almost hear her father’s voice. This was a skirmish, nothing more. The war was still waiting to be won.

She was still planning her strategy for getting away from Flynn and back to civilization when he called from below. Downstairs was too grand a name for it. ‘Dinner is served.’

Was he serious? He hadn’t had time to cook. She peeked down and saw that he had scrubbed down the table and there was something on it. She considered staying where she was just to make the point that he couldn’t push her around, but it had been a long time since breakfast.

Summer climbed down the ladder, holding her breath at the creaking of the rungs, and very conscious of Flynn’s eyes on her ass as she descended.

Flynn whistled. ‘Very nice. You have great legs. And a great arse. And –’

‘If you’re quite finished.’ Summer gave him an icy glare, channelling her father, who could make grown men shrivel with a glance. She wondered if she should have let him say what the other great thing was, then pulled herself up. She had no intention of spending a month here with this oaf, but for whatever short time she was here, she was going to make it clear that she was in charge.

‘I haven’t even started, sweetheart,’ he assured her.

She refused to react to the promise in that statement. He was
so
not her type, and he was going to learn that. It didn’t matter a damn what he looked like naked, or that he could reduce her to quivering jelly when he –. She cut off
that line of thought. Not the time or place. He had been horrible to her. He had thrown her into a shower and tried to make her eat porridge this morning. It would never be the time or place again.

‘I hope you’re hungry,’ he said.

She was, and could have cheerfully eaten live bugs or whatever rotten things they served up on reality jungle shows. But the sight of the table laid out in front of her almost killed her appetite. There was crispbread, tinned tuna, vacuum-packed ham, a couple of slightly shrivelled apples and a bottle of scrumpy. That was probably warm.

‘That’s it?’ She stared at the meal in disbelief. ‘This is the best you could come up with?’

He shrugged, unperturbed. ‘Most of that stuff needs cooking and I reckoned you wouldn’t want to wait while I chopped wood, cleaned the chimney and lit a fire. Think of it as a picnic.’

‘That’s your idea of a picnic? I bet you never get a second date, do you?’

He grinned. ‘Oh, I get some, but it’s not the food they’re after.’

She ignored that – damn it, she had already had a sample of why a girl would come back for a second date with him, and she was not going to go there. There was one chair whose wickerwork seat still looked usable. It would be all the better for a good scrubbing, so Summer picked up Flynn’s jacket, laid it across the seat, and sat down.

Flynn pulled up a stool and sat on it. He should have looked ridiculous, but still managed to generate an air of danger.

Ignoring the tuna and ham, she bit into an apple and
chewed with relish. Even warm, it was the best thing she had eaten all day, and she closed her eyes in appreciation of the scented sweetness.

She opened them to find Flynn staring at her through half-closed lids. His mouth was set in a sensual line that caused her stomach to do an unexpected flip. He had no right to be as handsome as he was. Bodyguards were supposed to be unobtrusive, not look like a teenager’s fantasy.

To cover her reaction, she picked up the bottle and took a slug. The rough bite of the scrumpy took her by surprise, catching the back of her throat and setting it on fire. She coughed. ‘What is that?’ she wheezed, her eyes watering.

‘Niall’s homemade scrumpy. Nothing will convince him it’s not haute cuisine and will be a huge seller.’

For a moment, she met his eyes in appalled understanding. The idea that anyone would like this rotgut was hilarious. She took another bite of her apple to scrub the taste from her mouth. The combination of scrumpy and apple worked surprisingly well.

‘Are you not going to eat your ham?’ Flynn asked.

She pursed her lips. ‘I’m vegetarian. I can’t eat this.’

He stared. ‘Since when? I saw you eating veal.’

‘You’re imagining it. I have always refused to despoil my stomach by eating dead animals.’ She tried to look saintly and pious. ‘We have a duty to look after our fellow creatures as we travel through this world.’

Flynn snorted and helped himself to three slices of ham from her plate. ‘I’ve seen you look after your fellow man, all right.’

‘Oh!’ She had no illusions about what he meant. She took another swig of the scrumpy. This time it wasn’t so rough, and she managed to get it down without choking. She tried again, and it was almost pleasant.

‘That stuff is full of processed crap and chemicals. You’ll die early from eating it, you know that?’ She hadn’t intended to say that, but the habit of years of watching her father’s diet was kicking in.

‘Better than MREs,’ he said. She wasn’t going to ask him what an MRE was. It sounded nasty. She tossed the core of the apple at the huge fireplace and picked up a second one. It was almost as delicious as the first one and she ate slowly to make it last. She was not going to eat that awful stuff on the table.

‘Are these the sort of culinary delights I can look forward to at every meal?’ Summer used her most polite voice. She was going to cut him to slices when he came up with excuses.

‘Oh no, you are going to provide the culinary delights from now on.’

‘What?’

‘You’ll be doing the cooking. After all, you’re the female.’

‘No, no, you did not just say that.’

He grinned at her outrage. ‘I’m the bodyguard. My contract clearly says that the principal is responsible for providing all my meals. I like my eggs sunny side up.’

‘You expect me to –’ She spluttered to a halt. ‘Do you know I have an MBA? That I have an IQ of 150? And you expect me to –’ She stopped at his knowing expression. He was just trying to annoy her.

‘Then you know how to read a contract. Mine says that you provide my meals. And obey any orders I give you to preserve your safety.’

‘I hope you like tinned tuna then,’ she snapped. She looked at the fireplace and wondered how anyone could possibly cook on it. It was impossible. She had to get out of here. She was not going to be some sort of slave to this … this … Scot. As soon as he was asleep, she was going to steal his keys and sneak out of here.

Summer considered her options. The bed upstairs was still in bits, and she didn’t fancy trying to climb that ladder in the dark. That left – she shuddered as she looked around the croft. Oh god, she was going to have to sleep down here.

You can do it. You’ve slept around snakes before
.

‘I’m going to bed now. You can bring me my sleeping bag from the Jeep.’ She had spotted one when they got in and thought it was a joke. She wasn’t laughing now.

Flynn nodded. ‘Yes, my lady. Of course, my lady.’ She wasn’t fooled by his servile tone.

While he was gone, she found an old broom made of actual twigs, and swept a clear space in front of the fireplace.

She shuddered at the thought of going to bed without a proper shower, but needs must. She hurried out to the ‘spa’ to use the grim facilities and brush her teeth, and then curled up in the sleeping bag, still wearing her clothes. She ostentatiously zipped it up to her neck.