'You'd better let me take a look at that leg of yours when we get back. You might have pulled a muscle or something.'
His rude rejoinder didn't put her off.
'Don't be silly, a person who's perfectly fit doesn't limp for no reason.'
'I fell coming down the cliff,' he snarled sullenly at her, bringing her to a dead stop, her hands automatically settling on her waist.
'The cliff? The short-cut was down that cliff?' Her eyes flickered closed as she visualised for an instant that apparently smooth clay face. 'You must be mad!'
His glare was pronounced, his face stiff with what she recognised was offended male pride. He had always had too much of it. 'I haven't got one foot in the grave yet, Princess. I've been rock-climbing half my life...and jogging, and scuba-diving, and sky-diving. I'm not one of your city-soft coronary-candidates sliding into middle age. I can take care of my body myself, thank you.'
'No wonder you don't work, you're too busy working out. Once a jock, always a jock, huh, Ross?' she mocked. 'And I suppose it isn't macho to admit that enough is enough. People who over-exercise have coronaries, too, you know.'
This time it was Fran who trotted behind while Ross strode on, and she took the time to professionally study the swing of his leg. By the look of him it was his left hip as well as his ankle that was bothering him.
'I don't "exercise",' he threw over his shoulder. 'I set myself physical challenges.'
'You call plunging down a cliff a challenge? I would say it was stupidity.'
'Yes, I suppose you would. You don't trust yourself any more than you trust other people, do you? You like things to be nice and safe. You wouldn't understand how much pleasure the element of risk adds to an activity. I don't suppose you ever took a risk on anything in your life.'
Francesca began to laugh, and Ross stopped and stared at her. She was genuinely amused, grey eyes dancing with slivers of blue light, her thick caramel curls flowing over her shoulders as she tilted her face to the sky. A month ago his words might have been true, but at the moment her entire life was one big risk. Was it a pleasurable one? No, but she couldn't honestly say that she wasn't enjoying parts of it. Parts that didn't include Ross, of course, she told herself, biting off her laughter as she caught the lancing puzzlement of his gaze.
'What's so funny?' he asked, with the slightly sulky tones of someone who hasn't understood a joke that everyone else finds hilarious.
Fran had no intention of telling him. It gave her a much-needed sense of security, knowing that he couldn't read her half as well as he thought he could.
'Are you going to "risk" showing me that leg?' She grinned smugly at him.
A tiny flame flickered in the deep blue eyes. 'I'll let you play nurse if you let me play doctor,' he said slyly, his grin replacing hers.
Smugness and compassion died a rapid death. Let him suffer then! She sniffed and stalked into the cabin. He would have to beg before she'd lift a finger to help him!
They lunched separately, Fran reading a gardening manual at the table, Ross taking a repulsively large sandwich out on to the deck. He propped his leg up on a stool, she noticed, steaming lightly at the bull-headedness of some people. After she had eaten her dainty triangles she soothed herself by spending the afternoon emphasising her presence: arranging her plants around the cabin, finding the best position for each, and watering and chatting encouragingly to them.
'If you're so hard up for company, Princess, why don't you come out here? I guess I can endure some conversation. I'm certainly not getting any peace with you burbling about in the background.' Ross lowered his book to watch her admonish a Boston fern for being reluctant to grow.
'You can always leave,' she said loftily, brushing a curl away from the corner of her mouth and casting a brief look of scorn at the lurid cover of his paperback. 'I think the conversation I get in here is much more intelligent than any I might get from you.'
'Still the intellectual snob?' He was irritatingly un-crushed. 'Look, Frankie, living with someone who's a friend, or family, is hard enough. Living with an enemy would be hell on wheels. Pull in your horns, Sister Lewis, I'm through arguing with you for today.'
He took his book and went out and lay in the tall, yellowing grass that waved on the little hillocks that presaged the hills behind the cabin, his head resting against the upturned, aluminium-hulled dinghy that Ian Lewis had hardly ever used, preferring to fish from the rocks.
Time hung heavily on Fran's hands. She wasn't used to having any spare time, and the quietness was almost too intense. The sea, like rippling grass, barely whispered on the shore and the only other sounds were from the gulls and shags and terns that shared nesting places in the clifftop trees.
She took her leisure getting ready for her dinner with Neville, lingering in the shower and making-up with slow precision. It was a long time since she had gone out with a man she didn't know... a long time since she had gone out with anyone other than Brian. The hand applying eye-shadow paused as she thought of the horrendous row they'd had before she had left for Whaler's Bay. They had said bitter things to each other, but in Fran's case it had been a bitterness tinged with relief. Brian had been part of the life that had been closing in on her, and an indivisible part, judging from the comments he had made about her resignation. He didn't approve, had even accused her of going through an early mid-life crisis, and Fran had discovered that she really didn't care what he thought. Scarcely the basis of a good relationship!
She finger-dried her hair, glad to see some of the highlights returning after the lank lifelessness of the last few weeks, and fluffed out the perm to give her a carefully tousled look. The mouth that she had always thought was too narrow looked wider and fuller in the fined-down version of her normally rounded face, and the plum-coloured lipstick emphasised the difference.
She was wearing the one 'good' dress she had packed for unexpected eventualities just like this: a blue wool crepe with a modestly plunging neckline and a skirt that warmly followed the contours of her hips and thighs. It was slightly loose on her, but Fran hadn't wanted to invest in a whole new wardrobe when she knew that she would soon be back to her old size. She looked at herself in the mirror screwed to the bedroom wall and was pleased. This would show Ross that she wasn't a starchy Sister, or a snobby Princess. She was a woman, too, and even though she wasn't beautiful, at least she didn't have to pay a man to go out with her!
Ross had opened a can of tomato soup for his dinner and was drinking it out of a thick mug when she walked into the lounge. He set the mug on the table, thoughtfull
y dunking a slice of toast into the wide mouth and chewing on it unhurriedly as he looked her over.
'All this for Neville?' he murmured at last, hiding the gleam in his eyes under lazy lids. 'Go easy on him, won't you, Princess? He's only a country boy like me; he might not know the right protocol to follow.'
Against her will Fran felt herself flush with pleasure at the oblique compliment and tore her eyes away from his handsome face to stare at the hand which held the toast. The back was covered with dark hair which ran up under the folded cuff of his sweater. She guessed that his arms and legs, like his chest, would be thickly furred. She blinked as her eyes settled on his expensive-looking watch. A 'gift' from one of his 'clients'?