It wasn't working—trying to forget him. Oh, superficially her life was full and busy and increasingly successful, but there was a hollow ring to it, signalling an inner emptiness that only Ross could fill. She still loved him, after all these months of absence, in her heart, his image was still fresh and bright and vibrant. At times he seemed so close that she almost turned and said, 'Hey, look what I've done, aren't you proud of me?' And he would have been. Ross hadn't been trying to hold her back, or box her in, he had been trying to show her that the parameters of freedom were the ones she created for herself. She had boxed herself in by anticipating the worst and thus precipitating the prospect. There was much to be said for Ross's philosophy, which seemed to be a Tarrant trademark, of taking the optimistic approach to life, of believing the best of people rather than the worst.
But how to let Ross know that the decision to cut him unceremoniously out of her life, made in panic and haste, was being repented at leisure? What if he too had changed his mind? Or already moved on? Was that why Beth was being so aggravatingly and uncharacteristically tactful, carefully skirting the subject of Ross whenever his name slipped inadvertently into the conversation? Was that why Ross never visited his sister at the flat, or telephoned? Never passed on regards or even a greeting through the third party of his sister, or his mother? Fran knew that Beth spent some of her afternoons off in Ross's company because the girl was usually unnervingly honest about her doings. On the evenings that she clammed up about her activities Fran knew, with the jealous instinct of one who loved, that she had been with Ross. Knowing that he was out there, existing parallel to yet not touching her life, filled her with restless frustration. The solution, she knew, was in her own hands. She would have to make the first move. Perhaps, she told herself hopefully, this was another example of his determination that she abide by her own choices rather than his...
Her tension inevitably communicated itself to Beth, who bec
ame even more tiresomely tactful, until Fran told her tartly one morning to stop behaving as if her brother didn't exist.
'I was just following your lead,' Beth protested righteously, giving Fran's frustrated face an up-and-under look that was suspiciously innocent. 'I thought you weren't interested.'
'Well, you thought wrong,' Fran said pettishly. 'Your mother never mentions him either, when she writes. Is this conspiracy of silence carried out on Ross, too?'
Beth's blue eyes skittered away. 'N-o-o-o. Mum's told him all about The Garden Company and how well it's going, of course, but she said that we weren't to interfere...that you two had to work it out between yourselves...'
'It?' Fran's eyebrows rose sarcastically. Did Florence want Fran to have an affair with her son? She was always warm and friendly when she rang to check on her daughter...Fran noticed Beth's uncomfortable blush and regretted her sarcasm. It wasn't Beth's fault she was frustrated. 'We can hardly work it out when we never see each other...' She would just have to force herself into action, and the hell with pride. Love conquers all, she reminded herself sternly, and pretended to ignore Beth's furtive excitement.
That evening she was out in her walled courtyard, up to her elbows in potting mix when the doorbell rang. Expecting Beth, getting ready for a night on the town with one of her new-found city friends, to answer it with her usual eagerness, Fran brushed back a sweaty curl with one gloved hand, leaving a streak of dirt on her temple to match the one on her chin, and continued to re-pot. The bell rang twice more and Fran was half-way across the lounge, grumbling testily to herself when Beth popped out of her bedroom, clad in a towel.
'Fran, would you mind—? Fran! You can't answer the door like that... what happened to that nice dress you were wearing?'
'I didn't want to get it dirty,' Fran said mildly, looking down at the now extremely grubby stonewashed denims that Beth had persuaded her to buy, insisting that they should be half a size too small 'for effect', and the equally grubby, loose, once-white T-shirt that she had pulled on over her unfettered breasts. 'What's the matter,' she teased 'is it someone special? A man?'
'No, yes...' Beth hissed, looking as if she was about to start ringing her hands in despair as the doorbell sounded again. 'Fran, you don't understand...'
'I promise I won't frighten him off,' Fran said in amusement. Beth was usually terrifyingly blasé about her boyfriends. 'We have to let him in and you certainly can't do it like that. Stop fussing, Beth,' she scolded as the girl let out another anguished protest. 'If he looks down his nose at me I'll excuse myself and change, and if he turns out to be a nice guy he can come out and watch me pot my plants. Now go and finish dressing...I thought you were always ready early for dates.'
'Fran!' Beth's cry was despairing. 'At least take off the gardening gloves!'
'If he's as prissy as you seem to think I don't think he's going to want to shake hands anyway,' Fran called back with playful perversity. Beth was very fond of giving people 'snob tests', especially in up-market dress shops where she would suddenly lapse into excruciating country-bumpkinisms. Many a time Fran had been torn between laughter and embarrassment as she dragged her companion away. Perhaps tonight she could get her own back. Pinning a vacant smile to her lips, she threw the door wide.
It was Ross.
Wasn't it? She blinked. His thick hair was trimmed to glossy neatness and he was wearing a suit. It was dark, teamed with an immaculate silver-grey silk shirt and maroon tie, his raw masculinity refined into elegant, expensive lines that Fran had a savagely jealous urge to smudge, to turn him back into the Ross she knew.
'Ross...what are you doing here?' To her horror it came out almost like an accusation, when he had sacrificed his pride to come and see her...
'More to the point, what are you doing here?' he shocked her by replying. Suddenly she noticed the finegrained skin pulled taut around the mouth and nose and eyes. He was as shocked as she was by this confrontation. But that would mean... 'I was under the impression that Beth was living at a student nurses' hostel. I appear to have been wrong,' he said, his voice coming out dry and lifeless as he looked beyond her into the flat, and the untidy signs of Beth's occupation.
Fran closed her eyes briefly as she assimilated his ignorance. Neither Beth nor his mother had told him. For weeks she had been plagued by the assumption that he had known but not wanted to make use of the knowledge. 'I... she moved out of the hostel weeks ago. Didn't she tell you?' She wavered unnecessarily. The skyblue eyes came back to hers and locked on them relentlessly. Her mouth dried as she watched them change from shock, to suspicion, to wariness, to an unreadable blankness.
'No, she didn't.'
Unnerved by the clipped reply, and the stillness of the big body, Fran found herself babbling out all Beth's troubles, stressing that Beth had come to her, not the other way around.
His mask of inexpression flickered at that, and for the first time he looked beyond her pale face. He looked at her hair, crimped by the spring humidity, the dirty streaks on her skin and revealing-concealing casual garb. She felt like a street urchin being looked over by a plutocrat, and unconsciously drew herself up to compensate with a haughty stare. A gleam fleetingly silvered the blue eyes and she stiffened. Did he find her funny? OK, so she was scruffy, but she had seen him look worse. She wasn't going to let him embarrass her, she wasn't ashamed of her body. He obviously noticed, from the way his eyes had lingered on the swell of her hips, that she wasn't as slim as she had been a few months ago, but her roundness wasn't fat. It was smooth, sleekly conditioned muscle. She was more supple and fitter than she had ever been in her life, thanks to the hard manual labour she was putting in.
'No need to get so uptight, Fran,' he drawled, as nervousness drove her on to restate Beth's case. 'I get the message. I'm not to take this as an oblique attempt on your part to fling yourself back into my arms.'
Since that was exactly what it had been, at least in part, Fran found herself flushing faintly. Was that relief she detected? She jutted her chin defensively.
'No wonder Beth never wanted me to run her back to the hostel, and only rang from Tech. I wonder who the secrecy was designed to protect? You or me?' He raised an eyebrow and his mouth curved slightly as he watched her wipe her palms nervously against her denim-clad thighs. Suddenly Fran caught a breathtaking glimpse of the man she knew, and an avalanche of feeling rushed into her hollow heart.
'Don't feel you need to apologise for having taken my sister under your wing, Francesca.' In the midst of that bland softness the drawn-out syllables of her name were an intimate caress that made her heart skip. 'I know that in spite of her brashness and the aura of confidence Beth carries around with her she's still vulnerable, and you're a sucker for vulnerability, aren't you? I have some very fond remembrances of your compassionate breast myself...' And he stared deliberately at the place where her heart thumped passionately beneath the thin white cotton. Oh, God, that look! Inexorably Fran felt the light, delicious tingling that pressaged the tender tautening of her breasts. Quickly she spun around, missing the leaping flare of satisfaction that brought a grimly predatory smile to Ross's lips. So... She was proud, and stubborn and still bristling with defences, but her body and those big, lonely eyes betrayed her. She ached for him as much as he ached for her. His patience had paid off. But, in view of the unexpected circumstances, he would have to take a different, more direct approach from the one he had planned.
'Come in—I'll just see if Beth is ready—' Fran said nervously, leading him into the lounge and turning towards the bedroom.
'Still running scared, Fran?' His soft taunt stopped her. 'Surely you don't intend to disappoint Beth after she's obviously gone to so much trouble to bring us together again?' When Fran still didn't turn around, he added, 'And it's a little late for a cover-up. If you're embarrassed by your body you only have yourself to blame. Women with breasts as sensitive as yours shouldn't go braless if they don't want their body language read...'
Fran turned proudly, gloved hands clenched at her sides to prevent them crossing defensively over her tingling breasts. 'I never denied that I found you attractive,' she said in a stifled voice.