She opened her mouth to scream, but her vocal cords were paralysed with fear.
She saw his shadow before he came into the room and she started to shake, her body convulsed with violent spasms of terror.
‘Debra... Debra! It’s all right. It’s me... Marsh.’
Marsh.
She stared at him, watching him run towards her, feeling the hard warmth of his hands as he held her, feeling the heat coming off his body, seeing the emotion in his eyes, and yet somehow it was almost as though she wasn’t there inside the body that felt these things at all, but rather that she was standing outside it, watching its reactions with detached curiosity, wondering at the strength of the emotion that shook and convulsed her.
‘You’re all right. It’s all right,’ Marsh was saying huskily to her, still holding her. ‘I’m sorry; I should have thought, but I saw your car outside. You shouldn’t have come here by yourself.’ His voice was rough now, making her flinch slightly.
‘How... how did you get in?’
Her voice sounded dry and harsh, the words unevenly spaced and formed.
She had locked the door, hadn’t she...hadn’t she?
‘I’ve got a key,’ Marsh told her absently. ‘I’ve been calling round most days to check that...’
He stopped suddenly, his face flushing slightly, and instantly Debra knew.
It wasn’t her insurance broker who was responsible for this careful, caring restoration of her house... her home. It was Marsh.
‘You... you did all this?’
He didn’t attempt to deny it.
‘It was the least I could do,’ he told her gruffly.
‘But why?’ Debra asked him. ‘Why?’
Her heart was beating painfully fast, her breathing suddenly uncomfortably constricted.
‘Why?’
He gave her a self-derisive smile.
‘Because I love you, of course.’
‘You love me?’
He must have caugh
t the wonder that mingled with her disbelief, because, as he released her and started to step back from her, he suddenly tensed and looked at her.
‘It was never “just sex” for me, Debra. Not before, not after, and certainly not during,’ he told her roughly.
‘But you never said... You let me...’
Her pain was mirrored in her face and in her voice as she raised her eyes to meet his.
‘What could I say, after the way I’d let you down?’
He saw that she was starting to frown, and told her brusquely, ‘I should have been with you, Debra. When he broke into my house I should have been there to protect you.’
The anguish in his voice startled her, but it was the sight of the tears shining in his eyes that really shocked her, moving her to a totally unexpected protective compassion. She touched his shoulder gently, her eyes soft and warm.
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she told him.