Just One Night

‘Sylvie...’

Quickly she opened her eyes.

‘You’re not well; what is it?’ she heard Ran demanding tersely.

‘Nothing,’ she denied angrily. ‘A headache, that’s all.’

‘A headache...?’ His eyebrows shot up as Ran studied her now far too pale face and saw the tell-tale beading of sweat on her forehead.

‘That’s it,’ he told her forcefully. ‘We can finish this tomorrow. You need to rest.’

‘I need to do my job,’ Sylvie protested shakily, but Ran quite obviously wasn’t going to listen to her.

‘Can you make it back to the car?’ he was asking her. ‘Or shall I carry you?’

Carry her... Sylvie gave him a furiously outraged look.

‘Ran, there’s nothing wrong with me,’ she lied, and then gave a small gasp as the quick movement of her head as she shook it in denial of his suggestion caused nauseating arrows of pain to savage her aching head.

The next thing she knew, Ran was taking her very firmly by the arm and propelling her towards the door, ignoring her protests to leave her alone.

At the top of the stairs, to her infuriated chagrin, he turned round and swung her up into his arms, telling her through gritted teeth, ‘If you’re going to faint on me, Sylvie, then here’s the best place to do it.’

She wanted to tell him that fainting was the last thing she intended to do, but her face was pressed against the warm flesh of his throat and if she tried to speak her lips would be touching his skin and then...

Swallowing hard, Sylvie tried to concentrate on banishing the agonising pain in her head but it was something that she couldn’t just will away. As she knew from past experience, the only way of getting rid of it was for her to go to bed and sleep it off.

They were downstairs now and Ran was crossing the hallway, thrusting open the door and carrying her out into the fresh air.

‘What are you doing?’ she demanded as he walked past her Discovery towards his own car.

‘I’m taking you home...to the Rectory,’ he told her promptly.

‘I can drive,’ Sylvie protested, but to her annoyance Ran simply gave a brief derogatory laugh.

He told her dismissively, ‘No way...’ And then she was being bundled into the passenger seat of a Land Rover nearly as ancient as the one she remembered him driving around her stepbrother’s estate, and as she struggled to sit up Ran was jumping into the driver’s seat next to her and turning the key in the ignition.

‘Ran...my luggage...’ She was protesting, but he obviously had no intention of listening to her. With the Land Rover’s engine noise making it virtually impossible for her to speak over it, Sylvie gave up her attempt to stop him and subsided weakly into her seat, hunching her shoulders as she deliberately turned her head away and refused to look at him.

As he glanced at her hunched shoulders and averted profile, Ran’s frown deepened. In that pose she looked so defenceless and vulnerable, so different from the professional, high-powered businesswoman she had just shown herself to be and much more like the girl he remembered.

The Land Rover kicked up a trail of dust as he turned off the drive and onto the track that led to the Rectory.

Girl or woman, what did it matter so far as he was concerned? He cursed under his breath, his attention suddenly caught by the sight of several deer grazing placidly beside the track. They were supposed to be confined to the park area surrounding the house and not cropping the grazing he needed for his sheep. There must be a break in the fence somewhere—the new fence which he had just severely depleted his carefully hoarded bank balance to buy—which meant... There had been rumours about rustlers being in the area; other farmers had reported break-ins and losses.

Once he had seen Sylvie settled at the house he would have to come back out and check the fencing.

Sylvie winced as the Land Rover hit a rut in the road, sitting up and just about managing to suppress a sharp cry of pain—or at least she thought she had suppressed it until she heard Ran asking her curtly, ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing... I’ve got a headache, that’s all,’ she stressed offhandedly, but her face flushed as she saw the look he was giving her and she realised that he wasn’t deceived.

‘A headache?’ he queried dryly. ‘It looks more like a migraine to me. Have you got some medication for it or...?’

‘It isn’t a migraine,’ Sylvie denied, adding reluctantly, ‘It’s... I... It’s a stress headache,’ she admitted in an angry rush of words. ‘I...I get them occasionally. The travel...flying...’

Ran’s mouth hardened as he listened to her.