patient was Luke?
Some things never changed, Luke reflected as he glanced into the rearview mirror, as if he might catch one last glimpse of Lucia. He would always care about her.
He smiled as he wondered how long it would be before the parcels arrived, and if she would send them straight back.
She was about to leave for the guest house when there was a knock on the door. Throwing her weight against it, she stood staring in blank surprise at the man in uniform standing outside a big green van.
‘Delivery for Ms Acosta?’ the man said, checking the label on one of the packages he was holding.
‘That’s me,’ Lucia confirmed, ‘but I haven’t ordered anything.’
‘Then it must be a gift,’ the delivery man said, sticking a clipboard beneath her nose. ‘Sign here, please.’
There was only one person in the world who would order a hamper from London’s most famous luxury goods store. There was only one person who knew her address in Cornwall.
As soon as she had loaded everything inside, she picked up her phone and called Luke. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded the moment he picked up. ‘Why are you sending me food parcels? I’m not that desperate.’
‘I can’t send a few treats for you and Margaret to share?’
‘We don’t need charity.’
‘My PA handles returns—speak to her.’
She sat back, stung.
‘Goodbye, Lucia. Enjoy the bacon and eggs.’
She stared at the dead phone in dismay. This Luke was far removed from the Luke she had provoked, teased and taunted when they were younger; she didn’t even know him.
Hadn’t she changed too?
And it wasn’t just a hamper of food. There was everything anyone might need if they were starting out on their own for the first time—good towels, sheets, throws, decent pillows.
‘This will all have to go back,’ she told Luke’s poster. But as his arrogant face sent a scorching challenge back and she lifted one of the pillows and held it to her face she wondered if she wasn’t being just a little hasty.
And ungrateful, Lucia conceded. She tried to call Luke again, to thank him. She wanted to tell him he should take the money out of her wages. But he wasn’t picking up.
He didn’t take her call until later that day, and she was rather put off her stride to hear Luke’s husky tone backed by a soundtrack of languidly swishing water. Trying to blank the X-rated mental images that evoked, she said hello.
‘Hey,’ Luke murmured lazily, ‘this is a nice surprise.’
That Luke hadn’t declined her call? It certainly was. He sounded unimaginably pleased, as if something big had gone down. But far worse was listening to him groaning with pleasure as he eased his position in the bath.
‘My assistant did okay for you?’ he prompted. ‘Do you like the stuff she chose?’
Another disturbing mental image flashed into her mind. This one involved an extravagantly beautiful PA—something like the Technicolor blonde—discussing her with Luke before rushing off to carry out his mercy mission.
‘Mary said it was no trouble to pick out some essentials for you while she was shopping for her grandchildren’s Christmas presents, so I hope she got it right?’
Lucia’s shoulders slumped. She felt such an idiot. ‘Please tell Mary I’m very grateful. And thank you, Luke. Just don’t do it again.’
‘Do what again?’ he murmured, in a voice that spoke of warm soapy water and tropical ambient heat. ‘Buy you gifts?’
She stroked the shawl. ‘I don’t need handouts.’
Luke’s laugh was a rumble deep in his chest. ‘I was just being neighbourly, Lucia. I thought you approved of that?’
There was more swishing water, until all she could see was Luke’s massive body, wet, tanned and gleaming, his hard muscles flexing—along with a whole raft of other X-rated images.