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Mindful of what Paul Meadows had said about not undoing Teddy’s good work, Gerry tried her hardest over the next week to heed his advice. It helped, she had to admit, having Mrs Chapman about the place—though she was still worried about how they were going to manage to pay her. For the moment Crawford was attending to her wages, but Gerry had every intention of reimbursing him the next time she saw him.

She had seen nothing of him since that day he had carried her back to bed, and in the week that followed and he hadn’t come, she had ceased listening for every car that purred past their door. Countless times to begin with she had thought each one would stop and it would be him, but it was only a car changing gear ready for the climb where the end of their road began an incline up a hill. The flutterings she had experienced inside at the thought that each car might be him she could not so easily put to one side. But she managed in the end to convince herself it was pure nervousness, because now that she was so much better —she hoped Paul Meadows would say she could return to work soon—she knew she would be tackling the subject of Mrs Chapman with Crawford, and had an instinctive feeling it wasn’t going to be easy.

It was two weeks before she saw him again, and by that time she had put on weight, fully recovered her strength, and had made up her mind that very morning to go down to Paul Meadows’ surgery that night and tell him she would be returning to work next Monday. As her own health improved, there had been a dramatic change in Teddy too. It warmed Gerry’s heart to see that her sister no longer cried as easily as she had been prone to do. In fact, she suddenly thought, she couldn’t remember Teddy giving way to the sadness of her thoughts once in the last two weeks. She could see her now from the kitchen window— Teddy was playing with the twins on the lawn while she prepared a salad for lunch. Absently Gerry noted that she would have to get the ancient mower out soon or the grass would be too long to tackle by machine—Teddy had a glow about her these days, and she couldn’t help wondering if it could
all
be put down to their having Mrs Chapman to help out.

Because it was such a sunny day and sacrilege to be indoors, they had their meal outside on the lawn, and after they had settled the twins in the shade to have their nap, both girls stretched out in shorts and tops and felt at peace with the world. It was some time later when Teddy broke the silence.

‘Thirsty?’ she asked into the quiet of the afternoon.

‘Could drink gallons,' Gerry murmured, near to dozing off.

‘Go and get some squash,’ Teddy coaxed, near to dozing off herself.

‘All right.’ Gerry made to get to her feet.

‘No, you stay—I’ll go. Just remembered my new leaf!’

‘You’ve turned one over, you mean?’ Gerry was coming wide awake.

‘Well, not before time, was it? I was a bit of a lazy slob.’

‘Oh, Teddy, no—you weren’t,’ Gerry protested. ‘You had ...’

‘No excuses,’ Teddy refused to allow Gerry to defend her. ‘I’ll go and get that squash—with ice!'

Gerry smiled softly as Teddy disappeared into the cottage, then lay down and closed her eyes again. She had never thought of Teddy as a lazy slob—Teddy had had a terrible time, losing both her adored father and Mark at the same time.

Something tickled her bare foot, and she wiggled her toes to flick it off. But it came again, so she moved her foot about six inches. Then as her foot still tickled, and still with her eyes closed, she drew her foot towards her intending to brush the offending insect away with her hand —but her hand came into contact with another hand, warm and masculine. Instantly her eyes came open, and she stared in eye-blinking amazement. She was holding hands with Crawford Arrowsmith.

Wordlessly, her eyes caught and held by those grey eyes, she stared at him. She saw a smile break from his lips, and for one of the few times since she had known him, she saw the smile light up in his eyes.

‘You looked so peaceful lying there,’ he said, his deep-noted voice sounding neither cool nor remote as she was used to, but easy somehow. ‘It seemed a shame to disturb you—but I couldn’t resist it.’ He let go her hand and came and sat down on the grass beside her, making her overwhelmingly conscious of the shortness of her shorts showing off the full length of her long slender legs, and the clinging vest top that showed up the curves beneath.

‘Teddy’s in the house,' she blurted out, needing to say something, but her mind refusing to come up with anything very brilliant. It confused her to have Crawford’s eyes running over her dressed as she was, when always before she had tried to give the impression of a cool, efficient P.A. in her body-concealing, badly fitting—she now owned—outer garments. She refused at that point to remember that Crawford had seen her in her nightie.

Crawford finished his inspection of her. ‘I came to see you.’ He was still easy with her, but she felt she couldn’t relax her guard.

‘I’m coming back to work on Monday.’ She wished her voice didn’t sound so staccato, but he was having that effect on her. She wondered if Teddy would see him from the kitchen window—where had she got to anyway? If she was deliberately keeping out of the way she couldn't be making a better job of it. Perhaps she’d see him and think to bring her wrap-around skirt when she brought the squash out.

‘Who says you’re coming back to work on Monday?' Crawford’s voice was conversational, so she thought he had accepted without argument that she was well enough to return to the office.

‘I’m quite fit now,’ she said. ‘I shall go and see Paul Meadows tonight—but,' she added hurriedly, for she thought she detected the smile had gone out of Crawford’s eyes, ‘only as a courtesy.’ It was only polite, she reasoned, to let Paul Meadows give her the formal ‘O.K.’ to return to work.

‘I’ll give him a ring myself,’ Crawford said, and it sounded so natural the way he said it—as if he had every right to ring her physician and enquire about her health.

‘There’s no need for you ...’ she began hotly, when Crawford lay back on the grass and closed his eyes; now she could read nothing from his expression. She looked at him as he lay there, casually dressed in fine slacks and short-sleeved sports shirt, his arms showing off a wealth of short dark hairs. She dragged her eyes away from him and forced herself to think clearly. ‘You’ve phoned him before, haven’t you?’ she accused, but tempering her accusation with a deceptively mild tone. She was convinced suddenly that he had telephoned Paul Meadows that day she had been out of bed without Paul’s say-so.

Crawford sat up, looked at her for a long moment, seemed to read the mutiny in her expression, then stood up. ‘Come for a drive.’

It was just as though he hadn’t heard a word she said, she thought, as he calmly ignored her accusation. ‘It’s too hot.’ She had no intention of driving with him ever.

‘It won’t be.’

He made it sound a pure statement of fact. How did one begin to argue against his all male self-confidence? Then she had no time to answer anything, for he was stretching down a hand to her, and whether she wanted to stand up or not, she was being pulled up until she was standing close to him.

‘I don’t suppose you’ve been out anywhere since you’ve been ill?’ he questioned.

She thought better than to tell him she’d never gone out before she’d been ill—she didn’t want him to interfere any further in her life. ‘I’ve been down to the village shops a couple of times.’

He didn’t say he’d bet that was one big thrill, he had no need to—his look said it for him. ‘Stop acting like some temperamental female and come with me,’ he said. ‘A breath of fresh air will work wonders for your complexion.’

‘Thanks!'

He grinned at her sarcastic thanks at his remark which she took to mean her complexion could do with freshening up. She liked his grin, loath though she was to admit it—liked it so much she found herself grinning idiotically back; she didn’t want to do that either.

Crawford took hold of her hand, urging her to go with him down the garden path. ‘You know you have a beautiful complexion anyway,’ he said, when she had straightened the grin from her face. It pleased her that he thought so, but before she could question why then did she need a breath of air, they were at the bottom of the path. From being certain she wasn’t driving anywhere with him, she was now undecided what to do. ‘Now what?’ he asked, when she dug her heels in and refused to move another step.

‘If I’m going driving—I’m going to change.’ It seemed her mind had decided for her—she had no say in the matter of whether she wanted to go with him or not.

Her words had his eyes going over her again, and she wished she hadn’t said anything as his eyes rested briefly on her breasts. She knew he was aware she hadn’t a bra on, and colour flooded her face. As he witnessed the pink in her cheeks, a gentle smile lit Crawford’s eyes, and far from the acid comment Gerry expected him to make at her prevarications, he said, ‘I’ll give you five minutes.’

She met Teddy coming out of the living room. ‘Where did you get to?’ she asked before realising her question was unnecessary, for Teddy was decently covered in a cotton frock. ‘Crawford’s here.’ Again unnecessary, for Teddy like herself had been happily oblivious of how they might appear to male eyes in their scanty attire. ‘He’s taking me driving—he’s given me five minutes to change.’

‘You’ve just used up one of them,’ Teddy said laughingly.

Gerry raced upstairs, donned fresh underwear and pulled out a pretty cotton dress that was three years old. Dragging the dress over her head, she realised she had one minute to spare, before she stopped to wonder, why on earth was she racing around like someone on fire? She hadn’t asked Crawford to call—and while he might be her boss, she was still on sick leave. And if he took it into his head to do the dutiful employer bit and take her out for a drive, then he could wait until she was ready.

Seating herself in front of the dressing table mirror, she ran a comb through her hair. She then dragged her hair back from her face—she didn’t like it that way, never had liked that screwed-up bun, but it had seemed necessary at the time. She let go her hair, leaving it to hang loosely on her shoulders. Crawford had seen her with her hair down now—she wasn’t going to win any points for antagonising him; he didn’t like her hair screwed back either, she recalled, remembering the day he had brought her home. She had told him she had a headache and he had taken the pins out of her hair. It had seemed so natural then, but now it seemed an intimate gesture and she could no longer bear looking back at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were seeming to be telling her something she didn’t want to admit to—though she had to admit to the growing feeling of excitement that was suddenly surging through her veins.

When Gerry saw the Aston Martin Volante convertible parked outside Honeysuckle Cottage, she understood what Crawford had meant when he’d said it wouldn’t be too hot to go for a drive. He made sure she was comfortable, then got into the vehicle beside her. She waited for him to switch on the ignition, and when he didn’t do so, she looked across at him to see him pulling something from his trousers pocket.

‘That’s my scarf,’ she said, her eyes growing wide as if expecting him to take out a pair of performing doves next.

‘True,’ Crawford agreed, ‘Knowing the vanity of women, I asked Teddy for something to keep your hair from blowing about—put it on.’

Not meaning to be contrary but her pride pricked at his reference to the vanity of women, instead of putting the scarf on peasant fashion as she was sure he was expecting, Gerry elected to make a bandeau from it and tied it underneath the back of her hair—it would keep her hair out of her eyes anyway. Crawford gave her a smooth look which told her she’d done exactly what he’d expected her to do.

Determined to ignore him and enjoy the drive, Gerry did just that, and felt the exhilaration of the wind feathering past her face, the cooling breeze giving fresh life to her limbs in what had turned out to be a scorching day. Crawford drove fast and drove well, slowing down when the road conditions required it, and stopping altogether when they reached one or two beauty spots.

‘Everybody seems to have the same idea today,’ he remarked when they came to one plateau that looked over several counties where a few other cars were parked. They got out of the car to have a look at the view. ‘Want an icecream?’ Without waiting for her answer, which she had to own would have been yes, Crawford went to wait in the small queue that had formed by the vehicle of an enterprising ice-cream salesman who had chosen to try his luck there.

When Crawford returned, she saw he had bought two comets, a single one for himself and a double one for her. Everybody’s trying to fatten me up, she couldn’t help thinking—her eyes saying as much. She knew Crawford had read her thoughts, and blurted out, ‘I’ve put on four pounds.’

‘It suits you,’ was all he said, and he turned to look at the patchwork vista before them.

Gerry saw massive acreages were broken into roughly squared off fields by hedges of brambles and trees. Far into the distance were clutches of buildings that spoke of small villages, all going peacefully about their business in the still of the afternoon. It was beautiful up there on the plateau and Gerry stared at the view entranced, mindless of the comet she was clutching until the ice-cream began to melt and she had to hastily lick her fingers.

Giving her ice-cream more attention now, she nibbled at the rest of it until it had all gone, and turned to Crawford to find him watching her. ‘Stick out your tongue,’ he instructed, giving her no clue as to why she should do such a thing.

A devilish gleam appeared in her eyes at the opportunity. She just couldn’t resist the temptation, for all she had no idea of his sudden command. Not only did she stick out her tongue, she wrinkled her nose as well. Then she saw Crawford’s hand come up and felt him moisten his handkerchief from her tongue and instantly closed her mouth, to find him wiping away a smear of ice-cream from the comer of her mouth.

‘You’re getting cheeky,’ he said, ‘a sure sign you’re getting better.’ His voice was light and she was smiling at him when he explained, ‘I merely thought you would prefer your own spit to mine.’