An Exception to His Rule(48)

                ‘You can’t open up a can of worms like that then play dumb,’ he objected, ‘but let me guess. You two had some sort of issue between you after my birthday party?’

                Harriet sighed suddenly. ‘Charlie, we’ve had issues between us since the day I smashed his car and his collarbone. Not to mention the day I slapped his face and he kissed me back. But his issues are...very complicated. And he wasn’t supposed to be here while I finished the job,’ she added, somewhat annoyed.

                ‘Ah, well, so that explains—well, some of it! I didn’t think some business deal hanging in the balance—I mean he’s weathered a few of those before—was sufficient to cause this level of turmoil in my beloved brother.’

                Harriet put her hands on her waist. ‘That doesn’t help me a lot, Charlie.’

                ‘Or any of us! I think we’ll just have to batten down the hatches and prepare for the worst. At least you can stay out of his way.’

                * * *

                This proved to be incorrect.

                She was riding Sprite along Seven-mile Beach the next morning with Tottie at her stirrup. It was cool and crisp and the clarity of the air was amazing, dead flat calm water with hardly any surf, some pink clouds in a pale blue sky—and another horse riding towards her: Damien.

                Her first thought was to gallop away in the opposite direction, and she started to do so but Sprite was no match for his horse and he caught her up.

                By this time, some common sense had returned to Harriet and she slowed Sprite to a walk.

                ‘Morning, Harriet.’

                She glanced across at him as Sprite jostled his big brown horse and Tottie looked relieved. ‘Hi, Damien.’ Their breath steamed in the early morning cool.

                ‘Running away again?’

                ‘I guess that was my first intention,’ she confessed and found herself curiously unsettled. He looked so big in a khaki rain jacket and jeans with his dark head bare. Not at all cuddly, she reflected, not at all affected by the post dawn chill, whereas she was bundled up in a scarlet anorak, navy track pants and a scarlet beanie.

                ‘Why?’

                ‘I think,’ she said carefully and straightened the reins through her fingers, ‘we’re all a little nervous around you at the moment.’

                He grimaced. ‘That bad?’

                She nodded.

                ‘Of course things haven’t exactly gone my way lately, business-wise,’ he observed as they turned their horses onto the path from the beach.

                ‘I’m sorry if I was—unwittingly—in any way the cause of that.’

                He looked across at her. ‘You weren’t. Although, of course, you are part of the overall problem. After you.’ He indicated that she should precede him through the archway that led to Heathcote and the stables.

                But she simply stared at him with her lips parted, her eyes incredulous, so Tottie took the initiative and Sprite followed.

                And it wasn’t until they got to the stables that they took up the thread of the conversation.

                They tied their steaming horses beside each other in the wash bay.