Hold Back the Dark by Jane Donnelly

Author:Jane Donnelly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 1993-05-05T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

NO, I wouldn’t have regretted it in the morning, Clarry thought, waking next morning alone in her bed. The power must still be off. The bedside lamp gave no light and she had to peer closely at her watch to see that the time was a quarter to eight.

The windowpanes were wet but rain no longer lashed them, and the gale-force winds had dropped. When a pale dawn was breaking she had heard voices, doors closing and a dog barking, and had known that the men were going up into the hills searching for the sheep. She had gone to sleep again, but now it was high time she was up and about.

As she moved to push back the bedclothes there was a tap on the door and Megan appeared carrying a tray. ‘Cup of tea?’ she said brightly. ‘Mr Dargan said not to wake you before.’

‘He’s up, is he?’ queried Clarry.

‘Been down some time, on that phone of his in the car.’ Megan put the tray on the bedside table. ‘Power’s still off, mind your step on the stairs,’ and with another smile and a nod she tripped out again.

Clarry poured herself tea with a splash of milk, and a heaped spoonful of sugar—she was going to need her energy today. She took the cup into the bathroom because if Nicolas was downstairs, making phone calls, he would be ready to leave.

Her reflection in the mirror over the washbasin was wan. The white walls and the chill in the air drained her of colour so that she looked as washed out as the landscape glimpsed through the window. Even her dark red hair seemed duller than usual. She really was very ordinary. She remembered saying to Paul Burnley, ‘I’m not conceited enough to go after one his size,’ but, however you looked at it, she had propositioned Nicolas Dargan last night and he had turned her down.

This morning her confidence was ebbing away, and she went downstairs not knowing how she was going to face him. She would try to be natural and relaxed, but she could find herself blushing and stammering, and even when her hand was on the latch of the kitchen door she still held back for a few more seconds.

Then she opened the door, and all the warmth of the house seemed to be in the kitchen. An oil lamp burned on the table. Megan Thomas was talking and Nicolas was listening to her, sitting with a cup of coffee before him. Megan stopped talking, and Nicolas smiled at Clarry, and again she had this feeling that he reached out and she homed in to him.

‘Sleep well?’ he asked.

‘Very well, thank you, and you?’

‘Of course.’ They smiled at each other as she sat down beside him, and Clarry knew that Megan would be smiling too; and Megan was nearly right, for a little while last night they had shared that bed in Clarry’s room.

‘How about a nice cooked breakfast?’ Megan suggested.

The power lines might

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