Untouched. Sandra FieldЧитать онлайн книгу.
corner, aware that he hadn’t answered her question any more than she had answered his. ‘We’ll get the boots from my friend Stevie; he’s the only one in town who carries them. Have you got rain gear, Mr Marston?’
‘As we’re going to be spending the next few days together, why don’t we go with Finn and Jenessa?’ he said impatiently.
Normally Jenessa preferred being on a first-name basis. But for a reason she couldn’t fathom, hearing her name on Finn’s lips made her feel as though he was laying claim to some part of her, a part that was strictly her own. Chiding herself for being overly imaginative, she said coolly, ‘Fine. Rain gear?’
He nodded. Efficiently she ran through a list of personal gear he’d need, finishing, ‘We supply tents and sleeping-bags and all the food. Here we are... Ruth’s home, by the look of it, but not Stevie.’
Ruth greeted them cheerfully, clearly impressed by Jenessa’s latest client. She led them to the room in the basement where she and Stevie sold a wide array of hunting and fishing equipment, and pulled out a stack of boxes. ‘Your size should be here,’ she said to Finn. ‘Try them on and feel free to walk around outdoors in them.’
As he slipped his feet into the first pair of rubber boots, Ruth remarked with rather overdone casualness, ‘Jenessa, I was just talking to Marylou—her ten-thirty appointment was cancelled; you should take a run over.’
‘I don’t have the time,’ Jenessa said shortly. As Finn stood up, she knelt at his feet, pressing on the toes of the boots to see how they fit, her shirt pulled tight over the slim line of her back. ‘They seem a little small,’ she said dubiously, glancing up at him. ‘If we do any amount of walking, it’s really important to get a good fit.’ .
With a directness that no longer surprised her, he said, ‘Who’s Marylou?’
‘The hairdresser next door,’ she answered repressively. ‘I think you should try a half-size larger.’
He did so, and said with a satisfied grunt, ‘They feel better—maybe I will walk outside in them, if that’s okay.’ The smile he gave Ruth would have charmed the birds from the trees, Jenessa thought sourly; she got the tail end of it as he added, ‘Come with me, Jenessa; you can probably tell if I’ve got the right ones better than I can.’
She trailed up the steps behind him. He walked across the front lawn, glanced at Marylou’s sign and wrapped his fingers around Jenessa’s elbow. ‘If I’ve got to take to the woods with a woman, I’d at least prefer her to look like one,’ he said, and steered her unceremoniously toward Marylou’s side-door.
Jenessa’s jaw had dropped. She snapped it shut, dug her heels into the grass and sputtered, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘Getting you a haircut. Maybe she’ll do mine at the same time.’
‘You can shave your head for all I care,’ Jenessa stormed, tugging fruitlessly at his fingers. ‘My hair’s fine as it is and Ruth’s mother, who lives right across the street, is undoubtedly glued to the window watching us. This’ll be all over town by evening.’
‘Then you’d better stop struggling, hadn’t you?’ he said.
He was a good five inches taller than she and stronger by far. Disconcertingly strong, she thought with a quiver of unease. ‘What do you do for your living?’ she asked.
‘If I’m not allowed to ask personal questions, neither are you. Come along.’
One thing Jenessa had learned in her life was when to give up fighting the odds. Vowing to herself that no matter where she and Finn Marston went she’d walk him through every bog she could find until he begged for mercy, she stalked into Marylou’s beauty parlor.
Marylou favored frilly curtains, crocheted mats and artificial flowers; Finn’s big body looked totally out of place. Marylou herself was plump and pretty, her forgetme-not-blue eyes concealing a shrewd grasp of business. With frigid politeness Jenessa said, ‘Marylou, this is Finn Marston—I’m guiding for him. He wants a haircut.’
Finn had been looking around with interest. He pointed to a photo of a woman’s head that had been mounted on the wall and said, ‘Could you give Jenessa that cut, Marylou?’
‘Sure I could—it’d look real nice on her.’
Jenessa glared at him. ‘He’s the one who needs the haircut. Not me.’
Marylou said amiably, ‘I’m free until lunchtime, so I can do both of you. You first, Jenessa; you just sit down right over here.’
Finn said equally amiably, ‘I think she cut it with a hacksaw last time.’
Tom between fury and a crazy urge to laugh, Jenessa said, ‘What’s the matter, Finn—having problems with your masculinity? Got to assert yourself now because I’m the one who’ll be giving the orders once we leave town?’
Marylou was swathing her in a plastic cape at the sink. He said succinctly, ‘You’ve got it wrong—you have problems with your femininity. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’
Ryan, Ruth and now Finn—it was too much. But Marylou had turned on the tap full force and Finn was striding out of the door in his new rubber boots. Jenessa leaned back and closed her eyes, any number of clever rebuttals seething in her brain. She paid scant attention as Marylou shampooed and rinsed her hair, then combed it out and started to cut. Finn Marston had better not push her too far, she thought darkly; she hadn’t signed any contracts, so she could resign any time she liked and leave him in the lurch.
He didn’t think she looked like a woman. Whatever that meant.
One thing was sure: he hadn’t intended it as a compliment.
CHAPTER THREE
MARYLOU chattered on about the plot twists in the daily soap operas, keeping herself between Jenessa and the mirror. The blow-drier wafted warm air around Jenessa’s ears. Then Marylou brushed her hair in place, snipping a few loose ends with her scissors. She swivelled Jenessa round to face the mirror, saying with immense satisfaction, ‘Ever since I took that last seminar I’ve been wanting to get my hands on your hair, love—not bad, eh?’
Stunned, Jenessa looked at the stranger in the glass. Her hair was now tapered over her ears, emphasizing the slender length of her neck and the shape of her eyes with their brilliant green irises, and bringing her cheekbones into new prominence; wisps of hair, polished like the cherrywood to which Ruth had compared it, softened her forehead and clung to her nape. ‘It doesn’t even look like me,’ she said stupidly.
The door creaked open. Then another reflection joined hers in the mirror: the man who was the cause of this. He was staring straight at her, dark blue eyes meeting green. He looked, she thought in utter panic, like a hunter who had caught sight of his prey.
‘Looks nice, doesn’t it?’ Marylou said complacently. ‘I won’t charge you full price, dear, because it gave me the chance to try something new. Did you say you wanted a cut, Mr Marston?’
With a palpable effort Finn dragged his gaze from Jenessa’s. ‘Just a trim,’ he said.
Jenessa got up, threw a couple of bills on the counter and croaked, ‘I’ll be at Ruth’s.’ She ran outside and across the lawn, feeling the breeze on her bare neck, and had she been asked she couldn’t have said what—or whom—she was fleeing.
In Ruth’s kitchen she skidded to a halt. Ruth, Stephen and Ruth’s mother Alice were all in the kitchen; Alice was the last person Jenessa wanted to see. If her brain had been working, she thought frantically, she would have realized Alice would have rushed straight over to Ruth’s on a fact-finding mission. Ruth said, ‘Jenessa—your hair is gorgeous!’
‘My, my,’ Alice said coyly, ‘never knew you to change your looks for a man, Jenessa. He must be someone pretty special.’
Jenessa could not begin