Practically Perfect (46 page)

He took hold of both her hands, as if afraid she might run away. ‘Do you know, I thought having my house burn down was the worst thing in the world.’

‘Absolutely!’ His fingers were warm on hers and she longed to hold his hands back, but was afraid doing so would reveal her true feelings. Her gaze returned to the floor.

‘But it isn’t,’ he said quietly.

‘Isn’t it?’ She glanced up in surprise, meeting his eyes almost by mistake.

He shook his head slightly. ‘No. The worst thing in the world came when I drove the most important person in my life right out of it.’ He frowned slightly. ‘Although, to her credit, she drove herself.’

She moistened her lips, not daring to believe what she thought he might be saying. ‘Did she?’ It was barely a whisper.

‘Yes. She’s eminently practical, you see.’

Anna sighed. ‘Rob, all this joking around is all very well, but I was terribly silly. I know I like to think of myself as practical but what I did was barking! Of course you’d resent it. It was just not seeing you, worrying about you, I had no focus for …’

‘For what?’

‘My – creativity.’

‘Ah. I was hoping you were going to say something else.’

‘What?’

He looked diffident. ‘The “L” word.’

‘I do like my work, yes.’ She gave him a lopsided grin.

He growled and wrapped his arms around her and hugged her, so tightly she thought she’d never breathe again. Then she realised she didn’t much care about breathing as long as she could stay in Rob’s arms.

‘I wasn’t talking about work,’ he said eventually, looking down into her eyes.

‘I know you weren’t.’

‘So, do you think Caroline and Dexter would like it if we stayed together, so they could be together?’

‘I think they might like it very much.’

His mouth on hers was everything it had been before, only much more so. There was an intentness about his kiss, a yearning, caused, no doubt, by their separation and quarrel.

‘And what about you?’ he said at last.

‘What? What about me?’ Anna had been to a place very far away and had no recollection of any conversation they might have just had.

‘Would you like to live with me? You wouldn’t have to, of course,’ he hurried on. ‘You could live in your house, the one you haven’t finished buying yet, but I do think it’s important for a designer to live near or preferably on site.’

‘What do you mean?’ She was confused again. Love seemed to have destroyed an awful lot of her brain cells.

‘I mean, how can you do a proper job if you’re not able to visit every day, every hour that’s necessary?’ He seemed to be explaining something that was blindingly obvious to him, but still obscure to her.

‘I still don’t understand.’

He took her hand. ‘I love you, Anna,’ he said, looking deeply into her eyes. ‘Not only do I want you, for ever, but I want to use your designs.’

Warmth spread over her body as she blushed in pleasure. ‘Oh.’

He nodded as he saw comprehension dawn. ‘I think I might just be giving you a very large commission.’

‘The biggest!’ She laughed a little. ‘But how on earth are you going to pay me? It’s going to cost a fortune.’

Now he laughed, too. ‘I was rather hoping to pay you in kind.’ He started to fiddle with the hem of her jumper.

‘What kind of kind?’

‘This kind.’ He led her to the double bed and they toppled on to it. Anna’s last conscious thought was that she had not been wrong about the electricity. It was high voltage and potentially explosive. If not properly channelled it could be very dangerous. She decided to pursue it as the ultimate form of environmentally friendly power.

They stayed in bed until Anna became aware of a strange little sound. Eventually she recognised it as her mobile phone, growling in the bottom of her bag. Crawling over Rob to retrieve it was a mistake, and it had stopped ringing by the time he had finally let her go.

‘Oh God, that was Laura. I’d better ring her back; she’s expecting me in Yorkshire later.’

‘You’re not going to go?’ He sounded suddenly worried.

She smiled lovingly and stroked his hair back from his face. ‘Not if you don’t want me to.’

He pulled her towards him again and said earnestly, ‘I have only a caravan to offer you – at least, for ages. It’s not what I’d want for you. Or even for Caroline, really.’

‘A caravan is fine. A little alteration of the design and we’d fit much more in.’

‘Oh, Anna, I do love you!’ he said, smiling at her, emotion shining in his eyes.

‘And I love you. Very much. But I must ring my sister.’

‘And I’d better let the dogs out for a run. They’re going to be wondering what’s been happening.’

Anna smiled and began to gather her scattered clothes towards her. ‘I expect Caroline and Dexter will explain.’

He chuckled. ‘I am sorry about all that. I just had to make you stay.’ She watched him pull on a sweatshirt and saw the muscles in his arms move. She only had the strength of mind to stop watching when he had gone out.

She picked up her phone. ‘Laura? Sorry, I just couldn’t
get
to my phone in time. Listen, I’m not coming to Yorkshire.’

‘Oh, Anna! Why not? I’ve cleared you a room and everything.’

‘I’m staying down here. In a caravan.’

‘Now you really have gone mad. Why on earth do you want to live in a caravan?’

‘Rob’s living in it, too.’

Understanding leapt from mobile phone to mobile phone. ‘Ah, you’ve made it up, have you? I thought it was probably just a lovers’ tiff,’ Laura said knowingly. ‘I’m so glad. He’s such a nice man.’ She paused. ‘You’re not going to share a caravan with four greyhounds, are you?’

‘No. They’ve got a very nice shed to sleep in.’

‘So what’s the deal? Can you talk?’ Laura asked, keen for more details.

‘There is no deal, but I can talk for a moment.’ Anna sat on the bed, a smile on her face as she saw Rob with the dogs from the caravan window.

‘You’re not going to give up your job, are you? You must keep your independence,’ Laura insisted.

Anna lay back on the rumpled bed covers and laughed. ‘I promise I’ll do that. I may stop doing up my own houses for a bit and concentrate on working for Rob in between commissions, because I wouldn’t want to be doing up two places at once. We haven’t talked about all that yet, but I think he’ll let me help.’

‘Well, make sure you do talk about it. Before anything irrevocable happens.’

Anna was still lying on the bed with a sunny smile on her face when Rob came back a little later.

‘What did your sister say?’ he asked as he closed the door behind him.

Anna sat up. ‘She said we must talk before anything irrevocable happens. I said it already had.’

He looked startled. ‘Has it?’

‘Oh yes. I’ve fallen totally and utterly in love with you.’

‘Snap,’ said Rob and joined her on the bed.

Anna moved over slightly and smiled at him.

‘If we were in a house and not a caravan this would be perfect,’ he said as he straightened out a leg that had developed cramp.

‘Practically perfect is good enough for me,’ said Anna, snuggling into him. ‘Perfection can come later. Much later. Let’s have a bit more of this first.’

‘Mm, OK.’

They didn’t speak again for some time.

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Published by Arrow Books 2009

Copyright © Katie Fforde Ltd 2006

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First published in Great Britain in 2006 by Century

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