She swopped ends so she could watch him coming back down the beach and returned the twins’ reluctant farewell waves with a cheery one of her own. It only took Hugh a few minutes to divest himself of his clothes and Julia took a deep breath at the sight of him bearing down on her. Steady on, my girl, she told herself, you don’t like big men. But she liked the look of this one.
His swimming togs might be more modest than hers in terms of amount of material, but they certainly weren’t modest per se. The sleek, clinging, racing briefs in red which seemed to accentuate rather than cloak, his manhood, riding high at the top of the solid columns of muscle that were his legs. Shorn of his clothing he was definitely not shorn of his power! Julia sternly quelled a sudden urge to escape the approaching colossus, and concentrated instead on admiring his symmetry.
No wonder he was so hard to bump into—the flat, broad stomach was rippled with muscle, the high arch of his rib-cage supporting a deep chest and powerful shoulders. Each pace threw a different set of muscles into relief on his body, solid-packed yet beautifully proportioned as a whole. His skin was much paler than Julia’s but dark hair covered the strong forearms and legs and rode the muscles of his chest. There was a fine covering of hair in a line from his indented navel, thickening as it disappeared under the red nylon astride his hips. If he had been a friend, or merely an acquaintance of her own age, Julia would have wolf-whistled, but she contented herself with giving Hugh an approving sweep of her lashes … this time.
He slid easily into the water and Julia felt the long length of his leg slide momentarily along her softly rounded one. Hard and soft. Julia felt a shiver of self-awareness. It seemed much more intimate sharing the pool with one large man, than it had with two, bickering boys.
The breeze had died in the interim and a light rain began to fall, little more than a mist, to mingle with the steam. Julia let her head fall back so that she could taste the sweet purity as it descended on them.
‘Mmmm lovely. I hope it doesn’t cool us down too much.’ She lifted her tangled lashes to find herself under study. ‘Aren’t you glad you came?’ she teased. ‘Exactly why did you come, and not Olivia, if she took the messages?’
‘I offered to come. I happened to be downstairs, taking a break.’
Julia’s eyes went uncertainly to the taped hand he was taking care not to dip in the water. Hugh? Taking a break? Unheard of! ‘Is your hand bothering you?’
‘Among other things.’ He didn’t elaborate as to what they were. ‘It throbs a little.’ His lids drooped until his eyes were mere grey slits. ‘Michael tells me that you cried all over him that morning.’
‘I thought I’d wet someone else’s suit for a change,’ Julia grinned at him, unembarrassed. ‘I was sorry for being such an idiot and you wouldn’t let me relieve my feelings by helping you. You really were quite beastly about it. I was worried that you might be left-handed and not able to write at all.’
‘I’m right-handed. However, my manuscript to date has been typed.’
‘Oh.’ And: ‘Ooohh,’ as it sank in. ‘How long before you can use your fingers do you think?’
‘A week at least. They’re pretty badly bruised.’
‘Oh.’ She moved uneasily, creating tiny ripples in the water, aware that Hugh was watching her in a narrow, assessing way, uncertain of what he expected her to do.
‘Well, it’ll do you good to take it easy for a while,’ she said. ‘It’s done me good already … you were free to gallop to my rescue. I should have taken your advice days ago; now Richard and Steve are so wrapped up in the business of scoring off each other that they’ve forgotten all about listening to me. Why are you looking at me like that?’
‘You’re admitting that I was right?’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’ she demanded. ‘You were. If you’d put it more delicately I would have agreed with you at the time, and maybe avoided all this.’
‘So now it’s my fault.’
‘It’s nobody’s fault, just an unfortunate set of circumstances.’ Julia gave a baffled sigh. ‘Richard’s always ear-bashing me about The Method … you have to live a part to make it believable … I would have clicked sooner if I hadn’t been so busy wondering whether it was one of his damned practical jokes. And as for Steve …’ she hesitated and made a quick decision. It wouldn’t be a betrayal of trust, since Hugh was the one member of the family on whom she could rely not to rush in with an excess of sympathy. He listened thoughtfully, the broad angles of his face sloping austerely as she told him about Steve’s struggle, and her own fears about rejecting him.
‘I think he’s tougher, more resilient, than you give him credit for. After all, the initial decision to stop was his.’
‘Maybe,’ Julia admitted having the same thoughts herself. ‘If only I could find a graceful way to withdraw that wouldn’t damage his self-esteem. I can’t favour one of them at the expense of the other, that’ll only get me in deeper. What they need is a short, sharp, painless shock.’ She paused, expectantly.
‘Are you asking me?’ said Hugh, after a moment. ‘I wouldn’t like to provoke another violent reaction with gratuitous advice, I only have one undamaged hand left.’
The rain was beginning to come down a little more heavily and Julia was fascinated by the way the drops channelled themselves down the grooves in Hugh’s face, and the muscular indentations in his neck and shoulders. They both lounged lower in the water, Hugh’s bandaged hand immersed to the base of its thumb, like a white marker buoy bobbing on the surface. Julia wondered what excuse he’d given to the rest of the family … he must have been blessedly vague about the reason for his injury, for no one had questioned Julia.
‘Well?’
Julia shook her head slightly, wishing she wasn’t quite so aware of his physical presence, so disturbed by it. ‘Yes, I’m asking you.’
‘Perhaps you could introduce another man on to the scene.’
‘Another one.’ Julia was appalled. ‘That would be just compounding the problem.’
‘Not if he was tame, and impressive enough to stop the twins in their tracks, permanently.’
His eagle eyes missed none of her puzzlement. She had the definite feeling that this was all leading somewhere, but she couldn’t fathom the reason. It wasn’t at all what she had expected from him. ‘Perhaps you can tell me where I’m going to find a spare man around here? There’s Charley, of course, but I wouldn’t like to be accused of cradle snatching. There are no other men.’
‘Thank you,’ so drily as to crackle like an onion skin.