Blaze (A Minxes of Romance anthology) Read online

  And found she could no longer be angry with him. Even if he deserved it.

  “Isn’t this nice?” he asked and she sighed.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Shelley, this is where you belong. And you know it.”

  “But...”

  “Do you honestly think I could lie in that hospital a moment longer when you'd told me we could be together once I was discharged?”

  “But I didn't mean for you to leave before a doctor agreed you were ready.”

  “I'm fine. I promise you. I wouldn't have left if I wasn't sure of that.”

  “I still don't like the thought of you being here alone.”

  “Then move in with me.”

  His breath was warm on her face and she couldn't think properly. But she knew what he said made sense. Apart from anything else, she wanted to look after him. “I've got annual leave booked for the next week. I was going to decorate my bedroom, but I suppose I could stay here and keep an eye on you instead.”

  “The next week will be a start.”

  She sighed and snuggled as close as she dared without risking hurting him. And then, tempted to the point of distraction, she kissed him full on the lips.

  He tasted delicious—warm and uniquely right.

  “I could get so used to this I might never want to let you go.” He spoke against her mouth and she felt his words right through her body. They made her shiver. “I love you, Shelley.”

  “Maybe I don't want you to let go.” And, to prove the point, she kissed him again. “Because I love you, too, Harrison,” she finally admitted when she came up for air.

  About the author

  Suzanna Ross writes sweet, modern romances and a number of her short stories have been published in women's magazines in the UK and in Australia. She also writes as Suzanne Ross Jones.

  Suzanna and her family live in Scotland. With dramatic hills, mysterious lochs and romantic castles on her doorstep, she finds she can’t help but be inspired.

  Her latest book, The Baby of the Family & Other Stories by Suzanne Ross Jones, is available on Amazon now.

  Locked Into Love

  Catherine Coles

  Kindle Edition. Copyright © 2012 Catherine Coles

  All rights reserved. No part of this e-book may be reproduced in any form other than that in which it was purchased and without the written permission of the author.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  http://catherine-coles.blogspot.com/

  Chapter One

  Cassie pulled ineffectually at the handcuffs holding her wrist securely to the desk. No, it wasn't going to work. Little Ed had definitely fastened the pink fluffy handcuffs and taken the key with him. She pulled one last time, the noisy clank of metal on metal sounding overly loud in the quiet newsroom.

  She'd been back in Coombethwaite for precisely two days and already she wished she'd stayed in London. Although, after being made redundant, she couldn't afford to keep up the payments on her Canary Wharf apartment. She didn't really have much choice but to return to the village she'd left eight years ago with plans of taking Fleet Street by storm and never returning to her childhood home.

  Of course, as is the case in villages, everyone knew she was back with her tail between her legs and her dreams in tatters.

  She'd thought begging her old boss, Harry Swales, for a job on the local newspaper was the pinnacle of her humiliation. That was until she heard the distinctive rumble of the fire truck outside. No, no, no! This was not going to happen. Fate wouldn't be so cruel. Would it?

  Surely it wasn't possible to sink further into the pool of humiliation. How could it get worse than being attached to an old fashioned metal desk with your own handcuffs?

  The fire engine came to a stop outside the newspaper office and through the open door she heard feet landing on the path outside.

  “Hello?” A deep voice called from outside. Cassie's insides clenched and she pulled again at the restraint hoping against hope that a miracle had occurred and she could escape.

  Heavy footsteps sounded on the wooden floor of the outer office and a head poked into the main room where Cassie sat on the worn carpet in a puddle of despair. She ducked her chin into her chest and let her hair fall over her face. Maybe if she ...

  “Cassie Parker. What mess have you got yourself into now?” His dimples winked at her as though he was replaying every one of her childish pranks in his head.

  She threw back her shoulders and readied herself to give a haughty, plausible explanation for her situation. Unfortunately she forgot about the metal desk and her head banged back against one of the legs. Tears smarted in her eyes and her hatred for Little Ed overtook that for the man in front of her.

  Ben Spencer. Her childhood sweetheart and the man the whole of Coombethwaite, including herself, had thought she was certain to marry.

  Cassie's mortification multiplied as the rest of the crew crowded behind Ben trying to see what was happening.

  “We need cutting equipment,” Ben turned and spoke quietly. “Cassie needs cutting free.”

  Her cheeks burned as sounds of obvious amusement outside floated in on the summer air through the open office windows. A commotion sounded in the outer office before Little Ed stumbled in, a huge grin stretching his thin cheeks.

  “Aha!” he crowed. “Fireman rescues damsel in distress!”

  “No.” Cassie shook her head.

  Ben seemed to realise what Little Ed was going to do and crouched in front of Cassie a moment before the flash of Ed’s camera lit up the room.

  If not for Ben, her awful colleague would’ve recorded her mortification for the whole village's entertainment. Gratitude warred with annoyance and something else entirely. She hadn’t been prepared for the effect seeing Ben again would have on her.

  He’d always been tall and muscular due to the demanding physical nature of running a farm but now he filled his uniform so well her mouth went dry, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth. She hoped his impossibly broad back had shielded her from Ed’s camera.

  “Out!" Ben's voice boomed in the small room. She peered around him, gratified to see Little Ed's face crumple. Gone was the triumphant smile. Ben got to his feet and walked casually towards the other man. “It's time to leave.”

  Cassie choked back a giggle as Little Ed scurried off like the rat he was.

  “So,” Ben knelt next to her again. “Let me check your head and then you can tell me how on earth you've got yourself into this mess.”

  Cassie wanted to argue with him, tell him this wasn't one of her infamous scandals, but given her predicament she thought it best to remain quiet. She bent her head forward so Ben could check the spot where she'd hit the metal table leg.

  As soon as he put his hands onto her sensitive scalp, any thoughts of speech she may have had disappeared and her ability to form even sensible thoughts ended. Cassie pursed her lips together to stop the sigh of pleasure from erupting.

  Ben's chest was level with her eyes and his familiar scent washed over her. He smelled of outdoors, of hard work and something that was entirely Ben. Her stomach dipped as her thoughts turned to the fun they could have had with these handcuffs. Privately. With no clothes on.

  This time she let the sigh out. That was never going to happen. He'd broken her heart once and she wasn't about to let him do that again.

  “Okay.” He took his hands from her head and tilted it back gently so he could look at her. “The skin is abraded but there's no free flowing blood. How do you feel?”

  “Ridiculous, exposed ...”

  “I meant your head. How does your head
feel where you banged it?”

  “Oh.” Cassie's eyes locked onto his beautiful grey ones and she felt horribly near tears again. “It feels fine.”

  If he saw the emotion she was struggling to contain, he mercifully didn't say anything. Instead, he became all business-like as he strode to the outer office and asked for the cutting equipment.

  Crouching back down beside her, he felt around her wrist. “These are on pretty tight. If you can hold one side tight against your wrist, I'll cut the other side where there's a slight gap. Is that okay?”

  Cassie nodded, not trusting herself to speak. At least, not trusting that any words that came out of her mouth would answer the question he'd asked or make any sort of sense.

  “How did this happen, Cass?”

  “Little Ed.” She spat out his name, using as much derision as she could.

  “You know,” Ben started as he snipped the metal holding her captive. “No one really calls him Little Ed anymore.”

  “Because he's not so little?” Ed Swales towered over her, he was at least six foot five and had grown a foot and a half since she last saw him.

  “And he's not a kid any more. Some things changed when you left, Cassie.”

  She didn't like the censorious tone in his voice—as though she somehow were to blame for leaving Coombethwaite. The way she remembered it, he'd broken her heart and she'd rushed off to the train station and only stopped sobbing somewhere around the midlands.

  As the handcuffs fell away from her wrist, she rubbed the reddened skin. “You haven't changed though, have you, Ben?”

  He got to his feet, the broken handcuffs dangling uselessly from the fingers of one large hand.

  “No,” he straightened powerful shoulders and stared down at her. “I haven't changed at all.”

  Cassie wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or not. It meant that everything she'd once loved about Ben remained the same but everything that had infuriated her—what she'd once seen as his complete lack of ambition—had remained exactly the same.

  “I should go,” he said, making no moves to leave the cramped newspaper office. His eyes shone with merriment. “But I really can't leave until I know how you came to be fastened to the desk with these.”

  Cassie got to her feet and made a grab for the handcuffs. Ben was much too fast for her and sitting in one place for so long had given her pins and needles in her feet that made even standing precarious let alone chasing Ben for her ruined handcuffs.

  “Ed.” She looked around for him as though he were still lingering. “He said he had a tip for a great story but only one of us could go. I bent under the desk to grab my bag and he had the handcuffs ready and fastened them.”

  “That's ...”

  “Humiliating.”

  “Well, yes,” he agreed. “But I was going to say it's pretty ingenious. For Ed.”

  There was no way Cassie was going to agree with him. It was hurtful, unnecessary, not to mention downright criminal.

  “So,” he held up the handcuffs. “I'm thinking these aren't Ed's?”

  “Nope, they're mine.” She met his gaze steadily.

  A hint of colour spread across his tanned cheekbones. He took a step towards her. “What are you doing with pink fluffy handcuffs, Cass?”

  He was now standing way too close and his low voice skittered her senses, his lips nearly touching her ear. His nearness made it hard to think, to form a sentence. “They were for a story.”

  She kept her gaze on his chest, not daring to meet his eyes, knowing she was barely hanging onto her sanity as it was. If she looked at him she'd be lost.

  “What kind of story would need handcuffs?”

  “I did a story on parties. You know the sort, a saleswoman comes to your home and you can buy lingerie and ... um ... other stuff.”

  “Other stuff?”

  Ben’s eyebrows rose as though his question was genuine, but she knew better. She was also tired of his teasing. It was past time for her to regain her control.

  “Yes.” She trailed a hand down his chest, stopping at the top of his trousers. “You know exactly what I mean.”

  “Okay, well, I think I'd better be ...”

  “Oh you don't want to leave, Ben.” Cassie closed the space between them. If he wanted to tease, she’d show him she could tease a whole lot better than he could. “I got a great deal on some of the items on sale. I remember how much you liked the colour red.”

  “I ...”

  “Close the door, Ben.” Cassie undid the top button of her blouse. “I'll show you, shall I?”

  He licked his lips, darting a look behind him, then back at Cassie. Running his hands down her back he cupped her bottom and pulled her towards him.

  “Spencer! What you doing in there?”

  Ben groaned. “On my way.”

  Cassie shrugged, feigning nonchalance even as her heart beat faster than the infuriating ticking of the old clock hanging on the office wall. “Some other time, maybe.”

  She didn't mean it. She was going to stay as far away from Ben Spencer as she could but he didn't need to know that. Playing the sophisticated big city flirt was a front.

  She was never going to let him know how much he'd hurt her and the only way to avoid it happening again was to quit the job she’d begged for and get the hell out of Coombethwaite.

  Chapter Two

  “So, you going to answer me?” Drew asked as Ben climbed back into the fire engine. “What were you doing in there all that time?”

  “Can't a guy have a conversation with a lady he's just rescued?”

  “Not when the lady in question is the reason you've never got past more than three dates with another woman since she left.”

  “That's not true. Last year Claire Cooper and I ...” Ben couldn’t even finish his sentence. They were right. No one had ever come close to Cassie. No one had made him feel even a fraction of the love he’d had for her.

  Hell, his hands still tingled from touching her, the feel of her bottom in his hands taunting him—he had to stay away from her. He’d finished their relationship and he’d had a damn good reason for it. There was no way he could let her get her hot little hands anywhere near him again.

  He’d teased her and she’d given it back tenfold.

  “Yeah ...you went out a couple of times until you realised her hair colour was from a bottle and no one had the same wheat coloured hair as Cassie.”

  Ben frowned. “I did not say that.”

  “Yeah,” Isaac agreed. “You did.”

  “If I was drunk then comments like that do not count.”

  “You've got it wrong,” Sam commented as she negotiated the fire truck through the country lanes. “When you're drunk your comments matter a whole lot more because they come from your subconscious. They are what you really feel.”

  “Rubbish.”

  That couldn't be right, could it? He surely wasn't sabotaging every relationship he began simply because the other girls weren't Cassie? He'd let her go. He'd done the right thing. She'd moved on, he'd moved on.

  So why was it when he closed his eyes, all he could see was a field full of wheat, dancing in the summer sun and Cassie's smile mocking him?

  Chapter Three

  “Prove it!” Ben tried to ignore the childish dare.

  “Yeah,” Daniel agreed as he put his pint back down on the table in front of them. “Prove she means absolutely nothing to you.”

  Ben wished he'd given Nick and Lizzie's wedding a miss. He was sure he could've made up some disaster at the farm. It wasn't as though people would disbelieve his story. Everyone in the entire village knew he was in danger of losing his farm. It just wasn't economically viable any more, but Ben refused to give up.

  “And how would I do that?” He wasn't going to take up his friends' dare. But it would be interesting to find out how they thought he could prove he was completely over Cassie.

  “Dance with her.” Marcus suggested.

  “Dance? No way.” Ben sh
ook his head for extra emphasis. He was a farmer. A big man whose feet worked best in a pair of wellies trudging through fields looking after four legged animals. They did not belong on a dance floor.

  He glanced over to where Cassie sat with her friends. Her scarlet dress skimmed over the rise of her breasts, the hem brushing the floor. Wispy blonde tendrils framed her cheeks. No, dancing with her was out of the question. He'd stand on her feet or trip over and make a fool of himself. Wasn't happening.

  “Yeah, you know, you just stand with each other on the dance floor and wave your arms about a bit.”

  Ben downed what was left of his pint. “I don't think so.”

  Harrison shrugged. “Then I guess just being near her will cause you some problems?”

  “Not at all,” Ben denied even as his stomach clenched—simply thinking about having Cassie near him was a bad idea. He'd nearly combusted yesterday when she'd touched him.

  “So you should do it. Prove your point.” His twin Jake goaded.

  “Will it stop you lot harassing me and mentioning her name every time you speak to me?”

  The knowing smiles, nudges and winks that followed told Ben he'd fallen neatly into their trap. They'd baited him and he'd fallen for it. He couldn't lose face now otherwise they would never let up. Working as a volunteer fireman was something he felt passionately about and his colleagues were also his friends, but right now he could cheerfully never speak to any of them ever again.

  “Right.” Ben pushed to his feet and looked over at Cassie once more. “One dance. Easy.”

  He made his feet move while the part of his brain not controlled by macho bravado told him what an idiot he was. He was a farmer. A fireman. But definitely not a dancer.

  “Hey Ben,” Cassie’s lips stretched into a smile but her voice betrayed her reluctance.

  “Will you dance?” he asked. He swallowed past the golf ball sized lump in his throat. This was worse than the very first time he'd ever asked her to dance. It seemed that every single pair of eyes in the entire village was now focussed on them.