The desire to settle in behind her and draw her sleeping body into his took much more effort to subdue.
Nevertheless, he did it.
To take his mind off Belle, he looked to the sliding doors.
They’d been opened, an easel set in front of them, a large working canvas on the easel, a small wooden table next to it covered in a mess of tubes and brushes.
Lila was painting the view he’d shown Belle.
Likely Belle had shown Lila the view to paint.
This made Jack contradictorily pleased and annoyed.
He decided to go with annoyed.
He walked to the canvas and studied it, unable to suppress his fascination at seeing a Cavendish landscape in its early phases.
Lila had a tremendous following, many museum pieces, her work was coveted by galleries worldwide and she’d been written about in a variety of art books. She’d been deemed a living, contemporary master.
Many would pay for the opportunity he had at that very moment to see her art in process and it was not lost on Jack that this was one of those rare gifts life let fall in your lap.
“James?” He heard Belle’s honeyed, drowsy voice call his name and he had to stifle unwelcome desire at the sound of her drowsy voice just as he clenched his teeth in order not to correct her.
He despised it when she called him James. It was his name and there were people who called him that therefore he knew it was an irrational reaction.
He also could care less.
His eyes went to her and she was up on an arm, pulling her hair away from her face at the same time she was watching him, her face flushed with sleep.
She was wearing a red camisole top and a dark brown skirt that hit her knees and had cream and red patterns in it. The camisole and skirt showed a goodly amount of skin, now tanned from her many excursions with his dogs and her quiet, seaside reveries in the sun.
She had, quite clearly, entered the phase of pregnancy where she’d taken on what many referred to as “the glow”.
For Belle, since her natural glow was considerable, the additional element was spectacular.
“Where’s Gram?” she asked, pushing up to her feet which were bare, a pair of muted bronze flip-flops were lying by the blankets.
Her toes, Jack noted, were also painted a very bright red.
He took his eyes from her toes and looked into hers.
“She went to the house. She had a call to make,” Jack informed her.
“Oh crap!” Belle cried, looking at the ladder, her anxiety immediately evident. “It’s already time for that call? I must have been asleep ages. I can’t believe it’s that late and I can’t believe I fell asleep again.”
Jack watched her face work through her fear, his mind focussed on the fact that he had words to say to her. They were words he’d rather not say in the hayloft where he’d become absurdly enchanted with her four months ago.
The stable floor, he could do.
He’d prefer the house.
But not the loft.
“I’ll help you down,” he offered as she continued to stare at the ladder at the same time she pushed her feet into her shoes but when he made his offer, her eyes shot to him.
“I’m okay, actually,” she said, throwing out an arm in a false casual gesture, an effort to hide her discomfort. “I’ll just hang out and wait for Gram.”
“She gave the impression she might be a while,” Jack replied and he watched her wet her lips nervously but then she nodded.
“That’s okay too,” she lied. “I’ll just, um –”
Jack cut her off, “Belle, I’ll help you down.”
“No, really. I’m all right up here until she gets back.”
The last time she climbed down the ladder, she did it unaided.
She was also ordered by Jack to do so and she’d done it as they’d both been in the grip of a consuming passion that, looking back, seemed ludicrous.
Even so, it wasn’t and Jack knew it.
However Jack had no intention of recreating that event in order to assist her now.
“Lila asked me to look after you. I’ll help you down,” Jack pushed and her eyes went to his shoulder, something else he once found endearing and now he loathed. He decided not to call her on it and went on, “We’ll go down like the time we came up together. I’ll go first and you come down right after me.”
As he spoke, he watched her tanned face grow pale at the memory he too wished he didn’t have to share.
“No,” she whispered. “Really, I’m all right to wait for Gram.”
Jack was losing patience. He had things to do, the priority being his child and getting things straight with Belle. Then he had other pressing items on his day’s agenda.
He didn’t have time for her phobias.
“Belle, it’s a one story ladder,” he stated wearily. “If I go down first and you fall, I’ll be in the position to catch you.”
“I know that,” she lied, still looking at his shoulder.
He walked to the ladder and swung his arm toward it. “Then let’s go.”
She shook her head and took a step back.
“Belle,” Jack said in warning.
“Why can’t you just leave me up here?” she asked, her eyes moving to his ear.
“Because we have to talk and we can’t do it up here.”
“I’m okay to talk up here,” Belle replied instantly, latching onto an excuse to remain in the loft.
“I’m not,” Jack returned.
She tilted her head and asked, “Why?
He’d seen her tilt her head before.
Twice.
Both times it had been lying on his pillow.
He controlled his need to clench his teeth at the memory and instead replied, “I don’t have time to explain. I have things to do and I’d like to have our chat and then do them.”
“Okay, what do you want to talk about?” she invited.
“Not here.”
“I don’t under –”
Jack’s patience, already wearing thin, snapped and he strode across the loft to her. She had only the chance to back up two steps before he bent at the waist and put a shoulder to her hips.
She let out a small cry but he ignored it, lifted her on his shoulder and walked back across the loft as he felt her arms wrap tightly around his waist from the back.
“What are you –?” she started to ask but her words halted as her body stilled when he turned and executed a one-armed descent of the ladder, Belle over his shoulder, his other arm wrapped firmly around her thighs.
By the time his feet hit the stable floor, her arms were so tight around him they were causing pain, her body was stiff as a board and she was completely silent except for very heavy breathing.