One Night, One Baby Read online

  No. He blocked the memories swiftly. ‘And I’m not in the market for a relationship, either.’ He needed to make that clear. And very much up front. This day had limits. A day of fun, yes. A day leading to another and another and a full-blown relationship, no. He was single and staying that way.

  ‘I wasn’t asking you for one,’ she pointed out. ‘And you’re the one who’s invited yourself along on my day.’

  ‘Point taken.’ He was pretty sure he already knew the answer—Jane Redmond wasn’t the sort to think about kissing a stranger if her heart was elsewhere—but he asked her anyway. ‘I take it you don’t have a significant other, either?’

  ‘No.’ Those blue eyes held a spark of defiance. ‘And, just so you know, I’m not looking for one.’

  Same as him. ‘Good. We both know where we stand. Today’s your birthday and we’re going to have some fun.’ And tomorrow was a different day. The beginning of the rest of their lives. When they’d never see each other again. ‘So, what else is on this list?’

  ‘Going on a boat on the Thames down to Greenwich, then walking up to the Observatory and standing on the meridian line. Climbing the Monument. Tea at the Ritz.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Except I think you have to book months in advance for that, and I haven’t.’

  Because clearly she hadn’t expected to be spending her birthday on her own.

  ‘We can always ask. Try and charm our way in.’ He brushed a hand across his collar. ‘I can pick up a tie some time before then. And if we can’t have tea at the Ritz, we can go to Brown’s or Fortnum’s or the Savoy—make the best of it.’

  She smiled. ‘Thank you. Funny, I didn’t think I’d end up spending my twenty-fifth birthday with a complete stranger.’

  A birthday everyone seemed to have forgotten. And Jane, despite her girl-next-door looks, wasn’t the kind of woman you forgot. There was something about her that had already imprinted itself on him—something he didn’t want to analyse. This was meant to be about fun. ‘Hey, a quarter of a century is something to celebrate.’

  But there was something he needed to know. He deliberately made his voice more gentle. ‘So how come your family forgot?’

  She wrinkled her nose. ‘They didn’t forget, exactly.’

  ‘I’m not with you.’

  ‘Look, my parents are absolutely brilliant. They’ll get an OBE for services to archaeology one of these days and I’ll be the one at the front clapping and cheering my head off.’ She sighed. ‘Except I’ll also need to be the one to make sure they turn up on time and wear something a bit smarter than the stuff they wear on a dig.’

  Just as Harry had to nag him to turn up on time and wear something that wasn’t like his normal working clothes. He understood exactly where Jane’s parents were coming from. ‘So they just didn’t realise that today’s—well, today.’

  He hadn’t meant to sound judgemental, but she clearly took it that way, because she lifted her chin and glared at him. ‘They’re dedicated to their job and that’s fine. I know they love me—I’m not insecure or neurotic. Mum and Dad just don’t live in the real world.’ She flapped her hand dismissively. ‘They probably posted my birthday card yesterday and forgot that they’re in Turkey right now and it takes a lot longer than a day for mail to get to London.’

  Mmm. He’d been known to do that, too. ‘What about your brother?’

  ‘Alex is two years older than I am. Also an archaeologist. Like Mum and Dad, he’s on a different planet and time zone from the rest of us.’ She shrugged. ‘As I said, it’s not that they deliberately forgot. And when they realise, they’ll be horribly upset that they missed it.’

  Though Jane wouldn’t be the one to remind them that they’d forgotten. Mitch knew that without having to ask. ‘What about your friends? Your colleagues?’

  He could virtually see the mask of bravery sliding onto her face. ‘My housemates are all having a really hectic time at work. I’m not going to add to the stress by moaning that they forgot my birthday. And my colleagues are, um…’

  ‘Archaeologists?’ he asked, unable to resist teasing her.

  ‘Archivists, actually.’

  ‘Which is what? The desk version of archaeology?’ he asked.

  ‘Something like that,’ she admitted. ‘Instead of spending your life digging in a muddy ditch, you spend your life looking for clues in old papers.’

  Locked away from the world. Cocooned in the past. ‘Sounds…’ Safe and dull. Stuck in one place. Entrapment. ‘Interesting.’ It was the best word he could think of without insulting her.

  She lifted her chin, clearly guessing his real thoughts. ‘It is, actually. When you discover something that the world thought was lost for ever, or you make a connection that suddenly explains a lot of things.’

  ‘So how come you’re not an archaeologist, like the rest of your family?’

  ‘When I was about fifteen, my parents did a summer dig at Vindolanda, one of the Roman forts on Hadrian’s Wall. Because it was the holidays, Alex and I went with them. And then I found out about the letters at Vindolanda.’ Her eyes lit up. The kind of passion he recognised: matching his feelings for his own job. ‘It drew me so much more than patiently digging away in a trench: I loved trying to decipher the handwriting, crack the code—and finding out about the past from the documents. I knew then that was what I wanted to do.’

  He could understand that; but what he couldn’t understand was why she was so passionate about something so…safe. ‘What’s wrong with the present?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing. I just happen to be interested in the past. So what do you do?’ she asked.

  Oh, she was going to love this. The complete opposite of herself. She clearly went to the same place day after day at work and lost herself in papers, whereas he was rarely in one place for very long. ‘I chase storms,’ he said mildly.

  ‘You do what?’ She stared at him as if he’d just grown a second head.

  ‘I chase storms,’ he repeated, and smiled at her. ‘I take photographs of extreme weather.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Tornadoes?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘In America?’

  ‘Sometimes.’ He couldn’t resist bursting that particular bubble. ‘Though, just for the record, the UK has more tornadoes per square mile than anywhere else in the world.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘On average there are thirty to forty a year. It’s just that most of them are little and don’t last long, and they tend to be in a rural or coastal area so you don’t hear about them—the big ones that damage thousands of houses, like the ones in Birmingham and Kendal Rise, are pretty rare.’

  ‘You chase storms.’ She frowned. ‘Is that what your meeting was about?’

  ‘No. It was about an exhibition of my photographs.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘And I’d much rather be taking them than talking about them. I had to spend the whole of yesterday stuck inside, too. I loathe it. I’d rather be outside.’

  She glanced up at the sky. ‘Even though it doesn’t look like stormy weather?’

  ‘Even though,’ he agreed. And the photographs were only half of his work. The showy half that supported the serious half. Not that Jane needed to know about that. ‘I don’t have a camera on me. I’m having a day off. And so, I think, are you.’ He smiled and drained his coffee. ‘Let’s go find that fountain.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  MITCH couldn’t remember enjoying a day so much. Going to the fountain on the South Bank and leaping over the gaps before the wall of water shot up between ‘rooms’. Climbing the three hundred and eleven steps on the spiral staircase to the balcony at the top of the Monument—and then doing it all over again at St Paul’s, where he whispered, ‘Happy birthday,’ from one side of the gallery and Jane whispered back, ‘Thank you,’ from the other side, their words perfectly amplified by the shape of the dome.

  He brushed his mouth over hers when they reached the golden gallery at the highest point of the outer dome, two hundred and
eighty feet above the ground. His head was spinning, and it was nothing to do with vertigo; it was everything to do with Jane.

  From the way her pupils had grown huge, he could tell it was the same for her.

  Instant attraction.

  Crazy attraction.

  He knew he wasn’t her type—she’d go for someone who fossicked around in the past, not someone who wanted to leave it undisturbed. Someone who did safe, ordinary things—not someone who felt as if he were only alive when a storm whirled round him and whose work took him within five miles of a fast-moving tornado.

  She wasn’t his type, either. Not that he had a type, any more.

  ‘Mitch?’

  He pulled his thoughts together and forced himself to smile at her. ‘It’s just a birthday kiss,’ he said lightly. Even though it felt like more than that. A hell of a lot more.

  He was intensely aware of the woman beside him. The way the sun brought out little highlights of copper and gold in her light brown hair. The faint scent of jasmine. The fact his fingers were tingling with the desire to touch her.

  Just as well they were in a public place.

  But even so, after they’d made their way to the pier at Westminster and bought tickets for the river trip, he found himself sliding his right arm round her shoulders. Bringing her just that little bit closer to him on the seat. And she rested her left hand on his thigh for balance. A gesture more intimate than that of friends, let alone strangers. She was barely touching him, but it was as if he could feel every beat of blood through her veins. And he could definitely feel every beat of his own heart.

  Just for today.

  Just for today, she wasn’t just ‘Jane-Jane-Superbrain’. She wasn’t the woman who organised her parents and her brother and her housemates. She wasn’t the polite, quiet archivist who helped people find the documents they wanted and read ancient handwriting to unlock the secrets of the past.

  Just for today, she was having fun. Doing things she’d always planned to do but never somehow seemed to find the time to fit them in. And she was doing them with the most gorgeous man she’d ever met. Walking up the hill to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich with her arm slung round his waist and his arm round her shoulders.

  Like lovers.

  She shivered.

  They weren’t lovers. And Mitch Holland most definitely wasn’t the man for her. He wasn’t the type who’d settle down. He had the same wanderlust as her parents and her brother—probably even more so. At least archaeologists tended to stay in one place during a dig. Mitch, being a stormchaser, probably didn’t even spend a week in the same place.

  But today…today, it was good to be with him. The brooding stranger who’d turned out to have a sense of fun and be good company.

  When they crossed the courtyard to the meridian line, he smiled at her. ‘Standing on the meridian line, I think you said?’

  ‘Astride it. With a foot in each hemisphere.’ She smiled back. ‘Which I know is an incredibly touristy thing to do.’

  ‘Hey, it’s your list. I’m not complaining.’ He faced her, so that both of them were standing astride the narrow brass strip, then leaned over and lightly kissed her. ‘Happy birthday—at longitude zero degrees, zero minutes and zero seconds.’

  When they moved away from the line, he slid his arm round her shoulders again. ‘Want to go into the museum?’

  She shook her head. ‘No time—not if we want to get back for tea at the Ritz. I know the Naval Museum pretty well, anyway.’

  ‘You worked there?’ he asked.

  ‘Worked with them,’ she corrected, ‘on an exhibition about pirates.’ At his surprised glance, she explained, ‘I was involved on the documentary evidence side. Letters, journals, logbooks—that sort of thing.’

  ‘So you’re an expert on pirates.’

  ‘A bit.’

  His eyes glittered with amusement. ‘The way you’re looking at me—are you suggesting I’m a pirate?’

  Jane laughed. ‘When you’re looking all brooding and fierce—like you were outside your meeting, earlier—yes.’

  ‘Brooding and fierce? No-o-o. I’m a pussycat,’ Mitch said.

  ‘Right. And I’m the Queen of China.’

  ‘China was ruled by emperors, not kings.’

  ‘My point exactly,’ she fenced back.

  ‘I’m a pussycat,’ Mitch insisted.

  ‘You’re a stormchaser.’

  ‘What’s to say I can’t be both?’

  Everything. Mitch was most definitely more pirate than pussycat. She smiled. ‘Let’s have lunch.’

  ‘What do you have in mind?’

  ‘A sandwich in the park?’ she suggested. ‘I’m buying.’

  ‘No, you’re not. It’s your birthday, so I’m buying. And don’t argue.’ The crinkles at the corners of his eyes took the bossiness from his words.

  A few minutes later, they were sitting on the hill with sandwiches and bottles of chilled water, enjoying the view over London. When they’d finished eating, Mitch stretched out on the grass and stared up at the sky. ‘Nothing beats the colour of the sky on an English spring day.’

  Jane tipped her head back to look up, and he pulled her down so her head was pillowed on his shoulder.

  ‘And those,’ he said, ‘are my favourite clouds. Cirrus.’ He pointed out the delicate white streaks above them.

  ‘They look as if they’ve been brushed on the sky by a feather,’ Jane said.

  ‘They’re formed by ice crystals high up in the atmosphere,’ he explained. ‘That’s what makes them look so feathery.’

  She smiled. ‘I bet you’re as nerdy about cloud formations as I am about palaeography.’

  ‘Probably,’ he admitted, laughing. ‘Harry’s eyes glaze over when I start going on about the different types of clouds.’

  ‘Do you take pictures of clouds like these as well as storms?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve always been fascinated by them.’

  She nestled closer. ‘So what made you become a stormchaser?’

  She felt him tense for a moment. ‘I suppose it was a natural progression from meteorology.’

  It didn’t feel as if that was the whole explanation, but she didn’t want to spoil the day by pushing him. ‘Are you telling me you used to be a weatherman—one of these people who tell us it’s going to be fine and then it rains all day?’

  He laughed. ‘No. I didn’t do TV or radio forecasts. I worked on models of climate systems. Analysing cloud formations, measuring atmospheric pressure—that sort of thing. Basically, how storms start and how we can predict their movements.’ He paused. ‘I was in Antarctica for a while. It’s an incredible place.’

  Lonely. Bleak. Isolated—even more so than the sites where her parents and her brother worked. How could he bear it? She was cocooned in the archives for most of the time, but there were always people around her. People who needed her to help show them how to find something, how to interpret it. ‘Uh-huh,’ she said carefully. ‘And there’s also no sunshine for the whole of winter.’

  ‘If you’re working on documents, I bet you don’t even notice what the weather’s like outside,’ he countered.

  ‘I do when I go for a walk at lunchtime.’

  He laughed. ‘I guess going for a walk in Antarctica’s a bit different.’

  ‘You’re talking sub-zero temperatures, aren’t you?’ She grimaced.

  He shifted so that he was leaning on his side. ‘Are you cold?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Hmm.’ He rested the back of his hand against her cheek, as if testing her temperature. It was the lightest possible contact, but it made every nerve-end flicker to life. Wanting more.

  ‘Better safe than sorry,’ he said, and dipped his head. Moved his mouth against hers—the lightest, sweetest touch.

  And it was like a flame to touchpaper.

  Jane wasn’t sure when or how he’d moved, but then Mitch was practically lying on top of her. His knees had nudged hers apart and he was supporting hi
s weight on his knees and his elbows; but she was very aware of the hardness of his chest against her breasts, the flatness of his abdomen against her own softer belly.

  Her hands stroked down his back, feeling the play of his muscles. Gorgeous. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, and the most perfect bottom. He’d be lethal in a pair of tight, faded jeans.

  And, God, his mouth. Teasing and promising and demanding, all at once. So even though her head was yelling that they were in a public place, that kissing each other like this really wasn’t a good idea, her body wasn’t listening. It was enjoying the sensation of Mitch’s body pressed against hers, of his tongue against hers, sliding into her mouth the way she wanted his body to slide into hers. The ultimate closeness.

  When he broke the kiss, they stared at each other. His eyes were as hot and stormy as the weather he chased: no softness there, just pure passion. There was a slash of colour across his cheekbones. His mouth looked reddened and slightly swollen—and she’d guess that hers was in pretty much the same state. She’d matched him nibble for nibble, bite for bite. And she could feel his erection pressing against her, just as she was sure he could feel the hardness of her nipples. Aroused. Aching. Wanting.

  ‘Definitely a pirate,’ she whispered.

  ‘Which, unless I’m mixing my metaphors, makes you a siren.’ He bent his head again and caught her lower lip gently between his.

  Desire rippled down her spine. ‘Mitch. Mitch. This isn’t supposed to be happening.’

  ‘No.’ He levered himself off her and rolled over onto his back. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Me, too.’ Though she wasn’t quite sure what she was more sorry about the fact that she’d just lost control in a public place, not caring how abandoned her behaviour was, or the fact that he’d stopped kissing her.

  ‘I take it that wasn’t on your list.’

  She coughed. ‘Er—no.’

  ‘We both know where we stand. Today’s just today. And it’s unfair of me to pressure you. Especially as…’ His voice faded. ‘We’d better start heading back if we want to go and have tea at the Ritz.’ He stood up, then leaned down to take her hand and pull her to her feet. ‘Come on. I need to find a tie. I’m pretty sure they insist on one.’