If Paula hadn’t been pregnant…She hadn’t been able to handle that. She had cried, making her eyes ugly and red, and he had become exasperated. In the end she had fled to the bedroom, packed a bag, and told him he could have his divorce, have the apartment, have anything he wanted. Then she had just climbed into her car and driven off.
She had had no clear idea of where she was going. It wasn’t until she had found herself driving around the M25, the orbital motorway around London, for the second time, that she had given that problem any consideration. And then she had thought of the cottage out in the wilds of Norfolk, left to her by her great-aunt Floss a couple of years before.
She hadn’t been there since she was a child, but she remembered that it was remote, on the edge of a tiny village, miles from anywhere. Suddenly that had seemed enormously appealing, and she had set off, with only a vague idea of how far it was to Cottisham.
Through the fine Norfolk drizzle misting the windscreen, a road-sign showed her that the next turn was to her destination, and she took it. The road was dark, but even if it had been daylight she doubted that she would have recognised it—she would have been no more than about ten years old the last time she was here.
What sort of state would the cottage be in? Aunt Floss had died…oh, it must have been three years ago. For the first time, she began to consider that the place would probably be in a bit of a mess. The electricity would probably have been turned off, and maybe even the water too. But at least she was nearly there—she could just go straight to bed tonight, and sort out any problems in the morning.
Her hand found the cigarette-lighter at last, and she flicked it into flame, bending her head to draw deeply on the tobacco…
The headlights came out of nowhere, straight towards her, and too late she realised that the road bent away sharply to the left. In an instinct of panic she snatched at the wheel, braking hard, and the tyres lost their grip on the damp road, sliding into a lazy treacherous skid. In front of her, the beam of her own headlights stabbed out into nothingness…
She wasn’t dead, then—it couldn’t have been as bad as she had thought it was going to be. She had had an image, fleetingly, of the car tipping over some steep incline and rolling over and over, crushing her. But she seemed to be the right way up, though the car was tipped up at an odd angle, and the windscreen was shattered…And someone was asking her if she was all right.
Damn—how was she going to get to the cottage now? And that was blood trickling down her cheek…Suddenly she realised that she was hurt, and started to scream.
‘All right—steady. You can’t be too badly injured if you can make that sort of noise.’ The voice was calm and competent, and he had reached into the car, unfastening her seatbelt, and was running what felt like an expert hand over her body.
‘Are you a doctor?’ she whispered, looking up to find a pair of intriguing hazel eyes just a few inches above her own.
He laughed drily. ‘No, I’m a vet. You don’t seem to have done yourself too much harm—which is more than can be said for your car. Do you think you can move?’
‘I think so. But my wrist hurts.’
‘Show me.’
She held it out to him gingerly, but his examination was so gentle that she hardly felt it. Some part of her mind was incongruously registering the thought that he was one of the most attractive men she had ever seen: thick dark hair, shaggily cut, fell over a high, intelligent forehead, and his face was starkly masculine, with a strong aquiline nose, and a lean, hard jaw.
‘Are you really a vet?’ she asked curiously.
‘Yes—but the principle’s pretty much the same,’ he reassured her. ‘I think you’ve broken this. If you can get to my car, I’ll take you to the hospital.’
‘Your car’s all right?’
‘You didn’t hit me—I managed to brake and get out of your way,’ he told her, a faintly sardonic inflexion in his voice. ‘What happened? Didn’t you see the sign for the bend?’
She tried to shake her head, but found it a jarring experience.
‘Steady,’ he advised. ‘You’ve been pretty badly shaken up. Take it slowly.’
Supporting her with one strong arm around her shoulders, the other holding her injured arm steady, he eased her very gradually from the car. It was crazy, but she found herself leaning on him just a little more than was strictly necessary; it just felt so good to have a man treating her with a little tenderness, a little kindness, after so many years of Colin’s indifference.
His car was just a few feet away, slewed across on to the wrong side of the road, and with a small stab of horror she realised just how dangerously close she had come to a much more serious accident. That thought made her feel slightly sick, and she found that she really did need all his support to make it the short distance to his car.
Dimly she took in that it was an old Land Rover: of course—he would need a tough car if he was a vet. An elderly black and white border collie was sitting in the front seat, but he gave it a crisp order, and with a look of mild indignation at being banished it skipped over into the back.
It was a relief to be able to collapse into the front seat. She closed her eyes, for a few moments conscious only of the fires of pain in her wrist and her head. But she had had a very lucky escape. Opening her eyes, she peered across at her own car.
Well, she had certainly made a mess of that! It was tail-up in a ditch, the bonnet crumpled and the offside badly smashed in. It was probably going to be a complete insurance write-off. Well, that was Colin’s problem, she reflected with vicious satisfaction—both the car and the insurance were in his name.
Her rescuer had placed a warning triangle in front of the wreck to alert any oncoming cars, and was coming back with her suitcase and her handbag. She offered him a grateful smile—but what she really needed was something to steady her nerves.
‘Did you bring my cigarettes?’ she pleaded urgently.
‘Your cigarettes?’ The impatient frown that crossed his brow warned her that he didn’t much approve of the habit.
‘They were on the dashboard…’ guiltily she remembered that it had been in lighting a cigarette that she had taken her eyes off the road for just that fatal fraction of a second ‘…and my lighter,’ she begged. ‘It might have fallen down.’
‘All right,’ he conceded grudgingly. ‘I’ll get them.’
Josey watched him walk back to her car, registering the easy, athletic stride, and the impressive breadth of shoulder beneath his green oiled-cotton jacket. She found herself wishing she hadn’t asked him to fetch her cigarettes—he had made her feel about two inches tall, as if she hadn’t felt bad enough already. If only she had been able to give up the disgusting things. Somehow—foolishly—it mattered to her what he thought of her.
Not that he was going to think much anyway, she reminded herself miserably. The glass of the Land Rover’s windscreen reflected her face to her all too clearly. She looked awful; correction—even more awful than usual. Her eyes were hollow and puffy from crying, and now there was a nice graze on her forehead, still trickling blood. She sought in her handbag for a tissue to dab it away as he came back.
He swung himself behind the steering-wheel, tossing her cigarettes and lighter into her lap, making no effort to conceal his contempt. ‘No, I don’t mind if you smoke in my car—just this once,’ he grated, preempting her routinely polite enquiry as if he had doubted whether she would have the manners to ask.
‘Thank you,’ she mumbled, clumsily trying to open the packet with her one good hand. Tears of frustration welled into her eyes.
‘Oh, here, give them to me,’ he snapped, taking them from her. He drew one cigarette from the packet