She tightened her grip, fear rising as she watched Matt fighting for control. His jaw was set, his profile firmly etched, displaying his annoyance at having had to leave work midafternoon to come and pick her up. But if they were going to get back home in one piece, then she had to say something, no matter how angry he was.
“Come on, Matt... I’m sorry that my car broke down, but if you keep driving like a madman, you’ll put us both into the hedge. If I’d known you were going to be like this, I’d have gotten a ride into the village with the tow truck, then caught a bus or something.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I could hardly leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere. You just don’t understand...” Matt increased his speed as the road leveled out. “I’m putting together an important deal and I need to get back to the office.”
“When aren’t you putting together a deal?” groaned Ellie. “But if you keep up this speed, you’re not going to be there to finalize it anyway—you’re going to be in the hospital.
“I can handle this car with my eyes shut,” Matt insisted, his voice softening as he mentioned his beloved BMW. “And what were you doing in this miserable place?”
“I told you yesterday I was going on a painting excursion today. There’s a chance I might be able to show some of my pieces at an exhibition in a couple months, and I need more material.”
Matt swung the wheel hard right, a sparkle of elation in his eyes as the powerful car responded.
“About that...” he began, concentrating all his attention on the road.
“What about it?”
The vehicle straightened out and he glanced across at her, a hint of amusement in the curve of his lips. “Your new paintings...”
Ellie frowned. Matt rarely took any notice of her work.
“No offense, Ellie, but are you really sure you’re going the right way with it? All those faded blurry bits make the pictures look kind of strange. Why can’t you just paint nice scenes with proper animals, if that’s what you want to concentrate on?”
Respecting the fact that Matt had gone out of his way to pick her up, Ellie had been trying to stay reasonably calm. His derogatory comment about her work, however, made her blood boil. Plus, he knew nothing about art.
“I don’t tell you how to do your deals,” she retaliated. “So why don’t you just keep your opinions on my painting to yourself. For your information, I’m taking a contemporary slant on animals and the countryside, and if you had any interest at all you would have noticed that I’ve been changing my style for a while.”
Matt turned his attention back to the road, negotiating another tight curve in the narrow lane. The car swerved sideways, tires screaming and Ellie tightened her grip on the seat, wishing she was anywhere but here.
“Slow down, Matt!” she yelled.
“And maybe you should keep your opinions on my driving to yourself,” Matt responded. “I’m perfectly in control.”
“Until we hit a tree or a tractor or something. Are you trying to kill us both?”
As they cleared the corner, Ellie took a breath, leaning back. She and Matt may have been engaged for only a few months, but these days it felt more like a lifetime. They seemed to be pulling in different directions, arguing about anything and everything. Determinedly shrugging off her irritation, she tried again.
“Look, Matt...I know it’s a pain for you having to come out here, and I do appreciate it...”
He cut her off midsentence. “No, Ellie, you have no clue how much of a pain it is for me to drop everything in the middle of a big deal. But I’m not so selfish that I’d leave you stranded. In fact...” He glanced across at her, his gray eyes cold as ice. “Sometimes I think you don’t actually have much of a clue about anything to do with me.”
“What!” Ellie froze. “I don’t have much of a clue about you? You’ve got that the wrong way around. If you understood anything at all about me, you’d know that my stupid paintings are actually beginning to do quite well. In fact, Mel says...”
“And that’s another thing,” he blurted, pushing his foot down on the gas again. “I’m sick of you going on about this Mel bloke. I’m your fiancé, remember.”
“How could I forget that? Clearly, though, you’ve forgotten that Mel is the owner of the gallery that might be exhibiting some of my paintings, and she just happens to be a woman.”
For a fleeting instant, she detected a flicker of amusement in his face as her information sank in. He glanced across at her, his expression softening, but before she could respond, a bright flash of russet against the vivid green of the grass shoulder up ahead caught her attention.
“Watch out!”
His automatic reaction was to stand hard on the brakes. As if in slow motion, the car skidded out of control, sliding helplessly toward the terrified creature that was running in terror alongside the gray stone wall, desperate to escape the oncoming vehicle. To Ellie, it was as if time was temporarily suspended. The inevitable thud made her stomach turn, and suddenly she found her voice, screaming at him to stop, her door already half open. As the car came to a standstill, she leaped out, running back to where the animal now lay motionless in the dirt.
“Matt,” she cried. “It’s a fox cub, and it’s hurt.”
Dropping onto her knees, Ellie peered at the little creature. It looked so young, so vulnerable. She reached out to find a pulse, her heart lightening as she felt a fluttering against her fingers.
The black BMW reversed until it was next to her, and Matt’sface appeared in the window.
“Push it into the hedge and get in the car,” he ordered. “It’s just a fox. Vermin. It’s obviously going to die, anyway.”
For Ellie, it suddenly seemed so important to try and save the innocent creature.
“Just go, Matt,” she told him. “Finish your deal. We knocked the poor little thing down, and the least I can do is to try to save its life.”
Matt rolled his eyes. “Get in the car, Ellie, and don’t be so soft. People hunt foxes, you know—we’ve probably done the local farmers a favor.”
“No.” She looked at him fiercely. “I mean it. Just go. I’ll get a taxi or something.”
For a moment, he stared back at her, then he shrugged, raising his eyebrows in mock despair. “All right, if that’s what you want.”
As she watched the big black car roar off up the lane, Ellie felt as if Matt was driving right out of her life...and she really didn’t care. When she’d first met him, while she was working in a bar to fund her painting career, he had seemed so different; mature and fun and very far away from the place she was trying to forget...and the heartbreak it represented. But as she sat at the side of the deserted lane, feeling more alone than she had since she first came to the city, a heavy longing for that place and all it stood for came creeping out, saturating her in painful memories.
Containing a sob, Ellie turned her attention to the motionless fox cub. Its heart still beat softly as it clung on to life. She couldn’t let it die. She had to find a vet...but where was she? She glanced around, spotting a road sign. Tarnside. Her fingers shook as she scrolled through her cell phone, searching for vets in the area and tapping out the number of the first one she saw.
The receptionist’s voice was clear and calm. “Hello, Tarnside Veterinary Center. How can I help you?”
Ellie mumbled her message. “I need