Heart pounding, she struggled to the gate, lifted a hand so cold she could scarcely feel it and scrubbed the snow away from the intercom with her icy fingers.
‘Please be there,’ she whispered, ‘please help me.’ And then, her heart in her mouth, she pressed the button and waited.
* * *
The sharp, persistent buzz cut through his concentration, and he stopped what he was doing, pressed save and headed for the hall.
This would be the last of his Christmas deliveries. Hurray for online shopping, he thought, and then glanced out of the window and did a mild double-take. When had it started snowing like that?
He looked at the screen on the intercom and frowned. He couldn’t see anything for a moment, just a swirl of white, and then the screen cleared momentarily and he made out the figure of a woman, huddled up in her coat, her hands tucked under her arms—and then she pulled a hand out and swiped snow off the front of the intercom and he saw her clearly.
Georgie?
He felt the blood drain from his head and hauled in a breath, then another one. No. It couldn’t be. He was seeing things, conjuring her up out of nowhere because he couldn’t stop thinking about her while he was in this damn house—
‘Can I help you?’ he said crisply, not trusting his eyes, but then she swiped the hair back off her face and anchored it out of the way, and it really was her, her smile tentative but relieved as she heard his voice.
‘Oh, Sebastian, thank goodness you’re there. I wasn’t sure—um—it’s Georgie Pullman. Georgia Becket? Look, I’m really sorry to trouble you, but can you help me? I wouldn’t ask, but my car’s stuck in a snowdrift just by your gateway, and I don’t have a spade to dig myself out and my phone won’t work.’
He hesitated, holding his breath and staring at her while he groped frantically for a level surface in a world that suddenly seemed tilted on its axis. And then it righted and common sense prevailed. Sort of.
‘Wait there. I’ll drive down. Maybe I can tow you out.’
‘Thanks. You’re a star.’
She vanished in a swirl of whiteout, and he let go of the button with a sharp sigh. What the hell was she doing driving along the lane in this weather?
Surely not coming to see him? Why would she? She never had, not once in nine years, and he had no reason to think she’d do it now—unless it was curiosity about the house, and he doubted it. Not in this weather, and probably not at all. Why would she care? She hadn’t cared enough to stay with him.
She’d hated him in the end, and he couldn’t blame her. He’d hated himself, but he’d hated her, too, for what she’d done to them, for not having faith in him, for not sticking by him just when he’d needed her the most.
No, she wasn’t coming to see him. She’d been going home to her parents for Christmas, using the short cut, and now here she was, purely by chance, stuck outside his house and he had no choice—no damn choice at all—but to go and dig her out. And that would mean talking to her, seeing her face, hearing her voice.
Resurrecting a whole shed-load of memories of a time he’d rather forget.
Dragging that up all over again was the last thing he needed, but just moving here had done that, anyway, and there was no way he could leave her outside in a blizzard. And it’d be dark soon. The light was failing already. He’d dig her out and send her on her way. Fast, before it was too late and he was stuck with her.
Letting out a low growl, he picked up his car keys, shrugged on his coat, grabbed a shovel and a tow rope from the coach-house and threw them into the back of the Range Rover he’d bought for just this sort of eventuality. Not that he’d ever expected to be digging Georgia out of a hole.
He headed down the drive, his wipers going flat out to clear the screen, but when he got to the gates and opened them with the remote control, there was no sign of her. Just footprints in the deep snow, heading to the left and vanishing fast in the blizzard.
It was far worse than he’d realised. There were no huge, fat flakes that drifted softly down and stayed where they fell, but tiny crystals of snow driven horizontally by the biting wind, the drifts piling up and making the lane impassable. He wondered where the hell she was. It would have been handy to know just how far along—
And then he saw it, literally yards from the end of his drive, the red tail lights dim through the coating of snow over the lenses. He left the car in the gateway and got out, his boots sinking deep into the powdery drifts as he crunched towards her. No wonder she was stuck, going out in weather like this in that ridiculous little car, but there was no way she’d be going anywhere else in it tonight, he realised. Which meant he would be stuck with her.
Damn.
He felt anger moving in, taking the place of shock. Good. Healthy. Better than the sentimental wallowing he’d been doing last night in that damn four-poster bed—
Bracing himself against the wind, he turned his collar up against the needles of ice and strode over to it, opening the passenger door and stooping down. A blast of warmth and Christmas music swamped him, and carried on the warmth was a lingering scent that he remembered so painfully, excruciatingly well.
It hit him like a kick in the gut, and he slammed the lid on his memories and peered inside.
She was kneeling on the seat looking at something in the back, and as she turned towards him she gave him a tentative smile.
‘Hi. That was quick. I’m really sorry—’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said crisply, trying not to scan her face for changes. ‘Right, let’s get you out of here.’
‘See, Josh?’ she said cheerfully. ‘I told you he was going to help us.’
Josh? She had a Josh who could dig her out?
‘Josh?’ he said coldly, and her smile softened, stabbing him in the gut.
‘My son.’
She had a son?
His heart pounding, he ducked his head in so he could look over the back of the seat—and met wide eyes so familiar they seemed to cut right to his soul.
‘Josh, this is Sebastian. He’s going to get us unstuck.’
He was? Well, of course he was! How could he refuse those liquid green eyes so filled with uncertainty? Poor little kid.
‘Hi, Josh,’ he said softly, because after all it wasn’t the child’s fault they were stuck, and then he finally let himself look at Georgie.
She hadn’t changed at all. She had the same wide, ingenuous eyes as her son, the same soft bow lips, high cheekbones and sweeping brows that had first enchanted him all those years ago. Her wild curls were dark and glossy and beaded with melted snow, and there was a tiny pleat of worry between her brows. And her face was just inches from his, her scent swirling around him in the shelter of the car and making mincemeat of his carefully erected defences.
He hauled his head out of the car and straightened up, sucking in a lungful of freezing air. Better. Slightly. Now if he could just nail those defences back in place again—
‘I’m really sorry,’ she began again, peering up at him, but he shook his head.
‘Don’t. Let’s just get your car out of here and get you inside.’
‘No! I need to get to my parents!’
He let his breath out on a disbelieving huff. ‘Georgie, look at it!’ he said, gesturing at the weather. ‘You’re going nowhere. I don’t even know if I can get your car out,