‘So, no husband yet?’ Xavier demanded.
The patronising question stabbed into her reverie. ‘Is this what I’m missing?’ Sophie murmured tensely.
‘Don’t flatter yourself, sweetheart. I asked a simple question.’
‘It’s none of your business, Xavier,’ she flashed back. ‘And let’s get something straight. I may work for you but my private life’s just that—private. I’m here to stay. Get used to it.’
‘You sleep in here,’ Xavier told her as he shouldered open a creaking tin door. ‘I leave for the high country tomorrow morning at dawn.’
As Sophie dumped her rucksack on the ground, Xavier looked round the sparsely furnished room, thumbs firmly planted in the belt-loops of his snug-fitting jeans, inviting her to change her mind and beg him to let her return to her safe, cosy bed back in the UK.
At least it was clean, Sophie thought—floor newly swept, windows bright in their frames of peeling, yellowing paint. Taking in the dilapidation as well as the lack of amenities, she just nodded her head. ‘Fine. I’ll be ready first thing tomorrow,’ she agreed evenly.
Xavier shifted position, drawing himself up. Asserting his authority. Sophie felt herself instinctively bristling in response.
‘I said I’d be heading for the high country. You’ll be staying here.’
‘Oh, really?’ Sophie knew she was overtired. The last thing she wanted was a fight. But she had no intention of backing down either.
‘Yes, really,’ he stated firmly.
They were confronting each other tensely like two stalking tigers. Xavier broke the silence first, adding a little more chaos to his hair with an impatient pass of his strong, tanned fingers.
‘Look, Sophie,’ he said, applying a very masculine brand of reason. ‘This place needs sorting out before morning. A pile of new medical supplies have arrived, and they all need putting away in some sort of order. Then the details need filing—’
‘If you wanted a filing clerk you should have requested one in your list of job opportunities in the recruitment pack,’ Sophie pointed out.
‘We’re a team. We share the work-load.’
‘Then may I suggest you stay with me here at base until we have completed the office work and stock-take. Then we can both travel on to the high country together.’
There was just enough of a pause to show that she had got through to him.
‘What I’m trying to say—’
‘I think I know what you’re trying to say, Xavier,’ Sophie countered firmly.
As she watched his eyes narrow she felt a thread of apprehension run through her. Xavier had become a difficult, complex man, not someone it was sensible to range herself against. But teamwork meant sharing everything, didn’t it? From clearing up, to treating patients. ‘I’d better sort out my things…freshen up,’ she said, taking a different tack in the hope of cooling things down.
‘Of course.’ He gave her a mock bow, but his disturbing gaze held her own until Sophie’s desperately searching fingers managed to locate the fastenings on her bulging rucksack and she could pretend to busy herself with that. But before he left she wanted another answer. ‘Who sleeps in here?’ she said, surveying the row of camp beds.
‘Me,’ Xavier said with a shrug, ‘and whoever else drops in.’
Taking a deep breath, Sophie swallowed back the panic that threatened to choke her. She was here to work. She had to forget every one of her personal concerns and just get on with it. ‘How exhilarating,’ she managed evenly. ‘I shall never know what to expect from one night to the next.’
Xavier shot her a darkly amused stare. ‘You won’t be here that long,’ he promised.
‘Don’t count on it,’ Sophie murmured under her breath, glancing around.
‘My apologies,’ Xavier said as he watched her. ‘I don’t know what you were expecting, but this isn’t the Ritz. It’s just an old place I’m using until I get something else built.’
‘I think it’s all quite satisfactory, thank you,’ Sophie countered. ‘Apart from having to share with you, it’s exactly what I expected.’ She saw his lips kick up at one corner, and his eyes begin to gleam. ‘Bathroom?’ she demanded briskly, though her heart was still juddering.
‘Bathroom?’ The drawled exclamation was accompanied by another humour-laced stare. ‘Turn right outside the door, third bush down—’
‘OK, Xavier,’ Sophie said calmly. ‘I can see I’m not getting anywhere with you being polite. So, let’s both shoot from the hip. Don’t waste your breath. You don’t frighten me.’ But the feelings he awoke in her did, Sophie acknowledged, struggling to ignore them.
‘Good,’ he said mildly, throwing up his hands in mock-surrender.
‘So when do I get to meet the rest of the team?’ she said, adopting her professional manner.
‘Impatient, Sophie?’
‘Keen to get on with the job.’ And to be too busy to think about anything else.
‘The rest of the team are in place now,’ he said. ‘I’ve been flying backwards and forwards from Spain for some time now. All that’s left is for me to finish my tour here and check that everyone has everything they need.’
‘And I fit in, where?’
Xavier’s eyes hardened thoughtfully as he looked at her. If he had seen her name before she arrived she wouldn’t even have got this far. And he wasn’t about to tell her that the last position on his list, the position she thought she was filling, was for his second in command—a doctor who would accompany him wherever he went. ‘Are you hungry?’
Sophie locked eyes. ‘You didn’t answer my question yet.’
‘And you didn’t answer mine,’ he said easily.
They stood confronting each other in silence for a few moments until Sophie saw something change in his eyes, then she quickly looked away.
‘We’ll discuss your position over dinner,’ he said. But the curl of his mouth, the look in his eyes, suggested, missionary, or dominant?
Defences formed in her mind and sprang to her lips. ‘I don’t know what kind of arrangement you have with your other female colleagues,’ Sophie said coldly, ‘but let’s get this straight from the outset, Xavier, I never mix business with pleasure. And I don’t find you the least bit attractive,’ she blurted when she saw the amusement behind his eyes.
‘You are hungry,’ he murmured confidently.
As a flood of feelings she had kept at bay for a lifetime threatened to overwhelm her, Sophie reminded herself forcefully how much she wanted this job. ‘As it happens, you’re right. I am hungry,’ she said, relieved she could sound so cool.
‘So, why don’t you leave the unpacking for now?’
Sophie relaxed fractionally.
‘By the way, where do you want to sleep?’ He echoed her glance down the line.
‘Next to the window?’ Sophie suggested. The first three bunks were already occupied—one of them by him, presumably. A two-bunk gap was the best she could hope for, so she’d take it.
Picking up her rucksack, Xavier dumped it on top of the last bunk. ‘After you,’ he said, gesturing towards the open door.
If possible, the kitchen was even more basic than the sleeping quarters. An ancient stove fed by bottled gas, and blackened with