‘Fliss? I was under the apparently mistaken impression that she came under the sex-without-strings heading. She was, allegedly, a postgraduate archaeology student and when she turned up on site looking for work experience I was glad to have another pair of hands. My mistake. I should have made an effort to check her credentials.’
‘As opposed to her “credentials”,’ Manda said, unable to help herself from teasing him a little. ‘Which, let’s face it, no one could fail to miss.’
‘You’ve got me.’ He laughed, taking no offence. ‘Shallow as a puddle and clearly getting no more than I deserve.’
‘Which is?’
‘Being made to look a fool? Although maybe the gods have had the last laugh after all,’ he said, no longer amused. ‘The temples, as a tourist attraction, which was the entire point of that scurrilous piece of garbage she and the Tourism Minister concocted between them, would seem to be dead in the water. And what does my reputation matter? The suffering caused by this earthquake is far more important.’
He took the bottle of brandy from her bag and offered it to her.
‘No. Thanks.’
‘Just take a mouthful to wash the dust out of your mouth,’ he suggested, ‘then maybe it really would be a good idea to try and get some sleep.’
She eased forward, took the bottle, gasping as a little of the hot liquor slid down her throat, for a moment totally unable to speak.
‘Good grief,’ she managed finally. ‘Do people actually drink this stuff?’
‘Only the desperate,’ he admitted.
‘It would be quicker—and kinder—to shoot yourself. Here,’ she said, passing it back to him. ‘Can you pass me my bag?’
He handed it to her, then eased himself carefully into a sitting position.
He was in pain.
Had he just pulled a muscle? Or had he torn something in that long, desperate moment when he’d hung on to her? When he’d helped her over the top to safety.
She didn’t ask, knew he’d deny it anyway. Instead, she dug out the nearly empty pack of wipes from the soggy interior of her bag. Then, having used one to wipe the worst of the dust from her face and hands, she took another and, lifting the big capable hand that had held her, had hung on as the earth shook beneath them, she began, very gently, to wipe it clean.
Jago stiffened at the first touch of the cool, damp cloth on his thumb.
‘Manda…’
Not a slip, then…
‘Shh…’ she said. ‘Let me do this.’
Even through the cloth, she could feel a callus along the inner edge of his thumb that she knew would be a fit for the small trowel he’d found. The result of years of carefully sifting through the layers of the past.
Pieces of bone, pottery, the occasional button or scrap of leather that had been preserved by some freak chance of nature.
Objects without emotional context. Small pieces of distant lives that wouldn’t break your heart.
‘Don’t worry, I’ve learned my lesson. I won’t throw myself on you,’ she said as she concentrated on each of his fingers in turn. ‘I haven’t done that in years.’
‘No? Just my bad luck.’ Then, as if realising that he’d said something crass, ‘So what do you do with yourself? Now you’ve given up on men?’
‘I work. Very hard. I used to work for Ivo, but these days I’m a partner in the television production company that I set up with my sister-in-law,’ she said, smoothing the cloth over his broad palm. ‘I’m the organiser. I co-ordinate the research, find the people, the places. Keep things running smoothly behind the scenes while Belle does the touchy-feely stuff in front of the camera.’
‘Maybe you should change places,’ he said as, having finished one hand, she began on the other.
She looked up.
‘You’re doing just fine with the touchy-feely stuff,’ he assured her.
‘Oh. No. This is…’ Then, pulling herself together, ‘Actually, since we recently won an award for our first documentary, I think I’ll leave things just the way they are.’
‘What was it about?’
‘Not handbags,’ she said. ‘Or shoes.’
‘I didn’t imagine for a minute it was.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No. It’s my fault for making uncalled-for comments on your handbag choices. Tell me about it.’
‘It was all tied up with one of Belle’s pet causes.’ He waited. ‘Street kids…’
‘The unwanted. You’re sure this was your sister-in-law’s pet cause?’
He was too damn quick…
‘She and her sister spent some time on the streets when they were children. Their stories put my pathetic whining in its place, I can tell you,’ she said quickly. ‘How’s your head, Jago?’
‘Still there last time I looked, Miranda.’
‘Your sense of humour is still intact, at least. Let me see,’ she said, cupping his face in her hands so that she could check it out for herself.
It had been so long since she’d touched a man’s hand, his face in this way. His lean jaw was long past the five o’clock stubble phase and she had to restrain herself from the sensuous pleasure of rubbing her palms against it. Instead, she pushed back his hair, searching out the injury on his forehead.
He’d really taken quite a crack, she discovered, remembering uncomfortably how she’d taunted him about that.
‘I’d better clean that up,’ she said, taking the last wipe from the pack.
‘I can—’
‘Tut…’ she said, slapping away his hand as he tried to take it from her.
‘I can do it myself,’ he persisted. ‘But why would I when I have a beautiful woman to tend me?’
She stopped what she was doing.
The crack on his head must have jarred his brains loose, he decided. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he wasn’t given to living dangerously, at least not where women were concerned.
Keeping it light, keeping his distance just about summed up his attitude to the entire sex, but ever since he’d woken to the sound of Miranda Grenville screaming in the dark it was as if he’d been walking on a high wire. Carelessly.
Maybe cheating death gave you the kind of reckless edge that had you saying the most outrageous things to a woman who was quite capable of responding with painful precision. A woman who, like a well-known brand of chocolate, kept her soft and vulnerable centre hidden beneath a hard, protective sugar shell.
‘You have no idea what I look like,’ she said crisply as she leaned into him, continued her careful cleaning of the abrasion. Enveloping him in her warm female scent.
Would her shell melt against the tongue, too? Dissolve into silky sweetness…
‘I know enough,’ he said, taking advantage of the fact that she had her own hands full to run the pad of his thumb across her forehead, down the length of her nose, across a well defined cheekbone. Definitely his brains had been shaken loose. ‘I know that you’ve got good bones. A strong face.’
‘A big nose, you mean,’ she said as, job done, she leaned back. ‘How does that feel now?’
That