The question was academic. If he was terrifying someone he would make his apologies. He did not need a thermometer to tell him that the temperature was dropping. Right now his main priority was getting inside before things got serious.
How much more serious do you want, asked the voice in his head, stuck in the middle of a blizzard with some felonious madwoman?
To look at her standing there in the jacket that reached her knees she looked cute and fragile, the sort of woman that aroused protective instincts in men—the ones who had not been kicked by her, at any rate.
He was not one of them. She had landed a couple of hefty kicks before she had quietened down, which would have caused a lot more damage had her footwear not been woefully inadequate for the conditions.
‘Stay there!’ He flung the terse instruction over his shoulder before working his way around the side of the building. He almost missed the side entrance, a glass-panelled door that was half obscured by a drift that had formed up against the side of the building.
A quick survey revealed it did not look nearly as substantial as the oak-panelled main door. His luck was turning, and not before time. All he had to do now was get to it, which required shifting the several feet of snow that blocked it.
Using his gloved hands, Severo began to clear a path to the door, building up a steady rhythm as he made a narrow slippery corridor through the snow.
‘I said not to move.’
It was spooky. He had not even turned around. The man clearly had eyes in the back of his head.
His manner suggested he was not accustomed to people ignoring his instructions. ‘Yes, you did,’ she agreed, unable to repress a sharp intake of breath as she plunged her hands into the snow.
He stopped shovelling and turned his head. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Other than shaking so hard he could hear her teeth rattle from feet away.
Neve exhaled a gusty breath that froze white in the air between them. Through the fog she could see the glittering slits of his eyes and ice crystals on the lashes that fringed them.
The man had the most ludicrously long eyelashes. Irritated she was storing such irrelevant information, she brushed the snow from her own eyes and retorted, ‘Helping.’ Aware this claim was something of an exaggeration—this wasn’t nearly as easy as he had made it look—she was unable to keep the defensive note from her voice.
Severo expelled an irritated sigh through clenched teeth. At least she had followed him and not run in the opposite direction. He bent across to where she knelt and pulled her small hands from the snow. Her fine-boned wrists were incredibly narrow and her slender fingers were not just tinged with blue, they were blue.
Their glances locked, and he thought, Not as blue as her incredible eyes—but then nothing he had ever seen was.
Clicking his tongue with exasperation that was partly reserved for his continued fascination with her cornflower-blue stare, he hauled her to her feet and pulled the sleeves of his borrowed jacket over her freezing extremities before returning to his task with renewed energy. A frozen felon on his hands would be bound to mean a lot of questions.
‘I am perfectly capable of—’ A sudden lull in the wind meant that her words emerged as a forceful yell.
He placed a gloved hand to her lips. ‘I have witnessed your capabilities.’ Unlike her, he had adjusted the volume. This did not make his delivery any less forceful, but it did reveal an attractive gravelly rasp in his deep accented voice.
‘I was only trying to help.’ Most people would have been grateful, but this man was clearly not a team player.
‘It will not be helpful if you get frostbite.’
Her rescuer had a point, Neve conceded, aware that she had lost all feeling in her fingers. Had Hannah been wearing her gloves? A mental image of her stepdaughter, a small figure at the mercy of the elements, flashed before her eyes, and the fear rose like bile in her throat.
She took a deep breath and fought down the panic. ‘What shall I do?’ If he wanted to be in charge, fine, she could live with that, but she couldn’t stand there and do nothing now.
He flashed her a look over his shoulder. ‘I think nothing would be safest.’
Nasty sarcastic rat, Neve thought, watching as he rapidly completed his task. She did not have to wait for long—it took him another two minutes to access the door.
He gave a satisfied grunt and looked around for a suitable blunt object; unlike the large panelled areas in the front of the building, this glass panel was not of the same impregnable quality.
Severo quickly found a suitable smooth stone. ‘Turn around and cover your face.’
Her eyes widened as she realised his intentions. ‘You’re going to break in?’
His hand lowered. ‘A nice touch of moral outrage, but a tad, shall we say, hypocritical?’
The cryptic comment sailed over Neve’s head; the thought of being party to breaking and entering made her deeply uneasy.
‘Couldn’t you try knocking again?’ she suggested, forcing the words past her chattering teeth.
‘Or we could go away and come back tomorrow?’ he said sardonically.
Neve loosed a cry of alarm as he raised his arm again. She covered her face with her hands, watching through parted fingers as his hand moved in a smooth arc towards the glass panel in the door.
She had tensed in anticipation of the sound of smashing glass when he stopped just short of impact and, as she watched, tried the door handle.
The door swung inwards and she heard him laugh; it was not an unattractive sound.
Grinning to himself behind his mask, Severo dropped the stone and stepped inside, trying not to bring in any more of the small avalanche of snow that had fallen inwards when he’d opened the door—it was already beginning to melt on the surface of the black and white chequered floor tiles.
Unlike the rest of the house, this room was in darkness, though not really dark—the light from the snow reflected off the pale shiny surfaces. It appeared to be a laundry room of sorts, with stainless-steel work surfaces above white storage units; a power switch glowed red on the panel on a washing machine but it stood silent.
Stamping his feet on the tiled floor to knock the snow from his boots, he reached for the light switch, blinking when the room was flooded with harsh light. The small figure swamped in the borrowed ski jacket stood framed in the doorway.
‘Are you coming in or what?’
The choice being to freeze to death or accept the invitation, Neve stepped inside wishing she could be as totally at ease with the entire breaking and entering situation as this man appeared to be.
Maybe he’d had experience with similar situations, she speculated uneasily, but on the plus side he did seem like a person who might be useful in hazardous situations. Though she couldn’t imagine, given his initial reaction, that he’d think it a good idea to go back out there and search for Hannah, it was possible he’d warm to the idea more if she offered to pay him.
Well, with or without his help she was going back out. Once I’ve thawed out a little, she thought, rubbing her numb fingers together. She didn’t need him.
You carry on telling yourself that, Neve.
Ignoring the voice in her head, she glanced towards the sinister figure of her rescuer.
Outside in the harsh and unforgiving landscape, although she had been unwilling to admit it, his undeniable physical presence and strength had been comforting. Inside the confines of the room they were almost oppressive. Even if the face that was hidden behind the mask was pleasant or plain, with a body like his he was never going to fade into the background.
Long