But that could be an advantage—if he decided to go along with Pete’s crazy plan.
‘You can’t miss her. Tall, dark hair, blue eyes. Oh, and she drives a silver Renault—H reg. Please, Sean, do this for me.’
Sean sighed, knowing he had no alternative. ‘Just tell me one thing,’ he said. ‘Is she worth it?’
‘More than you’ll ever know,’ his brother assured him. ‘Oh, I know I can’t expect an old cynic like you to believe that, but just you wait. One day it’ll hit you too. You’ll meet someone who’ll knock you right off balance the way Annie’s done to me, and you’ll never be the same again.’
And pigs might fly supersonic, Sean told himself privately. He had had more than enough of so-called romance to last him several lifetimes. And, even more privately, he doubted that his brother’s fiancée would ever consider going back to him, no matter how much talking they did. But he supposed everyone deserved a second chance.
‘All right, I’ll do it,’ he said resignedly. ‘But you’d better get yourself sobered up pretty damn quickly, and get down here fast.’
He would give it a couple of hours, no more, he told himself, replacing the receiver and getting to his feet. Just long enough to eat the supper he hadn’t felt like preparing earlier—or lunch, either, come to that. The Night Owl had a very good reputation, so perhaps now was the time to try it out. He would eat his meal, taking his time over it, and if Annie Elliot turned up then he’d take it from there.
‘Is something wrong?’
The soft question dragged Sean back to the present with a jolt. He had no idea how long he’d been standing there, his hand on the suitcase, lost in his thoughts.
‘No. No problem.’
Giving himself a mental shake, he pulled out the case and slammed the boot shut, carefully locking the car after him. Not that it was likely that anyone would make off with it. It would need skilled help to get it out of the ditch, and already the snow was piling up around it.
Hell, the weather was far worse than he had anticipated. And it was getting more dangerous with every minute that passed. They’d be lucky to make it to the cottage before the road closed completely.
Which meant that Pete would have an impossible job getting down here from Hexham. Which also meant that he would be stuck with the errant fiancée for far longer than the few hours his brother had implied.
Neither thought was the sort to improve on his already bad mood as he dumped the suitcase on the back seat of his own car, slamming the door after it in an echo of his feelings.
‘Have we far to go?’ his passenger asked as he slid into the driver’s seat and put his key into the ignition.
‘Five miles or so. We’ll have to crawl every inch of the way, but we should make it.’
He was concentrating on getting the car going, breathing a silent word of thanks when the engine caught first time. He didn’t want to be stranded here for any longer than he absolutely had to—and for reasons that had nothing at all to do with the weather.
From the moment he had got into the car he had been supremely physically aware of the woman in the passenger seat. At least her coat was now firmly wrapped around her body. But those long legs were stretched out dangerously close to his own, and just the memory of the delicate lace at the top of the gossamer-fine black stockings was enough to dry his throat, so that he licked his lips in a betraying gesture.
‘The trouble is that this looks as if it will settle.’ Anxiety threaded through her words. ‘Is your home very isolated?’
‘You could say that. I don’t have any near neighbours, that’s for sure.’
Sean was grateful for the way that the whirling blizzard forced him to keep his attention on the road. One glance at the woman beside him had been enough to threaten his concentration once and for all.
Pete had said that she was a looker, but he had put that down to love being blind. He had had enough experience of the fairer sex to know that, as with many a brightly wrapped parcel, the outer appearance often totally belied the truth of the contents.
What he hadn’t been prepared for was the instant pull he felt towards this woman, the overwhelming force of purely physical attraction that had tied his nerves into knots. Not that there was anything remotely pure about his feelings, he told himself wryly. Just the whispering sound of silk against silk as she uncrossed her legs had his lower body tightening in instant response.
‘Then we could be stuck for ages—days.’ Her voice showed how little the idea appealed to her. ‘You said there was a town back the way you came. Perhaps you’d better turn around and—’
‘And risk getting completely stranded in the worst snowstorm this decade? No way, lady! You might be prepared to put your life in danger that way, but quite frankly the idea doesn’t appeal to me at all. I have first-hand experience of just what it feels like to be in a car that’s out of control, and, believe me, it’s not the sort of thing I care to repeat.’
That brought her head swinging round, her long hair flying so that it caught against his cheek, making him shiver in reaction. Her face was a pale blur in the shadows as she turned to him.
‘Was that how it happened? A car crash?’
For one awful moment he thought that she was going to put a hand on his arm, and instinctively he stiffened, silently communicating his rejection of the possible gesture. But all the same his heart accelerated wildly as he stared determinedly out through the windscreen, struggling to catch glimpses of the darkened road through the whirling snow and the rhythmic movement of the wipers.
‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice was low and soft. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘Why not?’ Sean shrugged off her concern. ‘It’s a fact, after all. But I don’t need your pity…’
‘It wasn’t pity! I meant, obviously you don’t want to talk about it, so I shouldn’t intrude. You must want to forget…’
‘Forget!’ It came on a harsh bark of laughter, one that was totally devoid of any trace of humour. ‘If I could forget it would make things easier. It’s remembering that’s hell. If I close my eyes…’
He didn’t even have to do that. It was there, in his mind, just behind his eyes. If he let his control drop it would all come rushing back. ‘No!’
This time she did move to clutch at his arm, but in a gesture of panic rather than the sympathy he had dreaded earlier. All the same, the touch of her hand seemed to sear over the exposed skin of his wrist, as if her fingers had been white-hot, and he couldn’t control the impulse to shake himself free.
‘Oh, don’t worry, sweetheart, I don’t plan on doing that right now. There are those who value your pretty face too much to see it mangled by flying glass.’
His brother, for one, and he would do well to remember that. She was Pete’s fiancée, for God’s sake! The girl his brother loved and wanted to marry. Which meant she was strictly out of bounds to the likes of him.
‘I didn’t mean…’ Her voice trembled, and out of the corner of his eye he could see that she was shivering.
‘I’m sorry, are you cold?’
Glad of the opportunity to distract himself, he moved swiftly to turn up the heating, barely hearing her murmured words of thanks as he kept his eyes glued to the little he could see of the road ahead.
At least he recognised the turn-off to the driveway of his cottage. In reality it was little more than a track, easy enough to miss at the best of times.
‘Almost there.’ He hoped he sounded more reassuring than he actually felt. ‘Though this bit might be tricky. This road’s bad enough even in decent weather. I doubt if I’ll be