Jill’s choice of mid-thigh-length skirt and matching cropped jacket in pale blue was surprisingly demure. Her legs had lost the coltish look of a year or so ago and had gained a lovely shape. With her hair hanging straight and shining down to her shoulders, she was altogether a sight for sore eyes, thought Claire tenderly, though she was still so heart-breakingly young to be in this position.
Warmed by the sun after standing out on the drive, the Panda not only started first pull but sounded positively eager to be up and off. Which was more than she felt herself, Claire was bound to admit.
The Laxton home was out in Hope Valley, which meant going right through town. As anticipated on such a fine afternoon, the through-route was thronged with traffic heading for the Dales. Following a packed Ford Granada up a hill, she misjudged her gear-change on the steep bend, and received an irritated blast on the horn from the vehicle behind at her lack of acceleration.
‘Road-hog!’ shouted Jill as the car pulled out and roared past them, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with one coming down the hill. ‘Just because you’re driving a blasted Porsche!’
‘He can’t possibly hear you,’ Claire pointed out, and received a grin.
‘I know, but it lets off steam. You should try it instead of just sitting there being all cool and collected.’
Only on the outside, reflected Claire wryly. The coming meeting promised to be anything but an easy-going affair. There would be awkwardness on both sides, with her own position, as Jill’s guardian and supposed mentor, the most untenable of all. Who else could be held responsible for her young sister’s seeming lack of moral values?
Hopefully, having shot his bolt last night, Ross would be absent. The last thing she needed was another confrontation with that individual.
They were three miles out of town amid open moorland when the front off-side tyre blew. Claire fought with the steering, which had gone suddenly extremely heavy, and brought the car to a jerky halt at the roadside.
‘Damn!’ she said forcefully. ‘This would have to happen today of all days!’
‘It’s almost half-past three already,’ announced Jill, as if it made any difference. ‘What do we do now?’
Claire refrained from stating the obvious. Turning off the engine, she got out to go and open up the boot. She was hardly dressed for changing a wheel, but what choice did she have?
Next moment she was gazing disbelievingly at a spare tyre as flat as the proverbial pancake. Since she had had the last puncture repaired a couple of months back, it hadn’t occurred to her to make a check. She’d simply taken it for granted that everything was OK.
Whatever had caused the leak, they were going to get no further on this than the one already on the car, she acknowledged ruefully. Which left them well and truly stranded.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Jill, getting out to see what was holding things up. She looked at the deflated tyre in dismay. ‘Oh, no!’
‘Oh, yes, I’m afraid.’ Claire was apologetic. ‘One of those classic situations you generally only see on film.’
‘What do we do now?’ Jill repeated. ‘They’ll think we’re not coming!’
‘Hardly.’ Eyes on the fast-moving traffic, Claire tried to think. ‘If Scott telephones the house he’ll realise we’ve already left. He’ll know something must have happened when we don’t turn up inside another half an hour or so, and will probably come looking. In the meantime,’ she added, with determined practicality, ‘we’ll just have to sit and wait.’
‘We could thumb a lift,’ suggested Jill hopefully ‘There’s sure to be somebody going that way.’
Claire shook her head. ‘Hitching can be dangerous.’
‘Not if it’s a family.’
‘If it’s a family, there’s unlikely to be room for anyone else. Anyway, it would be an imposition.’
Jill put on her most stubborn expression. ‘Well, there’s no harm in trying.’
She moved to the kerb, all hair and legs and winning smile as she lifted a hand in the time-honoured gesture. Two drivers tooted their horns but didn’t stop, while the rest sailed past without acknowledgement.
Having pulled up just past a big bend, they were out of sight until it was too late for cars to signal a stop, Claire reckoned. A dangerous situation altogether, in fact. All it needed was for someone to take the bend too fast, and they’d be on them before they could pull out.
About to suggest that they push the car further along the road, she paused in consternation as the big silver Mercedes just flashing past signalled abruptly and pulled up some twenty yards or so ahead of them. Ross waited for a break in the following traffic before easing himself from behind the wheel to walk back to them.
Wearing a dark blue jacket and lighter blue trousers and shirt, he looked taller than ever—and certainly no less devastating. He took in the situation at a glance, face impassive.
‘First thing is to get it further along the road so you don’t cause an accident,’ he said. ‘You’d better get behind the wheel and make sure it doesn’t veer out into the road while I push.’
‘I can help,’ offered Jill. ‘I’m stronger than I look.’
It would have taken a heart of pure stone to resist the appeal in the wide hazel eyes, and Ross’s, it seemed, wasn’t totally hardened. His smile was reluctant but it was a smile, subtly altering the lines of his face.
‘I can manage, thanks,’ he said. ‘I’d hate you to get that suit dirty.’
The Panda had been washed a couple of days ago, though the rain hadn’t exactly kept it band-box clean, Claire had to admit. He would be lucky to get away without a mark on those pristine shirt-cuffs, to say the least.
She slid behind the wheel and released the handbrake, put the gear-shift into neutral and kept the car into the kerb as Ross pushed it steadily along. She could see the bent dark head and broad, blue-clad shoulders in the driving-mirror. Not formal dress, but not entirely casual either. Lunch with some woman-friend, perhaps?
No concern of hers whatsoever, she told herself. It was sheer bad luck that he had been passing at this particular time. He’d no doubt consider her a fool now, as well as a possible profit-seeker.
As she had expected, there were dusty streaks on the pale blue cuffs when he’d finished pushing. If he noted them himself, he showed no sign.
‘Which road organisation are you with?’ he asked. ‘You can call them on the car-phone.’
‘None,’ Claire admitted, refusing to allow any hint of embarrassment to show in her voice.
Ross showed no visible reaction himself. ‘It’s unlikely that you’re going to get anyone other than that out to see to it today,’ he observed. ‘You’ll just have to risk leaving it here.’
‘I have to be at the shop all day tomorrow,’ said Claire concernedly, speaking her thoughts aloud.
Jill made a restless movement. ‘You’ll have to get a garage to fetch it in.’
That would cost a bomb, Claire knew, but there seemed little alternative. She would have to get to the shop by bus.
Ross dusted off his hands and nodded towards the Mercedes. ‘Let’s go.’
‘I’m really sorry to put you to all this trouble,’ she said, doing her best to sound genuinely apologetic. ‘Especially if you were on your way somewhere.’
‘I’ve been somewhere,’ he returned. ‘Lucky I decided to come back this way.’ The grey eyes were derisive. ‘Rescuing damsels in distress is my forte.’
‘A