‘Rabble-rouser,’ he framed in a slow, incredulous voice.
‘It’s been known.’ She spun around on her heel, headed to the door and then out towards a battered navy blue Land Rover. ‘Idlers who drift from one protest site to another, stirring up trouble for their own political motives.’
‘Idlers...’ Art played with the word on his tongue, shocked and yet helpless to voice his outrage given he was supposed to be someone of no fixed address, there to support the noble cause.
‘Granted, not all are idlers.’ Rose swung herself into the driver’s seat and slammed the door behind her, waiting for him to join her. She switched on the engine but then turned to him, one hand on the gearbox, the other on the steering wheel. ‘But a lot of them are career protestors and I can tell you straight away that we don’t welcome that lot. We’re peaceful. We want our voices to be heard and the message we want to get across is not one that would benefit from thug tactics.’
‘I have never been accused of being a rabble-rouser in my life before, far less a thug. Or an idler...’
‘There’s no need to look so shocked.’ She smiled and pushed some of her curly hair away from her face. ‘These things happen in the big, bad world.’
* * *
‘Oh, I know all about what happens in the big, bad world,’ Mr Frank murmured softly and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end because his deep, velvety voice was as seductive as the darkest of chocolate.
In the sultry heat of the Land Rover, she could almost breathe him in and it was going to her head like incense.
‘And before you launch into another outrageous accusation—’ he laughed ‘—something along the lines that I don’t know about the big, bad world because I’m a criminal, I’ll tell you straight away that I have never, and will never, operate on the wrong side of the law.’
‘I wasn’t about to accuse you of being a criminal.’ Rose blinked and cleared her throat. ‘Although, of course,’ she added grudgingly, ‘I might have got round to that sooner or later. You can’t be too careful. You should roll your window down. It’ll be a furnace in here otherwise.’
‘No air conditioning?’
‘This relic barely goes,’ she said affectionately before swinging around to expertly manoeuvre the courtyard which was strewn with cars, all parked, it would seem, with reckless abandon. ‘If I tried to stick air conditioning in it would probably collapse from the shock of being dragged into the twentieth century.’
‘You could always get a new car.’
‘For someone who dabbles in a bit of this and that, you seem to think that money grows on trees,’ she said tartly. ‘If I ever win the lottery I might consider replacing my car but, until then, I work with the old girl and hope for the best.’
‘Lawyers,’ he said with a vague wave of his hand. ‘Aren’t you all made of money?’
Rose laughed and shot him a sideways look. He was slouched against the passenger door, his big body angled so that he could look at her, and she wondered how many women had had those sexy dark eyes focused on them, how many had lost their head drowning in the depths.
She fancied herself as anything but the romantic sort, but there was a little voice playing in her head, warning her that this was a man she should be careful of.
Rose nearly laughed because her last brush with romance had left a nasty taste in her mouth. Jack Shaw had been a fellow lawyer and she had met him on one of her cases, which had taken her to Surrey and the playground of the rich and famous. He had been fighting the corner for the little guy and she had really thought that they were on the same wavelength—and they should have been. He’d ticked all the right boxes! But for the second time in her adult life she had embarked on a relationship that had started off with promise only to end in disappointment. How was it possible for something that made sense to end up with two people not actually having anything left to say to one another after ten months?
Rose knew what worked and what didn’t when it came to emotions. She had learned from bitter childhood experience what to avoid. She knew what was unsuitable. And yet her two suitable boyfriends, with their excellent socialist credentials, had crashed and burned.
At this rate, she was ready to give up the whole finding love game and sink her energies into worthwhile causes instead.
‘Not all lawyers are rich,’ she said without looking at him, busy focusing on the road, which was lined with dense hedges, winding and very narrow. ‘I’m not.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Maybe I chose the wrong branch of law.’ She shrugged. ‘Employment law generally doesn’t do it when it comes to earning vast sums of money. Not that I’m complaining. I get by nicely, especially when you think about all the perfectly smart people who can’t find work.’
‘There’s always work available for perfectly smart people.’
‘Is that your experience?’ She flashed him a wry sidelong glance before turning her attention back to the road. ‘Are you one of those perfectly smart people who finds it so easy to get work that you’re currently drifting out here to join a cause in which you have no personal interest?’
‘You’re still suspicious of my motives?’
‘I’m reserving judgement. Although—’ she sighed ‘—I can, of course, understand how easy it is to get involved if you’re a nature-lover. Look around you at the open land. You can really breathe out here. The thought of it being handed over to a developer, so that houses can be put up and the trees chopped down, doesn’t bear thinking about.’
* * *
Art looked around him. There certainly was a great deal of open land. It stretched all around them, relentless and monotonous, acres upon acres upon acres of never-ending sameness. He’d never been much of a country man. He liked the frenetic buzz of city life, the feeling of being surrounded by activity. He made some appreciative noises under his breath and narrowed his eyes against the glare as the perimeters of his land took shape.
‘So you’ve lived here all your life,’ Art murmured as she slowed right down to access the bumpy track that followed the outer reaches of his property. ‘I’m taking it that some of the guys protesting are relatives? Brothers? Sisters? Cousins? Maybe your parents?’
‘No,’ Rose said shortly.
Art pricked up his ears, detecting something behind that abrupt response. It paid to know your quarry and Harold had been spot on when he’d said that there was next to no personal information circulating out there about the prickly woman next to him. Amazing. Social media was the staple diet of most people under the age of thirty-five and yet this woman had obviously managed to turn her back firmly on the trend.
Since he was similarly private about his life, he had to concede some reluctant admiration for her stance.
‘No extended family?’
‘Why the Spanish Inquisition?’ She glanced across at him. ‘What about you? Brothers? Sisters? Cousins? Will some of your extended family be showing up here to support us?’
‘You’re very prickly.’
‘I...don’t mean to be, Mr Frank.’
‘I think we should move onto a first name basis. That okay with you? My name’s Arturo. Arthur if you prefer the English equivalent.’ Which was as close to the truth as it was possible to get, as was the surname, which hadn’t been plucked from thin air but which was, in fact, his mother’s maiden name.
‘Rose.’
‘And you were telling me that you weren’t prickly...’
* * *
‘I’m