Leo shrugged and told himself that, certainly in this instance, the ends would more than justify the means—and at any rate, there was no chance that she would discover his little lie. He would forever remain the enigmatic stranger who had passed through and collected a few amusing anecdotes on the way. She would be regaling her friends with this in a week’s time.
‘Sometimes life is all about taking chances,’ he murmured softly.
Brianna hadn’t taken a chance in such a long time that she had forgotten what it felt like. The last chance she had taken had been with Danny, and hadn’t that backfired spectacularly in her face? She had settled into a groove and had firmly convinced herself that it suited her. ‘Some people are braver than others when it comes to that sort of thing,’ she found herself muttering under her breath.
Leading remark, Leo thought. He had vast experience of women dangling titbits of information about themselves, offering them to him in the hope of securing his interest, an attempt to reel him in through his curiosity. However, for once his cynicism was absent. This woman knew nothing about him. He did not represent a rich, eligible bachelor. He was a struggling writer with no job. He had a glimpse of what it must feel like to communicate with a woman without undercurrents of suspicion that, whatever they wanted, at least part of it had to do with his limitless bank balance. He might have been adopted into a life of extreme privilege, and that privilege might have been his spring board to the dizzying heights of his success, but with that privilege and with that success had come drawbacks—one of which was an inborn mistrust of women and their motivations.
Right now, he was just communicating with a very beautiful and undeniably sexy woman and, hell, she was clueless about him. He smiled, enjoying the rare sense of freedom.
‘And you’re not one of the brave ones?’
Brianna stood up to clear the table. She had no idea where this sudden urge to confide was coming from. Was she bonding with him because, underneath those disconcerting good looks, he was a fellow artist? Because, on some weird level, he understood her? Or was she just one of those sad women, too young to be living a life of relative solitude, willing to confide in anyone who showed an interest?
Her head was buzzing. She felt hot and bothered and, when he reached out and circled her wrist with his hand, she froze in shock. The feel of his warm fingers on her skin was electrifying. She hadn’t had a response like this to a man in a very long time. It was a feeling of coming alive. She wanted to snatch her hand away from his and rub away where he had touched her... Yet she also wanted him to keep his fingers on her wrist; she wanted to prolong the warm, physical connection between them. She abruptly sat back down, because her legs felt like jelly, and he released her.
‘It’s hard to take chances when you have commitments,’ she muttered unsteadily. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his face. She literally felt as though he held her spellbound. ‘You’re on your own. You probably had sufficient money saved to just take off and do your own thing. I’m only now beginning to see the light financially and, even so, I still couldn’t just up and leave.’ She was leaning forward in the chair, leaning towards him as though he was the source of her energy. ‘I should get this place tidied up,’ she said agitatedly.
‘Why? I thought you said that the pub would be closed until further notice.’
‘Yes, but...’
‘You must get lonely here on your own.’
‘Of course I’m not lonely! I have too many friends to count!’
‘But I don’t suppose you have a lot of time to actually go out with them...’
Hot colour invaded her cheeks. No time to go out with them; no time even to pursue her art as a hobby. She hated the picture he was painting of her life. She was being made to feel as though she had sleepwalked into an existence of living from one day to the next, with each day being exactly the same. She dragged herself back to reality, back to the fact that he was just a budding writer on the hunt for some interesting material for his book. He wasn’t interested in her.
‘Will I be the sad spinster in your book?’ She laughed shakily and gathered herself together. ‘I think you’re better off with some of the more colourful characters who live here.’ She managed to get to her feet, driven by a need to put some distance between them. How could she let this one passing stranger get to her with such breath-taking speed? Lots of guys had come on to her over the years. Some of them she had known for ever, others had been friends of friends of friends. She had laughed and joked with all of them but she had never, not once, felt like this. Felt as though the air was being sucked out of her lungs every time she took a peek...as though she was being injected with adrenaline every time she came too close.
She busied herself tidying, urging him to sit rather than help. Her flustered brain screeched to a halt when she imagined them standing side by side at the kitchen sink.
She launched into nervous conversation, chattering mindlessly about the last time a snow storm had hit the village, forcing herself to relax as she recounted stories of all the things that could happen to people who were snow bound for days on end, occasionally as long as a fortnight: the baby delivered by one panicked father; the rowdy rugby group who had been forced to spend two nights in the pub; the community spirit when they had all had to help each other out; the food that Seamus Riley had had to lift by rope into his bedroom because he hadn’t been able to get past his front door.
Leo listened politely. He really ought to be paying a bit more attention, but he was captivated by the graceful movement of her tall, slender body as she moved from counter to counter, picking things up, putting things away, making sure not to look at him.
‘In fact, we all do our bit when the weather turns really bad,’ she was saying now as she turned briefly in his direction. ‘I don’t suppose you have much of that in London.’
‘None,’ Leo murmured absently. Her little breasts pointed against the jumper and he wondered whether she was wearing a bra; a sensible, white cotton bra. He never imagined the thought of a sensible, white cotton bra could be such an illicit turn-on.
He was so absorbed in the surprising disobedience of his imagination that he almost missed the name that briefly passed her lips and, when it registered, he stiffened and felt his pulses quicken.
‘Sorry,’ he grated, straightening. ‘I missed that...particular anecdote.’ He kept his voice as casual as possible but he was tense and vigilant as he waited for her to repeat what she had been saying, what he had stupidly missed because he had been too busy getting distracted, too busy missing the point of why he was stuck here in the first place.
‘I was just telling you about what it’s like here—we help each other out. I was telling you about my friend who lives in the village. Bridget McGuire...’
SO HIS MOTHER wasn’t the drunk or the junkie that he had anticipated, if his landlady was to be believed...
Leo flexed his muscles and wandered restlessly through the lounge where he had been sitting in front of his computer working for the past hour and a half.
Circumstance had forced him into a routine of sorts, as his optimistic plan of clearing off within a few days had faded into impossibility.
After three days, the snow was still falling steadily. It fluctuated between virtual white-out and gentle flakes that could lull you into thinking that it was all picture-postcard perfect. Until you opened the front door and clocked that the snow you’d cleared moments previously had already been replaced by a fresh fall.
He strolled towards the window and stared out at a pitch-black vista, illuminated only by the outside lights which Brianna kept on overnight.
It was not yet