‘But mercifully,’ Hope bravely persisted in her efforts to offer comfort, ‘we both have a lot to be grateful for—’
‘Educate me on that score,’ Andreas sliced back in an invitation that cracked like a whiplash.
‘Sorry?’ Hope prompted uncertainly, turquoise eyes locking to him in dismay.
‘Theos mou! Explain exactly what you believe that I have to be grateful for at this moment in time,’ Andreas demanded with derision, snowflakes beginning to encrust his cropped black hair as the fall grew heavier. ‘I’m standing in a blizzard and I’m cold. It’s getting dark. My favourite car has been obliterated from the face of the earth along with my mobile phone and I am stuck with a stranger.’
‘But we’re alive. Neither of us has been hurt,’ Hope pointed out through chattering teeth, still keen as mustard to cheer him up.
He was stranded with Little Miss Sunshine, Andreas registered in disgust. ‘May I make use of your mobile phone?’
‘I’m sorry…I don’t have one—’
‘Then you must live nearby…how far is it to your home?’ Andreas cut in, taking an impatient step forward.
‘But I don’t live round here,’ she answered ruefully. ‘I don’t even know where I am.’
Ebony brows drawing together, Andreas frowned down at her as though she had confessed to something unbelievably stupid. ‘How can that be?’
‘I’m not a local,’ Hope explained, trying to still a shiver and failing. ‘I’m only in the area because I was attending an interview and I got a lift there. Then I started walking…I followed this signpost and I thought I couldn’t be that far from the main road but I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere—’
‘How long were you walking for?’
‘A couple of hours and I haven’t seen any houses for absolutely ages. That’s why I didn’t want you to drive past. I was getting a little concerned—’
Watching her shiver violently, Andreas noticed that her coat was dripping. ‘When did you get wet?’
‘There’s a stream in that ditch,’ she told him jerkily.
‘How wet are you?’
Having established that she was soaked through to the skin, Andreas studied her with fulminating intensity, brilliant eyes flashing tawny. ‘You should have said,’ he censured. ‘In sub-zero temperatures, you’re liable to end up with hypothermia and I don’t need the hassle.’
‘I’m not going to be any hassle,’ Hope swore hurriedly.
‘I saw a barn a couple of fields back. You need shelter—’
‘Really, I’ll be fine. As soon as I start walking again, I’ll warm up in no time,’ Hope mumbled through fast-numbing lips, for of all things she hated to make the smallest nuisance of herself.
‘You won’t warm up until you get those clothes off,’ Andreas asserted, planting a managing arm to her spine to urge her along at a pace faster than was comfortable for her much shorter legs.
Her lips were too numb for her to laugh at the very idea of getting her clothes off in the presence of a strange man. But she was tickled pink by his instant response to what he saw as an emergency. In a flash, he had abandoned all lament about his wrecked car and his own lack of comfort to put her needs first. At a similar speed he had found a solution to the problem and he was taking charge.
Wasn’t that supposed to be a typically male response? Only it was not a response that was as common as popular report liked to suggest, Hope reflected thoughtfully. Neither her father nor her brother had been the least bit tempted to help her out by solving problems. In fact both the men in her life had beat a very fast retreat from the demands placed on them by her mother’s long illness. She had been forced to accept that neither man was strong enough to cope with that challenge and that, as she was capable, there was no point blaming them for their weakness.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked him. ‘I’m Hope… Hope Evans.’
‘Andreas,’ Andreas delivered grimly, watching her attempt to climb a farm gate with incredulous eyes. With purposeful hands he lifted her down from her wobbly perch on the second bar so that he could unlatch the gate for their entry.
‘Oh, thanks…’ Wretched with cold as she was, Hope was breathless at having received that amount of attention and shaken that he had managed to lift her without apparent effort. But then she could not recall anyone trying to lift her after the age of ten. She would never forget, however, the cruel taunts she had earned at school for the generous bodily proportions that had been the exact opposite of the fashionable slenderness possessed by the most popular girls in her form.
As she lurched into a ditch by the hedge where the snow was lying in a dangerously deceptive drift Andreas hauled her back to his side. ‘Watch where you walk…’
The numbness of her feet was making it well nigh impossible for her to judge where her steps fell. The natural stone building ahead seemed reassuringly close, however, and she tried to push herself on but stumbled again. Expelling his breath in an impatient hiss, Andreas bent down and lifted her up into his arms to trudge the last few yards.
Instantly, Hope exploded into embarrassed speech. ‘Put me down, for goodness’ sake…you’ll strain yourself! I’m far too heavy—’
‘You’re not and if you fall, you could easily break a limb,’ Andreas pointed out.
‘And you don’t want the hassle,’ Hope completed in a small voice as he lowered her to the beaten earth floor towards the back of the dim barn, which was open to the elements on the side closest to the road.
Before she could even guess what he was doing, Andreas tugged off her coat. Her suit jacket peeled off with it. ‘My goodness!’ she gasped, lurching back a step from him in consternation.
‘When you get the rest off, you can use my coat for cover,’ Andreas declared, shrugging broad shoulders free of the heavy wool overcoat and extending it with decisive hands.
Hot pink embarrassment washed colour to the roots of Hope’s hair. Grasping the coat with reluctance, she hovered. She was too practical to continue questioning his assertion that she had to take off her sodden clothing.
‘I’ll get on with lighting a fire so that you can warm up,’ Andreas pronounced, planning that he would then leave her ensconced while he sought out a house and a phone. He would get there a hell of a lot faster on his own.
There was a massive woodpile stacked against the wall. She stepped to the far side of it, rested his coat over the protruding logs and began with chilled hands to clumsily undress. Removing her trousers was a dreadful struggle because her fingers were numb and the fabric clung to her wet skin. She pulled off her heavy sweater with equal difficulty and then, shivering violently and clad only in a damp bra, panties and ankle boots, she dug her arms into his overcoat. The coat drowned her, reaching down to her ankles, hanging off her shoulders and masking her hands as though she were a child dressing up in adult clothes. The silk lining made her shiver but the very weight of the wool garment bore the promise of greater warmth. Wrapped in the capacious depths of his carefully buttoned coat, she crept back into view.
Andreas was industriously engaged in piling up small pieces of kindling wood with some larger chunks of fuel already stacked in readiness. Again she was impressed by the quiet speed and efficiency with which he got things done. He was resourceful. He didn’t make a fuss. He didn’t agonise over decisions and he didn’t moan and whinge about the necessity either: he just did the job. She had definitely picked a winner to get stranded with in the snow.
She studied him, admiring the trendy cut of his luxuriant