Even when his ‘nonsense’ was being installed in every new engine manufactured throughout the world, his father had still been telling him he was wrong…
‘Move over,’ he said.
Xandra clung stubbornly to the steering wheel. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Since you’ve already kept a lone woman waiting in a dark country lane for five minutes longer than necessary, I haven’t got much choice. I’m going to let you pick her up.’
‘Me?’
‘You. But you’ve already committed enough motoring offences for one week, so I’ll drive the truck.’
CHAPTER TWO
ANNIE saw the tow-truck, yellow light flashing on the roof of the cab, looming out of the dark, and sighed with relief as it pulled up just ahead of her broken-down car.
After a lorry, driving much too fast along the narrow country lane, had missed the front of the car by inches, she’d scrambled out and was standing with her back pressed against the gate, shivering with the cold.
The driver jumped down and swung a powerful torch over and around the car, and she threw up an arm to shield her eyes from the light as he found her.
‘George Saxon,’ her knight errant said, lowering the torch a little. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
‘Y-y-yes,’ she managed through chattering teeth. She couldn’t see his face behind the light but his voice had a touch of impatience that wasn’t exactly what she’d hoped for. ‘No thanks to a lorry driver who nearly took the front off the car.’
‘You should have switched on the hazard warning lights,’ he said unsympathetically. ‘Those sidelights are useless.’
‘If he’d been driving within the speed limit, he’d have seen me,’ she replied, less than pleased at the suggestion that it was her own fault that she’d nearly been killed.
‘There is no speed limit on this road other than the national limit. That’s seventy miles an hour,’ he added, in case she didn’t know.
‘I saw the signs. Foolishly, perhaps, I assumed that it was the upper limit, not an instruction,’ she snapped right back.
‘True,’ he agreed, ‘but just because other people behave stupidly it doesn’t mean you have to join in.’
First the car park attendant and now the garage mechanic. Irritable men talking to her as if she had dimwit tattooed across her forehead was getting tiresome.
Although, considering she could be relaxing in the warmth and comfort of Bab el Sama instead of freezing her socks off in an English country lane in December, they might just have a point.
‘So,’ he asked, gesturing at the car with the torch, ‘what’s the problem?’
‘I thought it was your job to tell me that,’ she replied, deciding she’d taken enough male insolence for one day.
‘Okaaay…’
Back-lit by the bright yellow hazard light swinging around on top of the tow-truck, she couldn’t make out more than the bulk of him but she had a strong sense of a man hanging onto his temper by a thread.
‘Let’s start with the basics,’ he said, making an effort. ‘Have you run out of petrol?’
‘What kind of fool do you take me for?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to establish,’ he replied with all the long-suffering patience of a man faced with every conceivable kind of a fool. Then, with a touch more grace, ‘Maybe you should just tell me what happened and we’ll take it from there.’
That was close enough to a truce to bring her from the safety of the gate and through teeth that were chattering with the cold-or maybe delayed shock, that lorry had been very close-she said, ‘I t-took the wrong road and t-tried to-’
‘To’ turned into a yelp as she caught her foot in a rut and was flung forward, hands outstretched, as she grabbed for anything to save herself. What she got was soft brushed leather and George Saxon, who didn’t budge as she cannoned into him but, steady as a rock, caught her, then held her as she struggled to catch her breath.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked after a moment.
With her cheek, her nose and her hands pressed against his chest, she was in no position to answer.
But with his breath warm against her skin, his hands holding her safe, there wasn’t a great deal wrong that she could think of.
Except, of course, all of the above.
She couldn’t remember ever being quite this close to a man she didn’t know, so what she was feeling-and whether ‘okay’ covered it-she couldn’t begin to say. She was still trying to formulate some kind of response when he moved back slightly, presumably so that he could check for himself.
‘I think so,’ she said quickly, getting a grip on her wits. She even managed to ease back a little herself, although she didn’t actually let go until she’d put a little weight on her ankle to test it.
There didn’t appear to be any damage but she decided not to rush it.
‘I’m in better shape than the car, anyway.’
He continued to look at her, not with the deferential respect she was used to, but in a way that made her feel exposed, vulnerable and, belatedly, she let go of his jacket, straightened the spectacles that had slipped sideways.
‘It was d-dark,’ she stuttered-
And in the process managed to sound like a rather pompous and disapproving dowager duchess.
‘Good enough for a tractor,’ he replied, dropping those capable hands and taking a step back. Leaving a cold space between them. ‘The farmer isn’t in the business of providing turning places for women who can’t read a map.’
‘I…’ On the point of saying that she hadn’t looked at a map, she thought better of it. He already thought she was a fool and there was nothing to be gained from confirming his first impression. ‘No. Well…’ She’d have taken a step back herself if she hadn’t been afraid her foot would find another rut and this time do some real damage. ‘I banged the underside of the car on something as I went down. When I tried to drive away it made a terrible noise and…’ She shrugged.
‘And what?’ he persisted.
‘And nothing,’ she snapped. Good grief, did he want it spelling out in words of one syllable? ‘It wasn’t going anywhere.’ Then, rubbing her hands over her sleeves, ‘Can you fix it?’
‘Not here.’
‘Oh.’
‘Come on,’ he said and, apparently taking heed of her comments about the state of the ground, he took her arm and supported her back onto the safety of the tarmac before opening the rear door of the truck’s cab. ‘You’d better get out of harm’s way while we load her up.’
As the courtesy light came on, bathing them both in light, Annie saw more of him. The brushed leather bomber jacket topping long legs clad not, as she’d expected, in overalls, but a pair of well-cut light-coloured trousers. And, instead of work boots, he was wearing expensive-looking loafers. Clearly, George Saxon hadn’t had the slightest intention of doing anything at the side of the road.
Her face must have betrayed exactly what she was thinking because he waved his torch over a tall but slight figure in dark overalls who was already attaching a line to her car.
‘She’s the mechanic,’ he said with a sardonic edge to his voice. His face, all dark shadows as the powerful overhead light swung in the darkness, matched his tone perfectly. ‘I’m just along for the ride.’
