‘Two minutes…’
The voice was indeed that of a girl. Young and more than a little breathless and Annie, glancing back as she reached for the grab rail to haul herself up into the cab, could see that she was struggling.
‘I think she could do with some help,’ she said.
George regarded this tiresome female who’d been wished on him by his daughter with irritation.
‘I’m just the driver,’ he said. Then, offering her the torch, ‘But don’t let me stop you from pitching in and giving her a hand.’
‘It’s okay,’ Xandra called before she could take it from him. ‘I’ve got it.’
He shrugged. ‘It seems you were worrying about nothing.’
‘Are you sure?’ she asked, calling back to Xandra while never taking her eyes off him. It was a look that reminded him of Miss Henderson, a teacher who had been able to quell a class of unruly kids with a glance. Maybe it was the woolly hat and horn-rimmed glasses.
Although he had to admit that Miss Henderson had lacked the fine bone structure and, all chalk and old books, had never smelt anywhere near as good.
‘I’m done,’ Xandra called.
‘Happy?’ he enquired.
The woman held the look for one long moment before she gave him a cool nod and climbed up into the cab, leaving him to close the door behind her as if she were royalty.
‘Your servant, ma’am,’ he muttered as he went back to see how Xandra was doing.
‘Why on earth did you say that to her?’ she hissed as he checked the coupling.
He wasn’t entirely sure. Other than the fact that Miss Henderson was the only woman he’d ever known who could cut his cocky ten-year-old self down to size with a glance.
‘Let’s go,’ he said, pretending he hadn’t heard.
Back in the cab, he started the engine and began to winch the car up onto the trailer but, when he glanced up to check the road, his passenger’s eyes, huge behind the lenses, seemed to fill the rear-view mirror.
‘Can we drop you somewhere?’ he asked as Xandra climbed in beside him. Eager to be rid of her so that he could drop the car off at Longbourne Motors.
That took the starch right out of her look.
‘What? No…I can’t go on without my car…’
‘It’s not going anywhere tonight. You don’t live locally?’ he asked.
‘No. I’m…I’m on holiday. Touring.’
‘On your own? In December?’
‘Is there something wrong with that?’
A whole lot, in his opinion, but it was none of his business. ‘Whatever turns you on,’ he said, ‘although Maybridge in winter wouldn’t be my idea of a good time.’
‘Lots of people come for the Christmas market,’ Xandra said. ‘It’s this weekend. I’m going.’
All this and Christmas too. How much worse could it get? he thought before turning to Xandra and saying, ‘You aren’t going anywhere. You’re grounded.’ Then, without looking in the mirror, he said, ‘Where are you staying tonight?’
‘I’m not booked in anywhere. I was heading for the motel on the ring road.’
‘We’d have to go all the way to the motorway roundabout to get there from here,’ Xandra said before he could say a word, no doubt guessing his intention of dropping the car off at Longbourne Motors. ‘Much easier to run the lady back to the motel through the village once we have a better idea of how long it will take to fix her car.’
She didn’t wait for an answer, instead turning to introduce herself to their passenger. ‘I’m sorry, I’m Xandra Saxon,’ she said, but she was safe enough. This wasn’t an argument he planned on having in front of a stranger.
Annie relaxed a little as George Saxon took his eyes off her and smiled at the girl beside him, who was turning into something of an ally.
‘Hello, Xandra. I’m R-Ro…’
The word began to roll off her tongue before she remembered that she wasn’t Rose Napier.
‘Ro-o-owland,’ she stuttered out, grabbing for the first name that came into her head. Nanny Rowland…‘Annie Rowland,’ she said, more confidently.
Lydia had suggested she borrow her name but she’d decided that it would be safer to stick with something familiar. Annie had been her mother’s pet name for her but, since her grandfather disapproved of it, no one other than members of the household staff who’d known her since her mother was alive had ever used it. In the stress of the moment, though, the practised response had gone clean out of her head and she’d slipped into her standard introduction.
‘Ro-o-owland?’ George Saxon, repeating the name with every nuance of hesitation, looked up at the rear-view mirror and held her gaze.
‘Annie will do just fine,’ she said, then, realising that man and girl had the same name, she turned to Xandra. ‘You’re related?’
‘Not so’s you’d notice,’ she replied in that throwaway, couldn’t-care-less manner that the young used when something was truly, desperately important. ‘My mother has made a career of getting married. George was the first in line, with a shotgun to his back if the date on my birth certificate is anything-’
‘Buckle up, Xandra,’ he said, cutting her off.
He was her father? But she wasn’t, it would appear, daddy’s little girl if the tension between them was anything to judge by.
But what did she know about the relationship between father and daughter? All she remembered was the joy of her father’s presence, feeling safe in his arms. If he’d lived would she have been a difficult teen?
The one thing she wouldn’t have been was isolated, wrapped in cotton wool by a grandfather afraid for her safety. She’d have gone to school, mixed with girls-and boys-her own age. Would have fallen in and out of love without the eyes of the entire country on her. Would never have stepped into the spotlight only to discover, too late, that she was unable to escape its glare.
‘Are you warm enough back there?’ George Saxon asked.
‘Yes. Thank you.’
The heater was efficient and despite his lack of charm, he hadn’t fumbled when she’d fallen into his arms. On the contrary. He’d been a rock and she felt safe enough in the back of his truck. A lot safer than she’d felt in his arms. But of course this was her natural place in the world. Sitting in the back with some man up front in the driving seat. In control.
Everything she’d hoped to escape from, she reminded herself, her gaze fixed on the man who was in control at the moment. Or at least the back of his head.
Over the years she had become something of a connoisseur of the back of the male head. The masculine neck. All those chauffeurs, bodyguards…
George Saxon’s neck would stand comparison with the best, she decided. Strong, straight with thick dark hair expertly cut to exactly the right length. His shoulders, encased in the soft tan leather of his jacket, would take some beating too. It was a pity his manners didn’t match them.
Or was she missing the point?
Rupert’s perfect manners made her teeth ache to say or do something utterly outrageous just to get a reaction, but George Saxon’s hands, like his eyes, had been anything but polite.
They’d been assured, confident, brazen even. She could still feel the imprint of his thumbs against her breasts where his hands had gripped her as she’d fallen; none of that Dresden shepherdess nonsense for him. And his insolence as he’d offered her the torch had sent an elemental shiver of awareness running up her spine that had precious little to do with the cold that had seeped deep into her bones.
He might not be a gentleman, but he was real-dangerously so-and, whatever else he made her feel, it certainly wasn’t desperation.
Annie didn’t have time to dwell on what exactly he did make her feel before he swung the truck off the road and turned onto the forecourt of a large garage with a sign across the workshop that read, George Saxon and
