Kissing Santa

‘It’s because I want you to stay together that I think you should let me take your place,’ said Amanda cunningly, seizing her opportunity. ‘What’s Nigel going to think when you won’t give up a crummy temporary job so that you can go with him on this holiday he’s won? It’s the chance of a lifetime, and he can’t turn it down, but if he thinks you don’t care enough to want to spent Christmas with him in California, well...’ She shook her head sadly. ‘It’s not as if you’ll get many opportunities for a free trip to the States either,’ she persevered when Sue looked gloomily down into her glass. ‘And just think what he might get up to without you!’

It was obvious that Sue had already thought. ‘It’s not that I wouldn’t love to go...’

‘Well, then!’ Amanda spread her hands virtuously. ‘Here am I, offering to take your place so that you don’t let down the agency, and all you can do is think up objections!’

‘It’s the thought of you taking my place that worries me,’ said Sue frankly. ‘I’ve built up a good reputation with the agency, and if they hear that I’ve let you work for Blair McAllister under false pretences I’m finished. He’s a highprofile clienl I know you’ve never read any of his books but you must have seen his programmes.’

‘All that pitting-yourself-against-the-elements stuff doesn’t really appeal to me,’ said Amanda.

‘He doesn’t just do that,’ protested Sue. ‘Sometimes it’s true, he does take people out into challenging environments—you should have seen what they were doing in Guyana!—but usually it’s just his individual view of a country.’

‘Maybe, but it never sounds to me as if he goes anywhere with any good restaurants,’ said Amanda flippantly. ‘What’s he supposed to be like?’

‘I think he’s brilliant. If Nigel hadn’t won this holiday, I’d be really looking forward to meeting him.’

Sensing weakness, Amanda sat up straighter. ‘The agency won’t ever find out,’ she said, at her most soothing. ‘It’s not as if I’m going to do anything. All I want is to look round the castle and report back to Norris on its condition. He’s set his heart on it for his new health centre, but he only saw it from the outside when he drove past it a couple of months ago. He wants to know what it’s like inside so that he can make Blair McAllister a realistic offer.’

‘But I thought you said that Norris had already approached him about selling the castle and got a very rude reply telling him to forget the whole idea?’

‘Oh. they always say that at first,’ said Amanda with all the confidence of one who had been in property development for two whole weeks. ‘It’s just a way of forcing up the price. That’s why Norris needs a report on the inside. He’s given me four weeks to get up to the castle and find out what I can about Blair McAllister’s financial situation. It’s not the sort of place you can turn up to out of the blue, and I was just beginning to think that I’d have to admit that I couldn’t do it when you told me you’d been offered a temporary job there starting next week.’ Clutching her hands together, she leant pleadingly over the table. ‘It can’t just be a coincidence, Sue. It has to be meant.’

Sue had taken a lot more persuasion, of course, but in the end, as always, Amanda had got her own way. That very morning, she had driven Sue and Nigel to the airport and waved them onto the plane. ‘What if something goes wrong?’ Sue had wailed, losing her nerve at the last minute.

‘Nothing’s going to go wrong,’ Amanda had said gaily, kissing her goodbye and pushing her firmly towards passport control. ‘I’ll be able to handle Blair McAllister. It’ll be easy—just leave him to me!’

Now she wasn’t so sure. She slid a sideways glance at Blair from under her lashes. The dim light from the dashboard instruments was just enough to outline his forceful profile and hint at the inflexible set of his mouth. Watching it, Amanda was conscious of a hollow feeling that there was nothing easy about Blair McAllister and that if there was any handling to be done he would be the one to do it.

Sue’s opinion of him had been shared by all the friends whom Amanda had asked, and she had begun to think that she was the only person who hadn’t seen his programmes or read his books. He had led some famous expeditions in aid of charity but Amanda’s hopes that he would turn out to have a flamboyant personality to match had been firmly quashed. He was tough, intelligent and overwhelmingly competent, they had all agreed. ‘But gorgeous!’ Pippa, another friend, had added, sighing enviously when she heard where Amanda was going.

Amanda had been inclined to pooh-pooh that idea when she’d first seen a picture of Blair McAllister, but the longer she had studied his photograph, the more she had had to admit that there was something intriguing about that air of assurance. Still, he wasn’t what she would call gorgeous. There was something too unyielding about him, she decided, studying him covertly. He was too cold, too brusque to be really attractive. Then her eyes rested on his mouth and she found herself wondering what it would be like if he turned his head and smiled at her the way he had been smiling in that photograph.

At the thought, an odd, disquieting feeling stirred inside her, and she jerked her gaze away to concentrate on the rhythmic swish and slap of the windscreen wipers. She was supposed to be pretending to be Sue, she reminded herself, and Sue would be moreinterested in the children than in her employer. She cleared her throat. ‘Who’s looking after the children tonight?’

She thought her voice sounded a little odd, but Blair didn’t seem to notice. ‘Maggie—my housekeeper—said that she would spend the mght since we were going to be so late back. She usually goes home after she’s prepared the evening meal. Which reminds me,’ he went on tersely, ‘you’re going to have to help out with the cooking and cleaning. Maggie sprained her wrist very badly yesterday and she won’t be able to do much for a while.’

‘You want me to cook?’

‘I cleared it with the agency this morning,’ he said, oblivious to Amanda’s appalled expression. ‘Naturally your salary will reflect the extra work, but the agency said that you wouldn’t mind. They told me that you were a good cook.’

Sue was. Sue was calm and patient and didn’t work herself into a frenzy when all her pots started to boil at once. Amanda loathed cooking and blessed daily the invention of the microwave. ‘I’m not that good,’ she said nervously, wondering for one wild moment if she could sprain her wrist too.

‘It doesn’t need to be anything fancy. Good, plain food is all those children need.’

Amanda’s heart sank even further. If there was one thing she hated more than cooking, it was good, plain food. In cuisine, as in life, she liked things as fancy as possible. Lapsing back into glum silence, she contemplated the rain which was now slashing against the car while the wind whooped and swirled judderingly around them. It looked as if it was going to be a very dull Christmas.

CHAPTER TWO

‘WHY do you call yourself Amanda instead of Susan?’ asked Blair suddenly out of the darkness.

‘Amanda’s my middle name,’ said Amanda, who had anticipated that question.

‘What’s wrong with Susan? It’s not as if it’s an embarrassing name.’

Of course, she should have just said that she preferred Amanda and left it at that, but Amanda had always had a taste for the dramatic and had never been able to resist the temptation to embellish a story. Her elaborate excuses for being late had been famous at school. ‘All the girls in my family are called Susan,’ she improvised. ‘We use our middle names so that we don’t get confused.’

‘You’re all called Susan?’ She could feel the disbelief in the glance he shot her. ‘What on earth for?’

‘After my great-great-grandmother,’ said Amanda fluently, grateful as always for her ability to tell the most enormous fibs with a straight face. ‘She was a missionary.’ In the darkness it was impossible to read Blair’s expression, but she could sense his scepticism and it put her on her mettle. ‘In the South Pacific,’ she added as a bit of corroborative detail.

It was a mistake. ‘Oh?’ said Blair. ‘Where in the South Pacific?’

She had forgotten that he probably knew the South Pacific as well as she knew the Number 9 bus route. Feverishly, Amanda tried to think of the name of an island but, as so often when forced to call upon memory rather than imagination, her mind remained blank. ‘She moved around a lot,’ she saidvaguely instead, but as this sounded rather dull she was unable to resist adding a touch of drama to the story. ‘Family legend has it that she was eaten by cannibals,’ she added, lowering her voice to just the right touch of reverence. ‘One day she got into her canoe and paddled off to a new island, and she was never seen again.’

‘Really?’ Blair’s voice dripped disbelief and Amanda sighed inwardly. Perhaps it hadn’t been a very convincing story.

Oh, well, she had enjoyed it, anyway. As she had talked, the mythical Susan had become almost real to her, but it was clear that Blair lacked the fertile imagination that had been getting her into trouble since she’d been a child Life would be much simpler if she’d only learn to keep it under control, she acknowledged, but not nearly so much fun.

Outside, the storm was growing wilder, driving rain ferociously into the windscreen. Blair’s body was utterly relaxed, but his grip on the steering wheel was sure as he held the car steady against the gusting wind. Amanda wished that she could relax enough to fall asleep, but there was something unsettling about Blair’s massive, silent presence, like a barrier between her and the storm.

He had ignored her after the story about her supposed ancestor and Amanda, normally the most confidently chatty of people, had found herself unable to think of anything to say to break the silence. She was too aware of the cramped confines of the car. Outside it was very dark. The dashboard lights were reflected in her window, but otherwise there was nothing. Blair seemed very close, almost overwhelming, and she wished that she didn’t notice every time he moved his hand to the gear lever or glanced across to see if she was still awake.

Once they had turned off the Inverness road, they hardly saw another car, and to Amanda it seemed as if they were driving interminably into the darkness while the rain turned to sleet, zooming in at the windscreen like a meteor shower. In spite of herself, her head began to loll forward. She had no idea how much time had passed when the sound of the car splashing through a huge puddle along with the sound of Blair swearing under his breath jerked her into consciousness. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked blearily, struggling upright in her seat as the car began to splutter alarmingly.

‘Water in the petrol’ he said curtly. He changed down, but his attempts to rev the engine had little effect and not much further down the road the car coughed sadly to a halt.

Blair swore again and hauled on the handbrake. ‘That’s all I need,’ he muttered, and reached across Amanda without ceremony to rummage in the glove box.

Very conscious of his nearness, she shrank back in her seat so that she didn’t have to touch him more than necessary...not that he even seemed to notice that she was there! It was a relief when his fingers closed around a torch and he sat back, but the next minute he was opening his door.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Out for a stroll.’

Amanda stared stupidly at him as the rain slashed against the windows, wondering if she had fallen asleep after all and this was just a bizarre dream. ‘A stroll? In this?’

Blair gave a short, exasperated sigh. ‘Of course not!’ he said irritably. ‘I’m going to clean the filter, what do you think? And, what’s more, you’re coming with me.’

‘Me?’ She came to abruptly. ‘But I don’t know anything about cars!’

‘You don’t need to be a mechanic to hold a torch.’

‘But...’ Amanda glanced helplessly from the rain to her city suit. ‘I’ll get soaked!’ she wailed, but if she had hoped to rouse Blair’s chivalrous instincts she was doomed to disappointment.

‘I dare say, but the sooner we get out there, the sooner we can both get dry,’ he said. He had half closed his door, but now he made as if to open it again. ‘Now, are you coming?’

Amanda was looking nervously out at the wild night ‘Are you sure this is wise?’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Blair, exasperated.