Fiancee By Mistake

Which meant that Pete would have an impossible job getting down here from Hexham. Which also meant that he would be stuck with the errant fiancée for far longer than the few hours his brother had implied.

Neither thought was the sort to improve on his already bad mood as he dumped the suitcase on the back seat of his own car, slamming the door after it in an echo of his feelings.

‘Have we far to go?’ his passenger asked as he slid into the driver’s seat and put his key into the ignition.

‘Five miles or so. We’ll have to crawl every inch of the way, but we should make it.’

He was concentrating on getting the car going, breathing a silent word of thanks when the engine caught first time. He didn’t want to be stranded here for any longer than he absolutely had to—and for reasons that had nothing at all to do with the weather.

From the moment he had got into the car he had been supremely physically aware of the woman in the passenger seat. At least her coat was now firmly wrapped around her body. But those long legs were stretched out dangerously close to his own, and just the memory of the delicate lace at the top of the gossamer-fine black stockings was enough to dry his throat, so that he licked his lips in a betraying gesture.

‘The trouble is that this looks as if it will settle.’ Anxiety threaded through her words. ‘Is your home very isolated?’

‘You could say that. I don’t have any near neighbours, that’s for sure.’

Sean was grateful for the way that the whirling blizzard forced him to keep his attention on the road. One glance at the woman beside him had been enough to threaten his concentration once and for all.

Pete had said that she was a looker, but he had put that down to love being blind. He had had enough experience of the fairer sex to know that, as with many a brightly wrapped parcel, the outer appearance often totally belied the truth of the contents.

What he hadn’t been prepared for was the instant pull he felt towards this woman, the overwhelming force of purely physical attraction that had tied his nerves into knots. Not that there was anything remotely pure about his feelings, he told himself wryly. Just the whispering sound of silk against silk as she uncrossed her legs had his lower body tightening in instant response.

‘Then we could be stuck for ages—days.’ Her voice showed how little the idea appealed to her. ‘You said there was a town back the way you came. Perhaps you’d better turn around and—’

‘And risk getting completely stranded in the worst snowstorm this decade? No way, lady! You might be prepared to put your life in danger that way, but quite frankly the idea doesn’t appeal to me at all. I have first-hand experience of just what it feels like to be in a car that’s out of control, and, believe me, it’s not the sort of thing I care to repeat.’

That brought her head swinging round, her long hair flying so that it caught against his cheek, making him shiver in reaction. Her face was a pale blur in the shadows as she turned to him.

‘Was that how it happened? A car crash?’

For one awful moment he thought that she was going to put a hand on his arm, and instinctively he stiffened, silently communicating his rejection of the possible gesture. But all the same his heart accelerated wildly as he stared determinedly out through the windscreen, struggling to catch glimpses of the darkened road through the whirling snow and the rhythmic movement of the wipers.

‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice was low and soft. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘Why not?’ Sean shrugged off her concern. ‘It’s a fact, after all. But I don’t need your pity…’

‘It wasn’t pity! I meant, obviously you don’t want to talk about it, so I shouldn’t intrude. You must want to forget…’

‘Forget!’ It came on a harsh bark of laughter, one that was totally devoid of any trace of humour. ‘If I could forget it would make things easier. It’s remembering that’s hell. If I close my eyes…’

He didn’t even have to do that. It was there, in his mind, just behind his eyes. If he let his control drop it would all come rushing back. ‘No!’

This time she did move to clutch at his arm, but in a gesture of panic rather than the sympathy he had dreaded earlier. All the same, the touch of her hand seemed to sear over the exposed skin of his wrist, as if her fingers had been white-hot, and he couldn’t control the impulse to shake himself free.

‘Oh, don’t worry, sweetheart, I don’t plan on doing that right now. There are those who value your pretty face too much to see it mangled by flying glass.’

His brother, for one, and he would do well to remember that. She was Pete’s fiancée, for God’s sake! The girl his brother loved and wanted to marry. Which meant she was strictly out of bounds to the likes of him.

‘I didn’t mean…’ Her voice trembled, and out of the corner of his eye he could see that she was shivering.

‘I’m sorry, are you cold?’

Glad of the opportunity to distract himself, he moved swiftly to turn up the heating, barely hearing her murmured words of thanks as he kept his eyes glued to the little he could see of the road ahead.

At least he recognised the turn-off to the driveway of his cottage. In reality it was little more than a track, easy enough to miss at the best of times.

‘Almost there.’ He hoped he sounded more reassuring than he actually felt. ‘Though this bit might be tricky. This road’s bad enough even in decent weather. I doubt if I’ll be able to dodge the pot-holes now that they’re under six inches of snow, so you’d better hang onto your seat.’

He cursed himself for opening his mouth when, taking his instruction literally, she did just as she was told. The movement of her hands to fasten over the sides of her seat meant that her coat fell away from her body once more, and that, together with the heat in the car, wafted a heady perfume straight towards him.

The scent was like the woman herself. Superficially rich and floral, it deepened to a stronger, muskier undertone that made him want to groan aloud with the force of the memories it brought to his mind. It was impossible not to recall how she had cuddled close to him, the soft warmth of her lips against his neck, the way she had felt in his arms. She had yielded to him so easily, and the taste of her mouth…

Dear God, this was worse than ever. The primitive, purely masculine urge to slam on the brakes, gather her up in his arms and kiss her senseless was one he could subdue only with the utmost determination. Concentrate on what you’re doing, you fool!

‘Are you all right?’

Hell, had something of his thoughts shown in his face? Or, worse, in his breathing or other, more obvious parts of his body?

‘I mean, it must be a terrible strain for you having to drive in this after…’

After your accident. She didn’t complete the sentence but let it hang in the air with both of them knowing exactly what was in her mind.

‘Perhaps I could take over for a while.’

‘No way, sunshine!’

Just the thought was enough to drive everything else from his mind. The heated sensations of a moment earlier subsided so quickly that it was as if he had just opened a window, letting in a blast of the arctic air outside.

‘I spent a lot of money on this car. I have no desire to see it nose-down in a ditch!’

‘Under normal conditions I am a careful and perfectly competent driver.’ Her tone was icy enough to lower the temperature in the car by several degrees. ‘But this—’ one slim hand gestured towards the swirling blanket of snow that surrounded them ‘—can hardly be described as “normal”.’

‘And anyone who deserved the accolade of “careful” driver would have thought more than twice about setting out in weather like this in the first place.’

She hadn’t liked that. Her breath hissed through her teeth in fury.

‘That has to be the most blatant case of a particularly grubby pot calling a kettle black I’ve heard in a long time! Might I point out to you that you were on the road too? And, as you were clearly nowhere near as far away from home as I was, you would have had the advantage of being able to judge the weather more accurately before you left. It wasn’t even snowing when I set out!’

‘Nor was it when I left the house!’ Sean returned sharply. ‘Though I have to admit that I wish it had been. That way I would have had the perfect excuse not to venture out.’

And the perfect excuse to refuse Pete’s request. The perfect reason not to go out on what he firmly believed was a wild-goose chase. He had never held out any real hope that his brother’s ex-fiancée would put in an appearance at the Night Owl, let alone that he would recognise her, be able to strike up a conversation and persuade her to come back home with him.

In fact he had been so convinced of the impossibility of the task that he hadn’t even bothered to order a meal, opting instead for just a pot of delicious coffee. It had barely been delivered to his table when the gathering darkness outside, the grey, lowering skies, had alerted him to the advent of the wild winter storm that had persisted ever since.

If Annie Elliot had any sense she would never try to travel in this, he had decided, paying his bill hastily and setting out for home while it was safe to drive. He had still not worked out whether it had been good luck or bad that had resulted in his coming on the silver Renault as he had.

But fate had decided that he would, and that there at the wheel, tall, dark and every bit as beautiful as his lovelorn brother had described her, was Miss Heartbreaker Elliot herself, dazed and off balance and only too willing to be befriended and taken to his home.

‘And of course then you wouldn’t have had to lumber yourself with me!’ The girl’s indignant voice dragged his thoughts back to the present.