A Spanish Christmas

A Spanish Christmas
PENNY JORDAN

A Spanish ChristmasPenny Jordan

In A Spanish Christmas Meg Scott is spending Christmas in the castillo of tall, dark and imperious Don Christian Felipe Martinez, a truly hot-blooded, dark Latin lover! What would be her favourite Christmas present?

Christmas is a time for joy and love. The shops are packed, children are singing carols; we are all busy buying and wrapping presents, and arranging family feasts. In the midst of all this, take a little time for yourself and enjoy one of our short Christmas treats by some of our favourite authors.

CHAPTER ONE

‘OH, THIS must be our car.’

Carefully parking her patient’s wheelchair amongst the throng of people besieging the all too few taxis pulling up to collect the departing airport passengers, Meg hurried towards the sleek chauffeur-driven limousine which was just in sight and which, after the long wait they had had, just had to be the hire car they had pre-booked in London before leaving for Seville.

Her patient, Elena Salvadores, was an elderly sixty-something and still very frail following the accident whilst she had been on holiday in London, which had resulted in the operation to her knee. This in turn had necessitated her hiring a private Spanish-speaking nurse from the agency for which Meg worked, to accompany her back to Seville and to remain there with her until after the Christmas holiday. Meg had taken to the Señora as soon as they had met and the Señora on her part had been almost embarrassingly grateful to Meg for the care she had given her.

Perhaps it was because of her own accident that she was so easily able to empathise with the anxiety and pain suffered by her patient, Meg acknowledged. As a busy young theatre sister who loved her job, the last thing she had been prepared for was to be attacked late at night in Casualty by a knife-wielding drunk who had inflicted such serious injuries on her unprotected hand and arm that they would never again be strong enough for theatre work.

The pain of losing her career as well as the complications and physical suffering her injuries had caused might have daunted someone less strongly grounded than Meg, even embittered them, but Meg had firmly told herself and everyone else who asked that working for an agency as a private nurse was helping her to become multi-functional. It had been the fact that she was fluent in Spanish which had gained her her present job.

When she had been growing up her father had managed an exclusive marina in Spain and she had spent her holidays there with her parents, quickly learning the language. Her parents were retired now and living in Portugal, where her father could indulge his twin passions of sailing and golf.

The limousine had pulled into the kerb now, a huge highly polished black beast of a car which was attracting the discreetly awed attention of the crowd on the pavement—and no wonder. Personally Meg would have thought that her request for a car suitable to take a wheelchair-bound patient and her luggage might have resulted in something rather more modest, but as she already knew Elena Salvadores was an extremely wealthy woman.

They had flown out from Heathrow first class, and the Señora had insisted that there was no way she wanted to have Meg wearing a uniform, which was why now, as she hurried to speak to the driver of their car, she was wearing a pair of warm trousers along with a toning butter-soft leather jacket. The trousers, with their fine blending of wool and cashmere, like the leather jacket, had been a birthday present from her parents.

She had reached the car now, and was just about to lean forward to speak to the driver when—’Excuse me!’

A note of icy warning entered Meg’s voice as she drew herself up to her full height of almost but not quite five feet four inches—six if you included the heels of her boots—and confronted the arrogantly imperious Spaniard who had appeared out of nowhere to try to lay claim to ‘their’ car.

Tall, he dwarfed her, Meg recognised, and had to be a good two inches over six foot, and broad-shouldered—he was practically blocking out what little winter light there was. Everything about him commanded—demanded—that Meg give way to him, to his maleness, his arrogance—and that she allowed him to take ‘their’ hire car.

Thoroughly infuriated by him, as well as concerned for her patient, who she had sensed had not enjoyed the flight and who was now looking tired and unwell, she opened her mouth to tell him what she thought of his bad manners. But before she could say a word the Spaniard was addressing her.

‘Madre de Dios,’ he stormed. ‘Are you a thief, that you dare to try to steal my car?’

His car?

Pink-faced with anger and disbelief, Meg turned to face him. His eyes were the colour of obsidian and as cold as ice, his hair thick and black, and as for his face! Meg could all too easily imagine that hawkish, far too good-looking profile impressing some women, but fortunately she was not one of them, she congratulated herself as she exclaimed in righteous indignation, ‘Me steal your car. I was here first.’

It was ridiculous, Meg knew. She was not normally given to making impulsive judgements about people on first sight, but there was just something about this particular man that infuriated and antagonised her. Her heart was jumping with emotion, thudding almost painfully against her chest wall—not because he was too good-looking but simply because he was too arrogant, she assured herself.

‘First?’ He stopped her, scanning her smooth pale skin and wide-spaced turquoise-blue eyes, speaking to her in English, Meg suddenly realised, as she had done to him, forgetting in the heat of the moment just where she was.

Was it her imagination or was he staring rather longer than necessary at the silky length of her dark red hair? It obviously was her imagination, Meg acknowledged ruefully, when he began smoothly, ‘For your information—’

He broke off suddenly as Meg gave a soft exclamation of concern and, ignoring him, hurried towards her patient, who she could see was looking tired and stressed. But as she did so the arrogant Spaniard who was so determined to hijack their transport stared after her, suddenly exclaiming, to Meg’s shock, ‘Tia Elena! What on earth …?’ at the same time striding past Meg to reach her patient ahead of her.

‘Christian,’ Elena Salvadores was exclaiming in pleasure as he reached her. ‘What a surprise. What are you doing here?’

‘I’m just on my way home from a business trip to South America,’ Meg heard him answering. ‘But what on earth has happened to you?’

‘I had an accident in London,’ Meg’s patient was explaining in Spanish. ‘Fortunately nothing too serious, and I am on the mend now, but they would not allow me to return on my own, and since my leg still has to be dressed and bandaged Meg here has accompanied me. She is a trained nurse,’ she added, giving Meg a fond smile. ‘But I’m afraid she will find it very dull here in Seville with only me for company, especially since it will be Christmas.’

She gave a small sigh.

‘I miss my Esteban so much, even though it is over ten years now since he died. Your mother and I were both widowed in the same year, but she has the good fortune to have her children.’

‘I’m afraid she does not always consider us to be “good” fortune.’

The rueful smile that illuminated his whole face as he spoke did decidedly dangerous and unwanted things to Meg’s heartbeat, things she had no wish to so much as acknowledge, never mind go to the risky lengths of trying to analyse.

So he was good-looking, very good-looking. So what? Without realising she was doing so, Meg gave a small toss of her burnished hair, unwittingly causing the object of her thoughts to break off his conversation to look at her. And Meg, although she was too modest to know it herself, was very well worth looking at from a male point of view.

Small, slender, but with a deliciously curvaceous female shape. The harmonious toning of her hair and skin colouring with her caramel clothes allied to the unexpected brilliance of her spectacular eyes set in a soft heart-shaped face, guaranteed to bring out the hunter in even the mildest of men.

Unable to break the contact his gaze was deliberately locking her into, Meg felt her heart start to race whilst tiny flutters of anger-edged nervousness infiltrated her body. It was as though he was silently, subtly taunting her, telling her that of the two of them he had the more power, the power over her as a female, the power to do whatever he wished with her, to her.

Abruptly he looked away, breaking the spell, addressing her patient for all the world as though that oh, so male look of domination and power he had just given her had never existed.

‘You look tired, Tia Elena,’ he said softly, his voice warm with sympathy and concern. ‘You shouldn’t be waiting out here in the cold like this. Your nurse should—’

Once again he was looking at her, this time with very evident disapproval, Meg recognised wrathfully.

‘It isn’t Meg’s fault,’ Elena Salvadores insisted, immediately coming to Meg’s rescue. ‘We ordered a hire car but so far it hasn’t arrived.’

‘Allow me to give you a lift,’ came the swift and firm response, followed by a very sardonic look in Meg’s direction before Christian added, ‘I have my car here.’

Unable to help herself, Meg glared at him. A quick fresh look at the waiting limousine had conveyed to her what she should have recognised much sooner: namely that it was far too expensive and exclusive a vehicle to be anything other than privately owned. However, there was no way she was going to acknowledge her error to him! Instead she pointed out grandly, ‘This is a public taxi rank, and private cars are not allowed.’

Before she could finish what she was saying Elena was informing her gently, ‘Christian has special status, Meg. His diplomatic duties mean that he is allowed to park wherever he wishes.’

His diplomatic duties? Meg was struggling not to betray her chagrin, refusing to be impressed even when her patient introduced them formally. So the Spaniard was titled, a member of the Spanish nobility. Don Christian Felipe Martinez, el Duque de Perez!—and her patient’s godson. So what?

His suave, ‘You may call me Christian,’ made Meg’s eyes shoot sparks of brilliant angry fire, but somehow she managed to hold her tongue, busying herself instead with ensuring that the chauffeur who was helping her patient did not inadvertently add to Elena’s discomfort in any way.

But it wasn’t the chauffeur, it was Christian himself who took charge and helped Elena into the car, making sure she was comfortably settled inside it—whilst Meg, who had been about to do exactly that herself, was forced to stand back and look on in helpless indignation. How dared he both pre-empt her and at the same time manage to subtly imply that he didn’t trust her ability to take proper care of her patient?

Stiff-backed with growing hostility towards him, Meg allowed the chauffeur to usher her into the car, which had to be the most luxurious she had ever been in—a huge Mercedes with black leather upholstery, and a far cry from her own little compact at home.

For the first ten minutes of their journey Meg listened in silence whilst her patient talked to Christian about his family and various shared friends, but when Elena started to tell him she was concerned that Meg would be lonely and bored in Seville, with only her for company, Meg started to frown.

However, before she could interrupt to remind Elena that the purpose of her being in Seville was for her to nurse Elena, she heard Christian telling the older woman very much the same thing, his voice becoming crisp and rather cool as he looked pointedly at Meg and then away again.

Infuriated by the fact that he dared to disapprove of her, Meg did some interrupting of her own, telling him pointedly in Spanish that she could both speak and understand his language.

Instead of recognising that she had been warning him against discussing her, Christian reacted to her interruption by telling her sharply, ‘I am relieved to hear it, since Tia Elena does not speak English very well. You should really have told us about your accident.’ He turned away from Meg to gently scold Elena. ‘I could have come to London myself to bring you home. My mother will be very cross that you did not let us know.’

‘I didn’t want to bother any of you,’ Elena was admitting. ‘I know how busy you are, Christian. Your mother told me the last time we met that this charitable work you have taken on for our government is taking more and more of your time.’