Fiancee By Mistake

She glanced at the sleek and obviously expensive lines of his own BMW. A new light brightened her eyes and she looked at him expectantly.

‘I suppose you’ve got the very latest model in your car. I could—’

As a matter of fact, no, I haven’t,’ Sean put in coolly. ‘When I’m on the road I prefer to be unobtainable. And I know for a fact that there are no houses any closer than my own cottage. One of the reasons I bought it in the first place was because it is so isolated.’

‘But what can I do? How am I going to get home?’ A note of desperation threaded through the question.

Broad shoulders under the navy woollen jacket lifted in a dismissive shrug.

‘Strikes me you’ve got two possible choices. You can stay here till morning…’

The look of scorn Leah turned on him made it only too plain that she wasn’t going to take that suggestion seriously. She’d freeze before midnight. ‘Or?’

‘Or you can come with me. My house isn’t far from here. We should make it before the roads become impassable if we’re careful—and quick. You’ll have to leave your car, I’m afraid. But as no one’s likely to be able to move it, even if they were out in this blizzard, it should be safe enough. You can spend the night with me.’

‘Spend the night with you!’ Leah echoed in blank disbelief. ‘You have got to be joking!’

At last her brain seemed to be functioning again. The idea of getting into this man’s car and letting him drive her off to God knew where was not one that appealed in the slightest. She didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him, and he had already proved to be extremely dangerous in more ways than one.

When her uncomfortable conscience put in the reminder that, judging by her earlier behaviour, she probably had more to fear from her own foolish impulses than anything Sean Gallagher might do, she pushed it aside furiously.

‘No way! I’d rather take my chances with the elements!’

As her defiant words were whipped away on the wind she nerved herself for his response, expecting an angry protest laced with dark scorn at her foolishness.

It never came. Instead he shrugged again, even more dismissively than before.

‘Your choice, lady.’

Already he was turning away.

‘Have a good night.’

Leah watched, open-mouthed, in frank disbelief. He couldn’t mean it! She couldn’t believe that he would actually leave her here.

But it seemed that he would. He had turned his back on her and was moving purposefully towards the dark, sleek shape of his parked car. Without even his ambiguous presence the silent lane seemed suddenly very dark and cold, and full of darkly threatening shadows.

‘You can’t do this!’ Her words had to be pitched high against the manic howling of the wind. ‘You can’t just go and leave me here alone!’

For a brief second he paused, glanced back, eyes narrowed against the whirling snow.

‘Try me,’ he tossed at her, and turned back towards his car.

CHAPTER TWO

HE MEANT it too, Sean told himself as he strode away from her. Never once in all the thirty-four years of his life had he left a woman in a position of need when he could offer help, but there was always a first time, and this was it.

This woman was far more trouble than she was worth, and quite frankly the thought of letting her into his house, the home he had kept as his own very private haven until now, was not something that appealed in the slightest.

He couldn’t work out just what it was about this particular female that affected him so badly, but it seemed as if his thinking processes, normally as cool and rational as any scientist’s, had seized up from the moment he had left his car and headed for hers.

But could he really leave her here, alone and unprotected, in such appalling weather conditions?

His steps were already slowing when he heard her voice behind him.

‘Wait! Please!’

She had finally pulled her skirt down, he noted automatically as he swung round in response to the sharp cry of distress. And the black coat was now fastened close across that stunning cleavage. Sean didn’t know whether relief or disappointment was uppermost in his mind. He only knew that it was a damned sight easier to think more clearly when there was so much less of her body on display.

‘Changed your mind? Decided to see sense?’

‘I—realise I have no choice.’

The admission had had to be dragged from her, her stilted tone said. Her reluctance to speak to him was emphasised by the way she held her head proudly upright, those amazing violet eyes watching him as if he was something particularly unpleasant that a cat had just brought in.

‘I’ll freeze if I have to stay here. So if your offer of shelter still stands I’d—like to take you up on it.’

‘Like’ obviously didn’t come in to it. She knew she had no alternative, and she hated being obliged to admit it.

‘In that case we’d better get moving. Do you have anything you want to bring with you?’

‘My case. It’s in the boot.’

She was turning back to the Renault as she spoke, her keys in her hand, but Sean reached out and took them from her.

‘I’ll fetch it. You get in the car.’

He didn’t want to be already in his car when she slid in beside him, didn’t want to subject himself once more to the sight of those long, slender legs as she swung them inside and settled down in her seat. He needed to get back in control, remember what all this was about.

He took the few moments needed to open the boot and take out the small, battered suitcase in order to draw a couple of deep, calming breaths and impose some sort of order on his thoughts.

‘Get a grip!’ he muttered to himself furiously. ‘All you have to do is to take her to the cottage and keep her there until Pete comes to collect her.’ A promise was a promise after all.

But he had made that promise in complete ignorance, blind to any possible repercussions. He had been barely awake when his brother had phoned, dragged from a rare deep sleep by the shrill ringing of the telephone.

‘Sean?’ Pete’s voice had been sharp and urgent, in contrast to his own near inarticulate growl on picking up the receiver.

Hearing it, Sean had shaken himself awake and sat up swiftly, leaning up against the arm of the settee on which he had fallen asleep.

‘What’s wrong?’ Because something had to be wrong to put that note in his brother’s voice.

‘She’s left me.’ It was a stark, bleak announcement. ‘Says there’s someone else.’

‘She? Your fiancée? But the wedding’s—’

‘In the New Year, right. Or, rather, correction—it was to have been. But Annie’s called it off. She even gave me back the ring.’

Why wasn’t he surprised? Sean wondered cynically. Women. There wasn’t one of them who could be trusted. He knew that only too well. But he had hoped that for his kid brother things might turn out better.

‘When did this happen?’

‘Just now! We were having lunch at my place—our own private Christmas celebration, seeing as we won’t be together on the day—and it was obvious that something was wrong. When I asked her what it was, she just came right out with it. Said there was someone else, and then she left. She drove off in an almighty rush and I couldn’t follow her. I’d…’

‘Had rather too much to drink?’ Sean finished for him as he hesitated. It was there in the slight slur of his brother’s words, the emotion that he wouldn’t normally have shown.

‘A lot too much,’ Pete admitted ruefully. ‘There’s no way I’m remotely fit to drive. That’s why I thought of you.’

‘Me?’ Sean stared at the receiver as if it was actually his brother. ‘What can I do?’

‘You can go after her for me. No, listen, she wasn’t going home to Hexham but to her parents’ for Christmas. And they live in Carborough.’

Which was a long way south. To get there, she would have to pass Appleton village, Sean realised, seeing the direction in which his brother’s thoughts were heading.

‘Pete, be sensible! What am I supposed to do? Throw myself in front of the car?’

‘There won’t be any need for that. You see, she always breaks her journey at this all-night café—The Night Owl. Do you know it?’

Sean managed a murmur that might have been agreement. But his brother didn’t seem to need any encouragement.

‘All you have to do is be there—say between six and eight, to allow for any margin of error either way. When she arrives you just hang onto her…’

“‘Hang onto her”!’ Sean echoed, raking one hand through the darkness of his hair. ‘Look, baby brother, what am I supposed to do—kidnap her?’

‘Oh, you’ll manage something,’ Pete declared airily, but then suddenly his mood changed. ‘Please, Sean.’

Sean knew there was no way he could resist the appeal in his brother’s voice. After all, he owed him plenty after the past months. Pete had been there when he was needed. He could hardly let him down now.

‘I don’t even know what she looks like. I haven’t met the woman yet, remember, and she doesn’t even know I’m your brother.’

But that could be an advantage—if he decided to go along with Pete’s crazy plan.

‘You can’t miss her. Tall, dark hair, blue eyes. Oh, and she drives a silver Renault—H reg. Please, Sean, do this for me.’

Sean sighed, knowing he had no alternative. ‘Just tell me one thing,’ he said. ‘Is she worth it?’

‘More than you’ll ever know,’ his brother assured him. ‘Oh, I know I can’t expect an old cynic like you to believe that, but just you wait. One day it’ll hit you too. You’ll meet someone who’ll knock you right off balance the way Annie’s done to me, and you’ll never be the same again.’

And pigs might fly supersonic, Sean told himself privately. He had had more than enough of so-called romance to last him several lifetimes. And, even more privately, he doubted that his brother’s fiancée would ever consider going back to him, no matter how much talking they did. But he supposed everyone deserved a second chance.

‘All right, I’ll do it,’ he said resignedly. ‘But you’d better get yourself sobered up pretty damn quickly, and get down here fast.’

He would give it a couple of hours, no more, he told himself, replacing the receiver and getting to his feet. Just long enough to eat the supper he hadn’t felt like preparing earlier—or lunch, either, come to that. The Night Owl had a very good reputation, so perhaps now was the time to try it out. He would eat his meal, taking his time over it, and if Annie Elliot turned up then he’d take it from there.

‘Is something wrong?’

The soft question dragged Sean back to the present with a jolt. He had no idea how long he’d been standing there, his hand on the suitcase, lost in his thoughts.

‘No. No problem.’

Giving himself a mental shake, he pulled out the case and slammed the boot shut, carefully locking the car after him. Not that it was likely that anyone would make off with it. It would need skilled help to get it out of the ditch, and already the snow was piling up around it.

Hell, the weather was far worse than he had anticipated. And it was getting more dangerous with every minute that passed. They’d be lucky to make it to the cottage before the road closed completely.

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.

‘I never said—’

‘You didn’t have to say anything! But you’ve made it blatantly obvious that you would have been a lot happier if someone else had come along and rescued me so that you wouldn’t have been obliged to do it. Well, you needn’t worry! I don’t want to be stuck with you any more than you do with me.’

‘I couldn’t agree more.’

It was expelled on a sigh of exasperation. Damn Pete for getting him involved in all this, and damn her too…

For what? For being so beautiful that any man would want her? So lovely that he only had to look at her to burn with desire?

And she knew it, damn her! She had only just left his brother, having tossed his ring back in his face, and she already had a new man lined up. And yet she hadn’t been able to resist trying it on with him in the first five minutes.

She had set out to entice him like some little alley cat, displaying her body in the clinging dress, writhing so seductively against him. And he knew why.

She’d recognised him, hadn’t she? Even used his name as familiarly as if they were old friends. It happened so often now that he’d become inured to it. People saw not the real man but a myth created by the medium in which he worked. To the public at large he was simply a face on a TV screen, a glossy photograph in a magazine—that hated thing, a ‘pin-up’.

‘Well, the best thing is for you to let me use your phone as soon as we get inside. I’ll call the garage and—’

‘I think not.’ Cold, controlled rage turned his voice into a blade of ice slashing through her words.

Forget Pete, and keeping her here until his brother could come and plead with her to take him back! She wasn’t worth it. She’d take the poor kid’s heart and use it as a toy until she was tired of it, and then she’d snap it in two and toss it aside without even bothering to look where it landed.

Women like this one were just predatory spiders, waiting for the next poor sucker of a fly who foolishly wandered into their carefully spun webs. Marnie had been a mistress of the art as well. But Marnie was out of his life now, thank God. Out of his life and flaunting her brand-new wedding ring and the rich husband to go with it.

But he could use his own experience to teach this lady a much needed lesson. He’d play along with her for now, let her think she had him hooked, and then, just as she enjoyed her triumph, he’d show her that she couldn’t play fast and loose with people’s feelings.

‘You’re not going to get away that easily.’

“‘Get away”?’ For the first time it seemed that her confidence had slipped. A seam of anxiety ran through her repetition of his words.

He’d better take things more carefully. It would do no good at all to frighten her off right at the start. Far better to lull her into a false sense of security at first, and only reveal his hand when she had no hope of escape.

So he turned a wide smile in her direction and concentrated on making his tone light and friendly.

‘See sense, sweetheart! If the garage tow-truck would have found it difficult to reach you earlier, it will be damn near impossible now. They’d need a snow-plough to get through this. We’re grounded—stuck together for the duration—so we’ll have to make the best of it.’