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‘Can you hear me?' The anger drained from him as he waited for her reply. He made the words clear. ‘I’m Ed, I’m here to help. What’s your name?’ He was going through the routine now, and she damned well wasn’t responding. No chance of ringing for an ambulance either, the way the signal was here.
She was very still, face to the sky, blanched beneath her freckled tan. He shivered as he saw blood on the grass, already matting in the tangled strands of her hair, his heart banging, as his training kicked in.
Airways, breathing, circulation.
Bearing in mind not to move her spine, he squatted beside her, and grasped her wrist, wincing at the tightness of his on-loan jeans. Tried not to notice that she smelled of flowers. Vanilla. Warmth. Woman.
Nothing. Damn. He was always crap at finding a pulse. He dragged her hair aside, tried again. This time two fingers under her jaw found firm flesh, slightly clammy, but still no pulse.
He put his cheek to her slightly parted lips. Waited a second to see if she was breathing.
Nothing.
Ninety nine percent sure she was just unconscious, her lack of pulse was down to his lousy technique at locating it, and not because she was dead. But what the hell should he do now? He couldn’t just stand here and do nothing. He stood up, ran his eyes down the length of her, his brain struggling to remember his first aid training. Whether to go for her chest first, where one top button had pulled undone, and, let’s be honest, he might never find a breastbone. Or her mouth.
It was never like this on the first-aid dummies.
He was on his knees now, sizing up lips that were lush, soft, parted, but altogether easier than the alternative. He needed to damn well get on with it before he ran out of time.
Focusing on the graze of mud on her cheek, he nipped her nostrils, grasped her chin. He drew in one long breath through his nose, clamped his mouth over hers and psyched himself up to blow.
Wallop!
One arm flopped up and clamped the back of his head. Then her other landed square on his back.
What the hell?
Her tongue feathered his for a moment, and then came in for the kill, as his already thumping heart exploded in his chest. He fought to pull away but she had him in a head lock, exploring, tangling with him. Drawing him in.
Salty. Gritty. Entirely off limits. And then, in sheer relief that she was alive, he was kissing her back, an ocean-rush of blood hammering in his ears, his whole body on adrenalin-surge, endorphin-pumping, red-alert. Hotter than he could say. Knowing it was out and out wrong, hearing the gentle moans in her throat, but nothing he could do.
Except go with it.
***
Millie Brown was drifting, and dreaming, a thing she tried her best not to do. Even in her sleep, she liked to stay in control, and largely she managed to keep her sleeping mind a blank. But something odd had happened, and she was plunging headlong into a full-on sexy-scenario dream she was powerless to stop.
Right now, a guy with a voice like dark chocolate, was capturing her mouth, and tasting delicious. Cappuccino and hot, raw man. Definitely not love-rat-of-the-decade ex, Josh, then. Who she definitely was over, wasn’t she? No, this was a guy who could really kiss. Talk about tongues and technique. Two years without a snog, but she still knew a high quality kiss when it hit her. And he was ramping it up. In for the kill, and boy, she was happy to die and fast-forward to heaven. Heaven was definitely where she’d arrived, as she shifted beneath him, heard herself moan in the distance, aching for more amazing. Even the sting of his stubble on her chin was delectable. Could almost be .…
Real?
Slowly, she slid her fingers through the strands of his hair, traced them across the alarmingly tangible thrust of his cheekbone, and brought her palm to rest on a rough jaw that sent tingles up her arm. Horribly real tingles.
She opened her eyes. Blinked. Blinked again.
Awwww crap! Her stomach squelched, and her heart did one huge squeeze, then started to hammer, as the very real man who was kissing her tore his face away from hers.
She put a hand to her mouth. Found the hottest kiss ever had morphed into a gaping chasm. And as her eyes finally pulled into focus she heard that chocolate voice again.
‘Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty!’
Millie struggled to catch her breath.
‘Pleased to see you’re not dead then.’ He’d shot backwards, and was towering over her now, face like a storm cloud. ‘And I think we can safely say your arms aren’t broken, given the strength of your grip on my neck.’
Millie rubbed a hand across her bottom lip, tried to make sense of what she was doing here, and gawped at the vision of glorious manhood before her. Dark, choppy hair, jeans like a second skin that underlined the solid power of the guy. Dusty work boots that hollered rough and ready. A ragged t-shirt that screamed don’t-give-a-damn, or up-for-anything, she wasn’t sure which. And this is what she’d woken up snogging? If ever there was sex on legs, this had to be it.
‘What just happened?’ She clasped a palm to her throbbing skull as she tried to piece together fragments of how she got here. ‘I was riding up the hill in the field … ’
Exercising Cracker, the pony. Thinking how her legs were so tanned they looked like they weren’t hers, how she wouldn’t need the tanning salon this year, how that was the only good thing about living in the country.
‘And I was humming ‘Leave your hat on’ … ’ Going through the Burlesque routine she’d been working on earlier this morning, for her up-coming workshop. Singing the tune. Trying to plan out the next bit of the sequence in her head as she rode. ‘Then there was this bang.’
The pony surging beneath her in panic, the ground whizzing towards her, the slam of her skull as it whacked into the ground. She definitely remembered that.
‘Humming ‘Leave your hat on’? Ironic choice then.’ He gave a snort. ‘We were blasting in the quarry, and your horse took off. I assume you fell and hit your head. You were out cold when I found you.’
‘So what was that back there, the kiss of life?’ She fixed him with a fierce stare, which dwindled as she relived how darned amazing he’d tasted. And smelled. Still did. She caught a waft of him on the breeze, and fought a sudden desire to seize his leg and bury her face in it.
His mouth twisted into a wry line. ‘Something like that.’
‘Don’t you know it’s wrong to take advantage in situations like this?’ She pushed herself up on her elbows, hurled the accusation at him, and winced at the pain which split through her head.
‘Hang on! Let’s get this straight. You were the one who got me in a headlock as you came around.’ He stood his ground, indignant and glowering. ‘I began resuscitation when I couldn’t find a pulse and you didn’t appear to be breathing, then what do I know, you’ve jumped me! Apologies for trying to save your life. Next time I won’t bother.’ He made a dive for his Land Rover.
She’d been the one snogging the socks off him?
So that was what two years giving guys a wide berth did to you. Made you into a sex fiend when you were unconscious. Her body shuddered, shriveling in a giant cringe of embarrassment. She pushed herself up to sit and another spear of pain crashed through her skull.
‘Let me see your head. You shouldn’t have been here on a horse you know, it’s private land, and it’s not a bridleway.’ He’d come back from the Land Rover with bandages, a ready-made lecture, and a double dose of bad mood. At least that covered her shame. He was leaning behind her now sounding seriously snappy as he prodded in her hair.
‘You’ve got a nasty gash, probably hit a stone, but the bleeding’s not too bad. Hold this dressing whilst I fix it. One head injury, which would have been avoided had your riding hat been protecting you, not the gatepost.’
Short tempered. Snarky. Not attractive. Except he was. Devastatingly.
‘Ouch, there’s no need to manhandle me!’
And rough too, as he crashed the bandage into place, taking control. Making her spine zither like crazy. Though he did have a point about her hat. Leaving it on the gatepost was one bad decision.
‘You need to go to casualty.’
‘No way!’ Casualty was the last place on earth she wanted to go.
‘I’ll run you there, or you can wait for an ambulance. Your choice. Whichever way, hospital is where you’re going.’ He backed away, stood like a dictator, legs splayed, practically bursting out of that faded denim in every area that mattered.
So, she may have a head injury, she may be dying of embarrassment, but she couldn’t let this power-house of a guy take over.
‘I can’t go anywhere until I’ve sorted the pony out. It’s my job to look after him, and my house depends on my job, and if I lose my house it’ll blow my whole life-plan out of the water.’ She hugged her knees tight, instantly regretting the personal information spill. Luckily he seemed oblivious.
‘For crying out loud! The pony’s up there, in the corner of the field, grazing, looking a darned sight better than you. I’ll get Blake from the quarry to sort him out. He knows about ponies.’
Now for the biggie. She screwed herself up to force it out. ‘But I don’t do hospitals … ’
One small voice protest she might as well not have made, judging by his sneer.
‘Well in that case you should have taken better care not to rip a hole in your head!’ He sighed. ‘Jeez, how difficult can you make this? Can you stand up?’
He stuck out a hand in her direction. Broad, oil-streaked. She considered refusing it. Then thought again. His strong fist enveloped hers, and with one brutal tug she was on her feet, thumping into the bolster of his body, looking up at a star shaped scar on the underside of his chin.
‘Good work.’
Another tug, and she was half way to the Land Rover, and he’d flung the door wide. The next moment he’d shouldered her up into the seat and fixed her with a stony glare.
‘Okay. No nonsense. No jumping out. And if you’re going to throw up for goodness sake then shout. I’m Ed Mitchum by the way. I work for Quarry Holdings.’
Hadn’t he already told her that? She replied through gritted teeth. ‘Millie Brown. Pleased to meet you.’ Not.
Too late. He’d already slammed the door.
CHAPTER TWO (#u36511fef-9ae6-5ec5-82cf-60332b899133)
‘COULD you please make the smallest effort to sit still, or do I have to watch you wriggle in your seat all day?’ Ed’s voice echoed off the walls of the hospital waiting area, short, gruff, tetchy.
Millie sent him a searing scowl. He was making no effort to hide his irritation, so why should she. With his stubble shadow, and his denim rips he seemed too large and blatantly sexual for this clean, clinical environment. Too bad this was all taking so long.
Waiting was the name of the game here, and irritated as he sounded, he was much better at waiting than she was, sitting all chilled and relaxed, one well-muscled arm flung across the back of the next chair, whilst she changed position once a second.
She’d already been into a cubicle with a nurse and answered lots of questions.
Name? Millie Brown, aka .… no need to expand on that one. Headache? Yeah, obviously. Double vision? Not yet, except perhaps when she went cross eyed ogling the hunk that brought her here. Mental note to self to stop that. Drowsy? No more than usual. Dizzy? Not that she was admitting it, and only because the whole A&E thing was making her hyperventilate. One glimpse of a blue surgical gown was enough to spin her right back to that last awful time she’d been in hospital. The panic she’d felt, then the pain, and the desperate emptiness afterwards. The smell of the antiseptic took the blurry images and brought them back in Technicolor. So much so, that when she’d gone to another room where another nurse stuck her cut together with glue, the nurse made her lie down before she let her go back to the waiting area.
And sitting with him now was driving her further up the wall than ever. Every time she saw him her mind went off on its own out-of-control extrapolation, along the lines of rocks, wet skin, underwear, sex, for no other good reason than because the guy had emerged from the quarry, looking like a model who’d lost the fashion shoot. It was bad enough being here – the smell of the place was making her feel faint – without having this Ed and his whole heap of attitude along for the ride.
She leaned towards him. ‘You really don’t need to stay. At this rate, it may take all day. I’ll be fine on my own, thanks.’
‘And you’ll get home how?’ His long, lean legs extended towards her as he stretched, and crossed his ankles casually.
She pursed her lips, screwed up her face, and refused to look at the straining denim bulge at his groin. He had her there. She had no money on her. No phone. The hospital was miles away from home. If she had to get a taxi back, it would cost an arm and a leg, and there was no-one she could think of to ring to collect her. One bad idea to end up here when her best friend was away. So much for being independent. She let that one go.
‘You could go for a coffee or something?’ Give her a break from his shed-loads of animal magnetism.
‘And they might move you in the meantime. Given that your phone is lying up in that field, I might never find you again.’
No answer to that one either. She watched him stand up, ease back those disgustingly broad shoulders, and saunter towards a table of magazines. Only because there wasn’t anything else to look at. Nothing to do with the fact he was eye-candy of the highest order. Sweet as it came.
And one heck of a kisser.
That much she could remember. Even if it had been an accident. Her eyelids fluttered involuntarily and her mouth watered at the thought of it. The taste. She jumped as he burst in on her action re-play.
‘Want a magazine?’ He held up a copy of Ideal Home. ‘Horse and Hound? Hello? Woman’s Weekly?’
She shook her head, and prayed she hadn’t flushed as fuchsia pink as she felt. And the tilt of his head said he was mocking her too. Damn. Shame he didn’t have a personality to match the looks and the kissing skills. Shame for someone, though not her, obviously. Men were nowhere on her agenda, not even on the distant horizon. Definitely no room for a drop dead specimen who’d materialized from nowhere to pay havoc with her pulse rate. Not with her life-plan.
Her eyes were still glued to him as he sat down and open a dog-eared car magazine. It was so unfair when a man got eyelashes like that. Thick, delectably dark. At least Motor World might keep him off her case.
‘Millie Brown?’ Millie started as she heard an approaching nurse shout her name. ‘The doctor wants you to go down to X-ray. There may be quite a wait.’
‘X-ray?’ Millie felt her chin jut defensively, as her chest tightened. ‘Why do I need an X-ray?’
‘How about, to see if you’ve got a cracked skull?’
Arrogant Ed got in before the nurse, who wafted a sheaf of papers at Ed, then winked at Mille. ‘We’ll let your partner take charge of the papers. Make sure he looks after you!’
Millie opened her mouth to protest loud and hard, but the nurse had already bustled away.
‘That’s official, then. I’m along for the ride.’ Ed shot her a satisfied smirk. ‘Do you want to take Horse and Hound with you? And do you want to go in a wheelchair, or on a trolley?’
***
X-ray was a marathon away. At least.
From her milky pallor, Ed would have laid a bet that Miss Independence here was regretting refusing transport, but if she was stubborn and belligerent, that was down to her. When they finally reached X-ray it was after a series of false starts, wrong turns, and a whole heap of silent recriminations, on both sides.
‘Grab a seat. I’ll sort the official stuff.’ He sidled up to reception, doubting that Millie had the strength to stand. Confidently, he threw the receptionist the full-on radiance of the five hundred watt smile he kept for emergency use only and was sent away with a promise of a two hour wait. Without the smile he suspected it could have been two weeks.
Millie gave the bloodstained haystack of hair above the bandage a vigorous rub, and groaned loudly as he landed on the seat next to her. ‘I just lost the will to live.’
She leaned back on her plastic chair and closed her eyes.
Was she really that stupid? ‘I thought they told you not to go to sleep.’
She blew loudly, opened her eyes and flashed him a flaming stare. ‘I’m not. Okay?’
Then promptly shut her eyes again.
Something about the undiluted indignation in the angle of her chin made him smile. Hell, he should’ve sent Blake to do this, or one of the other guys. There was no need for him to be here. The details of the firework display in Provence still had to be finalised, there were company takeovers that needed his attention, but for one strange moment he didn’t mind being here at all. Possibly he was feeling guilty that the old warning signs up by the quarry were too faded, and should have been renewed. Maybe it was his instinct for tying up loose ends, seeing things through, to avoid problems later. Maybe it was that kiss.
He let his eyes trail up, from her scuffed boots, over bare, dirt-streaked legs, to take in the way her denim shorts creased on the curve of her stomach, the way the cotton of her vest tugged tight across the bulge of her breasts. From the riot of her hair, she might have fallen out of a haystack. Probably had. So not his type, however lush her lips. However, she’d made his blood race.
Maybe he needed to keep Miss Awkward awake. Easier to keep from ogling her when she was conscious. He gave her a prod on the leg, and she blinked and sniffed, and turned to him woozily.
‘So what do you do when you’re not falling off horses?’
She hesitated, considered. ‘This and that.’
‘That’s illuminating.’ So why did he even want to know?
‘I’m multi-faceted. Do lots of things.’
