скачать книгу бесплатно
‘I was only trying to help.’ Most people would have been grateful, but this man was clearly not a team player.
‘It will not be helpful if you get frostbite.’
Her rescuer had a point, Neve conceded, aware that she had lost all feeling in her fingers. Had Hannah been wearing her gloves? A mental image of her stepdaughter, a small figure at the mercy of the elements, flashed before her eyes, and the fear rose like bile in her throat.
She took a deep breath and fought down the panic. ‘What shall I do?’ If he wanted to be in charge, fine, she could live with that, but she couldn’t stand there and do nothing now.
He flashed her a look over his shoulder. ‘I think nothing would be safest.’
Nasty sarcastic rat, Neve thought, watching as he rapidly completed his task. She did not have to wait for long—it took him another two minutes to access the door.
He gave a satisfied grunt and looked around for a suitable blunt object; unlike the large panelled areas in the front of the building, this glass panel was not of the same impregnable quality.
Severo quickly found a suitable smooth stone. ‘Turn around and cover your face.’
Her eyes widened as she realised his intentions. ‘You’re going to break in?’
His hand lowered. ‘A nice touch of moral outrage, but a tad, shall we say, hypocritical?’
The cryptic comment sailed over Neve’s head; the thought of being party to breaking and entering made her deeply uneasy.
‘Couldn’t you try knocking again?’ she suggested, forcing the words past her chattering teeth.
‘Or we could go away and come back tomorrow?’ he said sardonically.
Neve loosed a cry of alarm as he raised his arm again. She covered her face with her hands, watching through parted fingers as his hand moved in a smooth arc towards the glass panel in the door.
She had tensed in anticipation of the sound of smashing glass when he stopped just short of impact and, as she watched, tried the door handle.
The door swung inwards and she heard him laugh; it was not an unattractive sound.
Grinning to himself behind his mask, Severo dropped the stone and stepped inside, trying not to bring in any more of the small avalanche of snow that had fallen inwards when he’d opened the door—it was already beginning to melt on the surface of the black and white chequered floor tiles.
Unlike the rest of the house, this room was in darkness, though not really dark—the light from the snow reflected off the pale shiny surfaces. It appeared to be a laundry room of sorts, with stainless-steel work surfaces above white storage units; a power switch glowed red on the panel on a washing machine but it stood silent.
Stamping his feet on the tiled floor to knock the snow from his boots, he reached for the light switch, blinking when the room was flooded with harsh light. The small figure swamped in the borrowed ski jacket stood framed in the doorway.
‘Are you coming in or what?’
The choice being to freeze to death or accept the invitation, Neve stepped inside wishing she could be as totally at ease with the entire breaking and entering situation as this man appeared to be.
Maybe he’d had experience with similar situations, she speculated uneasily, but on the plus side he did seem like a person who might be useful in hazardous situations. Though she couldn’t imagine, given his initial reaction, that he’d think it a good idea to go back out there and search for Hannah, it was possible he’d warm to the idea more if she offered to pay him.
Well, with or without his help she was going back out. Once I’ve thawed out a little, she thought, rubbing her numb fingers together. She didn’t need him.
You carry on telling yourself that, Neve.
Ignoring the voice in her head, she glanced towards the sinister figure of her rescuer.
Outside in the harsh and unforgiving landscape, although she had been unwilling to admit it, his undeniable physical presence and strength had been comforting. Inside the confines of the room they were almost oppressive. Even if the face that was hidden behind the mask was pleasant or plain, with a body like his he was never going to fade into the background.
Long of limb and broad of shoulder, he looked all hard bone and lean muscle. It was as her slightly unfocused gaze drifted upwards from his feet that she became aware of his questioning posture.
‘What?’ she said, embarrassment making her voice accusing. Well, it was extremely embarrassing to be caught ogling a man’s body even if the scrutiny was totally objective.
‘I said would you close the…?’ Emitting an irritated sound, he clicked his tongue and leaned in towards her.
Neve instinctively shrank back, a strangled cry escaping her lips before she realised that he was just closing the door.
His hand still resting on the wall beside the doorjamb, he swept a concerned downward glance at her upturned features.
Neve looked at her feet and heard him say, ‘What’s wrong?’
She shook her head, still avoiding the dark gleam of his eyes through the slits of the mask. She felt deeply embarrassed by her stupid instinctive reaction.
Her instincts were still embarrassing her.
It was bizarre. She had to make a conscious effort to put one foot in front of the other; she was unable to stop shaking, half dead with cold and, despite all that, or hopefully because of it, she was conscious of the weirdest tug.
She had this insane impulse, not to draw back, but to lean into him. She was drawn to his sheer physical presence, his strength and the warmth of the big body. The longer he stayed curved over her, projecting this testosterone force field, the more difficult it was to resist the bizarre compulsion.
‘What did you think I was going to do?’
Neve shook her head mutely. He’d put his own interpretation on her silence, but what could she say? I thought you were going to kiss me.
What would it have felt like?
Appalled by the dreamy question that surfaced in her head, she gave a fractured sigh of relief when he straightened up.
Her hands, still crossed in a protective gesture over her heaving chest, fell limply to her sides. She watched through the screen of her lashes as he walked across the room.
There was something totally riveting about the way he moved.
Neve pushed the thought away and lowered her gaze to the chequered floor tiles. ‘You…you startled me.’
‘Relax, you are quite safe.’
The mockery in his deep voice made her squirm. ‘Nice to know.’
‘I admit you might scrub up well,’ he said, sounding insultingly doubtful, ‘but right now, cara, you are not, believe me, going to drive any man wild with lust.’ No man in his right mind, certainly, but Severo was beginning to doubt his own mental health.
The question was not why on earth did he want to kiss the tip of her red nose, it was why on earth was he here? He valued logic; he prided himself on his judgement—what sort of judgement had made him risk life and limb in a blizzard?
Did he really think she needed him to point out her deficiencies? ‘I suppose you like your women to be decorative and dumb.’ It was not a question, just a fact of life.
‘I can see you find my sex life fascinating, but can we leave this discussion for later?’
Struggling to maintain the illusion of dignity, she followed him through the door muttering under her breath. ‘It’s always nice to have something to look forward to.’
One thing that really got under his skin was the sort of woman who always had to have the last word.
Chapter Four
THE softly lit living area was open-plan, a large lofty space dominated by a wood burner at one end and a high-spec ultramodern kitchen at the other.
Severo took in his surroundings in one sweeping glance, dismissing as he did so the ‘lights being on an automatic timer to discourage burglars’ explanation.
This place was definitely lived in, he decided, glancing at today’s date on the newspaper spread out on a sofa.
Neve hung back in the doorway getting the lived-in vibe too. ‘W…we can’t just walk into someone else’s home, and touch their things,’ she added pointedly as he lifted the lid of a laptop.
Severo closed the lid with a snap; her sudden respect for others’ property struck him as ironic. ‘What do you suggest we do—press our noses to the glass while we freeze?’ He flicked a sideways glance her way and thought, In your case freeze some more. Even the soft mood lighting did not disguise the fact she looked one step away from collapse.
‘No, but—’ She stopped and shook her head, finishing lamely, ‘It doesn’t feel right.’
The head shake had been a mistake. The distant buzz got a lot louder as the angles of the room began to shift and tilt in a way that made her feel queasy. She had zero experience of fainting, but she did wonder whether this might be the build-up.
He already obviously thought she was clueless, which was pretty annoying considering she had been looking after herself since she was fourteen, but Neve had no intention of reinforcing the ‘helpless little woman’ image by falling at his feet.
Even as she advised herself sternly to get a grip she swayed gently.
‘It feels a lot righter than dying of exposure.’
He turned and Neve reached out to grab the back of a chair to steady herself; her fingers, still numb and uncooperative, flexed feebly and slid uselessly off the wooden bar.
‘Sit.’ His hands were on her shoulders.
She blinked, wondering how he had materialised at her side without her noticing as she responded to the pressure. For a big man he moved quickly and silently.
‘Deep breaths,’ he said. Pushing his fingers under the wet hair on her nape, he forced her head forward and between her knees.
His soothing voice and calm manner helped her recover as much as the air she dragged into her lungs. It only took a couple of moments for the buzzing to retreat and her head to clear.
Bracing herself for his reaction to her uncharacteristic girly display of weakness, Neve pushed her wet hair back from her face with both hands and straightened up. She needn’t have worried—his attention was directed not at her, but on the galleried landing above.
‘Do you hear someone?’ she asked hopefully.
He shook his head and scanned her pale face. ‘Feeling better?’
‘I’m fine.’
Her response drew an irritated frown.
Neve’s glance drifted hopefully towards the phone sitting on the table behind him. ‘The phone?’
Severo followed the direction of her gaze and picked it up. After a moment he shook his head. ‘Dead.’ Not actually a major surprise, but her face fell as if she were a child whose ice cream had been snatched away.
This redhead should never play poker. The women in Severo’s life rarely said what they meant, they generally chose less direct methods to get what they wanted, so to be around someone who was not only straight talking to the point of rudeness, but broadcast her every minute change of mood, had a certain novelty value.
No doubt the novelty would wear thin, the same way after repeated exposure he would not find blue eyes so startling.
‘Somebody appears to have left in a hurry,’ he observed, walking across to the table laid with an untouched meal. He pulled off a glove and stabbed some of the food with a finger. ‘Cold,’ he said, pulling off the other glove and flexing his long fingers to revive the sluggish circulation.
Neve watched as he walked to the bottom of the big curving staircase where he called out, his deep voice echoing around the vaulted room.
There was a silence.
‘At least the fire is still lit,’ he said, studying the thermostat dial on the wall before switching it to full blast. He glanced back to where the redhead was getting unsteadily to her feet; she looked as shaky on her legs as a new foal.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked, tilting his head to check out the galleried landing that ran the length of the room.
‘Neve. Neve Gray, no, Macleod.’
‘Think about it and get back to me when you’ve decided.’
Neve angled a glare up at his face and gritted, ‘Neve Macleod.’
‘Right, Neve, I’ll check out upstairs, you take off that wet stuff.’
It was not a suggestion.
The man was clearly used to issuing orders and it was revealing that he took compliance for granted; presumably there was a girlfriend or even wife somewhere who jumped when he snapped his fingers.
He returned a few moments later; in his absence Neve hadn’t moved a muscle. Even had she wanted to respond to his casual order she couldn’t have, but she could see no point in removing clothes when she was so cold that her bones ached with it. Besides, the action would require energy and hers had seeped away.
She stood there shivering while he paused at the bottom of the stairs to peel the ski mask from his head.
‘Nobody there,’ he announced. ‘Though the open drawers and wardrobe suggest a hasty departure. Very Marie Celeste, but I do have a theory,’ he offered, passing a hand back and forth across his short dark hair as he walked to the fire and swung open the glass door. Dipping into the log basket, he threw a couple onto the glowing embers.
Neve didn’t ask about his theory; she barely heard what he said. She was staring transfixed by the features that had been hidden until now beneath the mask—features that were not plain and definitely not pleasant! Not even in the confines of her head had she ever called a man beautiful before, but he was—he was totally, jaw-droppingly perfect.
Beautiful but without being in any way pretty, raw sex appeal oozing from every perfect pore, each individual feature in his face gave new meaning to faultless perfection, from the sensual curve of his wide, sensually sculpted mouth to the arched angle of his ebony brows.
Utterly transfixed, she held her breath as her fascinated gaze slid over each amazing angle and fascinating hollow of his oval face, from the high, carved cheekbones to the aquiline nose. His deep-set eyes, the only feature previously visible, were only a shade lighter than the incredibly long ebony lashes that fringed them.
She expelled a shaky sigh as her stomach muscles quivered violently. He was big and hard and oozed both danger and an earthy raw sex appeal she had been conscious of even when his face had been concealed.
‘Come to the fire—you’re still shaking,’ Severo observed, annoyed with himself for allowing the mystery of the deserted house to distract him from the immediate problem, which by the look of her was imminent collapse and probably hypothermia.
At the sound of his voice Neve shook her head and blinked like someone surfacing from a trance. She’d not drooled, but she had come pretty close her embarrassment was profound.
‘I’m fine.’
She had never been a sucker for a pretty face and this was not the right time to discover her inner bimbo! Pull yourself together, Neve! So he’s easy on the eye—it’s what’s underneath that counts.
Especially if what’s underneath is a body as incredible as she suspected his was!
Disassociating herself from the comment in her head, Neve brought her lashes down in a protective screen, hoping that he couldn’t hear the frantic thud of her heart from across the room.
