chuckled. It was. It had been secondhand when he’d inherited it as his uni run-around. ‘It’s…retro.’ He was fond of the old banger, preferring it to the ostentatious BMW his parents had bought him for his thirtieth birthday. It had lot of happy memories. He’d kissed his first girl in this car. Had driven to Ayers Rock in it. Slept in it the night of his bucks’ party when he’d been too drunk to drive it home. The Beamer just didn’t have the same amount of soul.
‘Hmm,’ she said, waiting for Charlie to position Dana’s seat. ‘We’ll see how far it gets us.’
Dana stirred as Carrie buckled her into the seat. ‘Where are we, Mummy?’
‘In Charlie’s car,’ Carrie said quietly. ‘He’s taking us home.’
Dana looked around with heavy eyelids. ‘I like it,’ she murmured as her eyes drifted shut.
Carrie stood up and met Charlie’s amused gaze. It was warm and sexy and she blinked, surprised by the parts of her body that were responding to it.
‘Your daughter obviously has an eye for a classic.’
‘She’s four.’
His laughter followed her into the car and Carrie felt a warm sensation down low and deep spread out sensual tentacles until her whole body was humming. It was strange and unnerving and she put the brakes on immediately. So, he had a nice face and a great smile and had talked her down from the ledge tonight. She was a single mother with her eye on a prestigious job. She didn’t have time for this.
Charlie started the car and they drove away slowly. It was a good minute before he lost sight of the multicoloured glow of the accident scene in his rear-view mirror. The adrenaline he had felt at the scene had dissipated, leaving him feeling edgy, and he drummed his fingers against the steering-wheel.
He took a sideways glance at his passenger. At least she was looking better than she had at the accident scene. There was colour in her cheeks now. She had auburn hair, he noticed for the first time. It was wavy rather than curly, tumbling to her shoulders and framing her oval face perfectly.
She had a creamy complexion with a smattering of freckles across her nose and big light brown eyes the exact shade of whiskey. She was wearing a purple tie-dyed shirt with a heavily beaded modest neckline and matching trousers. It was loose and flowing, hinting at her figure beneath rather than revealing it. She had exotic large silver hoop earrings and a thin silver choker with lines of purple beads hanging off it like icicles. The total effect was quite exotic. Very gypsy.
He adjusted the rear-view mirror so he could see Dana’s face. She was staring sleepily out the window, her blonde hair and blue eyes nothing like her mother’s.
‘So, what do you do?’ Charlie asked, making small talk as the silence stretched between them.
Carrie felt her heartbeat pick up tempo. ‘I’m…in management,’ she said.
He laughed. She looked like she read palms for a living. ‘Very vague.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s nothing very exciting. It pays the mortgage and the hours are good.’
He flicked a glance at Dana again. Her eyes had drifted shut. ‘How old did you say Dana was?’
‘She’s four.’
‘Cute age.’
Carrie smiled. ‘Yes, it is. You got kids?’
Charlie snorted. ‘No.’
OK, not into kids. ‘Not your thing?’
Quite the opposite. Charlie had wanted a family of his own for a long time. A chance to do it better than his parents had. If that was possible. If he hadn’t been genetically wired to screw it up as badly as they had.
He shrugged. ‘Veronica, my ex-wife, didn’t want them. It was probably just as well, given the divorce and everything.’
Carrie detected a bitterness scarring his deep voice. ‘Was it bad?’
Charlie’s knuckles grew white on the steering-wheel and Carrie wished she could have bitten her tongue off. She had no idea what had come over her. Maybe it was the moments they had shared at the accident scene that made her feel like she knew this man. That she could ask him such a personal question on such short acquaintance.
‘Oh, God, sorry, that’s none of my business. Forget I asked.’
He could hear the mortification in her voice and relaxed a little. ‘It’s OK. It was…kind of messy.’
They drove in silence for a little while longer.
‘So, does Dana have a dad?’
Carrie shook her head, trying to keep her voice neutral. Unemotional. Even after five years Rupert’s desertion still stung. ‘Not one that’s interested in her, no.’ She looked out the window.
‘Sorry.’
She shrugged. ‘His loss.’ Rupert had no idea what he was missing out on.
Charlie flicked another glance at the little blonde angel sleeping soundly in her seat. ‘Absolutely,’ he replied, his voice quiet.
She looked at him, hit by the sincerity of his tone. It was ridiculous to feel so connected to a person so quickly. She looked away and stared straight ahead. But his thigh was bulky and solid in her peripheral vision. His biceps flexed distractingly with every slight movement of the steering-wheel. He leaned forward and switched the radio on, his hair brushing against the neckline of his shirt and falling forward, momentarily obscuring the sexy stubble covering his jaw.
‘Do you mind? Will it wake Dana?’
Carrie dragged her gaze away from his jaw. She laughed. ‘She slept through a car smashing into us, four sirens and a helicopter.’
He chuckled. ‘Good point.’
Charlie was grateful for the music to distract them from conversation. At the accident scene Carrie had been easy to dismiss as a blood-phobic, hyperventilating tie-dye flake. But seeing her now, free of the stress of the accident, she was a different woman altogether. One that appealed to him immensely. She had teased him about his car, sympathised over his divorce and told him about her little girl. Suddenly she was three-dimensional. Complex.
Desirable even. The thought slid insidiously into his head. No. No way. She was a single mother. You didn’t mess with them. Honourable men knew that. Especially not when his life was such a mess. A separation, a divorce and an almost year-long health crisis. In two weeks he’d have some closure, but until then his life was on hold.
And after that? There were things to do. Big things. A major project that had been shelved for too long was a priority. He wouldn’t have time for an exotic single mother and her cute child. Relationships were going to be light from now on. Nothing heavy. His life had weighed a tonne for years. And women with children deserved more than that.
They passed the rest of the trip listening to the music and indulging in occasional light conversation. Charlie was grateful when he pulled up outside her apartment block. Her laughter and her scent had filled the car.
