blushed, ignoring his remark, or at least the last part of it. ‘I was going to offer you something of my uncle’s, but if you’ve got things in the car we might as well get them before it gets worse.’
He looked at the snow swirling up against the window and his face was a picture. He obviously didn’t relish going out in it any more than she did, but the difference was she had to and he didn’t.
She had a sudden pang of conscience, and stifled it. He was big enough and ugly enough to look after himself, she decided, and anyway, they were his clothes. Whether he would help with the cows had yet to be seen.
‘Well?’
‘I wonder if it might make more sense to do it in the morning?’
‘You might not find the car in the morning,’ she pointed out in fairness, and then added, ‘I don’t suppose you thought to tie anything on the aerial?’
‘Like what?’ he said wryly. ‘Party balloons? Anyway, it doesn’t have an aerial.’
‘Oh.’ Funny, with those expensive-looking clothes she would have thought he could have afforded a car with a radio, but whatever. ‘We ought to mark it with something red, so a snow plough doesn’t come along and upend it into the hedge. It’s been done before.’
He went pale, poor love. ‘Oh,’ he said tightly. ‘I haven’t marked it. Do you have anything red?’
She thought, and the only thing that came to mind was a bra—a lacy confection that she didn’t wear any longer. After all the cows didn’t give a tinker’s cuss if she wore sexy undies, and frankly the plain cotton croptop style bras were more comfortable when she was working.
Still, she wasn’t sure she was ready to let him tie it to his car!
‘Maybe,’ she conceded. ‘I’ll have to look. We’ll tie it to a stick and shove it in the drift. If it’s attached to the car it might get covered.’
‘Covered?’ he exclaimed.
She shrugged. ‘Whatever, we need to get your gear out. I think there might still be a pair of boots here your sort of size—here, try these.’
She turned them upside down and banged them, and a huge spider fell out and ran across the floor.
‘What the hell was that?’ he yelled, backing up into the kitchen. The collie chased the spider and cornered it, then barked at it.
‘Just a spider—Jess, stop it! You’re daft. Here, try them on.’
He took the boots suspiciously. ‘Any cousins down there?’ he asked, peering down the tops.
‘Possibly. Tuck your trousers into your socks, just in case. Is that the best coat you’ve got?’
He pushed his feet into the wellies with a shudder and stood up. ‘Yes. Why?’
‘Because apart from the fact that it’ll get filthy, it’s not waterproof, and when the snow melts on you, you’ll get soaked and freeze. ,
‘I can hardly wait,’ he muttered.
Jemima took pity on him and banged out an old waxed jacket, checking the sleeves for spiders before handing it over. ‘Here, try this.’
He pulled it on and looked instantly more like a farmer and less like a townie. Amazing what the right uniform could do to a man. He almost looked as if he could cope with a cow—except for the fine wool trousers that were going to get hopelessly ruined unless he changed.
‘What about the red thing to tie to a stick?’
‘Ah.’ She ran upstairs, found the red bra and a matching suspender belt, and stuffed them into a pocket. She’d tie them on when he wasn’t looking...
‘Let’s go and get your gear,’ she said, arriving back in the kitchen and pulling on her own coat and boots. She told the dogs to stay and headed out into the blizzard, torch in hand. She picked up a couple of stakes from the corner by the shed, and headed across the yard towards the lane.
He followed her, not more than a few inches away all the way to the car, and so she heard his muttered exclamation when they found it almost totally buried under the snow drift.
‘Where’s the case?’ she asked.
‘In the boot.’ He eyed the smothered boot with jaundice. ‘I suppose I’d better brush the snow off first.’
‘Probably,’ she agreed, and held the torch while he swiped at the light powdery heaps. It reminded her of why you couldn’t make a decent sandcastle with dry sand—it just kept on pouring down. In the end he swore in exasperation and just opened the boot, hauled out a smart garment bag and a monogrammed leather sports bag, and slammed the lid before the entire snow drift slid inside.
And so much for him not being able to afford a car with a radio, she thought, eyeing the BMW logo on the boot lid with jaundice. It probably had a gadget to pick up radio waves by telepathy!
‘I’d better lock it,’ he muttered, pointing the remote control at the car, and Jemima stifled a laugh. City types, she thought, and tried to forget that until just under a year ago she’d been one too.
‘I’ll put these sticks up,’ she told him, and, rummaging in her pocket, she pulled out the underwear, tied it to the sticks and then took one to the front, ramming it in by the side of the bumper where it would stay up and show.
She struggled back past the car, grabbed the other stick and was pushing it into place when Sam took the torch from her hand and pointed it at her ‘flags’.
‘What the—?’
‘Don’t you dare laugh,’ she warned him, but it was too much.
A chuckle rose in his throat, and without thinking she scooped up a handful of snow and shoved it down his miserable neck.
He let out a yell that would have woken the dead and returned the favour, and a huge glob of snow slid down her front and lodged in her bra.
‘Touché!’ she said with a laugh, and backed off, pulling her clothes away from her chest and shaking the snow out.
‘Pax?’ he asked warily, hefting a fresh snowball just in case.
She considered revenge, and then decided she’d get her own back on him in the next few hours anyway—in spades!
‘Absolutely,’ she agreed. ‘I’m cold enough without snow in my underwear. You can drop that.’
‘Not yet—just look on it as insurance,’ he told her, and she flashed the torch at him and caught a lingering smile that transformed his face and did odd things to her insides.
They headed back down the lane, bent over to shelter from the driving blizzard, and made it back to the cottage without incident.
‘I should change into jeans,’ she advised as they shed their outer gear and went back into the lamp-lit kitchen. ‘It can get mucky in the barn.’
‘Mucky?’ he said with
