bit her quivering lip, resisting the strong temptation to lie face down in the snow and cry. She took a deep sustaining breath and reminded herself she was not a wimp—she just had wimpish tendencies.
Severo took her reply at face value and chose not to notice the quivering resentment in her voice. He flexed his shoulders, aware that she was struggling not to fall apart; nine out of ten people already would have. The redhead might be stupid but she was also gutsy.
‘Well, you’re alive.’ Alive was something she might not be if he had not found her. Severo felt his anger mount as he considered her criminal stupidity. ‘So stop moaning.’
The terse direction made her blink.
‘I don’t know who you think you are—’ She stopped, realising that she didn’t have the faintest idea who he was or what he was except selfish, insensitive and extremely fit. The latter was a given—after the fifteen-minute slog through the snow carrying her he had to be exhausted, but there was nothing to suggest even slight fatigue in his manner. Her glance slid to his broad chest; he was not even breathing hard under the black fleece.
‘Just who are you anyway?’
‘I’m the man who saved your life. You can,’ he added sardonically, ‘thank me later, when I will happily give you my life history.’
‘A name would be quite sufficient, and I didn’t ask to be saved.’ Neve knew that she sounded quite unbelievably childish and ungrateful, but her frustration at being forcibly brought here when she ought to be searching for Hannah made it hard for her to be gracious. ‘I didn’t need saving.’
His lips twisted into an ironic smile as he fished out his mobile and tried for a signal: nothing. ‘Yeah, I could see that you had the situation under control.’
Neve, who had held her breath while he tried his phone, watched him slide it back into his pocket, barely registering his sarcasm.
‘No signal?’
He shook his head.
Neve pulled her spirits out of the depressing downward spiral they had taken since Hannah had run out of the inn, and straightened her shoulders. This was not the time to get negative. Looking around, she finally took in the lit building behind her. Lights meant people, and this place was lit up like a Christmas tree.
‘What is this place?’ Other than the answer to her prayers. The people inside would be able to raise the alarm, finally. Of course, the search parties would already be out if she had thought before acting, and Hannah might already be safe, not out there somewhere, lost, cold…Neve shook her head, refusing to follow the thought to its horrid conclusion.
Stay positive.
She would find Hannah, and her stepdaughter would be all right.
She had to be all right!
Severo watched with growing fascination as the flicker of expressions moved across her pale face. In a matter of seconds he registered a gamut of emotions, all extreme, from deep despair to steely-eyed determination.
Born in another age she would have made a great silent-screen actress—that face could convey more than several pages of dialogue.
When he didn’t respond Neve brushed a wet strand of hair from her cheek and angled a questioning look up at him.
‘A barn conversion, I’d say, and a safe haven.’ He was beginning to wonder if this woman had at any point had the faintest idea of how much danger she had been in. Her attitude certainly made it seem unlikely.
Lucky for her she led a charmed life and he had developed a fascination for red hair and electric-blue eyes.
Neve took a deep breath. She didn’t want a safe haven while Hannah was still out there. ‘Hopefully the people here will not be too worried about their own skins, unlike some, and—’
Without turning, he cut her off. He did not need to be hailed a hero—in fact he would have run a mile to avoid such a scenario—but a simple thank-you might be nice.
‘Can you save the reading of my character until we get out of this? We cowards do not have conversations in the middle of a blizzard—and don’t try to run because I will find the necessity to catch you irritating.’
In the act of turning, Neve froze. ‘Is that a threat?’ she demanded through teeth that were now chattering from a combination of cold and shock.
‘It is an understatement,’ he corrected, throwing the comment over his shoulder as he negotiated the snow-covered flight of steps.
Light streamed from the glass panel that led down to the big entrance door, and the slits cut deep into the blocks of stone, but it was the apex wall that appeared to be formed totally of glass panels that had made the place visible from the other side of the valley.
Severo banged on the door. When there was no reply he alternated banging and then ringing the bell. He made enough noise to rouse the dead but nobody inside stirred—were they deaf, or possibly just cautious of strangers appearing from nowhere?
The question was academic. If he was terrifying someone he would make his apologies. He did not need a thermometer to tell him that the temperature was dropping. Right now his main priority was getting inside before things got serious.
How much more serious do you want, asked the voice in his head, stuck in the middle of a blizzard with some felonious madwoman?
To look at her standing there in the jacket that reached her knees she looked cute and fragile, the sort of woman that aroused protective instincts in men—the ones who had not been kicked by her, at any rate.
He was not one of them. She had landed a couple of hefty kicks before she had quietened down, which would have caused a lot more damage had her footwear not been woefully inadequate for the conditions.
‘Stay there!’ He flung the terse instruction over his shoulder before working his way around the side of the building. He almost missed the side entrance, a glass-panelled door that was half obscured by a drift that had formed up against the side of the building.
A quick survey revealed it did not look nearly as substantial as the oak-panelled main door. His luck was turning, and not before time. All he had to do now was get to it, which required shifting the several feet of snow that blocked it.
Using his gloved hands, Severo began to clear a path to the door, building up a steady rhythm as he made a narrow slippery corridor through the snow.
‘I said not to move.’
It was spooky. He had not even turned around. The man clearly had eyes in the back of his head.
His manner suggested he was not accustomed to people ignoring his instructions. ‘Yes, you did,’ she agreed, unable to repress a sharp intake of breath as she plunged her hands into the snow.
He stopped shovelling and turned his head. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Other than shaking so hard he could hear her teeth rattle from feet away.
Neve exhaled a gusty breath that froze white in the air between them. Through the fog she could see the glittering slits of his eyes and ice crystals on the lashes that fringed them.
The
