‘I couldn’t agree more.’
Leah was glad of any excuse to end this embarrassing confrontation. All she wanted was to get her car back on the road and be on her way. Sean Gallagher might have seemed to be a knight coming to the rescue of a damsel in distress, but appearances were definitely deceptive. He appeared to be the most devastatingly attractive man she had ever met, but his character had to be the most unpleasant of any she had encountered in all her twenty-five years.
‘If you could just help me move my car…’ she began, her voice failing as she saw his dark head move in obdurate denial of her request.
‘No chance,’ he stated flatly. ‘There’s no way we can do anything with it without a tow-truck and some chains, and even then I doubt if it will start. I mean, look at it.’
Following the contemptuous wave of one hand, Leah had to admit he spoke nothing but the truth. Leaning at a perilous angle, its front wheels deeply embedded in the ditch and the snow piling up heavily all around it, the Renault looked totally immovable. It would take professional know-how and equipment to enable her to continue her journey.
‘Then perhaps you could drive me to the nearest garage or house.’
She looked hopefully to where Sean’s car was parked at the side of the road. A heavy layer of snow had built up on its bonnet and roof while they were talking, but it looked in much better shape than her own vehicle.
‘Please.’ Tact made her add the last word, though she felt very far from wanting to be strictly polite.
A harsh, humourless laugh left her in no doubt as to exactly what he thought of that idea.
‘The nearest garage, my dear Ms Elliot, is more than ten miles in that direction.’ He gestured back towards the way he had come. ‘I’ve just negotiated that road once on the way here, and believe me it was no fun at all in this weather. I’ve no intention of doing it again and risking my life for anyone. Have you tried the emergency services?’
‘I’m not a member of a breakdown service or anything like that. Oh, I know!’ she exclaimed as she saw the scathing look that told her exactly how he felt about that. ‘I probably should have joined—as I’m sure you did—ages ago! But I only took possession of this car last weekend. And besides, I’d need a mobile phone to call them from here—something I don’t run to on my salary.’
She glanced at the sleek and obviously expensive lines of his own BMW. A new light brightened her eyes and she looked at him expectantly.
‘I suppose you’ve got the very latest model in your car. I could—’
As a matter of fact, no, I haven’t,’ Sean put in coolly. ‘When I’m on the road I prefer to be unobtainable. And I know for a fact that there are no houses any closer than my own cottage. One of the reasons I bought it in the first place was because it is so isolated.’
‘But what can I do? How am I going to get home?’ A note of desperation threaded through the question.
Broad shoulders under the navy woollen jacket lifted in a dismissive shrug.
‘Strikes me you’ve got two possible choices. You can stay here till morning…’
The look of scorn Leah turned on him made it only too plain that she wasn’t going to take that suggestion seriously. She’d freeze before midnight. ‘Or?’
‘Or you can come with me. My house isn’t far from here. We should make it before the roads become impassable if we’re careful—and quick. You’ll have to leave your car, I’m afraid. But as no one’s likely to be able to move it, even if they were out in this blizzard, it should be safe enough. You can spend the night with me.’
‘Spend the night with you!’ Leah echoed in blank disbelief. ‘You have got to be joking!’
At last her brain seemed to be functioning again. The idea of getting into this man’s car and letting him drive her off to God knew where was not one that appealed in the slightest. She didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him, and he had already proved to be extremely dangerous in more ways than one.
When her uncomfortable conscience put in the reminder that, judging by her earlier behaviour, she probably had more to fear from her own foolish impulses than anything Sean Gallagher might do, she pushed it aside furiously.
‘No way! I’d rather take my chances with the elements!’
As her defiant words were whipped away on the wind she nerved herself for his response, expecting an angry protest laced with dark scorn at her foolishness.
It never came. Instead he shrugged again, even more dismissively than before.
‘Your choice, lady.’
Already he was turning away.
‘Have a good night.’
Leah watched, open-mouthed, in frank disbelief. He couldn’t mean it! She couldn’t believe that he would actually leave her here.
But it seemed that he would. He had turned his back on her and was moving purposefully towards the dark, sleek shape of his parked car. Without even his ambiguous presence the silent lane seemed suddenly very dark and cold, and full of darkly threatening shadows.
‘You can’t do this!’ Her words had to be pitched high against the manic howling of the wind. ‘You can’t just go and leave me here alone!’
For a brief second he paused, glanced back, eyes narrowed against the whirling snow.
‘Try me,’ he tossed at her, and turned back towards his car.
CHAPTER TWO
HE MEANT it too, Sean told himself as he strode away from her. Never once in all the thirty-four years of his life had he left a woman in a position of need when he could offer help, but there was always a first time, and this was it.
This woman was far more trouble than she was worth, and quite frankly the thought of letting her into his house, the home he had kept as his own very private haven until now, was not something that appealed in the slightest.
He couldn’t work out just what it was about this particular female that affected him so badly, but it seemed as if his thinking processes, normally as cool and rational as any scientist’s, had seized up from the moment he had left his car and headed for hers.
But could he really leave her here, alone and unprotected, in such appalling weather conditions?
His steps were already slowing when he heard her voice behind him.
‘Wait! Please!’
She had finally pulled her skirt down, he noted automatically as he swung round in response to the sharp cry of distress. And the black coat was now fastened close across that stunning cleavage. Sean didn’t know whether relief or disappointment was uppermost in his mind. He only knew that it was a damned sight easier to think more clearly when there was so much less of her body on display.
‘Changed your mind? Decided to see sense?’
‘I—realise
