took a long look at her reflection in the mirror. Her waist-length blonde hair had been damp when she had fallen asleep, but even so it had dried and now fell in its usual silky curtain around her face. Her wide blue eyes absorbed the stunning prettiness of her features then, as she stripped off the oversized tee shirt, idly scanned the exquisite, slender proportions of her body. These looks, she thought dispassionately, had turned heads and had opened countless doors to the world of beautiful people in which she moved. If she had been dowdy and unattractive, would she have been as popular? Would men have beaten a path to her door, however much money her father had? Probably not. For the first time, she realised that her looks carried a downside. The had attracted men like Freddie, but looks were disposable. None of the men in her brittle world ever seemed to take time out to search for what lay beneath the sparkling veneer.
She very quickly washed her face and changed into yet another tee shirt and a pair of jogging bottoms that had to be tied with the tan leather belt thoughtfully left along with the bundle of clothes. Then she made her way down the stairs, refusing to yell for assistance.
Luke was in the kitchen clearing up and, for a few minutes, Miranda hovered uncertainly by the door, wondering what to do next.
‘Make yourself at home,’ he said drily. ‘I don’t bite.’
She edged to the pine kitchen table and sat down.
‘How long does this caretaker job last?’ she asked, for the sake of asking something, and he turned to look at her with a momentary expression of bewilderment. Then his face cleared.
‘Oh, this caretaker job?’ he said carelessly. ‘Oh, not very long.’
‘And then you…’
‘Move on.’
‘Move on to what?’ He made a good caretaker, she thought. The kitchen was tidy, with a stack of logs neatly chopped and piled in the corner.
‘Other things,’ he said vaguely. ‘Now, normally I tend to spend the days outside, but this blizzard has put paid to that, so we might as well work out some kind of routine here so that you don’t get in my way.’
Miranda immediately began to bristle. ‘I won’t get in your way. I’m more than happy to spend my time reading.’
‘Good.’ He paused to sit down, spinning the chair back so that he sat on it with his hands loosely hanging over the back. ‘Because I have some business to attend to on my laptop and I don’t want to feel that you’re lurking around waiting to be entertained.’
‘I don’t expect to be entertained.’
‘Don’t you?’
‘I’m quite happy in my own company.’ Miranda paused to digest this and realised that she was very seldom in her own company. Even at night, when she flopped into bed, sometimes in the early hours of the morning, she was always too tried to really spend any time on her own. ‘What work do you have to do?’ she asked curiously. ‘On a computer? I wouldn’t have thought…’
‘That I was clever enough to use a computer? Or maybe you thought that I’d never even heard of one?’ He grinned wickedly at her blushing discomfort. ‘News of technological breakthroughs do sometimes drift even to we yokels, you know. In fact, I’ll take a small bet with you that you’re the one who doesn’t have a clue how to operate a computer.’
Miranda’s face went a shade deeper in colour.
‘Mmm,’ Luke said pensively. ‘Not much point having a computer on the ski slopes, is there? Or at the races? Or in Mustique for a few weeks over summer?’
‘I—I—’
‘You—you—what?’
‘I learned everything about computers when I was doing my design course,’ she said, holding her chin up to counteract the level of defensiveness in her voice.
‘Oh, yes, that interior design course of yours.’ He was virtually smirking, and Miranda glowered impotently at him. ‘Well, wait right here.’ He stood up and she watched suspiciously while he disappeared out of the kitchen, only to return minutes later with a sleek black laptop in his hand.
‘There, now.’ He flicked it open, pressed a few buttons and the screen unfolded into life. ‘Why don’t you amuse yourself with this for a little while just while I fetch some more logs from the outside shed and do a bit of chopping.’ He moved swiftly around the table so that he was bending over her, one hand resting on the table top, the other pressing various icons until an architectural drawing of a house appeared on the screen.
‘What’s this?’
‘This, my dear interior designer, is a house.’
‘Whose house?’
‘Oh, just a little dwelling my boss has in mind to renovate. He knows I like playing on the computer now and again, so he lent me this file to have a look at.’
Miranda looked at him narrowly. ‘Now, why would your boss do something like that?’
Luke’s answer was so swift that she almost wondered whether it had been prepared. ‘We go back a ways. If you move this little gadget here, called a mouse, hey presto, you can zoom all over the place.’
Miranda gritted her teeth and allowed him to have his fun. He would be laughing on the other side of his arrogant, handsome face when she presented him with her ideas, even if the whole lot was erased never to be seen again. The last job she had done of any magnitude had been years previously, but she could feel a stirring of interest in her veins as she glanced at the outlines of a house in front of her.
‘You mean you babysit his cabin every year?’
‘Oh, yes. It’s a long-standing arrangement.’ He hadn’t straightened, so when he spoke his breath brushed against her cheek and into her ear. ‘He must have thought that I might get lonesome, stuck out here as I am, hence this little file for me to play with. Little did he know that I would have unexpected company.’ He stood up and flexed his muscles. ‘You can mess around however you like. Design whatever you want. It can all be deleted. Why don’t you go into the sitting room and relax in front of that roaring fire and show me what you can do with this little toy.’
‘I guess you do get lonely here for weeks, maybe months, on end,’ Miranda said, half to herself, as she settled onto the big sofa, with the computer on her lap. ‘How on earth do you fill your time?’
‘Loneliness is a state of mind,’ he said over his shoulder, as he slung on his waterproof jacket and then pulled on some very thick wool socks and a pair of snow boots that were by the door. ‘And it can only be filled when you’re at peace with yourself.’
‘Well, if you want to spout philosophy, then I’ll just get on with a bit of this interior design, shall I?’ She felt herself smile and when she looked up at him it was to find the smile returned. It gave her the oddest feeling.
‘When I get back from my healthy outdoor fun, you can phone your father. Although…’ he opened the door and swirls of snow blew in ‘…I did call him half an hour ago. On your behalf.’
Miranda looked up, stunned by this piece of effrontery but, before she could demand an explanation, he had left the cabin, slamming the front door behind
