by Liz Fielding
He came to an abrupt halt, staring at her for a moment. Or, rather, she thought, her hair, and she belatedly wished she’d kept her hat on, but it was too late for that.
‘Has she told you?’ he demanded, finally tearing his gaze away from what she knew must look an absolute fright.
‘Told me what?’ she asked him.
‘That you’ve broken your crankshaft.’
‘No,’ she said, swiftly tiring of the novelty of his rudeness. A gentleman would have ignored the fact that she was having a seriously bad hair day rather than staring at the disaster in undisguised horror. ‘I gave my ankle a bit of a jolt in that pothole but, unless things have changed since I studied anatomy, I don’t believe that I have a crankshaft.’
Xandra snorted tea down her nose as she laughed, earning herself a quelling look from her father.
‘You’ve broken the crankshaft that drives the wheels of your car,’ he said heavily, quashing any thought she might have of joining in. ‘It’ll have to be replaced.’
‘If I knew what a crankshaft was,’ she replied, ‘I suspect that I’d be worried. How long will it take?’
He shrugged. ‘I’ll have to ring around in the morning and see if there’s anyone who can deal with it as an emergency.’
Annie heard what he said but even when she ran through it again it still made no sense.
‘Why?’ she asked finally.
He had the nerve to turn a pair of slate-grey eyes on her and regard her as if her wits had gone begging.
‘I assume you want it repaired?’
‘Of course I want it repaired. That’s why I called you. You’re a garage. You fix cars. So fix it.’
‘I’m sorry but that’s impossible.’
‘You don’t sound sorry.’
‘He isn’t. While Granddad’s lying helpless in hospital he’s going to shut down a garage that’s been in the family for nearly a hundred years.’
‘Are you?’ she asked, keeping her gaze fixed firmly on him. ‘That doesn’t sound very sporting.’
He looked right back and she could see a pale fan of lines around his eyes that in anyone else she’d have thought were laughter lines.
‘He flew all the way from California for that very purpose,’ his daughter said when he didn’t bother to answer.
‘California?’ Well, that certainly explained the lines around his eyes. Screwing them up against the sun rather than an excess of good humour. ‘How interesting. What do you do in California, Mr Saxon?’
Her life consisted of asking polite questions, drawing people out of their shell, showing an interest. She had responded with her ‘Lady Rose’ voice and she’d have liked to pretend that this was merely habit rather than genuine interest, but that would be a big fat fib. There was something about George Saxon that aroused a lot more than polite interest in her maidenly breast.
His raised eyebrow suggested that what he did in the US was none of her business and he was undoubtedly right, but his daughter was happy to fill the gap.
‘According to my mother,’ she said, ‘George is a beach bum.’
At this point ‘Lady Rose’ would have smiled politely and moved on. Annie didn’t have to do that.
‘Is your mother right?’ she asked.
‘He doesn’t go to work unless he feels like it. Lives on the beach. If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck…’
She was looking at George, talking to him, but the replies kept coming from his daughter, stage left, and Annie shook her head just once, lifted a hand to silence the girl, waiting for him to answer her question.
CHAPTER THREE
‘I’ M AFRAID it’s your bad luck that my daughter answered your call,’ George replied, not bothering to either confirm or deny it. ‘If I’d got to the phone first I’d have told you to ring someone else.’
‘I see. So why didn’t you simply call another garage and arrange for them to pick me up?’ Annie asked, genuinely puzzled.
‘It would have taken too long and, since you were on your own…’ He let it go.
She didn’t.
‘Oh, I see. You’re a gentleman beach bum?’
‘Don’t count on it,’ he replied.
No. She wouldn’t do that, but he appeared to have a conscience and she could work with that.
She’d had years of experience in parting millionaires from their money in a good cause and this seemed like a very good moment to put what she’d learned to use on her own behalf.
‘It’s a pity your concern doesn’t stretch as far as fixing my car.’ Since his only response was to remove his jacket and hang it over the back of a chair, the clearest statement that he was going nowhere, she continued. ‘So, George…’ use his name, imply that they were friends ‘…having brought me here under false pretences, what do you suggest I do now?’
‘I suggest you finish your tea, Annie…’ and the way he emphasized her name suggested he knew exactly what game she was playing ‘…then I suggest you call a taxi.’
Well, that didn’t go as well as she’d hoped.
‘I thought the deal was that you were going to run me there,’ she reminded him.
‘It’s been a long day. You’ll find a directory by the phone. It’s through there. In the hall,’ he added, just in case she was labouring under the misapprehension that he would do it for her. Then, having glanced at the cup of instant coffee and the delicate china cups she’d laid out, he took a large mug-one that she’d just washed-from the rack over the sink and filled it with tea.
Annie had been raised to be a lady and her first reaction, even under these trying circumstances, was to apologise for being a nuisance.
There had been a moment, right after that lorry had borne down on her out of the dark and she’d thought her last moment had come, when the temptation to accept defeat had very nearly got the better of her.
Shivering with shock at her close brush with eternity as much as the cold, it would have been so easy to put in the call that would bring a chauffeur-driven limousine to pick her up, return her home with nothing but a very bad haircut and a lecture on irresponsibility from her grandfather to show for her adventure.
But she’d wanted reality and that meant dealing with the rough as well as the smooth. Breaking down on a dark country road was no fun, but Lydia wouldn’t have been able to walk away, leave someone else to pick up the pieces. She’d have to deal with the mechanic who’d responded to her call, no matter how unwillingly. How lacking in the ethos of customer service.
Lydia, she was absolutely certain, wouldn’t apologise to him for expecting him to do his job, but demand he got on with it.
She could do no less.
‘I’m sorry,’ she began, but she wasn’t apologising for being a nuisance. Far from it. Instead, she picked up her tea and polite as you please, went on. ‘I’m afraid that is quite unacceptable. When you responded to my call you entered into a contract and I insist that you honour it.’
George Saxon paused in the act of spooning sugar into his tea and glanced up at her from beneath a lick of dark hair that had slid across his forehead.
‘Is that right?’ he asked.
He didn’t sound particularly impressed.
‘Under the terms of the Goods and Services Act,’ she added, with the poise of a woman for whom addressing a room full of strangers was an everyday occurrence, ‘nineteen eighty-three.’ The Act was real enough, even if she’d made up the date. The trick was to look as if you knew what you were talking about and a date-even if it was the first one that came into her head-added veracity to even the most outrageous statement.
This time he did smile and deep creases bracketed his face, his mouth, fanned out around those slate eyes. Maybe not just the sun, then…
‘You just made that up, Annie Rowland,’ he said, calling her bluff.
She pushed up the spectacles that kept sliding down her nose and smiled right back.
‘I’ll just wait here while you go to the local library and check,’ she said, lowering her
self into the unoccupied Morris chair. ‘Unless you have a copy?’ Balancing the saucer in one hand, she used the other to pick up her tea and sip it. ‘Although, since you’re clearly unfamiliar with the legislation, I’m assuming that you don’t.’
‘The library is closed until tomorrow morning,’ he pointed out.
‘They don’t have late-night opening? How inconvenient for you. Never mind, I can wait.’ Then added, ‘Or you could just save time and fix my car.’
George had known the minute Annie Ro-o-owland had blundered into him, falling into his arms as if she was made to fit, that he was in trouble. Then she’d looked at him through the rear-view mirror of the truck with those big blue eyes and he’d been certain of it. And here, in the light of his mother’s kitchen, they had double the impact.
They were not just large, but were the mesmerizing colour of a bluebell wood in April, framed by long dark lashes and perfectly groomed brows that were totally at odds with that appalling haircut. At odds with those horrible spectacles which continually slipped down her nose as if they were too big for her face…
As he stared at her, the certainty that he’d seen her somewhere before tugging at his memory, she used one finger to push them back up and he knew without doubt that they were nothing more than a screen for her to hide behind.
Everything about her was wrong.
Her car, bottom of range even when new, was well past its best, her hair was a nightmare and her clothes were chain-store basics but her scent, so faint that he knew she’d sprayed it on warm skin hours ago, probably after her morning shower, was the real one-thousand-dollar-an-ounce deal.
And then there was her voice.
No one spoke like that unless they were born to it. Not even twenty-five thousand pounds a year at Dower House could buy that true-blue aristocratic accent, a fact he knew to his cost.
He stirred his tea, took a sip, making her wait while he thought about his next move.
‘I’ll organise a rental for you while it’s being fixed,’ he offered finally. Experience had taught him that, where women were concerned, money was the easiest way to make a problem go away. But first he’d see how far being helpful would get him. ‘If that would make things easier for you?’
She carefully replaced the delicate bone china cup on its saucer. ‘I’m sorry, George. I’m afraid that’s out of the question.’
It was like a chess game, he thought. Move and countermove. And everything about her-the voice, the poise-suggested that she was used to playing the Queen.
Tough. He wasn’t about to be her pawn. He might be lumbered with Mike Jackson’s Bentley-he couldn’t offload a specialist job like that at short notice as his father well knew-but he wasn’t about to take on something that any reasonably competent mechanic could handle.
Maybe if she took off her glasses…
‘As a gesture of goodwill, recognising that you have been put to unnecessary inconvenience,’ he said, catching himself-this was not the moment to allow himself to be distracted by a pair of blue eyes, pale flawless skin, scent that aroused an instant go-to-hell response. He didn’t do ‘instant’. It would have to be money. ‘I would be prepared to pay any reasonable out-of-pocket expenses.’
Check.
He didn’t care how much it cost to get her and her eyes out of the garage, out of his mother’s kitchen, out of his hair. Just as long as she went.
‘That’s a most generous offer,’ she replied. ‘Unfortunately, I can’t accept. The problem isn’t money, you see, but my driving licence.’
‘Oh?’ Then, ‘You do have a valid licence?’
If she was driving without one all bets were off. He could ground his daughter for her reckless behaviour-maybe-but Annie Rowland would be out of here faster than he could call the police.
But she wasn’t in the least bit put out by his suggestion that she was breaking the law.
‘I do have a driving licence,’ she replied, cool as you like. ‘And, in case you’re wondering, it’s as clean as the day it was issued. But I’m afraid I left it at home. In my other bag.’ She shrugged. ‘You know how it is.’ Then, looking at him as if she’d only just noticed that he was a man, she smiled and said, ‘Oh, no. I don’t suppose you do. All a man has to do is pick up his wallet and he has everything he needs right there in his jacket pocket.’
He refused to indulge the little niggle that wanted to know whose wallet, what man…
‘And where, exactly, is home?’ he asked, trying not to look at her hand and failing. She wasn’t wearing a ring but that meant nothing.
‘London.’
‘London is a big place.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘It is.’ Then, without indulging his curiosity about which part of London, ‘You must know that no one will rent me a car without it. My licence.’
Unfortunately, he did.
Checkmate.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Xandra, who’d been watching this exchange with growing impatience, said, ‘If you won’t fix Annie’s car, I’ll do it myself.’ She put down her cup and headed for the door. ‘I’ll make a start right now.’
‘Shouldn’t you be thinking about your grandmother?’ he snapped before she reached it. ‘I’m sure she’d appreciate a hot meal when she gets back from the hospital. Or are you so lost to selfishness that you expect her to cook for you?’
‘She doesn’t…’ Then, unexpectedly curbing her tongue, she said, ‘I’m not the selfish one around here.’
Annie, aware that in this battle of wits Xandra was her ally, cleared her throat. ‘Why don’t I get supper?’ she offered.
They both turned to stare at her.
‘Why would you do that?’ George Saxon demanded.
‘Because I want my car fixed?’
‘You won’t get a better offer,’ Xandra declared, leaping in before her father could turn down her somewhat rash offer. ‘My limit is baked beans on toast. I’m sure Annie can do better than that,’ she said, throwing a pleading glance in her direction.
‘Can you?’ he demanded.
‘Do better than baked beans on toast?’ she repeated. ‘Actually, that won’t be…’ She broke off, distracted by the wild signals Xandra was making behind her father’s back. As he turned to see what had caught her attention she went on. ‘Difficult. Not at all.’
He gave her a long look through narrowed eyes, clearly aware that he’d missed something. Then continued to look at her as if there was something about her that bothered him.
She knew just how he felt.
The way he looked at her bothered her to bits, she thought, using her forefinger to push the ‘prop’ spectacles up her nose. They would keep sliding down, making it easier to look over them than through them, which made wearing them utterly pointless.
‘How long do you think it’ll take?’ she asked, not sure who she was attempting to distract. George or herself.
He continued to stare for perhaps another ten seconds-clearly not a man to be easily distracted-before he shrugged and said, ‘It depends what else we find. Your car is not exactly in the first flush. Once something major happens it tends to have a knock-on effect. You’re touring, you say?’
She nodded. ‘That was the plan. Shropshire, Cheshire, maybe. A little sightseeing. A little shopping.’
‘There aren’t enough sights, enough shops in London?’ he enquired, an edge to his voice that suggested he wasn’t entirely convinced.
‘Oh, well…’ She matched his shrug and raised him a smile. ‘You know what they say about a change.’
‘Being as good as a rest?’ He sounded doubtful. ‘This isn’t a great time of year to break down, especially if you’re stranded miles from anywhere,’ he pointed out.
He didn’t bother to match her smile.
‘It’s never a good time for that, George.’
‘It’s a lot less dangerous when the days are long and the nights warm,’ he said, leaving her to imagine what it would be like if she broke down way out in the country, in
the dark, with the temperature below freezing. Then, having got that off his chest, ‘Are you in a hurry to be anywhere in particular?’
He sounded hopeful.
‘Well, no. That’s the joy of touring, isn’t it? There’s no fixed agenda. And now Xandra has told me about the Christmas market in Maybridge this weekend…’ she gave another little shrug, mainly because she was certain it would annoy him ‘…well, I wouldn’t want to miss that.’ It was a new experience. Annoying a man. One she could grow to enjoy and, taking full advantage of this opportunity, she mentally crossed her fingers and added, ‘Ho, ho, ho…’
That earned her another snort-muffled this time-from Xandra, who got a look to singe her ears from her father before he turned back to her and, ignoring her attempt at levity, asked, ‘Have you spoken to your insurance company?’
‘Why would I do that?’
‘Because you’ve had an accident?’
‘Oh. Yes.’ The prospect of contacting her insurance company and what that would mean took all the fun out of winding up George Saxon. ‘I suppose I have. It never occurred to me…’
‘No?’ He gave her another of those thoughtful looks. ‘Maybe you should do it now although, bearing in mind the age of the car and the likely cost of repairs, their loss adjuster will probably decide to simply write it off.’
‘What? They can’t do that!’
‘I think you’ll find they can.’
‘Only if I make a claim.’
He didn’t answer. And this time Xandra didn’t leap in to defend her.
‘I am insured,’ she said hurriedly, before George asked the question that was clearly foremost in his mind.
She didn’t blame him. First she wasn’t able to produce her licence and now she didn’t want her insurance company involved. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together would believe she had something to hide.
Obviously not whatever scenario was going through his mind right now, but something. And they’d be right to be suspicious.
But she was insured.
She’d checked that Lydia’s car was covered by her own insurance policy but now, faced with the reality of accidental damage, she realised that it wasn’t that simple. If, on the day she made a claim for an accident in Maybridge, the entire world knew she was flying to Bab el Sama-and they would, because she’d made absolutely sure that the press knew where she was going; she wanted them there, establishing her alibi by snatching shots of ‘her’ walking on the beach-well, that really would put the cat among the pigeons.