The Feisty Fiancée

by Jessica Steele

  She was late that night, so took the Mercedes home. As late as it was, her cousin Astra was still out working. 'Astra works too hard,' she remarked to her other lovely cousin, Fennia.

  'She loves it,' Fennia answered. `Had a good day?"

  'Given I nearly wrote off an Aston Martin with a Mercedes, can't complain,' she smiled, and shared the experience with her cousin over a sumptuous casserole Fennia had made while waiting for her two cousins to come home.

  'Men!' Fennia opined.

  'I was in the wrong,' Yancie pointed out.

  'I know! But-men!'

  They laughed. They'd roomed together, the three cousins, at boarding-school They'd shared each other's secrets, mopped up in the early days-each other's tears when their mothers had hopped from relationship to relationship. Stable backgrounds-forget it! They'd had so many 'uncles', it had needed a young mind to keep up with it.

  They'd tried hard not to be judgmental, but it had been just a touch embarrassing not knowing which `uncle' had been coming with their mothers to pick them up at each termend.

  Aunt Delia was the rock they'd each leaned towards. Aunt Delia had been ten years old when her widowed mother had remarried, and in three years had produced three daughters. It was the younger girls' dreadfully strict upbringing, Aunt Delia had explained, by a father who seemed to have few sensitivities, that was responsible for the way each of her half-sisters, in turn, had rebelled. Yancie's mother apparently had been well `off the rails' before Yancie's father had been killed. Fennia's mother was twice married-and on the lookout for husband number three. And Astra's mother had twice divorced and was at present living with someone.

  With that kind of a background, the three cousins had been sixteen when, fearing they might have inherited some wayward gene from their mothers, they had vowed that they were going to guard with everything they had against turning out like their mothers. They wanted nothing of their mothers' explosive and sometimes quite awful relationships which in the main-brought nothing but disaster.

  To date, six years on, it hadn't been a problem. In general the cousins had nothing against men. And so far, thank goodness, none of them had felt the smallest inclination to be wayward where men were concerned. Though it was true that if they ever went out on a date and did dip their toes in unchartered, experimental waters it was mainly with someone fairly safe whom they'd known for ages-usually the brother or relation of someone with whom they'd been at boarding-school.

  Yancie drove to work the following morning growing more and more comfortable with her lot. She was still in frequent telephone contact with her stepfather-who now employed a housekeeper-but she still had no wish to return to live in the same house as Estelle. Yancie enjoyed living again with her cousins. Fennia, despite her business training, thoroughly enjoyed the job she had found working with toddlers in a day nursery, and Astra, the most academic of the three of them, was working all hours as a financial adviser, and loving it.

  Yancie drove into the vast garages of the Addison Kirk Group and exchanged her uniform jacket and neat shoes for a pair of Wellingtons and an over-large over-all.

  The men she worked with were getting more and more used to seeing her about the place. But even though-as she unreeled the water hose prior to tackling the wheel arches on yesterday's Mercedes-she knew she must look a sketch in her present outfit it still didn't prevent one courageous colleague from commenting, `You still look terrific even in that get-up!'

  She had no wish to be thought stand-offish. `You reckon?' she answered.

  'There's no substitute for style-and you've got it, plus,' he stated, and looked so serious, she had to laugh-which caused him to ask her for a date.

  Her laugh faded. `I never mix business with pleasure,' she replied, and turned away to concentrate on turning the water on.

  She was happily absorbed in her task when Wilf Fisher, one of the mechanics and a family man, came over to thank her for going out of her way to drop a spare electric kettle off to his mother yesterday.

  'It was a pleasure,' she assured him, though it had been a fifty-mile round trip on which she headed as soon as she'd seen Mr Clements safely to his destination.

  'I couldn't have got it to her before tomorrow otherwise,' he explained again. `And, well, quite honestly, the wife does get a little bit fed up with me having to drive up there to sort the old dear out all the time.'

  Yancie sympathised; she knew all about mothers and their urgent summonses. `Think nothing of it,' she smiled. `Any time.'

  Wilf went on his way, clearly feeling better for her offer of `Any time', and Yancie, her smile fading, fell to thinking how, if she hadn't been where she shouldn't yesterday, then she wouldn't have had that run-in-very nearly literally-with Mr Aston Martin.

  She owned that the near calamity had truly unnerved her. For all she had made light of it to Fennia, and to Astra too when she had come home, Yancie had not been able to get to sleep last night for thinking about it. She had so nearly caused a very serious accident. And, to make matters worse, when the driver of the other car had followed her to remonstrate with her, what had she done but called him a grumpy old devil and accused him, totally falsely, of being in the wrong lane?

  She had been in the wrong, Yancie knew that. Apart from the fact the `grumpy old devil' wasn't old at all-why couldn't she get the memory of his face out of her head? She knew she'd know him again anywhere-not that she would see him again. She must have been in a panic yesterday when she had thought that he'd find out more about her from the car registration number. Records of that nature were difficult to access, weren't they? And, in any case, everything about him had spoken of him being some kind of executive. This morning she doubted he'd have time to bother contacting the police about an accident that had never happened.

  Yancie usually had quite a few driving jobs on a Friday. But this Friday, although she caught Kevin Veasey looking over to her several times, he didn't have even one task for her.

  She kept busy, however, washing cars, going for sandwiches or running any other errand anyone wanted doing. Then at three o' clock, to her delight, she got the plummiest job of them all. Word had come down, from the head of the whole outfit, no less, that her presence was requested on the top floor at four o'clock.

  She had never driven Thomson Wakefield before. Indeed, she had never so much as clapped eyes on him. In fact, having worked for Addison's for three weeks now, she had been beginning to suspect-to the blazes with any sex discrimination law-that old Mr Wakefield would die rather than let some female drive him.

  But, not so! Why she thought Thomson Wakefield must be old, she couldn't have said. Probably because it didn't seem likely that someone still wet behind the ears would have the honour of holding his exalted position.

  But what was she bothering her head with such thoughts for? He wanted her to drive him-her! Inwardly beaming, Yancie, after her car-washing activities, would have loved to have taken a shower before she presented hersclf on the top floor.

  Not to worry, though; she had a fresh shirt in her locker, and a quick freshen-up of her make-up and a comb run through her shoulder length ash-blonde hair, and she'd be as good as new.

  It puzzled her when, at half past three, hair combed, fresh lipstick applied, she went and asked Kevin what car she would be driving and he replied he'd had no instructions yet about where she was going. His instructions were that she present herself at four.

  'I'll sort a vehicle out when I come back,' she decided. Given the choice, she fancied the Jaguar, but, of course, Mr Wakefield might have his own preference.

  Yancie made her way to the top floor with her head filled with speculations on how far afield the chief man might want to be driven. Working overtime never bothered her, so if he had it in mind to be driven up to Scotland that was all right by her-though she'd have to ring either Astra or Fennia to tell them not to expect her home.

  All of which was just so much flight of fancy, she smiled to herself as, finding the door she was looking
for, she knocked lightly and went in.

  'Yancie Dawkins?' enquired the woman in her mid-forties Kevin had told her was Thomas Wakefield's PA.

  'That's right,' Yancie answered easily, her upbringing and education making her feel perfectly at ease in any company. `Mr Wakefield is expecting me.'

  'If you'd like to take a seat,' Veronica Taylor suggested pleasantly.

  Yancie took the seat indicated, and waited. And waited. Four-fifteen came and went-and still she waited. `Does Mr Wakefield know I'm here?' she asked his PA.

  'Oh, yes,' his PA answered, her tone as pleasant as ever.

  Four-thirty came-and went. Wishing she'd brought a book to read, Yancie wondered if perhaps the great man had been held up on a phone call. For thirty minutes!

  Another ten minutes passed, by which time Yancie had gone from feeling completely at ease to feeling just a shade uncomfortable. Okay, so he was a busy man, but… Be patient, he's paying you, and you need this job. Hang it all, she loved her job. It wasn't taxing on the brain-but who needed taxing? The freedom the job allowed was limitless. Indeed, it didn't seem like a job of work at all.

  Even so, having cautioned herself to be patient, when another few minutes of her having absolutely nothing to do went by, Yancie was considering telling Veronica Taylor to ring down to the garage and let her know when the old man surfaced. Then Yancie heard sounds on the other side of the door she'd assumed connected the two offices-and that reassured her that the old boy hadn't expired while she waited.

  She pinned a `Yes, sir' look on her faceit cost nothing-and the door opened. So too did her mouth. More-her jaw dropped. Oh, no! It couldn't be! She didn't believe it! She just didn't believe it.

  Horrified, Yancie saw at once that `old' Mr Thomson Wakefield, for this surely must be he, was not old at all! He was tall, dark-haired, had hard grey eyes-and was somewhere in his mid-thirties. She had thought she had never clapped eyes on him before-but she had! Even minus his Aston Martin-she recognised him.

  Oh, mother! Yancie stared, wanting to die, at the grim, unsmiling countenance of the man standing there coldly surveying her-a man who clearly had no intention of making things easy for her. She tried hard to sort her brain patterns out, to think up some kind of defence. But what defence was there?

  So much for her hiding the firm's logo on her shirt yesterday-a fact he hadn't missed, she was suddenly positive. This man-this man, who'd made it to the top of his treewas, she all at once knew, a man from which little escaped. What he didn't know, she just knew, he troubled to find out.

  This man knew, as he'd known yesterday, exactly what her brooch had concealed. Though he hadn't needed to see the Addison Kirk logo; he'd probably recognised the car she had been driving. In all probability he had only very recently-perhaps even the day before-been a passenger in it!

  'Mr Wakefield?' she enquired, hoping there was some wonderful mistake and that this man-this man who yesterday, by his swift and skilful reactions, had managed to avoid what would have been an almighty collisionand earned a load of lip from her for his trouble was not, by some miracle, the head of the Addison Kirk Group.

  He didn't bother to confirm but, ignoring her completely, instructed his PA, `Hold my calls for five minutes, please.' She had called him a grumpy old devil-it was going to take that long?

  He held his office door open for her to go through. Yancie stood up, uncertain whether or not to walk to the other door, and keep on walking. `I'll attend to you later', this man had yesterday threatened-he must have pegged her as employed by the company before he'd even said it. 'Later', Yancie knew, had just arrived-but she wasn't the sort to run away.

  CHAPTER TWO

  YANCIE crossed into Thomson Wakefield's office. It was large and, as well as having the usual office furnishings, also housed a comfortable-looking sofa, and a couple of easy chairs grouped around a low coffee table.

  She had thought his dismissal of her from the company he headed would take seconds; she would have preferred it. But, no. Not the most talkative of men she had ever known, he pointed to a chair on the other side of his large desk.

  She took the seat and while he sat facing her so she began to gather her scattered wits.Without question she was to be well and truly carpeted-she guessed few had called the head man a grumpy old devil-apart from all the rest that had gone with it and got away with it. It surprised her that he hadn't just instructed Kevin Veasey to sack her and be done with it.That he hadn't instructed Kevin gave her a ray of hope. She hung onto it. She loved her job. `I suppose you aren't very interested in an apology,' she opened politely when Thomson Wakefield, saying not one word, continued to study her as if she were some strange object on the end of a pin.

  'Are you sorry?' he asked crisply.

  Yesterday-forget it. Today-abjectly. To keep this job, she could be grovellingly sorry. Well, perhaps that was going a bit far-but she was prepared to go as far as pride would allow.

  'I don't normally behave like that,' she said prettily.

  'You mean you don't normally very nearly cause a disaster, then refuse to accept blame?'

  Yancie knew there and then that this man gave no quarter. A hint of a smile would do wonders for that unsmiling, sombre, seenothing-to-laugh-at, though in actual fact quite good-looking face.

  'I was in the wrong-on both counts.' She did a swift about-turn from her attitude of yesterday.

  'Your driving was appalling!' Thomson Wakefield agreed stonily.

  'Not all the time!' she dared to argue, saw that hadn't gone down well, and added swiftly,

  'Up until that point, when I suddenly realised I was driving on an empty fuel tank, my driving was first-class.' She'd be modest tomorrow-today her job was on the line-not to say by a gossamer thread.

  He nodded as if conceding her point. 'I'd been tracking you for some miles,' he openly let her know.

  That jolted her. Oh, why hadn't somebody told her that the boss man had an Aston Martin? It might have clicked when she'd first become aware of the car yesterday, might have given her a chance to think she should take some kind of action. Well, possibly not. `You pegged me as one of yours miles before ourer-introduction?' she enquired.

  Thomson Wakefield studied her for some seconds without speaking, his glance taking in her almost white ash-blonde hair, her bluest of blue eyes, her dainty features and perfect skin.

  'You're different from the rest of our drivers, I'll give you that,' he pronounced curtly, leaving her to guess whether he meant that she had started to ask questions in what was his interview, or if he meant her feminine features.

  She opted for the latter. `I'm the only female driver this particular part of the group has,' she commented. `Ah!' she exclaimed as light dawned. `But you already knew that.'

  'It took but a few moments for my PA to discover which female driver in our livery was on that stretch of the motorway yesterday,' he conceded coolly.

  Uh-oh. If he knew that much, it was pretty certain he also knew that she shouldn't have been anywhere near that section of the motorway yesterday! Yancie sensed even more trouble. Although, fingers crossed, he still hadn't said those diabolical words she didn't want to hear-You're out. Though it could be, of course, that, after giving her a tonguelashing-let him try-he had plans for Kevin Veasey to tell her she had washed her last car at Addison Kirk. Somebody had almost certainly instructed Kevin not to let her take any of the vehicles out that day; of that Yancie all at once realised she could be certain. Silence, just then, however, seemed the better part of discretion.

  'So,' Thomson Wakefield went on, `perhaps, Miss Dawkins, you would care to tell me your version of the events yesterday. The events that led up to you almost demolishing not one motor vehicle, but two-leaving aside the perilous way you very nearly dispatched the two of us into the next world.'

  Well, no, actually, I wouldn't. But he was waiting. 'It's very kind of you to give me a fair hearing-er-in the circumstances,' she smiled; he had no charm, so she tried him with some of hers.

&nbs
p; Water off a duck's back! Those grey eyes were staying on her, and were noting her smile, her lovely even teeth-her boardingschool had been most particular about teethbut Yancie soon saw that not by so much as a flicker of an eyelash was he to be charmed.

  'So?' He was waiting.

  'Well, as I mentioned, I suddenly saw that I was driving with a nearly empty tank.' Silence, he was still waiting; it forced her to go on. `It was then that, simultaneously, I realised several things.' Silence. Oh, bubbles to it! If she'd known for certain that she was going to be out of a job after all this, Yancie was sure she would have packed it in right then. But hope sprang eternal-so she ploughed on.

  'At the same time as realising I was driving on a nearly empty tank, I realised I wouldn't have enough juice to get me back to London, let alone to pick up Mr C-' Yancie broke off abruptly. Oh, grief, she shouldn't have been driving to pick up Mr Clements, she should have been there, waiting. 'S-so…' Damn that stutter, this man was making her nervous-it had never happened before-and she didn't like it. 'And-er-and then, coincidentally, I saw the "services" sign and there just wasn't time to think…

  'Merely to act!' Thomson Wakefield butted in sharply.

  Who was telling this, her or him? With a start of surprise, Yancie realised that she was beginning to get angry. She seldom, if ever, got angry. Though, having been left cooling her heels for near enough forty-five minutes while waiting for this man to deign to see her, perhaps, she considered, getting a little angry was justified.

  Though hang on a minute. Didn't she truly want this job? Yes, she did. `You're right, of course.' She tried another charm-filled smile that had absolutely, one hundred per cent not the slightest effect on the stern-faced individual opposite. `I was wrong, wrong, totally wrong to cross over into your lane the way I did,' she added hurriedly. `It was a momentary lapse of attention. Add I promise you I have never, ever, driven- so carelessly before. Nor will I ever again,' she further promised, having in fact learned a very salutary lesson yesterday, but hoping he didn't think she was laying it on with a trowel.