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Leo burst out laughing. ‘Believe it or not, I didn’t pack for a snow storm. The jeans will have to do. If they get soaked, they’ll dry in front of that open fire in the lounge area.’
He worked out. He was strong. And yet he found that battling with the elements was exercise of a completely different sort. This was not the sanitised comfort of his expensive gym, with perfectly oiled machinery that was supposed to test the body to its limits. This was raw nature and, by the time he looked at his handiwork, a meagre path already filling up with fast falling snow, an hour and a half had flown past.
He had no gloves. His hands were freezing. But hell, it was invigorating. In fact, he had completely forgotten the reason why he was in this Godforsaken village in the first place. His thoughts were purely and utterly focused on trying to outsmart and out-shovel the falling snow.
The landscape had turned completely white. The pub was set a distance from the main part of the village and was surrounded by open fields. Pausing to stand back, his arm resting heavily on the shovel which he had planted firmly in the ground, he felt that he was looking at infinity. It evoked the strangest sensation of peace and awe, quite different from the irritation he had felt the day before when he had stared moodily out of the window at the tedium of never-ending fields and cursed his decision to get there by car.
He stayed out another hour, determined not to be beaten, but in the end he admitted defeat and returned to the warmth of the pub, to find the fire blazing and the smell of food wafting from the kitchen.
‘I fought the snow...’ God, he felt like a caveman returning from a hard day out hunting. ‘And the snow won. Don’t bank on any customers today. Something smells good.’
‘I don’t normally do lunch for guests.’
‘You’ll be royally paid for your efforts.’ He stifled a surge of irritation that the one thing most women would have given their eye teeth to do for him was something she clearly had done because she had had no choice. She was stuck with him. She could hardly expect him to starve because lunch wasn’t included in the price of the room. ‘You were going to fill me in on the people who live around here.’ He reminded her coolly of the deal they had struck.
‘It’s not very exciting.’ She looked at him and her heartbeat quickened. ‘You’re going to have to change. You’re soaked through. If you give me your damp clothes, I can put them in front of the fire in the snug.’
‘The snug?’
‘My part of the house.’ She leaned back against the kitchen counter, hands behind her. ‘Self-contained quarters. Only small—two bedrooms, a little snug, a kitchen, bathroom and a study where Dad used to do all the accounts for the pub. It’s where I grew up. I can remember loving it when the place was full and I could roam through the guest quarters bringing them cups of tea and coffee. It used to get a lot busier in the boom days.’
She certainly looked happy recounting those jolly times but, as far as Leo was concerned, it sounded like just the sort of restricted life that would have driven him crazy.
And yet, this could have been his fate—living in this tiny place where everyone knew everyone else. In fact, he wouldn’t even have had the relative comforts of a village pub. He would probably have been dragged up in a hovel somewhere by the town junkie, because what other sort of loser gave away their own child? It was a sobering thought.
‘I could rustle up some of Dad’s old shirts for you. I kept quite a few for myself. I’ll leave them outside your bedroom door and you can hand me the jeans so that I can launder them.’
She hadn’t realised how lonely it was living above the pub on her own, making every single decision on her own, until she was rummaging through her wardrobe, picking out shirts and enjoying the thought of having someone to lend them to, someone sharing her space, even if it was only in the guise of a guest who had been temporarily blown off-path by inclement weather.
She warmed at the thought of him trying and failing to clear the path to the pub of snow. When she gently knocked on his bedroom door ten minutes later, she was carrying a bundle of flannel shirts and thermal long-sleeved vests. She would leave them outside the door, and indeed she was bending down to do just that when the door opened.
She looked sideways and blinked rapidly at the sight of bare ankles. Bare ankles and strong calves, with dark hair... Her eyes drifted further upwards to bare thighs...lean, muscular bare thighs. Her mouth went dry. She was still clutching the clothes to her chest, as if shielding herself from the visual invasion of his body on her senses. His semi-clad body.
‘Are these for me?’
Brianna snapped out of her trance and stared at him wordlessly.
‘The clothes?’ Leo arched an amused eyebrow as he took in her bright-red face and parted lips. ‘They’ll come in very handy. Naturally, you can put them on the tab.’
He was wearing boxers and nothing else. Brianna’s brain registered that as a belated postscript. Most of her brain was wrapped up with stunned, shocked appreciation of his body. Broad shoulders and powerful arms tapered down to a flat stomach and lean hips. He had had a quick shower, evidently, and one of the cheap, white hand towels was slung around his neck and hung over his shoulders. She felt faint.
‘I thought I’d get rid of the shirt as well,’ he said. ‘If you wouldn’t mind laundering the lot, I would be extremely grateful. I failed to make provisions for clearing snow.’
Brianna blinked, as gauche and confused as a teenager. She saw that he was dangling the laundry bag on one finger while looking at her with amusement.
Well of course he would be, she thought, bristling. Writer or not, he came from a big city and, yes, was ever so patronising about the smallness of their town. And here she was, playing into his hands, gaping as though she had never seen a naked man in her life before, as though he was the most interesting thing to have landed on her doorstep in a hundred years.
‘Well, perhaps you should have,’ she said tartly. ‘Only a fool would travel to this part of the world in the depths of winter and not come prepared for heavy snow.’ She snatched the laundry bag from him and thrust the armful of clothes at his chest in return.
‘Come again?’ Had she just called him a fool?
‘I haven’t got the time or the energy to launder your clothes every two seconds because you didn’t anticipate bad weather. In February. Here.’ Her eyes skirted nervously away from the aggressive width of his chest. ‘And I suggest,’ she continued tightly, ‘That you cover up. If I don’t have the time to launder your clothes, then I most certainly do not have the time to play nursemaid when you go down with flu!’
Leo was trying to think of the last time a woman had raised her voice in his presence. Or, come to think of it, said anything that was in any way inflammatory. It just didn’t happen. He didn’t know whether to be irritated, enraged or entertained.
‘Message understood loud and clear.’ He grinned and leaned against the doorframe. However serious the implications of this visit to the land that time forgot, he realised that he was enjoying himself. Right now, at this very moment, with this beautiful Irish girl standing in front of him, glaring and uncomfortable. ‘Fortunately, I’m as healthy as a horse. Can’t remember the last time I succumbed to flu. So you won’t have to pull out your nurse’s uniform and tend to me.’ Interesting notion, though... His dark eyes drifted over her lazily. ‘I’ll be down shortly. And my thanks once again for the clothes.’
Brianna was still hot and flustered when, half an hour later, he sauntered down to the kitchen. One of the tables in the bar area had been neatly set for one. ‘I hope you’re not expecting me to have lunch on my own,’ were his opening words, and she spun around from where she had been frowning into the pot of homemade soup.
Without giving her a chance to answer, he began searching for the crockery, giving a little grunt of satisfaction when he hit upon the right cupboard. ‘Remember we were going to...talk? You were going to tell me all about the people who live here so that I can get some useful fodder for my book.’ It seemed inconceivable that a budding author would simply up sticks and go on a rambling tour of Ireland in the hope of inspiration but, as excuses went, it had served its purpose, which was all that mattered. ‘And then, I’ll do whatever you want me to do. I’m a man of my word.’
‘There won’t be much to do,’ Brianna admitted. ‘The snow’s not letting up. I’ve phoned Aidan and told him that the place will be closed until the weather improves.’
‘Aidan?’
‘One of my friends. He can be relied on to spread the word. Only my absolute regulars would even contemplate trudging out here in this weather.’
‘So...is Aidan the old would-be opera singer?’
‘Aidan is my age. We used to go to school together.’ She dished him out some soup, added some bread and offered him a glass of wine, which he rejected in favour of water.
‘And he’s the guy who broke your heart? No. He wouldn’t be. The guy who broke your heart has long since disappeared, hasn’t he?’
Brianna stiffened. She reminded herself that she was not having a cosy chat with a friend over lunch. This was a guest in her pub, a stranger who was passing through, no more. Confiding details of her private life was beyond the pale, quite different from chatting about all the amusing things that happened in a village where nearly everyone knew everyone else. Her personal life was not going to be fodder for a short story on life in a quaint Irish village.
‘I don’t recall telling you anything about my heart being broken, and I don’t think my private life is any of your business. I hope the soup is satisfactory.’
So that was a sore topic; there was no point in a follow-up. It was irrelevant to his business here. If he happened to be curious, then it was simply because he was in the unique situation of being pub-bound and snowed in with just her for company. In the absence of anyone else, it was only natural that she would spark an interest.
‘Why don’t you serve food? It would add a lot to the profits of a place like this. You’d be surprised how remote places can become packed if the food is good enough...’ He doubted the place had seen any changes in a very long time. Again, not his concern, he thought. ‘So, if you don’t want to talk about yourself, then that’s fair enough.’
‘Why don’t you talk about yourself? Are you married? Do you have children?’
‘If I were married and had children, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing.’ Marriage? Children? He had never contemplated either. He pushed the empty soup bowl aside and sprawled on the chair, angling it so that he could stretch his legs out to one side. ‘Tell me about the old guy who likes to sing.’
‘What made you suddenly decide to pack in your job and write? It must have been a big deal, giving up steady work in favour of a gamble that might or might not pay off.’
Leo shrugged and told himself that, certainly in this instance, the ends would more than justify the means—and at any rate, there was no chance that she would discover his little lie. He would forever remain the enigmatic stranger who had passed through and collected a few amusing anecdotes on the way. She would be regaling her friends with this in a week’s time.
‘Sometimes life is all about taking chances,’ he murmured softly.
Brianna hadn’t taken a chance in such a long time that she had forgotten what it felt like. The last chance she had taken had been with Danny, and hadn’t that backfired spectacularly in her face? She had settled into a groove and had firmly convinced herself that it suited her. ‘Some people are braver than others when it comes to that sort of thing,’ she found herself muttering under her breath.
Leading remark, Leo thought. He had vast experience of women dangling titbits of information about themselves, offering them to him in the hope of securing his interest, an attempt to reel him in through his curiosity. However, for once his cynicism was absent. This woman knew nothing about him. He did not represent a rich, eligible bachelor. He was a struggling writer with no job. He had a glimpse of what it must feel like to communicate with a woman without undercurrents of suspicion that, whatever they wanted, at least part of it had to do with his limitless bank balance. He might have been adopted into a life of extreme privilege, and that privilege might have been his spring board to the dizzying heights of his success, but with that privilege and with that success had come drawbacks—one of which was an inborn mistrust of women and their motivations.
Right now, he was just communicating with a very beautiful and undeniably sexy woman and, hell, she was clueless about him. He smiled, enjoying the rare sense of freedom.
‘And you’re not one of the brave ones?’
Brianna stood up to clear the table. She had no idea where this sudden urge to confide was coming from. Was she bonding with him because, underneath those disconcerting good looks, he was a fellow artist? Because, on some weird level, he understood her? Or was she just one of those sad women, too young to be living a life of relative solitude, willing to confide in anyone who showed an interest?
Her head was buzzing. She felt hot and bothered and, when he reached out and circled her wrist with his hand, she froze in shock. The feel of his warm fingers on her skin was electrifying. She hadn’t had a response like this to a man in a very long time. It was a feeling of coming alive. She wanted to snatch her hand away from his and rub away where he had touched her... Yet she also wanted him to keep his fingers on her wrist; she wanted to prolong the warm, physical connection between them. She abruptly sat back down, because her legs felt like jelly, and he released her.
‘It’s hard to take chances when you have commitments,’ she muttered unsteadily. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his face. She literally felt as though he held her spellbound. ‘You’re on your own. You probably had sufficient money saved to just take off and do your own thing. I’m only now beginning to see the light financially and, even so, I still couldn’t just up and leave.’ She was leaning forward in the chair, leaning towards him as though he was the source of her energy. ‘I should get this place tidied up,’ she said agitatedly.
‘Why? I thought you said that the pub would be closed until further notice.’
‘Yes, but...’
‘You must get lonely here on your own.’
‘Of course I’m not lonely! I have too many friends to count!’
‘But I don’t suppose you have a lot of time to actually go out with them...’
Hot colour invaded her cheeks. No time to go out with them; no time even to pursue her art as a hobby. She hated the picture he was painting of her life. She was being made to feel as though she had sleepwalked into an existence of living from one day to the next, with each day being exactly the same. She dragged herself back to reality, back to the fact that he was just a budding writer on the hunt for some interesting material for his book. He wasn’t interested in her.
‘Will I be the sad spinster in your book?’ She laughed shakily and gathered herself together. ‘I think you’re better off with some of the more colourful characters who live here.’ She managed to get to her feet, driven by a need to put some distance between them. How could she let this one passing stranger get to her with such breath-taking speed? Lots of guys had come on to her over the years. Some of them she had known for ever, others had been friends of friends of friends. She had laughed and joked with all of them but she had never, not once, felt like this. Felt as though the air was being sucked out of her lungs every time she took a peek...as though she was being injected with adrenaline every time she came too close.
She busied herself tidying, urging him to sit rather than help. Her flustered brain screeched to a halt when she imagined them standing side by side at the kitchen sink.
She launched into nervous conversation, chattering mindlessly about the last time a snow storm had hit the village, forcing herself to relax as she recounted stories of all the things that could happen to people who were snow bound for days on end, occasionally as long as a fortnight: the baby delivered by one panicked father; the rowdy rugby group who had been forced to spend two nights in the pub; the community spirit when they had all had to help each other out; the food that Seamus Riley had had to lift by rope into his bedroom because he hadn’t been able to get past his front door.
Leo listened politely. He really ought to be paying a bit more attention, but he was captivated by the graceful movement of her tall, slender body as she moved from counter to counter, picking things up, putting things away, making sure not to look at him.
‘In fact, we all do our bit when the weather turns really bad,’ she was saying now as she turned briefly in his direction. ‘I don’t suppose you have much of that in London.’
‘None,’ Leo murmured absently. Her little breasts pointed against the jumper and he wondered whether she was wearing a bra; a sensible, white cotton bra. He never imagined the thought of a sensible, white cotton bra could be such an illicit turn-on.
He was so absorbed in the surprising disobedience of his imagination that he almost missed the name that briefly passed her lips and, when it registered, he stiffened and felt his pulses quicken.
‘Sorry,’ he grated, straightening. ‘I missed that...particular anecdote.’ He kept his voice as casual as possible but he was tense and vigilant as he waited for her to repeat what she had been saying, what he had stupidly missed because he had been too busy getting distracted, too busy missing the point of why he was stuck here in the first place.
‘I was just telling you about what it’s like here—we help each other out. I was telling you about my friend who lives in the village. Bridget McGuire...’
CHAPTER THREE
SO HIS MOTHER wasn’t the drunk or the junkie that he had anticipated, if his landlady was to be believed...
Leo flexed his muscles and wandered restlessly through the lounge where he had been sitting in front of his computer working for the past hour and a half.
Circumstance had forced him into a routine of sorts, as his optimistic plan of clearing off within a few days had faded into impossibility.
After three days, the snow was still falling steadily. It fluctuated between virtual white-out and gentle flakes that could lull you into thinking that it was all picture-postcard perfect. Until you opened the front door and clocked that the snow you’d cleared moments previously had already been replaced by a fresh fall.
He strolled towards the window and stared out at a pitch-black vista, illuminated only by the outside lights which Brianna kept on overnight.
It was not yet seven in the morning. He had never needed much sleep and here, more than ever, he couldn’t afford to lie in. Not when he had to keep communicating with his office, sending emails, reviewing reports, without her knowing exactly what was going on. At precisely seven-thirty, he would shut his computer and head outside to see what he could do about beating back some of the snow so that it didn’t completely bank up against the door.
It was, he had to admit to himself, a fairly unique take on winter sport. When he had mentioned that to Brianna the day before, she had burst out laughing and told him that he could try building himself a sledge and having fun outside, getting in touch with his inner child.
He made himself a cup of coffee and reined in the temptation to let his mind meander, which was what it seemed to want to do whenever he thought of her.
His mother was in hospital recovering from a mild heart attack.
‘She should have been out last week,’ Brianna had confided, ‘But they’ve decided to keep her in because the weather’s so horrendous and she has no one to take care of her.’
Where was the down-and-out junkie he had been anticipating? Of course, there was every chance that she had been a deadbeat, a down and out. It would be a past she would have wanted to keep to herself, especially with Brianna who, from the sounds of it, saw her as something of a surrogate mother. The woman hadn’t lived her whole life in the village. Who knew what sort of person she had been once upon a time?
But certainly, the stories he had heard did not tally with his expectations.
And the bottom line was that his hands were tied at the moment. He had come to see for himself what his past held. He wasn’t about to abandon that quest on the say-so of a girl he’d known for five minutes. On the other hand, he was now on indefinite leave. One week, he had told his secretary, but who was to say that this enforced stay would not last longer?
The snow showed no sign of abating. When it did abate, there was still the question of engineering a meeting with his mother. She was in hospital and when she came out she would presumably be fairly weak. However, without anyone to act as full-time carer, at least for a while, what was the likelihood of her being released from hospital? He was now playing a waiting game.
And throughout all this, there was still the matter of his fictitious occupation. Surely Brianna would start asking him questions about this so-called book he was busily writing? Would he have to fabricate a plot?
In retrospect, out of all the occupations he could have picked, he concluded that he had managed to hit on the single worst one of them all. God knew, he hadn’t read a book in years. His reading was strictly of the utilitarian variety: legal tomes, books on the movements of financial markets, detailed backgrounds to companies he was planning to take over.
The fairly straightforward agenda he had set out for himself was turning into something far more complex.
He turned round at the sound of her footsteps on the wooden floor.
And that, he thought, frowning, was an added complication. She was beginning to occupy far too much space in his head. Familiarity was not breeding contempt. He caught himself watching her, thinking about her, fantasising about her. His appreciation of her natural beauty was growing like an unrestrained weed, stifling the disciplined part of his brain that told him that he should not go there.
Not only was she ignorant of his real identity but whatever the hell had happened to her—whoever had broken her heart, the mystery guy she could not be persuaded to discuss—had left her vulnerable. On the surface, she was capable, feisty, strong-willed and stubbornly proud. But he sensed her vulnerability underneath and the rational part of him acknowledged that a vulnerable woman was a woman best left well alone.
But his libido was refusing to listen to reason and seemed to have developed a will of its own.
‘You’re working too hard.’ She greeted him cheerfully. Having told him that she would not be doing his laundry, she had been doing his laundry. Today he was wearing the jeans she had washed the day before and one of her father’s checked flannel shirts, the sleeves of which he had rolled to the elbows. In a few seconds, she took in the dark hair just visible where the top couple of buttons of the shirt were undone; the low-slung jeans that emphasised the leanness of his hips; the strong, muscular forearms.
Leo knew what he had been working on and it hadn’t been the novel she imagined: legal technicalities that had to be sorted out with one small IT company he was in the process of buying; emails to the human resources department so that they reached a mutually agreeable deal with employees of yet another company he was acquiring. He had the grace to flush.
‘Believe me, I’ve worked harder,’ he said with utmost truth. She was in some baggy grey jogging bottoms, which made her look even slimmer than she was, and a baggy grey sweatshirt. For the first time, her hair wasn’t tied back, but instead fell over her shoulders and down her back in a cascade of rich auburn.