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Darcy couldn’t help but wistfully wonder what life was like with a few secret assignations—alas, unless she could rid herself of her wholesome image and get herself a bit of glamour it seemed unlikely that she would ever find out!

‘My name’s Reece Erskine.’ So much for anonymity.

Nobody started in recognition at the sound of his name— Maybe I’m not as famous as I think, he wondered. A self-deprecating little smile made his mobile lips quiver as he relaxed a little.

‘I don’t need to trouble you; if I could just use your phone…’ His firm words only elicited a few fleeting glances of benevolent dismissal.

Reece wasn’t used to having his opinion dismissed and he found the novel experience irritating. It was even more irritating that he didn’t have enough functioning brain cells to demonstrate to them how very much in control he really was.

‘Shouldn’t we call an ambulance?’ a worried Jack Alexander appealed to his eldest stepchildren.

‘Was he out long?’ Nick asked his sister.

‘I’m not sure…’

‘I wasn’t unconscious at all.’ Reece’s jaw tightened; he might just as well have spoken to the brick wall beside him for the notice anyone was taking.

‘It would probably be quicker to take him to Casualty ourselves.’ Darcy held out her hand expectantly as young Charlie returned conspicuously empty-handed.

‘I can’t find it.’

She gave a sigh of exasperation and glared up at her tall young brother. ‘Do I have to do everything myself?’ she wondered witheringly.

To Reece’s amazement, the big guy shifted uncomfortably and looked sheepish before he joined his twin at the far end of the room. He was finding the family dynamics of this noisy household deeply confusing. Maybe it’s me…? Maybe I’m concussed, he thought. He closed his eyes and the room continued to spin.

Darcy took the stairs at the far end of the room two steps at a time. She tore along the narrow upper hallway, shedding her layers as she went—the First Aid kit was exactly where she’d said it would be. Why couldn’t men find something when it was right under their noses…?

‘Learnt helplessness,’ she snorted in knowledgeable disgust, and Mum let them get away with it, she thought disapprovingly as she rapidly retraced her steps. Her respect for what her mother accomplished on the home front had increased by leaps and bounds since she’d arrived home.

She ripped the scrunchy thing that had slid down to the slippery end of her shiny pony-tail free and shoved it in her pocket before she gave her head a little shake and lifted her fine hair free of the collar of her ribbed polo-necked sweater.

‘I’ll just clean up this head wound first.’ He endured her cleaning the small but deep head wound with stoicism. ‘I think it might be your collar-bone.’ Darcy bent over the chair, bringing her face almost on a level with his.

He didn’t know where she’d come from but he wasn’t complaining; she was a major improvement on all the brawn. He watched her narrow, slender hands as she set about her task. They were nice hands, and it was an even nicer face. A roundish face with a pointy little chin, a hint of sultriness about the full lower lip…? No more than a hint, he decided, revising his original estimate as she raised the big blue kitten eyes to his face and murmured… ‘Sorry. I broke mine once,’ she continued in a slightly husky, oddly familiar voice. ‘I know how much it hurts. I think it’ll be less painful if it’s supported, but if I hurt you too much, yell.’

‘I will.’

Darcy’s eyes lifted; under the scrutiny of those wide-spaced blue eyes, Reece got that strange feeling of familiarity again as she gave an unconvinced little smile.

‘A fine little nurse our Darcy is,’ the fatherly-looking figure remarked fondly.

Darcy; where had he heard that before…?

‘They’ll want to X-ray you in the hospital, I expect.’

She was halfway through tying the supportive sling gently around his neck before a stunned Reece saw what had been blindingly obvious all along.

The schoolboy and the slender, but very obviously feminine blonde were one and the same person!

‘You’re a girl!’ he blurted out unthinkingly.

The note of resentment in the shocked cry made Darcy’s lips twitch and her stepfather’s expression grow concerned.

‘Perhaps I ought to call that ambulance.’

Darcy put the final twitch to the knot around his neck and straightened up, brushing her hands down the gentle curve of her thighs.

‘I’m Darcy.’

‘Reece,’ he gulped, not meeting her eyes. Since discovering the gender of his rescuer Reece seemed unable to stop looking at her breasts; they were full, rounded and at that moment strained against the tight sweater she wore.

She bent a little closer. ‘34 C,’ she whispered.

His head came up with a jerk; predictably she was smiling.

In someone more fair-skinned the deepening of colour beneath that even olive tone of his skin would have been a full-scale blush.

‘Mr Erskine thought I was a boy,’ she explained solemnly to her family. Having been the victim of this mortifying case of mistaken identity, she didn’t feel inclined to spare her patient’s embarrassment.

After a startled pause, this announcement was greeted with predictable hilarity. The twins cracked up; even Jack looked amused.

‘Now, there’s a novelty.’ Nick lost his habitual sardonic sneer as he grinned in malicious delight at his sister.

Not wanting to come over as someone totally without humour, Reece smiled—it wasn’t the easiest thing he’d ever done.

Darcy wasn’t a vindictive girl—she’d made her point, and she had no wish to see him squirm excessively. She decided to take the spotlight off his mistake.

‘Wasn’t it you, Nick who gave up your seat on the train to the pregnant lady who wasn’t…?’

Nick winced. ‘Don’t remind me.’

Reece’s eyes did another unscheduled detour—this time in the direction of her flat midriff. There was no possibility that anyone would make that particular mistake in her case. Her jeans were cinched in around an impossibly narrow waist by a wide leather belt, and the blue denim clung to a nicely rounded bottom and slender thighs… The more details he took in, the more he felt inclined to think he really was concussed—nothing else could explain the fact he’d mistaken her for a boy!

‘I’ll take him to the hospital.’

‘That’s all right, Darce, I’ll do it,’ Nick offered.

Darcy reached up and ruffled his hair affectionately. ‘No, you’ve just had a long drive—I’ll do it. Always supposing you two filled up my car last night after you used it.’

The blond-haired seventeen-year-olds looked innocently hurt that she’d raised the possibility they might have found a better use for her twenty quid.

‘As if we would.’

The three older members of their family snorted.

‘It’s really not necessary…’ Reece began, getting to his feet. ‘I’ve no wish to impose.’

The pocket-sized blonde looked amused by his attempt to regain a bit of dignity. ‘You’ve already imposed, Mr Erskine,’ she responded bluntly. ‘So you might as well get your money’s worth.’

CHAPTER TWO

REECE levered himself into the cramped front seat of the Beetle. He rapidly discovered there was a soggy patch in the worn upholstery. A quick survey revealed the half-open window was the most likely culprit. He tried to close it, but it seemed as though the ventilation was permanent.

Reece, who liked his cars the same way he liked his women—sleek, racy and maintenance-free—gritted his teeth and settled back to make the best of it.

‘I’ll be with you in a minute,’ the diminutive blonde promised, bending down to peer with concern at him through the window.

Reece saw she’d discarded the yellow cagoule thing in favour of more feminine garb—a dark ankle-length trench coat that billowed as she ran off down the steep path towards the grim-faced big brother, who, it seemed to Reece, was the only one of the family with enough common sense to view him, a total stranger, with even a hint of suspicion.

A heated conversation ensued and, thanks to the broken window and prevailing icy wind, Reece could hear snatches of what they were saying.

‘Give me the keys, Darcy.’

‘Don’t be stupid, Nicky, you’re shattered.’

‘And you’re not?’

A blustery gust snatched away the next section of the conversation but it involved a considerable amount of gesticulation—it seemed to Reece that his colourful neighbours favoured extravagant body language.

‘What if he’s a homicidal psychopath…or a sex maniac? Or worse?’

Reece’s muzzy, throbbing head didn’t immediately make the connection between the sinister character they were discussing and himself until the brother continued in a suspicious growl, ‘…And I’m sure I’ve seen his face somewhere before. Erskine…Erskine…why does that sound familiar…? Don’t laugh, Darce, I’m serious. Your trouble is you’re too damned trusting.’

Under the circumstances, it seemed more than legitimate to eavesdrop. Reece leant casually towards the open window but unfortunately a large dog chose that particular moment to poke his nose through the gap and lick him affectionately on the forehead. He withdrew swiftly to avoid any more displays of overt affection.

‘See!’ he heard the girl cry triumphantly. ‘Wally likes him.’

He assumed the canine approval finally swung it because a few moments later the blonde came jogging energetically down the path towards the car. She fended off the affections of the dog, who bounded over as he saw her coming, and only clicked her tongue in irritation as she brushed off the large muddy paw-prints on her coat.

‘No, Wally, you can’t come today.’

Reece didn’t think he’d miss the large, slobbering dog.

‘Sorry I was so long.’ Darcy’s smile faded as her eyes collided with the large stranger’s green eyes and their gazes meshed. His stare had a heady, narcotic quality, and for a moment Darcy was physically incapable of looking away.

A breathless, confusing moment later she was free of that mesmeric gaze, and other than a heart that was still thudding too fast and loud and a dryness in her throat there were no lasting side-effects. It all happened so fast she wasn’t really sure in retrospect if anything unusual had happened—he certainly wasn’t acting as if it had.

Naturally she was relieved to see that the clouded vagueness had gone from his eyes, but she didn’t consider the cool, analytical detachment that had replaced it to be an unqualified improvement!

‘I’m not in any position to complain…?’ The fleeting smile might have softened his hard eyes but Darcy was making a point of not looking—she didn’t want a repeat performance of that silliness! The little shudder that chased its chilly pathway up her slender spine had nothing to do with the weather.

‘Darcy.’ For a fleeting, selfish moment she almost regretted not letting Nick, even in his exhausted condition, drive him.

‘Of course…Darcy. I’m in your debt, Darcy.’

Darcy could almost hear him thinking, Outlandish name…outlandish family. She had a strong suspicion that had this man not considered himself in her debt he would have had no qualms about complaining; he didn’t give her the impression of someone who had a particularly high patience quotient. She just couldn’t see him suffering in silence.

‘I’m not keeping score.’ She decided to make allowances for his attitude. I probably wouldn’t want to smile either if I’d just bashed my head and bust my arm, she reasoned.

‘You’re just being neighbourly, I suppose?’

This time it was impossible to misinterpret the acerbic scepticism in his voice. She twisted the excess moisture from the ends of her wet hair as she slid in beside him. With a wet splat the hair was casually flicked over her shoulder. There was a faint puzzled line between her feathery eyebrows as she turned in her seat and levelled her thoughtful gaze at him.

‘Is that so unusual?’ she asked, unable to keep the edge from her voice.

‘Only slightly less so than an honest politician.’

Reece had noticed straight off that at some point during the last few minutes she’d paused to anoint those wide lips with a covering of glossy lipstick, and the soft colour clung stubbornly to the damp outline. This evidence of female vanity amused Reece; it also drew his attention to the soft lushness of her mouth.

Through the miasma of dull pain he felt his libido drowsily stir. It was the sort of mouth it was a crime not to kiss. Reece shifted uncomfortably as she gazed trustingly over at him. That was definitely one for the modern-man-is-a-myth school.

‘Well, it looks like your cynicism has survived the crack on the skull intact—congratulations.’

‘You sound disapproving…?’

Darcy shrugged; she didn’t fight with people who were in urgent need of medical attention—even if they were misguided.

‘In my experience people rarely do anything for nothing,’ he announced, authoritatively doling out some more of his homespun cynicism.

This was a man who had very definite opinions, she decided, and a strong belief in his own infallibility. Darcy was beginning to suspect it might be mixed blessings that Reece Erskine had recovered his wits—he was one seriously joyless individual. In a different situation she might have been tempted to put up a strong argument against this jaundiced slant on life, but under the circumstances she contented herself with a gentle, ‘I promise you, I have no hidden motives.’

Despite her assurance, his silent response—this man could do things with an eyebrow that defied belief!—made it abundantly clear that he wouldn’t have taken her words at face value if she’d had her hand on a stack of Bibles.

She found it increasingly hard to hide her growing antipathy as she carefully scraped a clear area in the condensation on the windscreen in a businesslike manner.

Reece couldn’t decide if he was being reprimanded or not. However, there was nothing ambiguous about her disapproval—the stuff was emanating from her in waves! He caught the full force of it almost as clearly as the light perfume that pervaded her smallish person—his nostrils twitched; it was light, flowery and vaguely distracting, but it made a pleasant change from the wet-dog smell that wafted every so often from the direction of the old blanket flung over the back seat.

He watched as she wiped the excess moisture from her face with the back of her hand; her skin was remarkably clear, creamy pale and very lightly freckled.

‘She doesn’t like wet weather,’ Darcy explained defensively as the engine spluttered and fizzled on the first three attempts.

‘Who doesn’t…?’

‘Bingo!’ Darcy gave a gentle sigh of relief when the engine eventually came to life. ‘She’s temperamental sometimes,’ she explained, banging the dashboard affectionately.

Reece wasn’t really surprised that she endowed the rusty pile of metal with human characteristics—it was entirely in keeping with the sentimental, mawkish traits this girl had displayed so far.

‘The heater will warm up in a minute,’ she promised with another trusting beam in his direction—she wasn’t the type to hold a grudge, it seemed. ‘I’ll take the back road and we’ll be there in no time at all.’

‘Good,’ he said, turning his face deliberately to the dismal view through the window. He hoped she’d take the hint and leave him in peace, since there wasn’t any place he could escape if she didn’t.

The snub was deliberate enough to bring a flush of annoyance to her cheeks. There was nothing Darcy would have liked more than to let her moody passenger brood in peace; he wasn’t her idea of the ideal travelling companion—not by a long chalk!

The problem was he’d had a bump on the head; for all she knew, he might have a fractured skull! If he dozed off, how was she to know if he’d just fallen asleep or lapsed into a coma? This alarming possibility made her search his face surreptitiously for signs of imminent collapse—she found none.

But she did discover that in the subdued light her passenger’s to-die-for bone-structure had an almost menacing quality. Nick’s outlandish hypotheses were still fresh in her mind, and Darcy reasoned that this explained the small bubble of anxiety which she sensibly pushed aside—at least she thought it was anxiety that was responsible for the adrenalin surge that had her body on red alert.

The idea of being stuck miles away from medical assistance with an unconscious man had limited appeal for Darcy. No, the fastidious and reserved Mr Erskine was going to stay awake whether he liked it or not!

Trying to keep her growing uneasiness from her voice, she asked, ‘What brings you to this part of the world?’ Only a comment on the weather, she decided, could be less innocuous—not that you’d think so by his tight-lipped, rude response.

‘Solitude.’ Surely she’d take the hint now.

With anyone else Darcy would have felt inclined to put down this display of boorish bad manners to pain and discomfort—with anyone else…!

He considered himself a tolerant, patient sort of bloke, but ten minutes and what felt like several hundred questions later Reece was having trouble controlling his temper.

‘You can’t possibly be spending Christmas at the Hall!’

He hadn’t come right out and said so—actually the gorgeous but tight-lipped Mr Erskine hadn’t come right out and said anything without prompting, and then it had been as vague and uninformative as he could make it—but by a process of elimination Darcy was now pretty sure the injured hunk was actually staying at the semi-derelict Hall for the duration of the holiday.

‘Oh…?’ Reece wasn’t about to let on that he’d been thinking much the same thing himself. After all his furtive planning he was going to end up holed up in some tinsel-decked hotel again this year.

Darcy felt encouraged to pursue her point—by his standards, this response had been positively garrulous.

In the cramped conditions—the car hadn’t been constructed with his length of leg in mind—he lost all feeling in his right foot. Reece slowly shifted his right leg, rotating his ankle. His muscle-packed thigh nudged against the blonde’s leg.

A startled, gusty breath snagged in Darcy’s throat. A sensation that was all fizzing sexual awareness and no common sense dramatically surged through her, coalescing in a squirmy mess low in her belly.

Help, where had that come from?

The momentary distraction almost had disastrous consequences.

‘Hell!’ She braked sharply to allow the bedraggled cat dazed by the headlights to cross from one side of the narrow lane to the other. The feral creature disappeared into the dark undergrowth. ‘Whew! Close call.’ Her heartbeat slowed down to a steady canter as they accelerated away.

You could say that again! The abrupt halt had sent Reece’s head on a collision course with the windscreen—the seat restraint was the only thing that had stopped him making contact. The pressure against his damaged ribs was exquisitely painful. It was becoming obvious to Reece that his chauffeur was the type of bleeding heart who saw no conflict in risking life and limb to save a dumb animal—probably the less appealing the better.

‘Are you all right?’

Now she asks! ‘I’m fine!’

Darcy’s dark brows shot quizzically towards her fair hairline; his taut tone had been several degrees to the right of brusque.

‘You’re obviously not.’ No doubt such stoicism was admirable but in this instance not really practical. ‘Have you hurt yourself some more…? Shall I stop the car…?’

And prolong the agony of sharing space with Miss Sweetness and Light? Anything, he decided, was better than that—even replying to her incessant questions for another five minutes.

She obviously wasn’t going to be satisfied until he owned up to something. ‘I jarred my shoulder. Why can’t I be staying at the Hall…?’ he asked before she could press the point any further.

‘Well, leaving aside your injuries…’

‘Yes, let’s do that…’

Repressing the angry retort that hovered on the tip of her tongue, Darcy jammed her foot on the brake as the lights ahead turned red. ‘And the fact that the place is uninhabitable…’

‘I found it quite cosy.’

‘It’s Christmas!’

‘Your point being…?’

‘Time of good cheer and loving your fellow man… Does that ring any bells…?’

The cynical light in his hooded, secretive eyes intensified. ‘And come the New Year I can go back to screwing the bastards…?’ he queried hopefully.

The sound of an impatient car horn brought her attention to the green light. ‘Are you always unpleasant just for the hell of it?’

‘It does give me a nice glow,’ he admitted glibly.

‘I don’t think you’ve got the hang of the Christmas-spirit thing, Mr Erskine.’

‘It’s Reece, and as far as I’m concerned, Darcy, Christmas is just like any other day of the year…’

‘But…’

‘…except, of course, for the exceptionally high hypocrisy factor.’

‘You mean you don’t celebrate at all?’ Darcy knew that it was none of her business how this man celebrated or didn’t during the festive season, but for some reason she just couldn’t let it go. ‘What about your family…?’

‘I don’t have a family.’ Reece hardly even felt a twinge of guilt as he brutally disposed of his numerous relatives.

‘Oh!’ Darcy, who was pretty blessed in that department, felt guilty at her abundance. ‘That’s sad, but even someone like you must have friends,’ she insisted earnestly. She heard his startled intake of breath. Oh, dear, that hadn’t come out quite as she’d intended.

‘Are you trying to wind me up?’

‘Why would I?’ Even if it was exhilarating in a dangerous sort of way.

‘Sins of a previous life catching up with me…?’

Darcy repressed a grin. Sarcastic pig…!

‘Maybe you don’t have any friends,’ she countered nastily.

‘I have friends,’ he confirmed tightly. ‘The sort who respect my privacy,’ he added pointedly.

‘Then it’s a religious thing…?’

Her swift change of subject made him blink. ‘What is…?’

‘Ignoring Christmas.’

‘It’s a personal-choice thing,’

‘There’s no need to yell,’ she remonstrated gently.

Reece’s nostrils flared. ‘Hard as this might be for you to comprehend, I don’t like the festive season.’

‘It must be pretty spartan inside,’ Darcy mused, thinking about the bleak aspect of the old Hall.

An image of walls stripped back to bare brick ran through his mind; the draught from the open window whistling down his neck wasn’t the only thing that made him shudder.

‘Depends on what you’re used to,’ he responded evasively.

He looked to her as if he was used to the best—of everything. In fact, Darcy thought, shooting another covert glance in his direction, she didn’t think she’d ever met a man who looked more accustomed to the good life and all its trimmings than him.

That wasn’t to say there was anything pampered or soft about him—in fact, the opposite was true. Even in his present battered and bruised condition it was obvious he was in peak physical condition, and he had the indefinable but definite air of a man who would be ruthless to achieve his own ends.

Of course looks weren’t everything, and for all she knew he might be afraid of the dark and give generously to charities. Either way, why would a man like him choose to spend any time, let alone Christmas, alone in a dump like…? It made no sense…unless he was hiding out, or running away…? Perhaps Nick’s suspicions weren’t so crazy after all!

Well, even if he is a sex maniac I should be safe; he doesn’t come over as the type who goes for women who can be mistaken for boys—lucky me!

Darcy gave herself a mental shake and shrugged off the self-pitying direction of her reflections. Whilst there wasn’t much point pretending that physically this man hadn’t seriously unnerved her, there was no point advertising the embarrassing fact—though no doubt he was used to women making fools of themselves over him. As the feeling was obviously one-sided, and they were going to stay strangers, there didn’t seem much point getting bogged down with uncomfortable self-analysis.

‘Well, obviously I don’t know what the Hall is like inside at the moment, but I would have—’

Reece was not used to explaining his actions, and he decided it was time to call a halt to her interminable speculation once and for all.

‘You do surprise me,’ his acid drawl interrupted. ‘I was under the impression the locals keep fairly up-to-date with all the developments around here. I imagined I’d discovered the net-curtain-twitching capital of Yorkshire.’

Two pink spots appeared on Darcy’s smooth cheeks; she sucked in an angry breath and crunched her gears. The faintly amused condescension in his voice made her see red. Why not just call us nosy yokels with nothing better to do than gossip and be done with it? She’d have liked to bop him one on his superior nose.

‘You’ll have to make allowances for me— I’m only home for the holiday, so I’m not completely up to speed yet.’

‘That accounts for it, then.’

Darcy’s eyes began to sparkle dangerously; the man had a very nasty mouth and there were limits to how much she was willing to make allowances for his delicate condition.

‘We’re nosy? That’s pretty rich coming from someone who was spying on me from up a tree!’ She hadn’t been going to mention it because of his injuries, but he was asking for it…

Reece, who hadn’t been in a situation that made him blush for years, felt his colour rise for the second time today.

‘I wasn’t spying.’

‘That’s what all the peeping Toms say,’ she cut back with a provoking little smile.

Reece gritted his even white teeth.

‘I’ve been demoted from sex maniac, then?’

‘You were eavesdropping!’ she exclaimed accusingly, a rush of colour flooding her cheeks. Her memory in playback mode, she tried to recall exactly how bad what they’d said had been.

‘It was hard not to, the way you were yelling.’

‘Yelling is better than spying,’ she countered with undeniable accuracy.

‘I was investigating the noise pollution,’ he gritted with the air of a man on the brink of losing his temper.

At that moment they approached a particularly savage bend in the road. His knuckles whitened as he braced his good hand against the dashboard.

‘Will you do me a favour and keep your eyes on the road?’ he pleaded grimly as her smouldering eyes showed a tendency to linger indignantly on his face.

‘It’s so hard,’ she confessed apologetically, ‘when there’s you to look at.’ She sighed soulfully, placing a hand momentarily over her strongly beating heart.

Actually it was getting increasingly hard to treat the fact she was a long way from immune to his raw brand of physical magnetism as a joke.

He shifted in his seat once more, as if trying to alleviate some discomfort, and his broad shoulders nudged against hers in the restricted space of the small car.

Darcy was conscious of a fleeting feeling of guilt that she was being so mean to someone who was injured and in pain. The other feeling the brief contact created was less fleeting and much more disturbing; the fluttery sensation low in her belly went into overdrive, and pulses had started hammering a loud tattoo in places she didn’t know she had pulses! Her palms felt uncomfortably damp as she grimly gripped the cold steering-wheel.

‘Ha ha.’ Reece’s nostrils flared as he watched the provoking little witch toss her bright head. ‘You were making a racket and I came out here for peace and quiet.’

She’d never claimed to be Kiri Te Kanawa, but a racket—charming! What a great confidence-boost just when she needed it.

‘If this is a sample of your usual behaviour I think I can guarantee you that,’ she promised him drily. ‘It’s true that in the country we do take an interest in what our friends and neighbours are doing; perhaps it can be intrusive sometimes…’ she conceded.

Reece found his wandering attention captured and held by the dramatic rise and fall of her well-formed bosom. The fascination bothered him—it was totally irrational: he’d seen bosoms a lot more spectacular. He worriedly recalled reading somewhere that head injuries could totally alter someone’s personality.

‘…but I’d prefer that to indifference…’

‘God!’ Reece groaned as if in pain and rolled his head from side to side in an effort to alleviate the increasing stiffness in his neck. ‘I knew I should have taken a taxi.’

‘My driving’s not that bad,’ Darcy muttered truculently. The fact he was treating the journey like a white-knuckle ride hadn’t escaped her notice.

‘I’m very grateful for what you’ve done,’ he ground out.

He sounded as if each syllable hurt.

‘Save it! I don’t want your gratitude.’ With an airy gesture that caused the car to lurch slightly towards the centre of the road she brushed aside his protest. ‘We may be nosy in the country, but we don’t step over sick people yet, or ask for payment when we pick them up!’

She shot a disgusted glance at his perfect, slightly bruised profile; anyone would think his movements were front-page news, the way he was acting!

‘I wouldn’t like you to run away with the impression I give a damn if you get triple pneumonia. I was just making polite neighbourly conversation to take your mind off your pain.’

‘I’m not in pain.’

With a lofty sniff Darcy dismissed this transparent untruth. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to.’ An expression of fierce concentration on her face, she stared unblinkingly through the rain-washed windshield.

‘No, I don’t, do I?’

Another five minutes and the hospital came into view. Even as he broke the silence, Reece couldn’t understand what made him do so.

‘I’m being a great deal of trouble.’

As much as he liked to give the impression he didn’t have one, it looked to her as if the cranky Mr Erskine’s conscience was giving him trouble—she was in no hurry to ease it.