One Reckless Night. Sara Craven
take a good hard look at the petrol gauge.’
Zanna gasped. ‘I filled the tank before I left the motorway,’ she said stonily. ‘And I can do without the patronising remarks.’
His face hardened. ‘Just as I can do without the aggravation. Try one of the motoring organisations, lady. They’re obliged to be pleasant.’
Zanna bit her lip. ‘But that could take hours,’ she objected. ‘Whereas you’d only have to walk up the road.’ She drew another breath. ‘Look, whatever the going rate is, I’ll pay you double.’
‘There speaks the complete autocrat.’ There was no doubting the amusement in his voice now, or the accompanying touch of contempt. ‘I have news for you, sweetheart. Market economy notwithstanding, not everyone’s for sale.’
‘With an attitude like yours, I’m surprised you have a business at all,’ Zanna retorted hotly. ‘Or do they take whatever they can get in this backwater?’
‘Pretty much,’ he said. ‘Although I understand they’ve stopped flogging the peasants and selling their children into slavery.’ The dark eyes swept her from head to foot again. ‘However, if it’s such a dump, why are you honouring it with your presence.’
‘I’m not,’ she denied curtly. ‘I’m just passing through.’
‘An interesting trick,’ he said. ‘Especially as the road comes to a dead end at Hollins Farm. Maybe you should trade the car in for a juggernaut, if you plan to drive over it. Or even an amphibious vehicle,’ he added reflectively. ‘Ted Hollins has a duck pond.’
For the first time in years she was tempted to the schoolgirl rudeness of sticking her tongue out at him, but managed to restrain herself. She simply could not afford to alienate him further.
Smile as if genuinely amused, she ordered herself through gritted teeth. ‘Actually,’ she said, with studied brightness, ‘I’ve come to see the art exhibition.’
His brows lifted. ‘It’s a very local affair. No Picassos or Van Goghs. You won’t need your American Express.’ He paused meditatively before adding, ‘But I guess it’ll keep you occupied while I’m looking at your car.’
‘Thank you.’ Her voice was glacial and his grin widened.
‘Keys?’
Reluctantly Zanna dropped them into his outstretched hand.
He nodded and walked past her into the sunlight with an easy, long-legged stride. ‘I’ll see you later.’
Needled by his casual dismissal, she hurried after him. ‘Where, exactly?’
He swung round and looked at her. The dark eyes seemed to burn suddenly into hers. He said softly, ‘Oh, I’ll find you.’
It could have been a threat. It might have been a promise.
But for one startling, inexplicable moment, the breath caught in her throat and her pulses juddered in a strange mixture of excitement and something bordering on panic. She nodded abruptly, then turned away and began to walk towards the village.
And she knew, before she’d gone fifty yards, that if she glanced back over her shoulder she would find him watching her.
CHAPTER TWO
DEFEATING an almost overwhelming impulse to break into a run, Zanna walked briskly, head held high, round the turn in the lane. Once she was sure she was safely out of sight she slowed down, making herself breathe deeply in an attempt to regain her faltering composure.
This was the second time in a couple of hours that she’d been made to feel disconcerted and on edge. And she didn’t like it, not one little bit.
Just what I needed, she thought with angry irony. A garage hand with attitude. The ideal end to a perfect day.
And she was determined it would be the end. She was already deeply regretting this sentimental detour. As soon as the car was fixed she would be off back to her city centre hotel and its mechanical civilities. At least she knew what to expect there.
However, the village, when reached, was certainly charming. The cottages which lined the road were stone built, many with thatched roofs and gardens bright with seasonal flowers. Aubretia tumbled in shades of purple and crimson over low front walls, and laburnum and lilac trees were already heavy with blossom.
The road itself led straight to the broad expanse of the village green. Apart from a railed-off cricket square in the middle, it was tenanted solely by a pair of tethered goats, who lifted their heads from their grazing to watch Zanna curiously.
She hesitated in turn, wondering what to do first and feeling ridiculously conspicuous.
On the face of it, there was no one else around. Emplesham seemed to be drowsing in the sunlight. But Zanna sensed, all the same, that from behind the discreetly curtained windows of the clustering cottages her arrival had been noted.
She decided, for reasons she could barely explain to herself, not to pinpoint Church House immediately. She’d behave like any other tourist who’d stumbled in off the beaten track. She was here, ostensibly, to look at an art exhibition, and that was what she would do.
The green was bordered on three sides, she saw, by more houses, a shop-cum-post office, a pub—whose sign announced it as the Black Bull and offered real ale, meals and accommodation—and the church, rising like a stately and benign presence behind its tall yew hedge. Apart from a narrow track beside the churchyard, which presumably led to the farm mentioned by her persecutor, there was no other visible egress.
The village hall stood on the opposite side of the green to the church, a wooden board fixed to its railings advertising the exhibition.
Zanna found herself in a small vestibule, where a woman in a flowered dress, seated behind a table, paused in her knitting to sell her an exhibition catalogue for fifty pence.
‘You’re just in time.’ Her smile was friendly. ‘The show ends today and we’ll soon be clearing the hall for tonight’s dance.’
‘Dance?’ Zanna’s brows lifted. Far from being asleep, Emplesham seemed to be the Las Vegas of the neigh bourhood, she thought caustically.
‘Oh, yes,’ the woman said cheerfully. ‘It’s become an annual event. We combine the art club’s exhibition with the church’s spring flower festival and make it a real celebration.’ She nodded towards the double doors leading into the hall. ‘I hope you enjoy the show—although there isn’t a great deal left for sale, I’m afraid.’
‘It really doesn’t matter,’ Zanna assured her politely. ‘I’ll just enjoy looking round,’ she added, not altogether truthfully.
Nothing, however, could have prepared her for the riot of colour and vibrancy which assaulted her senses inside the hall. Every possible hanging space was filled, and by work which was a thousand miles from the pallid water colours and stolidly amateurish still-lifes she’d been expecting.
Landscapes in storm and sunlight seemed to leap off their canvases at her as she trod cautiously round. She could almost imagine she could smell the scent of the grass and trees, feel on her face the wind that drove the heavy clouds.
There was a life section too, depicted robustly and without sentimentality, and, of course, the paintings of fruit and flowers which she’d been anticipating. But even here she was surprised, realising that she could almost taste the sharpness of the green apples arranged on that copper dish, that if she reached out a hand she might draw blood on the thorns of the full-blown roses spilling out of that jug. She would, she realised, have bought either of them—only they were already sold.
How in the world, she asked herself bewilderedly, could people in this small country district have learned to paint with such passionate exuberance? She found herself, absurdly, wanting to cheer.
One canvas stood alone on an easel towards the rear of the hall,