Out Of The Night. PENNY JORDAN
her waist. Her wrists were fragile and narrow, and she had the longest eyelashes he had ever seen—unless they were false…
As he stole another look at Emily’s sleeping profile, just to make sure that he hadn’t imagined that thick, long sweep of curling lashes, the road dipped for a hundred-yard stretch where it was fully exposed to the full force of the blizzard, and before he could do a single thing about it his Land Rover had run straight into an eight-foot drift of snow.
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS Matt’s savage curse that woke Emily, combined with the sudden jarring sensation as the Land Rover’s engine stalled.
As she opened her eyes and blinked sleepily, she realised immediately what had happened, and it was Emily and not Francine who asked automatically, ‘Can we dig our way out, or…?’
Matt gave her a sharp look. Was she serious? The only women he knew would rather die of exposure than risk their long varnished nails by wielding a spade. ‘It might be easier to reverse; the drifts are only going to get worse if we turn back.’
Immediately Emily shook her head. ‘It’s too late,’ she told him calmly. ‘The road will be blocked where it dips down to the river. That’s always the first place the drifts form.’
He gave her another sharp look, but recalling the stretch of road she was referring to had to admit that she was probably right.
‘It looks as if we’re well and truly stuck, then,’ he said tersely. Inwardly he was cursing himself for not setting out earlier. If he had not been having doubts about the wisdom of interviewing for this new job…
Now he had no option but to spend what was left of the night in the close confines of his Land Rover with this idiotic female, who smelled disturbingly of some kind of no doubt expensive French scent.
Emily would have been stunned had she known what he was thinking. The French scent was in fact the rose-scented soap she always used and was so accustomed to that she had no idea of the way it clung so pervasively to her skin.
‘I suppose we ought to get out and check that we can’t dig our way out,’ she suggested cautiously.
‘I’ll do it,’ her companion said tersely. ‘There’s no point in both of us getting soaked.’
Emily wanted to point out that, since she already was, it seemed sensible that she should be the one to check on the extent of the drifting; but she suspected that this arrogant, lordly male would never accept that a woman could do such a task as effectively as a man, so she said nothing and watched as he opened his door and climbed out.
His inspection of their plight was thorough, she had to admit when he eventually returned. She doubted that she would have had the fortitude to stay outside for so long. Snow clung to his sweater and jeans, turning him into a walking snowman, and she watched as he brushed the worst of it off before climbing back inside.
‘We haven’t a hope of getting out,’ he told her crisply, ‘and God knows how long we’ll be stuck here for.’
‘Probably only until tomorrow,’ Emily told him. ‘They normally try to keep this road open if they can. It’s a pity we can’t pull off the road to leave room for the snow plough,’ she added thoughtfully, causing him to give her a considering look.
Perhaps, after all, she was not as idiotic as he had first assumed; certainly there was no trace of panic in her behaviour at his announcement that they were stuck. He wished grimly now that he had stopped at that garage and bought himself something to eat, but he had been so conscious of how late he had been in leaving.
‘I suppose we’d better keep the coffee until we get cold,’ Emily murmured, speaking her thoughts out loud as she sifted through her brain trying to remember the most important laws of cold-weather survival.
They were more fortunate than most. They had warm clothing, a hot drink, some food, and a certain amount of shelter, although she suspected that the Land Rover would soon become very cold indeed without the engine running. She glanced over her shoulder into the rear of the vehicle, wondering if she had actually seen what looked like a rolled up sleeping-bag there. If so, they were very fortunate indeed. If not…well, she had Travis’s sweater to give her an extra layer of warmth, and, if only she could pluck up the courage to do so, she really ought to remove her wet jeans and wrap the car rug round her legs. It was silly to worry about modesty in this kind of situation, where the cold, wet fabric wrapped around her legs could dangerously lower her body temperature to the point where at some stage during their incarceration she could start to suffer from hypothermia.
As though he had read her mind, Matt suddenly said curtly, ‘You’d better get those wet jeans off. I’ve got a spare pair you can have.’
Emily struggled not to laugh at the thought of her wearing his jeans. ‘That won’t be necessary,’ she told him coolly. ‘I can use the car rug.’
To her astonishment he shook his head. ‘No, we’ll both need that later.’
When he saw her expression he said grimly, ‘Look, I don’t like this any more than you, but we’ve got to face facts. The temperature in here is going to drop so fast that within an hour both of us are going to be frozen. That means we’ve got to preserve what body heat we still have by any means we can.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s almost nine o’clock. A bit early to be thinking of going to sleep, but in the circumstances it’s going to be our wisest course of action. I’ve got a sleeping-bag in the back. It’s large enough for both of us.’
He heard her automatic protest and frowned at her before saying stiffly, ‘Spare me the shrieks of maidenly modesty; this isn’t some kind of sexual come-on. I’d be saying exactly the same thing to another man, and, given the choice between a man, a woman or a dog to share the sleeping-bag with me right now, I’d prefer the dog.’
Emily was quite sure that he would, and she knew what he was saying was the only sensible course of action open to them. Even so, something vulnerable and tender inside her shrank from the intimacy of what she knew must be done. To sleep so physically closely to this hard, cynical man, who had shown her so clearly what he thought of her and of her sex, was so directly opposed to all the dreams she had once held and cherished that it was as though that part of her emotions she had managed to blank off when Gerry hurt her had suddenly sprung into painful, hurting life; and, she thought miserably, how typical of her it was that the first time she should share such intimacy with a man had to be with one who had made it witheringly plain just how unappealing he found her.
What did she want, she asked herself crossly—to make love here in this cold, uncomfortable vehicle, with a man who was a stranger to her? Or was it simply that she wished for once in her life to see herself as desirable in a man’s eyes? Did she simply ache for the panacea of knowing that, had she wanted to pursue it, the opportunity to arouse him sexually was there?
What was happening to her? she wondered nervously. Was it because she had spent the last four days witnessing the very obvious sexual chemistry between Gracie and Travis? Was it because she had known that at night the two of them were wrapped in one another’s arms…sharing the kind of ecstasy she herself had once dreamed of knowing?
Horrible to see herself as the kind of person who could feel envious of another’s happiness…who could actually bitterly resent the unfairness of a fate that had given her such yearning romantic ideals and, at the same time, ensured that her looks and her personality must make the fulfilment of those ideals nothing more than an impossible fantasy. Far better if she could have, as her mother had once said, settled for a dull, pragmatic husband and an equally dull, placid life, instead of yearning for the intensity of passion and desire.
She was quiet for so long that Matt actually began to think she was going to refuse. Idiotic woman, he fumed. Did she really think that he would actually want to take advantage of their intimacy, here in this uncomfortable and unromantic setting?
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, wishing he had not had a sudden and disconcerting image of her lying