for stopping, nurse. Don’t know how I’d have coped with all that on my own.”
Perfectly well, if a bit more slowly, Gloria guessed. “The boys are lucky to have you.”
“They’re not much trouble. Not like some of the evacuees I’ve heard of. Mrs. Smith down the lane had two girls who were crawling with lice and stitched into their clothes. Would you believe it?”
Gloria would. She’d seen plenty of it when the first wave of evacuees arrived.
She’d been longer at the Graysons’ than she’d realized. Now the days were drawing in, it was almost dark and she hated cycling the lanes with the miserable shaded light that the blackout required. As if an enemy plane up how many hundred feet would see the flicker of light from a bicycle.
But she wasn’t about to break the law.
Keeping as close to the edge as she dared, without risking landing in a ditch, Gloria followed the lane as best she could. A long gap in the hedge showed she’d reached the heath, and when she sensed the trees ended, she guessed she was somewhere near the munitions camp. They were keeping a very tight blackout after the trouble a few weeks back.
Soon the road pitched downhill sharply and Gloria readied for the first bend. She wobbled a little in the dark, even considered getting off and pushing her cycle but the sooner she got home the happier she’d be.
The second bend undid her. If she hadn’t been so engrossed in avoiding the hedges, she’d have heard the car engine coming behind her. As it was, by the time the narrow beam of shaded lights caught her, it was too close. The driver steered sharply to avoid her, but clipped her back wheel.
She went over the handlebars and ended up in the damn ditch after all.
The car stopped, narrow slits of headlight angled in her direction.
“I’m frightfully sorry,” a voice called in the darkness.
So was she.
And damp and muddy into the bargain. She was going to have to wash her uniform when she got home and dry it in front of the stove. “Can you help me out?”
“Absolutely! I’ve a torch in the car. Hang on a tic.”
He was back in moments, the unshaded beam of light wavering in his hand, in complete contravention of blackout regulations. As the light glanced over her face, the man gasped. “Stone the crows! It’s Nurse Prewitt!”
Her rescuer (and attacker come to that) had the advantage there but his voice was familiar. “Yes, it is. Could you give me a hand?” The ditch was deeper than she’d expected.
“Righto! Let’s get this off you first.”
A weight was lifted off her shoulder and she realized her bicycle had landed on top of her. “That feels better.”
“You’ll feel a whole lot better still when we get you out of there.” She grabbed a pair of strong hands and scrambled up the side of the ditch on her knees but when she tried to stand, her right leg buckled under her and she cried out in pain.
“Damn!” She forgave herself swearing. “I think I’ve done in my ankle.”
Before she barely finished speaking, he’d scooped her up in his arms. Nice strong arms at that. Rubbing her face against the twill of his mac wasn’t part of the plan, but she did it anyway, leaning into him as his arms held her close. He smelled of hard-working male and fresh air. Her heart gave a little flip and another.
Come off it! This feeling helpless had to be affecting her nerves. She was used, quite literally, to standing on her own two feet and was most definitely not going whoosy over the first strong man who picked her up. Ridiculous!
She gave a little giggle, which he probably took for impending hysterics. He stiffened and held her very carefully. “Better get you on dry land.”
Good point, her legs were cold and wet and she was probably dripping all over him. Whoever he was.
He sat her on the bonnet of his car and in the weak light from the torch still somehow in his hand, she looked down at her ankle. Her foot hung crooked.
“It’s broken.” Just what she did not need with new evacuees due any day now. And she’d torn her stockings. Where was she going to get another pair? She couldn’t cycle into Dorking with her leg in a cast.
“You look bad. Is the pain awful?”
She looked up at his face. Small wonder his voice sounded familiar! It was the supervisor from the plant. The absolutely dishy man that half the single women in the village (and a few of the married ones) were constantly mooning over. And he’d had his arms around her! “Mr. Barron!”
“Guilty as charged.” In the beam of light he smiled. It was a very nice smile. Sexy even. No, it was not! Sexy was not what she needed right now. Helpful, strong, responsible, thoughtful. Not sexy.
“Mr. Barron, I hate to bother you, but would you mind driving me to the hospital?”
He hesitated. For all of three seconds. “That bad is it?”
“Afraid so.” She lifted her leg a little. “Look.”
“Crikey! I’ll get you there. And I’m sorry! Let’s put you in the car then. Back seat might be best, you can prop that leg up.”
It wasn’t the most luxurious back seat in the world. The stuffing was coming out of the cracked leather in a couple of places, but with a rolled up blanket behind her and what was left of her nurse’s cape over her legs, she was as comfortable as she could hope to be.
With her battered bicycle on the roof, they headed down the hill. “Won’t take us long, I hope,” he said. “I feel terrible about this. I should have seen you.”
She knew just how limited human eyes were in the dark. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not dead yet.” Crippled and disabled maybe.
“I should hope not! I’d never be able to show my face in Brytewood again if I’d dispatched the nurse to the hereafter.”
“I’m not heading there any time soon, I hope. Assuming you make it down this hill safely.”
“I’ll get you there, don’t worry.”
It sounded very much like a promise.
Balderdash! More like an earnest hope on his part.
Or hers.
Sitting in the dark, she had a serious talk with herself. She was in shock. That was it. She’d seen the symptoms in patients. Confusion went along with it. Her chest was tight because she was suffering from shock. She’d had a nasty tumble and broken her ankle. That was why her heart was racing and she was feeling like jelly inside.
It had absolutely nothing to do with Andrew Barron up in the driver’s seat. She was out of her mind. The man hauls her out of a ditch (after putting her there in the first place) and she goes all wobbly. Ridiculous! The utter last thing she needed was involvement with a human male. It was bad enough Sergeant Pendragon suspected she was a bit more than she appeared.
But she’d brushed him off and everything was fine.
She’d be fine,
Just as long as she never, ever, felt Andrew Barron’s arms around her again.
Chapter Two
“We are facing a difficulty.” Hans Weiss glanced at the other two vampires in his landlady’s unheated parlor. He wasn’t entirely convinced they weren’t involved somehow. How else could a vampire disappear without a trace, except at the hand of another stronger, older vampire?
“Difficulty?” Schmidt said, his voice sharp with worry. “You, my friend, are sounding too much like these damn island monkeys. It is a disaster!”
Bloch