and the snow glistened on short black hair and on a lean-boned face that was breathtakingly, uncompromisingly masculine. He was exotically foreign, his skin the colour of burnished gold. Her heart set up a tempo that was so alien to her that she could feel bright, flustered colour invade her cheeks.
‘Are you comfortable?’ she managed to ask in a staccato voice that was very different from her usually calm, unruffled tone.
‘As comfortable as I can be with a leg that’s been ripped open.’
At which Holly roused herself out of her stupor sufficiently to look at the bloodied trousers and she gave a little gasp of horror.
‘You need the hospital.’ She switched on the engine. The snow was falling more heavily and it took her a little while before her tyres could grip the tarmac.
‘How far is it?’
‘Quite far.’ She had to fight the temptation to sneak one more look at that face. ‘You’re not from around here, are you?’
‘Is it so easy to tell?’ Luiz rested his head against the window and stared at her profile. He had the strangest feeling that he had crashed, died and gone to heaven, because she was the most angelic thing he had ever seen in his life. Her skin was as smooth as satin, her enormous eyes were the pure blue of cornflowers; her hair, flyaway blonde, cascaded down her back and over her shoulders in natural, wild disarray, so different from the poker-straight hairstyles that were everywhere in London. The pain in his leg was now a steady throb, pulsing underneath the trousers.
‘You’re wearing the wrong clothes. No one would venture out in weather like this without a few more layers. Look, it’s going to be impossible to get you to the hospital, but I can call and find out whether they can send a rescue helicopter for you.’
Luiz thought of the carelessness that had landed him in this mess and flushed darkly. ‘I can handle it myself. There’s no need for a rescue helicopter.’
‘You’re kidding.’
When she smiled, her cheeks dimpled. He had never seen anything like it.
‘I haven’t even introduced myself,’ Holly said shyly. ‘I’m Holly George.’
‘Well, Holly George,’ Luiz murmured, ‘What were you doing out on the roads in this weather? Won’t your parents be wondering where you’ve gone?’
‘I live on my own. Not very far away, as a matter of fact. I heard you crash so I jumped in my car and drove here. I was going to alert Ben and Abe but it would have taken them ages. That’s the problem with living in such a remote place; if you run into trouble in the depths of winter, you just have to keep your fingers crossed that you can hold out for a few hours.’
‘Who are Ben and Abe?’
‘Oh, Ben’s in charge of the fire station and old Abe is the local doctor.’
‘It all sounds very cosy.’
‘What were you doing on those roads?’
‘Getting rid of some of my demons.’
Holly glanced across at him at that intriguing statement but his eyes were veiled and she instinctively knew that he was not a man who would expand on anything if she chose to ask him a direct question. How did she know that? Where had that gut feeling come from?
‘Those lights up ahead…’ She turned off the main road and felt the familiarity of the grounds surrounding her cottage. ‘My cottage is there. I… I run an animal sanctuary.’
‘You do what?’
‘I run an animal sanctuary. You can just make out the buildings over there; they’re heated and covered. We have about fifty animals. Dogs, cats, two horses, a donkey… Last year we even had a pair of llamas, but fortunately they were taken in by a children’s farm.’
‘Cats… horses… a donkey…’ He had stepped into another world. This was so far beyond his realm of understanding that he could have been conversing with someone from another planet.
‘What do you do?’ Holly asked. ‘I mean, what’s your job?’
‘My job…’ They were pulling up in front of a small stone cottage, brightly lit. She turned to him and for a second his breath caught at the sight of her open, smiling heart-shaped face. He noticed details that had escaped his attention. For instance, not only were her eyes the bluest he had ever seen, but her eyelashes were incongruously dark and her mouth was full and beautifully defined. The fingers lightly gripping the steering wheel were slender, smooth and free of any rings. In fact, she wore no jewellery. Her clothes were basic, practical, unfashionable—jeans, a jumper over which she had flung a very worn, olive-green oilskin, wellies and a woollen hat with a Christmas motif. She was the least artificial person he could remember seeing in a long time.
‘And your name; what’s your name? Hang on, I’ll come round your side and help you out and we can have a look at your injury and decide what to do. I have a lot of first-aid stuff and if it’s superficial I can probably deal with it.’
Holly found that she was as tense as violin wire as once again that very masculine body was leaning against her, weighing her down even though she knew that he was doing his best to put as little pressure on her as he could. As always when she was nervous, she chattered as they walked very slowly through the snow towards the front door, and once in to the kitchen where he sat heavily on one of the pine chairs at her kitchen table.
This was just the sort of decor that Luiz loathed: lots of rustic touches and one of those enormous ranges that did very little, as far as he was concerned, aside from take up useful space. The tiles on the floor were old, as old as the weathered rug underneath the pine table. Against one wall, a dresser was home to a variety of mismatched plates which fought for space alongside little framed pictures and various bric-a-brac of the sort guaranteed to have any interior designer worth her salt gnashing her teeth in frustration.
And yet…
He watched as she bustled, fetching a first-aid kit from one of the cupboards, not even looking at him directly as she concentrated on the gash on his leg.
‘You’ll have to help me get the trousers off,’ he murmured and she hurriedly waved aside the suggestion.
Get his trousers off? Holly didn’t think that her blood pressure could take it. His presence filled her small kitchen like no one else’s ever had. However hard she tried to divert her eyes, they just kept coming back to him, big, muscular and indecently good-looking.
‘I’ll cut them. It’s better that way.’
She knelt in front of him and Luiz felt the thrust of an erection that was so strong and so unexpected that he had to draw his breath in sharply. What was it about her? She had no sharp edges, no bony elbows, thin arms or stick legs. She was soft and rounded and he could see the shape of her full breasts even in the faded jeans and even more faded jumper, as seductive as ripe fruit.
As she gently began cutting away the trouser leg, apologising about ruining the lovely cloth, his head was suddenly filled with images of her naked in front of him, offering herself to him. He fidgeted and Holly looked up immediately.
‘Have I hurt you?’
He wondered how she would react if he told her exactly what was hurting him at this moment in time.
‘You’re very brave. You must tell me if I hurt you. It’s bound to but…’
She hurried off, to return seconds later with a glass of water and some tablets.
‘Painkillers. Very strong. They’ll help.’ She could feel her skin tingling as he rested his dark eyes on her flushed face. It was strange, but when he looked at her she got the funniest feeling that she was being caressed.
‘So you haven’t told me your name…’ Once again at the task of slitting the trousers, trying to ignore the strong legs slowly being revealed with their dark hair which was somehow so aggressively masculine,