I’ll find her myself. But when you’re able, could you inform the authorities that a fourteen-year-old is missing? If that’s not too much bother?’
As it was nobody even knew Hannah was out there somewhere. ‘And that’s my fault too, for not thinking,’ she mumbled as she tried to shrug off his jacket.
Severo swore under his breath and, leaning down, pulled the two sides of the jacket together. ‘You can tell them yourself when we get back to civilization,’ he said as he pulled the zip all the way up to her chin again.
Neve zipped it down far enough to speak. ‘No you don’t understand. I can’t go back. I have to find Hannah. She was—’
‘No, you don’t understand.’ The woman had the survival instincts of a lemming.
‘Hannah—’
Severo gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on her shoulder as she struggled desperately to pull free. ‘What we have to do is find shelter.’ It would not be as easy as it sounded; in the last few minutes the snow had begun to fall heavier than ever.
Severo lifted his narrowed eyes to the leaden sky. Another half-hour and the light would be gone. Their best bet, he reasoned, was to head back to the abandoned off-roader. That would provide at least some shelter from the elements. Even retracing his footsteps in this near white-out was not, he recognized, going to be easy in the unfamiliar terrain. He had a good sense of direction, but in these conditions it would be all too easy to become fatally disorientated.
‘No…no!’ Neve panted, struggling wildly but with little effect against the steely restraint of his grasp. ‘You don’t understand, I have to—’
Severo, his voice harsh with impatience, cut across her shrill impassioned plea. ‘You may have a death wish, but I do not.’
Neve regarded him with contempt and set her jaw. ‘Fine, you go back or wherever, but I’m going on.’
Severo watched her lips, seeing them move, tuning out the hysterical babble, but unable, even at a moment when all his attention needed to be concentrated on the crucial matter of survival, not to appreciate the lushness of the pink outline.
Under the ski mask a fleeting grimace twisted his wide sensual mouth. As he acknowledged the male weakness a moment later it was replaced by an expression of steely resolve. Time was of the essence; to be out here when darkness fell was not a good idea.
‘What are you—?’ Neve let out a startled yelp as she found herself heaved casually off the ground a moment later and slung over a male shoulder. ‘Put me down!’ she shrieked.
He grunted in response to the kick she landed, but did not reply to her demand. He just carried on walking, head bent against the driving snow.
Chapter Three
SEVERO placed his burden down on her feet.
He shot out a steadying hand when her knees sagged. ‘You are all right?’
He sounded more irritated than concerned, and Neve weakly batted his gloved hand away. All right? Just her luck to get rescued—or was it kidnapped?—by a man of few words and all of them stupid!
‘No, I’m not all right!’ she panted.
She had been hauled cross country against her will with all the dignity of a sack of coal, she was exhausted, she was cold, she was paralysed with fear and guilt every time she thought of Hannah!
All right?
She bit her quivering lip, resisting the strong temptation to lie face down in the snow and cry. She took a deep sustaining breath and reminded herself she was not a wimp—she just had wimpish tendencies.
Severo took her reply at face value and chose not to notice the quivering resentment in her voice. He flexed his shoulders, aware that she was struggling not to fall apart; nine out of ten people already would have. The redhead might be stupid but she was also gutsy.
‘Well, you’re alive.’ Alive was something she might not be if he had not found her. Severo felt his anger mount as he considered her criminal stupidity. ‘So stop moaning.’
The terse direction made her blink.
‘I don’t know who you think you are—’ She stopped, realising that she didn’t have the faintest idea who he was or what he was except selfish, insensitive and extremely fit. The latter was a given—after the fifteen-minute slog through the snow carrying her he had to be exhausted, but there was nothing to suggest even slight fatigue in his manner. Her glance slid to his broad chest; he was not even breathing hard under the black fleece.
‘Just who are you anyway?’
‘I’m the man who saved your life. You can,’ he added sardonically, ‘thank me later, when I will happily give you my life history.’
‘A name would be quite sufficient, and I didn’t ask to be saved.’ Neve knew that she sounded quite unbelievably childish and ungrateful, but her frustration at being forcibly brought here when she ought to be searching for Hannah made it hard for her to be gracious. ‘I didn’t need saving.’
His lips twisted into an ironic smile as he fished out his mobile and tried for a signal: nothing. ‘Yeah, I could see that you had the situation under control.’
Neve, who had held her breath while he tried his phone, watched him slide it back into his pocket, barely registering his sarcasm.
‘No signal?’
He shook his head.
Neve pulled her spirits out of the depressing downward spiral they had taken since Hannah had run out of the inn, and straightened her shoulders. This was not the time to get negative. Looking around, she finally took in the lit building behind her. Lights meant people, and this place was lit up like a Christmas tree.
‘What is this place?’ Other than the answer to her prayers. The people inside would be able to raise the alarm, finally. Of course, the search parties would already be out if she had thought before acting, and Hannah might already be safe, not out there somewhere, lost, cold…Neve shook her head, refusing to follow the thought to its horrid conclusion.
Stay positive.
She would find Hannah, and her stepdaughter would be all right.
She had to be all right!
Severo watched with growing fascination as the flicker of expressions moved across her pale face. In a matter of seconds he registered a gamut of emotions, all extreme, from deep despair to steely-eyed determination.
Born in another age she would have made a great silent-screen actress—that face could convey more than several pages of dialogue.
When he didn’t respond Neve brushed a wet strand of hair from her cheek and angled a questioning look up at him.
‘A barn conversion, I’d say, and a safe haven.’ He was beginning to wonder if this woman had at any point had the faintest idea of how much danger she had been in. Her attitude certainly made it seem unlikely.
Lucky for her she led a charmed life and he had developed a fascination for red hair and electric-blue eyes.
Neve took a deep breath. She didn’t want a safe haven while Hannah was still out there. ‘Hopefully the people here will not be too worried about their own skins, unlike some, and—’
Without turning, he cut her off. He did not need to be hailed a hero—in fact he would have run a mile to avoid such a scenario—but a simple thank-you might be nice.
‘Can you save the reading of my character until we get out of this? We cowards do not have conversations in the middle of a blizzard—and don’t try to run because I will find the necessity to catch you irritating.’
In the act of turning, Neve froze. ‘Is that a threat?’ she demanded through teeth that were now chattering