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Jasper looked stunned the morning after their wedding when she told him she didn’t want to accept all the money Tomas had offered her the night before.
‘He’s done enough. I don’t need all that amount. I only need enough to get started, and even then I’ll pay that back. I want to pay him back as soon as I can.’
‘He can afford this, you know,’ Jasper said bluntly. ‘It doesn’t mean anything to him.’
‘But it means something to me.’
Her heart ached as she remembered that kiss last night.
‘Please,’ she said quickly when she caught sight of the tall figure walking across the restaurant towards them. ‘But I don’t want him to know. Not yet.’
‘Why not?’ Jasper’s smile was curious.
‘He’ll make me keep it.’
‘Yes, he will.’
Jasper chuckled, but sobered just before Tomas came within earshot.
‘Okay, but you must let me know your address once you’re settled. You must let me know if you need anything more.’
* * *
She hadn’t needed anything more. She’d wanted, but not needed.
Now she loaded up the shopping bags again and walked along the edge of the road, hoping any traffic would be able to see her. It was slow going as her sneakers had little tread and it was slippery on the fresh fallen snow. Her feet were wet already and her cheeks stinging from the cold and her hands sore from the heavy plastic bags.
Served her right for being so forgetful.
There was no traffic, almost no noise as the snow fell. All the sensible people would be safe indoors. Zara suddenly smiled to herself. So what? She was out in the snow and it might be cold but it was very beautiful and when she got back she could make hot chocolate and sit by the fire and try not to think about him—
‘Zara! Zara!’
She stopped where she was on the side of the road, unwilling to believe either her ears or her eyes. But she recognised that tall figure materialising out of the white glare ahead of her. And she certainly recognised the abrupt tone of his voice as he furiously called out to her again as he saw her.
‘Where the hell have you been?’
‘To the village.’ She swallowed. ‘Remember?’
‘What took you so long?’ Tomas walked to within an inch of her personal space, looking slightly wild with his hair askew and fire in his eyes.
‘I was getting what I needed.’ Her voice went embarrassingly feeble.
Because he was staring at her, making the world shrink to those few inches between them. In this whitened world there was nothing but him any more.
‘And what are you doing now?’ he asked.
His implicit criticism galled her—firing her own anger. She didn’t need him to judge. ‘What do you think?’
‘Why aren’t you driving?’
She gritted her teeth and sent him a foul look.
‘Where’s your car?’ he demanded.
‘I’m not sure. It broke down back that way.’
Impossible as it ought to have been, he looked even more furious. ‘Why didn’t you phone me?’
‘Because my phone ran out of battery.’
At that he just stared at her, his mouth ajar.
‘I was distracted last night, okay?’
‘No, it is not—’
‘Is everything all right? I noticed the car broken down a mile or so ago...’
Zara jumped at the stranger’s voice. She turned and saw that a man in a green four-wheel-drive had pulled up alongside them. She’d been too focused on Tomas—and too angry—to even notice the car thrumming behind her.
‘Can I offer you a ride?’ the man asked with polite concern.
‘No,’ Tomas answered in customary surly fashion, still glaring at Zara. ‘Thank you,’ he added shortly after she’d turned back and pointedly frowned at him.
‘Tomas Gallo?’ The man’s face brightened. ‘It is Tomas, isn’t it? I’ve been hoping I might see you about.’
Only now did Tomas turn and actually look at the man.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t stop to talk,’ he said curtly. ‘I need to get Zara home—she’s been out in the cold too long.’
‘Oh, right. Of course. If you’re sure I can’t help...’
‘Thank you but no. I can handle it from here.’ Tomas reached for the bags Zara was carrying.
‘Maybe I’ll stop by the house some time...’ The man trailed off when Tomas turned and looked at him again.
‘Things are very busy for me at the moment,’ Tomas said curtly.
It was a total brush-off.
‘Er...okay, then.’
The man didn’t offer them a ride again and Zara didn’t blame him.
Zara didn’t trust herself to speak until the car’s lights had disappeared into the white. But as soon as they had she tightened her numb fingers around the plastic handles and pulled them away from Tomas’s reach as she glared at him. ‘I don’t need you to “handle it from here”.’
‘No?’
‘No. I don’t need you to rescue me.’ He’d done that once and it wasn’t ever happening again. ‘I am not incompetent.’
She was not the pathetic excuse for a human she’d once been. She’d studied. She’d got a job. She was making her own way. She was damn well happy for the first time in years. And she wasn’t allowing him to make her feel inferior.
‘No? You’ve been out walking in a snowstorm for hours wearing nothing but jeans and thin sneakers and a totally useless jacket. You’re two minutes from hypothermia.’
‘It hasn’t been hours.’
‘It’s been three in total.’
Had it? Surely not. But she refused to try to look at her watch while he was staring so huffily at her. And frankly she was amazed he’d noticed what she was wearing or that he knew exactly how long she’d been gone for.
But come to think of it, she couldn’t feel her feet or her fingers any more.
‘Put this on.’ He undid his coat.
‘I am not wearing your jacket,’ she spat.
‘You’ll wear it and like it.’
/> She tried to step around him to keep walking.
‘Don’t,’ he warned her through gritted teeth. ‘I am not in the mood.’ He dropped the jacket around her shoulders.
‘You’re the one recuperating,’ she argued.
‘I’m ten times fitter than you are.’
That was probably true.
‘And I am dressed for this weather,’ he added pointedly. ‘I have several layers on.’
Oh, he was just so perfect, wasn’t he? In his leather boots and layers of wool and far too gorgeously broad shoulders.
‘Give me the blasted groceries,’ he bellowed when she resisted him taking them again. ‘Stop trying to stop me from helping you. It isn’t a crime.’
He confiscated the grocery bags, shouldered them and scowled at her. ‘Are you sure you can keep walking? I have the car a little further back but decided to walk from there in case...’ He trailed off, his frown returning.
‘I’m fine.’ She stomped her feet, hoping to thud some feeling back into them as she walked a step behind his punishing pace.
And she really was fine.
She was also furious.
* * *
Tomas could barely contain his anger. What the hell did she think she was doing walking out in this weather? How had her car broken down? As for her phone? Incompetent wasn’t the word.
He’d been anxious about her for over an hour already. He’d had to phone Jasper to get her number and her phone had constantly switched straight to answer phone. That was when he’d really started to worry.
He hated worrying. He’d had to go out and find her.
And find her he had, smiling and basically singing to herself through a snowstorm. It was irresponsible and impossible and all he wanted to do was—
He stopped those thoughts in their tracks. They only made him all the more mad.
His anger continued to build as he got to his Jeep and threw her shopping onto the back seat. As he drove the final five minutes to home he noticed that she was suppressing her shivers. But his anger became incandescent when she shrugged off his jacket and determinedly set about putting the groceries away in the kitchen. As if all that were remotely important compared to her health?
