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‘I didn’t think it was polite to interrupt and once you were in full flow it would have been difficult.’
Erin chose to rise above the provocation, she fixed him with a glare that would have made lesser men wilt and said icily. ‘I won’t keep you.’
He grinned, displaying a set of even white teeth, and Erin decided the cowboy analogy had been wrong—he was a pirate.
‘Don’t you think under the circumstances it might be wiser to just suck it in?’
‘Suck it in?’ she echoed, looking at him in astonishment.
‘I’m sure you’re entirely self-sufficient in your own neck of the woods.’ He looked at her eyes narrowed, and speculated. ‘London?’
‘No.’
‘Well, wherever it is. This isn’t it, cara,’ he drawled.
The casual endearment caused a spark of anger to flare in her eyes but, more worryingly and fortunately less visible, a quivering liquid heat to unfurl low in her abdomen.
‘This is my home territory. You need help and I,’ he revealed with an eloquent shrug, ‘am it, if you are prepared to put up with my lack of sensitivity.’
‘I’m used to insensitive men,’ she promised. ‘Though none who are quite as sneaky and low as you. And I don’t need the cavalry.’ She angled a glance towards the horse who stood waiting for his master. ‘But if you wouldn’t mind telling me exactly where I am I’d be grateful,’ she conceded.
One darkly delineated brow lifted to a satirical angle, mockery shone in his expressive eyes.
‘If I did would you be any the wiser?’
‘Spare me the display of male superiority,’ she begged, rolling her eyes. ‘In my experience men who go down the “poor little woman couldn’t find her way out of a paper bag” route have issues with self-esteem. I am not a female stereotype.’
He lifted a hand to shade his eyes as he looked at her. ‘Oh, no, you’re not that,’ he agreed cryptically.
Erin supposed this was her cue to ask exactly what he thought she was, but she had no intention of playing his game. Besides, she wasn’t sure that she would like the answer.
She watched as he bent forward to pick up the map. He then smoothed it between his long brown fingers.
His hands, elegant and capable with long, tapering fingers, held a strange fascination for her, and the recognition disturbed her.
He disturbed her.
‘That is where you are meant to be?’ he said, stabbing the red circle with his finger and slinging her an amused look that oozed the sort of male superiority that made Erin’s hackles rise once more.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever taken a wrong turn,’ she snarled sarcastically.
His eyes lifted from the map. ‘We’re not talking one wrong turn here.’ His dry comment confirmed her worst suspicions. ‘You’re meant to be here,’ he said, tapping his finger against the spot ringed red.
‘I know where I’m meant to be—it’s where I am I want to know,’ she retorted waspishly.
‘Where you are is not on this map.’
‘You mean it’s too small?’ She had considered the map quite detailed, as far as she could tell marking every tuft of grass.
‘I mean you’re ten miles outside the area it covers, and that is a conservative estimate.’
Her face fell in dismay. ‘You’re joking,’ she said, not actually believing it. This man wouldn’t know a joke if he fell over it.
‘I—’
‘Will you just shut up for a sec and let me think?’
From his expression she suspected that he didn’t get told to shut up too often—if ever. Still, she had more important things to worry about than his wounded male Latin pride.
