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‘Why did you leave your car outside my house?’
‘When Harry’s mother realised he was missing, she called the team. Then she called your mother because she remembered that the gully is a favourite walk of yours and Harry often watches you and Rambo training up there. She hoped you might already be out, which you were. I dropped by to get your route from your mother.’
Meg tightened her grip on the wheel. ‘So this is all my fault because he followed me?’
‘No. It’s Harry’s fault. He went for a walk in the winter without the right equipment.’
‘He was unlucky.’
‘No, he was lucky.’ Dino pulled off a glove and flexed his fingers. ‘You found him. Could have been worse.’
She was concentrating on the road but she could feel him looking at her. ‘It was Rambo who p
icked up the scent. I didn’t even know he was missing.’
‘We were about to call you when you called us.’
‘So how come you got to us so quickly and the others didn’t?’
‘I was about to head into the mountains myself. I guess we spend our free time the same way.’
‘So your date didn’t end the way you wanted it to.’
He smiled. ‘It ended exactly the way I wanted it to.’
Which meant what, exactly? He’d already said the brunette wasn’t waiting for him at home. Trying not to think about it, Meg pulled up outside her cottage. ‘Home, sweet home. And you’re still in one piece.’
‘Miracles do happen. Thanks for the lift. Are you working tomorrow?’
‘Yes. Look, Dino…’ She hesitated, torn between getting away from him as fast as possible and doing the right thing for Harry. ‘Don’t take the Lamborghini. We’ve had so much snow in the past few hours and your car isn’t good in bad weather. I’ll drive you to the hospital. If they’re as busy as you say, they could probably use my help as well as yours. Just give me time to explain to Mum and see Jamie.’
Meg slid out of the car and crunched her way through layers of snow to the front door of her cottage. She stood for a moment, looking at the lights burning in the windows and the rose bush groaning under the weight of snow by the front door. In a few more months it would be frothy with white blooms, turning her home into something from a picture postcard. The summer tourists who overran the Lake District like a million invading ants had been known to stop and take photographs of her house because it was so quintessentially English. To her it was home and she loved it. Now, with Christmas only two weeks away, there was a wreath on the door and scarlet berries on the holly bush. And mistletoe.
Meg frowned.
Who had added the mistletoe?
The door opened before she even started to delve for her key and her mother stood there, an apron tied round her slim waist, a mug in her hand. ‘I’ve made you hot soup, Dr Zinetti. You need something to warm you before you go back to the hospital.’
‘Molto grazie. You are truly a life saver, Mrs Miller.’ Dino emerged from behind her and took the mug in his gloved hand, the steam from the soup forming clouds in the freezing air. ‘I’m grateful.’
‘I’m the one who is grateful. You brought my girl safely home.’
‘I brought myself home, Mum. Do I get soup, too?’ Irritated, Meg dragged the hat off her head and immediately saw Dino’s expression change as he followed the crazy tumble of her hair with narrowed eyes.
She tensed, thinking that he was probably comparing her messy, tangled hair to the smooth, blow-dried version he’d stared at across the lunch table a few hours earlier. For a moment she wished she’d left her hat on and that thought annoyed her because she’d long ago come to terms with who she was. When other girls in her school had been learning about lipstick and moisturiser, she’d been learning to map read and use a compass. While they’d spent their weekends shopping for clothes, she’d been up on the mountains. Her only interest in clothes was whether they were wind resistant and weatherproof. She knew about wicking layers and the importance of not wearing cotton. She didn’t know whether grey was the new black or whether jeans should be straight cut or boot cut. And, more to the point, she didn’t care.
Meg turned away, irritated with him for looking and even more irritated with herself for caring that he’d looked.
What could have been a decidedly awkward moment was broken by her mother’s disapproving tone.
‘Megan, I found mouldy cheese in your fridge.’
Meg gritted her teeth and vowed never to let her mother babysit again. ‘Is Jamie still awake?’
‘Mummy?’ Right on cue a small figure dressed in a Batman costume barrelled into her, crushing her round the waist. ‘We decorated the house. We’ve put mistletoe everywhere.’
‘I’d noticed.’ Why was everyone suddenly so obsessed with mistletoe?
