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‘Come on.’ Without questioning the impulse, he strode purposefully over to his car with her in tow. Still with one hand around her slender wrist, he opened his boot, slung his gear inside and then opened the passenger door. ‘Hop in. I’ll get your bike.’
‘What do you mean, hop in?’ She stared at the car and then at him and he gave a shrug and his most non-threatening smile.
‘It’s Christmas Day, Miranda, and you and I seem to be the only two people on the planet that don’t have someone to spend it with. So I suggest we spend it together. You can warm up at my place and we can sprawl on my sofas and watch endless movies.’
And get to know each other.
Her gaze became as cold as the weather and she tried to pull away from him. ‘No, thank you.’
‘It wasn’t an indecent proposal,’ he drawled softly, releasing her immediately. ‘Just a friendly one. No hidden agenda.’
Her slender body was tense. Poised. ‘Everyone has a hidden age
nda.’
‘All right—you caught me.’ He leaned against his car and smiled. ‘I do have a hidden agenda and it’s entirely selfish. I don’t want to be on my own on Christmas Day. I get morose. That’s why I was in the mountains. I saved you so now you need to save me. Keep me company.’
Her eyes met his. And then she looked away and gave a tiny shake of her head, as if she was feeling something that she didn’t want to feel. ‘This is ridiculous. I don’t—’
Suddenly it seemed imperative that he persuade her. He wasn’t going to let her go. ‘Do you have anywhere else you have to be?’
‘No.’ Her dark eyes clouded and she looked away from him, staring into the distance with a slightly blank expression on her beautiful face. ‘I don’t.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
Her eyes lifted to his again, her gaze solemn and considering. ‘All right. Just for a few hours.’
Wondering why her answer had lifted his spirits so much, Jake bundled her inside the car and retrieved her bike.
Suddenly he was looking forward to the rest of Christmas Day.
CHAPTER TWO
MIRANDA lay in the hot bath with her eyes closed, feeling the delicious warmth spread back through her frozen limbs.
On the chair at the far side of the huge bathroom lay the neat pile of clothes that the man had given her.
The man…
The knowledge that she hadn’t, so far, even asked his name brought a faint smile of derision to her face.
She should probably be worried, but she wasn’t.
Strangers didn’t frighten her. She knew from experience that hurt and pain most often came from those who were familiar and close to you, not from strangers. When there was a murder, didn’t the police start by questioning the family?
No, she wasn’t afraid of strangers and she certainly wasn’t afraid of the man who had rescued her.
And now, right at this precise moment, she was glad of her impulsive decision to accept his invitation.
It was Christmas Day. And she hated Christmas Day. There was no reason at all why she had to hurry back to her miserable, lonely flat.
It was important that she looked after herself.
And it was just for one day.
After that, she’d vanish into the sunset and never see him again. And she had no reason to feel guilty about that because he had been the one who’d insisted that she spend the rest of the day with him because he hated Christmas, too.
She frowned and slid deeper under the water. Why would a man like him hate Christmas Day? She would have thought that women would have been lining up at his door, fighting over who was going to help him hang baubles on his tree.
