The Billionaire Bodyguard(2)

He knew way before it happened that things were  going to get bad-really  bad. Instinct told him that, coupled with the  experience of having  lived in some of the most God-awful conditions  known to man.

His windscreen wipers were flicking dementedly, but  still it was like  gazing into an icy abyss. The road dipped slightly,  and he eased his  foot back. A dip was good. Slopes ran down into hollows  and hollows  were where you found people, and they built houses which  equalled  shelter, and he suspected that they very soon they might need  shelter …   Except that this was pretty desolate countryside. Unspoiled, he   guessed. Chosen for its beauty and its very isolation.


He  flicked the light on briefly, to glance down at the map, and then   squinted his eyes as the car passed the darkened bulk of a building.   Some way after that, Jay realised that he no longer had a choice, and   braked. Hard.

The jerk of the car woke her, and Keri opened her  eyes, caught in that  warm half-world between waking and sleeping. She  yawned. 'Where are  we?' she questioned sleepily.

'In the middle of nowhere,' he answered succinctly. 'Take a look for yourself.'

The  sound of the low, tough masculine voice shook her right out of her   reverie, and for a moment it startled her, until she realised where she   was. She looked out of the window, and then blinked. He wasn't joking.                       
       
           



       

While  she had been sleeping the snowy landscape had been transformed  into one  which was now unrecognisable. Night had closed in, and with it  the  snow. Everything was black and white, like a photographic  negative, and  it would have been beautiful if it didn't look  so … forbidding. And they  were in the middle of it. Of nowhere, as he had  said. 'Why have you  stopped?' she asked.

Why do you think I've stopped? 'Because the fall is heavy here.'

'Well, how long is it going to take us to get back now?'

Jay  shot another glance out, and then looked in the mirror at her  beautiful  perplexed face. It was clear from her question that she had  no idea how  bad it was, and he was going to have to break it to her.  Gently.

'If  it carries on like this there's no way we're going to make it back  at  all, at least not tonight-we'll be lucky if we make it as far as the   nearest village.'

This was sounding like something out of a bad  movie. 'But I don't want  to go to a village!' she exclaimed. 'I want to  go to home!'

I want. I want. He supposed a woman like that spent  all her time  getting exactly what it was she wanted. Well, not tonight.  'You and me  both, sweetheart,' he said grimly. 'But I'll settle for what  I can  take.'

She let the sweetheart bit go. Now was not the time to get frosty because he was being over-familiar. 'Can't you just drive on?'

He pressed cautiously on the accelerator, then eased his foot off. 'Nope. We're stuck.'

Keri sat bolt upright. 'What do you mean?'

What  the hell do you think I mean? 'Like I said, we're stuck. There are   drifts in the road. Snowdrifts. And they're underpacked with ice. It's  a  potentially lethal situation.'

Keri briefly shut her eyes.  Please tell me this isn't happening. She  opened them again. 'Couldn't  you have predicted this might happen and  taken a different route?'

He  might have let it go, but something in her accusation made his blood   simmer. 'There is no alternative route-not out of that God-forsaken   field they chose for the shoot-and, if you recall, I asked you three   times to hurry up. I said that I didn't like the look of the sky. But   you were too busy being fawned over by a load of luvvies to pay much   attention to what I was saying.'

Was he criticising her? 'I was just doing my job!'

'And  I'm trying to do mine,' he said darkly. 'Which is dealing with the   situation as it is, not wasting time by casting around for   recriminations!'

Keri stared at the back of his dark head,  feeling like a tennis-player  who had been wrong-footed. And the most  annoying thing of all was that  he was right. He might have an arrogant,  almost insolent way of  expressing himself, but she could see his logic.  'So what do you  suggest we do?' she questioned coolly.

By we he guessed she meant him. 'I guess we find some shelter.'

'No.'  Keri shook her head. What did he think-that she was going to book  into a  hotel for the night? With him? 'I don't think you understand-I  have to  be back in London. Tonight.' She eyed his muscular frame  hopefully.  'Can't you dig us out?'

'With a spare snow-plough?' Jay smiled.  'I don't think you understand,  sweetheart-even if I dug us out, it would  only be a temporary measure.  This road is impassable.'

She felt a momentary flare of panic, until reason reasserted itself. 'You can't know that!'

He  wasn't about to start explaining that he had seen snow and ice in   pretty much all its guises. The empty bleached horizons of arctic wastes   which made this particular snow scene look like a benign Christmas   card. Or swimming beneath polar ice-caps and wondering if your blood had   frozen solid in your veins, wetsuit or no wetsuit. Men   trapped … lost … never to be heard of again.

A hard note entered his  voice. 'Oh, but I can-it's my job to know.' He  turned off the ignition,  and turned round and shrugged. 'Sorry, but  that's the way it is.'

She  opened her mouth to reply, but the words froze on her lips as she  met  his eyes for the first time-hard, glittering eyes which took her  breath  away, and it was a long time since a man had done that. It was  the first  time she had looked at him properly, but then you never  really looked  at a driver, did you? They were part of the fixtures and  fittings, part  of the car itself-or at least they were supposed to be.  She sucked in a  dry gulp of air, confused by the sudden pounding of her  heart, as if it  was trying to remind her that it still existed. Lord  alive, what was a  man like this doing driving a car for a living?                       
       
           



       

His face was  chiselled-all hard and lean angles-which seemed at odds  with the lush,  sensual curve of his upper lip. In the low light she  couldn't make out  the colour of his slanting eyes, but she could  appreciate the feathery  forest of lashes which gave them such an  enigmatic look, and she had  been modelling for long enough to know that  cheekbones like that were  rare.

He was, quite simply, gorgeous.

Jay noted the  dilation of her eyes with something approaching wry  amusement and then  put it out of his mind. This was business, not  pleasure-and even if it  had been he wasn't into spoiled, pretty girls  who expected everyone to  jump when they spoke.

'So we could stay here all night,' he said pleasantly. 'Keep the engine running and wait until morning and hope it gets better.'

Spend the night in the car? 'Are you serious?'

'Completely.'  He would keep awake quite easily-he had had a lifetime's  experience of  waiting for the first faint glow of a winter dawn.

There was  something so unequivocal about that one clipped-out word that  Keri began  to realise that he meant it. But surely there was something  they could  do? This was England, for heaven's sake-not the Rocky  Mountains!

'We must be able to phone for help.' She began to fish around in her handbag. 'I have a mobile here somewhere.'

His  own was snug in his pocket-did she really think he hadn't thought  of  that? 'Sure, go ahead,' he murmured. 'Call the emergency services  and  tell them we're in trouble.'

She knew just from the tone of his  voice that there would be no signal,  but stubborn pride made her jab at  the buttons with frustration  coupled with rising panic.

'No luck?' he questioned sardonically.

Her  hand was shaking, but she put the phone back in her handbag with as   much dignity as possible. 'So we really are stuck,' she said flatly.

'Looks  like it.' Her eyes looked huge and dark, all wide and appealing  in her  pale, heart-shaped face-designed by nature to provoke  protectiveness in a  man. And nature was a funny thing, he mused-a nose,  two eyes and a  mouth could be arranged in such a way to transform a  face from the  ordinary into the exquisite. Luck of the draw, like so  much else in  life. 'Listen,' he drawled, 'I thought I could make out a  building a  little way back. It makes far more sense to head for that.  I'll go and  investigate.'

The thought of being left here all alone made her  feel even worse. What  if he disappeared into the cold and snowy night  and never came back  again? What if someone came along? It wasn't much of  a contest, but on  balance she'd probably be much safer with him than  staying here without  him. He might be a little lacking in the respect  department, but at  least he seemed to know what he was doing. 'No, I  don't want you  leaving me here,' she said. 'I'm coming with you.'