Boxers! Sophie saw as he shook them out with one hand and went on steering with the other.
‘Fold them, and put them back,’ he instructed, as if having her wave his pants in the air was an everyday occurrence.
‘I…I don’t—’
‘Do it,’ he said, increasing speed.
Save it! Sophie warned herself, knocking her temper back into touch as she replaced the offending article with as little fuss as possible. She had six months to tame this tiger. She could afford to yield on the first occasion.
CHAPTER TWO
SOPHIE sat staring ahead for what felt like hours on end, while the truck bumped and snarled its way across miles of featureless rust-coloured plain. But finally, when neck-ache began to beat at her brain, she was forced to give in. Easing her head from side to side, she stole a glance at her companion. His character had changed for the worse—that much she knew already. Now it was time to see whether the years really had been as kind to him as first impressions suggested…
‘Seen enough, Sophie?’
Well, his senses were as keen as ever.
‘Enough to see you haven’t changed,’ she lied with every appearance of calm. Inwardly she was as churned up as she could ever remember. It was one thing playing the ice-queen to Xavier’s blatant virility, but he was sending her senses haywire! He always had been attractive. But now, with every vestige of civilised man stripped away, he was a lot more dangerous—a fact her body attested to as it responded urgently to him. In fact, there was a whole orchestra thrumming an insistent pulse where at best a mild pelvic clench would normally signal the presence of some attractive male.
‘Is that good, or bad?’ he said, eyes crinkling, lips turned down in wry enquiry.
Sophie felt her senses flare as she ran the inventory. Good—because she really liked his hair shorter, and the fact that it had darkened with age. It was as thick as ever with sideburns losing definition in the black stubble on his jaw…She stopped for a moment. For her, the stronger the attraction, the greater the fear; it was a potent combination, she realised, forcing herself to continue. Good—because his tanned face was just as strong and lean as she remembered it; the type that could almost have been described as stereotypical ‘carved out of granite’ had it not been for some really great additions. The mobile mouth for instance…and those clued-up, laughing eyes… She sucked in a guilty breath as he returned her stare full throttle.
‘You haven’t given me an answer yet,’ he said, turning his attention back to the rutted road. ‘Good. Or bad?’
His resonant voice was strumming her like a practised hand on a finely tuned instrument, the same harmonious chord running through her from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes…and all of that long before her mind had a chance to register the melting pot of confident Latin male and shrewd, irresistible humour he managed to shoe-horn into the one short question.
‘It’s good to see you again, Xavier,’ Sophie admitted carefully, aware that her lips were actually trembling. And bad? The few moments Sophie gave herself to consider this slipped away too quickly. ‘Bad, because you don’t want me here—’ She slammed her mouth shut without even bothering to try and dig herself out of the hole. Was that really the best she could come up with? It sounded like a suck-up! The kind of simpering, no-brain remark the person he seemed to think she had grown into might make. The look on his face only confirmed her worst fears.
‘Too right I don’t,’ he said brusquely.
She should have known. And now she was angrier with herself than with him. Trust her to fall for the brief interlude when he almost made it to polite! She should have known he was only softening her up for the verbal kill. Turning her face away, Sophie stared numbly as the bleak terrain flashed past.
‘So now I get the silent treatment?’ Xavier said, flashing her a glance.
What was she doing here anyway? Sophie asked herself angrily. She could practice medicine equally well back home. Fate? She dismissed that out of hand. Henry? That was more likely. Wide-open spaces before the net of suburbia closed over her. Space from Henry—
‘So, no husband yet?’ Xavier demanded.
The patronising question stabbed into her reverie. ‘Is this what I’m missing?’ Sophie murmured tensely.
‘Don’t flatter yourself, sweetheart. I asked a simple question.’
‘It’s none of your business, Xavier,’ she flashed back. ‘And let’s get something straight. I may work for you but my private life’s just that—private. I’m here to stay. Get used to it.’
‘You sleep in here,’ Xavier told her as he shouldered open a creaking tin door. ‘I leave for the high country tomorrow morning at dawn.’
As Sophie dumped her rucksack on the ground, Xavier looked round the sparsely furnished room, thumbs firmly planted in the belt-loops of his snug-fitting jeans, inviting her to change her mind and beg him to let her return to her safe, cosy bed back in the UK.
At least it was clean, Sophie thought—floor newly swept, windows bright in their frames of peeling, yellowing paint. Taking in the dilapidation as well as the lack of amenities, she just nodded her head. ‘Fine. I’ll be ready first thing tomorrow,’ she agreed evenly.
Xavier shifted position, drawing himself up. Asserting his authority. Sophie felt herself instinctively bristling in response.
‘I said I’d be heading for the high country. You’ll be staying here.’
‘Oh, really?’ Sophie knew she was overtired. The last thing she wanted was a fight. But she had no intention of backing down either.
‘Yes, really,’ he stated firmly.
They were confronting each other tensely like two stalking tigers. Xavier broke the silence first, adding a little more chaos to his hair with an impatient pass of his strong, tanned fingers.
‘Look, Sophie,’ he said, applying a very masculine brand of reason. ‘This place needs sorting out before morning. A pile of new medical supplies have arrived, and they all need putting away in some sort of order. Then the details need filing—’
‘If you wanted a filing clerk you should have requested one in your list of job opportunities in the recruitment pack,’ Sophie pointed out.
‘We’re a team. We share the work-load.’
‘Then may I suggest you stay with me here at base until we have completed the office work and stock-take. Then we can both travel on to the high country together.’
There was just enough of a pause to show that she had got through to him.
‘What I’m trying to say—’
‘I think I know what you’re trying to
say, Xavier,’ Sophie countered firmly.
As she watched his eyes narrow she felt a thread of apprehension run through her. Xavier had become a difficult, complex man, not someone it was sensible to range herself against. But teamwork meant sharing everything, didn’t it? From clearing up, to treating patients. ‘I’d better sort out my things…freshen up,’ she said, taking a different tack in the hope of cooling things down.
‘Of course.’ He gave her a mock bow, but his disturbing gaze held her own until Sophie’s desperately searching fingers managed to locate the fastenings on her bulging rucksack and she could pretend to busy herself with that. But before he left she wanted another answer. ‘Who sleeps in here?’ she said, surveying the row of camp beds.
‘Me,’ Xavier said with a shrug, ‘and whoever else drops in.’
Taking a deep breath, Sophie swallowed back the panic that threatened to choke her. She was here to work. She had to forget every one of her personal concerns and just get on with it. ‘How exhilarating,’ she managed evenly. ‘I shall never know what to expect from one night to the next.’
Xavier shot her a darkly amused stare. ‘You won’t be here that long,’ he promised.
‘Don’t count on it,’ Sophie murmured under her breath, glancing around.
‘My apologies,’ Xavier said as he watched her. ‘I don’t know what you were expecting, but this isn’t the Ritz. It’s just an old place I’m using until I get something else built.’
‘I think it’s all quite satisfactory, thank you,’ Sophie countered. ‘Apart from having to share with you, it’s exactly what I expected.’ She saw his lips kick up at one corner, and his eyes begin to gleam. ‘Bathroom?’ she demanded briskly, though her heart was still juddering.
‘Bathroom?’ The drawled exclamation was accompanied by another humour-laced stare. ‘Turn right outside the door, third bush down—’