“Are you all right, love?”
“I’ve been better,” she panted, putting a hand to her face to check for bloody scratches. There didn’t seem to be anything major.
“Can you stand?” Large, strong hands in hers, pulling her to her feet. He was some kind of biker, but no kind of biker she’d ever seen before. Not hairy and beardy with a gut fashioned from years of real ale festivals. No, this one had stepped straight out of her dreams and into his leathers. “Okay, come and sit down. Catch your breath.”
He led her over to the lorry cab that was going to pull her Carnival carriage and helped her up the step, onto the worn leather seat.
“What the fuck happened there?” Laura wondered out loud. Remembering something, she pulled a miniature of vodka out of her beaded bag. “I think I need a drink. Do you have a mirror?”
He tilted the rearview mirror in her direction, and she inspected the damage as minutely as she could. Her elbow was skinned and her arm studded with grime. Some bugle beads had come off the dress and her hair needed drastic attention. Worst of all, though…
“That’s going to be a shiner and
a half,” her rescuer said, reaching over to trace a thumb along her lower left eye socket.
“Shit,” she said miserably, swigging the vodka and passing it to him. “I’ll have that bitch sent down for this. Who are you anyway?”
He took a draught of the vodka and wiped his lips with the sleeve of his leather jacket. She watched the patch of wetness left there, transfixed by it.
“I’m your guardian angel,” he said with a crooked grin that made her stomach lurch into a spin cycle.
“You don’t look much like an angel,” she lied. “I thought they had halos and wings, not biker leathers.”
“I’m the upgraded version,” he said. “Halos are so last century, sweetheart.”
Laura giggled, liking him enormously, perhaps more than she was comfortable with. She tried not to like people too much until she knew them well.
“No, I’ve been assigned to look after you.”
“Really?” The thought of this big, bad man with his cheekbones and perfectly grabbable head of hair looking after her was breathtaking. She might have licked her lips; she definitely began primping with her hair, not that it didn’t need a bit of urgent repair.
“By your father. He thought your float should have motorcycle outriders. In case of…troublemakers.”
“What?” Old footage of the assassination of JFK reeled into Laura’s mind—did Daddy think she might be the target of an assassination attempt? What the fuck?
He saw the disturbance in her eyes and took one of her hands reassuringly. “Not serious troublemakers, sweetheart. I’m sorry if you thought…No, last year there was a bit of trouble with kids pelting coins at the floats, that’s all. Your dad didn’t want you getting hit in the eye by a stray twenty-pence piece. Sensible man. That’s quite a face you’ve got.”
“Are you flirting with me?” Laura cut to the chase. She couldn’t be bothered with the subtle approach. “Did Daddy tell you to do that?”
His laugh covered embarrassment. “No. The opposite. He said, ‘Keep your hands off my princess, Rocky, or you’ll be looking for a new place to live.’ After I get out of hospital, I gathered.”
“Really?” This was getting more and more titillating. “Your name’s Rocky?”
“What? It’s a perfectly good name.” She could hardly concentrate on speaking. His head was tilted, resting on an arm, his whole body stretched out and languid. She wanted to touch it so badly, even more so now that he was forbidden fruit.
“Do you box?”
He laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners. His voice was dark and low—not Barry White low, but still deep enough to create a vibration all over her.
“No. Do you?”
“I don’t mind a little bit of sparring.” The loudspeakers out on the Esplanade crackled into life and Laura remembered, reluctantly, what they were there for. “Anyway. You’ve already saved my life once—but we’ve still got an emergency on our hands. How are we going to fix my hair and this eye? God, it looks awful.”
“Here.” Rocky slipped a comb out of his inside pocket and handed it to her.
“It’s no good—the mirror is too small. I can’t see what I’m doing. Can you…?”
He took the comb back and put a hand on Laura’s shoulder, swivelling her round to face him. “I’m not a hairdresser,” he cautioned her. “So don’t sue me if it ends up worse.”