Page 8 of Prognosis Bad Timing

‘It’s not that old,’ he said, grabbing Dana’s car seat off the ground near her foot and opening up the back door, installing it like he’d done it a time or two before.

Dana stirred as Carrie transferred her into the seat. ‘Where are we, Mummy?’

‘In Charlie’s car,’ Carrie said quietly as she snapped the buckle in place. ‘He’s taking us home.’

Dana looked around with heavy eyelids. ‘I like it,’ she murmured as her eyes drifted shut.

Carrie met his amused gaze. It was warm and sexy and she blinked, surprised at the thought.

‘Your daughter obviously has an eye for a classic.’

‘She’s four.’

His laughter followed her into the passenger seat and a warm sensation down low and deep spread sensual tentacles to every cell of her body. It was strange and unnerving and she put the brakes on immediately.

So, he had a nice face and a great smile and had talked her down from the ledge tonight. She was a single mother with her eye on a prestigious job.

She didn’t have time for distractions.

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It was a good minutebefore Charlie lost sight of the multi-coloured glow of the accident scene in his rear-view mirror. The adrenaline he’d felt during the incident had dissipated, leaving him feeling edgy, and he drummed his fingers against the steering-wheel. At least his passenger had perked up. Her trembling seemed to have settled and there was colour in her cheeks now.

She had auburn hair, he noticed for the first time. It was wavy rather than curly, tumbling to her shoulders and framing her oval face, emphasizing the cream of her complexion, the smattering of freckles across her nose and her big, light-brown eyes the exact shade of whiskey.

Her clothes were unusual. Purple tie-dyed shirt with a heavily beaded modest neckline and matching trousers. It was loose and flowing, hinting at her figure beneath rather than revealing anything. She had large silver hoop earrings and a thin silver choker with dangling lines of purple beads hanging like icicles.

The total effect was quite...hippy.

‘So, what do you do?’ Charlie asked, making small talk as the silence stretched between them.

‘I’m...in management.’

He laughed. She looked like she read palms for a living. ‘That’s suitably vague.’

She shrugged. ‘It’s nothing very exciting. It pays the mortgage and the hours are good.’

He flicked a glance at Dana in the rear-view mirror. She was staring sleepily out the window, her blonde hair and blue eyes nothing like her mother’s. ‘How old did you say Dana was?’

‘She’s four.’

‘Cute age.’

‘Yes, it is.’ She smiled. ‘You got kids?’

Charlie snorted. ‘No.’

She seemed a little taken aback at his response and hesitated before asking, ‘Not your thing?’

If only. Quite the opposite, in fact. Charlie had wanted a family of his own for a long time. A chance to do it better than his parents had - if that was possible. If he wasn’t somehow genetically wired to screw things up, too.

He shrugged. ‘Veronica, my ex-wife, didn’t want them. It was probably just as well, given the divorce and everything.’

‘Was it bad?’

Carrie could have bitten off her tongue as Charlie’s knuckles grew white on the steering-wheel. She had no idea what had come over her. Maybe it was the moments they had shared at the accident scene that made her feel like normal social mores concerning privacy didn’t apply to them. That she could ask him such a personal question on such short acquaintance.

Maybe it was the familiar edge of bitterness scarring his voice.

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