Page 3 of One Bed

Sexy in a diabolical way, the love child of Jimmy Dean and Clint Eastwood. She couldn’t pull her eyes off him, partly because he was how she imagined her fictional Pip would look like when he was all grown up. If this guy had light, silver-blue eyes, like Pip, her knees might buckle. They were halfway to doing that already. She mentally urged him to remove his glasses, but they stayed on his face.Dammit.

Capable, masculine, a little hard, a lot streetwise. Instinctively she knew he didn’t take crap, not from anyone, anywhere.

He was dressed in tailored shorts and a linen shirt, sleeves rolled back to reveal his strong forearms. He’d only buttoned three of his four shirt buttons, and, thanks to the wind, she caught glimpses of his Canada-wide chest and ridged stomach. Expensive leather flip flops covered his big, so big, feet.

Confident, charismatic and oh-so-cool…

‘Do you need some help changing your flat?’ he asked in a chocolate-over-rough-stone voice. His accent was American, but fairly generic. It did, however, hold a tiny hint of Southern drawl.

‘Uh … that would be amazing,’ she replied, not looking a gift horse, or a knowledgeable guy, in the mouth. ‘What I know about cars is dangerous. I don’t drive that often, I’m a take-the-Tube girl.’

He lifted his chin, silently acknowledging her babbling reply. ‘I’m London born and bred,’ she continued, wishing she could slap duct tape across her mouth. God, she was so bad at flirting. It was his turn to say something,anything.

He didn’t.

‘Are you on a canoeing holiday?’ she asked, nodding to the canoe in the back of his Jeep. She looked at the lake-flat sea.

‘That’s a kayak.’

Wasn’t that what she said?

‘Technically, you kneel in a canoe, and use a one-sided paddle. You sit in a kayak and use a double-sided paddle,’ he explained, catching her confusion.

‘Oh, right.’ Both activities sounded tiring and something that required a lot of energy. And upper body strength. She far preferred to lie on the beach reading a book, taking the occasional dip to cool off. She was adventure-averse, but her characters made up for her lack of skills. Pip was incredible on his skateboard and Jemima had amazing parkour skills. Hettie, her big-brained nerd, could pick any lock anywhere, Gus was a street fighter and Bas a fearless hacker. None of her imaginary friends were scared to wade into dangerous situations. Bea wondered how she could get them to use a kayak/canoe in an urban environment. On an underground river, on a lake? On the Serpentine?

She waited for more and when he didn’t elaborate, she jumped in.Again.‘Did you hire it in Fira?’

He didn’t answer her but nodded to her car. ‘Do you want to pop the trunk?’

Popthetrunk? Right, he was asking her to open the boot. Bea ducked into the car, found the lever and before she could straighten up, or give him a warning, Big and Beautiful lifted the hatchback’s door. Her overly full toiletry bag—only half closed because she’d grabbed the bottle of aspirin from it earlier—tumbled to the ground and burst open. A packet of anti-diarrhoea pills landed on his foot and a couple of tampons escaped their box and hit his bare toes. Cream and applicators to treat thrush completed her trifecta of embarrassment.

She hurried forward to gather her possessions and yelped as her bunny-ears vibrator fell to the gravelled road. Bea watched in horror as a big, broad hand snatched it out of thin air. Dark eyebrows rose and the side of his sexy, mobile mouth lifted in amusement. She waited for a snarky, sleazy comment, but it didn’t come. Instead, he swiftly gathered her items, shoved them into her toiletry bag and handed it and the vibrator to her, his expression equanimous.

‘Thank you,’ Bea mumbled, flames eating her face. And thanks bunches for not being a sleazy prick.

She pushed everything into the bag so she could close the zip. Her rescuer gestured to her large suitcase and the stuffed-with-dresses clothes bag. ‘I need to move these to get to the spare wheel and the tools.’

‘The suitcase can sit on the road, and I’ll put the clothes bag on the back seat,’ Bea said. He lifted her heavy bag like it was full of cotton wool – she’d needed both hands and to bend her knees to lift it into the rental car – and placed it on the road. He draped the clothes bag over her arm and lifted the carpet in the boot. And there sat a lovely, new-looking spare.

Excellent. She’d be on the road in no time.

Bea put the clothes and toiletry bag on the back seat and returned to watch her rescuer position a jack under the car. ‘Can I do anything to help?’ she asked.

He looked up at her, and Bea noticed a few silver hairs at his temples, glinting in the sun. She wished she could see his eyes. ‘Do you know how to change a flat?’ he said.

‘That would be a solid no.’

‘It’ll probably be quicker if I do it myself.’

In minutes he had the tyre off, the new tyre on and had tightened the bolts. He put the car back on its four wheels and Bea looked at her watch. OK, she had no idea how long it took to change a tyre, but she sensed he’d made short work of the task. She was impressed.

Gerry had found it difficult to put fuel in the car. Found it even harder to pay for it.

The spare went back into the car, along with the cross-like spanner thing and the yellow jack. He replaced the carpet and easily lifted her heavy suitcase back into the boot. ‘There’s space for your toiletry bag and the clothes bag now,’ he told her.

She shook her head. ‘No, I’ll leave them where they are, I don’t have far to go.’ She held out her hand. ‘I’m so grateful you stopped. I have so much to do today, and you saved me a lot of time.’

His hand engulfed hers and tingles shot up her arm as baby fireworks erupted on her skin. It had to be because he was so roughly handsome, so big, the most masculine man she’d ever met. And the fact that he could sort out her car with ease added another layer to her attraction. ‘You’re obviously good with your hands.’

---