Page 22 of Do Opposites Attract?

‘They can kill you.’

Brianna’s head shot up. ‘So I hear,’ she replied in her cultured voice.

He wanted to dislike it, as he wanted to dislike her, but there was something about the posh husky tones that sent a shiver up his spine. ‘I didn’t have you down as a smoker.’

She smiled slightly. ‘I’m not. At least not unless I’m very drunk, or emotionally overwrought.’

He leant back against the tree next to her. Close, but not touching. ‘Well, unless you’ve snuck into my tent and pilfered my whisky supply, I guess it’s the latter that’s led you to nicotine tonight?’

‘Umm, but I wouldn’t mind indulging in some of the former right now.’ She took a long, deep drag. ‘I don’t know how you do it.’

‘Watching you smoke?’ he asked, deliberately misunderstanding her. ‘It’s hard, especially as I used to smoke and had a devil of a job giving it up.’

She smiled, as he’d hoped she would. ‘I won’t offer you one then.’ She watched as the smoke trailed up from the end of the cigarette. ‘But that isn’t what I meant, as I think you know.’

‘It’s part of life,’ he replied simply.

‘But doesn’t it make you sad, or angry, seeing so much death?’

‘I used to get angry, on the battlefield. When I saw the body bags build because of a pointless war, it really got to me. This is just nature doing her thing. It’s tough on those caught up in it, but then life is tough.’ He gave her a sideways glance.

‘At least it is for most people. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?’ Temper rippled through her, mixing with the sadness and anger he saw in her eyes.

‘Yes,’ he agreed, keeping his voice deliberately calm. He sensed she wanted to fight, but tonight he didn’t fancy being her punchbag. ‘Most people do have a tougher life than yours.’

‘You don’t know anything about my life. How can you stand there in judgement?’ He raised an eyebrow, daring her to continue. The temper fled as quickly as it had arrived and she sighed. ‘Okay, you’re right, I have had it easy.’

‘I didn’t say your life was easy,’ he qualified. ‘But I don’t think it has been tough.’

‘My first car was a Porsche,’ she admitted.

Mitch felt his lips curve upwards. ‘Impressive. How long did it last?’

‘Two days. I crashed it into a ditch going round a corner too fast. I was grounded for a week.’ She caught his grin and smiled. ‘What was your first car?’

Mitch settled further back against the tree. ‘Owned or borrowed?’ he countered.

‘Let’s go for borrowed.’

‘A Ford Capri, when I was twelve.’

‘I take it the owners didn’t realise you’d borrowed it?’ He just grinned, a flash of white teeth in the moonlight. ‘Did you give it back?’

Mitch thought back to the Capri that had landed in the ditch, mangled by a tree. He and his two mates had been lucky to getout of it alive. ‘I crashed it. I don’t think the owners would have thanked me for returning it.’

‘At last, we’ve found something in common. We’re both bad drivers.’

The laugh whooshed out of him. It had been so long since he’d had a really proper laugh, he was surprised his body still remembered how to do it. ‘In my defence, lady, I was only twelve and couldn’t reach the damn brake pedal.’

She conceded his point. ‘Hey, this is fun.’

‘What is?’

‘You and me actually having a conversation.’ Her grin was infectious and he found his muscles starting to relax. ‘My first birthday party was held in the Savoy,’ she continued. ‘For my eighth we took ten of my friends to Disneyland Paris.’ She cocked a look at him. ‘What about you?’

‘Birthday parties were for sissies.’

‘Aw, come on, you must have had at least one.’

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