Free The Girl He'd Overlooked by Cathy Williams Page B

began spreading through her and she couldn’t stop herself from liking it.
    She took him his food on a tray and he waved her help aside as he struggled into a sitting position.
    ‘The painkillers are kicking in.’ He took a mouthful of food and then wondered where the wine was. Oh, and while she was about it, perhaps she could bring him some water as well.
    Halfway through the meal, about which he was elaborately complimentary, he announced that he was now completely dry. He magnanimously informed her that there would be no need to wash his clothes, even though she hadn’t offered.
    ‘I have more than enough at home to get me through an enforced stay,’ he decided, and Jennifer frowned at him.
    ‘How long are you planning on staying?’ she asked, not bothering to hide the sarcasm, and then she looked at him narrowly when he shrugged and smiled.
    ‘How long is a piece of string?’
    ‘That’s no kind of answer, James.’
    ‘Well, weather wise, even if the snow stops in the next five minutes, which is highly unlikely, we won’t be leaving here for another couple of days. We both know that this is the last port of call for the snow ploughs. It’s too deep for either of us to drive through and, in my condition, I can’t do much about clearing it. That said, I don’t think it’s going to abate for at least another twenty-four hours, anyway. Longer if the weather forecast is to be believed.’
    ‘Well, you’re certainly the voice of doom,’ Jennifer said, removing his tray from him, putting it on top of hers and sitting back down because she was, frankly, exhausted, despite having had a very lazy day, all things considered.
    ‘I prefer to call it the voice of reality. Which brings me to point two. I can’t go back to my house. I’m going to need help getting back on my feet. I’m putting on a brave front, but I can barely move.’ She hadn’t exactly been the most welcoming of friends when she had discovered him in the cottage, but, hell, however hard she fought it, there was still something there between them. Friendship, attraction… he didn’t know. He just knew that the frisson between them did something for him. As did looking at her. As did hearing her laugh and seeing her smile and catching her slipping him sidelong looks when she didn’t think his attention was on her. He relished this enforced stay and, while his back was certainly not in a particularly good way, he silently thanked it for giving him the opportunity to get to the bottom of her.
    Jennifer was torn as to whether to believe him or not. On the one hand, he had always claimed to have the constitutionof an ox. He was known to boast that he never fell prey to viruses and that his only contact with a doctor had been on the day of his birth. He surely wouldn’t lie when it came to admitting pain.
    On the other hand, he didn’t look in the slightest regretful about his circumstances. In fact, for someone in the grip of back pain, he seemed remarkably breezy.
    Breezy or not, she couldn’t send him hobbling back to his house although the thought of him in the cottage with her made her stomach tighten into knots of apprehension. Four years of hiding had been rewarded with such a concentrated dose of him that she was struggling to maintain the fiction that the effect he had on her was history. It wasn’t. Anything but.
    ‘So… as it stands, I’m going to have to fetch clothes for you for an enforced stay of indefinite duration, plus your laptop… plus I’m going to have to feed and water you…’
    ‘There’s no need to sound so thrilled at the prospect…’
    ‘This just isn’t what I banked on when I began this journey to the cottage.’
    ‘No,’ James said drily, ‘because you didn’t even expect to find me here.’
    ‘But I’m glad I did,’ she told him with grudging truthfulness. ‘Four years is a long time. I was in danger of forgetting what you looked like.’
    ‘And have I lived up to expectation?’
    ‘You look