A Surprise Christmas Proposal

Rapidly recovering my wits—I had a highly developed sense of self-preservation where thick dark lashes were concerned—I decided it was time to put a safe distance between us. He was having none of that; his arm was around my waist before the message from my brain reached my limbs, holding me with rather more strength than anyone who’d been unconscious just moments before should have been able to summon up.

‘Who the devil are you?’ he demanded.

Huh? Whatever happened to, Thank you for saving my life?

Charitably putting his brusqueness down to disorientation—and bearing in mind that my electricity bill was in his hands—I didn’t say the first thing that leapt into my mind. Instead I replied—somewhat breathlessly, it’s true—‘I’m Sophie Harrington.’ All my spare breath had been pumping up his lungs, okay? I would have offered him my hand at this point, and said the obligatory How d’you do?, but one of my hands was already busy cradling his chin, while the other was doing something Florence Nightingaleish in the vicinity of his brow. I immediately stopped that nonsense and, in the absence of any other bright conversation ideas, said, ‘I’ve sent for an ambulance. It should be here any minute.’

‘What the hell did you do that for?’ he demanded, with a lack of gratitude that I found just a bit galling, considering all I’d been through.

‘Because you were unconscious—’

‘Rubbish!’

‘You had your eyes closed, you didn’t respond to the doorbell and…and I couldn’t find a pulse.’

‘Where did you look?’ I stopped cradling his chin and pressed my fingers against his Adam’s apple. He moved my hand to the right and pushed it firmly beneath his chin. ‘Try there.’

‘Oh…’ He definitely had a pulse. His heart was beating almost as fast as mine.

He made a move to sit up, but, hoping to retrieve some credibility in the first aid department, I said, ‘Look, you were out cold. I think you should roll over into the recovery position and wait for the paramedics.’ He made no attempt to obey instructions and he was too big for me to push him—at least he was if he didn’t want to be pushed—so I said, ‘In your own time.’

I added a smile, just so he’d know he was in safe hands.

All I got for my pains was a scowl, but at least he was alive and talking. Whether he was quite making sense only time would tell. Whatever. I’d done my bit, and at this point I should have been safe in assuming that nothing worse could happen. Indeed, that when he’d recovered sufficiently to realise that I’d risked my life to save his he would be transformed into Mr Congeniality and I would be showered with thanks for bravery above and beyond the call of dog-walking duties. Possibly. I could wait.

Instead, still frowning, he said, ‘Why were you kissing me?’ From his tone, I didn’t get the impression it was an experience he would wish to repeat any time soon.

Well, snap.

‘I wasn’t kissing you,’ I replied, losing the smile. What did he think I was? Some crazy woman who leapt on unconscious men? I wanted to make sure he understood that I did not kiss men I didn’t know, and even if I did I certainly wouldn’t have to wait until they were unconscious. ‘I was giving you the kiss of life.’

He barked out something that might have been a laugh. The dismissive kind that lacked any kind of humour or warmth. ‘That had about as much in common with CPR as—’

I was spared whatever unflattering comparison he had in mind as a couple of uniformed policemen, taking advantage of the fact that I’d left the door ajar for the paramedics, burst into the hall. One of them grabbed me by the arm and without so much as a by-your-leave hauled me to my feet with an, ‘All right, young lady…’

With that, pandemonium broke out as the older of the two dogs—the one that had been keeping watch over Gabriel York—leapt up, pushing himself between me and the policemen. From somewhere deep in his throat he produced a low, threatening growl that he might well have learned from his master.

The other dog immediately stopped dancing excitedly about the new arrivals and joined in. My heroes.

‘Percy! Joe! Down.’

Percy, still baring his teeth but lowering the growl until it was scarcely audible, obeyed his master’s voice in his own good time, his haunches almost but not quite in contact with the floor, ready to spring to my defence at the slightest provocation. Joe followed his example. The policeman, taking heed of this canine warning that any injudicious move would be met with extreme prejudice, let go of my arm and took a step back.

‘Would someone like to tell me what the hell is going on?’

Gabriel York had taken advantage of the distraction to sit up and now, grabbing hold of the stairpost, he hauled himself to his feet.

‘No…’ I began. He glared at me for apparently daring to defy him. More gently, I said, ‘You really should sit down, Mr York.’

He gave me a look that suggested he would deal with me later, before ignoring my advice and turning to the nearest policeman. ‘You,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘One of your neighbours called us, sir. She saw this young woman—’ he unwisely gestured in my direction, got a warning reprise of the growl from Percy for his trouble and immediately lowered his arm ‘—er, apparently breaking in through an upstairs window and called the local station.’

Gabriel York turned back to look at me. Sweat had broken out on his upper lip and he looked as if he was about to pass out again at any minute. But not, apparently, before he’d got some answers. ‘Is that right? You climbed in through an upstairs window?’

‘I had to do something!’ I was absolutely livid. I’d been out there, hanging on by my fingernails, risking my life, and instead of coming to help me his nosy neighbour had sat behind her curtains and called the police. Actually, my own legs felt suddenly less than solid as I had a quick flashback of the risks I’d taken. ‘I couldn’t just leave you lying there.’

‘How did you know I was—’ he made a gesture in the direction of the floor ‘—lying there?’

‘Look, my name is Sophie Harrington,’ I said, turning to the nearest policeman. ‘I was sent here by the Garland Agency. They’ll vouch for me. When no one answered the doorbell I looked through the letterbox and saw Mr York lying unconscious—’ he snorted dismissively at this ‘—lying unconscious,’ I repeated, ‘on the floor at the foot of the stairs, so I climbed up the downpipe and in through the window.’

The policeman turned to Gabriel York for a response to this. This time he didn’t snort. After a few moments’ silent contemplation he nodded, then winced, then said, ‘My neighbour undoubtedly did the correct thing, but Miss Harrington is right—’ well, hallelujah ‘—she’s here to walk my dogs.’

‘Lifesaving is all part of the service,’ I volunteered, earning myself another black look.

‘I’m sorry you’ve been bothered, gentlemen,’ he added, clearly hoping they’d leave so that he could collapse quietly. To be honest, he looked so grim that I had to force myself to stay put and not rush over to him and make him sit down before he collapsed in a heap at the foot of the stairs. Something warned me that it would not be a good idea.

Fortunately I did have one ace up my sleeve. I turned to the policemen. ‘They’re not the only ones who’ve been bothered, I’m afraid. Before I climbed in through the upstairs window and applied the kiss of life—’

‘I was not dead!’

No. He certainly wasn’t that. Even in extremis he’d managed a fairly good impression of being very much alive.

‘—I called for an ambulance,’ I finished, as if I had not been interrupted, hoping that I sounded as if I didn’t care one way or another if it ever arrived.

‘Then you can ring them again and call them off.’

The effort of talking was exhausting him, but his eyes held mine with an inner power. They were full of anger at his own weakness, hating me for having seen him that way, and I knew that there was no way I was going to be keeping this job—which was, I suppose, why I shrugged and said, ‘If you can make it to the phone, Mr York, you can call them off yourself. Otherwise you’re stuck with them.’ I smiled at the younger of the two policemen. He looked barely old enough to shave. Blissfully, he blushed. ‘You’ll stay until the paramedics arrive, gentlemen? These poor dogs really have to do what a dog has to do.’

They raised no objection.

The dogs’ leads were looped over a chair, along with—oh, joy—a pooper-scooper and some plastic bags. I picked them up, fastened the leads to the dogs’ collars and, leaving my employer in the capable care of two strapping policemen, said, ‘Okay, boys. Walkies.’

Joe needed no second bidding, leaping to his paws, his feathered tail whirling, his slender cream body quivering with excitement beneath his short silky coat. Percy looked to his master.

Gabriel York never took his eyes off me, and I found myself reliving the moment when the kiss of life had become something much more personal, remembering exactly how his lips had felt beneath mine, how his dark hair had felt beneath my hand as I’d brushed it back from his forehead. The strength of his jaw as I’d cradled it…

Then, with the slightest movement of his hand, he gave his dogs permission to go, and with a jerk on my aching shoulder I found myself being towed through the door, down the steps and into the street.

An ambulance turned the corner as we headed in the direction of Battersea Park and I grinned.

Obviously he hadn’t got to the phone in time.

It was only when I reached the park and set the dogs loose that I wondered what on earth I was going to do with them if the paramedics carted him off to hospital.

CHAPTER THREE

THE alarm was like a chainsaw chewing through my brain. That was the trouble with surprise parties. They took you by surprise and you didn’t have time to remind yourself of the golden rule about not drinking on an empty stomach. More particularly the platinum, diamond-encrusted rule about not drinking too many margaritas on an empty stomach.

Since I’d been expecting nothing more than a quiet drink with a mate, I hadn’t made a huge effort with my appearance either, going for comfort rather than glamour. I’d taken a long hot shower, to remove what seemed like half of Battersea Park, filed down the ruins of my nails and decided to forgo the doubtful pleasure of spending hours with a brush and hairdryer in an effort to return my hair to sleek perfection, and gone for the rumpled, dragged-through-a-hedge-backwards look instead.

Well, it had come close.

A dab of concealer on the nicely developing bruise, a pair of favourite—if past their fashion statement days—trousers, a baggy shirt and a pair of boots and I’d been all set.

Then I’d walked into the bar.

Everyone else had been dressed to kill, of course. I’d been the only one actually in the mood to perform the deed.

Tony, a bloke a girl could usually rely on not to do anything clever, had ignored my ‘I do not want to even think about this birthday, let alone celebrate it’ response to his query about a party. He’d assumed that I was joking—I said he wasn’t clever—and pulled out all the stops.

But—and these are probably the three most damning words in the English language—he’d meant well. To be honest, after the second margarita what I was wearing hadn’t seemed to matter that much, and I’d surprised myself by having a great time. Cleverer than I thought, perhaps…

I groped for the clock, turned it off and fell out of bed while I was still awake. A walk—a long walk with two very lively dogs—would undoubtedly be good for me. Always assuming I could remember how to put one foot in front of another. Always assuming I still had a job.

On my return to Gabriel York’s house yesterday I had been met by a frosty-faced Mrs York, who had wordlessly handed me a large towel at arm’s length and watched from a safe distance while I’d removed all traces of mud from the dogs. Then, with the minimum of words, she’d indicated I should take them downstairs to the utility room and give them some water. After I’d removed my shoes. Clearly she didn’t ‘do’ dogs.

Actually, I sympathised. She’d been wearing a charcoal grey business suit that had clearly cost a mint and in her place I wouldn’t have wanted two excitable and muddy hounds near me. Honesty compels me to admit that it had been a mistake not to clip their leads back on before we reached the lake. It was asking for trouble and, as usual, I got it. They’d instantly spotted a couple of ducks so far away that I hadn’t noticed them and plunged right in, proving to be selectively deaf when I’d called them to heel.

They’d heard ‘walkies’, no problem.

Anyway, I’d mopped up the resulting mess under her chilling gaze, and in an effort to break the ice—and because I had a stake in his health, besides really wanting to know—enquired after Mr York. All the time I’d been out with the dogs I’d wondered whether he’d been hauled off in an ambulance, undoubtedly protesting that it wasn’t in the least bit necessary, and what I was going to do if he had.

No worries. There’d been lights on all over the place when I returned. Great. And Mrs York was there to answer the door. Not so great.

In reply to my query, she had informed me that he was ‘as well as could be expected under the circumstances’—which told me precisely nothing. I mean, I’d have liked to know if he was suffering from a bad bout of something flulike so that I could stock up on painkillers and tissues. One look at her had suggested it might not be advisable to explain about my ‘kiss of life’. She hadn’t looked as if she’d appreciate my sacrifice.

What she had done, was leave me with the unsettling impression that the ‘circumstances’ had everything to do with me.

Tempted as I’d been to point out that I’d actually saved his life—probably—I had restrained myself. A fair number of silky cream dog hairs, disturbed by my brisk towelling of Joe’s coat, had floated in her direction and attached themselves to her skirt; I hadn’t wanted to be around when she noticed them.

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