One Reckless Night Read Free

time-warp, where life moved at a different, slower pace.
      Usually she would have been impatient, pushing herself and others, looking for a way round the obstacles in her path. But today she felt herself slowing in unison. She was aware that the tension was seeping out of her, that the sun and the warm breeze with its scent of hedgerows were bestowing a kind of benison.
      Someone had once said that to travel hopefully was better than to arrive. For the first time she could understand that, and agree.
      The Emplesham village sign was emblazoned on a huge circle of stone half-buried in long grass and hawthorn at the side of the road.
      As Zanna passed it she began to realise that all was not well with her car. The engine note was not right. It seemed to have developed a kind of stutter, she thought with dismay. And then, without further warning, it died on her altogether.
      Using the slight downward slope, Zanna steered the car onto the verge and applied the handbrake. She said under her breath, 'I don't believe this.' It was as if the damned thing had become suddenly bewitched as it crossed the village line. Although that, of course, was nonsense.
      She could see roofs and the church tower only a couple of hundred yards away. There'd be help there, or at least a telephone, she decided. She locked the car and began to walk down the lane, only to see ahead of her, as she rounded the first corner, a small garage and workshop.
      Thank goodness for that, at least, she thought as she picked her way between the limited selection of secondhand cars on the forecourt and entered the workshop.
      She could hear music playing-one of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, she recognised with slight incredulity-but could see no one. She moved forward uncertainly and nearly stumbled over a pair of long denim-clad legs protruding from under a car. And not just any car, she realised. It was a classic Jaguar-by no means new, but immaculately maintained.
      A portable cassette player near the legs was presumably the source of the music.
      Zanna raised her voice above it. 'Could you help me, please?'
      There was no response, so she bent down and switched off the cassette.
      She said, on a crisper note, 'Excuse me.'
      There was a brief pause, then the owner of the legs disentangled himself from beneath the car and sat up, looking at her.
      He was tall and lean, his mane of black curling hair shaggy and unkempt. From a tanned face dark eyes surveyed her expressionlessly. His T-shirt and jeans were filthy with oil. He looked, Zanna thought with faint contempt, like some kind of gipsy.
      Still, any port in a storm, she consoled herself, with a faint sigh. And if someone was actually allowing him to work on a car like that, he couldn't be totally incompetent.
      He said, 'Consider yourself excused.' His voice was low-pitched, with a faint drawl and a barely detectable undercurrent of amusement.
      Zanna stiffened slightly, needled by his continuing and lingering scrutiny. He would, she thought, know her again. She looked back at him coldly, registering in her turn a beak of a nose that had clearly been broken at some time, a cool, thin-lipped mouth and a chin with a determined tilt. An image not as easily dismissed as she'd first assumed.
      She said briefly, 'My car has broken down.'
      He shrugged. Through a rip in his shirt his shoulder looked very brown. 'It happens,' he returned laconically. 'My commiserations.' And he moved as if to slide back under the Jaguar.
      'Just a moment,' Zanna said with a snap, and he paused enquiringly. She took a breath. 'I'm not looking for sympathy. I'd actually like you to fix it-if it's not too much trouble,' she added witheringly.
      'Now that's the problem.' His face was solemn, but under their heavy lids she could swear his eyes were dancing. 'I am rather busy already. As you can see.'
      'Yes, but I have an emergency,' Zanna said impatiently. 'And this is a garage.'
      'Ten out of