Jessica Steele - The Feisty Fiancée

They were driving along before it suddenly occurred to her to ask, `Was I supposed to sit in the back?' Thomson didn't answer, but half turned, a trace of amusement on his mouth before he gave his attention back to the road.

Shortly afterwards they stopped to fill up with petrol and Yancie stayed with the front seat. She felt right there. And if Thomson didn't want her sitting next to him, then she full well knew he wouldn't mince words to tell her so.

'Where did you get to this afternoon?' he asked conversationally when they were on their way again.

'Where?' she questioned in return, playing for time, her decision to always tell him the truth soon under attack.

'There were an additional sixty miles on the milometer.'

'Trust you to take a note,' Yancie accused stiffly, knowing she still hadn't got the hang of this being employed lark, though having an idea she shouldn't be answering back. But really!

'I didn't intentionally,' Thomson answered, quite civilly, she felt, considering she was all snappy and snarly.

'You have a brain that automatically registers numbers?"

'Quite often without me being aware of it,' he agreed. `So, left with time on your hands, you decided to go and take tea with one of your friends from nursery school who happens to live barely thirty miles distant?'

Yancie by then was forming the opinion that he didn't really want to know, and started to like him afresh that he seemed, by chatting to her in this conversational way, to want to make amends for previously scaring the living daylights out of her.

But, although she hadn't been having tea with one of her old friends, she had been having tea with someone. And, very conscious of his clever brain, Yancie didn't want him prying further when who knew?-she might in advertently let the name `Fisher' slip-and from there she might get Wilf into trouble. So, `No,' she said briefly, `I didn't.'

'Then you must have been visiting your sister.'

She laughed. `I don't have a sis…' She stopped laughing.

'You don't?' he questioned evenly. `You mean there's no little Miranda-Cassandra?'

Oh, help! Yancie took a glance at him. She thought she might see him looking angry. But no, if anything he looked amused that she had been so neatly tripped up. And it was then that she knew that he had known all along that she didn't have a sister. All the time she'd been trotting out that tale about her niece leaving her inseparable toy behind, he had known she had neither sister nor niece. That she had been lying her head off.

'I confess,' she owned up-what choice did she have? `I'm an only child. But,' she hurried on, still desperate to keep her job, `I will never, ever, lie to you again.'

She held her breath-was it goodbye time? Thomson glanced at her. `Promises, promises,' he said. Yancie breathed again.

Some while later she recognised they were nearing the smart area where Astra's father's flat was… `I should be driving you home,' she said hurriedly.

'You've had a long and-trying-day,' he answered kindly.

And Yancie was quite taken suddenly by the fact that this man she was sitting beside had not barked at her once in the last couple of hours. She was still feeling a little bemused by his kindness when, Thomson having read her address once, apparently, and with his photographic memory filed it away, he pulled the car up outside her home.

She vaguely recalled she had a shoulder bag in the back somewhere, and stretched an arm back, connected with it, but in pulling it over she accidentally clipped Thomson on the ear with it.

Oh, my word, he was not amused. But unfortunately, at the what-the-hell-are-you going-to-do-next kind of look he threw at her, Yancie very nearly collapsed.

Oh, help, she could feel a fit of the giggles coming on. It was his pained expression that triggered it. She laughed; he didn't. She strove hard for control-it was a wasted effort. Thomson got out of the car. Think of something awful. She couldn't.

He came round to the passenger door and Yancie got out of the car, her eyes brimming with merriment. She coughed down another giggle as she struggled for control.

Oh, my giddy aunt, she would have sworn she hadn't had a fit of the giggles since she and her cousins had been at boarding-school. But, as she stood on the pavement with him, so Yancie knew she was fighting a losing battle with her giggle-muscles.

She was still swallowing down laughter, or trying to, when Thomson, standing there silently studying her, found the cure. `You're stupid!' he gritted exasperatedly. And when that only seemed to make her explode into more giggles he did no more than catch hold of her and, his head starting to come nearer, he kissed her.

There was not a glimmer of laughter about Yancie when he pulled back to look down at her. Satisfied, as she just stood there and stared at him, Thomson, without so much as a goodnight, turned and walked away.

Walked away and left her with a wild mixture of emotions raging in her. He started up the Jaguar and drove off, but Yancie didn't move. She had known Thomson had a wonderful mouth, but had never thought to experience it against her own.

Yet, while it had not been a lover's kiss, or even a friend's kiss, it was a kiss that seemed to shatter all she knew. Her heart, her mind seemed to be in uproar. She felt breathless, dizzy-and had the craziest notion that-if she didn't know better-she'd have said she had fallen in love with him!

SHE WAS not, not, not in love with Thomson, Yancie told herself repeatedly as the weekend came and went. She was still telling herself the same thing when Thursday rolled around again-a week, a whole week since she had last seen him-and thoughts of the head man at Addison Kirk seemed to be still totally dominating her mind.

She supposed, on balance, seeing what a hash she'd made of it the last time she'd been called upon to chauffeur him-when he had ended up chauffeuring her-that she couldn't blame him for not requesting her to drive him since. And yet-even though she wasn't in love with him-she missed him. Indeed, sometimes she felt so heartsore, she ached just to see him. But she wasn't in love with him!

Yancie occasionally worried that she might be growing to be like her mother, or her cousins' mothers, Aunt Portia or Aunt Imogen. But it didn't feel like it. This-this feeling inside of her wasn't a feeling she got for any one anywhere-likely-looking man. It was just for Thomson Wakefield.

It upset her, this new and never experienced-before emotion. Yet, when she, Astra and Fennia had always been able to discuss absolutely everything, including their innermost thoughts, she felt completely unable to discuss this-whatever it was she felt for Thomson-with them. It was too private. Somehow, it was much too private to share with even her two lovely cousins.

Yancie tried hard to think of something else other than Thomson, yet thoughts of him seemed to consume her. Ridiculous, she told herself; totally ridiculous. It was for sure he wasn't wasting a minute's sleep in thinking of her. If he were, he'd be on that phone to Kevin asking for her to drive him somewhere. But had he rung for her? Had he blazes!

'What's the matter, Yancie`?' Fennia asked her when they met up at Astra's flat that night.

'Matter?"

'You've been-different. All this week you've been quiet. Sort of as if your mind is elsewhere.'

'I'm sorry,' Yancie apologised.

Fennia shrugged her apology aside. `You're not having problems at work? With your mother?"

'Oh, Fen!' Here was she, moping about, when Fennia had much more serious problems. `How are things with you and your mother?"

'Like she doesn't want to know.'

'What we need is a party,' Yancie decided to be cheerful.

'True, but Astra's got a whole load of work on this weekend, and it wouldn't be fair.'