Playboy Under the Mistletoe. Joanna Neil

in the cosy confines of her room.

      ‘Perhaps you’d like to order room service for both of us,’ she suggested, ‘while I start on my packing?’ She glanced at Ben as she went to place her suitcase on the bed, but something in his gaze made her stop what she was doing.

      He was watching her closely, a glimmer of pure, male interest in his blue glance as it trailed over her, taking in the silky sweep of her hair and wandering down to trace a path over the gentle curve of her hips.

      ‘I’d almost forgotten how beautiful you are,’ he murmured, his gaze returning to settle on the soft curve of her mouth. ‘Whenever I thought about you, I’d remember your smile, the way you had of looking at me with that guarded expression, as though you weren’t quite sure what trouble I’d land myself in next. But it was always your hair that fascinated me. It’s so glorious that I’d long to run my fingers through it, very much as you did just then.’ He smiled. ‘Only I would have lingered a while longer, I think.’

      His gently seductive manner unsettled her, causing her to falter as she set the suitcase down on the bed. Had he really been thinking about her from time to time? She hadn’t expected that. How was she to deal with this man from her past now that he had turned up, out of the blue, the one man she had kept at a distance all this time for fear of being hurt? He’d been a charmer, a man who’d known exactly how to wind women around his little finger, and it didn’t seem as though much had changed.

      She fumbled with the zip of the suitcase, encountering resistance, and within a second or two Ben was beside her, his hand resting briefly on hers. The fleeting contact caused a tide of heat to surge through her veins and brought a soft flush of colour to her cheeks.

      ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘It’s free now.’

      ‘Thank you.’ She tried breathing slowly and deeply for a while in an effort to calm herself down. She studied him, letting her gaze run over his features and trying to assess what really lay behind that calm, unruffled exterior. ‘It’s been a while since we last ran into one another,’ she murmured, struggling to find her voice. ‘I’m surprised that you thought about me at all.’

      ‘It would be hard not to think about you,’ he responded with a faint smile. ‘After all, we both lived in the same village, and I watched you grow from a lively tomboy who landed in almost as many scrapes as I did into a lovely, serene and accomplished woman. It would have been very strange if I had forgotten you after that, just because we were separated by a few miles.’

      She gave him a long, thoughtful look. Was he teasing her, trying to lead her along the same route that all those unsuspecting young women had travelled back home…like Anna, her brother’s girlfriend? She had to be wary of him. He simply wasn’t to be trusted.

      ‘Like I said, maybe you should order some food for us…the menu is on the desk. I’ll have a jacket potato with cheese, please. And a pot of coffee would be good. I’ve a feeling I’ll need something to sustain me on the journey.’

      He nodded, accepting her change of subject without comment. Glancing through the menu, he said, ‘I think I’ll go with the ham and cheese melt. Leave it with me.’

      She nodded and turned back to her packing. Some fifteen minutes later, she had managed to cram most of her belongings into her case, and Ben lent a hand with zipping it up.

      ‘All this for one week?’ he murmured, lifting a questioning brow. ‘How can any woman need so many changes of clothes in such a short space of time—unless, of course, you’ve been throwing yourself wholeheartedly into the night life? A few boisterous nights in the bar with the people on your course?’ He was looking at her quizzically, and she shook her head, giving off an air of innocence. He lifted a dark brow.

      ‘Well, maybe a couple,’ she amended with a laugh. ‘Though they weren’t what you’d call boisterous…more of a lively and animated type of evening, I’d say, especially as the night wore on.’

      His eyes took on a contemplative expression. ‘No intimate dinners for two, then? Does that mean you’re not involved in any serious relationship at the moment? Or maybe you’ve a boyfriend waiting for you back home?’

      She frowned. Why did he want to know that? There was no way she was going to let him wheedle his way into her affections, was there, given his past history? Enough was enough, and she decided to sidestep his questions. Why should he learn every detail of her private life when she knew nothing of his? Simply guessing what he might have been up to was bad enough.

      ‘It means,’ she said, looking down at her overstuffed case, ‘that I’ve packed my suitcase full of the Christmas presents I’ve bought for friends and family while I’ve been up here. Like I said, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to explore the shops in a new town…and with Christmas just three weeks away, there was no time to lose, was there?’

      His mouth curved. ‘I guess not,’ he said, accepting her avoidance tactics with good enough grace. Then he moved away from her as a waiter arrived with the food, setting it out on the table.

      ‘I ordered a couple of desserts, too,’ Ben told her when the man had gone. ‘All this is my treat,’ he said. ‘I told the receptionist I would be paying for it.’

      ‘Thank you…but you didn’t need to do that.’ She eyed up the mouth-watering fruit crumble topped with creamy custard and felt all her good intentions fade away. How had he known that was her favourite? ‘That’s my diet blown for the week,’ she added mournfully.

      He laughed. ‘I don’t believe that you’ve ever needed to diet in your life,’ he said, looking her over. ‘You’ve a perfect hourglass figure…’

      She steeled herself not to rise to his bait. ‘Perhaps you should sit down and eat before the food gets cold,’ she suggested, doing her best to bat his comments to one side. ‘And tell me how it is that you came to be working with the rescue services this afternoon. I thought you were working in A and E, the same as me.’

      She pulled out a chair and sat down opposite him at the table. Glancing out of the window she could see that in the grey light of the afternoon the snow was beginning to thicken, fat white flakes coming down in a steady flow.

      ‘I wanted to try something different,’ he said, taking a bite out of his toasted sandwich. ‘I used to enjoy climbing in the Lake District and thought I might volunteer my services for the mountain rescue team. Then one of the team members here fell sick, so Mike asked me to come and do today’s stint. I suppose that’s why you didn’t see my name on the advertising bumph.’

      She nodded. ‘I wondered if it was something like that.’ She scooped up a mound of potato. ‘I expect you know most of your local team already, don’t you? That will probably make things easier for you, won’t it?’

      He shook his head. ‘I won’t be working with my local team because I’m preparing to go back to Woodsley. I’ve served out my notice at the hospital where I’ve been these last few years.’

      Jasmine put down her fork and stared at him. ‘You’re going home? After all this time?’

      ‘That’s right. I might not be too welcome back there, but five years has perhaps been long enough for me to stay away. There are things I need to deal with, and I think it’s probably high time I started to put my life in order.’

      She pressed her lips together. The news had come as a huge shock. How was she going to cope if Ben came back to the village? Woodsley Bridge was a relatively small place, and the chances of seeing him around and about were pretty great. There would be no escape.

      Even so, she couldn’t prevent the thrill of nervous excitement that shimmied along her spine at the thought of him coming home. But that was the unruly, wanton side of her body betraying her, wasn’t it? Common sense told her that there would be nothing but trouble if Ben went back to the Lake District. How would his father react?

      Worse still, how would her brother Callum deal with the wanderer’s return? Once, he and Ben had been best friends, but all that had