The blatant lie drew a heavy sigh from his lips, but before he could dispute her claim the engine faded and they glided to a standstill.
‘I wish I could say the same.’ Still, it could have been worse. He studied the area. The spot, sheltered from the road by a copse of the almond and oak trees that bordered the slopes, was not too exposed.
‘Why have we stopped?’ She passed a hand across her eyes and stifled a yawn. She felt stiff and uncomfortable. Her cheek, where it had been pressed into the window, probably looked as creased as her clothes—which were pretty creased.
Beside her Luiz looked as though he’d just stepped out of the shower, except of course his hair was dry and he had clothes on—clothes that looked freshly pressed—and he oozed an indecent amount of vitality for someone who had been driving on hair-raising roads.
She was scowling at the total unfairness of it all and when he turned his head she ignored his smile, lifting her brows in enquiry. ‘So why?’
‘I wanted to admire the view.’
Nell narrowed her eyes and looked daggers at him.
Luiz gave another smile, this time sardonic as he held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘Why do you think we’ve stopped?’
‘If I knew I wouldn’t have asked…’ She stopped, a look of horror stealing across her face. ‘Are you trying to say we’ve broken down?’
‘We have.’
Luiz watched as she dropped her head into her hands and groaned. ‘Why do these things keep happening to me?’
‘Is that a rhetorical question?’
She lifted her head and glared at him with loathing. ‘This is not a good time to be funny. Just in case nobody has mentioned it, you’re not good at it.’ She took a deep breath and said to herself, ‘Don’t panic.’ She closed her eyes. Stay calm, she told herself. It was probably something simple and they’d be on their way in no time.
‘I’ll try.’
Nell didn’t deign to respond to this open provocation. ‘I suppose you know nothing about engines?’
‘I’m not an expert but I get by.’
‘Good. Then…’ she waved in the direction of the car bonnet ‘…shouldn’t you be looking for loose leads or broken fan belts or something?’ She had a vague recollection of a pair of tights being used with miraculous effect to repair a broken-down engine on a TV programme—she had no tights but clearly the situation was not hopeless.
‘There’s no point.’
This defeatist attitude earned him a disapproving frown.
‘I already know what’s wrong.’
Nell brightened. ‘Why didn’t you say so?’ Silly question—he obviously got a sadistic kick from seeing her squirm. ‘Well, anyway, that’s marvellous!’ Her smile faded as she studied his face. ‘Not marvelous. It’s something major?’
‘Not major.’
‘Well, what?’ Nell wanted to shake the answer out of him.
‘We’ve run out of petrol.’
She flashed him an impatient look. ‘No, seriously.’
‘Seriously we have run out of petrol.’
The colour seeped from Nell’s cheeks as she stared at him transfixed in horror. The silence stretched. ‘Tell me this is a sick joke.’
‘No joke,’ he said, unbuckling his seat belt. Nell shivered as the evening air sent the temperature inside down several degrees.
‘What are you doing?’ she demanded, her voice rising several quivering decibels as he calmly stepped out of the vehicle and stretched to straighten the kinks in his spine. ‘Ring someone.’
Luiz ducked his head back inside. ‘I’m going to stretch my legs, check out the lay of the land and attend to a call of nature. I suggest you do the same before it gets dark. There is no signal here, so no phone.’
Nell glanced nervously out of the window. She was by no means a town girl, but this landscape was bigger than anything she was used to and she didn’t even want to think about the remoteness. It was nature at a raw, primitive level that left her senses feeling bruised… With a shudder she turned away.
‘Dark?’ Her glance was claimed and held by Luiz Santoro’s mesmeric stare.
She flexed her shoulders as invisible fingers traced a path down her spine. The landscape wasn’t the only thing that was raw and primitive around here!
Nell was relieved when Luiz turned his head and lifted his narrowed eyes to the darkening sky. ‘I’d say we’ve got another hour of daylight.’
‘Someone might come along,’ Nell countered with determined optimism.
‘At this time of day?’ He arched a sardonic brow. Never a person who avoided reality even when it wasn’t pleasant, Luiz saw nothing admirable in Nell’s determined blind optimism. ‘When did you last see another car?’