Kissing Santa. Jessica Hart

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      CHAPTER ONE

      AMANDA saw Blair McAllister as soon as she stepped down off the train. He was standing under a banner wishing everyone season’s greetings on behalf of the station staff, but he didn’t look exactly filled with Christmas spirit. Instead, he was watching the passengers piling out of the standard-class carriages, his hands thrust into corduroy trousers with barely concealed impatience and dark brows drawn together over a formidable-looking nose.

      Dropping her case onto the platform, Amanda slid A Far Horizon surreptitiously out of her bag so that she could squint down at the photograph on the back of the dust-jacket. Yes, it was definitely the same man.

      With a distinct sense of disappointment, she rested her sherry-coloured eyes on Blair McAllister as he searched the milling crowds with a frown. The photograph had been taken in a desert. Unaware of the camera, he had been smiling at someone out of sight, eyes narrowed against the glare and dark hair slightly ruffled by a hot wind, and he had looked rangy and relaxed and utterly competent.

      On the tram, Amanda had studied the photograph with interest and a faint stirring of anticipation. She wouldn’t have called him exactly handsome, but there was defimtely something about him, she had decided. She wasn’t sure whether it was that look of lean self-containment, his reputation as an intrepid traveller and programme maker, or simply his tan, but, whatever it was, it gave him an indefinably glamorous air.

      Now she slid the book back into her bag with a faint sigh. Who said the camera never lied? The man waiting for her on the platform might have the same severe features as the man in the photograph, but in the flesh he looked tired and bad-tempered and not in the least bit glamorous.

      He stood quite still, letting the crowds surge past him, and as Amanda watched he turned his head and looked up the platform towards her. For a brief moment his gaze rested on her vibrant figure with a hard, impersonal scrutiny before it swept on, and the next moment he had transferred his attention back down the platform once more. Amanda was left feeling rather piqued at his lack of interest. She was also a little disconcerted by the shrewd intelligence in his face. Blair McAllister didn’t look like a man who would be easily fooled by anyone.

      Which was unfortunate, in the circumstances.

      Amanda hesitated. In London it had seemed so easy to take Sue’s place but now, as she faced the reality of her new employer, suddenly it didn’t seem quite such a good idea. She looked doubtfully along the platform at Blair, then squared her shoulders and bent to tip her suitcase back onto its wheels. She had just spent over eleven hours on trains and she wasn’t going to turn round and go back now!

      Trundling the suitcase behind her, she made her way towards him through the last of the passengers. ‘Mr McAllister?’

      He swung round at the sound of his name, the fierce brows shooting up in surprise at her appearing from the direction of the first-class carriages. ‘Yes—’

      He stopped as he took in Amanda’s appearance. She had a mobile expression, and dark, glossy brown hair cleverly highlighted with gold swung around her face. Subject to belated qualms about what she was letting herself in for, she had bolstered her confidence by making up with care on the train, emphasising the unusual golden-brown eyes and outlining the curving mouth with the bold red lipstick that she always wore. She was wearing the suit that she had bought to celebrate promotion to executive status at last, together with her favourite shoes which were decorated with floppy bows and which always made her feel good.

      ‘You’re Susan Haywood?’ Blair went on in disbelief.

      Perhaps she didn’t look much like a nanny, Amanda realised as his eyes rested for an incredulous moment on her shoes. Nannies probably didn’t travel first class either, but Norris had bought her ticket and she had never been one to turn down the chance of a bit of luxury. Still, it was too late to worry about that now. She gave Blair McAllister her best smile instead.

      ‘That’s me,’ she said mendaciously. ‘But I prefer to be called Amanda,’ she added, having decided that she would get confused if she had to answer to Sue all month.

      ‘Amanda?’ Her guileless smile didn’t seem to be having much effect on Blair. Instead of smiling back as any other man would have done, the surprise in his face deepened to suspicion. ‘Amanda?’ he said again, staring at her.

      ‘Yes.’ She allowed her innocent look to fade in her turn into bewilderment. ‘Didn’t the agency tell you?’

      ‘No, they didn’t.’ Blair’s voice was terse, with only a hint of a Scottish intonation.

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