Seeing his hands tighten around the steering wheel, she narrowed her eyes as she addressed him. It didn’t take a genius to realise there was more to this guy than he was letting on. “You don’t give much away, do you?”
“In relation to…?” Staring straight ahead, he was clearly refusing to look at her.
“Yourself.”
“Maybe there’s nothing to tell.”
Flick disagreed. “There’s always something to tell.”
He continued to focus on the road ahead. “Maybe some people just have boring lives.”
“Rubbish. Most people are happy to talk about lots of things. Like their brothers and sisters, for example.”
“If you must know, I don’t have any. Although I’m happy to pretend and make a couple up if you’d prefer.”
Flick smiled to herself. He might be an unwilling participant in this conversation, but at least she was getting somewhere. “Most people chat about where they come from.”
“Then in my case that would be London. Which tourist destination would you like to discuss first?”
Flick considered not so much his words, it was his tone that she found intriguing. He seemed to have zero enthusiasm when it came to his old life. But surely it couldn’t have been that bad. “They also drop their parents into the conversation once in a while,” she carried on, regardless.
Nate turned his head in her direction. Something in her tummy fluttered as his intense green eyes stared straight into hers. God, he was gorgeous. He seemed to search her face, but whatever answer he hoped to find, she could tell by the way he looked back at her that he wanted to say something. And whatever thatsomethingwas, it was clearly important.
“If you must know,” he said.
Flick caught a glimmer of something in the woods just ahead. “What’s that?” she asked, momentarily forgetting their conversation.
“What’s what?” Nate moved to follow her gaze, but he was too late.
“Look out!” she said, as something darted out in front of them.
A huge mass of brown fur charged from left to right, attempting to cross their path. It had a long pig-like snout, small pointy ears, and at almost a metre high, it was like nothing Flick had ever seen.
“Shit!” Nate slammed on his brakes.
Flick gripped her seat with one hand and clung on to her seat belt with the other. Tyres screeched and everything seemed to move in slow motion as the car refused to stop. Struggling to hold on, gravity suddenly flung her forward. Flick automatically threw her arms out and, fear surging through her body, she reached for the dashboard. Her seatbelt locked and her whole body jolted back again as the van finally came to a standstill.
Flick sat there, her heart still racing as she stared at the road in front of them. “Talk about an adrenalin rush. What was that?”
“Sanglier.” Nate took a sharp intake of breath and ran a hand through his hair as he exhaled.
Flick was still none the wiser. “And that would be?”
“Sorry,” Nate said, obviously still recovering from their near miss. “Wild boar.”
“Really?” Flick struggled to hide her excitement. “I’ve never seen a wild boar before.”
“Lucky you. They’re a bloody nuisance. And vicious. I’m guessing that one was escaping thechaise.”
Again, Flick needed a translator.
“The hunt. It’s that time of year.”
Flick’s eyes widened. “You mean someone was going to shoot it?”
“Don’t look so horrified.”
“With a real gun?”
