Miranda's Big Mistake - Jill Mansell [159]
`Would you like me to say I saw your delectable little bottom wiggling across the carpet?' Danny grinned, unperturbed by this outburst. `I will if you want. I just thought it might alarm you, seeing as I'm not normally the flowery-compliments type.'
This was true, Miranda couldn't deny it. Still, she was almost sure there was a hint of a compliment lurking in there. Deep down.
Somewhere.
`I didn't want to answer the door in case you were a Jehovah' s Witness.' She stepped back reluctantly, and wished with all her heart she hadn't been quite so vigorous with the tweezers. `And I haven't been crying, okay? I've just plucked my eyebrows.'
`I'll believe you, thousands wouldn't.' His dark eyes flickered over her clothes. `Why are you wearing a thermal vest and a coat?'
`I had to take my jumper off, there was sick on it. Not my sick,' Miranda added defensively. `Mattie's.'
`Glad to hear it. Florence and Tom get away on time?'
`How did-?' Miranda stared at him, wondering how he could have known they were leaving today. Then she wondered why she was bothering to wonder, since pretty obviously Florence had rung and told him herself.
`She was just keeping me in touch. Thought I might be interested.' Danny's tone was neutral.
`If she told you I was lonely and needed cheering up-' Miranda began furiously, but he stopped her in her tracks.
`She didn't. Actually, I'm the one in need of help.'
Oh well, that stood to reason, he looked so utterly helpless standing there in his dark-blue sweatshirt and faded Levis, with his battered leather jacket slung over one broad shoulder and his humorous dark eyes glittering down at her in that completely unfair way.
`Go on,' muttered Miranda, wondering if she was ever going to be able to look at him without experiencing that swooping sensation - like leaping dolphins - in the depths of her stomach.
`I've got a new kite in the car,' Danny told her. `I need to get some serious practice in, so that I can dazzle that nephew of mine with my skills. And I need someone to untangle me when it all goes horribly wrong.' He paused. `Fancy a trip to Parliament Hill?'
`Dazzle him with your skills?' echoed Miranda. `Better take a tent with us, then. This could take years.'
Danny's mouth began to twitch at the corners.
`Is that your charming way of saying yes?'
Determined not to let him see how overjoyed she was,Miranda replied, `Actually, it's my charming way of saying: what the hell, I could do with a good laugh.'
When had she last come up here, that time with Florence? It must have been back in April, Miranda finally worked out. And now it was November, but the kites were still out in force.
The sun was out too, brightening a cloudless hyacinth-blue sky, but it was colder than before, an icy north-easterly wind zinging through Miranda' s hair and numbing the exposed tips of her ears.
All over the hill, children wrapped up against the cold raced around, battling to seize control of frantically flapping kites and miles of unravelled nylon cord. The adults, expertly coaxing their kites into performing gymnastic displays of Olympic brilliance, stood their ground and scarcely moved at all.
Racing around like a lunatic and getting garrotted by your own kite string was clearly a very immature thing to do.
To impress his nephew, Danny had bought a monster of a kite, crimson and double-winged and as uncontrollable as a charging rhino. Every time Miranda threw it up into the air, it leapt skywards for a few seconds, lulling them both into a false sense of security, before plummeting back to earth with a vengeance. Twice, it had missed her head by inches and she'd had to learn to dodge out of the way. When she took her turn at trying to fly it, it promptly hurled itself into the nearest tree.
Danny inched his way along the high branch around which the cord was tangled.
Fit body. Very fit, Miranda couldn't help noticing. For about the hundredth time in the last hour.
`I don't know why you're bothering,' she shouted up
at him. `That kite is a psychopath. It doesn't deserve to be