A Game of Love

by Margaret McDonagh

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

Annabel needed to get away, to take stock of her life. But her holiday got off to a dismal start; while driving through France she gave an English couple a lift, and they repaid her by making off with her car and possessions! Fortunately, a handsome Frenchman stopped to help. He showed Annabel nothing but kindness, but when she realised he was the ex-tennis player Alain Ducret, who had the reputation of a playboy, she fought to resist falling for his charms ?

Release date: January 27, 2014

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 91

Sample

Chapter One

The squeal of tyres biting into tarmac had Annabel Smith spinning round from admiring the panoramic view in time to see the car slew sideways, straighten, then vanish round a sharp bend.

‘Hey!’ she yelled, running along the twisting road. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

Realising the futility of her words, she stopped and planted her hands on her hips, directing a scream of angry frustration at the French mountains. For someone who was reputed to be discerning and self-possessed, she had been remarkably gullible. To think she had believed the English couples’ sob story and had offered them a lift. Instead, she was the one who had been taken for a ride.

Denise – if that really was her name – had been crying quietly at a table in the café where Annabel had stopped for lunch, and the boyfriend, Charlie, was comforting her, a worried expression on his face. Realising she was English, they had confided in her, told how they had been deserted with no money and only a smattering of French between them.

They had been desperate to get to Nice to meet up with Denise’s parents. So desperate, it seemed, that they had left her in an even worse situation than the one in which they had claimed to be.

Giving vent to her temper, Annabel kicked at some loose rocks on the roadside, scuffing the toes of her trainers. It had all been a con and she had been too blind and trusting to see it. And now here she was on this lonely, mountain road, her only possessions the clothes she stood up in – a skimpy, denim bikini top, cut-off shorts, her trainers, and a floppy straw hat. And her camera  … the camera she had grabbed when she had left the car to take a photograph of the spectacular view.

Everything else, all her luggage, maps, money, credit cards, and her passport, were in her car – the car that at this moment was careering down the mountain with two confidence tricksters inside. The only evidence that remained was the rubber marks left by their getaway.

How could she have been so stupid? She had felt sorry for them, and it had been good to talk to fellow Britons after three days alone on the road from Calais journeying down through eastern France. They had both been younger than her twenty-three years, and she had been concerned for them hitching at the roadside, even as a couple. You heard such awful things these days.

A humourless laugh escaped. She was the victim here. Stranded in the early evening, what remained of her schoolday French pitifully inadequate, with perhaps a very long walk to some kind of habitation and assistance. Annabel took a moment to look around her and assess her situation. There were two choices – up or down. She glanced behind her at the steep gradient of the mountain. OK, so she’d go down.

She couldn’t remember how far it was round this spur until she could rejoin the main road, but standing still was not going to bring aid any closer. With a sigh of resignation, she began the tedious walk downhill.

The sun was warm on her skin. It was late spring. May would soon give way to June, and although she imagined the flowers were past their prime, they had been beautiful in their variety and colour. Melted water still swelled the cascades and torrents that had carved their way through the mountainous rock over countless centuries.

But the scenery that had captivated her previously that day, deep, narrow gorges, wide river valleys, Alpine pastures, woods of chestnut and pine, the roaring mountain peaks of the Prealps, now appeared daunting to her, unfamiliar, overwhelming. She knew no-one, did not even have the most basic of maps to guide her.

This holiday had seemed like a good idea at the time. At least, Annabel amended, she had allowed others to persuade her it was. She tilted back her straw hat and squinted at her surroundings, anxiety at her predicament clenching like a fist inside her.

A gentle breeze stirred wisps of the shiny, straight blonde hair that framed her delicate face and hung down to her shoulders. The soft and flyaway strands were the kind of colour that Robbie had frequently said reminded him of ripening corn on a clear, summer day.

Annabel sobered as her thoughts lingered on Robbie. Dear Robbie, her childhood sweetheart. They had shared so many dreams, planned their future with excitement and hope. He was the only person she had ever been out with, the only man she had kissed, the only man with whom she had ever envisaged sharing the rest of her life.

Fifteen months ago, they should have been married. They had planned it, anticipated it, saved for it. Fifteen long and lonely months since that day, two weeks before the wedding day, when Robbie was late leaving work and had raced to meet her to view a possible house for them to live in  … the day Robbie had been killed in a car accident  … the day Annabel- had felt her life had stopped as well.

For a long time she had not wanted to go on. But her family, and all her friends, had cajoled and bullied her through one day at a time.

She would never forget Robbie and would always have a special place for him in her heart. But as time passed and daily life gradually became easier to endure, she had worked like a demon in the bookshop, had begun to see her friends again, had found she could even laugh again. She had also visited places she and Robbie had been to together and remembered more of the good than the bad. But she would never forget the happiness and love they had shared.

It had been her friend and business partner in the bookshop who had been most vociferous in her insistence it was time Annabel take a holiday. Samantha had said she must go away, alone, experience new places, new people, have the space to think things through in her own mind.

The truth was that she had been working too hard, way too hard. Ten weeks ago, at the point of exhaustion, she had suffered acute appendicitis. The effects of Robbie’s anniversary so recently passed, the anaesthetics and pain relief she had been given, and her general rundown state, had combined to make her weepy and listless. The stress had finally caught up with her.

It was a sign she had taken notice of. Now was a time to stand back and take stock, to make choices about her life before she drove herself into the ground. And the time had come when she wanted to fight, when she wanted to live after all.

Robbie was gone. It was painful, but nothing could bring him back. It was over, the dreams gone. She could either falter or she could carry on.

Annabel knew what Robbie would have wanted. She also knew she had the love and support of her family and friends who had seen her through the last fifteen months. Unsure as yet what she could expect from the future, even the direction she wished to take, she had to admit she was feeling better, more at peace inside herself.

Already she had more colour in her cheeks, a healthy glow to her skin, and her blue eyes that had been dulled by pain and grief were more vital and brighter than they had been in a long while.

And so she had packed her bags, hunted out her passport, and pointed her car in the direction of Dover and the cross-Channel ferry. The drive through France had been pleasant, the hours alone giving her the time and space Sam had suggested she needed to rebuild her goals.

But now, what was supposed to have been a gentle convalescence of both mind and body, a re-gathering of her physical strength and her mental resolve, had turned into a nightmare.

The sound of a car engine cut through her reverie, and she stepped to the side of the road and turned to watch as a beaten up van appeared round a corner. Annabel sighed with relief and raised a hand to flag the driver down.

The vehicle never slowed in its downward flight, and Annabel gaped in angry disbelief as the driver ignored her yells and waves for assistance and soon disappeared out of sight.

She let out a curse of frustration. Goodness only knew how long it would be before another car came along, and when it did, there was no tellin. . .