‘What do you think I am?’ he countered.
‘Very strong. Well…’ she swallowed ‘… here goes again.’ A moment later as he rocked beneath her but stayed upright she was straddling the rafter.
‘Well done, Maggie!’
She beamed down at him. ‘Piece of cake. I did win a state title, you know.’
‘I believe you. So. If you can crawl along it towards the wall, where the roof is at its lowest you could do a recce. Still got the bar?’
She untied his shirt from her waist and felt the sleeve. ‘Yes. Yuck, it is full of splinters and nails, this beam, as well as cobwebs!’
‘Be very careful.’
‘Care is my middle name. Actually Leila is my middle name, after my grandmother—why am I babbling?’ she asked at large as she started to crawl along the beam.
‘Exhilaration? Stress? I don’t mind. I don’t have a middle name,’ he said as he watched her inch her way forward.
‘How come?’ Maggie stopped moving and stared down at him.
He shrugged. ‘I was adopted as a baby, although that may not have a thing to do with it.’
‘You’re joking!’ she said incredulously. ‘But you were talking about your mother!’
‘She’s my adoptive mother. Why am I babbling?’ he asked humorously.
‘Well, I’ll be…’ Maggie shook her head and started to inch forward again. ‘Then you have done tremendously well for yourself! But it must have had some effect. Are you full of neuroses and so on?’
‘Oh, definitely,’ he said with a straight face, but a world of devilry in his eyes.
‘I’m not sure I should believe that—ouch!’
‘What?’ he queried.
‘A nail. I seem to have got my blouse hooked on it. Damn.’ She struggled upright to the tune of tearing material as the front of her blouse ripped from the neckline to the waist.
‘Take it off,’ he suggested, ‘and put my shirt on instead. The material might be tougher. Then use yours and a blanket to protect yourself.’
‘Roger wilco!’ She wrestled her blouse off, sitting easily enough on the beam with her feet hooked together beneath it. But just as she was about to put his shirt on they both froze at a loud noise outside the shed—a motor revving then being shut off followed by a car door slamming.
‘Maggie, come down,’ Jack said softly but urgently.
‘Of course. We’re about to be rescued!’
‘Perhaps. But if this shed has been hijacked and there’s something fishy going on, we may not be too welcome and I can’t look after you up there.’
‘OK, OK, I’m coming,’ she whispered and backed along the beam until she was above him. ‘Now!’
She slithered down the blankets and into his arms, leaving his shirt and her blouse dangling on the beam. At the same time the door was thrown open from the outside, a powerful searchlight was shone in and a string of expletives in a harsh male voice was uttered.
Maggie gasped and clutched Jack, completely dazzled by the light. He put his arms around her.
‘Bloody hell!’ the same harsh voice said. ‘What is this—some sort of kinky sex set-up?’ And to Maggie’s utter disbelief the searchlight moved away revealing, not one, but two men, and some flash bulbs went off.
Jack growled in his throat, then he said into her ear, ‘One, two, let’s get down, Maggie.’
‘OK,’ she whispered back, and on his call of two they slithered down to the boot, then hit the floor together. He held her in his arms only until she was steady on her feet, then he strode forward to confront the two men.
Things happened so quickly after that, she couldn’t believe her eyes. Both men backed away from him until one of them, the man with the camera, tripped and fell over a chair. He dropped the camera and Jack swooped onto it.
‘I am sorry about this,’ he said quite politely as he opened the back of it and exposed the film, ‘but you wouldn’t want to be responsible for some highly misleading pictures, now would you?’
The man got up nervously and dusted himself off. ‘Not if you say so, mate,’ he agreed.
‘Good! Why don’t you both sit down and tell me who you are? Sophie,’ Jack added over his shoulder, ‘you might be better off waiting in your car.’