A Heartbeat Away (12 page)

He ignored me, staring straight ahead as the engine purred to life.

I tried again. “Where are we going?”

His long tanned fingers reached across and trailed over my knee, then moved slowly up my inner thigh as he swung the car out into the road. I closed my teeth tightly around my bottom lip and stifled a moan.

“Wait and see,” he murmured.

 

The area we eventually stopped at was brand-new. Tall, terraced houses stood in a multicolored row of beige and cream and terra cotta. Smart new cars were parked on perfectly manicured driveways and the only people I saw were thirty-somethings who walked with the assurance of success. I gave Alex a puzzled glance and he smiled a self-satisfied smile.

“Come on,” he said, removing a set of keys from his pocket.

I followed uneasily in his footsteps.

Entering the house he so proudly showed me was like entering an Ideal Home exhibition. Everything was new and minimalist, about as far away from me as anything could be. When he pivoted toward me with a feverish glitter in his black eyes and asked my opinion, I realized I was expected to approve.

“It is a beautiful house,” I told him honestly, for no one could say that it wasn't.

“I want you to move in, Lucy,” he said. Panic took away my breath and made my stomach churn.

“With you?” My voice sounded high-pitched and strange.

“Well, I will be here, of course.” He hesitated, and a frown flitted across his face. “Nothing will change. Things will be the same as they are now, only the surroundings will be…”

He grimaced and I felt a prickle of anger uncurl itself inside me.

“More desirable?” I finished for him.

He shrugged. “Something like that.”

The prickle pierced my flesh.

“You mean, you want me to be some kind of kept woman, here in
your
house in these perfect surroundings, always available for when you choose to call.”

Nicola's warning flashed into my mind as his face hardened. I felt myself tremble at the angry glint in his eyes, and then suddenly he was laughing. I had never heard him laugh before.

“I've just realized what it is I like about you, Lucy McTavish,” he said.

When I looked at him defiantly his gaze moved deliberately down my body. “Apart from the obvious, of course.”

His glittering eyes returned to meet mine.

“Are you afraid of me?”

“Should I be?”

“That is for you to find out,” he murmured, reaching across to draw me toward him. When his magic fingers began their exquisite job of turning my body to liquid, I was lost.

After it was over, I lay back languidly on the cream leather sofa, tracing my finger across his cheek.

“This doesn't mean that I've changed my mind,” I told him.

His face darkened as he said, “We'll see.”

 

So why was I surprised when, two weeks later, my landlord called to tell me that he wasn't going to renew my six-month lease.

“Getting some work done on it,” he mumbled. “Sorry, but it can't be helped.”

Was I so naive that I couldn't see the truth? Obviously I must have been, because when I told Alex and he came up with the idea that I could take his town house and pay rent to make it official, I was easily persuaded.

Nicola finally found out about our affair just a couple of days before I moved out of my apartment. The expression of fear on her face made me feel strangely uneasy. Did she know more about Alex than she was letting on?

I had left the door ajar, and she arrived unannounced, hammered on it once and burst in as he was putting on his jacket to leave. He didn't speak, just stared at her, his lips drawn together in a tight line and his jaw clenched. Then he walked out the door without glancing back.

There was total silence for a moment as the door slammed behind him. She looked at me with amazement on her face and I squirmed at the horror in her eyes.

“Lucy!” she eventually cried. “What are you trying to do? Dice with death?”

“Don't be so dramatic,” I told her. “It's nothing serious. I'm just having fun, that's all. You know…living a bit.”

“If that's your idea of living a bit, then I hope you never decide to live a lot,” she groaned. “No wonder I haven't been able to get you to go out lately.”

Despite her disapproval, she was desperate to get every detail.

“When did it start? How often do you see him? What is he, you know,
like?
”

I told her nothing, just laughed off her questions. To appease her, I agreed to go to the Duck for a quick drink.

“One thing,” I said before we went inside. “Don't tell anyone, will you?”

She eyed me then with more sincerity in her face than I had ever seen her show.

“Be careful, Luce,” she warned me. “You can't even begin to understand the kind of person he is.”

“I don't need to,” I told her determinedly. “It's just a bit of fun.”

“Then why do you want to keep it a secret?” she asked. I stared down at my hands. The truth is, I didn't know.

W
hen I told Aunt V that I was moving, she went quiet. I thought I detected dismay in her eyes, but maybe that was just my own deep-rooted sense of guilt. This was what I wanted, wasn't it? A casual relationship with no ties and no emotional involvement, a chance to try to really get past the huge gap in my life.

“I'll help you settle in,” she offered, patting the back of my hand as if in sympathy. “But I don't mind telling you that I'd so much prefer you to be moving back home.”

Then her face lit up with excitement, and she leaned forward in her seat, pressing her palms together. “Oh, Lucy, you must drive up to Homewood and see everything we have been doing there. You have to be at our grand opening—I insist on it. Promise me right now that you will.”

My stomach churned as I smiled and nodded. “Of course I will,” I told her, wishing that I could.

 

Moving into the tall, narrow town house in Fletcher Park Lane was easier than I had expected. After all, what did I really own? A couple of suitcasesful of clothes, a box of groceries, a few framed photographs of Daniel, my mother and Aunt V, but very little else. It occurred to me, as I packed my meager possessions, that I hadn't really put much of a stamp on the apartment I had lived in for well over a year. No proper pictures, no ornaments. It was as if I had been merely visiting for a while.

I pushed the last of my belongings into my elderly car and started the engine. Well, this was it, a new life. Clenching my jaw against the quivering in my heart, I let out the clutch and the car rolled forward. What the hell did it matter, anyway?

As I reached Fletcher Park Lane, however, I didn't feel quite as confident. The house seemed to me more like one in a toy town than a place where I might live—too perfect, too modern, too definitely not me. But it was only a temporary residence, I told myself. Just somewhere to put me up until I found something else. With that my mind, I turned into the driveway, cut the engine and rummaged in my bag for the key that Alex had given me.

I suppose I had expected him to be home when I arrived. In fact, if I considered it, I hadn't a clue where else he might be, because I knew just as little about him now as I had when our affair first started. Was that what it was—an
affair?
Didn't only married people have affairs? Then came the thought that had been lodged in my subconscious since I'd met him. Perhaps
he
was married. Would I care if he was? The answer presented itself immediately. I
wouldn't
care for me—I didn't want any commitment. But I would care for his wife's sake. So it would probably be better if I didn't know at all.

With a sigh, I turned the key in the lock and stepped into my new home. It smelled of fresh paint and something else, an expensive exotic perfume. Who else did Alex Lyall bring here? Apprehension quickened my senses.

My shoes made a staccato sound on the bare wooden floor of the hallway, and I hesitated, feeling like a usurper and wondering if this stark, modern place, would ever feel like home to me. Matching prints graced the pale walls, all-toning in color with sharp clean shapes suggestive of the human form but unrecognizable as such. The theme was repeated in the living room, where blinds graced the windows rather than curtains. The whole place appeared cold, bleak. Yet there was something vaguely familiar…

I breathed in deeply, and suddenly my senses were reeling as the intoxicating scent of leather filled my nostrils. Confusion flooded my brain. Nostalgia forced itself into the core of me, stealing my breath, and my entire being gasped for what had gone. I was in the tack room at Homewood once more, breathing in the wonderfully familiar aroma of saddles freshly soaped. Daniel's presence pervaded my mind. My heart pounded in my throat. I shut my eyes, thrusting my memories into the closed recesses of my heart.

When I looked again, all I saw was the large cream sofa. Heat engulfed me and I lifted my chin, hardening my heart against the clinging shame. I was living—that was all. And who cared, anyway?

My worries that moving into Alex's house would make our casual affair into the relationship I was so keen to avoid proved to be totally unfounded, for as far as he was concerned, things remained much as before, except that he had stocked my wardrobe with chic, expensive black clothes. It freaked me out when I first saw them, but he simply laughed off my fears.

“I told you that I would turn you into a princess,
country girl
,” he told me, pressing me into the luxurious king-size bed. “So indulge me….” And when his fingers began their exquisite magic borne of fear, I was lost.

Pathetically, I tried to cling to my independence by insisting on paying him rent. Each week he took my money with a smile and carefully folded the notes into his wallet. Alex did everything carefully, as if calculating each movement with great precision. I couldn't imagine him ever acting purely on impulse. So when he phoned me one Friday afternoon as I was leaving work to inform me that he was bringing a business associate over that evening and could I provide a meal, I panicked.

“It's too short notice,” I told him. “It's just not like you to spring something like this on me.”

“You'll cope, Lucy,” he said, in the cold, hard voice that always made me remember Nicola's warnings,

Would I cope? Or should I just not be there? I imagined his face when he arrived in his smart car with his important colleague to find the house was empty. No. I couldn't do that. I'd buy some ready meals on my way home and hope that Alex and his guest would think that I'd cooked the food myself.

By eight-thirty I had a selection of tasty dishes keeping warm in the oven, and the table was meticulously set with a dinner service that I had found in one of the top kitchen cupboards. Amazing the things that I found in that house. Someone must have spent a lot of time shopping and deliberating and finally choosing everything to match so perfectly. For the first time I found myself wondering who. A woman, perhaps? Somehow, I thought not. It was all too masculine, too sterile. Anyway, it wasn't my concern, I decided, pushing my prickle of interest firmly aside.

They arrived at a quarter to nine. A key turned in the front door and Alex stepped into the hallway. His eyes were glittering with a kind of contained excitement, and when he cast a critical glance at me, I felt a stab of irritation. I wasn't one of his possessions, to be flashed like this fancy house of his. I glared at him before aiming a pleasant expression at his companion, holding out my hand in greeting. As my eyes looked into those of a very beautiful woman, I felt a sense of shock.

She wore an impeccably tailored gray suit that fitted her tall slim figure to perfection. When she lifted her heart-shaped chin and stared coldly at me from her carefully made-up blue eyes, I felt my irritation at Alex rapidly spread.

“Lara Kirkland,” she said, taking my hand in her limp fingers.

“Lucy,” I responded. “Lucy McTavish.”

Alex ushered us into the living room, and when he went to get some drinks, I followed him through to the dining room.

“You didn't say it was a woman,” I hissed as he poured gin into two large glasses. He gave a low laugh.

“Who said that business associates had to be men? Now, go and get some ice. There's a good girl.”

Was I jealous? I asked myself that question over and over as I placed the food on the table while Lara Kirkland giggled like a schoolgirl at everything Alex said. No. The answer was definitely no. I wasn't jealous, because to be jealous, you had to care. Why, I had even considered Alex might be married and never gave that a second thought or even queried him. Why, then, did this “business associate” annoy me so? The answer came at once. The mere fact that he could bring a woman here and expect me to accept her, in whatever guise, made me realize just what a sham my life was, because if I was utterly honest with myself, I didn't really believe that Lara Kirkland had anything to do with whatever Alex's business was.

I was glad when he left to drive her home. Once we had eaten—rather Alex and I ate, while she picked at her food—they went into his study, where they remained until about eleven o'clock, after which we sipped the coffee I had prepared, before he announced that he would drive her home.

I didn't know if he intended to return that night, and I certainly didn't ask him—that wasn't a part of our
deal
—but when I awoke next morning to an empty bed and gray drizzly day, it perfectly reflected my mood. Maybe the excitement of my dangerous liaison had occupied a space in my life for long enough. Perhaps the novelty was wearing off. If it was, where did I go next in my quest to fill my empty existence. Suddenly I was overwhelmed with longing for the life I had tried so hard to forget, the life that began and ended with Daniel Brown. Today, I decided, I would go to see Aunt V.

 

I arrived at our tiny cottage just after lunch, to find that her car wasn't in its usual parking place. Disappointment engulfed me. I should have called, I knew I should have. But I was so used to Aunt V always being
there
that it hadn't occurred to me she might not be. Anyway, I had wanted to catch her by surprise, imagining the expression on her face when I walked through the door unannounced. Now the cottage seemed to gaze at me with a melancholy face, and I recalled the first time we had come here with Mrs. Brown, after my dad had left.

My dad—I hardly ever thought of him nowadays. Where was he now? Could I finally forgive him after all these years? My heart hardened and I put him firmly out of my head, remembering my poor sad mum and wishing that I had done more to help her.

The cottage garden was neat and tidy, prepared for the winter that loomed. I imagined Aunt V, kneeling on her gardening mat, tidying the borders and trimming back the shrubs with the lethal-looking secateurs I had bought her two Christmases ago. Something inside me began to swell, like a river forcing its way over a dam. I pulled in a deep breath and climbed back into my car, fighting to regain control of my emotions. This visit had been a big mistake, and the sooner I got back to the city the better.

As I drove along the narrow road toward Appleton, I could see Homewood Farm farther down in the bottom of the valley, nestling below the huge mass of the fell. “‘Like the backs of colossal elephants, motionless against the sky, here doth winter flourish, here stay I. '”

I whispered the words to myself, pressing my foot so hard on the accelerator that my back wheels slid into a corner. A passing motorist jammed his hand on the horn of his pickup, waving his fist at me, and when tears welled up behind my eyes, I began to breathe with panting breaths, desperately struggling to push aside the panic attack that threatened to suffocate me.

For the next few miles I drove erratically, purely on automatic pilot, hedges passing in a green blur, cars flashing by in myriad jumbled colors, until at last I saw the tall gray buildings of the city up ahead. Then my breathing leveled off and I felt the hard, comfortable knot creeping back into my heart. The city was safe, safe from a past that tore me into pieces and threatened to make me like my poor dear mom. With new resilience, I turned into Fletcher Park Lane and then the drive of number twenty-one, ignoring the ache that surrounded my heart and embracing the anonymity of my perfect surroundings.

Alex was waiting in the living room. He stood from the cream leather sofa in one fluid movement to tower above me, his black eyes narrowed. He was looking at me as if he could read my thoughts.

“You were annoyed with me for bringing Lara here, weren't you?” he said. “I thought you didn't
do
jealousy.”

I met his gaze with contempt. “Don't be ridiculous,” I told him. “‘No strings' we said, and that's how I want it to stay. I don't care about your Lara Kirkland.”

“Good,” he agreed. “Our ‘arrangement' suits me very well, but I won't be tied down.”

“I don't want to be tied any more than you do,” I insisted. “But I won't be made a fool of.”

He laughed then—a short sharp unnatural laugh—and his eyes glittered. “No one tells me what to do, Lucy, just remember that.”

Fear flickered inside me, but I lifted my chin and held his gaze. “And no one tells
me
what to do, either,” I retorted.

When his hand gripped my arm with contained ferocity, it merely strengthened my resolve. “Should I be afraid of you, Alex?” I inquired.

His fingers tightened, cutting into my flesh. “Some people are.”

Adrenaline rushed through my body and a shiver rippled down my spine as he stared into my eyes.
Like a snake
, I thought, staring back into their dark empty depths.

“She was my accountant,” he murmured, pushing me back against the soft leather sofa. As his bloodless lips covered mine for just a moment, I smelled the scent of the leather, and then someone else took over my body. Homewood Farm and Aunt V and Mrs. Brown belonged to another world that no longer included me. This was my world now and this was what I wanted. But was it?

Abruptly overcome by revulsion, at myself, at Alex and at my whole sorry existence, I pushed him away and jumped up.