Close Encounter with a Crumpet (3 page)

Gill glanced down at her watch. After ten in the evening, and the sun had just gone down. She sighed. The ladies of the tour would be going off to bed about now. They’d surely noted her absence both at tea and again at dinner. She would come in for censorious glares at breakfast. “I suppose I should go back to the hotel. I’ll have to make some explanation for not returning this afternoon.”

“Gill, how old are you? A bit over twenty-one, I’m guessing.”

She laughed. “Actually quite a bit over. I was thirty-two in April. This trip was something of a late birthday present.”

“And a grown woman, by my view.” He folded his arms across his chest, his dark sweater shoved up to his elbows, and a stern glare wrinkling his forehead. “Where in the fine print of the tour description did it say you had to report to a pack of carping peahens on how you choose to spend your one free day of the trip?”

“It’s just…” She stopped. “I told you I work for the school, and the wives of a couple of board members are with the group. So I can’t offend them or they might take it into their gossipy heads to ‘speak’ to their husbands about me. No telling how they might interpret my absence, especially if they learned I spent the day with you. I need my job.” She put out a hand in concern for him, as well. “And they do seem to think you’re working for them on this trip, too. I wouldn’t want to cause you a problem.”

His knuckle stroked the curve of her cheek. “That’s my lookout, now, isn’t it? As for how you spend a day of your holiday, well, the twenty-first century is more than a decade old. You’re not a girl of sixteen to be chaperoned and kept out of temptation’s evil ways, unless you choose to be.” His hands rested on her shoulders, one eyebrow lifted in silent query as her glance met his. “What’s it to be, my American Beauty, home to a hot bath and bed at the hotel, or would you favor me with a dance or two at a little place I know?”

“Dance?” Gill took a step back. “I can’t do any of the strange dances I see people doing now.” She cringed at the memory of the gyrations her nieces insisted were dancing. “Mother sent me to proper dancing classes when I was a girl, but all I learned was old-fashioned things like the waltz and the foxtrot and the rumba. The most exciting thing we did was something called ‘West Coast Swing.’ No, I guess it’s the hotel and chaperones for me.”

He shook his head. “I know a place where a foxtrot can be heard.” Simon paused. “If a girl remembered how such an old-fashioned thing was done—and was of a mind to go.”

Dancing?
It had been so long since she’d even thought of it. So long she wondered if she could still recall a step or two. Temptation called like a whistle in the breeze.

“The old gossips can think what they like. I’ll tell the board it’s none of their business if one of them tattles. I’d love to go dancing, Simon. Show me your little place.”

“Good girl!” And his lips brushed hers with the lightest possible kiss. Before she could gather her wits, he’d turned and flagged a passing taxi.

Simon did know his way around a dance floor, Gill decided, and though the club he took her to was small, it boasted a five-piece combo that played for dancers. A bit self-conscious at first, Gill found she could follow his easy lead, and steps came back to her more quickly than she expected.

“And you were going back to the hotel to make peace with the grannies.” Simon held her chair and waited till she was seated again at their small back table. “Isn’t this better than watching the telly with them?”

“I just wish I’d bought that frilly skirt.” She fingered the seam in her practical jeans. “I think I’d feel more appropriate to the place. Almost every woman here is wearing a vintage gown or cocktail dress.”

Simon glanced around. “Not a woman in the place as pretty as you. No need to outshine them more by gilding the lily. And you hold your own on the floor.” He listened as the music changed tempo. “That sounds like a rumba with your name on it. Shall we have a try?”

The enticing lure of “Amapola” filled the softly lit room. “It’s been a while. I’m not sure…”

“We’ll not find out what you remember sitting at the table. Let’s give it a go.” Simon took her hand and led her back to the floor. Once she’d slipped into his arms and the music caught her, she couldn’t have put a foot wrong if she’d tried. Rumba had always been her favorite dance, and the sensual rhythm moved within her.

Throughout the day she’d become increasingly aware of Simon and the potent charm surrounding him. Though she’d dismissed it, Gill admitted to herself she felt something stirring between them. It was more than the intimacy in his smile and the wicked twinkle in his eyes. It was something about the slight curl where his hair—hair any woman would envy—brushed his forehead. It was also the sheer love of living that seemed to flow around him. Something in the way he said her name, the warmth of his hand on hers, even the simple act of holding her chair as she sat, all those things and a dozen more spoke to her in a language she’d almost forgotten. Or had she known only one dialect of a tongue more ancient than time could measure? In the sultry moves of the rumba, a sweet heat filled her. Her heart seemed to catch in her breast.

As the music faded, Simon cuddled her to him, holding her close enough for her to feel both their hearts beating. “You know when something suddenly comes right. It did, for us, right there between one turn and the next. You had to feel it, Gill, as much as I did. I think every person in the room just felt the aftershock of our earthquake.”

Gill looked into his eyes, those eyes as blue as a summer morning. She couldn’t think when he brushed aside a curl to touch her cheek. Words were extraneous when she could almost hear his thoughts in her heart. “It was…the music, the place…maybe it’s magic.”

“Magic, is it?” Simon cocked that irresistible eyebrow at her. “Magic is about as close as I can come to putting a name to it.”

The band began a flowing waltz behind them, but Gill never noticed. She and Simon moved in a misty haze to the table in the corner, unaware of anything but each other. His arms circled her for a moment; his lips brushed the top of her head.

“I barely know you, Simon. I mean, we met, sort of met, a couple of weeks ago, but I don’t suppose we’ve said two dozen words to each other before today.” She put two cautious fingers against his face. “You’re a stranger, and still I feel as if there has always been a connection. What is this?”

Across the table Simon leaned forward to take her hands in his. “You said it, Gill. It’s magic, maybe a sudden spell that vanishes at midnight, or maybe one that can’t be broken. I don’t know. But I do know I looked at you two weeks ago, when you came on the coach, and I saw sunlight break through the clouds.” He only stroked a line down the palm of her hand, but the gesture was almost scorching in its intimacy.

In a softer voice he confessed, “I told myself that somehow, before this tour ended, I’d have at least one good conversation with you. I’d find out what made the gold lights in your eyes shine and how you look when you laugh. I’d almost given up hope, and then I saw you in the cafe, unhappy as a wet kitten. When I said your name and you smiled, I saw that sunlight part the clouds again.” Reaching across the table, he cupped her cheek. “I grabbed the chance because I wasn’t about to let you slip away before I found out who Gill Banks is.”

Lost in the sheer delight of his admission, Gill couldn’t answer for a moment. Then she managed to draw away. “You know who I am, but who are you, Simon? I don’t even know your last name or anything about you. You may have a wife and children, a girl friend, a felonious past, anything, but somehow, at this moment, I don’t even care.” Caution had abandoned her, though she tried to retain her common sense. “My head says I
should
care, but when I try to listen, all I can hear is a rumba beating inside and shutting everything else out.”

“Maybe we need to get somewhere so we can talk.” He stood and drew her up beside him. “You do need to know more about the man than his name is Simon and he drives a coach, don’t you?” His mouth narrowed, and the merry twinkle in his eyes dimmed. “And if I don’t make myself plain to you, then once you get on the other side of the world you’ll be letting that head of yours tell you all kinds of rot that sounds likely and not to my credit.”

He took her to a coffeehouse across the street from the dance club. “We’ll have the place to ourselves for a bit, till the late crowd comes along. That will give us some time. We’ve a lot of ground to cover.”

The two chairs Simon drew together made a cozy niche. For a moment he looked at her, as if weighing his words or wondering how to start.

His hesitation alarmed Gill. “If there’s a woman in the picture, Simon, say so. Just tell me, then get a taxi to take me back to the hotel. I know things like this can happen to people.”

“No woman, not now, not for over a year, Gill.” His voice dropped a level. He toyed with a spoon as if feeling for his words. “There was one; not saying there wasn’t. And I was with her for, oh, a long time. Three years, more or less. But not now.”

“You love her, or you did.” Gill didn’t have to ask a question. The pain narrowing his eyes made it unnecessary.

“Well, not to put too fine a point on it”—he gnawed his lower lip, hesitated, and then went on—“I loved and she loved, but we loved in different ways. In the end, we didn’t find the key to making our differences work.” He held the spoon, staring at it as if he saw something reflected in the shine. “Sandra loves herself, she plans her life a certain way, and anything that isn’t to her liking bores her.”

“She couldn’t have found
you
boring.”

He shifted to regard Gill squarely across the table. “Looking at me right now, a chap who shuffles old ladies and school kids and Japanese tourists about in a coach every day, you wouldn’t think that until about a year and a half ago I was a man of business in a three-piece suit with briefcase, setting off to the office every morning.” Gill sat upright in startled surprise. “Oh, yes, office man to a pack of solicitors I was, handling their billing and accounts, totting up the profits and paring down the expenses, and hating every bloody minute of it.”

“If you hated it, why did you do it?” Gill couldn’t imagine Simon working in the environment he described. His interest was in people, not accounts or shuffling paper.

“Because Sandra liked the situation. It’s in her background, you know. One of the solicitors was her uncle and one was her da, her father, I mean. And we met at an office event at her uncle’s house. A dinner party with me as a fill-in guest. Then a summer tennis weekend, a reception for a major client, one thing and another, and Sandra and I kept coming together. I asked her out, we seemed to click, and you can see the rest.”

“But it still wasn’t the life
you
wanted. It was her kind of life.”

“True enough, not that I knew it right off. It seemed a good spot. I had the business and accounting training, was even good at it, but after a few years, stuck in the damn office week in and week out, never seeing anything but paperwork, knowing yesterday was a blueprint for today and tomorrow and all the tomorrows ahead, that didn’t sound like a life I could handle.”

“No, I can’t see you doing that,” Gill agreed.

“But it paid, darlin’ girl, paid enough to keep Sandra in the life she wanted. So at first it seemed like a fair deal. Then it got harder to keep the lady happy. I had to find new ways to earn a smile from her. If we saw a show last weekend, I’d better find something bigger this weekend or be prepared to hear Sandra tell the world how boring our life was.” He shrugged. “
Boring
, that was the ultimate blunder. Better to be arrested for treason than to bore the Sandras of this world.”

“I’ve known the type.” Gill could only imagine Simon’s demanding life.

“Too many of them around for my comfort.” He nodded his thanks as the waitress refilled their cups, then turned back to Gill. “An unexpected chance came along, a chance to change our future to something I thought would be pretty exciting. I’d have to do some retraining, learn a new business, and I’d be starting low on the ladder. It meant a year, maybe two, of driving that coach around. If it worked out, I’d be moving up in the tourist industry, taking over a branch office, even traveling the world to build the business. I was sure Sandra would see the potential, the new possibilities, just the way I did.” He shrugged. “Well, she didn’t.”

“And she left you?”

“No, she posted an ultimatum on my email. I could forget my insane plans, stop being such a bloody bore about how much I hated my daily grind, and just get on with it, or take my deluded self elsewhere. I took my delusions, quit the office, and signed on to drive around the country for the visiting public. In spite of all predictions, I’m a happy man. No three-piece suits, no grey office walls, and…no Sandra. No wife, no children, and no felonious past, Miss Banks. Not even a girlfriend worth the name.”

“I’m glad you told me. And it’s to your credit that you made the choice and took a chance on the life you wanted.”

“Now you, you have to go on that infernal plane, come Monday morning.” He took possession of both her hands; the air between them seemed to shimmer from his intensity. “That doesn’t give us much to work with. You aren’t the girl to go back to a chap’s hotel room, not on short acquaintance. And I’m not the man to suggest it, at least not on a first date. But if I don’t get you out of here, to a place where the world can’t stare at us through the window, I swear I’m going to kiss you in front of them all and let the devil pay the consequences.”

The chill in the night air might have been responsible for the quiver along her spine, but Gill didn’t feel the least bit cold when she and Simon started along the path across the square. He led her into a secluded nook surrounded by rhododendrons and showered by moonlight.

“I wanted to kiss you the first time I saw you. Something about that sweet, round lower lip just begs for kissing.” Simon’s own lips were warm, gentle against hers, but a hint of fire lingered as he drew back. Gill touched two fingers to the dimple at the corner of his mouth.