Twenty Years a Stranger (The Stranger Series Book 1)

by Deborah Twelves

  Jane said nothing and waited for him to continue.

  ‘I love you. You know that. You are one hundred percent the only woman I'm interested in having sex with.’

  He hesitated for a moment, before continuing his persuasive rhetoric, realising that flattery was having the desired effect on her, as it always did.

  ‘Come on, you know we have great sex. I've never done all that kinky stuff with anyone else. I’m pretty sure you haven’t either,’ he said, winking and giving her a playful nudge. ‘We’re definitely on the same wavelength in the bedroom department.’

  He paused for dramatic effect and smirked conspiratorially. Jane had a sex flashback to their previous weekend together and felt the familiar stirrings of arousal as she remembered what they had got up to. She remembered a very drunk Matthew down on all fours, wearing nothing but her French knickers, stockings and suspender belt. Herself, equally drunk and stark naked, except for the strap on dick he had produced for her to wear, together with a large tube of Sliquid commercial lube. She could not resist a snigger, as she thought spitefully to herself how much his wife would love that one. Maybe it was time to pay her a visit to share some of their photos.

  She knew Matthew was telling her what she wanted to hear to get around her but decided to stop fighting her corner for now. She was a great believer in picking her battles in order to win the war.

  ‘You’d better be telling me the truth about all this. Because if I find out you've been messing me around....’

  He put his arms around her from behind and kissed her on the neck, sliding his hands under her top and squeezing her breasts hard, the way she liked it. He clearly thought he had won, but Jane was no fool and she knew when she was being played. Matthew would find out to his cost that she was not the pushover he took her for.

  If she was brutally honest, Jane couldn’t give a shit that Matthew was married, so long as she got what she wanted out of the situation. She knew that the reason most married men went looking for other women was sex and she was more than happy to put out. If his stupid cow of a wife had taken her eye off the ball in that department, it could hardly be deemed Jane’s fault, could it? Nevertheless, she decided she needed to do some digging and find out a bit more about ‘the wife’.

  Know thine enemy.

  Jane smiled to herself at the thought of his wife’s face if she should see one of the ‘special’ photos of the two of them at it. Better still a video, starring Jane herself, glamour model extraordinaire. All those filming sessions Matthew loved so much could prove to be very useful in the future, she decided, making a mental note to get some copies as insurance.

  Soon after that conversation, Jane spent an evening alone with a bottle of wine, going through the photos and information the Private Investigator (PI) had handed over to her in exchange for a ridiculous amount of cash. It did not take long for her to realise that Matthew’s portrayal of his wife had not been entirely truthful and that she was clearly going to be a more serious threat than Jane had initially thought. She appeared to be obsessed with horses, and there was picture after picture of her at various events, some in white jodhpurs and top hat for dressage, others in some kind of fancy dress riding costume that Jane later discovered was a traditional Portuguese riding habit. The PI she had hired had been thorough and when Jane found out how much the impressive-looking black stallion in the pictures was worth she practically choked. Matthew was certainly not spending that kind of money on her. Her fury was further heightened by the tactless comments from Tracy’s lecherous husband, Rodney, when she showed them the pictures the following evening.

  ‘I think somebody’s been telling you porkies,’ he laughed, practically drooling at the photos.

  ‘You know what they say about horsey women, don’t you?’

  ‘No, but feel free to enlighten us,’ Jane said sarcastically, staring venomously at him and thinking what a stupid prick he really was.

  ‘They ride with the hands of a lady, the posture of a queen and the hips of a whore!’

  He guffawed at his own joke, clearly finding himself hilarious.

  Jane did not find him remotely amusing and vowed to drop him right in it with Tracy if the opportunity ever arose, which she felt certain it would.

  The most irritating thing for her, however, was the number of photos of Matthew and his wife together, that the resourceful PI had managed to dig up: on a boat, round a table having dinner with friends, at a black-tie event, at a family Christmas.… It looked very much to Jane as if Matthew was enjoying a full life with his ‘bunny boiler wife’ while she, Jane, remained his dirty little secret for two or three nights each week and occasional weekends. The more she thought about it, the more she realised that, when they went out, it was always just the two of them and always to some obscure place, well away from anyone they might know. Jane had no intention of giving up, but she knew she would need to box clever in order to secure her future; the one with Matthew that suited her so perfectly.

  As Jane stared at one of the photos she reminded herself that everyone has their Achilles heel; it was just a question of finding his wife’s.

  Tick Tock

  The room called childlessness has many doors, not just the ones marked ‘didn’t want’ or ‘couldn’t have’.

  Grace

  ‘Oh my God!’ I shrieked with excitement as I opened the envelope and saw the burgundy coloured horse passport with the Lusitano Breed Society name emblazoned on it.

  ‘Have you really bought him for me?’

  ‘Yep. He’s all yours.’ Daniel smiled, obviously pleased with himself.

  Valentino was my dream horse. I had fallen in love with him the day he arrived at the yard and now he was up for sale, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. He stood tall for a Luso at 16.3 hands and he knew just how handsome he was. Imported from Brazil when he was four years old by the drummer of a rock band no less, he came from an impressive bloodline and I honestly thought he was the most beautiful horse I had ever seen, with his glossy black coat and long mane and tail. I never imagined I would be able to own him one day.

  ‘Can we go and see him today?’ I begged, hardly able to contain myself.

  ‘That’s the plan. I’ve booked you a lesson with Simone this afternoon.’

  I was already used to riding Valentino and regularly had private lessons on him with Simone, the talented dressage rider and trainer who owned the yard where he was kept. Valentino was not only stunning to look at, he was also extremely talented and I was dying to start taking him out to shows, now that he was mine. Obviously, I would have to work around the race schedule for the boat, not to mention my part-time teaching job, but I was determined to show him off as much as possible. To be fair, we were not campaigning the boat as seriously as we had done a few years earlier and were sticking to a few key events each year. Daniel was run ragged at work and any spare time he did get seemed to be spent enjoying the new challenge of flying his beloved Schweizer 300c helicopter around the country. To compensate for the lack of sailing, I had taken up riding again and was learning classical dressage at the Lusitano stud and training centre, owned and run by Simone, her twin sister and her mother, near our second home in North Wales. I loved it down there and spent as much time as possible in our little cottage overlooking the water in the village of Llandovey, near Conway. We bought the house the year after we were married, as it made sense to have a base near to the marina where we kept the boat. It was in my name and I paid the mortgage, as Daniel said it would be protected that way if ever the business went under, not that that seemed likely. Most weekends, I headed for the coast and Daniel joined me as often as work permitted. The location was stunning and it was a great bolt hole to get away from the rat race of normal life. I imagined us retiring there one day, hopefully in the not too distant future. The constant travelling around, both in the UK and abroad, was taking its toll on my workaholic husband and I worried how long he could sustain the frenetic pace without making himself ill. He was p
ermanently exhausted and sometimes even ended up working over the weekend. According to him, it was the price you had to pay for running your own business and having the lifestyle that goes with it, but I was beginning to wonder if the price was just too high. I needed to get him to slow down, but it would not be easy.

  The main events I wanted to get straight in the calendar were the Lusitano Breed Show, Warrington Show and Royal Windsor. Being a Lusitano, I would be able to show Valentino in the Parade classes in his ornate Portuguese tack. He had a gorgeous bullfighting saddle with intricate patterns embossed in the black leather flaps and a contrasting beige suede seat, which set off the colour of his coat beautifully. His black leather bridle and breastplate were adorned with gold ornaments and, even better, I would get to dress up in my traditional Portuguese riding costume and hat, reminiscent of a bullfighter’s outfit. A friend of mine had made me the outfit a couple of years ago when Valentino’s previous owner had generously allowed me to take him out to shows. She was living abroad and knew the special relationship I had built up with him.

  Later that afternoon, Daniel and I stood side by side, admiring my beautiful boy as he munched on treats in his stable.

  ‘This one’s going to keep you on your toes,’ he began, with a knowing laugh. ‘You’re going to need to put in some serious hours of practice if you’re going to take him out to the big shows and do well. Aren’t you glad now that we don’t have children? Like I said to you before, you just wouldn’t be able to do all this stuff with a kid in tow.’

  And there it was. The real reason for the sudden extravagant gesture. Why did he always have to spoil it? Of course I knew I was being manipulated but, at the same time, how could I be cross with him when he had just made my dream come true? I chose my words carefully.

  ‘You’re right about him needing a lot of attention, but owning Valentino doesn’t mean I don’t ever want children. I haven’t changed my mind on that,’ I stated firmly.

  I was not ready to sell out completely just yet and he needed to know that.

  ‘Well neither have I,’ he retorted sharply. ‘You know my feelings. We’re fine as we are, just the two of us. We have a fantastic lifestyle that most of your friends are extremely envious of. It’s about time you began to appreciate what you’ve got and accept that the baby route is not for everyone. I honestly don’t think you realise just how lucky you are.’

  ‘That’s a bit unfair, don’t you think? It’s just…well, I’m not getting any younger and we have been married eight years now.…’

  I thought back to the day two years ago, when Daniel had walked through the door at home and presented me with an adorable eight-week-old black Labrador puppy. It was as if he could hear the tick-tock of my biological clock loud and clear and was intent on filling the void in my life with an assortment of fur babies. Of course, I adored Hero the black Labrador, who followed me loyally everywhere, and naturally, I was besotted with my new boy Valentino. I just didn’t think the two things were mutually exclusive and I had more than enough love in my heart to welcome a human baby into our lives. I could not dispel the feeling that Daniel was being incredibly selfish. He was ten years older than me, but as a man, he would be able to father children until a ripe old age. It is a different story for us women of course.

  There was no doubt in my mind that God did not create men and women equally and it was becoming increasingly obvious to me that women got the short straw, some shorter than others.

  The Dream House

  Lorraine

  Lorraine screamed and giggled like a little girl as John scooped her up in his arms and bundled her through the door, across the threshold of their new home in the picture-postcard Oxfordshire village of Hazeldene. She felt like a child in a sweet shop as they walked through the cottage together, taking in every detail. Her favourite room was the kitchen. They had created a large, farmhouse style room with French windows opening onto a little, south-facing courtyard with a bistro table and chairs. She could already imagine them sitting there together, enjoying a lazy breakfast or a glass of wine in the evening. A massive Aga range cooker set in a stone fireplace dominated the room, and to the side of it was a wine rack made from clay pipes. She looked appreciatively at the traditional style, cream-painted, wooden units with their black, ceramic knobs and ran her hand over the cool, black granite of the work surfaces. The gold flecks in the granite sparkled under the down-lighters in the ceiling and the stone flags on the floor matched the ones on the patio, perfect for coming in wearing wellies after a muddy dog walk. There was even a space in the units for the basket of her beloved black Labrador Dexter, near the Aga so he would be toasty and warm in the winter. A sturdy, oak table with six chairs around it stood in the centre of the room. This would be the heart of the house - she thought to herself with a smile. The kitchen design was all John’s work, which she had been nervous about at first but, she had to admit, it had turned out to be absolutely perfect. He had apparently got all the ideas from a friend of his, who was in construction and had recently renovated a similar property somewhere in the north of England, near where he lived. John had been so impressed with the kitchen in that house, he had decided to recreate it for her and she was delighted to see that it lived up to her highest expectations.

  This was everything Lorraine had ever dreamed of. A beautiful, seventeenth-century, stone cottage in the heart of rural Oxfordshire and the man she loved by her side. She still couldn’t quite believe it. Her father had died suddenly the previous year, leaving her a share of the family home. When everything was sorted, she received a relatively modest amount from the proceeds, as everything had to be divided up and shared between her and her two brothers of course, but once she had sold her own house as well and paid off the remainder of the debts her ex-husband had saddled her with, she found she had enough left to put down a healthy deposit on her dream house with John. She had had to borrow some money as well, but the hefty, monthly payments she had signed up for were only a temporary measure. John was just waiting to be paid for a really important and very lucrative job that was currently being finished over in America and once that money came through, the plan was that he would pay off the mortgage in full.

  When her father died, and Lorraine first broached the subject of buying a property together, she had offered to move further north to be nearer to John’s work and try to cut down on some of the travelling he had to do. He was, of course, grateful to her for being so thoughtful, but he explained that he did not think it was a good idea for several reasons, which ultimately made sense to her. Oxfordshire was a much nicer area in his opinion with a lot more going on and he was more than happy for them to be based there. He pointed out that it would not make any difference to the amount of time he spent at home with her as he had to travel around so much anyway. That was why he didn’t want to have a big house up in Derbyshire. He preferred to just use the bedsit he had rented there, which doubled up as his office when he needed to be near work. He explained to her that he had been looking for a long time to buy a nice property in the country as a bolt hole to escape to but just hadn’t found the right place or the right person to do it with. Until now.

  Lorraine and John had searched for months before deciding on the picturesque cottage in Hazeldene, just outside the lively, market town of Marchfield. It needed fully renovating, but that was part of its attraction, as they felt they wanted somewhere they could put their own stamp on. The cottage came with nearly four acres of land and, as part of the renovations, they had been granted planning permission to build a set of garages to house some of John’s growing collection of cars and motorcycles. It was an exciting project, but a costly one. The plan was originally for her to rent a flat while the bulk of the building work was being done, but John suddenly came up with the brilliant idea of buying a canal boat with some of the money from her dad’s estate and her own house sale. Lorraine loved the romantic notion of living on a longboat and was only too happy to go along with the new plan. She imagined
herself taking in the early evening sun with a glass of wine as she waited for John to join her, maybe reading a book on her little deck, crammed with colourful pot plants.

  John volunteered to do all the hard work to find the right boat and sort out all the paperwork, as he had contacts through one of his customers. All Lorraine had to do was transfer the money and they would be the proud owners of the perfect boat for the two of them. He explained he was having a few cash flow problems, but promised that as soon as he was paid for the American job he would put the money straight back in her account. She knew there was nothing to worry about. Just the normal ups and downs of running your own business.

  John confided to her that he had always wanted a canal boat, but had never found anyone to share his dream with until he met her. She was his soul mate.

  After a lot of research, they decided to keep their boat on the Oxford Canal at Cranburgh, a medieval market town about half an hour away, bustling with quaint little pubs. The plan was to sell the boat once the house was completed but, when the time came, neither of them could bear to part with it. As John pointed out, the money was spent and forgotten, so they might as well continue to get pleasure from it. She did not take much persuading, having loved her time on the boat and also feeling it was something of a status symbol in the eyes of her friends and family.

  Lorraine’s only reservation was that she didn’t know how they were ever going to find the time to enjoy both their gorgeous new home and the canal boat. John seemed to be working longer hours than ever and she was worried about how stressed he was getting. He was travelling a lot, all over the country and also abroad, but she supposed that was the nature of his work and she had to admit she had known that from the beginning. It didn’t stop her feeling lonely though and she wished he could be with her more often.