Patches of black ice slipping under his feet probably explained her accident. The woman on the ground was young and slightly punk, with her black hair backcombed and tied in a haphazard yet stylish way. She wore big, jet earrings, a padded jacket with a fur collar, and black leggings, which right now displayed the full shapeliness of her legs as she tried to right herself.
“You okay?” Aidan said, crouching down beside her.
She paused, clear brown eyes flying to his. She didn’t blink. She had very long, black lashes and wore smoky dark eye shadow. It wasn’t a look he’d ever consciously admired, and yet her beauty stood out like a solitary star in a dark night sky.
It might have been the fine bone structure of her face that struck him like a blow in the chest, or the fiercely independent “Sod off, I can manage” look in her large, brown eyes. Or perhaps it was the oddly vulnerable curve of her mouth, tightened in the pain of her fall. She’d come down with some force.
A frown tugged at his brow as he tried to place her. She was about his own age, surely, or a couple of years younger like Louise. Either way, he should know her.
And with an unpleasant jolt, he did. They hadn’t grown up together, had never met, but he knew who she was.
Christine Lennox, the ex-parole officer who “worked” up at the big house, with the ex-cons. She too had an unsavoury story in her past… But whatever the truth of it, and despite his experience of the more sordid, squalid and plain nasty elements of life, he was oddly reluctant to attach it to her. She seemed too…vital.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, when she didn’t immediately answer him.
From the delicate way she shifted position, she’d bruised her hip when she landed. But at his question, she seemed to deliberately smooth away all signs of pain from her face, which flushed now with embarrassment. She’d rather have gone down without a witness.
“I survived the fall,” she said lightly, “but I doubt the carry-out did.” Her accent was vaguely Glasgow, her voice low and slightly husky—the kind that sent shivers down his spine. Apparently.
“Black ice,” he said. “Gets you every time.”
He rose and stretched down his hand to her. For a moment, even accepting that tiny courtesy seemed to hang in the balance for her. He thought she drew in a sharp breath before she took his bare hand in her gloved one, and clambered warily to her feet. She wore stout-looking boots, although on closer inspection, the soles were somewhat thin and probably smooth. Old boots. If she was rich, she wasn’t flashy with it.
She released his hand immediately, almost flustered, he thought, and began raking through her bags. They all clanked.
“Planning a party?” Aidan enquired.
“I was,” she said wryly. “Ah well, less drink is good for hangovers.”
“That much damage?”
“Nah. Only one bottle. The beer and the whisky are safe, so who cares? Thanks for your help.”
Aidan picked up the clearly leaking bag and gingerly removed the intact whisky and beer before striding over to the wastepaper bin next to the road to deposit the broken glass and soggy bag. As he returned, the girl, moving just a little stiffly, was picking up the other bags. He took one from her.
“That your car?” he asked, jerking his head towards the Land Rover.
She nodded.
“Mind your feet,” he advised.
“Thanks,” she said sardonically, and in spite of himself, he grinned.
She walked without limping to the car and opened the boot. Aidan waited until she’d dropped her own bags in before adding his and the loose items. He watched her shut the boot and glance at him with a rather charming mixture of wariness and awkward friendliness. She wasn’t what he’d expected.
A thrill of sexual interest caught him off guard. He wondered what she looked like under the coat, wanted to spark a similar excitement to his own in those clear, almost defiant eyes. What would it take to melt her bones, to have her breathless and eager in his arms?
“That your boat?” she blurted.
He blinked, resummoning reality. “Yes.” He hadn’t even known she’d seen where he came from.
She nodded thoughtfully, gave him a quick smile. “Thanks for the shining armour,” she said and opened the car door.
He could have asked for her number, but this was Ardknocken. Why rush things that would happen inevitably in a community this size? Especially at New Year.
“My lady,” he said, bowing elaborately. It won him a quick grin of appreciation, and, hopefully, covered any visible stirring in his jeans.
“Happy New Year,” she said, “when it comes.”
Her adherence to the old tradition pleased him for some reason. It was meant to be bad luck to wish someone a happy new year before the first of January, so up until then, people tagged on “when it comes” to the familiar greeting. Of course, with globalization and the dilution of customs, most people forgot that these days. Including himself. It had been years since he’d even imagined a happy new year for anyone.
As she climbed into the car, he turned and walked casually back towards the boat. Why did the boat interest her?
As he dropped back onto the deck, he saw her car stop at the corner of the shore road to let in another woman whom he couldn’t make out for the open door. But he’d find that out too.
“Who’s the guy on the boat?” Chrissy demanded as soon as Izzy got in the car. Izzy blinked, but obligingly turned and stared through the back window.
“Don’t know. Don’t believe I’ve seen him before, but isn’t that Louise’s boat? Wait, I think that might be her brother. I saw the back of his head once last Christmas. He doesn’t come home much.”
“I didn’t even know she had a brother,” Chrissy said, letting in the clutch and moving along the shore road. Her stomach still zinged with pleasant little butterflies, drowning the nagging pain of her hip into insignificance. It was a long time since a man had affected her like that. Perhaps it was his simple kindness in coming so fast to help her, without making her feel any more ridiculous than she already did.
He was very good-looking, of course, with his bright blond hair and strong, even features and those fathomless, piercing blue eyes. And his quirky, expressive mouth that seemed curiously…sinful. Made for kissing, surely, in all the most sensitive places…
But there was more than that. The firm strength of his hand when he’d drawn her to her feet, the easy way he moved, like a man comfortable with his own physicality, if not, perhaps, with himself.
She frowned. Where had that last observation come from? From his eyes. Despite their steadiness, even a certain hardness, there was something…troubled. Unquiet. Not the eyes of a man at peace with himself.
Stop being ridiculous, she chided herself. Physical fantasies should stay physical. Especially when there was the chance of meeting again if he was Louise’s brother. For an instant, the butterflies intensified.
Come on, Chrissy, who are you kidding? Even if he looked at you, you couldn’t handle it.
“He’s a policeman,” Izzy told her. “Works down south, I think.”
Chrissy shot her a surprised glance, brows raised. “Doesn’t seem like any of the cops I’ve ever met.”
“You’ve met this one?”
As so often, Chrissy sought refuge in flippancy. “I fell over on the ice, broke a vodka bottle. He came to my rescue. Why is it sod’s law that you lose all dignity the moment you see an attractive man?”
Izzy gave her a lopsided smile. “Is he, indeed? Is that why you fell over in the first place?”
She was quick. But Chrissy had expected it.
“Gawping,” she said breezily. “Very gawp-worthy bloke. Did you get the steak and the sausages Jim wanted?”
“Pounds of the stuff. I just hope it stays down.”
“Hazard of every good New Year lunch. I remember them at my mum’s house. Kill or cure.”
“Don’t you want to go and see her?”
“Nah, she moved to F
lorida two years ago. Might go over in the spring. Where did you say Jack was?”
“First house on the left—there he is.”
Izzy’s lively five-year-old son, Jack, was jumping up and down beside his friend whom he’d been playing with that morning, but when the car stopped, he trotted over to it, waving good-bye to his pal quite happily. Izzy hauled him in, and they drove on up the hill to the big, turreted stone house that had somehow become home.
Chapter Two For their New Year party, Chrissy had dug out a black lace dress, which she wore over a shift in almost exactly the same shade of purple as the sparkling streak she combed into her hair. She had her war paint on, and despite the stiff ache in her bruised hip, she was ready to dance and do her job. Tonight was more than a party for friends, most of whom had been away over Christmas. It was a welcome to the new guys who’d arrived over the last couple of days to join the convicts’ co-op. She wanted them to fit in as quickly as possible, without any obvious divisions between the old crowd who’d arrived more or less with her, and the new. She knew she had the cooperation of the old guard, but they’d been bonding over the last nine months and had shared experiences from which the new guys were inevitably excluded. She could paper over that. She was used to hiding the cracks.
Music began to drift up from the ground floor. Glenn and the boys were warming up. Before she went down, she grabbed the binoculars from her bedside table and pulled back the curtains. She gazed over the village to the beach until she found the blacker darkness of the rocks on which she’d seen the seals last night. Raising the binoculars to her eyes, she saw that the tide was going out and the rocks were visible once more. No seals, this time, though. And no time for daft fantasies.
Shrugging, she dropped the binoculars and was about to turn away from the window when something close to the house caught her attention. An old banger of a car was trundling slowly up the gritted driveway. It was pulling a caravan.
Glenn Brody, ex-Glasgow hard-man, owner and founder of the Ardknocken House cooperative project, opened the front door and began to laugh. Once, that had been a rare sound, and though she heard it increasingly often now, Chrissy still valued it.
“It’s Frog,” Glenn said, striding out into the cold. Inevitably, Jack, intrigued by the caravan, tried to bolt after him, only Izzy grabbed him by the collar and held him back.
Outside, a young man with a shock of black, curly hair erupted from the car and gripped Glenn’s outstretched hand with an oddly shy grin. Glenn yanked him towards the house, saying, “You towed that thing all the way up here in this weather?”
“The weather is fine,” protested the newcomer. “I checked. I took a detour to avoid the snow.” He spoke English with a faint European accent. His eyes darted around the variously amused and curious faces gathered in the hall. He didn’t look alarmed precisely, but neither did he appear particularly comfortable.
Glenn said, “This is Izzy and Jack.”
The newcomer’s gaze swung on them, and his smile was momentarily dazzling, seeming to light up not just his face but his whole personality. Chrissy warmed to him because, clearly, he knew something of Izzy’s importance to Glenn. At the same time, another man’s smile flashed into her mind. The man who might be Louise’s brother. His smile had been undoubtedly dazzling…and yet it hadn’t touched his eyes. As if she’d amused him but he’d no reason to be happy about that or anything else in his life. Curiosity prickled.
“Thierry Dulplessis,” the newcomer said, offering his hand, which Izzy and Jack both shook. Chrissy had almost forgotten “Frog’s” real name, but she knew who he was. He’d been a friend of Glenn’s in prison. In fact, Glenn had looked after him, for he was no hard-man. He was a computer genius who’d been inside for fraud—namely stealing a phenomenal amount of money from a famous insurance company.
Before the social awkwardness could return to the man’s manner, Archie pushed through the crowd in the hall, yelling, “Froggie! How’re you doing, man?”
While Thierry greeted Archie, Jack said, “Why’s he called Frog?”
“Because he’s French,” Chrissy said dryly.
“Plus, if he has access to a computer, he can jump out of just about any trouble you can think of,” Glenn added. “Frog, this is Chrissy, who manages this place and all who sail in her.”
Thierry gave her the shyer smile as they shook hands, and she led him into the living room which had been decorated for Christmas.
“I’m afraid you’ve arrived in the middle of a party,” Chrissy said, “so it’s a bit full on. Do you know all these guys?”
“Just Glenn and Archie. Oh and Jim,” he added, waving across the room. “Have they all been here from the beginning?”
“Not all. You’re the fourth—and last—newcomer this week.” Hastily, she pointed out Len the accountant, whom she thought Thierry might well get on with, and Nick and Gerry, who, with the lubrication of a beer, looked as comfortable as if they’d always lived here. Of course, they were used to communal living, but the community here was nothing like prison.
“When do I start work?” Thierry asked.
Chrissy blinked. “Come on, this is Scotland. No one works before the third of January. Or even the fourth in some cases. What do you want to drink?”
“Beer is good,” Thierry said humbly.
“There’s wine if you’d rather.”
Thierry seemed to have stopped listening. He was watching Jack chatter animatedly up into Glenn’s face, while Glenn, a faint smile hovering on his lips, eased behind the keyboard in the corner of the room beside a drum set and a saxophone. Glenn glanced across to Izzy, his eyebrows whizzing up and then down again. Izzy laughed, and Glenn placed Jack’s fingers on one of the keys.
Thierry said, “He’s happy.”
“Yes, I think he is,” Chrissy said. “I hope you will be too.”
Thierry cast her a glance of pure surprise, although whether at the idea of his own happiness or her hopes for it wasn’t clear. Chrissy passed him a beer. “Drink up. Last dance before the bells.”
Chrissy had never heard the Dashing White Sergeant played by a jazz band before, but Glenn made his keyboards sound like a fiddle, Jack got to make the cymbal sounds, and everyone joined in the dance with good-natured enthusiasm, even poor Thierry, who was slightly lost at the beginning.
Collapsing onto the sofa, Chrissy glanced at the clock. “Five minutes to midnight,” she warned Izzy. “You guys need to get upstairs! Bad luck not to be in your own place when the new year comes in!”
“Aye, but the whole house is Glenn’s place,” Gerry objected.
Glenn didn’t respond to that, just jerked his head to Jack and grabbed Izzy by the hand.
Izzy called over her shoulder, “You all have to first-foot us!”
“Where are they going?” Thierry asked curiously. “I thought Glenn lived in the house?”
“We’ve turned the attic into a flat for him and Izzy. Especially with Jack, they needed more privacy. It looks great. We’ll go up after the bells, be the ‘first foot’—or feet in our case!—over their door, and you can see for yourself.”
Thierry, who must have spent all his Scottish new years in prison, frowned. “What is the importance of the feet?”
“Old tradition,” Chrissy explained. “It’s meant to be good luck for the whole year if the first person over your door after the bells is a friend with a gift. It helps if he’s tall and dark too, though I can never work out why.” Chrissy supposed it was daft to still refer to “the bells”. You rang out the old year and rang in the new, but unless you tuned into the Big Ben chimes from London, you never heard any bells at midnight.
Dougie turned the television on to get the countdown to the gun firing at Edinburgh Castle. There was a mad dash to replenish glasses, and everyone stood for the first toast of the year.
When the old cannon finally fired, the noise in the living room resembled a prison riot. Yells of “Happy New Year!” and enthusiastic cheering mingled with
clinking glasses and raucous laughter. Everyone was thumping each other’s backs hard enough to break bones, shaking hands, stamping and emitting an array of high-pitched “Hoochs!”
Chrissy fixed her smile on her face, remembering how well she now knew these men. Awareness that, with Izzy’s departure, she was now the only female in the room tried to batter its way to the forefront of her mind. Desperately she hung on to her knowledge of the people who were her friends and colleagues, who’d never shown her an ounce of disrespect. She was one of the boys, who always held her own, and she was relying on that to receive only the handshakes and back thumps of the others.
Dougie almost took her by surprise, grabbing her hand with a huge grin. “Happy New Year, hen!” And he leaned down and kissed her cheek before battering Charlie on the back. “Happy New Year, Vincent!” Which was their nickname for Charlie, a talented painter.
And it was easy, after all. Jim followed Dougie’s example, and so did the others, and she realized she’d never been one of the boys after all. She was like their sister. And that was more than okay.
Only Len, oddly enough, overstepped her line. He was older than the others, had served a long stretch for accountancy fraud. Chrissy rather liked his mixture of intelligence and wry humour, although physically, she always felt a little anxious to avoid him. She felt slightly ashamed of that, understood it was because she was still getting used to his presence.
As it was, she’d been lulled into a false sense of security when he wished her happy new year—and lunged for her lips. She only had a moment of contact to freeze, for the panic to surge over her, before he was yanked off her by Rab.
“Don’t maul the lassie, she’s not your dinner,” Rab said, winking at her. “Happy New Year, Chrissy!” And she and Rab exchanged handshakes and cheek kisses before he said, “Right, we going up to Glenn’s? Grab your bottles!”
Slightly stunned, it came to Chrissy that it wasn’t just Glenn who looked out for her. Whether or not Rab or the others knew her story, they were protecting her like one of their own. Of course, it might backfire if she ever brought a boyfriend home. Unbidden, the strong, handsome face of her blond rescuer of the morning swam into her mind, and she laughed at herself.
In Her Secret Fantasy Page 2