by Paula Martin
“And there’s been no one else?”
She gave him a mischievous grin. “Well, I fancied Rob Whiteley when he was my leading man in Dark Secrets, and Jake Lowell was okay, at least to look at, but you could get drunk from the smell of whisky on his breath, and then there was—”
“Abbey—”
“What?” Her eyes widened in innocence until she giggled. “Yes, I know. I’m doing what used to drive you mad, aren’t I? Being flippant when I don’t want to be serious.”
“Why don’t you want to be serious?” Now he did move his hand a couple of inches until it rested on her shoulder, and relaxed with relief when she didn’t flinch or move away. “Abbey, I’ve been honest with you. I’ve told you I love you, but it doesn’t mean I want to rush you into something you’re not sure about. Besides,” he tightened his hand on her shoulder, “I still have a lot of guilt to resolve, you know.”
“We both need time, don’t we?”
“Are you prepared to give it a go and see if we can make it work?”
“Can you be patient with me?”
“I think I need you to be patient with me, too. Deal?”
She smiled. “Okay, deal.”
CHAPTER 14
Abbey rested her head against Jack’s shoulder as the taxi took them back to the village. The smooth fabric of his jacket was comforting against her cheek, and his arm around her felt even better. His admission that he was in love with her gave her what she knew Louise would call the warm fuzzies.
That surprised her. She’d told Louise she would run a mile if Jack wanted more than a casual friendship, but her inner instincts told her she wanted more, too. At the same time, a small shiver of anxiety ran through her when she realised she’d allowed him to break through the barrier she’d built to protect her emotions. Was she capable of giving more? But he’d promised to be patient, which dissipated some of her fears.
After all, this was Jack, who understood her and all her baggage. Could he help her to move on, like Farrell had helped Louise?
“Okay?” he asked, after he’d paid the taxi driver and they stood on the small grass verge in front of the row of stone houses.
She smiled. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“You’ve been thinking. Are you having doubts already?”
“No, quite the opposite, but please don’t expect an overnight transformation. Give me time, Jack.”
“Take as much time as you need, sweetheart. And speaking of time, do you have to work every day in the shop? Because I’d love to go hiking and sailing with you again. We could even revisit our old haunts and sit talking for hours in the Sun Café, for example.”
“Putting the world to rights, like we used to do? Let me talk to Mum. Before I came back here, one of her friends helped in the shop. She still does when we’re busy. I’m sure I can get a few days off.”
“Good. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Are you coming to the drama club on Tuesday evening?”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to interfere.”
“Interfere? Don’t talk rubbish. You gave the kids lots of ideas last week. Surely you want to find out what they come up with?”
“Yes, that would be interesting.”
“So consider yourself an honorary member of the club.” She glanced at the house and back at Jack. “Would you like to come in? The light upstairs is Mum’s room, which means she’s either reading or watching TV in bed.”
Jack shook his head. “Perhaps another night?”
He gazed at her for a long moment, and a tingle of delight simmered in her veins as he bent forward until his mouth met hers. His soft and gentle kiss was more arousing than any fierce kiss, and he put his arms around her, pulling her against him. Abbey raised her hands to his shoulders as delicious sensations rippled through her. She slid one hand round to the back of his head and parted her lips for him. When his tongue sought hers, she responded, delighting in the teasing dance their tongues made together.
Their kiss continued for several minutes. She loved the scent of his cologne, loved his strong shoulders where her hand gripped him, loved the silkiness of his thick hair between her fingers, and loved the bulge of his hard arousal against her stomach.
When he eventually broke away, she was limp with longing.
His blue eyes smiled down at her. “I need to go, otherwise—”
She forced herself back to reality. “Yes.”
“You’ll see if you can get some time off?”
“I’ll ask Mum tomorrow.”
“Night, Abbey.”
Regret, exhilaration, and relief juggled for priority in her mind. Regret because her need for him wasn’t going to be satisfied, at least not yet. Exhilaration at making at least a start on admitting her feelings for him. Relief that he was giving her time to be sure.
She watched him in the silvery glow of the moon as he walked back toward the main road. After returning his final wave, she went to open the front door.
Once inside, she stopped and inhaled deeply. Warmth enveloped her, and she tried to ignore the small shiver of fear.
* * * * *
“Mum, any chance of getting Sandra to help in the shop later this week?” she asked with careful nonchalance while they were having breakfast the next morning.
“Do I need to ask why?”
Despite the glimmer of understanding in her mother’s eyes, Abbey’s cheeks flooded with heat. “Jack suggested we might go hiking or sailing.”
Edwina nodded. “It’s about time you took some days off to enjoy yourself, and I’m sure either Sandra or Hilary would help.” She paused for a moment. “Is everything okay between you and Jack?”
“Everything’s fine.”
It was an understatement when she wanted to say, Everything’s wonderful because he said he loves me, and I think I’m falling in love with him.
A couple of hours later, she glanced curiously through the shop window when a white van labelled Carmen’s House of Flowers pulled up outside.
The driver came in with a bouquet of red roses in a silver wrapper tied with a large red bow. “Ms. Abigail Seton?”
Abbey nodded. “That’s me.”
The young man grinned. “Good. He said I had to deliver these before eleven o’clock or he’d have my head on a plate.”
She laughed. “You’ve made it with twenty minutes to spare. Thank you.” She took the flowers from him. “Want a cup of tea while you’re here?”
“Thanks, but I’m parked on double yellow lines, and if your car park attendant spots me, he’ll be the one putting my head on a plate. Cheers, love. Enjoy your flowers.”
“Red roses?” Edwina said as Abbey held the flowers to her face and inhaled the musky fragrance. “Two dozen if I’m not mistaken. He doesn’t do things by halves, does he? I’m assuming they’re from Jack. Is there a card with them?”
Abbey found the small envelope stapled to the edge of the wrapper and pulled out the card, which read, Here’s to us. Love J.
“Do we have a vase here?” she asked.
“Abbey, do me a favour and look around the shop, will you?”
She giggled. “Sorry, Mum, I meant one of our vases, not shop stock.”
“Oh, take one of the Cumbrian crystal ones off the shelf. The flair vase should do very nicely, and we’ll display the flowers here on the counter.”
Abbey left her mother to serve the customers while she went into the storeroom to unwrap the roses and fill the vase with water.
When her phone rang, she looked up at the wall clock. Exactly eleven o’clock, and Jack’s name appeared on her screen.
“The flowers are beautiful,” she said. “Thank you so much.”
“Good, you got them. I told the guy in the shop—”
She laughed. “Yes, he said he had to deliver them before eleven.”
“That’s because I have a meeting starting at eleven-fifteen.”
* * * * *
Jack couldn’t tell her his meeting was a book signing session at Wat
son’s bookstore in Carlisle. He’d been annoyed when Farrell arranged it without consulting him. It was only about fifty miles from Rusthwaite, too close to home for comfort, but he couldn’t refuse once it was advertised.
“Did you manage to get any days off?” he asked.
“Yes, Mum has asked a couple of friends to help, so I’m not working on Wednesday or Thursday.”
“Good. I’m going up to Glasgow tonight, but I should be home by about five o’clock tomorrow. We can decide tomorrow evening what we want to do.”
Abbey laughed. “Do I need to find my hiking boots?”
“Only if you intend to get us stranded on Harrison Stickle again.”
“Oh gosh, I remember that. We took the wrong route down and—”
“Hold on a minute.” Jack half-turned as the manager of the bookstore approached him. He pressed his hand tightly over his phone’s mouthpiece.
“We’re ready for you now, Mr. Tyson,” the manager said.
“Thanks. Give me a couple of seconds.” He prayed Abbey hadn’t been able to hear the man’s voice.
“Sorry, gotta go,” he said quickly into the phone. “I’ll see you tomorrow evening.”
“Okay. Have a good meeting, Jack.”
As he clicked off his phone, Jack tightened his lips. He hated having to resort to this kind of subterfuge, but he couldn’t risk her knowing the truth yet. All he hoped was that Farrell would have some good news for him soon.
* * * * *
When she walked up the lane to Fir Garth on Tuesday evening, Abbey could hardly believe only a week had passed since the last time she’d been there for the drama club meeting. During the past few days, her life seemed to have changed direction, and her angst had given way to elation. Her heart danced at the prospect of seeing Jack again.
He was setting out the chairs when she went into the barn, and greeted her with a kiss on her cheek before handing her a key. “It’s for the barn door. I’ve had keys made for everyone, in case I’m not here when they want to start their meetings.”
“We shouldn’t need them for very long, now the trustees have the funds to repair the roof of the Old School. Your donation was more than generous, Jack.”
“It was some of the money from the sale of our apartment in Santa Monica. I’d been thinking about giving it to charity, and in this case, charity definitely begins at home. Tom Williams called me today, by the way. The builders will start on the roof next week, and the trustees are also having plans drawn up for modernising the kitchen and bathrooms, and a more efficient central heating system installed. Oh, and the whole place will be redecorated.”
“It’s going to be palatial compared with what it was before. They should rename it the Jack Tremayne Building.”
“No way. It’ll always be the Old School to me. It was where I first met you.”
“I still remember that day. I was only thinking the other week about Mrs. Stewart. Wonder what happened to her?”
They reminisced about their early schooldays until the teenagers started arriving for the meeting. Many of them had done their research about the past, and they exchanged information with noisy enthusiasm. Several times Abbey’s eyes met Jack’s in an amused exchange.
When Jack encouraged them to pull their ideas together into three different strands they could use in the play, she was impressed yet again at how he dealt with the kids, steering them in the right direction but without dictating to them.
The only awkward moment, for her at least, came when Charlotte Morris produced a paperback copy of The Copper Miner’s Daughter, the first book of The Rycroft Saga. Everything inside her tensed as the devastation at not getting the part hit her again.
“Jack, this book’s about a girl who went against all the attitudes of the day and fought for what she believed in. Did girls in Victorian times do that?”
“That’s fiction, Charlotte,” Abbey said. “We should be thinking about real people.”
She shot a quick glance at Jack, wondering if he remembered how much she’d wanted the part of Maggie Rycroft.
He didn’t look at her as he replied to Charlotte. “Every generation has its rebels, the people who don’t conform to what society expects of them. What you need to consider is whether rebelling is easier for young people today than it was in the nineteenth century.”
Abbey relaxed again. “I think you now have your three themes. Local occupations a hundred years ago compared with today, the social opportunities for young people, and the rebels.”
She divided them into their usual three groups, held a quick discussion to decide which group would concentrate on which topic, and suggested they pool their ideas.
The room buzzed with teenage chatter, and she smiled at Jack. “We’re on our way now. By next week, they’ll have the basic scenarios sorted out, and we can develop those into workable playlets.”
Later, after the teenagers had gone, they went into the house where he made coffee for them both.
“What shall we do tomorrow?” he asked when they relaxed in the lounge.
* * * * *
During the next few weeks, Abbey had more fun than she’d had in a long time. Jack hired a sailing dinghy several times and, once they’d brushed up on their sailing skills, they sailed the five mile length of Coniston Water on a beautiful spring day with the right amount of wind to send the dinghy whipping easily through the water.
Other days they spent hiking. After their first ambitious attempt to reach the top of Helvellyn, one of Lakeland’s highest peaks, Jack gave her a wry grin.
“I’m not as fit as I used to be. Maybe we should try a few easier climbs before we tackle another hard one.”
She was as breathless as him, and her leg muscles screamed in protest after several months when she’d abandoned her usual fitness regime. “Why don’t we make a pact to do some early morning runs in the woods?”
Doubt creased his forehead. “What do you mean by early?”
“About six o’clock?” She laughed at the shock on his face. “It’s okay, I’m joking. Eight o’clock would be fine for a half hour run.”
She enjoyed their morning jogs, which they managed two or three times a week. They talked about anything and everything, and every so often they stopped for quick kisses that sometimes lengthened. Jack never attempted to take things any further, and she wondered whether he thought she might react as she’d done ten years before.
After they’d completed several low-level hikes, they decided to try the well-worn path up the 2,600 feet Coniston Old Man. On the way, they passed the remains of the old copper mines, and Jack pointed out the entrances to the shafts and the now-rusted iron runways where the copper ore was once transported down the hillside.
“I wonder if any of The Rycroft Saga will be filmed around here,” Abbey mused. “In the book, Maggie runs up the hill to meet her father at the end of his shift, but I expect they’ll film the scene lower down where it’s easier to use all the equipment.”
Jack squeezed her hand. “I could imagine you running up here in a long black skirt and a shawl around your shoulders, with your hair blowing in the breeze.”
She gave him a weak smile in an attempt to hide the renewed disappointment that tightened her stomach. “Well, it’s not going to happen, so I need to stop thinking about it. Remember when we came up here once and it began to pour down, and all the dye in my socks ran so I ended up with purple feet?”
They laughed as they continued to recall other hikes they’d done as teenagers, and Abbey forgot her momentary desolation. After all, if she’d won the Maggie Rycroft part, she wouldn’t have come home to Rusthwaite, and wouldn’t have met Jack again or enjoyed the days she spent with him.
They water-skied, windsurfed, and kayaked on Windermere, cycled in Rusthwaite Forest and, on a less energetic day, strolled hand-in-hand around the beautiful gardens of a Victorian home overlooking Coniston Water. In the evenings, sometimes they went to the theatre or cinema in Kendal, or to one of the country i
nns for a meal. One evening, they held a barbecue for the drama club teenagers; other nights they relaxed at Fir Garth or went to the pub in the village.
“I love being with him,” she told Louise on the phone. “I don’t have to pretend to be something I’m not. He accepts me as I am, and we talk about anything and everything.”
“Have you been to bed with him yet?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Okay, I’ll rephrase the question,” Louise said. “Do you want to go to bed with him?”
Abbey hesitated. “Yes, I think so,” she said finally.
“So you go, girl. Do it.”
“One small step for anyone else, one huge step for Abbey, huh?”
“It’s not the be all and end all of a relationship, Abbs. It’s only a small part of it.”
Abbey shook her head. “It’s more than that for me, Lou.”
“Isn’t it time you took that huge step?”
“I’ll think about it.”
The thoughts swirled around her mind after she switched off her phone. There’d been times when she longed for more than their increasingly arousing kisses at the end of a day or evening together. She knew Jack was holding back, making no demands on her, and knew he wanted more, especially when he broke away from their embrace, dragged in a deep breath, and said, “I’d better go home now.”
Sometimes she longed for him to sweep her up in his arms and take her to bed. There’d even been times when she thought about telling him to do it, but couldn’t bring herself to say the words. Life was too good at the moment to risk changing anything.
* * * * *
After a drama club meeting at the end of April, Jack suggested they went to the White Lion for a drink. He had something to ask Abbey, but wasn’t sure what her answer would be. It was a mild evening, and they took their drinks outside to the small beer garden behind the pub.
For a while, they talked about the drama festival play. He’d been impressed by how the youngsters had invented their own scenes, comparing and contrasting the issues of the past with teenage problems today. He and Abbey had both helped them with their dialogue, and there was a lengthy discussion about the best way to stage it. Abbey’s instinctive sense of stagecraft had come into play when she proposed using a split stage to alternate the Victorian scenes with the modern ones.