Then and Always

by Dani Atkins

  But even physical desire hadn’t been sufficient to allow him to follow through. It was a cold and undeniable fact: Jimmy had never wanted me in that way, neither in the past nor now, and I had just made the biggest idiot of myself by launching myself at him like some third-rate seductress in a tacky novel.

  “I think you should leave now,” I said in a quiet voice that trembled enough for me to realize that tears were only moments away. The speed with which he complied told me the truth: he couldn’t get out of there fast enough. He paused just once at the door, turning to give me a long hard look.

  “I’m so sorry, Rachel, please forgive me.” His voice sounded truly tortured, but before I could even think of a response he had opened the door and left.

  Sorry? He was sorry? What in hell’s name did he have to be sorry about? I was the one who should have apologized. I was the one who was apparently incapable of controlling her emotions and had to be told that what she was doing was completely out of order.

  What was Jimmy guilty of? Nothing, except of not wanting me. And I could hardly blame him for that, for at that moment I felt like the most loathsome and disgusting creature that had ever walked the face of the earth.

  ANOTHER NIGHT OF crying myself to sleep. It was almost becoming a habit. If Jimmy noticed my red-rimmed eyes the following morning, he was too polite to comment. He didn’t look so great himself when we met in the corridor at the time that we’d arranged the night before. Of course, that had been during the civilized portion of the evening, before the madness had overtaken me in the middle of the night, when I had acted in a way that had probably killed our friendship forever.

  On waking, I had even harbored the pathetic hope that I had dreamt the entire episode, that none of it had really happened and that nothing between us had been irretrievably broken or damaged. But when I’d turned my head, I’d seen the remains of the broken lamp and known it was as irrevocably damaged as my relationship with Jimmy.

  When I saw him waiting for me in the corridor, I hesitated at the threshold of my room. I had no idea what to say. But fortunately, it appeared that neither did he.

  “Do you want to stop for breakfast or just head back?”

  “I’d just like to go back,” I answered quickly.

  Something flickered in his eyes but he just nodded, as though this was what he had been expecting. He lifted the bag from my fingers and turned in the direction of the lifts.

  “Let’s go then.”

  THERE MAY HAVE been more uncomfortable car journeys in my life, but that one was right up there with the worst of them. There was a tension that couldn’t be ignored. It sat between us like a third passenger all the way from London to Great Bishopsford. In the end we abandoned conversation, preferring instead to pretend that the silence between us was companionable, rather than strained and awkward. But we were fooling ourselves. For the first time in … well, actually in forever, I couldn’t speak freely or easily with Jimmy. The strain of not talking about the topic we both couldn’t avoid thinking about was monumental. And yet, as mile followed mile, neither of us dared to voice the subject. When finally we passed the sign that announced Great Bishopsford, there was, thankfully, no time left.

  As we maneuvered through the familiar streets, I itched to get out of the car, hoping that when I left the vehicle I could somehow leave behind the debris of last night. And then, just when I thought that the day couldn’t possibly get any worse, it did.

  We rounded the last bend and there, parked directly in front of my house, was a low sleek car.

  “Terrific,” muttered Jimmy, pulling in to the curb to park behind it.

  Jimmy switched off the engine and turned to look at me, properly at me, for the first time since last night.

  “Rachel, I wanted to say … to explain …”

  I shook my head. “Please, don’t say anything, it’s not necessary.”

  He reached out and took my hand, and part of me wanted to jerk back from his touch and an even greater part wanted to hold him against me forever. He saw my hand judder under his and misinterpreted the reaction.

  “I know you must hate me right now,” he continued, “but please give me a chance to—”

  I never heard what he wanted the chance to do or say, for at that moment the passenger door was swung widely open by a rather impatient-looking Matt.

  He had seen my hand in Jimmy’s, even though I had yanked it away as if it were caught in a flame. Forestalling any comment, I quickly scrambled out of the car.

  “Matt, what are you doing here? I thought you were in Germany for another three days?”

  Matt drew me into an enveloping embrace, which I think was more for Jimmy’s benefit than mine. By the time I was released, Jimmy had also climbed out of the car.

  “I wound things up really quickly; thought you might need me more back here. But I see you managed to make … alternative arrangements.”

  God, here it was again. That old teenage rivalry that had so fascinated me in the hospital was now just petty and irritating.

  “Jimmy very kindly gave up his day off to take me into London. I had a lot of things I needed to sort out and he offered to take me.”

  Matt raised his gaze to meet Jimmy’s over the roof of the car.

  “And his night, of course. He gave up his night too.”

  So far Jimmy hadn’t risen to the bait, but I could feel the testosterone-infused tension swirling around me like a miniature tornado.

  “It was too late to come back last night, so we found a hotel and stayed in town. Dad knew what our plans were.”

  Matt nodded, and I wondered what his reaction had been when he had arrived here and learned from my father that Jimmy and I had been away together overnight.

  “We were lucky to find somewhere that had two rooms available at such short notice,” I supplied. I was babbling, even I could hear it. I was annoyed at my compulsion to explain my movements, even though as my fiancé, Matt was perfectly entitled to ask where I had been. I was also embarrassed at the need to lie.

  “It was all perfectly respectable,” I assured Matt, moving away from Jimmy’s car and turning to walk up the path.

  “I’m sure it was,” replied Matt, and while his words implied he had never doubted it for a minute, the look he gave Jimmy said something different entirely. “You not coming in?” he asked as Jimmy walked toward him, passing over my small overnight bag. I stopped then, halfway to the door; I had assumed they were both following me inside.

  “No, not this time. I’ve got some things I have to do. And I’m sure you want to spend some time alone with Rachel. She has a lot to tell you.”

  I felt color begin to warm my cheeks. Don’t blush, don’t blush, oh, please, God, don’t let me blush.

  Matt looked from Jimmy to me, the suspicion on his face only just managing to masquerade as curiosity.

  “About the magazine,” Jimmy provided, already half back into the car. “G’bye, Rachel.”

  I wanted to run to him then, to launch into his arms and beg him not to go. Ridiculous. Completely and utterly ridiculous. And of course I did nothing of the sort, my feet remaining rooted to the path as though fixed in cement. But I didn’t like the permanent tone of Jimmy’s goodbye: I didn’t like it at all.

  As Matt walked past the open driver’s door to join me on the path, Jimmy’s hand reached out to stall him. His voice was low, and he probably never intended me to hear what he had to say, but the street was suddenly quiet and I clearly heard his low entreaty.

  “Take good care of her, Matt. She’s had a tough twenty-four hours.”

  TO SAY MY father looked relieved to see me walk through the door was an understatement. I knew a large part of that was due to his natural instinct to worry about me, but an even greater part was that the burden of entertaining Matt could now be handed over to me. I guessed it had been a pretty tough several hours since his arrival while they awaited our return.

  “He’s been pacing up and down the living room like
a caged lion,” whispered Dad as we stood together in the welcoming kitchen, making a fresh round of teas and some toast. I wasn’t really hungry but it had been a welcome excuse to escape to the kitchen and find out what had happened when Matt turned up and found us gone.

  “Sorry you had to deal with that. I don’t know what he’s so wound up about.”

  My dad stopped placing mugs and spoons on the tray and turned to give me a long appraising look. No words, just a look.

  “What?” I asked, playing dumb. “What?”

  My attempt at nonchalance was ruined by the warm flush that suffused my cheeks. And the more my dad continued to stare at me in that knowing parental fashion, the hotter they grew. I don’t know what he knew exactly, or guessed, but I don’t think he was that far off the mark.

  “Just be careful, Rachel, or someone will get hurt.” And then he softened the entreaty by wrapping his arm around me and pulling me tight to his side. “And I don’t want it to be you.”

  By the time the tea and toast were consumed, a little good humor seemed to have been restored and understandably they both wanted to hear about everything that had happened in London. It took quite a while to regale them with the entire account of the last twenty-four hours, omitting all that had occurred the previous evening from my narrative. I was pretty certain no one in the room wanted to hear that sorry tale—especially me.

  THERE WAS A long pause when I finished, while they both absorbed what I had told them.

  “So do you remember everything now?” pressed Matt hopefully.

  “No, not really. Well, not at all, if I’m being totally honest. But at least now I guess I know what hasn’t happened.”

  The disappointment on Matt’s face was obvious, and I wondered if it was aimed at me personally, rather than the situation. It was almost as if he suspected that I just wasn’t trying hard enough to remember, and that if I put a little more effort into it, everything would come flooding back.

  “Never mind, love,” said Dad, reaching over to squeeze my hand reassuringly. “It’s still early days yet. At least now you have somewhere positive to start from when you meet the amnesia guy this week.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Jimmy said.”

  Matt’s face stiffened in irritation at the name, but he let the comment pass.

  “And in the meantime, I’ve sorted out anything I could find around here from the last five years that could help you remember.”

  He sounded so delighted but it was hard to suppress a groan when several hefty-looking albums and a box of memorabilia were produced from the side of the settee and placed on the coffee table before me.

  “Now, I’ve just got to go into town for a while, so you two can browse through these. I’m sure Matt will be able to answer any questions you have—probably far better than me. I don’t suppose you tell me half of what’s really going on in your life!”

  Considering recent events, that was probably just as well.

  I WAS SEVERAL pages into the first album when the front door clicked shut. Moving closer to my side on the settee, Matt gently removed the album from my hands and slid his arms about me, drawing me toward him.

  “Let’s leave the old photos for now, huh? I think I can find a much better way of helping you remember.”

  And before I could say anything to stop him, or even consider if I wanted to stop him at all, his mouth was on mine, persuasively commanding me to respond. And after a moment of immobility, I did. Perhaps this was the very thing I needed to jolt my memory back. Maybe it wasn’t just in fairy tales that the prince’s kiss could bring the sleeping princess back to life. And Matt, with his sexy good looks and masterful self-confidence, was accomplished enough to elicit a response from a shop mannequin—let alone the woman who’d been on the receiving end of those kisses for the past seven years.

  As his lips moved on mine and his hands traveled possessively up and down my back, suddenly I did remember. I remembered how deeply I had fallen in love with him as a teenager, how much he had meant to me back then. I remembered him, as women do the world over, in the way they never forget their first love. But I also remembered how I’d brutally severed him from my life when Jimmy died. And what I remembered most of all was that while ending things with Matt had caused me pain, it had been insignificant compared to the agony of my grief. And if it did turn out that those events had only ever existed in my imagination—and the evidence for that was now pretty compelling—well, you didn’t need a degree in psychology to work out the message my subconscious had been trying to give me.

  I didn’t push him away, but I couldn’t respond to him either.

  “Rachel?” he murmured into my ear, pausing to nip gently upon my neck, making me shiver in spite of myself. He drew back to survey my face, his own a clear portrait of desire.

  “Too much for now? Do you want me to stop?”

  I nodded, and thankfully he understood. I could see the effort it took him to regain his composure and I felt guilty at having led him on. I wondered if this was how Jimmy had felt the night before. The thread that wound the tapestry of our lives together suddenly seemed heavily laced in irony.

  “Maybe we could just look through the stuff Dad left out?” I suggested lamely.

  “If that’s what you want,” he agreed, but added in a soft vow, “But don’t think I’m giving up on you that easily.”

  I’m certain he meant it as a pledge of things to come, so why couldn’t I shake the feeling his words sounded more like a threat than a promise?

  Three albums and several hours later, I was no closer to remembering the last five years and I was bored with looking at pictures of me with people I never knew, in places I had never been. Although Matt could supply a large proportion of the missing data, a whole host of photographs taken during my university days remained a mystery.

  “Looks like I had a good time,” I proclaimed, plucking a photograph from the pile, which captured me with my arms flung around the shoulders of several friends, beer bottles in hand, all smiling broadly, and drunkenly, at the camera.

  “Uni was good,” Matt agreed, then breached my defenses by leaning over and planting a kiss upon my lips. “But it was hard being so far apart from you for three years. Things are so much better now.”

  I guessed I was just going to have to take his word for it on that. And you couldn’t help but admire the man’s unshakable confidence. “And we managed to survive the long-distance-relationship thing?”

  Was there something that flashed quickly through his eyes, some small hesitation?

  “Well, we’re still together, so we must have done something right.”

  There was something there in his voice that didn’t sound quite so sure, and then he tried to divert me with a little sidetracking of his own.

  “And now we are engaged,” he declared, undeniable satisfaction in his voice.

  “And now we are engaged,” I echoed, my own voice full of another emotion entirely.

  “ARE YOU SURE you don’t want to join us, Tony? You’re more than welcome.”

  The words were polite enough, though I wondered if my dad could hear that the sentiment wasn’t entirely heartfelt. The twinkle in my father’s eye told me he understood perfectly.

  “No, no, you two run along and enjoy yourselves. You don’t want me tagging along and ruining your dinner. And besides, I have to make up the spare room for Matt.”

  Touché, Dad, excellently done.

  Matt said nothing until we were safely inside the leather cocoon of his car.

  “So I’m to be banished to the spare room again, am I?”

  I tried not to smile but I could feel my quivering lips beginning to betray me.

  “I’m sure he thinks we’re still teenagers,” he complained, gunning the engine with unnecessary vigor before pulling away from the curb. “He’s still got that old not-under-my-roof thing going on. What does he think we get up to in London?”

  As I actually didn’t know what we got up to in London,
I thought it best not to respond.

  “Anyway,” said Matt, turning to me with an irreverent wink and a grin, “I still remember which of the floorboards in the hall creak, so just remember to leave your door unlatched.”

  I laughed nervously, not sure if he was joking, but made a mental note to secure my door when we got back.

  We had a surprisingly good time that evening, all things considered. Once away from the house and my father’s watchful eye, Matt seemed more himself, or the self I remembered from years gone by. He was attentive and charming, and it was impossible to ignore the envious glances directed toward me from several females in the gastropub we’d gone to.

  “That’s something I had happily forgotten,” I said, after yet another very obvious what-does-he-see-in-her appraisal.

  Matt dismissed it with a shrug, lifting my hand to his lips and grazing my knuckles with a kiss.

  “You have absolutely nothing to worry about. You’re the only one for me, you always have been.”

  “It doesn’t worry me, it’s just annoying, that’s all. And rude.”

  He got to his feet then. “I’m just going to see where they’ve got to with the bill.” But before leaving, he dropped a light kiss on my head. “Just remember, I’ve only got eyes for you.”

  Less than two minutes later, something happened to make me wonder just how true that statement actually was.

  Matt was crossing the restaurant in the direction of the bar when a small humming sound coming from the edge of the table caught my attention. His mobile phone lay beside our empty plates, its slim shape vibrating persistently against the crockery to indicate an incoming call. I glanced up to summon him back but some instinct made me check the phone first. On the small square screen the caller’s identity was displayed in bold green neon. I could read it quite clearly upside down, but nevertheless swiveled the phone with my index finger until it was the right way up. Cathy. Five harmless letters, but something about them rang a warning bell that had nothing to do with the incoming call.