by Liz Fielding
She’d never talked like this to a man. It was as if, sheared of all expectations, freed by the darkness, they could be totally honest with one another. Could say anything.
‘And now you’ve got that off your chest?’ he prompted.
‘Okay. A memory. Let’s see.’
She dredged her mind for something that would satisfy him-something big-and, without warning, she was back on the streets, scouting locations for the documentary. ‘At the beginning of the year I took my colleague Daisy on a worldwide recce to find locations where we could film our documentary.’
‘The one about street kids.’
‘Right. We’d been all over. It was all done and dusted and we were on our way home from the airport when Daisy told the taxi driver to stop-wait for us-and dragged me down a side alley.’
She could still see it. Smell it.
‘We were in one of the richest countries in the world, metres from the kind of stores where women like me buy handbags that cost four figures, restaurants where we toy with expensive food that we’re afraid to eat in case we put on a pound or two. And there was this kid, a little girl, Rosie, digging around in a dumpster for food that had been thrown away.’
He let slip the same word that had dropped from her lips. Shock, horror…
‘I’d known such things happened,’ she said. She shook her head, for a moment unable to say another word. ‘I’d known, but blocked it out. To see it with my own eyes…’
‘It isn’t your fault.’
‘Isn’t it? Isn’t it the fault of everyone who looks the other way? Blocks it out?’ Even now, her throat tightened as she remembered the shock of it. The horror. ‘I felt so helpless. It was freezing cold and I wanted to pick her up, carry her away, wash her, feed her, make her safe, but Daisy…’ she swallowed as she remembered ‘…Daisy just walked over and joined in, helping her look for the best stuff. It was the most horrible thing I’d ever seen in my life but she’d been there, lived it. Knew how to connect with her. And it was that child’s story that touched people, had the country in an uproar, demanding that something be done. Her thin, grubby, defiant little face on the cover of magazines, looking out of the screen, that won us our award.’
‘And you feel guilty about that?’
‘Wouldn’t you? Where was she when I was picking it up at a ritzy awards ceremony decked out in a designer dress?’
‘What were you going to do, Miranda? Take in every kid that you saw on the street? Your job was to focus on what was out there, raise public awareness. You helped all those kids, not just one.’ Then, when she didn’t say anything, ‘What did happen to her? Do you know?’
She shook her head. ‘As you can imagine, thousands of couples wanted to give her a home. Adopt her.’
‘But not you?’
‘No,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘Not me.’ Then, ‘Have you any idea how tough it is to take in a feral child? To make her believe that you’ll never let her down, no matter what she does. Because she’ll test you…’
She faltered and Jago let go of one of her hands and wiped a thumb over her cheek. It came away wet, just as he’d known it would.
‘Something that you’d know all about, right?’ He didn’t need or wait for an answer, but pulled her into his arms and held her. ‘Tough as marshmallow.’
She dug an elbow in his ribs.
‘Ouch!’
‘Well, what do you expect?’ she demanded through a sniffle. ‘Marshmallow! I don’t think so!’
‘No? Maybe not,’ He said, remembering his earlier thought that she was like those sugar-coated, melt in your mouth chocolates. All hard shell on the outside…‘Turkish Delight?’ he offered, tormenting her to block out the image.
‘How about seaside rock?’
‘No way.’ His head and shoulder hurt when he laughed, but the very idea of her as a stick of bright pink mint-flavoured candy with her name printed all the way through was so outrageous that he couldn’t help himself. ‘I’ll bet the majority of your wardrobe is black.’
She didn’t deny it, but countered with, ‘Liquorice. I’ll settle for liquorice. That’s black. But it has to have been in the fridge.’
‘Now you’re talking,’ he said and his stomach approved noisily too. ‘Maybe we should stop talking about food.’
‘I’ve still got three mints left.’ She turned her head to look up at him. ‘They’re yours if you want them.’
‘With my three that makes a feast, but let’s save them for breakfast.’ Then, because he hadn’t eaten since early the previous morning and needed a distraction, ‘When we get out of here, you should go and find her. That little girl.’
‘It wouldn’t be fair, Nick.’
‘You’ve thought about it, then?’
She didn’t deny it, but shook her head anyway. ‘It’ll be tough enough for her to move on, for her new parents, without me turning up and bringing it all back.’
‘Maybe you could keep an eye on her from a distance. It would put your mind at rest. And you’ll be there in case she ever needs a fairy godmother.’
‘Kids don’t need fairy godmothers, Nick. They need real mothers who are there for them every day, rain or shine, doing the boring stuff. Parents who earn love the hard way every day of their lives.’
He knew she was right. Knew she was talking about more than a little girl whose life she’d changed.
‘You think I was hard on my parents, don’t you?’
‘Yes. No…I don’t know.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘I don’t know anything, Nick. I’m just imagining what would happen if one of them was sick. If your mother needed you. Your father wanted to make some kind of peace…’ He thought she’d finished, but then, very quietly, she said, ‘Suppose you’d died here without ever having told them how much you love them-’
‘I don’t!’
‘Of course you do, Nick. It only hurts if you love someone.’
Her words seemed to echo around the chamber, filling the space, filling his head, until, almost in desperation he said, ‘We’re not going to die. Not today.’
CHAPTER TEN
M IRANDA drew a breath and for a moment he thought she wasn’t going to let it drop. Instead, with a little shake of her head, she said, ‘Is it still today? It seems a lifetime since I walked up that path, wishing I was somewhere else.’
‘You should be careful what you wish for.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, fishing the phone from her pocket and turning it on to check the time. ‘I’ll remember that for next time.’ Then, with a sigh of relief, ‘No, it’s tomorrow. Just. How long before it’s going to be light?’
He glanced at the screen. ‘A few hours yet.’ He felt her shiver but not with cold. Shock, hunger and thirst were doubtless taking their toll on her reserves. ‘Why don’t you check your messages?’ he suggested in an attempt to reconnect her to reality, the outside world.
‘The battery…’
‘We’re not going anywhere until daylight,’ He assured her, overriding any protest. ‘Read them. Text back. Tell them what you’re feeling.’
‘I don’t think so! Besides, what’s the point if there’s no signal?’ Then, catching his meaning, ‘Oh. I see. You’re suggesting I send them a last message. Something for them to find if we don’t make it?’
Did he mean that? Maybe…
At least she had someone to leave a message for.
‘We’re going to make it,’ he said with more conviction than he actually felt. Who knew what daylight would reveal? They might still have to climb their way out and they were weaker now and he’d be operating pretty much one-handed. He wouldn’t be able to catch her a second time. ‘You’ll be seeing them all before you know it, but sending a message will make you feel better.’
‘You think? And what about you, Nick?’
‘What about me?’
‘Is there anyone you want to leave a last message for? What will make you feel better?’
He knew what she was asking
him. Telling him. To leave a message for his parents. He could see how she must find it difficult to understand how he could have walked away, how destroyed he’d felt. But they had been his world. They’d brought him up to believe in the cardinal virtues. Integrity, truth. He’d believed in them. He’d believed in a lie…
‘I’ll take another of those kisses, if you’ve got one to spare,’ he said in an attempt to stop her from pursuing that thought.
Manda heard what she was supposed to hear-a careless, throwaway remark, pitched perfectly to provoke her into giving him another poke in the ribs, to distract her.
But she heard more.
Somewhere, hidden beneath the banter, she caught an edge of something she recognised.
Nick Jago, with no other way to push back the darkness, to distract her from her fear, her hunger, had shared his story. To help her feel a little less alone, he’d exposed a hurt that went so deep he’d cut himself off from his world, even to the point of changing his name.
She understood that kind of pain. How it was tied up with everything you were. Knew how, in order to keep it hidden, you had to wear a mask every day of your life until it became so much a part of you that even those closest to you believed that was who you were.
Until, eventually, you believed it yourself and, unless someone took a risk to save you, took a step into their own darkest place to release a lifetime of unwanted, unused love and give all they had, you would shrivel up until something vital inside you died.
Nick Jago had saved her from certain death. What would it take to save him from the living death to which he’d condemned himself?
He’d answered her question, but could it really be that simple?
‘A kiss?’ she repeated.
The air was still and, above them, in the small patch of sky that was visible, Venus shone like a beacon of hope.
‘Would that be a kissing-it-better kiss?’ she asked, softly, lightly, matching his careless tone. ‘Or are we talking about a make-the-world-go-away kiss?’
Jago had been deliberately provoking. He’d counted on that to divert her, keep her from the saying the words he did not want to hear, to force him to face a situation that he had blanked from his mind.
He’d anticipated a swift response too. The seemingly endless pause between presumption and response was unexpected, a touch unnerving.
But then her teasing tone as, finally, she’d repeated, ‘A kiss?’ had reassured him and, braced for whatever she chose to visit upon him, the butterfly touch of her fingers on his cheek, the caress of her thumb over his lips as she took him at his word, asked him what he truly wanted, warned him that this was anything but a reprieve.
He’d barely drawn breath, determined to apologise, reassure her that he’d been joking-put a stop to something that had, in the time it had taken to say it, spun out of control-before her lips touched his with a pressure so soft that he could almost have imagined it.
And then breathing seemed an irrelevance as the slow, penetrating warmth of it heated his lips, seeped into his veins, spread through his body like liquid silk until he was feeling no pain.
It was a kiss of almost unbearable sweetness that gave and gave, growing in intensity while the tips of her fingers slid down his neck, seeking out the pulse point beneath his jaw. And her touch, when she found it, sent a current of pure energy through him, as if she was somehow concentrating her entire being into that one spot.
It was as if, for years, his entire body had been somehow lying dormant, barely ticking over, waiting for this. Waiting for Miranda Grenville to come down into the dark to kiss him into life. Wake him with a touch.
Only her feather-light fingertips, her breath, her lips, touched him, seeking out the hollows, the sensitive places beneath his chin, his throat, stirring not just his body, but something deeper.
She took endless time, her lips, her tongue, lingering as she made her way down the hard line of his breastbone, slipping shirt buttons as she moved lower, her silky hair brushing against his chest as she laid it bare to the chill night air.
For a moment she lay her hand over his heart and it, too, leapt to her touch. Then it was not her hand, but her mouth against his breast, breathing her warmth, her life into the cold, angry core that had for so long masqueraded as his heart. It was an almost unbearably sweet agony, like that of a numb limb coming painfully to life.
‘Miranda…’
He gasped her name out but whether he wanted her to revive him or leave him in the safety of the cold and dark place where there was no feeling he could not have said.
‘Nick?’ Jago was aware that Manda was speaking to him, that there was an edge of concern to her voice. ‘Are you okay?’
Was he? He was feeling a touch light-headed. Not particularly surprising under the circumstances. That hadn’t been a mere kissing-it-better kiss…
‘Nick!’ she repeated more urgently.
‘Fine,’ He murmured. ‘More than fine.’ He hooked his arm around her. ‘Lie down,’ he said, pulling her up to lie against him, her hair against his cheek. ‘Try and get some sleep.’
Manda lay with her cheek against Nick Jago’s chest, his arm pinning her down so that she couldn’t move without disturbing him. And he seemed to have drifted off almost as soon as he’d said the word.
If it was sleep.
For a minute back there she’d thought he’d drifted out of consciousness. But his heartbeat was steady beneath her ear and his breathing seemed okay…
She closed her eyes. Tried not to think of the aches and pains that she’d temporarily managed to block out, but now she’d stopped concentrating on Nick had returned with a vengeance.
The fact that she was hungry. Thirsty. She hadn’t had anything to drink other than a few sips of water since lunch. A lunch she’d done little more than toy with. Sleep, if she could manage it, would be a great idea.
She closed her eyes, concentrating on the slow, steady beat of Nick’s heartbeat until, gradually, it began to lull her.
It was the light that woke her. Searingly bright against her lids, she moved instinctively to escape it, for a moment completely disorientated. Hurting everywhere. Her neck stiff.
She lifted her head to ease the ache and realised that she was lying against the supine figure of a man.
Nick Jago…
She sat up with a gasp as it all came back with a rush. Tried to speak, but her mouth was dry, her lips cracked and it took a couple of goes before she could manage his name.
‘Nick? Wake up! It’s morning!’
Manda disentangled herself, scrambling quickly to her feet, forgetting all aches and pains in her eagerness to explore this promise of a way out.
Then, when he didn’t respond, she looked back.
‘Jago?’ He was drowsy, slow to stir. Slow to stifle a groan. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked, remembering his hurt shoulder. That he’d had a bang on the head.
‘Barely,’ he muttered. ‘There are alarm clocks that use fewer decibels than you. Your wake-up technique could do with a little polishing, Miranda.’
‘I just haven’t been putting in the practise,’ she said, glancing back.
The sun, barely over the horizon, had found a chink in the shattered walls and for a moment it was concentrated on their corner of the dark interior and she caught her first real glimpse of the man with whom she’d spent the long night. Whose hand had brought her from the depths. Whose arm had held her safe.
His face was craggy rather than handsome, not helped by the fact that he needed a shave. His nose was, as they’d already discussed, interesting. His chin, stubborn. His eyes, she saw, in the moment before he blinked and lifted a hand to shade them from the light, were a fine grey. As for his mouth…
His mouth, she thought, looked exactly the way it had felt as she’d traced it with her thumb. The way it had felt when he’d kissed her. Tender, determined, sensuous. As if it had been a long time since he’d smiled.
He leaned his head back against the wall and,
suddenly concerned, she said, ‘Are you really okay?’
‘I’d be better if you sat down instead of flirting with that big empty space out there in the dark.’
She glanced at the wall, with its tantalising promise of light, then dropped to her knees and pushed his hair back from his forehead to check his injury. There was a brutal graze, bruising, a slight swelling. Then, as the rising sun moved, the light suddenly disappeared, plunging them back into deep shadow.
‘I think you’ll live,’ she said, dropping her hand.
‘I know I will,’ He replied softly. ‘You gave me the kiss of life.’
‘Did I? When we get out of here…’
‘When we get out of here you’ll find the child you filmed on the streets. And I’ll get in touch with my parents. Is that a deal?’
‘It’s a deal,’ she said.
And, as if to seal their pact, he reached out and touched her lips with the edge of his thumb. ‘Hello, Miranda Grenville.’
‘Hello, Nick Jago.’
‘No!’
‘What? I’m sorry…’
‘When someone has saved your life they have the right to know who you really are.’ There was a pause, during which she swallowed desperately. ‘I was born Nicholas Alexander Jackson-the good, solid English name that my grandfather chose for himself within weeks of arriving in England.’
Jackson…‘But…’ She’d actually met his father at some reception or other. Ivo had introduced him, told her afterwards that he and his wife worked quietly these days, without any public fanfare, to raise funds for a charity that helped runaways. Used their own wealth, inherited from the same grandfather who’d gone on to found a giant food conglomerate…
‘What?’
She shook her head. Telling him that his father had changed would be pointless. He had to be open to the possibility before he could hear it. See for himself. And he’d made that commitment. It was enough.
‘Nothing. Just, thank you for telling me. Nick,’ she added.
He drew in a deep breath and it was her turn to say, ‘What?’
‘It’s just been a very long time since anyone’s called me that.’ Then, briskly, ‘Right. So, what do you say? Shall we get out of here?’