‘But don’t we have to book?’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve booked. I know one of the guys who pilots the balloons, and I gave him a call this afternoon and asked if he’d had any late cancellations. It just so happened that he had. I reckoned we both needed a bit of a break.’ He manoeuvred over the uneven ground into the makeshift car park.
Most people just went to the pub or chilled out in front of the television. Why did it not surprise her that Euan would come up with something a bit different? ‘And this is what you do when you want to unwind?’
‘Not usually. But it’s a particular challenge to tempt you away from your work, and I defy anyone to think about database configuration when they’re suspended in a wicker basket one thousand feet above the ground.’
She couldn’t help smiling. And once she’d started, she didn’t seem to be able to stop. ‘Which one’s ours?’
‘That one.’ He pointed to a vividly striped blue and yellow canopy that was spread across the grass, ready to be inflated.
‘Oh. That’s the best one, I think.’
Euan chuckled. Warm and rich, sending an extra tingle of excitement through her. ‘Let’s go and see it, then.’
CHAPTER TEN
EVERYONE WHO WAS booked in for the ride had helped to spread the balloon envelope across the grass and watched while it was inflated. Then it was time to climb into the basket. Euan helped her up the steps cut into the side, and then clambered in.
Finally, they were ready to go. Sam hung onto the side of the basket, feeling a small jolt as they left the ground. Slowly they climbed, the trees and cars receding as they glided through the air.
The pilot was explaining how the balloon flew and pointing out landmarks below them. Sam listened politely, nodding along with the other passengers, but the real delight was just to be flying through the air. In the intervals between the deafening noise of the hot-air burners, it was almost eerily quiet.
The broad sweep of the sky had no room for her cares or her inhibitions. By the time they’d reached their full altitude she had released her grip on the edge of the basket and was holding onto Euan instead.
‘You’ve been up in a balloon before?’ Sam felt almost as if they were alone together up here. Everyone else was either concentrating on the view or talking to the people they had come with and it was just her and Euan.
‘When I was a kid. My parents took me and my sister. I thought it was the best thing I’d ever done.’
Sam nodded. She’d been thinking exactly the same herself, and been feeling just like an excited child. ‘We weren’t too big on family outings when I was young. Single-parent family.’ She shrugged. ‘Just the two of us.’ In the main it hadn’t even been two. Just her, on her own, making her way the best she could.
He nodded. Didn’t ask. Euan had stuck by his promise and hadn’t asked her about anything personal in the last couple of days. This evening Sam almost wished that he would.
‘Look. Down there.’
She followed the line of his pointing finger. ‘Oh! Are they sheep? It looks like a model farm.’
They watched as farmland gave way to woods and then back again to yellow fields.
‘Where are we going to land?’ Sam didn’t want to land at all, but they were going to run out of hot air at some point.
‘No idea.’ He grinned down at her. ‘That’s one of the best things about it.’
They bumped back down into a field and when he helped her out of the basket it seemed natural to jump down into his arms. To stay there for a moment while she acclimatised herself to being back on the ground.
‘Enjoy it?’ The grin on his face told Sam that he was in no doubt about her answer.
‘Wonderful. Thank you so much.’
‘My pleasure.’ He caught sight of her raised eyebrow and laughed. ‘No, really. It was.’
‘How do we get back?’ In her excitement Sam had forgotten about the practical considerations. She’d pretty much forgotten about everything other than how much she’d been enjoying herself.
‘They have pursuit vehicles. They’ll be along soon to take us and the balloon back.’
‘Does that mean we get to help pack it away?’
He chuckled. ‘Yeah. We can do that.’
* * *
Back at the launch site they waited to see the last of the balloons take off, before driving back into town. Ending the evening there seemed almost criminal, and when Euan asked, Sam readily agreed to a stroll along the promenade.
They watched the sun set over the sea and wandered down onto the beach. Sam was getting to like the beach as much as Euan seemed to. The sound of the sea washing against the sand. A warm breeze, moonlight, and... It was impossible not to acknowledge that Euan deserved his place at the top of that list of pleasures. When she slipped her hand tentatively into the crook of his arm, he trapped it in place against his body.
‘I was thinking...’
‘Yeah?’ I was rather hoping that you might have stopped that. Just for tonight,’ he teased.
‘It’s not a big thing. I was wondering if...’ She hesitated, and then took the plunge. ‘If I might sit in on one of the groups for friends and relatives of drugs users.’
She felt his body stiffen against hers. ‘Why?’
Good question. ‘Just to get a full picture. I just thought it might help with the database.’ When she said it out loud, it didn’t sound particularly convincing.
Another couple of slow steps and then he stopped. ‘Sam, I have a responsibility... I have to ask you this. Is that your only reason?’
‘It’s...’ She could lie to him. She could go on lying to herself. But tonight had made her believe that somewhere there might be a possibility of a way back. The one area of Driftwood’s work that she hadn’t asked to see first-hand had suddenly seemed the most important to her and she’d spoken without thinking first.
‘It’s what?’ She couldn’t see his face, but his voice was gentle.
‘I don’t know. No. I don’t think it’s my only reason. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. I’m not here to talk about myself...’ She could feel a tear about to fall from her eye and she wiped it away with her fingers.
‘Don’t!’ He said the word with such intensity that Sam started. ‘Some things we have to listen to, not just brush away. Tears, laughter, joy...grief.’
‘How...?’
‘There’s nothing to it. Here, sit down.’ She sat down next to him on the still-warm shingle. ‘Just listen.’
She head the crash of the waves, and somewhere in there was Sally’s voice. The knock on the door when the police had come to tell her that Sal was dead. The stiff, broken grief of her father and brother, and the sound of Sal’s mother weeping. Sam just wanted it all to go away.
‘Nothing. I don’t hear anything.’
‘Then listen harder.’
It was no use. She so wanted someone to understand. Euan most of all.
‘My partner in the old company, Sally...’
He nodded her on.
‘She died. From an overdose of cocaine.’ Sam remembered Euan’s words when they’d been to see Carrie. ‘Not an overdose as such... I mean...that’s not right, is it?’
‘Just say it. However you want to.’
‘She had a heart attack. She was alone. She died alone.’
There was no sign of reproof in his eyes. He probably didn’t understand.
‘She was my best friend. From when we were children I practically grew up in her house. When we went into business together we both worked long hours, trying to get the company off the ground. I didn’t see that it was too much for her. I didn’t realise that she was taking cocaine just to keep up.’ Sam choked on the words, squeezing her eyes shut.
‘Sally never told you
that there was anything wrong?’
‘No. But I should have known. I was her friend. We worked together.’
‘And that made you responsible for everything she did?’
He still didn’t get it. She was going to have to tell him everything, and then maybe it would be in his power to forgive her. If Euan could forgive her, perhaps she could forgive herself.
‘My mother was a drunk. When Sal’s parents found out that my home life wasn’t up to much they pretty much opened their house to me, and I used to spend most of my time there. When my mother got a new boyfriend and threw me out, they took me in.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Fourteen. That doesn’t matter...’
She felt his hand, light on her shoulder. Not quite comforting. More steadying, as if he was making sure she didn’t chicken out on him. It was too late for that, now.
‘What matters is that they took me in. And that in return I let everyone down—Sally’s parents, her brother. I let Sally down, because I just didn’t see what was going on.’
‘Did you have anyone to support you? Friends? A partner?’
‘Sally was my friend. Her family was my family. My partner was...well, we weren’t all that serious, we both worked pretty long hours. It wasn’t the kind of relationship that stood any real test.’
That was it. The words were finally out, and they brought more tears with them. Sam hardly registered that his arms were around her, pulling her against his chest, cradling her while she wept.
‘This isn’t...’ Finally she managed to gulp some words out. ‘This isn’t any good, Euan. It doesn’t change anything.’
‘No. Not for Sally it doesn’t. Maybe for you, though?’
He might be right. She did feel different. She wasn’t sure yet whether different was going to turn out to be better. ‘I’m not the one that matters.’ Sam was becoming acutely aware that she was practically sitting on his lap. That her fingers were clutching at his shirt. She let go, smoothing the bunched fabric, and suddenly all she could feel was the skin beneath. Hard and warm.
‘You matter.’ His tenderness was becoming a little too much to bear. ‘I was wrong when I said that this, all that you’re doing here, is your phoenix.’
The beautiful glass phoenix, which shone in the light and which suddenly seemed just a poor counterfeit of his eyes. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s your penance, isn’t it?’
How could she defend herself from something that was true? ‘I don’t know about that.’ Sam got to her feet and walked away from him.
His footsteps crunched on the shingle behind her. ‘Do you think you should talk about this? Give yourself permission to cry about it a little?’
She twisted round to face him again. ‘I’ve already done that, haven’t I?’
‘I meant with other people. In the kind of group that we run.’
‘I don’t know.’ Maybe she should. Not talking about it clearly hadn’t worked as well as she had intended.
‘Perhaps you should think about it.’ He let the silence work on her. The sound of the waves crashing on the shore.
‘Would you...? I mean, could I join one of the groups here? One of your groups?’
He shook his head. ‘No. I can give you the name of someone else who runs a group, up in London.’
The rejection cut her to the bone. It hadn’t seemed as if he was judging her, but he had, and he’d found her wanting. Of course he had. She’d done the very same herself.
‘Okay. I’ll think about it.’ She heard her own voice, brisk, as if this was some kind of business agreement. Covering the hurt.
Euan caught her arm. ‘It’s not what you think.’
‘What isn’t?’ How the hell did Euan know what she was thinking when she wasn’t even sure herself?
‘Our groups have rules. I can’t let you join one of them.’
‘Why?’ Somewhere, deep in his eyes, Sam thought she saw the answer, sparking and fizzling. No. Surely not.
‘Because of this.’ He brushed his thumb across her lips. She could pull away at any time. She didn’t need to go any further. Who was she trying to kid?
She was mesmerised by his eyes. His mouth curled into a smile and hers followed suit. He drew closer, an unspoken question on his lips, and in response to Sam’s unspoken answer his fingers slid along her jaw, burying themselves in her hair.
Reaching for him, she curled her arm around his neck, pulling him closer. When his lips brushed against her cheek Sam forgot all the reasons why this wasn’t such a good idea.
He stopped, his mouth barely an inch from hers. ‘This is the best part.’
Waiting. Her whole body felt as if it might melt in his arms. ‘Wondering whether you’ll kiss me?’
‘Wondering what it’ll be like when I do.’ She felt his lips curl against hers.
‘We could do this for hours...’ Sam could stare into his honest eyes, feel his body against hers, warm and protective, for as long as she liked.
‘Nah. I don’t have the self-control.’
He kissed her. He’d lied. The waiting wasn’t the best bit at all.
* * *
She was soft, and warm and yielding. The yielding bit she did the best of all. Just when she’d let him in, her eyes soft and promising more than he had a right to expect, she pushed back. A delicious last stand that made him fight for her and sent the blood rushing to his head.
It was like nothing he’d ever done before. Every nerve aware of her every movement. The way her hands slid down his back, coming to rest on the leather belt at his hips. The way her thumbs hooked into the belt loops, gaining traction to pull him closer, although in truth he was already about as close as he could get without throwing off his clothes and making love to her.
Was that what he was about to do? For a moment, lost in the taste of her lips, the smell of her hair, it seemed inevitable. Every move he made seemed to please her, and left him wanting only to please her more.
Not tonight. She was too vulnerable. Not ever. If he let her down, it would crush him.
Tenderly, slowly, he ended the kiss, his heart pounding with longing and grief for what wasn’t going to be. He held her close, stroking her hair, wondering whether the internal battle between what he wanted to do and what he knew he should do was going to subside any time soon.
‘I think—’
He finished the sentence for her. ‘That it’s time to go back now. It’s beginning to get chilly.’
Relief showed in her eyes. ‘Yes. I’m sorry, Euan, but this is a lot to process all at once.’
‘I know. I shouldn’t have...’
She gave him a wicked smile and longing flared in him, kicking in hard and strong. ‘Did I slap you?’
‘No.’ Right now she could do anything she damn well pleased with him.
‘Then I guess it’s okay.’
‘In that case...’ Relief seemed to quell his more visceral urges and Euan found himself able to think rationally once more. ‘Would you do me a favour?’
‘Depends...’ That smile again. Euan drew back a little before it got the better of him.
‘Would you leave the work alone? Just for tonight?’
She thought for a moment. ‘I’m not really tired... And there’s nothing much else to do.’
That was the problem. Take her work away and she was lost, drifting aimlessly with the rejection and grief that she struggled so hard to forget. Euan had likened her to a Russian doll, and this last, beautifully detailed version of Sam explained all the rest. This was the one he was in imminent danger of falling in love with.
‘Okay. If I find you something else to do...?’
The look on her face told him that she thought she was on sure ground here. ‘All right, then. It’s a deal
.’
He held her hand as they walked, guiding her through the still-busy streets to a little shop that he knew. The souvenir shop was open late in the summer and he wound his way past the tea-towels and little glass domes full of coloured sand to the back, where there was a large stack of second-hand books and DVDs.
‘Choose something.’ She couldn’t fail to find something she liked in this lot.
She nodded, running her finger along the backs of the DVDs. ‘I can play these on my laptop.’
Maybe not such a good idea. Euan reached for a book, pulling it out of the pile. ‘What about this?’
‘Oh, Jane Austen...’ She opened the front cover and her eyes began to jump back and forth as the page reached out and drew her in. ‘You know they say that this is one of the best opening lines in the whole of English literature...’
‘I guess it’ll do, then.’ He took the book from her, grinning, and before she could protest he was at the cash desk.
They strolled back to the office together, stopping on the doorstep as if by mutual consent. ‘Thanks for the book. I promise I’ll read it.’ She turned her face up towards his, and all Euan wanted to do was to kiss her again. Not just her lips this time.
‘You’re welcome. I’m...um...I’ve got to go out of town tomorrow.’
She nodded as if it was of no consequence. But, then, she didn’t know where he was going and he couldn’t quite find the words to tell her. ‘I’ll see you on Saturday. At Kathryn House,’ she said.
‘You’re coming to help?’ A group of volunteers was going to start on the decorating there this weekend.
‘Try and keep me away.’ She grinned up at him. This was what Euan loved about her. Despite everything, you couldn’t keep Sam down. She’d been rejected and wounded all her life, but when she got knocked down she just picked herself up and tried again.
‘I’ll take you down there. About nine?’
She nodded. ‘Yeah, that would be fine.’
‘In the meantime...’ he shrugged, as if it were nothing ‘...you’ve got my mobile number. Call me if you want to talk. About anything. If my phone’s switched off, leave a message.’
A Doctor to Heal Her Heart Page 9