City Girl in Training

by Liz Fielding

  It had taken just one kiss from Cal McBride to show me exactly what I’d been missing.

  Not that I was fooling myself. I’d thrust myself into his life and I was different enough to catch his attention, but he was a rolling stone, not the home-maker I’d set my heart on. He’d be leaving in a few weeks, or months.

  Whether the new woman, the tiger he’d woken inside me, had brought to life with a kiss, was strong enough to deal with that, I didn’t know. But I’d lived in the safe little cocoon of my own making for long enough. How closely wrapped I hadn’t realised. I’d take the risk…

  ‘Philly?’

  ‘What?’ I realised I’d been wool-gathering. ‘Sorry, I was miles away. Did you say something?’

  ‘In Maybridge?’ he enquired, ignoring my question. Then, ‘With Don,’ he added, heavily. He had every right to be vexed, I thought. He was giving me his undivided attention and my mind was all over the place.

  ‘No…’ I realised I hadn’t sounded exactly convincing. ‘Yes, I suppose so. I have to go home, Cal.’

  ‘Home?’ I nodded. ‘That’s it?’ he said. ‘Decision made?’

  ‘Decision made,’ I said. ‘I have to. We’ve been…’ I sought a word that would explain what we’d been. ‘Together’ and ‘partners’ had a new meaning these days, taken over by people living together to replace the ‘married’ word. ‘We’ve been friends for a long time. I can’t just—’

  ‘Please…you don’t have to justify yourself to me.’ He glanced at my plate. ‘Finished?’ he asked.

  ‘I didn’t mean I wanted to go this minute,’ I said.

  ‘I know what you meant, Philly,’ he said. His jaw tightened momentarily. Then, politely, ‘Do you want a pudding? Coffee?’

  I’d been looking forward to something rich with chocolate, but it was obvious he wanted to leave and I shook my head.

  ‘Then let’s go.’

  The next few minutes were covered by the flurry of credit cards and coats. Of Nico himself appearing to assure himself that the food had been satisfactory, that nothing was wrong.

  Cal, after that momentary flash of irritation, was charm personified. Taking the blame on himself for being too tired to enjoy his supper. Easing me into my coat, taking my arm as we crossed the road and leaving it there as we walked round the corner to the elegant building his father had designed, and where we now lived next door to each other.

  Nothing outwardly had changed and yet I sensed that I’d said something, done something to bring the evening to a premature close.

  Everything had been fine until I’d said I had to go home. But surely he could see that I couldn’t just write Don a ‘Dear John’ letter? That I had to see him. Look him in the eye when I told him that, whatever happened in my future, he wasn’t going to be part of it.

  CHAPTER TEN

  You’ve been swept off your feet by a man you’ve only just met. It’s dangerous and exciting and your friends have warned that it’s all going to end in tears—your tears. Do you:

  a. throw caution to the wind? You only live once and one swift, bright rocket to the stars that you’ll remember all your life is worth a thousand low energy light bulbs.

  b. accept that men and tears come as a twin-pack? At least this time they’ll be worth it.

  c. just laugh? The guy is going to wine you and dine you and make you feel like a million dollars. What’s to cry about?

  d. cry, because you know it’s true?

  e. tell them that to risk your heart, offer it freely, selflessly, is what makes us human? And if we’re hurt in the process, well, that’s human, too.

  CAL stopped outside my door. ‘When will you go?’

  ‘The sooner the better. Tomorrow, I guess.’

  ‘The trains are hell on Sundays.’

  They’d suit the day, then. ‘I’ll cope.’

  ‘You don’t have to. If you’ve made up your mind to go…’ He paused, took a breath, as if it was an effort, but as I reached out to touch his arm, concerned, he raised it to rake his hand distractedly through his hair. ‘If you’re quite sure, then I’ll drive you,’ he said. ‘Eleven? Will that give you time to get yourself together?’

  Time? Did he think I was going to dress up for the occasion? Make a real effort with my hair, the full make-up job, just to show Don what he was losing?

  ‘Thanks, but don’t you think that would be a little insensitive?’ Turning up on the doorstep to dump him with the new man in my life in tow.

  ‘You might just spare a little of that sensitivity for my feelings.’ I must have looked confused because he said, ‘I wouldn’t have a minute’s peace worrying about you.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, right.’ I was touched, but, really, this whole thing about me being totally unable to cross the road without help was getting out of hand. ‘I can’t imagine how I survived nearly twenty-three years without you to supervise my transport arrangements. Not even my mother worries about me the way you do.’

  ‘Believe me, my feelings are not in the least bit motherly.’ And his eyes flared momentarily with a heat that took my own breath away. ‘I just can’t bear the thought of you sitting in a cold, draughty train. Being diverted and delayed by track maintenance work. Think of me as a taxi service if that’ll help.’

  ‘No, Cal. Really. This is something I have to do on my own.’ Then, because he looked so frustrated at my refusal to be coddled, ‘You can take me to the station, if you like.’ He agreed to this so readily that I knew he’d insist on coming all the way with me. Waiting for me in the station buffet so that we could repeat the journey in reverse. Together. I wanted to hug him, but he was keeping his distance. ‘Just to the station, Cal,’ I insisted. Then, ‘Please tell me that you understand why I can’t…’ I stopped. ‘Well, why I have to do this.’

  ‘You want me to lie to you? I won’t do that.’

  ‘Try,’ I said. Not to lie—of course I didn’t want him to lie—but to see why, in the cooler light of reason, I had to close one relationship before I could embark on another. Maybe he was just mad he hadn’t taken the opportunity when it had presented itself. When I’d been hot and reason had gone into melt-down.

  I realised he was holding out his hand for my key, and I opened my bag, fumbling through the jumble of make-up, purse, phone to find it.

  ‘Sorry, it’s here somewhere…’ I put my phone into his waiting hand. And my new scarlet lipstick. ‘I don’t—’ About to say understand, I thought better of it and turned to my coat pocket with an apologetic look. It contained only the alarm he’d given me. ‘I know I picked it up.’ I went through the bag again while he waited patiently and tried not to think about how many times I’d tried that patience in the last twenty-four hours. When he’d offered me his taxi. When I’d let go of Jay’s umbrella and it had been whisked away by a gust of wind. When I’d opened my door and screamed with fright… ‘I didn’t want to rely on Sophie,’ I said, in an attempt to reassure him that I wasn’t just being ditzy. ‘I made sure I had it.’

  ‘Maybe you dropped it in my place. When you pulled out your phone,’ he said, reminding me of my dramatic exit bid. ‘Or in the cloakroom?’

  ‘I suppose it’s possible.’

  He handed back the contents of my bag and then walked towards his own front door where he produced his key from his own pocket as if to demonstrate how simple it was. I followed more slowly, still searching through my bag, rechecking the zipped compartments methodically, one by one as he opened his door.

  ‘It’s not here,’ he said, stepping inside, glancing down at the richly patterned rug in the hall. ‘Do you want to look in the cloakroom?’

  I checked the surface around the sunken basin. Checked the floor. Checked the basket where I’d thrown the tissue on which I’d blotted my lipstick. Checked behind the door.

  Nothing.

  Cal lifted his brows as I emerged. ‘Any luck?’ I just shook my head. ‘I’ll call Nico’s. You might have dropped
it there.’

  ‘I never opened my bag in Nico’s.’ I looked around my feet at the strongly patterned tribal rug that filled his wide hall. ‘You’re sure it’s not here?’ It would be easy enough to miss in the pattern.’

  ‘Check for yourself if you want,’ he said, shrugging out of his coat. As he reached up to hook it over the peg I was, for a moment, caught in a surreal moment of déjà vu. I’d been here before. He’d turn, begin to unbutton his cuffs, tug his shirt out of his trousers…I began to feel that same heat stealing through my limbs, curling through my body. ‘I’m going to make some coffee,’ he said, jerking me back to reality.

  ‘Right,’ I said.

  And I kicked off my shoes, got down on my knees, stroking shaky hands across the silky pile of the rug. He was right, the key wasn’t there. I was beginning to think that I must have confused the thought with the act of putting it into my bag.

  Maybe he was right. Maybe I wasn’t fit to leave the house on my own. Maybe I was going mad.

  I joined Cal in the kitchen, hunched myself on a stool at the breakfast bar, my coat pulled tight around me, watching him make coffee.

  ‘Sophie won’t be home for hours and Kate is staying with her boyfriend,’ I said.

  ‘It’s not a problem, Philly,’ he said, not turning around. My heart lifted a beat. For a moment I forgot how to breathe. Telling myself that I could wait another day was one thing…being here, alone with Cal, was quite another. ‘I’ll make up the spare room.’

  I couldn’t quite bring myself to say thank you. He was being unbelievably considerate. If he was feeling even half of what I was feeling, he was being a saint. Again.

  ‘My life used to be dull,’ I said, after a while.

  ‘I find that hard to believe.’

  ‘It’s true. I was Miss Sensible. Voted the girl most likely to stay married to the same man all her life by my college mates.’ He looked up and met my reflection in the dark window. ‘I don’t think they meant it as a compliment.’

  ‘Not intentionally, perhaps. It seems to have been a perceptive comment on your character.’

  ‘Yes. They were saying I was boring. I had one job, one boyfriend. I never drank too much, not counting my sister’s hen-night, which was a one-off, and I never, ever did anything stupid like losing my front-door key.’ Then, ‘Of course, it wouldn’t have mattered if I had. My mother kept one with the next-door neighbour just in case.’

  ‘Where else?’ he said. And gave his attention to spooning coffee into a cafetière.

  ‘Oh, not with Don’s mother. They aren’t exactly chummy. Polite, yes. In a “Good morning, Mrs Cooper. Nice weather,” kind of way.’ My mother had about as much time for Mrs Cooper as Mrs Cooper had for me.

  He turned to look at me, his eyes glittering, burning with heat. Or cold. There had been a chill in his manner—nothing that an onlooker would notice, only someone who’d felt the warmth—ever since I’d said I had to go home.

  ‘And?’ he said, his voice as crisp and diamond bright as the frosty air outside on his terrace.

  I shivered. ‘And what?’

  ‘You were explaining how you were this paragon who never put a foot wrong. I assumed there must be a point.’

  For a moment I considered retreat. Backing down. And then something flared in his eyes and I knew that it was heat, not cold, that was making him keep his distance. That keeping his distance was the only way he could handle this.

  ‘And then,’ I said, ‘I met you.’

  ‘You expect me to apologise for upsetting the quiet tenor of your life?’

  I didn’t know what I was expecting, but an apology certainly wasn’t it. ‘I just feel so…out of control.’

  ‘Passion does that.’

  ‘Passion?’

  ‘Desire, arousal, yearning. You seemed to have the hang of it earlier this evening.’ The edge to his voice softened a little.

  ‘I did?’ I asked, brightening considerably. Then I realised that Cal was regarding me with a thoughtful expression. ‘Oh, I did,’ I said, hurriedly.

  ‘Have you talked to your mother?’ he asked. ‘Since you came to London?’

  My mother? How had she got into this conversation? ‘She called to let me know they’d arrived safely. When I was out with you this morning.’

  ‘It’s about breakfast time now in Australia,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you ring her back?’ He waved in the direction of the phone.

  The temptation to call, pour out my heart, was strong, but I wasn’t about to break into her grandmothering idyll with my uncertainties. ‘You think she’ll know what I’ve done with my key?’ I asked.

  ‘I think…I feel that you should talk to someone you trust. Someone you know has only your best interests at heart. You’re off balance. Don’t know where you are.’ I looked around, making the point that I knew very well where I was. ‘Tell her you’re locked out and you’re going to be spending the night with a man who has designs on your virtue. Ask her for some motherly advice.’ I looked for any trace of a smile. There didn’t seem to be one. His expression was perfectly bland, giving no clue to his thoughts.

  ‘Have you? Designs on my virtue? You seem to have your carnal desires under pretty tight control from where I’m sitting.’

  ‘Yes, well, I may be old-fashioned, but I require your full and wholehearted co-operation,’ he said, and it seemed that, almost despite himself, a crease appeared at the corner of his mouth, precursor to a smile. ‘You’ve made your decision, your virtue is not at threat. So unless you’re suddenly feeling the cold, it’s quite safe to take your coat off.’

  I looked down at my hands screwing the black cashmere into a dishrag and I took it off, laid it on the stool beside me. ‘I’m so—’

  ‘Don’t!’ he warned, cutting me off. ‘Don’t say it. I don’t want you to be sorry. About anything.’

  I flinched, pulling my lips hard back between my teeth to stop myself from saying that I was sorry, but that I hadn’t been going to say I was sorry, just confused. With an exclamation of dismay, he was at my side, his arms around me, holding me close.

  ‘Don’t,’ he whispered into my hair. ‘Please don’t. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. I want you to know that. To believe that.’

  I looked up at him, then reached up and took his face between my hands. ‘How could I ever doubt you, Cal?’ He closed his eyes as if in pain. ‘You’ve been my guardian angel from the moment I arrived in London. Do you think I don’t know how hard it was for you to stop, take a step back when we were on the brink of making love this evening?’

  ‘I suspect not,’ he said, but scarcely above a breath. ‘You can’t possibly—’

  ‘I know, Cal. I was there. I wanted you so much. Yearned for you, desired you…’

  ‘Stop!’ He pulled back, put his fingers against my lips. ‘Don’t say any more. Please.’ And when he was sure I wouldn’t say another word, he lifted his fingers from my mouth, took my hands from his face and kissed each one in turn before, quite deliberately, letting go. Then, with a wry, self-mocking little smile, ‘Maybe you were right about the coat, after all. Come on, I’ll find you something to wear, show you the guest room.’

  Sleep was elusive. The room was lovely, the bed comfortable, but I was wrapped in a soft T-shirt that belonged to Cal McBride and his scent seemed to cling to it, enveloping me so that I was aroused, yearned, desired with every fibre, every cell, every last atom of my being.

  I heard him turning restlessly in the still of the night and I hated the wall that divided us. I didn’t know how I stopped myself from just going in there, climbing in beside him so that I could hold him, feel his skin, smooth and warm against me. Close and tender. An intimate discovery of how it should be between a man and woman who loved each other.

  Only the belief that I was right to wait kept me pinned to my lonely bed. And the knowledge that, no matter how hard it was for both of us, Cal knew it too. He’d pulled back from the brink, made that decision for me even before I’d kno
wn I wanted to make it.

  Tomorrow… I’d waited this long. I could wait another day so that we could be together without a shadow between us.

  But the night seemed endless and it was light before I finally dropped off.

  ‘Philly?’ Not even the sound of a cup being placed on the bedside table was sufficient temptation to make me open my eyes. I just groaned discouragingly. ‘Come on, my sweet.’ Cal sat on the edge of the bed, stroking my hair in a gentle wake-up call. ‘I left you as long as I could.’

  My sweet? Even feeling like death, I heard the tenderness in his voice and I turned over, blinking against the light as I emerged from beneath the cocoon of the bedclothes, pushing the hair back from my face as I sat up.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, suddenly and unexpectedly shy. Expecting him to kiss me. Wanting him to kiss me.

  ‘Hi, yourself,’ he said, keeping his kisses to himself. Not taking any risks. ‘Did you get much sleep?’

  ‘Not much.’ Cal was a long way ahead of me. Washed, dressed, but he didn’t look as if he’d slept much, either. ‘You?’

  ‘I’ll survive. And if you’re going home today…’ He let it lie. A question rather than a statement, as if hoping I might have changed my mind. The temptation to just lie back against the pillows, forget about my nightmare trip to Maybridge and invite him—with my full and wholehearted co-operation—to help himself to my virtue, was very powerful. This was not a day I was looking forward to, but afterwards…well, that was different.

  ‘I’m going,’ I said, and wriggled upright, taking a sip of tea. No sugar. I really, really needed sugar…‘I don’t suppose I’ll be very popular banging up Sophie at the crack of dawn.

  ‘Hardly the crack. It’s nearly eleven…’

  ‘What?’

  I abandoned the tea, flinging back the covers, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. ‘Why didn’t you call me earlier? It’ll be dark before I get to Maybridge at this rate!’