British Bad Boys

by Nancy Warren

  She stopped at Stag Cottage only long enough to drop her bags and change into walking clothes, then she headed out, needing to think.

  Her path took her, as it often did, beside the river. The walking path was a favorite. There was a pair of swans that hung around, and she took out the whole wheat bread she’d brought specially and tossed them a few pieces.

  Behind her was Hart House, as elegant and grand every time she looked at it. The village had to be the prettiest in England.

  She and Arthur and Maxine and George would be best friends all their lives and have children together. She’d write part of the time in England, and of course give in to Maxine’s demands that she run a writers’ retreat here.

  And they’d live part of the time on her side of the pond. She could certainly be as flexible as she wanted to be and Arthur had intimated he could be, too. Although she hadn’t put him to the test by asking him.

  But the solution was perfect. Frighteningly so. Joe, the other bartender, would likely be thrilled to take over the pub part of the year.

  And perfect scared the hell out of her. Life was messy and fraught with disaster. In her books, the minute things were going too well was the time her characters should be looking over their shoulder because terror, disaster, and death were creeping up behind them as sure as it was chapter four.

  She didn’t hear herself hailed until a hand grasped her shoulder. She swung round to find Maxine, out of breath and half laughing. “I had to chase you miles, yelling your name. What’s up?” Then the smile faded. “Oh, honey. What’s wrong? You look like shit.”

  “I feel like shit.”

  “Is it Arthur?”

  “Of course it’s Arthur. Who else can wreck a perfectly good day like the man you’re in love with?”

  “Don’t tell me he doesn’t love you back, because if you tell me that then one of you is lying.”

  “Oh,”-Meg flapped her hands-“of course he loves me. It would be so much easier if he didn’t. Or I didn’t.”

  She kicked a stone out of her path and into the water, plop. Bringing the greedy-assed swans floating back.

  “Ah,” Maxine said, in the tone of a woman who had been there. “It’s the go or stay dilemma, isn’t it?”

  “No. There’s no dilemma. My life is in Seattle. Arthur’s is here.”

  “So what are you going to do? Walk away from a guy who makes you glow?”

  “No…” She glanced up. “I glow?”

  “Like Rudolph’s nose.”

  “Oh.”

  “If it’s any consolation, Arthur’s glowing, too.”

  “I left a man who was controlling. Who made me lose confidence in myself. It was so bad I stopped being able to write. I can’t go through that again.”

  “I’ve sure seen how much your confidence has been suffering since you got here. And the writing’s definitely not going well.”

  “Gaaaggggh!” Meg yelled, so the swans, who were still hanging around the bank, floated off with their beaks in the air. “Weren’t you scared?”

  “Of course I was. I still am when I realize that no one in this country understands the concept of the Super Bowl. And these people fry bread. In bacon fat. I’m telling you, you look at an English breakfast and your arteries clog.”

  Meg smiled. “I can’t move to a foreign country for a man. I can’t.”

  “Have you asked him to move to the States?”

  She thought about how he’d dared her to do exactly that this morning and panic washed over her anew. “How can I ask that of him? His whole life is here.”

  “Seems to me that he has the right to decide for himself what’s important.”

  “I wish I hadn’t come here. There was a darling stone cottage in Wales.”

  Maxine laughed at her. “No, you don’t. You’re a big girl, Meg. Act like one.”

  And finally, in despair, she stalked back to Stag Cottage and did exactly that. She acted like a big girl. She wrote the final chapter that she’d been putting off because it seemed symbolic that when her story ended, when the villain she’d recognized the moment she saw Arthur, was no more, then her romance would as effectively be over.

  And Arthur was a villain. He’d stabbed her in the heart as effectively as her murderous psycho.

  Her computer hummed and the words danced in front of her eyes for a few minutes. She felt like a drowning woman with her life flashing before her eyes as she wrote herself to The End.

  Meg wasn’t one to plot her books ahead. She knew writers who had systems, with color-coded charts and diaries for their characters. She admired that kind of organization and knew she would never write a book if she charted the whole thing out first, and already knew her characters intimately.

  For her, that was the point of writing the book. It was the voyage of discovery as she came to know these people and their story. Sure, she was the one creating the world and the people in it, but she discovered that world by writing it.

  So she typed her villain to his justly deserved doom.

  And never had she killed off a villain more unwillingly.

  But there he was, as she’d always imagined the last chapter. He had the heroine with her back, literally and figuratively, to the wall. He’d toy with her a little. Because he had the luxury of time and privacy, and because he believed that she of all people would appreciate his brilliance, his subtlety, his daring.

  He’d been her patient. He’d had her attention, her clinical diagnoses, occasionally her smile. But he’d never had her respect. He wanted it, ferociously.

  And when he didn’t get it, he grew angry, exactly as the psychiatrist had hoped. Her only chance to get out alive was to use her knowledge of his diseased mind against him. So she taunted him, shamed him, ridiculed him. It was a dangerous tactic, but she didn’t have any other weapon.

  Finally, he snapped. She’d been watching his eyes, so she knew the second he lost control. When he rushed at her, he was no longer the cool madman, but an overgrown boy in a vicious tantrum. She kneed him hard in the balls as he came at her.

  It wasn’t enough to save her from the knife, but the move saved her life. By the time the police arrived, she had her attacker at gunpoint, having retrieved her handgun from her purse, and called the cops from the cell in her purse while she staunched her bleeding arm with her Hermes scarf.

  When the detective with whom she was having an on-again, off-again affair arrived on the scene, there was some catchy banter about women and their purses. He offered her a lift to the hospital. She said only if he hung around to see her home.

  Behind them, the villain was carted away, raving and furious.

  But he wasn’t dead.

  Chapter Eleven

  Meg stared at the page, the final page of her novel.

  It wasn’t often that the ending surprised her. Not like this. How could the villain not be dead? All along, she’d envisioned that final desperate fight. The psychiatrist would get to her bag, she’d reach in it for her gun, which she shouldn’t even have in her purse, but the detective had warned her to be extra careful and so she’d tucked it in there that morning.

  Of course, the weapon had fallen to the bottom under the lipsticks and the pack of tissue. Oh, there it was-no, shit, that was her sunglasses case.

  And the madman would be almost upon her when she’d grab the gun, fumbling for the safety, and boom, she’d shoot him through the bottom of her Fendi bag. Shot through the heart, they’d discover in the autopsy, in a nice bit of irony.

  How could it not have ended that way?

  Meg read the final scene again, her hands shaking, from too much coffee probably.

  Had she cheated? This new final scene, was it some manipulation by her own psyche?

  She reread the entire chapter. And then she saw what she’d missed with her clever bit of shot-through-the-heart irony. The quick, clean death wasn’t enough of a punishment for this guy. No. Prison. Lack of control. No privacy. Being looked down on, ordered, insulted. Forced t
o perform menial tasks. Oh, how her villain would suffer. It was a much more fitting punishment.

  Her new ending was the perfect one.

  In every way.

  She stretched back in her chair, reached her arms up to the ceiling, and stretched.

  Done. She was done. Of course, she needed to read and polish it a few times, but her story was told.

  She walked to the tiny village, humming under her breath. She stopped in at the newsagent’s. The shop carried a couple of international papers, always a day or two late, but she limited herself to the Sunday New York Times.

  Tramping back across the fields with her paper, a pint of milk, and a loaf of fresh bread, she stopped for a moment and took a slow, luxurious turn. It took no imagination at all to picture this as it had been a hundred years ago, two, three hundred years. Block out the cars and trucks and the telephone poles, and the scenery would have looked almost precisely the same. Sun glinted off the fields while sheep munched quietly, barely bothering to lift their heads as she walked by on the common footpath.

  The village at her back was postcard quaint with its old stone houses scattered with thatched roofs. Hart House rose like a fairy tale, and behind the lawns, at the edge of the wooded section, sat her little house. Built from the same pale stone.

  It was so peaceful. A perfect place to work. She’d never felt so content. Perhaps it was a perfect place to live. At least, part of the year.

  She wouldn’t give up her house on Bainbridge Island. Why should she? And Arthur wouldn’t give up the parsonage. Or the pub. They’d simply enjoy two homes.

  She opened the thick oak door and walked in. The fresh flowers she’d bought herself yesterday were a cheerful sight on the kitchen table where she’d written. She opened the French doors to connect herself with the outdoors.

  “Still at your murder and mayhem?”

  She glanced up to find Arthur walking toward her. She couldn’t have written a better timed entrance.

  “No,” she said. “I’m finished.” She reached for the bottle of bordeaux on the counter. “Care to celebrate with me?”

  “Yes.” He walked in, looking much less happy than she felt, and kissed her. “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks. I know there’s a corkscrew here somewhere.” She opened the cutlery drawer and he reached over her shoulder. “I’ll do it.”

  While he opened and poured the wine, she watched him, feeling ridiculously pleased with herself.

  He handed her a glass and raised his. “Here’s to my favorite author,” he said.

  “And here’s to my favorite villain.”

  “You drink to your villains?”

  “Well, I have a small secret. Something I’ve been keeping from you. I never, ever write characters who are in any way like people I know. Never ever.”

  “I see. Makes good sense, that.”

  “Except this time.” She looked up at him, at that strong face, the sharp cheekbones, the blue-gray eyes, and the black hair. He gazed at her in the same magnetic way he’d stared at her that first day. “I saw you and you were the perfect model for my sadistic killer.”

  He blinked. “Well, cheers.”

  She laughed. Oh, she was so high on this moment she might never come down. “You know what? I always fall in love with my villain.”

  “You do?”

  She nodded. “Especially this time.”

  He put his glass down as though he’d forgotten about it. “What happens to this one? In the end. You said you were going to kill him off. Was it very gruesome?”

  She put her own glass down beside Arthur’s and walked up until they were almost touching. “I thought he was going to die. All along, I knew his death. But when I wrote it, I found out I was wrong. He doesn’t die.”

  “Don’t tell me the rotten bugger gets away?”

  “Oh, no. He gets caught, of course.”

  “Does he now? What’s his punishment?”

  She kissed the man she loved more than all her villains combined. “He gets the perfect punishment.”

  “And that is?”

  “A life sentence.”

  He reached out and traced her jaw with one finger, his blue-gray eyes glinting at her. “To be served where?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Maxine was right, she realized, gazing at Arthur-he did glow. Or maybe it was her own glow of happiness reflecting back. He smiled at her. “Not particularly, no.”

  He moved, letting his finger trail lazily down the side of her neck to follow the curve of her collarbone. She shivered as ribbons of pleasure played over her skin. They were going to make love, right here in the kitchen, maybe on that sturdy table where she’d typed her novel, always with his dark, sexy image before her.

  “Come with me to Seattle?”

  He pulled her to him and kissed her, a long, perfect kiss. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  UNION JACK

  Chapter One

  To: chefgal@hotmail.com

  From: Maxinelarraby@Harthouse.org

  Subject: I know you’re there!

  Message: Hey, sis. We’re worried about you. Mom says she hasn’t seen you for weeks, and you sound weird on the phone. Yeah, yeah, I know, but nobody else has seen you either. Possibilities. 1. You’re seeing a hot new guy and you haven’t crawled out of bed in weeks. 2. You’re depressed. Which makes perfect sense given that your divorce became final and they closed the restaurant a couple of weeks later. Pissy timing, huh?

  Let me know what’s up. Miss you.

  TTFN, Max

  To: Maxinelarraby@harthouse.org

  From: chefgal@hotmail.com

  Subject: I’m fine

  Rachel Larraby paused and looked at her subject line. Should she add an exclamation mark after fine? Or would snarky punctuation make her older sister suspicious?

  She looked down at herself and was glad she’d never invested in one of those Internet cameras. She really didn’t want designer Max to see her like this. Her comfy sweatshirt was a pretty accurate food diary for the last couple of weeks. There was a Thai noodle, desiccated and lonely, rather like Rachel herself; there was the tea stain from where she’d fallen asleep watching an I Love Lucy episode. There a blob of chocolate from where she’d laughed so hard at a Seinfeld rerun she’d dropped the chocolate out of her mouth. Not one of her finest moments. Day-Glo orange Doritos dust, butter smears from popcorn, an unidentifiable foodstuff she suspected had once adorned a pizza. The old UCLA sweatpants that had been Cal ’s weren’t in much better shape. Still, she was showering daily and brushing her teeth regularly. She even took her vitamins every morning. She was fine.

  Mostly.

  Don’t worry about me. I’m catching up on my sleep and hanging out at the beach.

  How’s England?

  Luv, Rach

  Maxine Larraby cried out, “I knew it!”

  “Knew what, darling?” George asked, coming up behind her at the computer and kissing the nape of her neck.

  “My sister is a mental case.”

  “Every family has one. My uncle Cecil takes my aunt Winifred everywhere with him.”

  Maxine stared at the screen as though she could see all the way to L.A. and her sister. “So?”

  “She was cremated. In 1966. He has a lovely box for her-Georgian silver, I believe, with her favorite poem engraved on the lid. A Shakespearean sonnet, but it’s a bit disconcerting to people who aren’t used to the pair of them, such as the staff of restaurants. And the family. I once sat on poor old Aunt Winnie at Christmas dinner. Caused a fearful row and put me right off my roast goose.”

  “Rachel’s not that kind of mental case. She’s depressed.”

  George read over her shoulder, leaning in so she smelled his skin and felt the warmth of him. “She says she’s hanging out at the beach. That doesn’t sound very depressed.”

  “Rachel hates the beach and she gets hives if she sits in the sun. That’s what worries me the most. If she had to lie, couldn’t she make u
p something I might believe? No,” she said, rising. “This has gone on long enough. That e-mail is a cry for help. We’ll have to stage an intervention.”

  George blinked at her, his sexy blue eyes wary. “But what are you going to do? We’re in England, love. She’s in America.”

  He had a point. What were they going to do?

  “She’d be okay if it was only the divorce, but losing the restaurant at the same time has taken away her natural outlet for stress.”

  George nodded. “I feel for her. I remember how awful it was losing my father and then having to give up my job in London to come down here and run this place with all its responsibilities and debts.”

  “Still, at least you had Hart House. You had a purpose. That’s what Rachel needs. She’s passionate about her work,” she said, pacing. “She needs to cook, she needs a change of scene, a new start.” She snapped her fingers. “She needs to come here, George. I’m sure Arthur would give her a job at the pub. She’s a brilliant chef.”

  “You can’t have an American cooking English pub food,” George argued.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not seemly.”

  “She’ll be in the kitchen. Who’ll know?”

  “You must be joking. Everyone in the village will find out. No, really, Max.”

  She swung around. “ Cal ’s been gone a whole year and she’s not moving on. At all. At least she had her work. Now, the restaurant’s closed. Every time I talk to her she has a harder time faking that she’s fine. She is not fine. Traveling here would do her good, and besides, I miss her.”

  “Fair enough. Have her to stay. We’ve got loads of bedrooms. She won’t be in the way.”

  “She needs work, a sense of purpose. She needs to cook.”

  “Well.” He spread his hands in a reasonable way. “She can cook for us.”

  “Rachel needs a real job that earns real money.” She turned to him. “Come on. It would only be for a few months. Please?”

  “Stop looking at me with those melting eyes. It’s not working.”