Truly, Madly, Deeply

by Romantic Novelist's Association

  ‘I know. Lotion, lotion and more lotion.’

  ‘Pathetic, aren’t I? In fact, it’s great for once just to be able to relax, without the pressure to do the culture.’ He picked up his glass again, and gave a half nod towards the phone, which lay on the mosaic table. ‘We’ve had a text from Tansy.’

  ‘What did she want?’ A jolt of anxiety went through her. ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I texted her first. It took her a few hours to get back to me, but she’s fine.’ He slid the phone towards her. ‘Hopes we’re having a great time. She’s sorry she’s not been in touch but has just met a new guy, apparently. He’s gorgeous and loves her madly.’

  Thinking about another man who’d asked to be recommended to her daughter she picked up the phone and read the message.

  ‘Good for her,’ she said, crossing her fingers ostentatiously, and feeling the familiar throb of love and concern for their daughter. ‘We can only hope it works out for her.’

  ‘You just have to try to do everything you can for your children, and give them the benefit of your own experience, but it’s impossible to help in matters of the heart. Don’t worry about her.’ He caught her eye and smiled. ‘She’s just not been as lucky as we were. But her time will come. In fact, while you were out I was sitting here, thinking about that…When we met, I mean.’

  ‘Funny. I was thinking about it earlier, too,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe we should go back there one day.’

  ‘It was decades ago. The hotel may be run-down. It may not even be there anymore.’

  ‘And the coastline was a bit built-up even then. By now it will be completely spoilt and over-developed, with high rise hotels, apartment blocks and golf courses.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the same.’

  ‘You’re probably right. It’s never a good idea to try to recapture something perfect. It’ll only end in disillusionment.’

  ‘And spoil the memory.’

  ‘No. Nothing could spoil that for me.’ He smiled, his eyes crinkling at her.

  Taking a sustained breath, she said, ‘You know the trigger that brings those memories flooding back for me. It’s that lovely fragrance you get around the Med. The cocktail of pine resin and sun-drenched herbs and continental cigarettes.’

  ‘And drains,’ he added. ‘That special je ne sais quoi that comes from the inefficient sewerage systems in hot countries. Nothing to beat it!’

  ‘Do you know what? I love you, Sam,’ she said.

  ‘And I love you too.’

  The Anniversary

  Julie Cohen

  Julie Cohen

  JULIE COHEN grew up in Maine and studied English at Brown University and Cambridge. She moved to the UK to research fairies in Victorian literature at the University of Reading and this was followed by a career teaching English at secondary level. She now writes full time and is a popular speaker and teacher of creative writing. She lives in Berkshire with her husband and their son and about a million guitars. Her website is www.julie-cohen.com and her latest book is Dear Thing.

  The Anniversary

  It was her first time in this restaurant, and the couple next to them was having an anniversary. She only noticed them because they ordered the same kind of champagne that Simon had ordered.

  It was the kind of restaurant where the waiter brought a silver bucket to the table on a stand and wrapped an ironed white serviette around the bottle before he poured it. To Felicity, it was a magical new ritual, and she watched the waiter go through the popping of the cork and the pouring of the wine, with nearly as much interest as she’d watched it twenty minutes before at her own table.

  The man wore a brown suit and had a slight paunch on his wiry frame. The woman had a bob with blonde highlights, and a dress patterned with swirls. The two of them clinked glasses as Felicity watched.

  ‘Happy anniversary,’ the man said, and the woman said the same thing back to him.

  ‘It’s their anniversary,’ Felicity said to Simon. He looked up from his prawns.

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘That couple over there. The older one.’ She bit her lip because, to be honest, the man wasn’t that much older than Simon. But she didn’t mean it as an insult. She liked older men. Felicity thought Simon had the look of George Clooney; she’d thought so the minute he stepped inside the pub where she worked as a barmaid to fund her university course. ‘I think it’s wonderful that we’re in the type of place that people go for their anniversaries,’ she said quickly.

  ‘I’m glad you like it,’ Simon said. He reached across the table to run his index finger over her bare arm.

  ‘Oh, I really do.’ She shivered at his touch. God, he was so sexy. And he had wonderful taste, completely unlike the men she met at uni, or in the pub. And his flat! All sleek leather furniture –a real stylish bachelor’s pad, like something out of the movies. She couldn’t believe her luck, that someone like Simon could be single. But he said that he’d never met the right person. Yet.

  She took another sip of champagne. It was going straight to her head. She’d hardly eaten anything all day, she was so excited about tonight, and there seemed to be more white space than food on the plate that had been delivered to her.

  ‘I wasn’t sure you’d ring me again,’ she said.

  ‘Of course I would. Why wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Oh, well, it’s just –you know, how we slept together on the first date.’ She felt her cheeks heating. She never blushed normally but there was something about this man.

  Simon smiled. His teeth were straight and white. ‘I would have been a fool not to call you after that. It was wonderful.’

  She melted, and she would have said something reciprocal had not the waiter arrived at that moment to collect their plates. So she sat back in her chair, and because she didn’t trust herself to meet Simon’s eyes, she glanced at the anniversary couple again.

  They were sitting across from each other, not speaking. The woman had her legs crossed. Her thumb tapped the arm of her chair as she gazed out into space. The man was texting on his mobile phone.

  ‘That is so sad,’ she murmured.

  ‘What, darling?’ said Simon, instantly concerned. ‘What’s sad?’

  ‘That couple,’ she whispered. ‘It’s their anniversary and they don’t have anything to say to each other. They’re just sitting there not talking, and he’s using his mobile.’

  Simon glanced surreptitiously in their direction. ‘They’ve obviously been married for too long. All the passion has gone out of their relationship.’

  Felicity remembered the passion she’d shared with Simon, in his flat: on the sofa, in the bed, in the shower.

  It won’t happen to us, she thought suddenly, with a clarity as sharp as the bubbles in her champagne. He’s not like anyone else. He’s exciting and intelligent and considerate. Look at where he’s brought me on our second date.

  A second waiter arrived with their main courses. He filled up their glasses and she watched the other couple in the pause as he did. They’d received their starters and were tucking into them, muttering the odd word. No sharing of forkfuls, no gazing into each other’s eyes. Unlike Felicity, who saw every moment with Simon as precious, something wonderfully different from her beer-scented nights and her days in mundane lectures. In the reflection of the candlelight on her champagne flute she saw dozens of evenings like this, hundreds, to come. When Simon would touch her and she’d shiver. When they could talk, and laugh, and go home together and make love.

  Simon Hexham. Even his name had a ring to it.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts,’ Simon said when the waiter disappeared.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, startled. ‘I was –just thinking it’s our anniversary too. It’s been two weeks since the first night we met.’

  ‘So it has,’ said Simon, obviously pleased at the accuracy of her memory. He lifted his glass. ‘Happy anniversary, darling.’

  Miles came back to the table, his hands in the pockets of
his brown suit jacket. He sat across from Hester and pushed his empty plate away from him.

  ‘They took a taxi,’ he said. ‘They couldn’t wait long enough to walk around the corner.’

  ‘It’s definitely the flat they’re going to?’ Hester still had half her dinner left on her plate; she always ate more slowly than Miles, even when it was a bag of chips. And this stuff was good, probably the best meal she’d had in weeks. There was no point cooking for one. She’d hate to waste it.

  ‘Relax,’ he said. ‘I heard him give the address to the cabbie. We’ve got plenty of time, and I’ve got another camera in my bag. Eat your fish. It’s brain food: you could use it, blondie.’

  ‘Shut it, Donovan.’ But she ate while Miles flicked through his iPhone to check out the photos.

  ‘There are some good ones to add to what we took the other day,’ he said. ‘They were snogging all through dessert.’

  ‘I’d like dessert,’ Hester said, for once not thinking. It must be the champagne. It’d been a long time since she’d had that, too.

  She could tell by the way his mouth got crooked that Miles was amused. ‘Well, go ahead. It’s all on the expenses, and she can afford it with the settlement she’s likely to get.’ He put down the phone and looked her over. ‘I like the dress, by the way.’

  ‘Now you can really shut it.’

  ‘No, I mean it. It suits you. You should wear it more often.’

  ‘In your dreams.’

  Miles took the champagne bottle out of the cooler and emptied it into both their glasses. ‘Speaking of dreams. One more toast. Happy anniversary.’

  Hester raised her glass to his and exchanged a silvery clink.

  It was ten years today that they’d both left the police to start up their private investigation firm. A lot had changed since then: he had less hair, and hers was more grey. But they were still partners.

  He looked different tonight, though. Maybe it was the suit; maybe it was the champagne. Maybe it was sitting across from him, rather than beside him. Or whatever they said that fish had in it, building up her brain, helping her make connections she’d never quite been able to make before. Maybe it was ten long and short years, where there had never been the right moment.

  ‘What are you doing later?’ she asked.

  He shrugged and picked up his glass.

  ‘Do you –do you want to come round?’

  He stopped, mid-sip. His eyes met hers. They always had, straight on like this. He’d watched her back for ten years, and during their time in the police before that. It was the longest time she’d ever trusted anybody.

  She knew everything about him: his divorce, how he wished he could spend more time with his kids. He knew all of her secret fears and failures, even how she wondered, sometimes, if she’d made a mistake putting her career before everything. Things she’d never told anyone else. There was a lot of time to talk on stakeouts, or during downtime in the office, over instant coffee and packaged sandwiches.

  ‘You want me to come round to yours, after this?’ Miles said slowly.

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘You took a long time to ask.’

  ‘I’m asking now.’

  ‘I think,’ Miles said, ‘that even without the camera, we have enough evidence for Mrs Simon Hexham that her husband isn’t using his London flat just for sleeping.’

  ‘I agree.’

  They paid the bill with the firm’s credit card and he helped her on with her jacket. It was her good jacket. She felt the warmth of him through the material.

  ‘I feel sorry for the girl,’ she said as they left the restaurant, into the glossy, sharp night.

  ‘It’s the same old story.’

  ‘Does it ever get any different?’ she asked.

  ‘We’ll have to find out.’

  For the first time, he took her hand.

  Captivating Sacha

  Rosie Dean

  Rosie Dean

  ROSIE DEAN has been writing stories and plays since she was big enough to type. For a while she was especially industrious, producing dolly-dressing books, with a typed story, a dolly to cut out and paper clothing with tabs on. She even sold a couple.

  After studying ceramic design and gaining a ‘degree in crockery’ as the man in her life calls it, she became an Art and Pottery teacher. Seven years later, she moved into corporate world, writing training courses and marketing copy until the lure of being a full-time writer became irresistable.

  Her first romantic comedy, Millie’s Game Plan, came out in 2013 and her second, Vicki’s Work of Heart, will be released in 2014.

  Rosie also enjoys writing for performance, under her real name, Jan Sprenger. Her one-act play Line Dancing, is published in Pint-sized Plays, Volume 2.

  Her website is www.rosie-dean.com

  Captivating Sacha

  An eager young guy in a tree-hugging sweatshirt and whispy beard, smiled at me and said, ‘I promise you, this isn’t for long.’ That was just before he put the blindfold on me and just after he’d tied my hands behind my back. ‘You’ll be absolutely fine. Trust me.’

  If there’s one phrase makes me nervous, it’s ‘Trust me’.

  I screamed like a banshee, which was a waste of time as in the distance I could hear the Romwick Brass Band giving it their all for the village fete and TV cameras.

  ‘Calm down. This is just for fun, remember?’

  Remember? Had we met before? No matter how many V&Ts I might down in a night, surely this arrangement wouldn’t have slipped my mind?

  ‘Are you with that film crew?’ I asked.

  ‘Stop worrying,’ he chuckled, his hands surprisingly gentle as he bundled me into the back of a van and slammed the door.

  I slumped onto a carpeted floor, where a deep grunt to my left announced I had male company.

  ‘Who are you? Where are we going?’ I demanded.

  Another muffled grunt.

  ‘Are you gagged?’

  Grunt.

  Now, it’s hard to imagine feeling relief in this situation, but knowing I wasn’t completely alone did raise my spirits –marginally.

  Then the thought occurred to me, Where on earth did I get the impression that some guy being tied up and gagged is a good thing? I wriggled away and stared at the back of my eyelids.

  Some people clam up when they’re anxious –not me. ‘Why didn’t I just stay at the fete? I could be sitting in a deck chair now, sipping stewed tea and eating chocolate cake. Instead, I had to go and check if the film crew wanted refreshments, didn’t I?’

  Slight exaggeration, actually. I’d volunteered so I could check out the local hunk, Alex Maxwell. He’d recently returned to Romwick after spending two years filming the tribes of Peru. Now he was making a documentary about our village fete. I’d heard about him, of course, Romwick’s famous son. Heard but never seen. So imagine my delight when I first clapped eyes on him: not remotely geeky but tall, lean and tanned, with dark hair and blue eyes –my favourite combination. Alex had been the only reason I’d hung around at the Dog & Duck on karaoke night. OK…he was the only reason I went to the Dog & Duck.

  The driver started the engine.

  ‘Apparently, ours is the oldest village fete in the country,’ I continued. ‘But why the Indiana Jones of Hampshire wants to film it, I’ve no idea. Maybe he arranged this kidnapping as a stunt to make his documentary more exciting, you know, a study in how laws of the jungle impact on the anthropology of English rural life.’ I sighed. ‘God, now I’m talking complete garbage.’

  There was a murmur of agreement beside me.

  The van lurched off down the road. I could feel every bump and stone, despite the tufted Wilton beneath me. Seconds later there was a long, sweeping bend and I was forced to roll away from my companion. He quickly followed. Followed and landed right up against me, uttering a two-syllable grunt of apology. He was heavy and my tethered hands were trapped between us, crushed against his belt buckle.

  ‘If this is a TV stunt,
there’ll be cameras in here, too. Well, I want it on record that I’m here under duress so there’d better be a decent fee, or I’m suing!’

  There was a sigh behind me. His chin was resting on my shoulder and, as the road evened out, he managed to move away from me and started humming. His voice was quiet but very close. Sinister. Like something spawned from Stephen King’s imagination. The tune became clearer, it was a Rod Stewart classic –‘Tonight’s the Night’ – the one about deflowering a virgin.

  That settled it. The man was depraved. He and the driver were a double act. On a good day, the prospect of a threesome with the likes of Rafa Nadal and Hugh Jackman might have been titillating. But bondage with two complete strangers had never appealed –at least not with me on the receiving end.

  He continued to hum tunefully, and as he reached the end of the first chorus, it suddenly hit me. I’d heard his voice before and singing this song.

  I swallowed. ‘Are you…Alex Maxwell? Give me one grunt for yes, two grunts for no.’

  Grunt.

  Things were looking up.

  Another corner, and this time Alex headed back in the other direction and I followed, ending up with my face pressed against his chest. He smelled of clean linen and spice. The warmth of his muscle beneath my cheek was comforting. Suddenly, I had a change of heart and wished we were heading for Timbuktu.

  ‘Sorry about the Indiana Jones comment,’ I said. ‘Hope you didn’t take offence.’

  Grunt, grunt.

  We lay for a moment, breathing in unison. It was almost cosy.

  ‘I just don’t understand what we’re doing here.’

  Silence.

  Maybe…

  ‘Do you think I could use my teeth to get your gag off? Then at least we can have a conversation.’

  His grunt was softer, more of a ‘hmm’, which was encouraging.

  I wriggled up until I felt I was on a level with his face, and prayed the van didn’t hit a zigzag bend. Inching over, I investigated the gag with my nose. It was sticky-tape. OK, I thought, tough job but I can do it.