Boot Camp Bride

by Lizzie Lamb

  ‘No. No. Elena. Elen-ah. Virgen santísima, ayúdanos. Cristo ayúdanos. No dejes que Elena muera. Jesús, ten piedad. Por el amor de Dios, no dejes que se ahogue. Allesandro, ayuda!’

  Charlee stood listening as Ffinch relived the moment when he’d pleaded in Spanish with their captors to save Elena - and then turned to God, and someone called Allesandro when his pleas were ignored. She was overwhelmed by the need to go to him, to wake him from this nightmare and bring him comfort. Using the light from her mobile phone as a torch she negotiated her way across the room, allowing herself time to adjust to the darkness. His cries rang out afresh and she moved swiftly but silently to his side.

  Charlee recalled reading somewhere that it was dangerous to wake people in the middle of a nightmare - or was that sleepwalking? She couldn’t remember which. Glancing down at Ffinch, she saw that he was calmer now but she was reluctant to wake him and reveal that she’d seen him at his lowest ebb. He was a proud man, guarded, too - if he knew she’d been brought to his room by his cries for help, the fragile rapport developing between them would fracture.

  He turned over and flung himself on his back, hands raised above his head and with his wrists facing outwards. Charlee let the eerie light from her mobile range over him, checking that he was okay but taking care not to wake him.

  ‘Oh my God.’ In the faint light she could just make out livid marks scarring the flesh on the undersides of his lower arms and wrists. She’d read that drug user’s arms were marked with tramlines, but she’d never seen them for real. Her blood ran cold and she felt physically sick. Vanessa had been right when she’d accused him of gun running, drug smuggling, money laundering … and more, besides.

  Charlee took a step back from his bed, appalled.

  How could she have got him so wrong?

  Had she been so taken up by the idea of working with Ffinch the award-winning journalist that she hadn’t thought it through properly? Or dug deeply enough to discover the truth? She swept the greenish beam of light over his bedside table - bottles of pills, prescription drugs with his name on the label. Maybe he was hooked on those, too? Frowning, she returned her phone to the pocket of her pyjamas and looked down at him, her eyes having adjusted to the darkness

  Whatever had disturbed his dreams, his thrashing around and calling out seemed to have exorcised it. He was descending into the deeper reaches of sleep and his bare chest rose and fell rhythmically. For a moment the woman in Charlee took precedence over the journalist. She looked down at his bare chest, the delicate line of hair that led downwards - and wondered what lay beneath the duvet he’d almost thrown off the bed.

  Did he sleep in the nude?

  The thought sent lust scudding through her veins and her breath snagged in her throat. She placed her hand over her breastbone in an attempt to bring her breathing and her wicked thoughts under control. When she realised that her breathing had fallen into step with his - although her heart was still hammering away like a mad thing - she knew this man was getting to her. Overwhelmed by the need to peel back the duvet, climb inside that warm bed with him and … she checked her wild thoughts and backed away from his bed.

  If he caught her there, he would naturally assume that she’d come to compromise him in some ill-thought-out scheme to prize secrets from him. Tiptoeing, she retraced her steps back to her room and closed the interconnecting door. But this time, she didn’t lock it. Instead, she fell into bed, restless and uneasy - wondering how one off-centre kiss and seeing him lying there naked and troubled had awoken unwanted feelings of yearning and desire in her.

  Now it was her turn to twist the bedclothes into a knot as she pulled the duvet over her head and tried to go back to sleep. But sleep eluded her - for reasons that were only too clear to her!

  The next morning, Charlee was outside The Ship Inn loaded down with birdwatching gear and looking a total wreck. After a sleepless night wondering what dark memories disturbed Ffinch’s sleep and haunted his waking hours, she’d been practically comatose over the ‘full English’ - served at an eye-wateringly early seven thirty. Ffinch on the other hand looked ready for anything. And, to Charlee’s oversensitive senses, seemed to be shouting rather than talking to her.

  ‘The girl in reception said that a family of barn owls lives in the field across from the car park and can be seen quartering the fields, hunting for prey. It’s a feature of the marshes apparently,’ he added breezily. Then he peered at her in a critical fashion. ‘Got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning, Montague?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, no!’ she snapped, hiding her blushes. Little did he know which side of whose bed she could have been climbing out of this morning! ‘Couldn’t sleep, that’s all.’ She left the sentence hanging to see if he’d mention his restless night. When he didn’t, she continued grumpily, ‘And, what kind of feckin’ owls go hunting in the day? It isn’t natural.’

  ‘It’s a common misconception that owls are nocturnal,’ Ffinch read from an ancient copy of The Boys’ Own Book of Fenland Birds. ‘They are, in fact, diurnal - if you must know.’ His eyes looked more grey than blue in the washed-out morning light and he had the appearance of a man who’d had a good night’s sleep. Charlee suspected that he found her bad mood highly diverting - Little Miss Sunshine was finally having a cloudy day!

  ‘Spare me the lecture, David Attenborough. I’m a country girl and have forgotten more about owls and other … random wild creatures, than a townie like you will ever learn.’ With a haughty toss of her head, Charlee hitched the rucksack containing packed lunch, bottled water and a flask of hot chocolate higher onto her shoulders and headed for the marshes. When it became plain that Ffinch wasn’t following her, she swivelled round and stood with her hands on her hips.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Wrong way, Montague. Follow me.’ Turning on his heel, he headed for the village green without waiting for her.

  ‘Baden-bleedin-Powell as well, is it?’ Charlee mumbled under her breath as she followed close on his heels. ‘Will you be giving me my sixer’s badge for reading animal tracks?’

  ‘Stop the mutinous muttering and keep up,’ he called over his shoulder, apparently enjoying every moment of her bad mood. Fuming, Charlee followed at a trot, four of her steps being equal to one of his long strides. It was clear she would be shown no quarter this morning. Last night she’d wanted to climb into bed with him, today she had thoughts of a different nature running through her mind. Murderous ones. She’d always hated PE at school and her first foray as a serious journo was beginning to resemble a cross-country run more than the cloak and dagger mission she’d imagined.

  They skirted the green and cut through a park full of static caravans closed down for the winter. Then they turned right and headed past some modern bungalows and older flint cottages overlooking the marshes. Ffinch stopped, raised his binoculars and pointed with his free hand, like a modern-day version of Millais’s The Boyhood of Raleigh.

  ‘Those are the old Coast Guards’ cottages. They’re rental properties now, but back in the day they had a perfect view of the marshes and the smugglers who tried to land contraband at high tide. Come on,’ he urged, putting down his binoculars and striding forward with renewed vigour.

  ‘Come on? Come on where precisely? Everything’s either covered by water or feet deep in mud.’ Charlee continued to complain as they skirted the village green where workmen were stacking reeds ready for thatching in the spring. They walked past a paper bank and towards the marshes. ‘Oh, recycling bins - how picturesque.’ Snarkily, she took a photo of the green and orange bins with her mobile phone, looking across the winter marshland where flocks of birds were coming down to feed now the receding tide made their feeding grounds accessible.

  Ffinch ground to a halt and then whipped round to face her. ‘Are you going to keep this up all morning, Montague? Whatever else I thought of you, I never thought you were a quitter or a whinger.’

  ‘I’m not a whinger,’ she protested. Then the tell
ing phrase rewound and ran through her befuddled brain one more time: whatever else I thought of you. What did he mean? What did he think of her, exactly? ‘Just tired, that’s all. I didn’t sleep well … get off my case, Ffinch.’

  ‘I’m not surprised with the amount of booze you put away,’ he said cheerfully - all the more to goad her, Charlee presumed. ‘Or was there another reason?’

  ‘Such as?’ Had he seen her creep in and out of his room and been feigning sleep? His expression deadpan, he raised an eyebrow and suppressed a grin. ‘What, you mean that good night kiss? Mate - get over yourself.’ She pushed him in the chest with both hands and he fell against the weatherworn fence which splintered on impact. ‘I’ve had more passionate kisses from our two black labs, Teal and Marley. Although, admittedly, your breath didn’t smell quite as strongly of doggy chews.’

  For some moments he laid spreadeagled against the fence, the sloe bushes with their shrivelled berries doubling as his crown of thorns. Long, silent seconds stretched out and she took a step forwards, concerned that she had injured him.

  ‘Ffinch are you okay? Speak to me for God’s sake.’

  She put the flat of her hand on his chest which was rising and falling in short, sharp breaths. Was he having a heart attack, or something? He looked young and fit, but she knew he was nowhere near the peak of fitness or health expected of a man in his early thirties. She started to unzip his waxed jacket and to rub his chest to ease his breathing. It took several seconds for her to realise that he wasn’t gasping for breath - he was laughing.

  At her!

  ‘Why, you -’ she raised her fists to pummel his chest but he caught them and held her fast.

  ‘Tell me Montague, are your former boyfriends buried under the patio, having sustained fatal injuries in the course of romancing you?’

  ‘Romancing me? What are you, some ancient minstrel? You’ll be singing under my window next - For a man who doesn’t believe in moon in June, roses round the door and happily ever after … you have a very romantic turn of phrase.’

  His lips twitched, then he sobered and sent her a straight look. ‘You might think so, but believe me, no woman would want me - not if she knew what I was really like. What I’ve done.’ The way he said it made her heart squeeze in compassion and with another emotion she couldn’t identify. She asked herself the question she couldn’t ask him - what had he done that was so terrible? A shiver coursed through her at his sudden mood change and the brooding look he sent over the marshes.

  ‘I know what you’re really like.’ She sent him a fierce look, not allowing him to push her away physically or emotionally. He was just beginning to open up to her and she didn’t want him to clam up. He was balanced against the fence, the weight of his rucksack making it difficult for him to right himself while he held onto her fists. He seemed in no hurry to let her go; meanwhile, she was imprisoned between his splayed legs. She felt no embarrassment at being so close and intimate; there was a part of her that knew, in spite of his warning, that she could trust him, with her life - if not her heart.

  ‘And what am I really like?’ he asked, pulling a self-deprecating face.

  ‘Mad, bad and dangerous to know,’ Charlee said with her usual flippancy.

  Her knees were beginning to ache from holding herself away from him, so she relaxed and leaned against him. He was wearing double thickness walking trousers as protection against the wind, so if he did find her in the least bit arousing she’d never know. She blushed at the way her thoughts were running. Seeing him naked and vulnerable in bed last night had irrevocably altered her perception of him.

  She shook away the wanton image, trying hard not to lose herself in the depths of his grey eyes; or to find his straight nose and the pensive, downward set of his lips appealing. He’d made it abundantly clear there was no place for sexual attraction in their relationship. And even if Sam Walker had commanded him to put stars in her eyes, he clearly had no intention of carrying out those orders. He was too honest - that much she knew about him.

  ‘Mad, bad and dangerous to know,’ he mused. ‘Like Byron, you mean?’ His straight dark eyebrows drew together and he dipped his head as he tried to read her expression.

  ‘Just like Byron, except …’ she pulled up short.

  ‘Go on - I’m steeling myself, Montague,’ he remarked with a resigned but amused shrug. ‘That particular genie isn’t going to return willingly to the magic lamp. Say it. ’

  ‘Except. Oh, God - I wish I hadn’t started this …’ She took a deep breath and rushed on, ‘Except you probably wouldn’t have sex with your sister.’

  ‘Only - probably?’ This time his eyebrows almost touched his hairline.

  ‘Definitely,’ she asserted.

  ‘Thanks for the character reference. And, for the record, she was his half-sister.’ Shaking his head at a further example of her off-the-wall observations, he asked reflectively, ‘How did we segue from owls being diurnal, to incest, and nineteenth-century Romantic Poets? Only with you, Montague; only with you.’ He gave her another measured look, apparently accepting that she was a total fruit bat - but his partner for good or ill. Charlee could tell that he found their conversation intellectually stimulating and enjoyed the badinage, as if humour could unlock those parts of him he’d closed off from the world.

  ‘Good morning.’ Two of the elderly guests from the hotel, similarly loaded down with walking sticks, binoculars and tripods, walked past them.

  ‘Good morning.’ Ffinch greeted them, as if it was nothing out of the ordinary for his fiancée to throw him into a hedge and then herself on top of him. ‘Lovely morning for it,’ he added.

  ‘It is indeed,’ the wife pronounced, giving Charlee a ‘good on you, girl’ wink before walking on.

  ‘Did you see that?’ she gasped, finally pushing herself off him. ‘She winked at me!’

  ‘What? You think sex stops at sixty?’ Ffinch asked.

  ‘I’m trying very hard not to think about it. My parents are in their sixties. Urgh, don’t let’s go there.’

  ‘Incestuous poets much easier to handle?’

  ‘Much,’ she agreed, brushing down her windproof jacket and adjusting the polar fleece bandana keeping her ears warm. It was shocking pink, but not as pink as her cheeks.

  Head down against the buffeting wind, she followed Ffinch as he walked along the path hugging the outer margins of the marsh beyond the tide’s reach. Eventually he came to a halt by a bench facing out over the marshes to the sea. He slipped off his rucksack, sat on the bench and indicated that she should do the same. Then he got out his flask and poured out two cups of hot chocolate.

  ‘You know, The Ship is missing a trick,’ he said as he savoured the hot drink.

  ‘It is?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, raising his binoculars and looking towards Thornham Beach. ‘Serving hot drinks in dark-green flasks with the hotel’s logo on the side. How boring is that? You would have thought that Ninja Turtle flasks would have made it over here, eh Montague?’

  ‘You are so bloody funny, Ffinch - not!’

  Stifling the giggle that threatened to have her spluttering in her hot chocolate, Charlee relaxed and looked over the marshes. Now she was out of the wind and the sun had come out, they didn’t look so grim after all. There was a stripped back beauty to them, she could see that, and the flocks of birds heading for the feeding grounds down by the shoreline ensured the view was an ever changing tapestry. And she had to admit, just sitting there, eyes closed, face soaking up the weak January sun, was the perfect antidote to the last couple of manic weeks. When she glanced at Ffinch he was still scanning the marshes through his binoculars, his cup of hot chocolate untouched on the bench beside him.

  Why did she get the impression it wasn’t the birds he was watching so intently?

  ‘What’s out there?’ Charlee asked, slipping on her sunglasses against the almost overwhelming expanse of bright blue sky that filled three quarters of the landscape.

  ‘The
Wash. And over there you can see the wind turbines on the shoreline at Skegness.’ Charlee followed his pointing finger and squinted at the distant shore where almost a hundred huge turbines were turning like quiet ghosts.

  ‘No, I meant - what’s out there that you find so interesting?’

  ‘Just enjoying the view,’ Ffinch said, sitting down and drinking his hot chocolate. ‘We spent so much time abroad when I was growing up, staying with my Brazilian relatives on their coffee farm or on overseas postings. I don’t know much about the English coast and I’m intrigued by it.’

  Charlee felt excluded from his circle of trust, but she hid it well.

  ‘Ditto. My father thought it was a good idea for me to practise my Spanish, Italian, Russian - whatever - in the country where it was spoken and booked our summer holidays accordingly. Mum didn’t mind where we stayed as long as it involved sun, a five-star hotel with a pool and somewhere to stack her suntan lotion next to a pile of books. Thank God for the invention of e-readers, she always went over the luggage limit on books alone and father would go ape.’ She knew she was gabbling but couldn’t stop herself. ‘The annoying thing is, as soon as the locals found out I was British, they wanted to practise their English on me.

  ‘How is your Russian these days?’ he asked, conversationally. ‘Can you read and write it?’

  ‘Ya xorosho govoru po rysski.’

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘My Russian is very good.’ She sent him a calculating look. ‘No mne interesno pochemy eto tak vajno vam.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound complimentary. What does it mean, Montague?’ he asked, clearly taking her shrewd look on board.

  ‘But I can’t help wondering why it’s so important to you.’

  ‘So you’ll be able to understand what Anastasia says to her bridesmaids and report back to Sam,’ he said, as though explaining the rules of a board game to a child. ‘What?’ he asked as she jumped to her feet and stood in front of him, deliberately blocking the view of the marsh he appeared to find so engaging.