by Joanna Rees
‘And after that? With you and Dad?’ Cara asked.
‘He wanted me to accept I’d killed Billy-Ray. That I was delirious from lack of sleep. That I had imagined Blakeney had taken the shot. He told me that it was OK to make a mistake.’ Lois felt tears now, rising in her chest. Unstoppable. Like an old volcano of grief within her that had just been reawakened. ‘That was what hurt the most. Chris . . . well, he thought I was going out of my mind. I couldn’t live with him not believing me. And it all got . . . nasty. So . . . horribly nasty.’
Lois took a deep breath and swiped at her eyes.
‘I thought it could all be settled easily, but then there were lawyers. And before I knew it, we went to court. I wanted to keep you with me, but . . .’ She paused, swallowing back the emotion. ‘But the judge was the same as your dad. He thought I’d killed Billy-Ray. That I was some crazy gun-wielding idiot who’d made a tragic mistake. Not the kind of person fit to look after her own baby. And that’s how Dad ended up keeping you. In the end, I had no choice but to walk away.’
‘From me.’ Cara’s voice was steady, but her eyes were filled with tears.
Lois felt her heart wrenching. How could she possibly make Cara understand?
‘Don’t you see? I lost everything when I lost you. What was I supposed to do? Follow you to Washington? Sit in a car outside your dad’s house? Stalk you at kindergarten? Believe me, I wanted to. But that would only have made things even worse. I had to take the job in New York to keep my sanity.’
Cara’s gaze dropped from hers and Lois wiped her face. She longed to hold her. To take her in her arms. To never, ever let her go. But it was too early. She could see that Cara needed time to process everything Lois had said.
Did Cara understand? She doubted it. Just as she doubted now that she’d ever be able to clean up the mess of the past. It would always be there.
And now she didn’t know where she stood. She’d told the truth. This should have been her cue to make the promises to Cara she wanted to. To tell her how much she longed for them to live together. But the plan she’d had to do just that seemed pointless and ill-conceived now.
Cara had a home already. A stable one. What right did Lois have to take that from her until she’d built an equally stable home of her own? To claim her right as a proper mom. A real mom, as Cara herself had said.
‘I think we need to talk some more,’ Lois said, as gently as she could. ‘So let’s go home, eh? But first we’ll have to go back to the restaurant and make peace with Grandma. Can you bear it?’ she asked.
Perhaps Cara sensed that she did have a choice. She nodded.
Lois was deeply shaken, but she forced herself to stay strong as they set off back up the hill, side by side.
She’d rebuild their relationship, no matter what it took. And she saw now that it would involve being nice to her ex-husband and cooperative, not combative. She’d cut all the conflict she could from her daughter’s life.
She remembered Aidan and Zak on the yacht.
Love could survive divorce. The two of them proved it.
And looking down at Cara now, the thought of it was a glimmer of hope Lois clung to.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It was day three of equine therapy. The heat was already rising and the horses snorted in the hazy mist, keen to get going. In the stable yard, Red laughed, pushing his battered Stetson back on his head, as if he had all the time in the world. He crossed his wrists and held the reins as he calmly sat on his horse waiting for Savvy to get on hers.
Savvy was determined not to show Red how difficult she found these early starts. Not just the physical demands of being up at dawn and the technical problems of getting on a horse, but the other stuff – the depression and anxiety that sometimes hit her in waves.
The workshops and sessions with Dr Savage had been both gruelling and humbling. Physically, she’d had to accept that her behaviour had chemically altered her and that in order to regain its balance her body was going to hurt. Emotionally, she’d had to face up to the consequences of her lifestyle and start on the road to permanent change.
At times it felt as if she was unravelling, but more and more frequently when she was with Red she saw for herself that it was possible to come through at least this experience and out the other side, stronger and healthier than ever before. He was living proof of it. Finally she’d realized she wanted to be like that too.
A sweaty mess already, she succeeded in heaving herself into the saddle. She noticed Red was laughing. He gave her a small round of applause and she blushed furiously.
But at least they could get away before anyone else from the group turned up and ruined everything. She’d had enough of Vanessa’s success-related drug problems and Dougie’s incessant rap-chat, not to mention Kate’s laxative dependency following her disastrous plastic surgery.
There were some nice inmates, not people Savvy would want as friends exactly, but decent human beings beneath their addictions. However, a lot of the others seemed hooked on sharing their nastiest secrets, as if the intimacy had become a form of addiction in itself. So much so that for some people this was their third or fourth visit here.
Savvy found the thought of yo-yoing between addiction and this place too frightening to contemplate. Which was why she’d started avoiding those people as much as she could.
But meanwhile, at least she had Red to keep her company. Strong, kind, wonderful Red.
‘That’s it. You’re getting the hang of it,’ he called, as she slipped her bare feet into her stirrups.
Bare feet indeed. Another of Red’s ideas, to help her connect with living in the here and now. She’d have avoided him like the plague back in civilization. But here, amongst all the plants and rocks and streams and sky . . . well, out here, OK, she had to admit that Red was kind of cool.
‘I still feel like I’m going to fall off any second,’ she said.
‘Just relax. Let yourself go. You’ll be fine,’ he said, clicking his tongue and making his chestnut mare turn round in the stable yard and head through the gate to the paddock.
Savvy used her heels gently to prod Mr Ed, the quiet grey gelding she’d grown used to these last couple of weeks, and set off after Red, their gentle clip-clopping on the stable-yard cobbles sending a flurry of birds up into the morning mist.
‘My father always says that the early bird catches the worm,’ she said.
Red smiled. ‘Go on . . .’ he coaxed.
‘I’ve been thinking about what you said last time. About how angry he is with me. I wonder how much of that anger is because of my mother?’
‘Because she’s not around?’
‘Because she chose not to be around. She overdosed on sleeping pills. When I was six months old.’
‘She did it on purpose?’ Red said, looking shocked. ‘You told me she’d died, but you never told me how.’
‘She swallowed eighty of them. I’d say that was pretty conclusive.’
The details . . . Hud had told her once when he was drunk, several years back now, before he’d gone on the wagon. Savvy’s mother Clare – a fragile English rose, by all accounts – had left no note. Post-natal depression, the doctors had called it.
Those last few months, she disappeared inside herself, Hud had said. It was like watching a TV being switched off. Only no one knew how to switch it back on again. She didn’t want us, Savvy. She didn’t want to be around any of us any more.
Hud had never spoken about it again. Next morning he’d denied the conversation had ever taken place.
Didn’t want us . . .
Switched off . . .
But Hud had switched off too. He’d switched off all the hurt and all the anger.
‘So he never talked about her?’ Red asked, after Savvy had explained.
‘Never.’
‘Does he have a partner? Someone he talks to?’
‘No. He’s married to his business,’ Savvy said.
Was he lonely? Savvy wondered now. He�
��d never remarried, or even had a girlfriend as far as Savvy knew. Perhaps he’d turned off the passionate side of his life and put all his energy into his business.
And now that she thought about the business, about Hud’s business, she started to feel curious. How was this new venture in Shangri-La shaping up? Was he excited? Proud? How did he feel about planning the launch of his Eastern empire without either of his daughters by his side? Did it make him sad? Did he ever think about Savvy and wonder how she was? Or had he really closed the door on her for ever?
‘So you’re all he’s got left,’ Red said, as if reading her thoughts.
‘I guess,’ she replied. Except that she didn’t know whether Hud would ever take her back. He wanted high flyers, achievers like Paige, around him. What the hell could Savvy offer him that would ever make him proud?
The mist was clearing as Savvy and Red headed into the forest. Perhaps it was talking about her parents or thinking about life outside of Peace River that had done it, but here, her thoughts seemed less like chains that tied her head up in knots and more like butterflies eager to float off into the hazy canopy. All she had to do was voice them. And set them free.
Savvy watched Red as he rode on ahead of her deeper into the forest. He looked so natural, as if he were a cowboy, and with the two of them together, with nobody else around, Savvy felt that she was on an adventure. As if they were frontier people, setting off into the wilderness to build a new way of life. As if it were just her and Red versus the world.
‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Just relax. Feel the rhythm.’ He faced forward, walking the horse deeper into the forest.
Fuck, he’s attractive, she thought, feeling a familiar tingle in her abdomen.
The thought had just popped into her head. And now, as she continued to watch Red, it wouldn’t leave.
But Red was out of bounds, she reminded herself. He wasn’t interested in sex. Or wouldn’t allow himself to be anyway.
And she wasn’t here for sex. She was here to get well.
And he was her friend.
Her very attractive friend.
Christ, what a time for her libido to be waking up. After all the headaches and sickness and thirst.
Out here.
Alone.
With Red. Where no one else could see . . .
Stop it! she told herself. She couldn’t wreck things with Red by suddenly trying to seduce him. By getting him to play cowboys and cowgirls with her. Even though the temptation was almost too much to bear. Especially here, where everything seemed so primeval. So Adam and Eve.
Feel the rhythm. That’s what he’d told her . . .
And now that he’d said it, she just couldn’t stop.
She was so acutely aware of the horse’s saddle between her legs that she subtly started rocking with the motion, homing in on the sensation. With each step the horse took, her body moved, making the hard leather saddle feel like a hand cupping her vulva. Tuning in more now, increasing the pressure, she felt herself becoming hopelessly aroused.
Closing her eyes, she began rocking forward on to her clitoris, arching her back a little more each time, feeling the pressure through the thin fabric of her cotton trousers.
She knew she shouldn’t do it, but she couldn’t seem to stop. She swallowed hard, unable to rip herself away from imagining what it would be like to lie down naked under the trees on a horse blanket with Red. What it would feel like to have him on top of her. Inside her. How she’d run her hands down over the soft, freckled skin of his back. And how she would cup that gorgeous firm, round butt of his and pull him towards her. Into her. She imagined him deep inside her now, kneeling between her legs, her legs wrapped around his. She pictured what he’d look like as she reached up and kissed his face.
She gasped, feeling the sensation between her thighs mounting higher and higher. Now she imagined herself on her back between these trees. Her legs up. One bare foot on each tree trunk. And Red’s kissing down her body . . . his tongue . . . lapping . . . darting inside her, making her so hot that . . .
Oh God, she thought, stifling a groan. I’m coming.
Her orgasm rocked right through her. It had been the first for so long, it felt like her whole body was exploding with shimmering sparks.
She gasped, opening her eyes as the heat poured out of her.
Red was several yards ahead, ducking beneath a low branch, blissfully unaware that he’d just been the subject of her unexpected climax.
‘You OK?’ he asked, as he held back his horse where the path widened out, so that they could ride side by side.
‘Sure,’ she said, but she couldn’t look at him. She knew her cheeks were burning.
Her body was still awash with endorphins. She knew her fantasy about Red had been just that, a fantasy. But somehow it felt so real, as if something had actually happened between them.
They broke out of the trees into a valley, following the path of a brook. Birds screeched out on either side of them, but they were the only people for miles around.
She noticed Red was studying her face.
‘What?’ she said, embarrassed by the attention – and guilty as hell.
‘Nothing. You’ve just got that look.’
‘What look?’
‘The one girls get when they’re thinking about a guy . . .’
If only you knew, she thought. ‘I never heard of that look,’ she said, attempting to switch subject.
‘Well, you should go check out a mirror. You’re wearing it now . . .’
She couldn’t hold his eyes.
‘See,’ he laughed, enjoying teasing her. ‘I knew I was right. So let me guess . . . that Luc guy? Are you finally ready to talk about him?’
‘I can’t believe you remembered that,’ she said, remembering herself now that she’d told Red Luc’s name the second time she’d met him, when they’d walked on the beach.
She didn’t want to talk about Luc. Not now. Not when she was feeling like this. But Red had clearly sussed that he was on to something.
‘I’m guessing that he’s behind a lot of stuff that happened when your sister died. Am I right?’ he coaxed. ‘Don’t be scared, Savvy.’
‘I’m not,’ she said, too quickly. It was obvious to them both that scared was exactly what she was. Terrified.
‘So who is he?’ Red said. ‘Start at the beginning. Tell me how you met him?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
As Savvy started describing the spring day nearly four years earlier when she’d first met Luc Devereaux, it felt as if she were remembering a different person. The future had seemed so easy back then, as if a red carpet would roll out indefinitely ahead of her. She’d been in New York for a film première and when Hud had unexpectedly called her, telling her that he’d flown into town too and asking her to join him for lunch at the newly made-over Scott’s, Savvy had jumped at the chance.
She’d got on with Hud a whole lot better then. She’d not yet had her name raked through the gossip columns and he’d still considered her footloose behaviour just a part of growing up rather than a permanent lifestyle choice.
Plus, Hud’s borrowed mantra that ‘lunch was for wimps’ was very familiar to her, but when he did break his rule and dine out, he usually did it in style. Savvy was impressed that he’d booked somewhere as chic as Scott’s.
But, as always, he’d chosen to mix business with pleasure. Rather than a cosy lunch à deux, as she’d hoped, Hud wanted to introduce Savvy to a potential new member of staff, he’d told her. To get her opinion. He wanted to know if Savvy thought he was all schmooze, or if he really was as smart as people said. The new guy was rumoured to be quite a charmer, Hud had heard.
Savvy was all ears. She’d broken up with a boyfriend a week earlier and was in dire need of some charm.
But there was no point in getting her hopes up. After all, how charming could a potential colleague of Hud’s really be? Hud’s definition of a charming guy was way off hers. Way off. But still, the lunch sho
uld be a distraction, even if this new guy was a tedious business type.
But the moment Savvy walked into the restaurant and saw Luc Devereaux she literally stopped in her tracks. He was sitting at the best table, laughing with her father, and she realized that she was in the presence of quite simply the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. She blinked hard and looked again, astonished by the way in which all her senses seemed to have responded. She was fizzing.
The way the sunlight seemed to bathe him in golden light, the water in his glass shimmering as he lifted it to his lips – it was like Luc had some kind of magical quality – as if he were a heaven-sent gift.
Trying to recover her composure, Savvy walked towards Luc and Hud, her legs suddenly having turned to jelly. She sat down at the table, demurely placing her purse on the white tablecloth. She took off her large Gucci shades and the second her eyes connected with Luc’s, she felt a spark. A jolt. Like pure electricity.
She watched his lips as he smiled, immediately wondering what they’d be like to kiss. They had a pronounced bow and were almost girlish. She couldn’t take her eyes off him.
But Luc Devereaux wasn’t stupid. He knew that Michael Hudson was watching him like a hawk. The perfect gentleman, he asked Savvy her opinion on the movie she’d seen the night before. His sexy French accent was to die for. She tried not to stare too openly at him as he listened politely while she repeated verbatim the opinion of the well-known movie critic she’d got stuck with at the after-show party.
‘Well, Michael,’ Luc said. ‘You didn’t tell me that your daughter was so artistic.’
But his eyes said, sexy. You didn’t tell me that your daughter was so sexy.
‘Isn’t she,’ Hud agreed, winking at Savvy. ‘And the best bit is that I have two of them. I invited Elodie to join us, too.’
Even while basking in their flattery, Savvy felt a stab of disappointment. She didn’t want to be diluted by Elodie – turned into their usual double act for Hud. She didn’t want to be just one of his daughters. She knew with absolute clarity that she wanted to be the daughter. The daughter that Luc noticed.