Bride Required

by Alison Fraser

  ‘This way.’ She let him fall in beside her. ‘It’s not far.’

  She led the way off the main thoroughfare to a backstreet café. On occasion she washed dishes for the owner. In return, he gave her a couple of quid and let her sit with Henry and nurse a tea for an hour or so in cold weather.

  Rick, the owner, eyed her companion for a moment when they entered, then asked, ‘Everything okay, Dee?’

  ‘Sure.’ She returned his smile with a brief one of her own. ‘Could we have a couple of teas?’

  Rick nodded. ‘I’ll bring them over.’

  ‘Dee?’ he repeated as they sat in the corner. ‘That’s your name?’

  She nodded. Dee was the shortened version. Deborah DeCourcy was just too distinctive to go broadcasting.

  She realised Dee probably sounded common to him, and muttered back, ‘Better than Morag, at any rate. What made you pick that?’

  ‘I’ve found that if you have to tell lies, it’s best to keep them to the minimum,’ he returned. ‘I do have a niece. She is called Morag. And her mother would be horrified if she took to fare dodging… But presumably it’s your main means of transport,’ he concluded with dry disapproval.

  ‘Actually, no, I normally walk,’ she claimed, quite truthfully. ‘As you might appreciate, it’s hard to keep a low profile, leaping barriers with a large dog in tandem.’

  Baxter raised a brow. Not at the sarcasm, but at her use of English. Mostly she talked with an East End accent, but once in a while it slipped. Then she sounded pure Home Counties, and educated at that.

  ‘You said you were homeless,’ he recalled, ‘so where do you and Henry sleep? A hostel?’

  She shook her head. ‘They don’t allow dogs and, even if they did, there’s no privacy.’

  Baxter mentally raised another eyebrow. ‘You’ve obviously not heard the expression, “beggars can’t be choosers”.’

  He didn’t expect her reaction; she rounded on him furiously. ‘I am not a beggar! I’m a busker. There is a difference!’

  ‘Okay! Okay!’ he pacified in quick order. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it.’

  Her eyes still flashed with anger. Expressive eyes, blue and wide, and revealing a passionate nature behind the cool exterior. He studied her face properly for the first time and was surprised to discover it was more than passingly pretty.

  Dee didn’t like the way he was looking at her. In fact, she was contemplating telling him to stuff his money when Rick turned up with the teas.

  ‘You want work Saturday afternoon?’ he asked as he laid them down.

  ‘Yeah, okay,’ Dee shrugged, and Rick departed with a satisfied nod.

  ‘You work here?’

  ‘Sometimes, when Rick needs someone to wash dishes.’

  ‘So we’re on your home territory?’ he pursued.

  ‘Sort of…I live in a squat nearby.’ She didn’t go into specifics.

  Baxter added, ‘On your own?’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘Is it relevant?’

  They had returned to the suspicious phase of their relationship.

  Baxter sighed. ‘To me personally, no, but for this…job I have in mind, it’s best that you’re unattached.’

  ‘Then I’m unattached,’ she revealed, then added on impulse, ‘What about you? Have you a significant other?’

  The question took Baxter by surprise. He half smiled at the cheek of her, before saying, ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’ She helped herself to four sugars before she noticed his appalled stare. ‘Got to get your calories any way you can.’

  ‘With most women it’s the other way round,’ he commented dryly.

  She pulled a face, then quipped, ‘Maybe I should write a book, passing on tips. The no home, no hips diet. Live rough and watch the pounds fall off.’

  Baxter laughed, although it wasn’t really funny. Perhaps he had compassion fatigue. He’d spent much of the last decade in the Third World, where hunger meant death.

  Pity stirred in him as he watched her drink down her tea with great thirst. ‘What’s the food like in this place?’

  She gave a short laugh. ‘Great, if you’re into greasy-spoon cuisine and want a cholesterol level in double figures.’

  ‘I see what you mean.’ Baxter scanned a menu that boasted endless variations of something and chips. ‘Still, I’ll risk it if you will…my treat.’

  Dee’s pride told her to turn down charity, but her stomach was speaking a different language. ‘I suppose I could keep you company.’

  ‘Gracious of you,’ he drawled at her offhand acceptance, then signalled to the owner.

  He came over and asked without much interest, ‘Problem, is there?’

  ‘No, we’d like to order some food,’ Baxter told him.

  Rick looked put out, then said in a resigned tone, ‘Yeah, okay.’

  ‘Dee?’ Baxter invited her to order first.

  She hesitated, then decided that if she was going to take charity she might as well go the whole distance. ‘Sausage, bacon, tomato, fried bread, egg and chips.’

  Baxter just stopped himself raising a brow at this list and muttered, ‘Twice.’

  ‘Yeah, okay,’ Rick said once more, sighing at the effort it was going to cost him to cook it.

  ‘Cheery sort of fellow,’ Baxter remarked when he was out of earshot.

  Dee wasn’t a great fan of Rick either, but she felt the need to defend him. ‘His wife left him recently. He’s still cut up about it. Cleaned out their bank account, too.’

  ‘That’s women for you,’ Baxter joked, forgetting she was one for a moment.

  Dee realised it and flipped back, ‘Well, if it is, you don’t have to worry.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘About women.’

  ‘Not being married, no,’ he agreed.

  ‘Nor likely to be either,’ she added a little tartly.

  Baxter assumed he was being insulted, but chose to laugh instead. ‘You think I’m so ineligible?’

  Dee frowned. ‘Well, naturally, I assumed…unless, of course, you’re bisexual.’

  ‘Bisexual?’ He looked at her as if she were mad.

  ‘Okay, okay, just a suggestion.’ She held her hands up, taking it back. ‘Is that some sort of insult if you’re gay?’

  ‘Gay?’ he echoed again.

  ‘Lord, is that the wrong term, too?’ Dee was beginning to wish she’d talked about the weather instead. ‘I thought homosexuals didn’t mind being called that.’

  He seemed to finally catch up with the conversation. ‘Who told you I was homosexual?’

  ‘You did, earlier. Remember?’

  ‘Vaguely.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she assured him. ‘I won’t go advertising it.’

  He seemed about to say something. Dee had the strong impression he was going to deny it. She hoped he wouldn’t. She was beginning to like him, but she couldn’t stand liars.

  In the end, however, he said without much conviction, ‘That’s good to hear.’

  ‘I won’t, honestly,’ Dee stressed. ‘And it’s not as if it’s obvious. I mean you look very masculine, really.’

  ‘Should I take that as a compliment?’ he asked in ironic tones.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought not.’

  Dee pulled a slight face and wished he would stop trying to put her on the spot.

  They lapsed into silence as Rick came to set the table in front of them.

  When he’d gone, the stranger asked, ‘Where is this squat?’

  ‘In a block of maisonettes the council have condemned.’

  ‘How long have you lived there?’

  ‘About six weeks.’

  He frowned. ‘And the council haven’t noticed?’

  ‘Why should they?’ She shrugged. ‘I’ve left it boarded up, and the electricity and gas are still disconnected. Even if they did know, they wouldn’t care. They’re pulling it down for redevelopment soon.’

>   ‘And then what? Where will you go?’

  The questions could have denoted genuine interest, but Dee was doubtful. ‘Why? Are you doing a documentary or something? “The plight of the homeless?” Been done before, mate, sorry.’

  ‘No, I am not making a documentary.’ He kept his patience—just. ‘I was simply wondering if you’d made any contingency plans for the summer.’

  ‘Well, I was hoping to go cruising the Greek islands again,’ Dee replied in the same flippant tones, ‘but my boat’s in dry dock at the moment.’

  His mouth tightened. ‘Don’t you take anything seriously?’

  ‘Like life, you mean?’ She slanted him a look wise beyond her years. ‘And where do you think that would get me—taking the long-term view?’

  Baxter saw her point. With nothing to look forward to and no way of lifting herself up out of her current situation, maybe it was best to take each day as it came.

  ‘Have you no qualifications?’ he asked in a manner that suggested he expected she had none.

  Dee decided to surprise him with the truth. ‘Nine GCSES—six As, two Bs and a D. I’m still working on my A levels.’

  Baxter grimaced at what he took for sarcasm. ‘Okay, message received. You want me to mind my own business.’

  Actually, no. Dee had wanted him to be impressed. To look at her in a new light. To talk to her as if she were worth talking to. But, no, she was just another homeless no-hoper to him—and to almost every other person who passed her on their way to work and the real world.

  ‘Give the man a coconut,’ she finally responded, just as Rick approached the table.

  ‘Coconut?’ Rick repeated, not much one for sarcasm. ‘I don’t serve coconuts. You want coconuts, go to one of those West Indian market stalls.’ He dumped two plates in front of them and waited for some acknowledgement.

  ‘Thanks, Rick,’ Dee said, with a commendably straight face.

  ‘Yes, thanks, Rick,’ Baxter echoed, in a voice also laced with amusement.

  They waited until Rick was out of range before they laughed together.

  It was a brief lapse, but laughter transformed her. From a belligerent, cropped-haired punk to a bright-eyed, spirited girl-woman. The change fascinated Baxter.

  Then she switched to being a child, eating her meal with wordless, indiscriminate haste.

  Dee had grown used to going all day with a virtually empty stomach, not allowing herself to think of her hunger. When presented with food, however, that was all she could think of. She didn’t look up until she’d finished every last scrap.

  It was only then that she was aware of his eyes on her, only then that she realised how greedy she must seem.

  His own plate remained untouched.

  ‘How old are you?’ he asked, not for the first time.

  ‘Eighteen.’ Well, she would be soon.

  ‘Good,’ he nodded.

  ‘Good?’ she quizzed.

  ‘I was worried you might be a runaway,’ he added, assuming she wasn’t.

  She had been. She had first left home last summer. It had been easy. She’d had it planned for months. She’d had cash, squirrelled away from birthdays, Christmas and pocket money. It had seemed a fortune, but it had gone after a matter of weeks and she’d returned home rather than live on the streets. Three months ago she’d run away again. This time no one had come looking for her.

  ‘This thing I want you to do will be complicated enough—’ he resumed the conversation, ‘—without any irate parents appearing on my doorstep.’

  ‘There’ll be no irate parents.’ Her mother was many things—pretty, silly, vain—but never strong enough to be irate. ‘So, if you’re thinking of murdering me, you can be fairly sure I’ll go unmourned,’ she added with black humour.

  It drew no smile in return. Instead he said tersely, ‘If you thought there was any chance of my being a psychopath, why the hell did you go with me?’

  ‘Why do you think?’ she retorted. She waved the two halves of the notes in front of his face, as he’d done to her earlier. ‘Anyway, you don’t look much like a homicidal maniac… So, assuming you’re not, what are you?’

  He hesitated, his eyes narrowing as if he was testing her discretion.

  ‘You’re not an actor, are you?’ Dee speculated.

  ‘An actor?’ His tone dismissed the idea. ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Because you’re so good-looking, I suppose,’ she admitted quite frankly. Of course, she wouldn’t have done so had he been straight. But he wasn’t, so it didn’t count.

  He was taken aback for a moment, then said, ‘Are you always so forthright with men?’

  ‘No, not with—’ Dee caught herself up, about to use the word ‘normal’. It was a minefield, trying to be politically correct. She switched to saying, ‘Not with some men. You know—macho types that interpret “hello” as an invitation to sleep with you.’

  His brows rose before he commented, ‘I suppose I should be grateful you don’t class me in that category.’

  ‘No, well, you couldn’t be, could you?’ Dee continued to display a newly discovered tactless streak. She dismissed a prospective career in the diplomatic service and ran on, ‘Does that mean you’re not an actor?’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ he drawled back, ‘but I’m something a shade more pedestrian.’

  She lifted a questioning brow.

  ‘Pedestrian—that means—’

  ‘Commonplace, ordinary, mundane… Yes, I know.’

  ‘Sorry, I thought—’

  ‘That “homeless” equated with “ignorant”,’ she cut in. ‘Well, don’t feel too bad. It’s a fairly universal reaction.’

  Baxter found he didn’t feel bad so much as disconcerted. He was used to being in charge, the senior man in most situations. But he suspected this smart-mouthed girl would be no respecter of age or position.

  He tried her out, saying, ‘Actually, I’m a doctor.’

  He waited for her reaction. Usually people were over-impressed by his profession.

  Dee gave a brief, surprised laugh. It was some coincidence.

  ‘Well, no one’s ever found it amusing before,’ he said with a slight edge to his voice.

  She shrugged without apology. ‘You don’t look the part, though I suppose you’re a big hit with the female patients.’ Once more she forgot his sexual orientation.

  ‘And why do you think that?’ he enquired dryly.

  Dee found herself colouring under his amused gaze before muttering, ‘As I said earlier, you’re very good-looking. I imagine you’d send a few hearts fluttering—whether you wanted to or not.’

  ‘Hearts fluttering?’ He raised a brow. ‘Who would have thought a romantic lay under such a cynical exterior?’

  Dee realised he was taking the mickey, and said coldly, ‘I was being ironic. You know what I mean.’

  ‘Not personally, no,’ he denied. ‘Most of my patients are too busy dying on me to notice my physical appearance.’

  He spoke so dryly Dee wondered if he was joking, but something in his eyes told her he wasn’t.

  ‘I used to work for an aid agency in Africa,’ he explained briefly.

  It was Dee who pursued it. ‘In famine areas, that kind of thing?’

  He nodded, but, though her interest was patent, he didn’t capitalise on it. Instead he turned to eating his meal.

  Dee studied him surreptitiously across the table, wondering if it was true. She knew several doctors. Her father had been one—harassed and overworked, dedicated in the beginning, a burnt-out man in the end. Her stepfather was something else, a hospital consultant with expensive tastes and no real interest in medicine besides what it could earn him. Their doctor friends had been somewhere in between.

  But this stranger was different. She couldn’t categorise him.

  ‘That must be challenging,’ she finally replied, and immediately realised what an inadequate word it was to use for such work.

  He probably thought so too,
from the brief, tight smile on his mouth, but he let it pass.

  Before she could make a fool of herself again, Dee asked, ‘So what sort of job could you possibly want me to do, Doc?’

  He pulled a face at the ‘Doc’. ‘I’ll tell you in a minute. First I want you to understand something. If you decide you don’t want a part of it, then I have to warn you. You shouldn’t waste your time going to the police or the newspapers or anyone else, because I’ll simply deny it all… And you know who people will believe?’

  Not her, Dee acknowledged silently, and felt like kicking herself. It was illegal, this job of his. Of course it was. What had she expected?

  She began to rise to her feet, and a hand shot out to keep her there. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Forget it.’ She thrust the two halves of money at him. ‘If it’s illegal, I’m out of here.’

  ‘It isn’t,’ Baxter lied without conscience, and felt relief as she subsided back in her chair. Then a thought occurred to him. ‘You aren’t already in trouble with the police, are you?’

  ‘No, I am not!’ she declared indignantly.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ he pacified her, although inwardly disputing her right to be outraged after the fare-dodging incident. ‘I was just checking. I don’t need any additional hassles…I assume you’re single, too?’

  ‘Single?’

  ‘As in unmarried.’

  ‘Of course.’ Dee laughed, conveying how little she thought of marriage. ‘—Why?’

  Baxter hesitated, then finally decided to get round to the reason he’d approached this waif and stray.

  He grimaced before relaying the information. ‘You can’t be married because that’s part of the job—getting married.’

  Getting married? Dee repeated the words to herself, as if by doing so they might take on a new meaning, but they didn’t. Then she took to staring at him as if he were completely and utterly mad.

  He wanted her to marry him and she didn’t even know his name!

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘I DON’T even know your name,’ Dee said aloud.

  ‘Baxter,’ he introduced himself, as if that would make it less ridiculous.

  ‘Look, Mr Baxter…’ She intended to tell him what he could do with his job.