The following Friday night there was a bad spring storm in the region; all night long the wind howled around the house. Dylan anxiously watched the trees on the forest edge swaying and bending, and heard on the TV news that houses had suffered serious damage, losing tiles or chimneys, while power lines were brought down and trees toppled. Anxiety kept her awake half the night, but towards dawn the winds died down and she fell into a deep sleep, only to be awoken by the shrilling of the telephone.
Ross moaned something and rolled over to pick up the phone. Sleepily, half believing she was still dreaming, Dylan heard him groan.
‘You’re kidding? Completely blocked? Yes, we’ll have to deal with that at once. Of course. I’ll be there. Okay, Alan. See you in half an hour.’
‘What’s wrong?’ Dylan asked, struggling up in the warm bed as he hung up and started to get out of bed.
‘The storm brought down half a dozen trees in Alan’s section of the forest. A couple of them have blocked a road, and people are having to make a big detour. The police rang Alan, asking him to get the road cleared as soon as possible. He can’t do it on his own; he’ll need help. Sorry, darling. I had hoped we could go out somewhere today, but we’ll have to put that off until tomorrow. I may be busy most of the day.’
She tried to hide her disappointment ‘Oh, well, maybe we could do something special tomorrow! I’ll get up and make your breakfast.’
‘No, don’t bother, darling. I’ll just have a cup of tea and a piece of toast.’ He gathered up his clothes and went off to the bathroom, telling her, ‘You stay in bed. Try to get some more sleep.’
That was impossible, of course! she lay listening to the sound of the shower, then a few moments later his quiet footsteps on the stairs, the muted movements in the kitchen. She was still wide awake when Ross left. Dylan heard the front door close quietly, the engine of his four-wheel drive start up, then the sound of him driving away, fast.
For another half an hour she lay listening to the empty house; clocks ticked, floorboards creaked, electricity hummed, but she was all alone. Gulls pattered on the roof; they must have flown inland to escape the storm. In a line of thornbeams at the back of the garden rooks sat on their rough nest, squawking and arguing.
Further away, she heard the rustling and whispering of the forest; the wind had died down but it was still blowing among the branches.
The house was immaculate. She had nothing to do and all day to do it in, alone. Turning over, sobbing, she longed for London, for streets noisy with traffic and people, for the comfort and reassurance of being surrounded by others.
She would have liked to ring her sister, but Jenny would think she was nagging for Phil to go to London and collect her car, and Dylan didn’t want her to feel pressured. Saturday was a family day—they all did things together, went shopping, went to the library, had lunch out at some favourite country pub, took the kids cycling on safe country roads, went sailing or walking. So Phil would probably be bringing her car tomorrow.
Dylan wished, though, that he was coming today—bringing Jenny and the kids with him. That would have been something to look forward to; it would have brightened the whole weekend.
Sighing, she got out of bed and began the usual dull routine of showering, dressing in jeans and a shirt, tidying the bedroom, collecting the clothes she and Ross had worn yesterday, taking them downstairs to go into the washing machine. Within half an hour she had eaten breakfast and finished tidying the already tidy house, so she went out into the garden to deal with the ravages of the night.
The wind had wreaked havoc—torn flowers off stalks, flung twigs and leaves all over the lawns, ruined young lettuce, broken the stems of sweet peas and runner beans. The garden was a sad sight. She spent part of the morning working out there, staking and pruning and raking up leaves and wrecked plants to put on the compost heap.
When she had finished she went back indoors to wash, flushed, with aching muscles. That was the hardest physical work she had done since she’d left the ballet company and she’d enjoyed it. As always, it had changed her mood; she felt more positive, less weepy. Amazing the chemical changes in you brought about by working your body!
Just as she was going upstairs to shower and change she heard the sound of a car engine slowing, stopping, right outside the garden gate. A door slammed, the gate creaked, there were footsteps on the path. Dylan’s heart leapt—it must be Ross, home earlier than he had feared!
She jumped back down the stairs, ran to open the door, ready to fling her arms round him, but it was not Ross standing there. Her entire body jerked in shock, as if she had touched a live wire.
CHAPTER THREE
‘MICHAEL!’ She was so overjoyed to see him that she flung her arms round him impulsively. People in their world were casually affectionate, although she and Michael had never been very demonstrative. He wasn’t that sort of man. There was a deep well of reserve inside him; he guarded his mind and heart from casual eyes and even Dylan had never been entirely sure what he was hiding, only that Michael kept his secrets, even from her.
As their bodies met in close, warm contact she abruptly became aware that this was a man she was holding, not some sexless body she had known most of her adult life.
Shock jabbed into her. She hurriedly began pulling away, but Michael caught her face, framing it between his hands, palms against her flushed cheeks pressing in on the high bones, the smooth, silky skin.
Shaken to her roots, she stared up into his hard grey eyes.
‘Missing us already, you are? What did I tell you?’ His voice was deep with anger, satisfaction, triumph, or perhaps all three. ‘I knew you’d be lost away from us. You made a stupid mistake when you married this guy. You don’t belong with someone like him.’ He stared deep into her eyes and she helplessly leaned on him, like someone paralysed.
In a wail she protested, ‘I love him, Michael!’
‘You mean you wanted to go to bed with him! Was that worth ruining your life for? Why didn’t you just spend a couple of weeks having sex with him all day until you were bored with it?’
Was that really how he saw love? Did it mean nothing to him but a drive to sate a passing lust? The idea horrified her. Ross was so much more than just a body she desired; he was the only man she had ever met who really meant anything to her.
‘Love isn’t just sex, Michael!’ she protested. ‘That may be all you think about, all you need—but for a woman love means a whole lot more than that. I want to share his life, have his children, be with him all the time.’
His blond head lifted: he flicked a glance past her into the house, raising his brows. ‘Oh? So where is he now?’
‘At work,’ she reluctantly admitted.
‘On a Saturday?’ Michael’s tone was sardonic, his face full of mockery, and her flush deepened.
‘There were storms last night; some trees came down—he has to clear a blocked road. He’s responsible for a wide area of the forest here; he deals with every aspect of it, from planting to fighting fires. He doesn’t do a nine to five office job, you know. His work is far more important than that.’
Michael studied her serious face, his own ironic. ‘And how long will Mr Wonderful be working today?’
‘How can he tell? It all depends how long it takes to clear the road,’ she said absently. She had started to think now that her original shock had died away. ‘Michael, what are you doing here? Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?’
‘I brought your car up here for you.’
‘What?’ She looked past him in surprise. She hadn’t noticed the car until now, although how on earth she could have managed to miss it she had no idea! It was parked right outside, the big, multi-coloured tropical flowers glowing as if they were real in the fitful sunlight! You wouldn’t think she could fail to see them, now would you?
‘My flower wagon! Oh, thank you, Michael!’ She ran down the path and walked round the little car, stroking the bonnet, delighted to have it back again. ‘
It will make life a lot easier,’ she told Michael, who had joined her. ‘It’s quite a walk to the village, and I can’t go further afield unless Ross drives me. The buses take for ever and there’s only one a day to Carlisle. So I’d be lost without a car.’
Michael’s mouth twisted wryly as he stared at the landscape: the green forest stretching on and on, the road, the grey/blue sky. No houses, no break in the endless trees.
‘How are you going to stand it here? It would drive me out of my mind in twenty-four hours. Give me city life any time. You’re a city girl, Dylan—what on earth are you going to do with yourself up here? Especially if that husband of yours is out at work all the time!’
It was a question she had been turning over ever since she’d first arrived here and realised for the first time how remote and empty the landscape was. The lack of neighbours, the loneliness, all compounded by the fact that Ross was going to leave her alone for many hours every day.
But she wasn’t going to admit all that to Michael. An instinct told her not to betray anything to him that might give him the idea that she was not radiantly happy with Ross.
Turning away, she walked back up to the front door, Michael following her without hurrying. She didn’t look in his direction but she couldn’t help noticing the way he walked—with panther-like grace, flowing movements that held both elegance and a disturbing hint of threat. He wasn’t that much taller than her, yet his lean, supple body was held as taut as a stretched wire, making him seem tall. Why had she never noticed any of that before? Or had custom hidden his masculinity from her during their long partnership?
‘Oh, I have lots to do every day,’ she flung over her shoulder, glad he couldn’t see her face as she spoke; Michael had always been able to read her expressions. ‘The house, the garden...I’ve discovered a real interest in gardening.’
‘So I see,’ he drawled. ‘You carry quite a bit of it around with you, too!’
Dylan darted into the hall and surveyed herself in the mirror hanging just inside the door. Streaks of mud ran down one cheek, decorated the tip of her small nose.
She began to laugh. ‘Don’t I look a sight! You should have told me! I must have brushed a muddy hand across my face.’ She looked down at her hands, grimacing. ‘Yes, that must be it.’
Michael closed the front door and suddenly Dylan became very aware that they were alone in the house. A frisson ran down her spine, worrying her. How many times had she been alone with him over the years since they first met—in his flat or her own, in dressing rooms, on a bare stage, in rehearsal rooms? She had never been conscious of being alone with him before. What was the matter with her?
Had he really changed? In such a short time? She tried to remember how he had looked last time they met, but there was a blankness in her memory, as if Michael was just an outline, a cut-out shape with nothing solid inside it.
Had she simply stopped looking at him years ago? Yes, maybe. And all that time he had been changing, developing... Well, for a start, how long had he been this powerful? They had met when they were scarcely out of their teens. She still remembered him as he had been then, a skinny, slightly built boy with a mass of soft fair hair and light grey eyes. That boy had gone for ever. Now, under his white shirt, she saw the ripple of chest and arm muscles; his shoulders were wider, his blue jeans were moulded to strong thighs and calves. She was looking at a tough, hard-boned, disconcertingly physical man.
Huskily, strangely nervous, she said, ‘Phil was going to collect my car.’
‘I know. Your sister wrote to me, sending a selection of wedding photos. She mentioned that Phil was going to be coming to London to pick up your car, so I rang her and offered to drive it up here.’ Michael wandered away as he spoke, exploring the ground floor of the house, looking into rooms curiously. ‘Not exactly stylish decor, is it?’
She couldn’t deny it; the house was a square, modern box, built of grey stone, with a slate-tiled roof. Neat enough, but it had been decorated by a previous tenant in a muted style which showed little imagination or invention. The colours of the rooms were safe, pale pastels, the ceilings white, the carpets dull blue or green, the curtains matching them.
Defensive against any criticism he made of her new life, she told him, ‘We’re going to redecorate when we get time.’
‘Time is something you’ll have plenty of now, Dylan!’
The sarcasm made her wince. It was painfully undeniable. If there was one thing she had plenty of it was time.
The opposite had been true most of her life—she had lived by clocks, running from bed to rehearsal, to costume fittings, to performance and so back to sleep. Never enough time, never a moment to relax. It had been a terrible strain, one she had begun to yearn to end. She had ached for another way of life—for lazy mornings in bed, a light-hearted drift through the day, long lunches, sunny afternoons on a lounger in a garden, an endless holiday.
Now suddenly she had time and very little to fill it with, and she was appalled at the prospect of life being the same for ever and ever, amen. She found she couldn’t sleep late; she had been trained to get up early and she still did so. Long lunches were out because she had nowhere to lunch and nobody to lunch with. Lounging around in the garden soon palled, which was why she had started gardening. She was lonely and hadn’t enough to do, but she couldn’t admit that to Michael.
She said huskily, ‘I expect I’ll soon make a start on the house, but I want to settle in first. It was kind of you, but you didn’t have to come all this way just to deliver my car. How will you get back? You know you hate travelling by train.’
She hoped he wasn’t expecting her to offer him a room for the night. Ross would be furious if he got back to find Michael staying with them. He would welcome any other friend of hers, but never Michael.
His grey eyes held a spark of derision, as if he had read her thoughts and mocked her.
‘Trying to get rid of me already, Dylan?’
‘No, of course not,’ she stammered, very pink.
‘Don’t worry, I’m dancing on Monday. I have to get back. I’ve already arranged to hire a car from a national firm with offices in Carlisle. I’m to deliver it back to their nearest London branch.’
‘I might have known you’d work out a solution.’
‘Yes, you might I always do work out solutions to my problems.’
The hair stood up on the nape of her neck. What did he mean by that? She didn’t like the look in his grey eyes. Michael was tricky and devious. He was planning something—but what? It was something to do with her, that she was sure about.
‘Will you drive me to pick up the hire car this afternoon? ’
‘Of course—Carlisle, did you say?’ How could she refuse after he had gone to so much trouble to deliver her car to her.
‘Yes. I looked at the map this morning and realised how easy it would be to visit Hadrian’s Wall on the way to Carlisle. I’d like to take a look at it en route, if that’s okay with you? Have you been there yet?’
She shook her head. ‘Ross is going to take me when...’
‘When he has time,’ Michael drily concluded for her, and she flushed.
‘Well, he is very busy.’ She resented his constant sniping, but she didn’t want to have a row with him so she walked away, into the kitchen. ‘I’ll make some coffee—can I get you something to eat?’
‘I had some fruit for breakfast, thanks, at the hotel I stayed at en route. You know I never eat anything more than that for breakfast. I thought we’d stop for a salad lunch at a pub somewhere on the road to Carlisle.’ He looked her up and down, his mouth curling. ‘Run up and wash and change—you can’t go anywhere in those muddy jeans! I’ll make the coffee while you do that. I’ll soon find out where everything is, and I always did make better coffee than you.’
She laughed, suddenly light-hearted at the memory. ‘Okay, you did. Right. I won’t be long.’
In fact, she was relieved to get away for a few minutes. It would give her a ch
ance to recover her balance after the shock of seeing him on her doorstep out of the blue, and her strange, unexpected reactions to being alone with him.
After stripping off her clothes, she stepped under the shower, hoping that cool water would bring her temperature down. Was the heat of her body due to the hard work she had done in the garden, or the way being close to Michael had made her feel?
But how had he made her feel? she asked herself uneasily. She had never fancied Michael; she didn’t fancy him now. Ross was the man she loved. Wasn’t she simply seeing Michael in this new, disturbing fashion because she and her whole world had changed, because she was not the same woman who had known him, worked with him every day for years?
During that time she had never really noticed Michael changing. He was her partner. Her friend. A familiar, accustomed face, an image imposed by long habit and time.
His body had been her other self, sexless, moving in perfect harmony with her, constantly touching, always to be relied upon. Michael could lift her as if she was weightless, swirl her round in the air with one hand like a doll, carry her effortlessly across a stage on his shoulder.
Of course she saw him differently now because she was looking at him from a new angle, from outside, like everyone else. Michael was still the same man she had worked with all those years, but she was not a dancer any more. She was a member of the audience now—a woman looking in at his world and dazzled by the glamour, the bright lights, by Michael Carossi’s potent image, the charismatic mask of the persona he had developed over the years they’d worked together, the incredible beauty of his body.
Drawing a startled, shaken breath, Dylan stood still under the jets of water, transfixed. How had she been blind to that beauty until now? When they’d been working on that last ballet together, where all they each wore was a body-stocking covering but not concealing them from head to toe, how had she been unaffected? When they’d sensuously twined, body to body, every inch of them in contact, like snakes in a sexual knot?
Eyes tightly shut, she turned the temperature control back to cold and gasped as icy water hit her skin. It was a drastic way to break up those images, but she had to do something to cool down her overheated imagination.
The Yuletide Child Page 4