Grace smiled, though inwardly, Sarah’s attitude fascinated her. She really had no problem with her live-in boyfriend paying the expenses or with working a boring job to pass the time? “Do you have any hobbies?”
Sarah leaned forward, a conspiratorial look on her face. “I tap-dance.”
“You … tap-dance?”
“I do. It’s brilliant fun, even if I have two left feet at times. You should try it, Grace. You might like it.”
“Well, I—” She glanced at Ian, who was watching them with an amused look. Clearly he wanted to see how she’d get out of this gracefully. “Why not? Maybe it would be fun.”
Chris and Ian exchanged a look, then simultaneously burst out laughing.
“What?” Grace and Sarah demanded in unison, which only made them laugh harder.
“Sorry,” Ian said. “The idea of you in tights and tap shoes with little bows on them—”
Sarah gave the men a mock scowl. “Philistines. No appreciation for the arts.”
“The arts?” Chris choked out, spurring on another round of laughter and earning him an elbow in the side from Sarah.
Grace settled back in her chair, her grin making her cheeks ache. Chris and Sarah were good-natured, fun-loving people. Normal people. Their easy inclusion of her made her heart swell. Ian slipped an arm around her and pressed a quick kiss to the top of her head, which only added to the warm feeling in her chest.
“But really, Grace, tell us about your work. It must be fascinating.” Sarah seemed enthralled by the very idea of her career.
“It’s not nearly as glamorous as it sounds,” Grace said, shaking her head. “I spend loads of time bored in a hotel waiting for something to happen.”
“Go on,” Ian murmured, giving her a little nudge. Their expectant looks said she wasn’t getting out of it anytime soon.
For every bad memory she had, there was at least one that was good, like the story she’d been telling Ian at the Basque pop-up restaurant. Her experiences sounded exciting and breathless in the retelling, even when in reality they had been boring or terrifying. She told stories of interviewing and photographing families while local militia were pounding down doors in villages. Going inside modern-day harems, where no men would ever be allowed. And then she decided to tell them a story she’d not told anyone.
“Syria, about three years ago. Usually, journalists are careful not to go out early in the morning, because that’s when most kidnappings happen.”
“Why early morning?” Chris asked.
“Easiest time to grab someone off the street, and there’s less chance of getting stuck in traffic on the getaway.”
“Really,” Ian murmured. “I wouldn’t have thought.”
“Mostly they’re opportunists looking for ransom,” Grace said. “Until recently there were more kidnappings for money and political bargaining power than ideological statements. So on this particular day, I had a meeting with a source a little earlier than I’d usually be out. But things had been quiet, and my fixer had gone to quite a bit of trouble to set it up.”
Grace fell silent for a moment, her heart thudding heavily as she recalled that particular morning. “It’s not required or even common for women to cover their heads in Syria, especially not Damascus. But I’d been warned that my contact was an older Muslim who might be offended by my short hair, so I’d decided to wear a hijab for the meeting.
“I was walking out of the hotel, where my driver was parked down the street. I was halfway to the car when one of the pins popped out of the fabric and fell onto the pavement. When I bent over to pick it up, I saw another car pull up at the curb behind me, and two men jumped out of the backseat.”
“What did you do?” Sarah asked, her eyes wide.
“I ran. And they ran. Just before I reached the door of the hotel, one of them caught up to me and grabbed me.” She paused. “All he caught was the loose hijab—which wouldn’t have been loose had I not lost the pin—and I got away.”
“That’s some story,” Ian said, his tone low. He squeezed her hand under the table.
“The thing is, I’ve pinned a head scarf hundreds of times. There’s no reason that pin should have come out on its own. The only thing I can think is that God intervened directly.”
“Couldn’t it have been a coincidence?” Chris asked.
“Maybe. I never made it to my appointment, and the next day bombs started going off around the city. Where would I have been if I’d been kidnapped? I’ll never know. But it’s enough that I believe God saved me.”
The food arrived at the table, pulling everyone out of the story.
“Either way, it’s a bloody good yarn, Grace.” Chris lifted a glass to her, clearly not convinced. But from the way Sarah watched her, Grace could tell she was mulling the possibilities.
Her heart still thumping from the recollection, Grace reached for the bowl of rice. She’d not been paying attention to what they’d ordered beyond her tandoori masala, so as the conversation turned to other topics, she spooned a little of each dish onto her plate.
Lamb vindaloo, she decided when she tasted the first one. The tandoori masala was unmistakable. But when she tasted the third one, she froze. “What is this?”
Ian peered at her plate. “That’s the karahi beef. It’s—”
“Pakistani, I know.”
“You don’t like it? I’ll eat yours if you don’t.”
Grace couldn’t answer. Her heart, which had already been beating hard from the adrenaline of her memories, felt as if it would burst out of her chest. Sweat broke out on her forehead. She set her fork down firmly before they could notice her hands were shaking. “Will you excuse me for a moment?”
She threw her napkin on the table and raced to the toilet cubicle at the front of the restaurant. It took all her control not to slam the door behind her, but she managed to shut and lock it before the trembling in her knees got too bad to stay upright.
She collapsed on the stool by the little tower holding toilet tissue and air freshener. It was good that she noticed that. Usually if she were heading for a flashback, she wouldn’t notice anything but the narrowing of her vision.
A run-of-the-mill panic attack, then.
She pushed herself up from the stool, flicked the faucet on, then splashed cold water on her face. She’d never had food trigger an episode. This was new.
Maybe she should have expected it. The last time she’d had that dish had been in the home of a Christian Pakistani family, one of the many families in Peshawar who feared for their lives, one of the few who would talk to a Western female journalist and her entourage. They’d been kind and talkative, their daughter fascinated by her camera, the two younger sons playing in the back room. None of them knowing in twenty-four hours, they would be dead.
Because of their hospitality. Because of Grace.
A sob escaped from her lips as she bent over the sink, tears dropping into the swirl of water down the drain. She desperately tried to get control of her breathing, but her lungs got tighter and tighter the more she fought against it.
Dead. All dead. God, why had it happened that way? Why had she pushed? Even worse, she had taken the photos. Afterward. Like a vulture, picking over the remains of people who had been kind to her.
A knock shuddered the door. “Grace? Are you all right?”
She jerked upright and wiped her face with her sleeve. Ian. “I’m fine. Give me a minute.”
“Grace, open the door.”
He was going to draw attention to them with all the noise he was making. She disengaged the lock, then moved back, dragging her wrist across her eyes. Ian stepped inside.
“What’s going on, Grace?” He took in her tearstained face and her trembling body and seemed to put it together. His expression shifted, and he opened his arms.
She stepped into them without hesitation. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, his hands stroking her hair while she sobbed. When her tears subsided, he whispered, “I’m sorry, s
weetheart. If I’d have known—”
“You couldn’t. How could you have?” She pulled away. A quick glance in the mirror showed the wreckage of her mascara. “I’m so sorry, Ian. I’ve ruined the evening.”
“You haven’t ruined anything. Though the longer we stay in here together, the more speculation there’ll be about what we’re doing.”
Grace choked on a watery laugh. “You’re awful.”
His smile faded. “Do you want to beg off the film and go home instead?”
He was serious. She thought about it for a moment and then shook her head. “Let’s go anyway. It will be a good distraction.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. I … I’m terribly sorry. It doesn’t happen often, but I can’t control it when it does.”
“Shh, I know. It’s not your fault.” He took her face in his hands and wiped away a smudge of mascara with his thumb. “What do you want me to do?”
“Just … go back out and smooth things over?”
“Done.” He leaned down to place a gentle kiss on her mouth, then turned toward the door. “Take your time.”
Grace drew a breath and put herself back together the best she could. Cold water to take down the puffiness in her eyes. Tissues to erase the mascara stains. A little lip gloss—well, that didn’t help much of anything. She still looked as if she’d had a meltdown in a public toilet, but there was nothing to be done about that except steel herself against the embarrassment and go out.
When she returned to the table, Ian and his friends were chatting while they finished their food. Grace’s plate had been removed, along with the offending dish. She looked at Ian in surprise, but he gave her a reassuring smile.
“Grace, we’re sorry,” Sarah said. “We wouldn’t have pushed if we’d known.”
“No apologies necessary, please. What am I missing?”
“Chris and I were just talking about the time we bet part of the squad they wouldn’t strip down on the side of the road—and then we drove off without them.” Ian grinned at his mate across the table. “I still remember them running after the van in the snow, bare as the way they entered the world.”
“Freshers never have any idea what they’re in for,” Chris said, barely getting out the words before he dissolved into laughter again.
“It’s a good thing these two grew up a bit in the last twenty years,” Sarah said, but she seemed just as amused.
“Marginally.” Ian winked at Grace, but underneath the table, he gripped her hand hard. She squeezed back gratefully.
They kept the topics light—mostly stories of their misdeeds, to which Grace could add a few Sarah had never heard—but through it all, Ian held her hand. Strong, steady, reassuring. He let her go only long enough to pay the bill, and then they were back out on the street.
He held her back in the swiftly deepening twilight. “Are you sure you don’t want to call it a night?”
“No. I like Chris and Sarah. It’ll be fine.”
Ian squeezed her shoulder, letting his thumb brush her neck for a moment, then gave a nod. She drew a deep breath of gratitude and plunged into the crowd beside him, trying to keep Chris’s blond head in sight over the other pedestrians.
Even on a weeknight, Piccadilly Circus was glutted with people—tourists with cameras capturing the neon lights and swiftly changing signage; locals pushing through without irritation or concern on their way to their destinations; the babble of voices in a dozen languages melding with buskers and boom boxes and car horns. Ian threaded a path for them through the crowd with one hand firmly on her waist, shifting himself to block her from the occasional drunken reveler or clueless holiday-goer. He was almost too good to be true. Chivalrous, sensitive, understanding. How long had it been since someone had taken the trouble to look after her? Not because he thought she needed it—he’d made it clear that he knew she could take care of herself—but because he actually cared about her?
For that matter, how long had it been since she’d truly cared about someone in return?
Her insides gave a clench, twisting up her heart and lungs all at once and forcing the thrum of her blood into her ears. She only realized she’d stopped when Ian slowed and cast a puzzled look in her direction. “Grace?”
“I think I love you,” she murmured.
He frowned, then bent down so he could hear her. “What did you say? It’s too loud.”
“I said, I think I love you.”
He jerked back. “In Piccadilly Circus?”
“No, everywhere.” A smile burst onto her face, a new lightness bubbling up inside. “In Piccadilly Circus. In Earl’s Court. I suspect I would feel the same way in Scotland, though we’ll have to test that theory.”
His expression rippled from consternation to pleasure as he processed what she was saying. At last it settled on something she could only name as joy. He took her face in his hands and kissed her hard, stealing her breath with the intensity of his reaction. And then his kiss gentled, exploring as if they had all the time in the world, as if they weren’t standing in the middle of a crowded public space. The jostling of bodies around them only forced them closer together, and he wrapped his arms around her as if to shield her again from the crowd. From her memories. And for that moment, pressed as close to him as they could possibly get, she actually believed he could do it.
When he lifted his lips from hers, he didn’t release her. He moved his mouth to her ear and whispered, “I feel like I’ve been waiting my entire life to hear that, Grace. I love you too. I’ve not said anything because I didn’t want to frighten you away.”
She stretched on tiptoes to kiss him again. “I’m here. And I’m staying.” She looked around. “And we’ve lost your friends because of that extremely impressive PDA.”
Ian smiled at her and kissed her one last time. “Not really thinking about them right now. Besides, we’ll catch up with them at the cinema.”
But they barely made it more than a half-dozen steps through the square before running into Chris and Sarah, who were grinning like mad fools.
“Get distracted?” Sarah asked.
“You saw that, did you?” Ian said.
“Well, Chris did. I’m too short.” Sarah looked between the two of them, eyebrows raised. “Are we on to the cinema then, or do you want to take a rain check?”
Grace looked up at Ian, trying to gauge his reaction. All the emotion and adrenaline rushing through her made it hard to concentrate. “No, I’ve been looking forward to the film. We should go.”
They fell back in together toward the cinema, its facade illuminated with neon strip lighting. Grace barely noticed when Ian bought their tickets or when they found their way to their designated screen. When they settled into their seats, Grace was thankful to be on one end beside Ian so she didn’t have to make small talk with Chris or Sarah. She wasn’t sure she was capable of it.
The film slipped by without penetrating her brain while she turned around what she’d said over and over in her mind. She had told Ian she loved him. And he loved her too. This should have made her panicky and unsettled. She should have been questioning whether it was the emotion of her earlier episode, the catharsis of the unaccustomed tears that had made her say it. But even she couldn’t find it in herself to tear apart and overanalyze what had just happened.
She’d told him she loved him, that she was staying. And she meant it.
Sarah and Chris said something about heading to a club for live music, but Ian begged off, for which Grace was grateful. She’d not seen any of the film, and from the way Ian had periodically brought her hand to his lips, he hadn’t been any more focused on the screen than she had.
They climbed into a black cab just after eleven, where he immediately reclaimed her hand. “So. Did the night turn out all right after all?”
“You know it did.” She smiled at him in the dark. “I’ve always liked Chris. And Sarah is delightful.”
“I thought you’d like her. And she doesn’t inv
ite just anyone to tap-dance, you know. She liked you.”
Grace threw him a doubtful look. “Maybe before I had my meltdown.”
“Chris’s brother is in the military. He understands. Believe me, no one is thinking anything about it. Other than thinking you’re amazing and brave.”
“You’re biased.”
“That I am.” He slid an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side. She leaned against him and let out a long sigh.
Ten years after she left him, she still loved him and he still loved her.
What now?
“Stop thinking,” he whispered in her ear, nuzzling her neck for a second. “We don’t have to make any decisions tonight.”
She let out a low laugh. He’d never struck her as particularly perceptive, but in this, he had her bang to rights. Had their roles reversed so much? He was the planner. She was the free spirit. He’d had his life laid out in front of him practically since birth, even if he’d refused to follow the script for a while. She was a drifter in all senses of the word. And yet there was a beautiful symmetry in the idea of one day at a time.
When at last the taxi dropped them at the curb, he leaned forward to pay the driver, then followed her into the building to Asha’s flat. Grace unlocked the door, suddenly nervous. She turned to him. “Ian—”
The look on his face obliterated whatever she had been about to say. As if of one mind, they closed the space between them in a crushing embrace, lips finding lips, drinking in each other in a mad rush of emotion and desire. Her back hit the door without her fully registering it—she was too focused on his fingers digging into her hips, his mouth devouring hers. She groped behind her for the knob, and they practically fell through the doorway, breaking contact only long enough to slam it behind them.
“Grace,” he murmured as his lips left hers to travel along her neck. She raked her hands through his hair. This she remembered. This never changed. All the pent-up emotion of the night bubbled to the surface, screaming for release.
And then the reality of what that meant washed over her. “Wait,” she whispered. “Ian, stop.”
London Tides: A Novel (The MacDonald Family Trilogy Book 2) Page 15