Out of Sight Out of Mind (Choc Lit)

by Wareham, Evonne

  ‘Hearing about Neil like that,’ he said urgently. ‘It had to be a shock. But you are not to blame. He was a professional. He was trained. The risks were part of his job. And your parents – how can that have anything to do with you?’

  For a second, her eyes were pools of pure anguish. Then he saw the blankness close over them, like a curtain. Her hand was tangled in the chain at her neck. ‘Careful. You’ll break it.’

  ‘What?’ She looked down. ‘Oh.’ She uncoiled her fingers.

  ‘You always do that, when you’re upset.’

  ‘I suppose I do.’ She squinted down at the necklace. ‘It was the last birthday present my parents gave me.’

  He could feel her body relaxing into the warmth of the dwindling fire. The panic seemed to have left her, but her face was pinched and exhausted. He stood, pulling her to her feet. ‘I think you should go to bed. Get some rest.’

  Madison woke in the dark. Automatically she reached out for Jay. Her hand hit cold sheets. She dragged herself on to one elbow. Jay’s side of the bed was empty. She pushed her hair out of her face and fumbled for the clock. 2.30 a.m.

  He was asleep on the sofa in front of the ruin of the fire. The pillow and the blanket, which was tangled around his legs, told their own tale. Madison stood for a while, taking in the lean length of his body, feeling something stir. He’d kicked his shoes into a heap on the rug, but otherwise he was fully dressed. One arm was flung above his head. His shirt had parted from his jeans. A smooth stretch of abdomen was on display, with an arrow of hair delving under the waistband.

  She reached down and kissed his cheek. Stubble – and tension in her belly and across her breasts. His eyelids opened reluctantly, then he was up and on his feet in one movement.

  ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She put her hand on his belt. ‘Why are you sleeping down here?’

  ‘I … I didn’t know whether you’d want—’ He stopped. His eyes went dark as he studied her face.

  ‘I want.’ She put up her arms and pulled his mouth down to hers. ‘Come to bed.’

  They clung together, two shapes in the darkness. No sight, just sensation. Skin against skin, breath, urgency. Madison prowled Jay’s body, mouth avid, gasping as he flipped her on to her back and pinned her wrists. She writhed under him as he drove into her with one single, deep thrust. His mouth was on hers, swallowing speech, swallowing everything.

  She shattered in the dark, dragging him down with her.

  Jay put his hand against the bathroom wall. The plaster was rough under his fingers. Madison was sleeping. He’d come in here to think. She’d trusted him with her body, with a fervent hunger that had robbed him of breath, for which he was monumentally thankful, but she still hadn’t let him anywhere near her mind.

  In twenty-four hours they’d be back in London, and the machinery would be in motion.

  He looked across the hall, at the closed door of the bedroom. Would Madison surrender her defences to him, when the time came?

  Chapter Thirty

  When he got back to the bedroom there was a hint of light seeping around the edge of the curtains. Madison was awake, and sitting up. She pulled back the duvet, welcoming him. He held out his arms, but when she shook her head he settled down with his hands folded behind his neck. She’d found a nightdress to put on. Long and white, with lace at the neck. Demure, but sheer enough that a man wouldn’t give up all hope. He studied her profile. It didn’t look like they were going back to sleep.

  ‘Something on your mind?’ he asked at last.

  ‘Curiosity.’ She looked at him, over her shoulder. ‘I was wondering. How did you get to be the Jayston Creed?’

  ‘My past, you mean?’ He laughed, thankfulness flowing through him at the easiness in her voice. ‘You might not believe it, but it was all an accident.’

  That had her attention. She turned round, face alight now with interest. ‘Go on then, tell me,’ she ordered.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Accepting that they were going to talk, rather than make love, he made himself comfortable, punching the pillow. ‘Jayston Creed, the authorised biography. The first bit is boringly, and I mean boringly, ordinary. Born 36 years ago, in Nottingham, although we later moved to London, father a GP, mother a teacher. It was always assumed that I’d follow my father in being a doctor.’ He shrugged. ‘I wasn’t really sure about it, but there wasn’t anything else I wanted to do more, so I started in medical school. Mum had died six months before, from cancer. Dad – he just lost it, after she was gone. I don’t know … maybe because he’d felt powerless to help her? He was drinking and he had a fall in the garden. Fractured his skull. A neighbour found him. That was just before Christmas, in my second year. I don’t have any other family. A couple of distant cousins, in Australia, but I’ve never met them. After my second year, there was an exchange programme with a place in the States. It was a chance for a complete break, so I applied. And that’s where it all started. Pause here for ominous music.’

  Madison’s brows rose in surprise. ‘Not before? Nothing when you were a child?’

  ‘No.’ He passed on the interesting avenue her remark opened up. They could explore that later. At the moment this was about satisfying Madison’s curiosity, not his.

  He rolled over, smothering a grin when he saw the flick of impatience cross Madison’s face. Better get on, before she decided he needed some encouragement. Uh-oh, too late.

  He caught her hand and squeezed it when she reached out to prod him. She gave him an indignant stare. If he knew what was good for him, he’d get on with the story.

  ‘Like I said, it was an accident. Literally. I was trying to teach a couple of basketball players the finer points of cricket, the ball went where it shouldn’t and I was knocked out. When I woke up three days later, in hospital, there it all was.’

  He shifted position, to prop himself up on his elbow. ‘It was the most terrifying moment of my life. I was twenty-one years old, in hospital, with a killer headache, and I could hear what everyone else was thinking.’ He stopped; the desolate chill of memory rode over his skin, and then was gone. The warmth of Madison’s presence could make anything right. God, you can’t lose this woman.

  ‘Thinking?’ She jerked him back to the present. She’d leaned forward to study him. He had to resist the impulse to pull her closer. There was real confusion in her voice.

  ‘More or less. It wasn’t organised, just coming at me in waves. I was petrified, afraid I was going mad. I could have ended up in a psychiatric unit, but there was this doctor—’ Another chill at a might-have-been. If he’d woken in another hospital—

  Jay shook off the memory of horror. It hadn’t happened. ‘He realised what was going on. It turned out he had a little power himself. He was part of this loose arrangement, a kind of informal academy of other like-minded medicos. He pointed me at one of them, the one best able to help me make sense of what I’d become. Once I was discharged from hospital, the academy took over. They taught me to control things, how to use the power and how to scale down the volume and tune out, except when I needed it. You know what it’s like – totally exhausting, if you don’t control it. You only really make sense of stuff when you learn to focus, and once you do – well, you know how much concentration that takes. One-to-one, and close up. It’s a darn sight easier with you, of course, because the patterns are there and we both know what we’re doing. When you’re not actively keeping me out, that is.’ He slanted her a look, getting a small nod in return ‘Yes, well – I had some great teachers. I learned fast. And that was that. I was one of them.’ This time he smiled at the recollection. ‘I have to tell you that they were a pretty eccentric bunch. Some of them were downright geeky. Most of them were conspiracy theorists, anti-establishment, rabidly anti-military – you can imagine. None of them treated me as if I’d landed from Mars, which was
the main thing as far as I was concerned. I finished my training in the States. I’d found out the kind of doctor I wanted to be.’

  ‘And that was the start of the Jayston Creed.’

  ‘Yes. Those people, they were doing some amazing things. A lot of them were working with the diseases of old age, dementia, stroke, a couple of the less geeky ones worked with the cops, doing something with trace energy at crime scenes. I never got a handle on that one. The medical side, it was all about amelioration and palliative work, helping people make the best of what they had left, after trauma – anger management, dealing with the effects of personality change, the sort of thing that goes with a disturbance in the brain. I was working with head-injury patients. I began to think that there could be more, that we might be able to get in there and do something more radical.’

  ‘I read some of the early papers, the ones where you started to develop the technique,’ Madison said.

  ‘Then you know that I found that I couldn’t do it alone. There wasn’t enough power, that’s the only way I can put it. So I started working with other adepts. Eddie Jones was one of them. When the mix-up in pictures happened we went along with it. Eddie liked the travelling and the glamour. All I was interested in was the work, plus I am absolutely crap at public speaking.’ He spread his hands. ‘What the hell – it worked. Alec Calver was my main assistant. He is seriously good, but even with him, there was something missing.’

  ‘That’s when you decided you needed a female collaborator?’

  Jay nodded. ‘You were one of the ones that I considered. I’d heard a little about you. But when I met Gina, I filed the rest of the list. It took us a couple of years to get the co-operative technique right between us. We were having some success, but it was much too soon to put it into action. Then Dan’s car ran into a tree …’ He covered his eyes. ‘The rest you know.’

  Madison turned towards him, drawing down his hand, and planting a kiss on the palm. He smiled.

  ‘Your turn,’ he suggested softly, watching her face.

  ‘The life and times of Madison Albi?’ Madison closed her eyes. Could she do this? Trust? Share? The answer came back to her, strong and clear. If there was ever going to be anything between her and Jay, then she had to.

  ‘With me – I’ve always had it. When I was a child, I didn’t really understand. I can remember things. When I was about six, being at a birthday party, knowing which gifts the other child really liked and which ones she absolutely hated, which of my fellow guests was getting overexcited and would be in a tantrum before the end of the day.’ She smiled, ruefully. ‘My parents played it down. Just a funny childhood quirk, like having an imaginary friend. By the time I was a teenager I could always tell what my friends were feeling. Not thinking, but emotions. Everyone said how I really understood them. They used to come to me with problems, like I was some sort of agony aunt. I didn’t have a clue about what they should do. Heaven knows what sort of advice I dished out. And then my parents were killed.’

  She sat still, remembering the urgent conversation with her father, the frightening things she’d learned. Another place where your world changed. She’d made promises that day. Promises she’d kept. It had been her fifteenth birthday. Two weeks later her parents were dead.

  Jay put his hand on her back, stroking up and down, comforting. Madison relaxed into his hold. ‘I went to live with my aunt. She worked for a place very similar to the facility I work at, but this was on the outskirts of Bristol. My parents never really wanted to acknowledge what I was. I think they hoped that it might just fade away. Perhaps things would have been different, if they’d lived … My father …’ She shrugged. ‘My aunt was the one who helped me make sense of it all.’ Helped a grief-stricken teen, with a freakish talent. ‘I decided I wanted to be normal, ordinary. I went to university, studied chemistry, and met Neil. We dated, off and on. When I graduated, I got myself a job with a pharmaceutical company. I tried to bury what I was, but it was still there. I wasn’t always good at resisting. I worked on a few projects with my aunt’s colleagues, contributed to a research paper or two. My aunt was like your geeks; she wouldn’t have any truck with the military or anything to do with weapons. With her it was the pure science.’

  Madison twisted around to face Jay. ‘When my aunt got cancer, I gave up work to nurse her. When she died, I wanted a fresh start. The offer of the job at the lab came out of the blue, through one of my aunt’s friends.’ She stopped, with a grimace. ‘That obviously wasn’t what I thought it was.’

  Secretly she’d been so proud to be asked. It had felt right, using her power to try and do some good – but it had all been part of someone else’s plan. To keep an eye on her. She shook off the melancholy reflection. She had accomplished things in her work. No one can take that away from you.

  ‘Neil had kept in touch,’ she went on, slowly. She wasn’t going to think about the reason for that, either. ‘He was living in London, but he came back most weekends. Things were getting serious between us. There was nothing to keep me in Bristol, so I accepted the job and moved to London. I turned my life around.’ She sighed. ‘Now I know it was all engineered: Neil, the job, everything.’

  ‘It doesn’t change your achievements,’ Jay said gently. ‘And Neil loved you. Craig was quite clear on that.’ He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, letting his fingers rest against her cheek. ‘You’re a very special woman, Madison Albi, and don’t let anyone tell you different.’

  She sank back, and rolled into his arms. There was comfort and strength there. She let herself savour it, turning her face into his shoulder. The words of the clairvoyant in the shop in Tenby murmured through her head – you will be strong for each other. ‘Do you really think we can do this?’

  He didn’t pretend to misunderstand her. ‘I don’t know, but I think together we have the best chance. I should never have got you into this, Madison. But now I have, I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather be with.’

  They lay together, just holding, for a while.

  Jay glanced towards the window. ‘It’s getting light. Our last day.’ The words hung between them. With an effort Madison shook off the whisper of fear. She smiled into his eyes.

  ‘What do you want to do today?’

  ‘Well if the sun shines, we could explore a castle. If it doesn’t—’ He looked down at her, speculatively. ‘We could stay here for the rest of the day.’

  ‘That is a decadent suggestion.’

  ‘I get very decadent around beautiful women. One beautiful woman,’ he amended hastily, catching the glint in her eye. He pulled her closer.

  The touch of his mouth heated her skin. Her lips trembled over a moan. She turned into him, letting go of it all – fear, promises, everything. There was only them, a man, a woman, in the sanctuary of a bed. No talk, only feeling.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Madison stood and watched as Jay reached into the car to pack the last of the luggage. The long, lean length of his back and legs, taut now as he stretched over the driver’s seat to toss something into the glove compartment, sent a frisson along her spine. She knew that body now, as intimately as she knew her own. In dark and daylight, by candle light, by starlight, she’d held, touched, tasted. Every inch of that tanned skin. And still she wanted him.

  Unaccountably, tears welled in her eyes. She turned away as he straightened up. The cottage was locked and secure. Already it had a closed-off, deserted look. She sucked in her cheeks, looking up at the blank windows and the tendrils of clematis spreading over the roof, the delicate pink blossom moving slowly in the fresh morning breeze.

  She might never come here again. Unless—

  The key to the front door bit into her palm as she curled her fingers around it. She had a brief, reckless impulse to throw it into the sea. Instead she put it carefully into her handbag. Just in case. When she turned around, Jay was leani
ng on the roof of the car, watching her

  ‘Last walk on the beach?’ he suggested, head tilted.

  ‘Why not?’

  He held out his hand. She took it and gripped tight.

  There were clouds scudding over the sky, some high and white and fluffy, others dark, low-flying ribbons, threatening rain. The sand went from warm gold to dank brown as a denser ribbon blocked out the sun. Madison held her breath until the cold shadow passed. They were making for the rock in the centre of the beach. They’d crept down here last night, to the flat surface that ran around the edge, and made love, hard and fast, before the incoming tide swept in. The sea hadn’t got them, but she’d nearly broken her neck afterwards, climbing the path in the dark.

  When they reached the rock Jay sat, drawing her down beside him. ‘You want to go over it, one last time?’

  ‘No.’ They’d looked at it from every angle, planned for everything they could. Faced all the consequences. ‘Not unless there’s a way to change what happens after.’ She knew the answer, but she still had to say it.

  ‘Not that I can see.’ He buried his hand in his hair. ‘I’ve tried.’ He shrugged, an uncharacteristically helpless gesture that went into her like a blade. ‘There isn’t any other way. We agreed—’

  ‘I know,’ she broke in. ‘It’s just that we do all that and then—’ Her voice trailed away. He understood. Why say it?

  He’d dropped his hand from his head and was looking out to sea.

  ‘Life doesn’t guarantee happy endings.’ He grinned at her, lopsided. ‘Hell, what are the odds that we even make it through the experiment?’