Secret Love

by Sue Welford

  Secret Love

  Sue Welford

  PIP

  POLLINGER IN PRINT

  Pollinger Limited

  9 Staple Inn

  Holborn

  LONDON

  WC1V 7QH

  www.pollingerltd.com

  First published by Scholastic 1996

  Large print edition published by Pollinger in Print 2006

  Ebook edition published by Pollinger in Print 2007

  Copyright © Sue Welford 1996

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  A CIP catalogue record is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-905665-53-2

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in

  a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or

  by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise,

  without prior written permission from Pollinger Limited

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  1

  Drew’s first sight of Cindy Raven hit him like a bolt from the blue. He was in the college car park with his best friend, Skip, when he saw her. They had just got there on Drew’s motorbike. Drew had taken off his crash helmet and was combing back his shock of thick, dark brown hair with his fingertips.

  Skip must have noticed her at the same time because he rolled his eyes and gave a low whistle. ‘Who’s that?’

  Drew was still standing with his mouth half open, staring at her. Her close fitting denim’s and white shirt might have looked ordinary on anyone else. But on this girl they looked a million dollars. There was something about the way she moved, the way she tossed back her mane of pale hair, that made Drew’s breath catch in his throat. She must have been just about the most gorgeous girl he’d ever seen. The man she was talking to was pointing in the direction of the business studies department. Drew saw flash of silver earrings as the girl nodded her thanks. Then, with a wave of her hand she hitched her bag up on her shoulder and made off in the direction of the west wing.

  Drew had the sudden, incredible urge to run after her. To find out who she was, where she came from. He must be going off his head.

  Skip was saying something else. ‘I’ve never seen her before. I reckon she must be new.’

  Drew tore his eyes away. He put his helmet in the box at the back of his bike and locked it up. He looked over again at the place where the girl had been standing. ‘Yes,’ he said in a dreamy voice. ‘She must be.’

  ‘You ever seen her before?’ Skip asked.

  Drew shook his head. ‘No... never,’ he murmured.

  ‘Well, once seen, never forgotten,’ Skip glanced at his watch. ‘Come on, old Tucker will go barmy if we’re late first day back.’

  ‘Right.’ Drew blinked and came to. It really wasn’t any good fantasising about a girl like that. Girls doing business studies never mixed with boys from engineering, everyone knew that. Anyway, it was pretty obvious this girl had class, real class. Those expensive looking clothes, her hair, her golden tan. Even her white plimsolls looked as if they came out of a fashion magazine. Certainly no-one like her would ever look at a guy with Drew Devlin’s background. A house on a council estate, a mum struggling to make ends meet, a father in prison for fraud... no way!

  The two friends hurried round to the engineering block. They were both in the second year of their mechanical engineering course.

  Mr Tucker, their instructor, known to everyone as Old Tucker, was standing by the workshop door.

  ‘Ah, Devlin and Smith,’ he said making them sound like a comedy duo. ‘Last in as usual.’

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ Skip, the class clown, made a mock salute. They both ran up the stairs two at a time and took their seats in class.

  Drew was glad when lunch time came. He hadn’t been able to concentrate on his work all morning. He had changed the plugs on a Ford Escort twice before he realised they hadn’t needed changing in the first place. Actually, he was supposed to be doing something else entirely but he couldn’t think what. All he could think about was the girl he had seen earlier on. He couldn’t get the picture of her out of his head. It was no good, he had to find out who she was.

  In the canteen, he caught sight of her again. He was just taking a bite of his cheese sandwich when she came through the door. She was with a crowd of other girls. They collected trays and went up to the counter. Drew’s eyes followed her every move. She selected a can of diet Coke and a couple of tuna sandwiches. She handed over her money to the cashier then stood by the till gazing round for somewhere to sit.

  ‘Hey, Cindy, over here,’ someone called.

  Drew’s heart thudded. So that was her name. It suited her. He would have felt strangely disappointed if she had been called something like Ann or Elizabeth. Somehow, Cindy was just right.

  Just at that moment, Skip spotted her too. She was heading their way.

  ‘Look, there’s that girl again! She’s really something, isn’t she.’

  Drew nudged him. ‘Hey, keep your voice down. She’ll hear.’

  Drew stared at Cindy as she came towards them. She held her tray up high to avoid colliding with people on the way. She had a loose, easy way of walking. A certain grace that belonged to people who’d had ballet lessons as a child. She was quite tall and slender as a willow.

  Her face broke into a smile as she got near Drew’s table. She seemed to be looking straight at him. She had a pair of the widest, deep blue eyes he had ever seen. Her face was tanned, no make-up apart from a touch of pale lipstick. She was even more gorgeous that he’d thought.

  Drew felt heat coming to his face. He couldn’t just sit there staring at her with his mouth open. She would think he was nuts. He lowered his head quickly and took a bite of his sandwich.

  When he looked up Cindy had gone right past. He caught a whiff of perfume. Light. Flowery. A smell that reminded him of summer. She had sat down behind. She hadn’t been smiling at him at all but at someone on the next table. He felt a bit of a fool and hoped she hadn’t seen him staring at her. The more he thought about it, the more he doubted if she had even noticed him sitting there at all, going red like complete idiot. In fact, he really hoped she hadn’t.

  He heard her say ‘thanks’ as someone pulled a chair out for her.

  Drew sighed. His heart was still thudding like mad. He ran his hand round his jaw. He wouldn’t have known what to say to her anyway. He would have just stammered something dumb like he always did. He’d been out with several girls but none of the relationships had lasted long. He just didn’t know what to say to them and that was that. In fact Drew was a pretty shy kind of guy. He’d always thought of himself as a bit of a loner, never one to follow the crowd. He was a lot happier messing around with engines or working out at the gym than he was around girls.

  Skip was giving him a knowing grin. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Drew mumbled. He screwed up his sandwich wrapper and crushed his Coke can in his hand.

  ‘Yes, there is.’ Skip looked at him shrewdly. ‘It’s that girl, you fancy her.’ He pushed his baseball cap to the back of his head. His spiky black hair popped out from underneath as if it was on a spring. ‘I’ll tell her if you like.’

  Skip reckoned if you wanted something you should go for it, no messing.

  Drew was more cautious. He usually thought about things a lot before he did them. He glowered at Skip from beneath his dark eyebrows. ‘Don’t you dare.’

  Skip grinned. ‘Just kidding. If you fancy her, why don’t you ask her out?’

  Drew shook his head. ‘She’d hard
ly look at me, would she?’

  Skip shrugged. ‘Oh, I don’t know. You’re not a bad looking guy.’ His friend eyed him up and down. ‘Tall... pretty good muscles. All that working out obviously does something other than make you sweat. Then there’s those sexy brown eyes...’

  Drew burst out laughing. ‘Come off it.’

  ‘Well, my sister fancies you.’

  Drew snorted, still grinning. ‘Yeah, but she’s only sixteen.’

  ‘True.’ Skip grinned back. ‘But have you seen her recently?’

  ‘Saw her last week round at your place.’

  ‘Yes, but have you seen her when she’s dolled up to go out?’

  Drew shrugged. ‘No, what of it?’

  ‘I reckon you’d be surprised,’ Skip said.

  Drew couldn’t imagine it somehow. OK, Marie was sixteen but he could still see her as that scrawny kid with freckles and glasses. He remembered he used to tease her about them all the time.

  ‘Anyway,’ Skip was saying. ‘That bike of yours gives you a certain...

  ‘Smell of oil?’ Drew raised his eyebrows. He spread his hand in front of him. ‘Greasy fingernails?’

  ‘No, girls like motorbikes. They think they’re macho.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t exactly noticed them queuing up.’

  ‘No... well...’ Skip shrugged. ‘You never know your luck. You could be just the guy she’s been waiting for.’

  Drew thought it was doubtful. He was a pretty good judge. Somehow he didn’t think this girl would consider his motorbike at all macho. By the look of her, some guy with loads of money and a flash sports car might be more her type. And as he didn’t have either, or was ever likely to have, he reckoned he may as well forget he’d ever set eyes on her.

  But Drew couldn’t forget her. All through the day he went about in a dream. He just couldn’t get her off of his mind. It really wasn’t like him at all. If he had seen a picture of a gleaming Harley in a magazine and kept thinking about that... now that would be different. But a girl... a girl who didn’t even know he existed. He’d really got to be going mad.

  Old Tucker got really annoyed.

  ‘Devlin, if you can’t do better than this you’re not going to get through your last year, you know,’ he complained. He had to repeat a question three times before Drew realised the lecturer was speaking to him.

  Drew did his best to pull himself together after that. No-one was more relieved than he was when the day was finally over.

  He gave Skip a lift home.

  ‘You off to work later?’ Skip climbed off the bike outside his front gate. His house was just round the corner from Drew’s. He put Drew’s spare helmet in the bike carrier and snapped the box shut.

  ‘Yep, ‘fraid so,’ Drew said.

  Drew worked at the Pavilion Hotel at weekends and a few evenings after college during the week.

  The Pavilion was the newest and most deluxe hotel in the area. It was situated a little way out of town and had been converted from a small stately home. It used to be well outside the built up area but a huge new housing estate had almost filled the land between. It still had magnificent gardens that led down to the river. There was a newly built leisure and fitness centre attached to the main building. There was a gym, sauna and solarium together with a swimming pool. It had become the favourite venue for the town’s wealthy business people and their families.

  Drew’s job was to clean up around the hotel car parks and generally doing any odd jobs that needed doing. He didn’t like the work much but the pay wasn’t bad and they were flexible about working hours. The one good thing about it was that Drew got to work out at the gym for free. Max Lewis, the instructor, was a pal of his. Staff weren’t generally allowed to use the hotel’s facilities. Not unless they paid like anyone else. There was no way Drew could afford that kind of luxury.

  Spots of rain fell on Drew’s head as he rode into the hotel grounds that evening. He had been home, grabbed a quick meal, then headed back through town towards the hotel.

  He rode past a gleaming pale yellow Rolls Royce parked by main entrance. The limousine belonged to the owner of the hotel, wealthy entrepreneur, John Hickson. Up the top of the front steps a shining glass door was flanked by a pair of marble pillars. The door had Pavilion Hotel emblazoned in gold letters on the front.

  Drew rode round to the staff car park tucked away at the back. He got off and squinted up at the darkening sky. He unbuckled his helmet. They were in for a lot of rain by the looks of it. ‘That’s all I need,’ he muttered to himself. Hopefully, the boss would take pity on him and find him a job indoors. It was no fun sweeping up the car parks and weeding the flower borders at the best of times, let alone in the pouring rain.

  The swing doors of the staff entrance banged together as Drew went through. He unzipped his jacket and walked along the corridor whistling. He was still thinking about that girl. Cindy. She had got to be the best looking girl around. He sighed. Good looks, classy clothes... they didn’t mean a thing really. He’d rather have someone with a brain and a good personality. Maybe she had those as well. He sighed again. Who was he kidding anyway? She’d never go out with him in a million years.

  Drew usually thought of himself as a pretty determined type of guy. If he wanted something badly enough, he generally went all out to get it. He’d saved for well over a year to get his bike. Religiously putting away what money he had left by the time he’d paid his mum for his keep and bought his books for college. He’d made up his mind not to let the fact that his dad was in prison change his life either. That had been really hard. Luckily, the trial had taken place in a different town so the news hadn’t been in the local paper. The neighbours knew about it, of course. And Skip and a few other guys Drew had been at school with when it happened. And he guessed his college tutors knew as well but if they did, they had the decency not to mention it. But Cindy...? He may as well forget it. It was obvious she was way out of his league and that was that.

  ‘Hey, Drew!’ Max Lewis’s loud voice came booming along the corridor. Drew turned to see the gym manager swaying towards him along the glass domed corridor that Drew turned to see the gym manager swaying towards him. Two metres tall, muscles like iron, the huge West Indian was just about the biggest guy Drew had ever set eyes on. He’d been a professional body builder in his day. Not only did Max have a big body, he had a great heart as well. He always found time to listen to Drew’s troubles.Drew waited by the locker room door.

  Max grinned broadly. ‘How’s it goin’, Drew?’

  Drew gave a wry smile. ‘OK, I guess.’

  ‘You workin’ out tonight?’

  ‘If that’s OK.’ Drew said.

  ‘Sure is.’Drew usually finished around nine depending on how much work there was to do. That would give him plenty of time for a good workout before Max closed the place up. ‘Great,’ he said. ‘See you later then, Max.’

  Max slapped him on the shoulder, almost making him lose his balance. ‘See you later.’

  Drew’s boss, head caretaker Jim Appleby, was in the locker room. He was studying the work rota. ‘Ah, Andrew. Just the person I wanted to see.’ Drew smiled to himself. He had never once arrived at work without Jim Appleby saying that to him. He put his jacket and helmet into his locker. He took out the bright green overalls with Pavilion Hotel embroidered on the breast pocket. Drew hated those overalls more than anything else he could think of. He climbed into them and straight away felt ridiculous. It was the colour more than anything. He didn’t mind the dark blue of his workshop overalls but these green ones were a different kettle of fish altogether.

  ‘Right,’ Mr Appleby eyed him over the top of his spectacles. He made a mark on his list. ‘Window cleaning this evening, Andrew. Mr Hickson’s been on the warpath. He said the covered way into the fitness centre’s filthy. Your job I’m afraid.’

  Great, Drew thought, just my idea of heaven, cleaning windows. But if he was to be able to carry on with his Course he’d got to do it. Part-tim
e jobs were hard to come by and he’d be a fool to chuck it in. His mum had trouble making ends meet as it was. And with his sister, Soph, still at school and the rent going up in leaps and bounds, things were pretty tight.

  Mr Appleby was tutting impatiently. ‘Well, get on with it, Andrew. You know where the stuff is.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Appleby.’

  Drew made a face and zipped up his overalls. He took his green hotel baseball cap out of the pocket and stuck it on his head with a sigh of resignation.

  Drew was up the step ladder polishing the last section of overhead glass when he saw her. Cindy. She was coming out of the gym with Carl Hickson, the hotel owner’s son. She was wearing a pink leotard with navy blue Lycra cycling shorts. Her tanned legs looked fantastic against the spotless white of her Reeboks. Her corn-silk hair was tied up on top of her head with a twist of bright blue cotton. Her face was shiny, flushed from working out. Her eyes were glowing. In fact, she looked so gorgeous, Drew almost fell off his ladder gazing at her.

  His heart sank right to his feet when he saw who she was with. Carl Hickson of all people. He had been at school with him and they had never seen eye to eye. Hickson was the type of guy who thought he was better than anyone else. He reckoned just because he had muscles, good looks and a rich father, the girls would fall at his feet. As far as he was concerned things like personality didn’t come into it. The trouble was, girls did fall at his feet. And here he was with the gorgeous Cindy as if to prove it.

  Hickson was tall. Taller even than Drew. He had a chin carved out of rock, shoulders like a quarter back and blond hair cut in the latest fashion. He wore the most expensive track suit money could buy and carried a real leather sports bag. He looked like something out of a health and fitness magazine. And Cindy, with her arm through his, seemed like his perfect partner. Together, they looked like an advert for one of those exercise machines that claim to give you the perfect body.