He wasn’t the only person who was angry with her. Her mother had shown up at the flat last week and had been more impatient than Alix had ever known her. Then Rhys’s parents had come to the office ‘to take them out to lunch’ as they’d put it, and she’d had to go with them alone, to tell them she didn’t know where Rhys was. They hadn’t been openly angry with her, had tried to be so understanding that she came close to tears, but they had left in a mood of silent resentment at her obstinacy. But all this parental pressure only served to make Alix even more determined; she had been a dutiful daughter all her life, but now she had to make her own decisions, somehow get out of this mess and start again.
It was a relief when Todd reminded her that they were due to fly to Alaska at the weekend. ‘The company jet won’t be available, so we’ll take scheduled flights to Juneau. I’ll be there for a couple of days, and then the jet will pick us up and take us to the site. Oh, and my elder boy will be coming with us for the trip. I’m hoping I’ll be able to get a couple of days off to take him fishing.’
Alix duly booked the seats, packed her bag, and was happy to get away. Rhys, too, had flown off on some new project, so she was saved having to decide whether or not to tell him where she was going, but he probably knew anyway. Todd’s son, Martin, was an eleven-year-old duplicate of what his father must have been like at that age: a little short and stocky, but with a big grin and a happy, extrovert manner; into all the latest video games and gadgets.
Their two days at Juneau were busy ones, with Martin amusing himself going round the town, while Todd attended several meetings with the local government, making contacts, getting information, boosting the company image. Alix was with him most of the time, and did a lot of work in her hotel room at night, leaving Todd free to be with Martin. They had Wednesday morning free then drove out to the airport in the afternoon to pick up the company jet, which had flown up from Canada to meet them. They were to fly north to the Yukon river, almost as far as the Arctic Circle, to investigate the possibilities of building a hydro-electric plant that would benefit both Canada and Alaska.
The very word Alaska had made Alix expect it to be cold, but it was a beautifully warm summer day. The pilot greeted them with a broad smile, Martin was happy and excited, even Todd seemed more relaxed as they boarded the plane. Todd politely stood back to let Alix go on board first, but came up close behind her. So she had nowhere to go as Rhys got to his feet and said, ‘Hello, Alix. Come and sit here.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
ALIX instinctively backed away when she saw Rhys, but Todd’s bulk propelled her forward and she somehow found herself in the window seat with Rhys beside her.
She went to express her anger at this plan they’d obviously hatched up between them, but Martin came on board and smiled at Rhys. ‘Hello, Mr Stirling. I didn’t know you were coming with us.’
‘A last-minute arrangement,’ Rhys said smoothly. ‘How are you, Martin?’
‘Fine. Dad’s going to take me fishing.’ He dropped his bulging canvas travel-bag on one of the seats and sat in the one across the aisle from Rhys.
‘Ever been fishing before?’ Rhys asked.
‘Oh, yes.’
Martin began to tell him of his lifetime’s fishing experience and Alix had to be content with a furious glance at Todd before he went to sit beside the pilot. But Todd just grinned and said, ‘Don’t forget to do your seatbelts up, folks.’
They took off smoothly, but Rhys gave his attention to Martin until the subject of fishing was exhausted and the boy opened his bag to take out one of his pocket games and play with it.
Rhys turned to Alix and she gave him an antagonistic glare, but couldn’t help noticing that there was a drawn look about his eyes and mouth, as if he hadn’t been sleeping very well. So that makes two of us, she thought resentfully. Deliberately she turned her head to look out of the window at the landscape of mountains, forests and lakes far below, but Rhys reached across and picked up her left hand.
‘This looks very bare. What excuse have you given for not wearing the rings?’
‘Does it matter?’ she said curtly and pulled her hand free.
Rhys didn’t try to stop her, which rather surprised Alix, but said mildly, ‘Suppose I’m asked why you’re not wearing them; it would look rather strange if I invented an entirely different excuse.’
Alix saw the sense in that, so said reluctantly, ‘I said that they’d gone to be altered.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll remember. But why bother to make up a reason? Why didn’t you just tell everyone the truth?’
A flush of colour came into Alix’s cheeks. ‘It’s our business, not anyone else’s.’
‘True—and yet you’ve been to see a solicitor.’
Alix shot a venomous glance at Todd’s back which she could see through the open door of the cockpit. ‘You need a legal separation so that you can get a divorce in two years,’ she pointed out stiffly.
‘Ah, yes. So when did this legal separation start? I haven’t been notified about it.’
‘It hasn’t yet,’ Alix mumbled.
‘Sorry, I didn’t hear you.’
Angry eyes came up to meet his. ‘I said it hasn’t—yet.’
Rhys’s mouth twisted into a small smile. ‘You know, urchin, you really shouldn’t try lying to me. I can always tell when you do; always have been able to. You haven’t been to a solicitor, have you?’
She flushed a little and shook her head, thinking that it was true; she could get away with lying to other people but never with Rhys, he’d always seen through her—or maybe it was because she’d loved him so much that she’d never really wanted to lie to him. ‘No, but I intend to,’ she said firmly. ‘I just haven’t—got around to it yet.’
‘I see.’ Changing tactics, he said, ‘I heard my parents came to see you. I’m sorry if they upset you, but it’s rather difficult for them, you see, because they can’t understand why we don’t settle this.’
‘It is settled as far as I’m concerned.’
‘Is it?’ Rhys’s eyes studied her face, so dark and intense that she had to look away. ‘I rather hoped we could discuss it while we’re in Alaska.’
That made her gulp inwardly; she hadn’t thought that he might stay on with them, hadn’t thought further than this plane trip. ‘There’s nothing to discuss,’ she said hurriedly. ‘You’re wasting your time. It’s over.’
Her voice had risen and Martin glanced across at them. Rhys gave her a warning frown, then stood up. ‘I’ll see if the others want a drink.’ He went to the cockpit, was there a few minutes, came back and took a couple of cans from the fridge. ‘Perhaps you’d like to take these, Martin?’ he suggested.
Shoving his game in his pocket, Martin went willingly enough. They heard Todd greet him and say, ‘Hey, son, how about a flying lesson?’ He gave up his seat to Martin and deliberately closed the cockpit door, leaving them alone.
‘I suppose you arranged that, too?’ Alix said bitterly.
‘I’ll go to whatever lengths I have to to get you to talk to me,’ Rhys admitted. Coming back to sit beside her, he said, ‘I really feel we need some time together to——’
Alix, who had begun to feel hunted again, broke in with a forceful, ‘No! I don’t want to be near you. If you insist on staying I shall get on the first plane out of there.’
‘Coward!’ Rhys said scathingly.
That brought her up short. Alix thought she’d been pretty brave about this whole thing most of the time. ‘I’m—I’m not.’
‘Of course you are. You ran away from our honeymoon and you’ve been running ever since. And not only physically but mentally, too. Every time I’ve tried to talk to you you’ve shut me out, refusing to even listen.’
‘I don’t see much point in listening to your lies,’ she retaliated.
Rhys took hold of her arm, gripped it tight. ‘I have never lied to you,’ he said vehemently, his eyes holding hers, his whole face behind his words.
His force
fulness shook her. ‘You—you admitted you never loved me,’ she faltered.
‘And I told you the truth. But I think it was more a case of being in love with you for so long that I hadn’t seen it for what it was. It was only when you threatened to walk out on me that I realised just how much you meant to me. And when you went away and I couldn’t find you I was completely devastated. It was only then that I knew how empty my life would have been without you—would always be if I didn’t get you back.’ His eyes burned into hers. ‘I wasn’t head over heels in love with you before, Alix, but I am now. Passionately. Madly in love. And I’ll spend my whole life convincing you of that, if I have to.’
She stared at him, never having seen him like this before. Rhys wasn’t the type of man to show his feelings so openly; that he could do so now had her halfway believing him. A small flicker of emotion entered her heart, an emotion that was suppressed before it could be defined, and Alix said bleakly, ‘The job. How can I believe you?’
Impatiently, Rhys took her hand and said, ‘Haven’t you been told enough times that the job is immaterial? And if it had mattered, if I had married you for that, wouldn’t I have lied and told you that I’d always loved you? Would I have taken the risk of telling you the truth?’
Alix looked at him, felt a desperate need to believe him, but she had gone through so much pain and misery these last few weeks. Her face set, she said, ‘What does it matter anyway? You may be telling the truth; perhaps my standing up to you did make you fall in love with me. The lure of the unobtainable,’ she said on a caustic note. ‘But it’s too late. Because I don’t love you any more, Rhys.’ She gave a travesty of a smile. ‘How ironic. That you should fall for me while I fall out of love with you.’
‘I don’t believe that,’ Rhys said with absolute certainty in his voice.
‘I can’t help what you believe,’ she said tiredly. ‘It happens to be true.’
Still holding her hand, he said, ‘OK, maybe you think it is. But I’m sure that it’s just a defence you’ve created in your mind to help you. You’ve loved me for a long time, Alix; you couldn’t change so completely.’
‘Well, I have.’
Rhys looked at her intently, then gave a slow smile, a promise in the depths of his eyes. ‘Then I’ll just have to make you fall in love with me again, won’t I?’
Again that flutter in her heart. ‘You’d be wasting your time.’
‘Somehow I don’t think so. But what better way to spend my time—telling my wife how much I love her.’
‘I’m—I’m not your wife any longer,’ Alix said faintly.
Raising her hand to his lips, he kissed it, his eyes holding hers. ‘Oh, but you are, my sweet.’ His grip tightened and there was purpose in his face as he said, ‘And you always will be. Because you’re mine, Alix, and I’ll never let you go.’ Reaching into his pocket, he took out her rings and held her hand in a firm grip as he put them on to her finger.
Alix remembered the last time he had put the rings on her finger and said, in defiance of her stupid heart, ‘Wearing those won’t make me feel any different.’
‘No, but you’re going to need them. You see, I’ve booked a cabin in the mountains for us so that we can be together. And I’ve booked it for Mr and Mrs Stirling.’
This time her heart gave a great lurch, and her body filled with nervous dread, because she knew what he meant by ‘being together’. He would make love to her again and she would be lost, unable to fight the closeness, the fulfilment that her body craved. She opened her mouth to protest, but whatever she might have said was lost, because there came a sudden uproar of voices from the cockpit and Martin came running out, his face chalk-white.
‘Martin! What is it?’
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ he burst out. ‘I didn’t know there was a magnet in the game. I didn’t know we’d get lost!’
They stared at him, then Rhys got quickly to his feet. ‘Of course you didn’t. Here, come and sit with Alix while I go and see if I can help.’
Alix reached out for the boy but raised a dismayed face to Rhys. He gave her a reassuring smile, then went forward, shutting the door behind him. It seemed ages before he came back. Again he smiled, but Alix could see the strain around his mouth.
‘Unfortunately Martin’s game played havoc with the navigational aids, but we’re back on course again now. But the pilot has decided that when we pick up a radio signal from another airfield we’ll drop in there to have the instruments checked, just to be on the safe side. It means we’ll be a bit late getting to our destination, that’s all.’
For when read if, Alix realised with horror. But she said nothing, not wanting to frighten the boy. Looking out of the window, she saw that they were flying over what appeared to be endless miles of forest, the trees very thick with very few patches of open ground. And the sun was sinking now; soon it would be dark. Turning back, she smiled and said, ‘I’m hungry. Is there anything to eat?’
‘I bought some chocolate bars in Juneau,’ Martin said, eager to make up for his mistake. ‘I brought them to take on the fishing trip.’
‘Great! Let’s have a look what you’ve got.’
They shared a bar of chocolate and then played a card game, trying to dispel the tension. Without warning the cockpit door was pushed open and Todd called out for Rhys. It was dark now, the lights on in the cabin. Martin’s hand reached out and gripped Alix’s. She looked at him and put her arm around him, seeing him close to tears. ‘It’s all my fault,’ he said.
‘Rubbish! The pilot should have checked what you had with you.’
When he came back she could see in Rhys’s face that it was bad, even though he tried to hide it. He said, ‘It seems we might have a bumpy landing. We’ve to get ourselves ready. Come on, Martin, you first.’
Alix expected Rhys to just strap the boy in his seat, but first he wrapped him in blankets and a sleeping bag that the pilot kept on board. She knew then that they were going to crash.
‘Now you, urchin.’
Rhys wrapped her in the rest of the blankets, cushioned her with pillows. ‘No, take some for yourself and the others,’ she protested.
‘Don’t you ever do as you’re told?’ he complained. ‘I can see I’m going to go on having trouble with you for the rest of my life.’
Immediately, they both realised what he’d said. Rhys looked rueful, but he leaned forward and kissed her, deeply, lingeringly as a man did when he knew it might be for the last time. ‘My love,’ he whispered. ‘Oh, God, Alix, I love you so much!’
The engine coughed and the plane lurched. Rhys grabbed the arm rest but didn’t attempt to sit down. Alix gave a terrified look out of the window. Then shouted, ‘Look! There are lights. Over to the left. Oh, they’re hidden now.’
‘I’ll go and tell them. They may not have seen.’
Rhys ran forward and immediately the plane swung to port. But it was going down now, gliding, the engine silent as the last of the fuel was used up. Alix’s eyes searched frantically for the lights but she couldn’t see them again. Oh, God, what if she’d made a mistake? What if it was only the moon shining on water?
The plane fell lower. Rhys came running back up the slope of the floor, but instead of strapping himself into a seat he flung himself on top of her, covering her body with his own. ‘No! You mustn’t. Rhys, please.’
But he clung on, gripping the back of the seat. Dimly she was aware that Todd was in the cabin, was shielding Martin in the same way. There was a terrible rushing, cracking noise, the plane seemed to bounce along the tops of the trees, their branches tearing at the fuselage like demons trying to get in. The lights went out, things were flying about the cabin, lethal, dangerous. There was the most ghastly groan from the battered plane and then a rush of cold air as the right wing was torn off. Someone gave a cry of pain and she felt Rhys’s body jerk. Her arms went round him and Alix clung to him, trying to be his seatbelt as the terrible noises seemed to go on for ever. They seemed suddenly to drop into a
chasm of emptiness, there was one last, horrific crunch as the whole plane seemed to fall apart, and then just silence—a noiselessness that seemed somehow far worse than everything that had gone before.
The gasping moan of a man in pain broke the quiet.
‘Rhys?’ Alix’s terrified anxiety for Rhys broke through her own shock and terror at the plane crash. He didn’t answer and she realised that his body was heavy across hers. ‘Rhys!’ She cried out his name in agony, shook him violently, convinced that he was dead. He stirred, mumbled something, and Alix knew with life-giving relief that he wasn’t dead, and that it wasn’t him who was moaning in pain.
He came to quickly, and seemed to grasp immediately what had happened ‘We must get out,’ he said hoarsely.
‘Somebody’s hurt; I can hear him.’
The plane was lying at an angle, leaning on its right hand side, where the wing had been. Rhys pushed himself upright, groped his way through torn seats and debris to the door and kicked it open. Mechanically Alix undid her seat belt and got to her feet, but found that all the strength seemed to have gone out of her legs. Rhys caught her before she fell and half carried her to the door.
‘Martin?’ she exclaimed. ‘Todd?’
‘I’ll take care of them. Come on.’ Taking her to the door, Rhys lowered her the few feet to the ground. ‘Get away from the plane,’ he ordered brusquely. ‘Go on, my darling girl, get right away.’
‘Oh, Rhys!’ She gave a low moan of terror, knowing he was afraid the plane would catch fire, but she obeyed him, stumbling away from the plane into the night, blundering into bushes, her eyes unaccustomed to the darkness. She came to a tree, sank down behind its great trunk, unable to go any further, but then twisted round to look towards the plane.
She could see it now, its white-painted fuselage caught in a shaft of moonlight. From here it still looked re- markably intact, just drunk. Oh, God, please don’t let it blow up, she prayed. Don’t let it catch fire. She saw Rhys come to the door again, helping someone down through it, a large figure that must be Todd. He stood on the ground below, holding on to the door frame, almost collapsing. Then Rhys came holding Martin in his arms, lowering him for Todd to take. Instantly Alix was up and running towards them, knowing that Todd couldn’t manage the boy alone.
To Have And To Hold (Mills & Boon Vintage 90s Modern) Page 15