It wasn’t the first time Mark had been told that kind of thing, and he knew to a certain extent that it was true. But how else was he supposed to decide whether the Heath Centre was a worthy project to benefit from his financial help? And besides, it wasn’t fair! Feeling about five years old, Mark said the thing that was crowding out his head. ‘What about Bert?’ he asked. ‘Doesn’t he have to be tactful too?’
Alexia smiled a little. ‘Of course he does,’ she agreed. She put up her hand to smooth a wayward strand of hair away from her face, leaving a long smut of dirt on her cheek. It was incredibly sexy, and Mark almost groaned out loud.
He really needed to remember why he was here. He couldn’t morally donate money to a project because the acting centre manager has a smut on her cheek that made him want to tear her clothes off and push her down onto the potato sacks.
‘Look,’ he said, opening his eyes again. ‘If Bert’s really going to get a job after all this, then surely he’ll need to develop some interpersonal skills? No matter how good he gets at gardening, he’s still going to have to deal with people. With his attitude he’s not even going to get past a job interview.’
‘You’ve only known him for five minutes!’ Alexia protested.
They were both shouting in whispers so that they wouldn’t be heard outside. Alexia’s green eyes had amber sparks in them. ‘Are you always so quick to write people off?’
‘Sometimes five minutes is all it takes!’ Mark said. Which was exactly what Bert had just said to him. The irony wasn’t lost on Mark. He sighed.
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ll try harder, okay?’
Alexia smiled uncertainly. ‘Thank you. That’s all I can ask. Now, I’d better get back.’ She took a step forwards, but when Mark didn’t move as she expected him to, they were suddenly standing centimetres away from each other. Mark could feel her breath on his face. Her mouth was slightly open. It would only take a very small movement to pull her closer, to press his mouth down on those full, expectant lips. To place his hands on her back until those glorious breasts shaped themselves against this chest…
Then someone went and coughed outside – Mark didn’t know who. Bert, probably, blast him. But Bert or not, whoever it was, they had completely trashed the moment.
‘Excuse me,’ Alexia said, and Mark moved back. For now.
* * * * *
By the time Alexia had parked her motorbike outside her terraced house at six o’clock that evening, her brain was buzzing as if a swarm of bees had invaded it. After the potting shed incident, she just hadn’t been quite with it all afternoon. She’d felt drained and weakened, existing in a kind of dreamy haze, her senses still filled with the intoxicating scent of Mark’s aftershave; the gravely sound of his voice and the stretch of his t-shirt across his broad, muscular chest. She only hoped everything was ready for a six-thirty start for the farmer’s market tomorrow morning.
Alexia wrenched her crash helmet off, shaking her hair out as if she could shake away her confusion. In the potting shed she’d managed to talk to Mark; even to request he change his behaviour towards Bert. Outwardly she may well have appeared to be in control. But inwardly, well, that was something else entirely. She’d wanted to kiss him, to hold him, to lose herself in him so badly it had almost hurt. If someone hadn’t coughed outside, then who knows what might have happened?
Inside the house, she could hear the telephone ringing, and she quickly fished for her keys in her jeans’ pocket, grateful for the distraction.
‘Hello?’ she answered breathlessly.
‘Hello, darling, it’s Mum.’
Alexia shrugged her jacket off and sank onto the sofa, sensing immediately that this was a call she didn’t need right now. She knew her mother’s tones of voice, and she would have gambled her beloved bike that Mum was phoning quickly while her father was out.
‘Hi, Mum, how are things?’
‘Fine, fine. Just a quickie. Your father’s at a golf club meeting.’
Yep, her bike was safe. Just as well really, since it was her only means of transport.
‘I’ve got news,’ her mother told her. ‘Your father’s decided to retire.’
Alexia was shocked. ‘Retire?’ she repeated. ‘You have to be joking.’ Alexia tried her best not to think about her father very often, but if she ever did, she imagined him working well after most of his contemporaries had retired. Her father lived for his work.
‘No, it’s true,’ her mother said. ‘I was surprised too. Thrilled though. I’m holding a party to mark the occasion. You will come won’t you? It would look so odd if you weren’t there, and it would mean so much to me. To both of us.’
Alexia sat silently for a moment. Her father’s face filled her mind – cold, critical, and ruthless.
‘I don’t know, Mum,’ she said.
For the second time that day, she thought about Chris. It had been so long ago, and yet the brutal way their relationship had ended had totally changed her life.
Alexia closed her eyes, remembering the first time she and Chris had made love. It had been high summer, and they’d had a picnic together on a deserted Yorkshire beach. Alexia could still remember the smell of the sea and of the strawberries they’d just fed to each other. She could still remember his dark eyes burning down at her with love and passion. The way they’d hurried back to the boarding house where they were staying for the weekend …
‘Alexia…’ Suddenly the memory changed. The eyes in her head were silver, and the smells were of damp soil and shower gel.
Mark.
‘Please, darling.’ Her mother didn’t sound surprised by her reluctance. Alexia sighed, opening her eyes and returning to the present. Why would her mother be surprised? It was hardly the first time she’d tried to get Alexia and her father in the same room together in the past five years. The surprising thing was that she was still trying.
‘It really would mean so very much to me.’
None of it was her mother’s fault, Alexia knew that. Could she do this for her? Alexia wasn’t at all sure she could.
She sighed. ‘You’ll have to let me think about it,’ she said.
‘That’s all I ask,’ her mother replied, and there was a good deal more gratitude in her voice than Alexia was happy with.
The small sitting room seemed too confined suddenly. Alexia longed to be out on her motorbike, roaring towards some isolated spot where she could stop to see a view. Or anywhere where she could find some space. ‘Look, Mum,’ she said, ‘I’ve got to go. I’ve got a meeting in half an hour, and I have to eat first. I’ll call you by the end of the week and let you know, okay?’
She said goodbye and put the phone down, but didn’t get up from the sofa. It hadn’t been a lie about the meeting, even if it was just her local allotment association. But as for her appetite – well, she’d lost that completely.
What a day this was turning out to be! Her mother’s invitation was a real no win situation. If she didn’t go to the party, Mum would be hurt, and if did go she would inevitably row with her father, and again Mum would be hurt. Then there was the fundraiser on Thursday. Not to mention Mark Brown.
Once again she was in the potting shed, every fragment of her screaming with awareness and arousal. Even though her relationship with Chris had been such an important part of her life, the memories were inevitably fading. Had she felt the same as she had felt this afternoon in that Yorkshire boarding house? As if she might burn if Chris reached out a finger to touch her?
Chapter Four
In an almost identical terraced house in the next street, Mark was standing with his hands in his pockets, looking through the grimy net-curtained window at the street outside. It was exactly the type of house he’d been brought up in, except that the street outside was lined with cars. There had been fewer of them when he’d been a boy, and more opportunities for football games in the street.
He turned his back on the street and looked around the bleak sitting room with its cheap
furniture. It would have been impossible to find anywhere more different to The Copper Beeches, his home in the Peak District. Though, Mark thought ironically, at least this house wasn’t a building site. The Copper Beeches was currently clad in scaffolding as it underwent a complete renovation, and Mark was living in a mobile home in the grounds. But at night, after the builders had left, it was very quiet. He hated the way he could hear people walking past in the street just outside his front window here. The screech of cars being driven too fast, the litter everywhere. He was used to looking out at gentle green hills patterned by dry stonewalls, and the sound of rooks cawing in the woodland at the end of his garden.
And yet Alexia chose to live on one of these streets. She was most likely there, in her house just round the corner, right now. Alexia. He hadn’t bargained on meeting someone like her when he’d decided to come here. She was intoxicating, voluptuous, stimulating – even those words didn’t do her justice.
But he ought to be thinking about The Heath Centre, not Alexia. Was it a project he wanted to sponsor? It was too early to say yet. He needed to do more research. Though the only research he felt compelled to do right now involved taking Alexia’s hand and running off with her somewhere – somewhere he could research her mind and her luscious body. Particularly her body.
Grimly, Mark tried to refocus his mind back to the centre. Charlotte had printed him off some facts and figures about the charity from the Internet, but thinking of Bert, Mark was keen to find out just how effective the training provided by the Centre was. Tomorrow he was to accompany Alexia and some of the trainees – including Bert – to the farmer’s market.
But right now, he needed to fix himself something to eat. And then he was going to go to the pub. For one thing, it would be a way to mix with the locals, and maybe to find out about other community projects he might be able to help. And for another, it would help him to relax.
Mark through the back room to the tiny galley kitchen at the back of the house. He’d brought some simple supplies with him – nothing elaborate, but enough to make some beans on toast. He could hear the sound of a radio coming through the thin wall from the neighbours’ house, and it reminded him of his grandmother. She’d loved music – had had her radio on all day while she did her chores, keeping the house spotlessly clean and singing along at the top of her voice.
Gran. How she would have liked Alexia. The garden had come a close second to the house as far as his gran was concerned. She would have been in her element talking to Alexia about carrots and cabbages.
Mark smiled to himself, putting the beans on the heat and taking a slice of bread from the bread bag. Alexia. All afternoon he had seen her smile and heard her laugh, sharing her enthusiasm for working the land with the centre users. She had exactly the same zest for life that his gran had had. It had been years since his gran had died. Amazing how long you could miss somebody for.
Damn. Mark turned the heat off under the beans, wishing Bosun, his dog was here to be walked. Oh well, Bosun or no Bosun, he had to get out. Dinner could wait.
* * * * *
At the allotment meeting, Alexia felt herself relax. With a half a pint of local bitter on the table in front of her and surrounded by much more undemanding male company than she’d been surrounded by all day, she could be herself.
‘So, what do we do about the empty allotments?’ someone was saying. ‘They’re completely overgrown with weeds and brambles. I wouldn’t mind, but they keep creeping through to my patch.’
‘I’m not so sure they are empty lots,’ Alexia said. ‘I think people have just lost interest in them.’
‘One of them belonged to that couple with the baby on the way, didn’t it? I knew they wouldn’t be able to stick to it.’
‘And then there was that other couple,’ somebody else said. ‘Biggish bloke with a hooked nose – always arguing with his wife. He probably did her in. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t been back. Who knows what we’ll find if we go digging there!’
Alexia laughed along with the others and picked up her glass to take a drink. That’s when she saw him. Mark. Making his way from the bar to an empty table. With a pint of bitter.
‘You all right, Alexia?’ Her beer had gone down the wrong way and one of her fellow allotment committee members banged her helpfully on the back to stop her from choking.
‘Yes, er…fine,’ she croaked, and got to her feet. ‘I’ve just got to er… Won’t be a minute.’
Squeezing her way out, Alexia began to make her quickly over to Mark’s table. He hadn’t seen her yet – he had hold of his pint of beer, and was just about to lift it to his lips. He couldn’t, mustn’t drink it! Just one sip and he’d be back to square one. If her work had taught her anything, it was that alcoholics couldn’t drink again. Ever.
Without planning in advance what she was going to do, Alexia ran across the room towards Mark. When she tripped over somebody’s handbag on the way and went sailing through the air, the decision was taken out of her hands. Alexia bashed right into Mark, sending the pint glass went flying out of his hand. As it spewed its contents all over him, Alexia landed in a crumpled and soggy heap at his feet.
‘Well, hello, Alexia,’ drawled Mark with the beer dripping off his hair onto the table.
She looked up at him from the floor, her face flaming. As she watched, a droplet of beer dripped from his nose. ‘I’m so sorry, Mark,’ she said. ‘I must have tripped over something.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed dryly. ‘I think you must.’
Alexia scrabbled to try to get to her feet, began to slip again, and found her hand clutched with considerable strength by his. Across the room, the allotment guys were laughing and calling out to her.
‘Bet you couldn’t do that again if you tried!’
‘No need to throw yourself at the man, Alexia!’
Etc.
‘Friends of yours?’ asked Mark, wiping beer from his eyes with his sleeve.
‘Yes. From the allotments. We’re having a committee meeting. Oh, God, I’m so sorry about your clothes, Mark.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s not my clothes I’m worried about,’ he told her. ‘They’ll wash easily enough. As for my drink, however…’
Alexia bit her lip. It looked as if they weren’t out of the woods yet. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Yes, sorry about that.’ She pretended to look in her pockets. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t got enough money to buy you another. I…I’ve got some beer at home though. If you’d…if you’d like to come back and have some?’
What? Was she crazy? No, just doing her bit to keep the Heath Project’s newest volunteer sober.
Mark was looking at her. She had absolutely no idea what he was thinking. Across the room, the allotment guys were still making loud, and no doubt lewd comments, but Alexia couldn’t absorb what they were saying. She was too busy waiting for Mark to answer. If he turned her down, then she had no idea how she was going to stop him from buying another pint. But if he accepted… Well, that would mean he would come to her house. Sit in her living room and make it instantly feel about the same size as the potting shed had felt that afternoon.
The moment stretched on. Then Mark nodded. ‘That would be very nice,’ he said. ‘Thank you. If you don’t mind me going home to change first?’
Alexia’s face went scarlet. ‘Oh, er no, not all. That’s fine,’ she stammered. ‘I live at seventy-seven Lees Street. You…you can’t miss it – it’s the one with the window boxes.’
‘Now then, Alexia, been taking flying lessons?’ Alexia looked up to see the barman equipped with a mop, come to clean up the mess.
‘Sorry, Dave,’ she smiled.
Dave got busy with the mop. ‘No harm done.’ He looked at Mark. ‘Can I get you another pint, sir? On the house.’
Alexia’s heart sank. If Mark accepted the replacement pint, she would hardly be able to knock that over as well! She’d just have to confront him about it.
‘Thanks,’ Mark said at last. ‘That’s very kind of you.
But I’m a little on the damp side. Think I’ll go home and change.’ He stood up, glancing at Alexia. ‘See you in about ten minutes.’ And off he went, leaving her to traipse red-faced back to her table to face the guys’ curiosity.
‘Got yourself a new boyfriend, Alexia?’
‘About time! Was starting to think you weren’t interested in all that!’
‘Criminal waste that’d be!’
After she’d shrugged off their comments, promised to contact the council about the unused lots and apologised for leaving the meeting early, Alexia left the pub. Remembering her line of knickers drying over the bath in the bathroom and the two days of unwashed crockery in the sink, she ran all the way.
Heck! What on earth had she gone and done? Drastic times call for drastic measures and all that, but to invite Mark Brown back to her house! What did she know about the guy after all? That he had an HGV licence, rubbed people up the wrong way, and he was probably an alcoholic. Oh, and he only had to look at her to make her throb and ache in places she’d barely thought about for years. Not to mention forgetting all about the professional ethics of getting involved with a volunteer…
She was in big trouble, and it was all her own fault.
Chapter Five
As Company Director of MB Eco Haulage, Mark had got used to making brave decisions over the years. He’d had to – he’d built up the multi-million pound company from scratch, and, to start with, completely on his own. Now he employed hundreds of staff, and the company was about to expand into Eastern Europe.
But as Mark walked the few yards from his borrowed house round the corner to Alexia’s house on Lees Street, he felt anything but brave and successful. He felt nervous, out of his element, and a prize fool. Why had he accepted Alexia’s invitation? She was bound to ask questions – that was what people did when they made conversation. And they would make conversation. She hadn’t invited him round to her house for any other reason.
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