Love Thy Neighbour

by Victoria Gordon

  Fiona had the consolation that Dare kept his dog under control for the remainder of the danger period, but he didn’t take her objections to include himself.

  ‘I appear to owe you another dinner,’ he said on the telephone a few evenings later. Not unexpected, but Fiona was none the less thankful that his timing allowed her to refuse because she had classes and then her late shift as excuses.

  And even without such excuses she was far too busy. Every spare moment was taken up in drafting her development proposal to the council, planning the type of building she’d require to run the training school, and studying the various bylaws and regulations that might affect her.

  It was a staggering expedition into the wilderness of the bureaucracy, and she was soon exhausted and heartily sick of it all.

  ‘It’s damned madness. Every time you turn on the news, the government’s bleating about help for small business,’ she raged at John during one of the increasingly volatile telephone calls that seemed vital every second day. ‘But just try to do anything and all they do is throttle you with red tape!’

  ‘Of course. Without the red tape, they couldn’t justify their own existence, let alone yours,’ he replied with typical cynicism. ‘Most of it’s only there for appearances’ sake anyway; it shouldn’t cause much problem.’

  ‘It takes time,’ she raged. ‘Time I don’t have. I’ll end up losing a full semester over this nonsense, for sure.’

  ‘Have you tried to get an extension where you are?’ her lawyer asked. ‘I’d have thought it worth a try, at the very least.’

  ‘Of course it is. Only of course I’m too stupid even to think of it,’ she cried. ‘Oh, John, you’re a darling, you really are. Now I have to fly. Lunch is nearly over and I’ll have to try and catch the owner while I can.’

  She nearly hung up on him in her haste, then furthered the delay by misdialling twice in a row the number she wanted. But when she finally did reach the owner of the warehouse where she’d been holding her classes, it was only to find she’d most likely been wasting her time all along.

  ‘I’d probably be able to arrange it, except we don’t own the place any longer,’ was the explanation. ‘I sold it, which is why I had to let your lease go. Settlement of the deal is the day after your penultimate class, and I’m afraid there isn’t much I can do to help you.’

  He could, however, provide, the name of the new owner, a company headquartered in the new Cambridge industrial park, but a company unknown to Fiona. It was also, unfortunately, unknown to Directory Assistance, which made further enquiries that day a wasted effort.

  Nor did she do much better through the rest of the week; the new owner, it seemed, was a holding company for yet another holding company ad infinitum. In desperation, she was once again on the telephone to her friend and lawyer, who said he’d help, but not to be in a hurry.

  ‘There’s no sense being in a hurry any more,’ she replied. ‘I’m already reconciled to the fact that I’ll probably die an old maid before all this bureaucratic nonsense with the council is finished.’

  ‘And how are you getting on with that Fraser chap?’ he asked, pointedly ignoring her anti-bureaucracy stance. It was a gesture which impressed Fiona as little as did his question.

  ‘I do wish you’d stop pushing me at Dare Fraser,’ she snapped. ‘When I get my proposal together, I’ll make sure he has a copy, and I’ll make sure I discuss the whole thing with him, but not until then, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Not up to me to mind,’ was the laconic reply. ‘It’s just that he could probably be useful if you could get him on side. He isn’t without influence in the district after all.’

  ‘I know that.’ Which she did, of course. Fiona hated to be deceitful, even just by omission, but she couldn’t come out and tell John the reasons behind her wish not to be further beholden to Dare Fraser. It wouldn’t make sense to him, in the first place, she told herself. It didn’t really make all that much sense to her, except in principle, which for the moment was quite sufficient.

  Dare Fraser had too damned much influence, both in the community and in her own life, whether he realised it or not. And Fiona was quite sure he did realise it, and that knowledge didn’t make her comfortable with the fact.

  But as the days passed and the red tape grew thicker and more complex in its windings, she often felt it might be nice to have Dare Fraser’s influence.

  ‘The council wouldn’t be stuffing him around with all these stupid regulations,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Or if it did, he’d know just how to short-cut things.’

  Then she chuckled, amused by the mental picture of her neighbour wielding a mighty sword, slashing through the Gordian knot of red tape, sending bureaucrats flying in all directions.

  The planners had promised they could get her development application through the council in three weeks or less; what they hadn’t told her was that the complexity of it all would make the preparation take longer than that.

  ‘I can’t imagine what they do for projects complicated enough to have indoor plumbing,’ she growled to John at one exasperating point in the situation. ‘How do people get anything done in the face of all this nonsense?’

  ‘With great difficulty, usually,’ was the cynical reply. ‘You have to remember that bureaucrats and governments aren’t run for the benefit of the public; the public is really just a nuisance factor. Bureaucrats are run for the bureaucrats, not for you or me.’

  ‘How could 1 forget?’ Fiona replied with a growing cynicism of her own.

  ‘I couldn’t imagine,’ he said. ‘By the way, I’ve managed to track down the buyer of your warehouse.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Fiona cried, ‘or at least it would be if it weren’t too late anyway. I’ve only the one more class and I’ve arranged to have the last one, the one 1 would have lost, at home the following Saturday if the weather’s good.’

  ‘Good,’ he replied. ‘Then this won’t be of any interest, I trust.’

  ‘Oh, but it will. I’m curious, now, about why all the secrecy. Of course, it wouldn’t have anything to do with me, but still ...’

  ‘All right. I’ll keep all this stuff until the next time you’re in the office,’ was the reply, and Fiona was sure she caught an unexpected note of caution.

  ‘Please do. I may drop in tomorrow, if that’s OK.’

  ‘I was afraid you’d say that,’ John sighed. ‘See you then.’

  And to her astonishment he hung up before she could even say goodbye, quite obviously wanting to avoid any further discussion over the telephone.

  ‘How very strange,’ she said to herself, and spent the rest of the day with curiosity niggling at the back of her mind. That same curiosity helped her through what should have been a disastrous evening of classes in which every human had two left feet and every dog a schizophrenic mode that switched haphazardly from terror to violence.

  And at lunch next day, her own mood did likewise when she saw the information John had collected, when she realised who was behind the loss of her training building—and why!

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘Plot! It’s got to be; couldn’t be anything else,’ Fiona raged, oblivious to the strange glances her behaviour was drawing from the table staff at the restaurant.

  ‘I think you’re being just a bit paranoid,’ her lawyer friend muttered, his own voice low as if in compensation for her loudness.

  ‘Paranoid? I’ll give that damned Fraser paranoid!’ Fiona was oblivious to her friend’s natural reserve, to virtually everything but her own sense of betrayal and anger.

  How could Dare Fraser be involved in such a thing? But, on the other hand, why not? He owed her nothing, not even any explanation of his involvement in the buying of the warehouse where she could no longer operate her business.

  ‘There isn’t the slightest bit of evidence he even knew you were involved in the place,’ John continued, voice still calm. ‘He’s only listed here as a minority shareholder, after all.’

  ‘
Oh, sure,’ Fiona sneered. ‘And look who’s the majority shareholder — that bitch of a woman from Chile, or Argentina or wherever. The one who hated me on first sight, who’s done nothing but go out of her way to cause me problems. And you suggest he didn’t know?’

  ‘I’m saying there’s no evidence at all to say he did know, that’s all. Apart from the obvious documentary evidence that he’s somehow involved in the business, all I’ve been able to find out is that he’s the architect on record for the renovations. It could easily be that he’s no more involved than that.’

  ‘He’s a hell of a lot more involved than that with Miss Consuela Diaz, I can tell you that,’ Fiona replied bitterly, and wondered just why she felt so utterly betrayed by all of this.

  She poked idly at the rare-cooked steak in front of her, mixing pink juices with the butter that flowed from the baked potato. Eating was almost beyond her now; her stomach felt as if somebody had stabbed a knife into it.

  John obviously had no such inhibitions; he chewed happily at his own portion of grilled flounder before bothering to reply.

  ‘I really don’t understand what makes you so outright suspicious of Fraser,’ he finally said. ‘The man’s done nothing but help you, according to everything you’ve said. He didn’t object to your kennel licence, even went so far as to help you build the damned kennels; he’s dropped whatever scheme he might have had for buying the place out from under you, and still you go on about him.’

  He paused for another bite, then spoke with mischief crinkling his eyes. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d think you had some emotional thing going on here.’

  ‘I have not! And 1 wish you’d stop going on about it,’ Fiona snarled. ‘You’re always doing that, and I’m sick of it, do you hear? I’m not interested in Dare Fraser or any other man, and, just for the record, I’m not jealous of Miss fancy-accent Diaz, either.’

  ‘Hamlet, Act Three,’ was John’s cryptic reply, and Fiona looked up to see that he was struggling to contain the laughter that already had brought tears to his eyes.

  ‘This lady doth not protest too much,’ she snapped. ‘This lady just wants to get on with the business of running this lady’s life without interference. There’s no emotionalism involved at all, unless it’s plain, ordinary anger at being treated like a dumb blonde by Dare Fraser and you and ... and ... well, everybody!’

  All of which, she told herself as she drove back to work, was perfectly true. Which didn’t explain al! of her feelings, but enough. She wasn’t jealous of the dark-haired beauty of Consuela Diaz, and she wasn’t jealous either of the woman’s relationship with Dare Fraser.

  ‘I just don’t like her; it’s as simple as that,’ she muttered at the dashboard radio. ‘And she, quite obviously, doesn’t like me either. Well, so what? Nothing on earth says everybody’s got to like everybody else; some people just instinctively dislike each other on sight.’

  And as for Dare Fraser? Well, John could obscure it in all the legal gobbledegook he wanted to, but she knew that Dare Fraser wasn’t to be trusted, and that was that!

  Which was why she could only stand there, open- mouthed and staring, when he stalked into that final evening’s first class at the warehouse and stopped short to stand staring back at her.

  Around her, handlers and their dogs faltered to a chaotic halt, the handlers spellbound by the vibrations of hostility, the dogs merely confused.

  ‘What the hell ...?’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ If Fraser seemed taken aback by the situation, Fiona was anything but. His appearance, however unexpected, served only to be a focus for her anger.

  He didn’t immediately reply, but stood there, tall and straight and somehow commanding, immaculate in freshly ironed moleskin trousers and a work shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows. He was also, she noticed, freshly shaven; the heathery scent of his aftershave seemed to form a scent-link between them.

  In the corner, Lala wriggled in welcome, her tail thumping and a subsonic whine pleading for Dare’s attention. Damn the bitch, anyway, Fiona couldn’t help thinking. How can I keep him in his place with all my dogs in love with him?

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ he finally said. ‘I just came to check on a few things; I didn’t realise you were here training until I walked through the door.’

  ‘I’ll just bet you didn’t,’ Fiona replied, her eyes hot with scarce-subdued hostility.

  ‘If I had known, I wouldn’t have interrupted,’ he replied, voice soft, condescending. And still he stood there, muscular hands on hips, somehow looming above the few other men in the vast room. ‘I saw the lights, and ...’

  ‘You ... you ...’ Fiona couldn’t find the words. She was blinded, almost deafened by the explosion of her anger, a fury that was fed by her own reaction just to the sight of this man. Even as she hated him, she was drawn to his quiet calm, to the sight of the dark hair curling at the opening of his shirt, to the muscular set of his body.

  How could he have such an effect on her? How could she allow him to have such an effect? She was suddenly conscious of her own clothing, of the too tight jeans, the too large sweatshirt, the old and battered sneakers, one with the fresh and odorous memento of an overexcited puppy.

  And she was all too conscious, also, that Dare Fraser was seeing her, was seeing her clothing and somehow seeing beyond it, that his eyes took in the curve of breast and hip, the long line of her neck.

  ‘Perhaps we ought to discuss this later, or at least outside,’ he was saying in that too calm, controlled voice, and Fiona suddenly realised, or remembered, that they weren’t alone, that others were hanging on every word, every gesture. Not least of them the two attractive secretaries in their designer leotards, skin-tight and colour co-ordinated, no less, to their designer Afghan hounds. The dogs were their normal selves; the handlers fairly drooled.

  ‘We’ll discuss it now,’ Fiona hissed through clenched teeth, and turned to hark ‘Take a break!’ at her startled class. She strode towards the doorway, presuming Dare Fraser would follow, knowing his eyes would.

  Outside, she stopped abruptly, angrily flung off the strong hands that shot out to steady her as she spun around off balance.

  ‘It’s obvious you know something about this that I don’t,’ Fraser said. ‘So do you want to go first, or shall I?’

  ‘You go first,’ Fiona replied without hesitation. ‘Go first and go damned quick. My lease doesn’t end until after tonight and I don’t have to put up with your interference with my classes. And 1 won’t! You can turf me out after tonight, but you’ve got no right to interfere now and I won’t have it!’

  ‘Nor should you, I suppose,’ he replied, ‘although I’ve already apologised for interrupting. But what’s all the rest of this you’re rabbiting on about?’

  ‘As if you didn’t know. Look, I’m busy; I’ve got no time for you. Please just get out and let me get on with my class, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘When do you finish?’

  ‘When I’m done,’ she replied, half truthfully and half evasively. ‘What does it matter?’

  ‘Not a lot, if you insist on staying in this mood,’ was the reply. ‘But I do think some explanation is are in order.’

  ‘It’s a bit late for that, don’t you think?’ Fiona replied, her voice cold and her body rigid with what she hoped came across as disdain. It must, she thought. She just couldn’t face having him know how strongly his nearness was affecting her, how easily it managed to sneak past her anger and her feelings of betrayal.

  ‘Never too late,’ was the laconic reply. ‘And, since I’m here now, I think I’ll just wait until you’re finished. I’m not real fond of being rousted on in public for an honest mistake.’

  ‘Well, you can damned well wait out here,’ Fiona retorted, turning away as quickly as she could.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ was the reply, and she knew he was following her.

  ‘I said out here,’ she spat, turning to claw at him in a futile, almost childish attempt t
o make her point.

  ‘What are you going to do about it — make an even worse scene?’ And he grinned, but there was no humour in the showing of those even teeth, just a grim determination.

  ‘Oh ... please yourself,’ she grunted, turning away defeated and knowing she couldn’t possibly win that particular argument. Dare Fraser was all too capable of making a scene, would probably enjoy doing so, she thought.

  But, once inside, he quietly joined the small group of onlookers which Fiona normally termed her ‘peanut gallery’, thus transforming it, she thought instantly, into something entirely different and less easily described.

  If only, she thought immediately, she could be halfway through the last class of the evening, instead of the first of three. Dare’s presence threw her entirely off stride, and that was nothing to what it did for the nubile secretaries and their long-coated, unmanageable hounds. Fiona was in distinct danger of losing control of the class entirely, with the two women ignoring all else but Dare Fraser and their dogs sensing the switch of interest.

  They’re all bees round a honey-pot, she found herself thinking, mentally logging a firm declaration for future classes concerning appropriate dog-training attire. For a moment, she thought it a catty gesture, but then she stamped her foot — mentally. This was a dog-training class, not an aerobics class!

  Just as well, too. Fiona’s own equilibrium was shot to blazes by the man’s very presence in the room. While the secretaries became sleeker and more agile for the mutual sharing of attention, Fiona found herself stumbling like a drunkard as she tried in vain to focus on the people, the dogs and the exercises.

  The overall result bordered upon chaos, although Fiona knew that she alone realised it. Most of the class didn’t know their left foot from their right, even into this seventh class, much less how smoothly things should be going — and weren’t!

  And the dolly-birds? They knew only one thing, and it was sitting watching, which was all they cared about.