by Liz Fielding
‘Oh?’ She couldn’t wait.
‘I thought if you had another shock on top of the accident you’d call off the jump for the day. I really didn’t want to go through that performance again.’
‘Not even for a double fee?’ she enquired, remembering the eagerness of the crew to pack up and go home.
He must have remembered it too, because he managed a wry a smile. ‘No, Claudia. Not even for a double fee.’
But it wasn’t funny. ‘You should have told me, Mac,’ she insisted.
‘There was no risk-’
‘No risk?’ she demanded. ‘No risk?’ She was aware that her voice was rising, but the neatly dissected photograph was lying in front of her and she didn’t care. ‘Who the hell were you to decide whether there was a risk or not? It was my life!’
He regarded her with a thoughtful expression. ‘But I changed the parachute,’ he said, as if that was sufficient.
‘You changed the parachute,’ she repeated, ‘and that was the answer to everything, was it? Well, Mr Gabriel MacIntyre, you just listen to this. I woke up this morning to discover an anonymous letter on my mat. My kindly correspondent had gone to an enormous trouble, you know, cutting great big letters out of newspapers, just to let me know that my parachute wasn’t going to open. So it was a bit late to protect me from Adele’s scare tactics. She had already scored a bulls-eye.’
She had finally shocked that careful, interrogative expression off his face, Claudia thought. Mac was a man it would be hard to shock, but she had just managed to seriously disturb him. If she had had the time to think about it, she would have applauded herself for such an achievement. But she was too busy telling him exactly what he had done this morning.
‘I had actually managed to convince myself that it was just a sick joke-’
‘A joke?’
‘Some people have a very weird sense of humour,’ she told him. ‘And approximately eleven million people saw me on television last week. They all knew I was going to make a parachute jump this morning. When you’re in the public eye that kind of thing goes with the territory.’
‘You didn’t consider cancelling today?’
From somewhere she found a smile. ‘Believe me I wish I had. The entire twenty-four hours. But I figured that since the idea of the letter was to scare me out of making the jump, it had to be from someone with a motive for making me look pathetic. I mean, who would believe it? Really? If you’d read about it in the newspaper you’d have thought I’d done it myself just to get out of it. Wouldn’t you?’ she demanded.
‘Maybe I would,’ he agreed, without apology. ‘But it would have been wise to mention it so that I could have double-checked.’
‘Mention it?’ She regarded him with scorn. ‘Just when would I have mentioned it? After you started yelling at me? I don’t believe I had much time before.’
He ignored this. ‘You obviously didn’t take it seriously,’ he said. ‘No one could be that stupid.’
‘Oh, right. Give the man a coconut. I didn’t take it seriously. It made me feel sick to my stomach but I had still managed to convince myself that everything was fine. Who could tamper with my parachute? It was safely in the care of Tony and he wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. Would he?’ she demanded and was glad to see an angry colour darkening his cheekbones. ‘Of course not. Then, just as I stepped through the plane doorway I realised that you had changed the parachute, Mr MacIntyre. That no one had seen you do it. And quite suddenly it occurred to me that I didn’t know you from Adam...’
‘Claudia?’ He stood up. ‘You didn’t think...? Oh, my God, you did. You thought it wasn’t going to open.’
The recollection of that horrible moment was suddenly too much for her and she was off the stool and running for the bathroom as the bile rose to her throat, stinging, foul. She had eaten nothing all day as events had piled, one on top of the other, conspiring to rob her of her appetite, but her stomach muscles reacting belatedly to the day’s traumas weren’t bothered about that.
Now all she could taste was the acid of the few sips of champagne she had swallowed after the jump as she wretched and wretched and then slumped on the floor, her back against the bath, her forehead cold and clammy against her knee.
‘Claudia,’ Mac said, gently, his hands on her shoulders. ‘Come on. Get up.’
She jerked away from his touch. ‘Go away,’ she muttered, through the rawness of her throat. ‘Just leave me alone.’ He took no notice. Instead he lifted her to her feet, propping her on the edge of the bath before ringing out a flannel under the cold tap.
He wiped her face, pressed the cold cloth to her forehead. ‘There,’ he said, as if that would make everything better. ‘Come and lie down.’
His concern was obvious, but she didn’t want his concern. She just wanted him to go. And so she repeated her request for him to leave, somewhat less politely. He appeared to have been afflicted with sudden deafness, however, since instead of doing what he had been told, he picked her up and carried her through into the sitting room and put her on the sofa.
‘Lie down,’ he said, ‘and put your feet up.’
Claudia gave in, not gracefully, but she finally surrendered. It was obvious that Gabriel MacIntyre was a man who gave orders rather than took them so she stopped protesting, allowed him to remove her shoes and prop her feet on a cushion.
‘How’s the ankle?’ he asked, as an afterthought when he noticed the strapping.
‘There’s nothing wrong with my ankle that a pain killing injection and some efficient strapping couldn’t handle. I thought I told you to go?’
He went, but almost immediately returned with a glass of water. She shook her head and he put it on the table beside her. Then crouching down he took her hands, chafed at them.
‘For heaven’s sake,’ she declared, snatching them back. ‘Do I look like some heroine out of a Victorian melodrama?’
‘Yes, and from your colour one about to expire from consumption,’ he confirmed, but he stood up. ‘I did what I thought was best this morning. I know you must have had a horrible few seconds-
‘Seconds?’ She let her head fall back against the cushions, closing her eyes in an attempt to blot it out. ‘It felt like years. Falling and falling... Time to think of all the things I wouldn’t see, wouldn’t ever do.’
And for a moment he was holding her, as if trying to absorb the fit of trembling that had overtaken her. His chest had the solidity of a cliff and as she clung to him, for the first time that day she felt safe. It was an illusion of course. Cliffs were dangerous places, continually undermined by the waves and slipping into the sea. And men had feet of clay.
‘Are you in love with her?’ she asked.
‘In love?’ He pulled away to look down at her. ‘I don’t follow you.’
She thought he did, but she was prepared to humour him. ‘With Tony’s wife. That is why you tried to protect her, isn’t it? You’re in love with her yourself.’
‘Adele?’ The corners of his mouth creased in the wryest of smiles. ‘No, Claudia. I’m not in love with her. In fact she’s about the biggest pain in the backside I’ve ever met. Until today. Unfortunately, since she’s my sister I have to put up with her.’
She regarded him with disbelief. ‘Tony’s married to your sister and he’s prepared to risk fooling around?’
Mac’s mouth lifted at one corner in the wryest of smiles. ‘Under normal circumstances Adele is quite capable of handling Tony. She knows that he’s weak.’
Claudia sighed. ‘But he’s very pretty.’
‘As to that, I couldn’t offer a comment. He’s not my type.’
‘You don’t go for tall blondes?’ Claudia asked, and remembering his kiss, wondered what kind of woman he would go for. The dark-eyed, warm-skinned mother-earth type, no doubt. She touched the wedding band on his left hand. ‘And what about your wife, Mac? How does she feel about you kissing other women? Does she know where you are right now?’ His face darkened. She’d touched a raw
nerve. She poked it harder. ‘Does she care?’
‘I kissed you because I thought you’d done really well. It’s tough making that first jump.’
He was lying. Which was interesting. She would have sworn that he wouldn’t lie. She lay back against the cushions. ‘Is it a courtesy you extent to all first timers, Mac?’
‘Of course,’ he said, quickly. Too quickly.
‘Or just the women?’ He stiffened, but she didn’t wait for his answer. ‘Tell me, do you and Tony normally hunt in pairs?’
‘Hunt in pairs?’
‘He softens the girls up with his winning smile and sugar-coated charm. You offer the shoulder to cry on when they find out he’s a rat. It’s a nice act. What do you do for an encore?’
He stood up. ‘You’ve had a bad day,’ he said, ‘so I’ll forget you said that.’
‘Too damn right I have. And you and Tony are the cause.’
‘Are we?’ She raised a hand, the smallest gesture that left him to provide his own answer. Mac shrugged. ‘Tony’s an idiot. But Adele’s been giving him a hard time for the last few months. Her hormones are up the creek and giving up a job she enjoys for motherhood seems to have lost its original appeal.’
‘Then find her a good crèche and stop making excuses for Tony.’
‘Adele chose motherhood, Claudia. Nobody twisted her arm. But now she’s pregnant she wants the career too. She can’t have it both ways. Life isn’t like that.’
Barefoot and pregnant. She had been right about that.
‘It is for men,’ she said.
‘You don’t really believe that.’
‘Maybe not a hundred per cent,’ she conceded, ‘but it comes pretty close. Does Tony think the same way as you do?’
‘Of course he does.’
Of course? Or had he been brainwashed by his brother-in-law? ‘No wonder the poor girl is giving him a hard time. She probably sees herself chained to the kitchen sink for the next twenty years.’
‘You’re just being ridiculous. But you can see why a smile from you must have seemed like a raft to a drowning man.’
‘Well, that’s a very pretty compliment.’ She waited. He wasn’t going offer any excuses on his own behalf?
‘Have you still got the anonymous letter?’ he asked.
No excuses. ‘It’s in the bin under the sink. Watch out for the-’ For the used teabags, she was going to say, but he had already gone. He was gone for a long time and when, finally, she couldn’t stand the silence any longer and went to see what he was doing.
He glanced up, briefly from the breakfast bar where he was trying to piece the threatening letter together. She’d made a thorough job of tearing it into small pieces. ‘You shouldn’t have got up,’ he said as she slid onto the stool opposite him.
‘If you’d said that before I got out of bed this morning, you’d have contributed immeasurably to my well-being. As it is, you’re hours too late.’
‘Go to bed now and I’ll suggest it tomorrow if you like,’ he offered.
Her head was thumping and she felt like death lightly warmed over. The temptation to go to bed and stay there for a week was almost overwhelming.
‘Tomorrow I have two performances of Private Lives with a trip to the television studios in between,’ she said, resting her head on her arms.
‘At least you don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn to leap out of a plane. What time shall I bring you a cup of tea?’ he asked.
What was it about married men, she wondered? Were they all utterly insensitive? One inadequate apology, one bunch of yellow roses and he actually thought he was going to stay the night. The roses, she noticed had been picked up off the floor where she had dropped them in her fright and had been put into a jug of water.
‘You’ve a whole lot of nerve, Gabriel MacIntyre,’ she mumbled into her arms.
He finally gave her his full attention. ‘It’ll take me a while to piece this together, Claudia. I shan’t disturb you.’
‘No you won’t, because you won’t be here. I don’t recall inviting you in and now I’m asking you to leave.’ She lifted her head off her arms to look at him. ‘How did you get in anyway?’
‘I told you. Security is my business. If I can’t crack a system, then it’s reasonably safe.’ He obviously hadn’t taken her request to leave at all seriously. Instead he slotted another piece of the letter into place. ‘Yours was a piece of cake.’
‘Really?’ She was unimpressed. ‘Actually I’m pretty sure I forgot to switch the alarm on before I went out,’ she said, yawning. ‘It’s been one of those days.’
‘You switched it on. In fact after the kind of day you’ve had it would be have been strange if you hadn’t remembered. But using your birthday as the code number was not very bright.’
She stared at him. ‘You’re guessing,’ she said, finally.
‘One seven zero eight. It’s not a state secret, Claudia, in fact it was in that article.’ He nodded towards the segmented photograph. ‘Your locks need changing, too. The average ten-year-old could get in here.’
‘They have to get through the front door first. There’s a speaker system.’
‘I got past it,’ he reminded her.
He had a point. ‘How?’
He glanced up. ‘It wasn’t difficult. I was helped by an utterly charming lady, somewhat past middle years, who was struggling through the front door with a large bag. She was very grateful for the assistance and she didn’t even query my assurance that Miss Claudia Beaumont was expecting me.’
‘I don’t believe you.’ His description of Kay Abercrombie was close enough, but his assumption that she had such a continual stream of “gentleman callers” that he wouldn’t be challenged was galling. It was also incorrect.
‘You should believe me. The lady wasn’t in the least suspicious. I was well-dressed, polite and helpful. And a burglar wouldn’t carry your bag for you. Would he?’
Claudia was disgusted. ‘I can’t believe you’d take such advantage of that sweet old lady.’
‘Can’t you? Well, if it hadn’t been her it would have been someone else. People are dangerously gullible and your anonymous correspondent got inside somehow. Unless you think someone in the block might have written this?’
‘Someone I know?’ She was horrified. ‘None of my neighbours could have written that.’
‘You’d be surprised what envy and spite will do to even the sweetest of old ladies,’ he told her. ‘But you can go to bed in perfect safety tonight. In fact I suggest you go right now before you fall off that stool.’
She was too tired to argue, but she turned in the doorway. ‘Why did you come to the theatre tonight, Mac? Your note said it was important.’
‘Did it? Well you obviously didn’t believe it was that important. Certainly not important enough to spare me a few minutes of your time. Or did you think I’d be waiting for you at the stage door like some lovelorn pup?’
Maybe, if she was honest with herself, the idea of bringing Gabriel MacIntyre to heel did have a certain appeal, but she wasn’t about to admit it. ‘You’re no pretty pup, MacIntyre. You’re pure wolf hound. But I was sure that if you were determined to see me, nothing I did would put you off.’
‘That sounds like the voice of experience.’
‘It is.’ She glared at him and he glared right back. ‘So? What was so important? I don’t believe you were that desperate to check out a nonexistent publicity stunt?’
‘Don’t you? Then it’s taken you a while to get around to the most obvious question.’
‘It’s been a long day.’ And she was too tired to rise obligingly to his bait. ‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘Are you going to tell me?’
For a moment he hesitated. ‘There are a number of reasons I came up to town this evening. First I came to apologise for shouting at you this morning. You might drive like an idiot, but that was no excuse for me to behave like one as well.’
‘If that’s the best you can do by way of apology I’d ad
vise you not to take it up for a living,’ she warned him. ‘You’d starve.’
‘I had intended to make my peace with you before you left the airfield this morning, but something must have put it clean out of my head.’ His head moved slightly to one side, his expression close to mocking and Claudia felt like slapping him all over again. But she didn’t. She told herself she was far too tired. She also had a very strong suspicion that he wouldn’t let her get away with it a second time.
‘And?’ she demanded.
‘And?’
‘You didn’t drive all this way, then break into my flat just to say that. How did you find out where I live, anyway?’
‘Tony gave me your address.’ He glanced around. ‘Has he been here?’
She was going to tell him he could go to hell before she’d tell him that. Something about the way he was looking at her suggested he was expecting as much. ‘And?’ she pressed.
He smiled slightly. ‘And I did have a free ticket for Private Lives.’ He gave the smallest of shrugs. ‘My brother-in-law discovered he no longer had a use for it.’
‘So he passed it along?’
‘Well, no. Not Tony. Adele. Although come to think of it she didn’t exactly give me the ticket. As I recall she threw it at me, along with a less than flattering assessment of my character for having let Tony anywhere near something as dangerous as you.’
What about his own wife? Didn’t she care?
‘Your apology is noted, Mr MacIntyre. Kindly let yourself out when you’ve finished playing with the contents of my dustbin. You know how to reset the alarm.’ She slid off the stool and heading for the door.
‘There was just one other thing.’ Something about the way he said it brought her to a halt. She turned and waited. ‘You said your brakes failed this morning.’
‘They did. As I recollect, you didn’t believe me. Or am I overstating the case?’
‘Not at all. However, when I moved your car in order to assess the extent of the damage to the hangar, I discovered for myself that you were telling the truth.’