by Ann Charlton
'Oh God—no—' the cry came again and she stood helplessly outside the spare room.
'Not Eva—it isn't her—' he cried and she pushed the door open. The hall light showed him to her. He was sitting in the lower bunk, looking straight ahead, eyes staring the white faintly pink. 'Only ten minutes late—she must be somewhere else, that's it—' he gabbled. Then, 'No!' He put up a hand to ward off whatever knowledge was thrusting itself upon him in his sleep. Dru went to stand beside the bunk.
Although his eyes were open, he was asleep and his body was trembling. Hesitantly she put a hand to his shoulder. The skin was ice cold, damp.
'It's all right,' she whispered, uncertain as to whether she should wake him. 'Everything's all right Locke.'
'Eva—never wears pink. Oh no. I'm late. She'll be in the shop—'
He stopped, reached up a hand to where she barely touched him.
'It's just a dream,' she said, frowning down at his shaking shoulders. 'Can't you bear to sleep alone?' she'd said. Whatever was turning him into a terrified child had chilled her too. He muttered then lay back in the bunk, pulled her so that she sat abruptly on the edge, her hand clasped in his against his chest.
'Eva—' his voice broke and she felt the distressed rise and fall of his breathing beneath her hand. His other arm curved to her waist as he turned and she found herself clutched against him. She resisted but the arms holding her were seeking comfort, nothing else and after maybe thirty seconds of indecision, compassion won and she lifted her legs on to the bed and lay with him, her arms around his cold, beautiful body. And her sharp tongue murmured soothing, meaningless words.
CHAPTER THREE
It was maybe five minutes before his shivering stopped. When he lay still at last in her arms, his mutterings patchy and incoherent, Dru stayed there and saw his face relax in dreamless sleep. His lips were slightly parted, his hair spiked over his eyes. What light there was from the hall lingered on the photogenic cheekbones and the arrow-straight nose. Shadow lay dark across his jaw and the hollows of his eyes. She swallowed, confused at the emotion that chased around inside her. After all she had said to him—after all her dislike she had rushed to comfort him. He groaned and she lifted a hand immediately to his forehead. At her touch his head turned to the side and he was quiet. Like a child reassured by his mother's hand.
That was what this odd, choking feeling was, Dru thought. A latent maternalism. She had seen the strong man reduced to a child and it had brought out the mother in her. Carefully she took her hand from his head. It was a powerful feeling—to be needed like this. The first time she could remember being needed. Slowly, slowly—watching him, she withdrew. Oh Lord, if he woke now and found her here… her heart thumped so hard and fast that she felt sure its drumbeat must wake him. But his hands slipped away from her to lie gracefully on the sheet and she stepped out on to the floor. Once more she looked at him then went with gathering speed to her own room.
Sam's seagulls mewed and complained and Dru woke. With an arm over her eyes to shield them from the morning sun, she re-ran last night's dream sequence. She had stretched out alongside Locke Matthews in his bed—had held him and felt his arms clutching her close. As she delayed the intrusion of the new day, she admitted what she couldn't last night. Her maternal instincts had been shot through with something else—the feel of him in her arms had pleased more than the buried mother in her. He had smelled of toothpaste and soap and he hadn't been wearing a stitch, not even the low-slung pyjama pants… Abruptly she lowered her arm and let the bright light of day flood in. Her meandering thoughts shrivelled away from the light, just the way her imaginary creatures used to years ago. Dru got up and went to the window to watch Sam as usual. She just had to remember to turn the light on, that was all.
As she dressed Dru asked herself two questions. How come, for the first time since Michael's tactful jettison of her, she had stayed awake nearly all night and scarcely thought of him? And who was Eva?
'Good morning,' Locke Matthews said cheerfully when he came down for breakfast. 'You left the hall light on you know,' he went on.
'Oh.' She gulped cornflakes. In her hurry to shut herself back into her room last night she must have forgotten it. In her haste to avoid him this morning, she hadn't noticed. 'I must have left it on when I got up last night to—er, go to the bathroom.'
'And my door was ajar this morning—I could have sworn I closed it last night.'
She raised her head and the sight of him hit at her. There was a mocking smile about his mouth as he stood, one hand on his hip, the other resting on the back of a chair. He had shaved this morning. Last night that smooth jaw had been scratchy against her cheek, beneath her hand… 'Well of course, I couldn't resist coming in to peek at my captive movie star, Mr Matthews. I'm just the type to moon over a sleeping sex symbol.'
He chuckled. 'You're terrible for my ego, Dru.'
'Your ego can stand a bit of a battering.'
'Maybe—but please, not total annihilation.' He boiled the kettle and made himself some instant coffee, humming as he did it.
'You're very cheerful this morning,' she remarked as he sat down. 'Did you—sleep well?' Watching him closely she could see no reaction at all. He didn't remember a thing about last night.
'Yes I did. The best night's sleep I've had for a while.'
'You say that as if it's something unusual.'
Over his coffee, he met her eyes, looked away. 'Sometimes when I'm under stress I have trouble sleeping.'
She said nothing. It was suddenly so much more difficult faced with a man who had cried out in the night. Far easier to deal with the star—the man who was an image and not a real person.
'What—no prudish cracks about what might keep me awake?'
'If you insist—it's bound to be—' she started to say 'a woman' and remembered that it was a woman who had disturbed his sleep last night and maybe other nights. A woman called Eva. '—too much coffee.'
His brows went up. 'Pulling your punches, Dru? You disappoint me.'
'Life is full of disappointments,' she said, 'If you like you can pack up your things this morning. I'll definitely get you into your own flat by lunch time.'
'So eager to be rid of me,' he murmured, watching her quick flurries about the kitchen.
'It makes me nervous having a star hanging around. I never know whether to curtsey or applaud.'
Dru's second, unhopeful visit to the agent uncovered the key that had been left unidentified in a drawer. She picked up some supplies for her tenant and drove back along the coast with a feeling of satisfaction that was oddly mixed with depression. After he had moved next door she ate some lunch and walked over the sand to see Sam. His cottage had grown to look like Sam himself over the years. Or maybe it was the other way around. The timber house was narrow, paint-patched and though it was sturdy enough, gave the illusion of a faint lean. The cottonwood trees clustered around it supportively, leaving only the very front of the cottage exposed.
Sam was sitting on his steps, using a small knife on a piece of driftwood. Several other beautiful twists of sea-washed timber lay in the sun. He looked up at her, his eyes squinting against the glare, the skin around them creased into a mosaic of irregular tiles of weathered, brown skin separated by pale, deep grouting.
'Aaagh,' he grunted and she smiled, sat down beside him in silence. It was his usual greeting and she had never been able to decide just what word it represented. But his nod and the smile in his eyes were enough. There was something very peaceful about sitting with him. The world and everyone in it needed thousands of words. Except Sam. His knife flashed in quicksilver movements on the driftwood. Tiny shavings and chips fell about his bare feet. She watched the knife tip follow the weather-scored grain of the timber, open it out delicately in a long, waving groove. There seemed a strange kinship in what he was doing, with the gulls' noise and the sea surge.
'What will this one be, Sam?' He turned out his small gems—worked with instinctive restraint on n
ature's formless art to give it form—and sold them to a local crafts shop.
'Dragon.'
After another few minutes, he stood the piece on the lower step. The back arched from the body of the branch, the water-smoothed protuberances gave support as legs—the head was a fearsome distortion, the truncated fork of the branch.
Yet it was a likeness undefined. A beautiful, natural shape in one swift glance—a creature of fantasy in the next. That was why his work sold.
'It's beautiful.'
'Aaagh.' He shot her a look from under thick, peppery brows. 'That feller—said his name was Smith.'
'Oh yes,' she smiled. Smith. How unimaginative. 'Mr Smith. You gave him a fish.'
'I like him.'
And that was that. Sam liked—Sam disliked. His summing up was usually quick and permanent. And justified—mostly.
'Why?'
'Genuine. No flim-flam about him. Knows a bit about fishing too.'
He would. He'd probably played a fisherman in something. Genuine? Perhaps Sam was a bit off-beam there. How genuine could an actor be? A seagull screamed and she thought of that painful cry last night. That was one thing at least that had been genuine.
'Sounds like a lonely man to me,' Sam said and she stared. Lonely? Locke Matthews—surrounded by managers and women and adoring fans. Who even had a companion lined up for his holiday.
'That's crazy coming from you, Sam. No-one lives a lonelier life.' To her knowledge he had lived, worked and slept alone for the last fifteen years and maybe even before that. Sam picked up the driftwood dragon and shaved a sliver from the head.
'No,' he shook his head. 'I live alone. There's a difference. It's only lonely if you haven't chosen to be that way.'
'Philosophy, Sam?' she grinned.
He chuckled. 'Don't start throwing your big words at me,' he said. 'He wanted to know about you.'
'What?' Her pulse tripped. 'What did you tell him?'
'Nothing much. Said you'd been an inquisitive brat—a dreaming teenager before you got to be so darned grown up and sensible.' He shot her another glance. 'Said you'd been almost as much trouble as a daughter to me.'
'Sam—you didn't warn him off?' A warm vexation filled her. Sam was looking out for her and didn't realise how unnecessary it was.
'Good looking feller.'
'What's that got to do with anything?'
'Used to having his own way I reckon.'
'I thought you liked him?'
'Do. Doesn't change facts. Watch your step, Silla.' The name from childhood days swept over her in a wash of regret and desolation that had some vague connection with the present. Drusilla had been abbreviated to Silla when she was young, became Dru at her insistance when she turned fourteen. Because she felt ordinary and drab and thought Dru sounded sophisticated. Only Sam kept the old name.
'Have to call you Silla,' Sam had said, 'It's pretty like you—' And when she'd protested he'd shushed her and told her to listen to the wind in the cottonwoods. 'See,' he said, 'You can hear it in the breeze.' And she even thought she did hear the leaves whispering the old name—Silla. But she didn't change her mind. And nor did Sam. Silla it always was. Perhaps that was why he seemed her only unchanged link with childhood.
'Don't worry, Sam. I'm in no danger from Mr Smith,' she said drily.
'Sounds like some regret there.'
'Of course not,' she exclaimed, stung.
'Aaagh. Just be careful,' he repeated with a shrewd look at her. When she got up to go he nodded again and his farewell was the same as his greeting.
'Aaagh,' Sam said.
Locke came over the next morning just as she finished her breakfast. There was stubble on his chin again like that first morning, and he was wearing shorts and nothing else at all. His chest was smooth, bronze and hairless and irrelevantly she wondered if he would be such a pin-up if it sprouted reddish hair.
'Finished your cornflakes?' he asked with a grin.
'What makes you think I had any?'
'I heard you—' he mocked the sound effects of her crunching cereal.
'Very funny, Mr Matthews.'
'Actually my hearing isn't that good,' he admitted and leaned over to pick a cornflake off her tee shirt, his fingers brushing the upper slopes of her breast. Stoically she kept her face very straight—very common sense.
'Did you want something, Mr Matthews?'
His eyes remained on her breasts. Dru wished she'd worn a bra. 'Yes, I did want something. You've distracted me—oh yes, I'd like a pair—' he paused, eyes wicked and teasing and she refused to rise to his baiting, '—of pillowslips. Last night I only found sheets and blankets and some rather raw pillows.'
She stepped aside, let him in. 'This isn't the Sheraton, Mr Matthews, as even the brainless secretary must have guessed when she rented the place. But you should have had pillowslips. I'll get you some.'
He was bored, Dru thought, eyeing the alert gleam in his eyes—and ready to make her the butt of his enjoyment. She looked mockingly at his bare chest which seemed extraordinarily prominent—as if he was sucking in his breath to impress her. But she turned away and he followed her upstairs. At the linen cupboard she turned to look at him. 'You can breathe out now. I'm duly impressed.'
'Damn me,' he grumbled, 'I'm a sex-symbol after all, or so they tell me and I can't even get my landlady to sigh over me.'
'I'm not the sighing type,' she handed him two pillow cases. 'Do you shave?'
He felt his chin. 'Going to rap me over the knuckles about that again, landlady?'
'No. I meant—there.' She pointed to his chest and he looked down, astonished.
'Shave? My chest?
She shrugged. 'Well I thought you might. I mean if it grew red hair it wouldn't fit the image would it? You'd have to keep your shirt on in Ramage.'
He blinked. 'Shave my chest?'
'Hasn't anyone asked you that before?'
'Never.' He shook his head. 'Shave my chest?' he muttered again as they went through to the kitchen.
'Have you got everything now, Mr Matthews? Linen, cutlery, crockery?'
'Well, the crockery is a bit crude.'
'Oh dear. Sorry. I'll run over with the Royal Doulton later. We have this trouble with our clientele you see. They keep knocking off the china.'
He laughed. 'No-one will knock off your current lot. It's the worst stuff I've come across.'
'Look—it's plain and cheap I know, but otherwise I'm not aware that it's so terrible.'
'Come and see for yourself. Over breakfast I counted seven chips and that was just on one coffee mug.'
She went with him, trying to ignore his shirtless, unshaven glamour. Walking behind him, looking at the muscular back made her think of how he'd felt in her arms. All that strength had been of little use to him with his dreams of Eva hurting him. It was a stupid thing to dwell upon. And probably one of the reasons she made her mistake.
She was shocked when she saw that the equipment was indeed in a disgusting state. Barry couldn't have checked it last time he was down and the agency which cleaned out after each tenant certainly hadn't reported its state.
'You're right, Mr Matthews,' she said briskly. 'It's lousy. I'll get you something better right away.'
'Thank you, Miss Winters,' he half bowed. 'How about making my bed for me while you're here?'
'This is a flat not a serviced apartment.'
He went to the kitchen counter and picked up the receipt he'd shown her that first night. 'It says "service included",' he said with malicious pleasure.
'But it can't—' she looked at it. He was right and the amount paid did appear to cover some extra facility.
'But we never provide service to the flat—' she protested and her temper began to rise at the look on his face, '—we don't have any arrangements for someone to come in.'
'I don't want someone to come in,' he told her. 'In no time at all my presence would be all over the coast. I want you.'
She reddened, annoyed at her reaction to
the phrase. 'I won't do your housework for you, Mr Matthews. Just because your curvy little ash-blonde hasn't shown up, don't imagine that I'm going to…' Her words slowed. Her colour heightened.
'Curvy—little—ash-blonde?' he repeated.
'Well—' she stammered, 'I imagine your friend will be curvy and more than likely blonde. Isn't that the type you go for?'
She backed away at the look on his face. Her guilt was showing and she couldn't control it. What a fool— she might have simply bluffed it out if she hadn't blushed and backed off. His hand clamped about her arm just below the elbow.
'You've seen her, haven't you?'
'Let me go—you're hurting—'
He had her fast now, using both hands to hold her squarely in front of him. With her palms against his bare chest she pushed but nothing happened.
'Why, you little bitch—you've seen Shelley and didn't tell me. Did she leave me a message?'
'Don't you call me names,' she shouted, as much from fright than anything. The man was powerful, far more than she would have imagined and though she'd made him angry before it was nothing compared to this. 'Yes, I saw your girlfriend whose face you can't even remember. She was really quite attractive—she'll be furious if she ever finds out you mistook me for her!'
The hold on her arms loosened and Dru whipped her shoulders one at a time from his grasp.
'Did she ask for me?' he enquired, very clearly, very controlled. Dru backed a step.
'No. She wanted to know if she was on the right road to Sea Winds and the sign wasn't up and I—' she couldn't finish. She was in the wrong, there was no arguing that. Her conscience stung. From her own inner resentment and hurt had come one moment of spite that still amazed her. Whatever the man's morals, she had had no right.
'And you told her she wasn't?' he finished for her, in that same quiet, dangerous tone. 'Why was that, Miss Winters? Sat in judgement have you and decided that I'm not to be allowed any joy on this holiday?