by Ann O'Leary
After Laura told her the story, Jude said, “Come with me to the market, there’s nothing else you can do at the moment. You’ve got your phone with you just in case.”
Laura nodded in agreement. “You can spend the day with me if you like, and I’ll make a big pot of vegetable soup for dinner. I know you won’t eat if you go home.”
Laura looked at Jude and smiled. Not for the first time, she considered how lucky she was to have a friend like her. 141
“Thanks, Jude,” she replied, “I’d like that.”
Kelly had played cricket in the afternoon, and as her team had brilliantly won the match against a formidable, infamous opposition called The Western Deadly Dykes, Kelly and a group of others decided to go out and celebrate. They’d decided after dinner to check out a few clubs. They started with Babes. It was a bit rough and had a reputation for being a sleazy pick-up bar. Kelly didn’t like the place much, but it was somewhere to kill a couple of hours. They arrived at around eleven o’clock and settled themselves at the bar. As her eyes adjusted to the dim lights, and her ears adjusted to the loud techno music, Kelly leaned back comfortably on her bar stool, drink in hand, and surveyed the room.
There were a few women lurching about in the semidarkness, obviously the worse for drink, and a small contingent of energetic dancers on the dance floor. Women at the tables near the dance floor yelled at one other in an attempt at conversation, and huddled couples leaned against the walls in various stages of passionate embrace. One such couple stood not far from her. She noticed a woman in a white jacket that was glowing brilliantly in the ultra-violet light, leaning over another, who she had pressed against the wall. She was kissing her passionately, and nudging her thigh between the other woman’s legs. Kelly watched as the woman in the jacket slipped her hand up under the other woman’s sweater and fondled her breasts. Just when Kelly was wondering how far they’d go, they stopped kissing for a moment, and the woman against the wall turned her head.
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Kelly’s eyes widened in surprise, as she saw it was the beautiful young woman who’d appeared in Laura’s apartment last night. It was obvious that she was quite drunk, and was being partly held up against the wall, by the other woman. She watched as once again, the young woman’s mouth was smothered in a kiss. Kelly looked away. It wasn’t her business. But she recalled the sight of Laura, on the floor last night in tears, distraught, and she knew that Laura wanted to find this girl. It was obvious she wasn’t enjoying herself; she was heading for trouble. Kelly sighed and sipped her drink. Letting Laura know where to find this girl wasn’t doing herself any favors, she thought. But she cared about Laura, and if she’d fallen in love with this woman, well, it was over with her anyway. Seeing the haunted expression on the girl’s face she went out in is the foyer, and found the pay-phone.
Babes wasn’t far away, and Laura got there in record time. She raced inside the grimy foyer and paused at the counter to pay her nominal entry fee. Impatiently, she waited while a heavily tattooed woman stamped her wrist and slowly looked her over. She walked past the bouncers on the door, and headed for the bar. Kelly turned and looked into her eyes for a moment before indicating, with a nod of her head, where Kate was to be found. Laura kissed her cheek. “Thank you.”
Laura moved through the crowd There were women huddled together everywhere. Her eyes had adjusted to the light, and she looked around carefully. Then a woman in a white jacket leaned back a little, revealing the woman she had wrapped in her arms. With a gasp, Laura saw it was Kate. She froze for a moment, when she saw the woman run her hands up under Kate’s sweater and begin again to 143
kiss her mouth.
She grabbed Kate’s arm. “I have to talk to you,” Laura said.In an exaggerated proprietorial action, the woman began to slowly stroke Kate’s back, hips and thighs. Smiling at Laura, she said, “She’s busy.”
Laura clenched her fists. “Kate!” she said again, looking at her.
“I’ll talk to her,” Kate said to the woman. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Over my dead body, thought Laura as she clasped Kate’s hand and led her across the room to a quiet lounge area outside the dance floor. Laura found a table in a dim corner, and they sat down.
Kate looked up at Laura, tossed her hair, and asked coldly, “What do you want to say, Laura?”
Laura wiped at the tears that were running down her face and swallowed hard to clear the lump in her throat.
“Baby, I’m so sorry” she began inadequately.
Kate’s eyes flashed angrily. “You’re sorry! Laura, do you have any idea of how I feel? I was such an idiot to believe in you. All that time, I thought what was happening with us was important and special, but it meant nothing to you. You were still screwing her!” She put her face in her hands to hide her tears.
Laura reached across the table and touched her her hand. “Kate, please listen to me.”
Kate pulled away from her touch. “You didn’t take me seriously, did you? Well maybe you were right! If I wasn’t so stupid and inexperienced, I would have known better!”
Just then Laura noticed the skulking figure of the woman in the white jacket hovering nearby. “Is that why 144
you’re here? To get experience?”
“Yes!” Kate shouted.
The tears continued to well up in Laura’s eyes and spill over. Holding Kate’s furious gaze, she said, “I’m in love with you, Kate.” There was silence for a moment, while Kate just stared at her in amazement. “I want you to come home with me.”After another pause, Kate asked, “What did you say?”
Laura got up then, went to Kate, and took her in o her arms. “I said, I’m in love with you and I want you desperately. Please forgive me, Kate.” She felt Kate’s body relax in her arms. “I was such a fool, darling. I tried to fight it, but I was in love with you all along.” She looked into Kate’s eyes. “I want us to be together always. Can you forgive me?”
Kate couldn’t speak through her tears. She nodded and Laura stroked Kate’s wet cheek.
“I thought I’d lost you, baby. You’re more than I deserve. Let’s go home.” Kate nodded again, and hand in hand they made their way through the throng and left the bar.
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Epilogue
Jude nearly tripped over a box near the door, and looked around in amazement at the stuff piled around Laura’s usually immaculate apartment. Three happy weeks had passed for Kate and Laura, and tonight they were entertaining their first dinner guest.
“Where are you going to fit all this stuff?” Jude asked Laura.
Just then, Kate appeared at the top of the stairs. The attic!” Kate replied excitedly. “Come and have look, it’s just been finished.”
Jude looked at Laura in surprise. Laura smiled and shrugged. “You better do what the lady says.” They both climbed the stairs to join Kate, who led Jude into the large dressing room. A fold-away ladder spilled down from the 147
center of the ceiling.
“My God!” exclaimed Jude, as she followed Kate up the ladder.
The large room under the high gabled roof had a polished floor and built-in cupboards and shelves. There was a pretty dormer window out to the north, and beside it, an easel was supporting one of Kate’s half-finished paintings. Empty boxes were lying around.
“This is fabulous! You two have been busy,” said Jude, clearly impressed. “This will be Kate’s studio,” explained Laura, “and a place to store things out of the way. It only took a week to construct, and we did the painting ourselves.”
“Who did the painting?” Kate asked with a laugh. Laura smiled. “Well, you are the painter in the family, darling.”
Laura was already dressed for dinner, but Kate was still dressed in an old pair of jeans and a dirty T-shirt. “Come on, let’s go downstairs and have a drink,” Laura said. Kate kissed her cheek. “I won’t be a minute, I just have to put these things away.”
Downstairs, Laura looked at Jude and laughed. �
�She’s so excited about moving in. She’s so happy and she just loves the studio.”
Jude had brought a bottle of champagne with her to celebrate, and she opened the bottle. “You look extremely happy yourself. I haven’t seen you like this for many years.”
“I honestly thought I could never feel like this again. I just wish I’d listened to you earlier,” Laura said. Just then the cork popped, and Laura grabbed a glass to catch the bubbles. “It was all there for me, and I nearly lost my chance.”
Kate ran downstairs to join them. Jude filled the glasses and raised hers in a toast. “To letting go,” Kate said with a 148
knowing smile.
Laura slid her arm around Kate’s waist and kissed her cheek. “I’ll drink to that!”
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Please enjoy this preview of
Two Weeks in August
by Nat Burns
Available now from Bella Books
www.bellabooks.com
Chapter 1
Several island acquaintances had warned Nina about Hazel Duncan, owner of the rental cottages where Nina would stay while awaiting remodeling on her new home. And, true to their word, Hazel, called Hazy by the locals, was an unusual character. In fact, she was the most unusual woman Nina had met in her entire life.
Upon arriving at Channel Haven, a semicircle of bright blue cottages facing into Assateague Channel, Nina found the small rental office deserted. She waited several minutes, tapping her foot impatiently. She vaguely remembered these cottages; had passed them by many times on previous visits to Chincoteague Island, but knew little about them and had never met the owner.
Not thrilled, to begin with, over the prospect of staying in a rental cottage for several weeks, Nina found herself overreacting to the enforced wait. Plus, her stomach was rumbling from hunger, the moist sea air felt clammy on her skin once she was inside the confines of the office, and her back had stiffened from the long drive. She was just not in the mood to be kept waiting. Maybe she should have renewed her lease on her old apartment for another year and then sublet it when her island home was ready. Ah well, she thought miserably, at least this way she would be available to consult on the finer points of the remodel. After tolerating a few more minutes, she angrily left the office, allowing the screen door to slap shut, and strode onto the adjoining dock to lean against the railing. She tried to let the magic of the waves, and the accompanying wind, soothe her as she drank deeply of the raw beauty surrounding her. As it was approaching midday, the heat of the August sun had coaxed the cobalt of the sea and the jade of the marsh into brilliant hues.
Turning her face into the wind, savoring it, she was shocked to open her eyes and see a woman’s face no more than twelve inches from hers. A strong metallic fish odor attacked Nina’s nostrils and she backed away reflexively from the woman and the stairway on which the woman stood.
The tall blonde, probably an employee of Channel Haven if not the owner, eyed her with annoyance and brushed past, a string of fish dangling from one hand. Nina watched the retreating back, too surprised to move. The woman walked quickly into the office cottage, disappearing from view. Nina came to her senses and raced after her.
“Excuse me, ma’am, are you…” She paused. The rental office was still empty.
“Damn!” She slapped a palm against the doorframe. What type of game was this? A sound penetrated and she realized that the woman was running water in the back somewhere. Aggression warred with timidity. Aggression won and she moved toward the sound.
Again, she found her nose inches from the woman’s as the woman almost walked into her from the back room. She pulled back and assessed Nina for a long moment.
“Can I help you, miss?” Her blue eyes were cold and her voice sarcastic, the accent decidedly British, typical to the island, but it caught Nina off guard. The woman stirred impatiently as Nina groped for words.
“Are you Hazy? I called…you said you had a cottage…”
The woman nodded, and then sighed as she once more roughly pushed past Nina. This time she took a seat at the large metal desk situated just inside the door.
“Name?” she asked impatiently, pen poised over an open notebook filled with lined paper.
Nina crossed to stand before the desk, feeling like a student about to recite. “Christie, Nina Christie.”
Her lips felt tight. Why was the woman acting so boorishly? She was not her parent and Nina resented the way this scenario made her feel: like an aggravating child. She tried to calm herself. Deciding to employ an old trick she had learned in a psychology course while at college, she pressed a forefinger to her lips. The exercise was designed to make an antagonist less threatening. It was simple really, best if you had time enough to run through the whole exercise. If time was short, at least concentrating on the procedure was enough to defuse a potentially bad situation. She’d used it several times in the past and it had always worked. It was an easy process: study the threatening person and break him down into manageable parts, into non-threatening morsels.
The unfriendly woman appeared to be fortyish, not too tall, perhaps just under six feet, not too heavy or too thin. She was muscular though and filled out her thigh-length denim cutoffs and faded yellow T-shirt nicely. Nina began the exercise with Hazy’s head. Her hair was light, a blond bleached almost white by the sun. It needed trimming; the sides which may have once been closely cropped now hung more than an inch or so over her ears, giving her a scruffy, small-child air that amused Nina. Her frustration began to fade.
Hazel’s face was unusually square for a female and deeply tanned. When she scowled, as she did now because the pen wouldn’t write, lines showed at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Nina remembered her eyes as very blue and very cold. Nina, nevertheless, pushed on; they hadn’t been that cold.
The body appeared well toned and fit and was bronzed pale brown by the sun. Nina watched, entranced, the interplay of arm muscles as the woman shook and then cursed the recalcitrant pen.
Moving her eyes downward, Nina noticed that Hazy’s feet were bare, with toes unpolished but well cared for. There, see? Hazy wasn’t so big or so bad.
The woman exploded suddenly, pitching the pen forcibly against a far wall, turning Nina’s thoughts into a lie.
“Bloody progress,” she exclaimed, more to herself than to Nina. “We should have stayed with the quill.” Her voice faded as she bent over the desk drawer seeking a replacement.
Nina couldn’t help herself. It really was funny. She giggled and slammed her right palm across her lips but it did little good. The tide would not be stemmed. The woman’s head rose and she eyed the new guest in confusion. This set Nina off again until she knew her face was red and tears were spurting from pressed together eyelids. Hazy must think her totally insane.
“I…I’m sorry,” she gasped finally. “It’s just…”
How could she explain her amusement?
“I’m afraid I’m tired. It was a long drive,” she finished lamely.
Hazy had been watching Nina giggle, mouth open and eyes wide. She shut her mouth finally, fumbled out a toothscarred pencil from the drawer and bent back to the paper.
“Address?” she said curtly.
# # #
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TWO WEEKS IN AUGUST by Nat Burns. Her return to Chincoteague Island is a delight to Nina Christie until she gets her dose of Hazy Duncan’s renown ill-humor. She’s not going to let it bother her, though…
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TOASTED by Josie Gordon. Mayhem erupts when a culinary road show stops in tiny Middelburg, and for some reason everyone thinks Lonnie Squires ought to fix it. Follow-up to Lammy mystery winner Whacked.