Hidden Kiss (Love Is The Law 2)

by Isabella Brooke

  So she walked slowly, savouring the gathering dusk, looking for signs of spring in the dust and the puddles and the dirt and the chill air. Maybe she needed another trip out to the countryside, where the seasons were easier to spot.

  As she got nearer to Riggers' house, a peaceful clarity began to take hold, and she hadn't expected that. She let it wrap around her, warm and comforting. She was going to be honest. Brutally honest. And then let it all go.

  The house was boxy and new, and she knocked hesitantly at the door. Flimsy modern houses always looked as if they wouldn't stand up to much force. It was clean and well-presented; that must be Elaine's influence, she thought. I imagine that left to his own devices, Riggers would live in utter filth.

  Turner answered and she clung desperately to her dissipating sense of earlier confidence. He was looking tired, but he smiled thinly and invited her into the tiny living room. She noticed the enormous television first of all, and shook her head.

  "Can I get you a brew?" Turner asked, slightly awkward at playing the host in someone else's home.

  "No, thanks, it's all right."

  "Okay then. You sure?"

  "Sure. Can I, uh…"

  "Yeah, yes, please do. Sit anywhere." He waved her down to the only option aside from the sofa, the armchair. She perched on the edge, still dressed in her outdoor coat, and clutched her bag on her knees. She realised she was looking defensive so she dropped her bag to the floor, but kept her coat on.

  "Not stopping?" he remarked.

  "No. Yes. Um," she said, and shrugged out of her coat, leaving it pushed and crumpled behind her. "So."

  He seemed as ill at ease as she was. She had been surprised he had agreed to talk, and even more surprised that he'd invited her over. She looked around, seeking to make idle chit chat first. "Nice house they've got."

  "Yeah. I guess."

  Emily looked at him and wanted to hug him, tell him it was okay, and take him home with her.

  But she had some things to set right first. And setting things right would mean it was all over.

  "Turner. I've been an idiot. About a lot of things and to be honest, it's mostly me, not you."

  "Classic line," he noted drily. "It's not you, it's me."

  "In this case… it is. I've been confused. You came out of prison so sorted and full of energy and all focused. But me… I've been floundering. I thought I wanted to continue with journalism, but you know what? The fire for it has just left me."

  "I know, that's been obvious since I first met you. I can't understand why you carry on trying to do something you hate so much."

  "I - what? No, when we met, I was still keen on it. And I don't hate it, but…"

  "I thought you came here to be honest."

  Emily looked down at her fingers and twined them together, skin stretched whitely over her knuckles. "I am trying to be honest. Okay, when I met you, my freelance career was stuttering but I didn't realise it. It's been difficult to admit to myself that something I'd always dreamed off has gone sour."

  "You're not a failure."

  "I never said I was!" she blurted out, a sudden rush of anger making her feel sick. He didn't reply. He just looked at her, calmly, and she began to see that her reaction was masking the fact that underneath, she really did feel like she'd failed.

  "Oh god," she said, quietly as self-awareness dawned. "I just wanted to show I could be determined and have some staying power."

  "Stubborn and bull-headed more like," he said, but his words lacked any sting. "Just career change. I supported you with the journalism because you said it was what you wanted to do, although in hindsight all the signs were there. But why not change? Fuck, Emily, I have. Criminal to web designer! If I can do that, why can't you move sideways in journalism?"

  "Because I don't think I want to be any kind of journalist." She waited for the sky to fall with that admission.

  Turner just shrugged. "So, do something different. You like your job at the charity. So stay doing that."

  "But it's not a graduate career…"

  "So what? Who is gonna come around and take your degree away from you?"

  "No one, but…"

  "So who cares?"

  "It feels like a waste…"

  "Earning money in a way that makes you feel happy and fulfilled? How is that a waste, exactly?"

  "Well, no. Okay. I know it sounds stupid."

  "It is."

  Emily felt her heart sinking at his bluffness. "I'm sorry. I suppose it's something I've got to deal with. Anyway. So it's been bothering me. And I know I was stupid for getting into debt. I just thought that I'd be able to sort it. I didn't want to bother you. And I know I excluded you, and I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."

  "I know. You just didn't think."

  She searched his face for some clue or hint that he understood but he was blank and impassive.

  "Do you think we can make a go of this, Turner?" she asked at last.

  "I don't know," he replied wearily. "I hoped so. I was sitting here earlier, before you texted, and I was thinking how much I missed you. But now you're here, my head's all snarled up with emotions and I can't think straight again. I don't like the feeling of being all confused."

  "No, me neither."

  "You mean a lot to me, Emily. But as you've said yourself, you've got things to work through."

  "I know."

  "I don't know if I can do it…" he said sadly. "But we can be friends. I know that's a shitty cliché but we can, can't we?"

  She looked at him and was surprised to find that no tears were gathering in her eyes. She was dry, dry as a barren desert. "Yes, we can be friends," she said, "But I can't lie to you. I don't really want to see you for a while. I think we can be friends in the future but… right now… it's all a bit… raw."

  "Yeah. Look, let's have a brew. And while you're here, there's a website I want you to look at."

  All she wanted to do was to go home, drag her tired, heavy body into bed and read a book about something light and fluffy. But walking out of the door would be the end of it all, so she nodded. "Okay. Sure."

  Turner left her alone as he went through to the kitchen, and she remained on the chair, fiddling with a ring on her finger. He was a good man, and she'd be proud to call him a friend. Eventually.

  He popped back in while the kettle boiled, and was just about to show her the website he wanted an opinion on, when the front door opened and Riggers entered. Emily jumped, almost guiltily, but he smiled at her and waved dismissively.

  "Hey, mate," he said to Turner, whose face was set hard at the sight of Riggers. "Thanks for filling in with the babysitting tonight. Elaine let me know that she'd asked you when I got delayed from work. She still out as well?"

  "She is."

  "I'm sure she won't be long. The boys all right?"

  "Yup, should be asleep by now."

  "Great."

  Emily looked at Riggers as he talked with Turner. It was as if she wasn't there. He was dressed in his warehouse work clothes, all clean and tidy, but he still stood with the arrogance of the low life street criminal that he had once been. Eventually she couldn't hold her tongue any longer.

  "You were really rude to the workers at the soup kitchen."

  Turner's eyebrows shot up and she realised that she never had told him about the evening confrontation. It was going to be one more thing that he would feel excluded about. Still, she ploughed on. "Especially Joel. He's actually worked hard to get himself off the streets and into a flat and a job, because of the charity's help, not in spite of it."

  She waited, expecting an angry response.

  Riggers sighed, looked sideways at her, and then just smiled. An infuriating, patronising, meaningless smile. "I'm sure," he said mildly, and turned away, presenting his shoulder to her as he continued to talk to Turner about some work he was planning to do in the kitchen.

  Turner looked insulted on Emily's behalf. "Hang on, there. Don't you owe her an apology?"

>   "Nope. Do you think you can help me with putting a new worktop in at the weekend?"

  "You can't just ignore me!" Emily said, rising to her feet.

  "I can, woman. Sit down and shut up."

  "Christ, are you some Victorian throwback or what?" She couldn't believe what she was hearing, and nor, it seemed, could Turner.

  "Come on, now, show some respect," Turner said, spreading his hands wide.

  "She's in my house uninvited, and interrupting me. Don't talk to me about respect." Riggers' voice had risen, and there was a noise from upstairs. All three turned their heads upwards.

  "You've woken the twins now," Turner said.

  "Me?"

  "Come on," Turner growled suddenly. "Riggers. Come outside. Not for a rumble. I just want to talk to you. Lay a few things straight. And get your side of things. Some stuff is bothering me and it occurs to me… I ought to just talk to you. But let's go outside, and let the kids get back to sleep."

  Emily watched them retreat out of the back door into the little yard beyond, and pull the door almost closed behind them. She stood in the middle of the living room, feeling helpless and annoyed.

  Riggers was a sexist twat as well as a racist one, but she knew she'd get over it. It looked like Turner had another axe to grind, though.

  So it wasn't just her that was keeping things to herself. She wondered what Turner's issue was. Then another noise from upstairs caught her attention and she went to the bottom of the stairs, straining her ears.

  For a moment, all was silent, before a slight sniffle emerged from the darkness on the landing.

  She'd looked after Kyle and Liam herself, over the months that Turner and Riggers had been in prison, often helping out when Elaine took Pearl to hospital. It didn't feel right to be creeping about in someone else's house but when another sob sounded, she knew she had to go up to investigate.

  She crept up the stairs as quietly as she could and found herself on a small landing area, with three doors off it. Two were partly open. She peeked into one room and saw a bath and toilet. The other room had a faint orange glow emerging from it. It was the bedroom at the front of the house and she pushed the door open a little further.

  "It's Emily," she whispered. "Kyle? Liam?"

  "Emily!"

  She let her eyes adjust to the dim light of the orange night light, and saw a set of bunk beds. Both boys were on the top bunk, huddled under a blanket.

  "Hey, guys, what's wrong?"

  They were both awake and neither seemed to be crying much, but they were holding on to one another in the dark.

  "Nothing," Kyle said.

  "Then why are you awake?"

  "Dunno. We are. Tell us a story."

  "Oh, come on."

  "Please."

  "Get into your own beds first." She was exasperated but couldn't deny the frisson of pleasure that the neediness of the two lads gave her. She let Liam wriggle from the top bunk and dive under his own covers on the lower bed. "Okay, then, are you ready?"

  She came into the room and stood by the head of the bed, pulling the door more closed behind her, in case Riggers and Turner came back in and started making noise again. She started to tell them a complicated mish-mash of a story involving as many fairy tale characters as she could.

  She was just getting to the bit where Sleeping Beauty had hit a troll over the head with a magic carpet, when the sound of breaking glass from downstairs made both boys scream.

  "What the…" Emily instinctively slammed the bedroom door hard closed, and Kyle jumped off the top bed, to join Liam in the shelter of the lower bunk. She gathered both boys in her arms, holding their panicking bodies tight to hers. "It's okay, lads. I bet your dad has just dropped a glass or something." It had sounded like a window breaking, but she wasn't going to tell them that. "We'll just wait a moment, and then I'll go and see what's going on."

  "Don't go!" Kyle and Liam clung to her, their eyes shining large in the gloom. She held on to them for a few more minutes, listening hard for anything happening downstairs. There was a dull background noise which she couldn't identify, and she was curious. She couldn't hear voices.

  Suddenly, there was another crash and the window of the bedroom exploded in a shower of glass and light. The curtains billowed and flared and the boys screamed in fright as something rolled off the top bunk and onto the carpet, blazing and stinking and sparking.

  Fire. Emily leapt to her feet, kicking the burning object randomly, so that it spun under the bunk bed. Kyle and Liam screamed again and jumped off the bed, grabbing her legs. Already the bedclothes on the top bunk were burning, the cheap material bursting into flames and eating along the top of the mattress. The curtains were just red and black rags now, fanned by the air streaming in through the broken window.

  "We've got to get out." She grabbed for the door handle and then paused. She'd seen fire safety videos, and adrenaline made her mind click through a thousand possibilities. Was the sound of breaking glass from downstairs an earlier fire bomb? She ran her hands along the thin wood of the door, seeking warmth, but it was reassuringly cold.

  So she took a risk, placed the boys behind her, and stood away from the opening as she cracked the door open slightly. The flames dancing in the bedclothes waved towards the gap but nothing rushed in from the landing. She peered around and saw no fire.

  "Come on." But as she opened the door fully, she realised that the landing area was full of choking, black smoke that was creeping up the stairs. "Kyle, Liam," she said, coughing. "Get to the floor."

  They were rigid with fear. Emily dropped to her knees, her eyes already streaming with the acrid cloud in the air. She pulled at the boys, dragging them down to where she thought the air might be a little clearer, and they crawled towards the stairs.

  Fear gripped her, making her tears flow even more. She could see, straight away, that the stairwell would offer no exit. Already, flames were licking along the wooden bannister at the foot of the stairs. She held out an arm, stopping Kyle and Liam from rushing blindly down.

  "It's okay, it's okay," she repeated desperately, almost hypnotically, her throat rasping and sore. "We'll get out somewhere else…"

  "Where? Mum! Mum!" The boys were screaming and hysterical, and she felt her own reason burn away at the edges like the curtains and the bedclothes as the black smoke filled her lungs. She pulled the boys to her, lying on the carpet, feeling the heat coming up even through the floor. The downstairs area must be well ablaze by now, she thought, and isn't it a comfort that the smoke will kill us before the flames do? Burning, I wouldn't want to die by burning. Tears streamed down her face and ran into the hair of the twins who were clamped tight to her chest. Her mind was foggy and her lungs burning. "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay…" The smoke stole her fight and her energy and all she could do was try not to breathe.

  Kyle and Liam were still sobbing, but quietly, gasping and whispering for their mother. There was another crash and Emily squeezed her eyes tightly shut. In the back of her mind, she wondered if she ought to go to a window and jump out. But the bedroom was full of fire and that crash had just come from the back of the house and it was slowly, slowly, stealing her away towards oblivion.

  A voice was shouting and hands were grabbing. She forced herself awake, coughing, spluttering. There was a figure there, a body, a tall and broad shouldered man, pulling at her.

  She had enough reason left to push the boys towards the figure. She couldn't speak and she could barely see but she hauled Kyle and Liam in front of her face and then let go. The pressure of them against her chest disappeared and she knew the figure had lifted them, taken them, and she prayed it was not too late as the shadows merged into the clouds of smoke again.

  The floor was very warm now. Some instinct propelled her to follow the direction the figure had gone, towards the back of the house, through the open door that she muzzily remembered led to the bathroom.

  Great draughts of cold air were coming in through a broken window and she c
rawled into glass that scattered across the soft lino floor. The hole dragged the smoke and the fire up into the bathroom as the flames sought more oxygen and more fuel for its destructive path.

  The sting of the broken window bit her fingers and her elbows but she dragged herself onwards, and suddenly the figure appeared again, hauling himself in through the shattered frame. Hands took hold of her, dragging her up, and her legs hung uselessly as her head spun with lack of air. She was carried to the window and pushed through. A towel had been laid along the broken shards of the bottom of the frame and it tangled with her legs as she plunged forwards, sobbing and gasping as the new fresh air hit her seared lungs and she let go of her grip on the frame and fell - fell - jarring with a thump as she landed, not on a concrete patio nor a muddy lawn, but onto the roof of the kitchen and she crumpled, winded, bruised and alive and crying.

  The man jumped down and landed with a thump next to her. He dragged her to her feet again and held her, stroking her hair, as she coughed and spluttered onto his shoulder.

  There were lights, strobing and lighting up the garden, and shouts, and sirens, and then another figure in a yellow fire-fighter's suit appeared, disconcertingly high in the air. It took her a moment to realise he was on a ladder, and the man holding her steered her towards the waiting fire-fighter.

  She moved in a dream, stumbling like a puppet whose strings had been half-cut, and let herself be carried down to the ground where she was whisked into an ambulance and surrounded by all the efficiency and briskness of the medical staff.

  Chapter Eight

  Emily lay back on the hospital bed and tried to ignore the noise all around her. The admissions ward was a busy one and the nurses were trying to get everyone settled down for the night. How anyone was expected to sleep with the groaning, snoring, beeping and whispering was a mystery to Emily and she tried to make herself comfortable, expecting a wakeful night.

  "Hey."

  She opened her eyes and was started to see Turner looming by her bedside. He half-pulled the privacy curtain a little closer so that he was out of the sight of the nurses' station, and perched himself on a plastic chair close to Emily's bed.