by Kris Pearson
I wanted my coffee at the Burkeville. And I wanted to watch Erik and Heather romancing each other for a while longer because they were just delicious together. “I’ll send you some photos,” I said firmly. “You’re the one with the QE2 covenant info, so you ring them both and tell him. Bye.” And I disconnected. Too bad if that didn’t suit him. I transferred the best of the photos to his phone and started the engine.
Erik had driven slowly out onto the road, and when he saw my car moving he picked up speed. I rattled out over the cattle-stop bars and followed his smart black truck to the Burkeville. It took only three or four minutes. There were already several other vehicles in the roadside parking lot so that made a long day for them. No wonder they had a variety of staff to cover all the hours.
We walked in together, and I froze. Prickles of heat and cold fizzed along my spine. Duncan Skene! Side-on enough that he didn’t see me, but I could certainly see him. And also see the disconcertingly young woman gazing across the table at him.
9 - Old Scores
“Somewhere further back,” I hissed at Erik.
“Why?” Heather asked.
“My ex-husband. Over by the window.” I attempted to indicate him with my chin. Other customers were outside enjoying the sunshine, but not my philandering former spouse.
“Really?” Heather asked, giving him a thorough inspection.
Erik shepherded us sideways. “Who’s the spring chicken?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “No-one I know – or want to know. He’s a horrible womanizer. That’s why I finally gave him the push.”
“She’s half his age,” Heather whispered.
“Possibly,” I muttered.
Erik maneuvered us to a table where we were out of Duncan’s line of sight but could still see his back. And her rather flat front. “Tea for you, honey?” Erik asked. “And coffee for you?” He bent closer and really surprised me by murmuring, “Maybe I can rustle up a pretty blond Californian who looks like he’s pleased to see you?” His eyebrows rose over his dark eyes. Eyes full of wicked glee.
I certainly hadn’t expected that. I’d only ever seen Erik as serious, secretive, totally concentrating on whatever he was doing. Perhaps he was softening a little with Heather’s attention?
I blew out an annoyed breath, loving the idea but not expecting it to happen. “Duncan’s not worth the effort.”
“Oh, I don’t know…” Erik continued. “Looks like he deserves it and you’d enjoy it.”
I shrugged, and shook my head. “Haven’t seen him in a couple of years, but he hasn’t changed his spots.”
Erik left us and I reached for one of the little packets of sugar stacked in a bowl in the center of the table. I turned it around and around, bouncing it on its corners, distracted and far more annoyed than I wanted to be. My tummy felt sour and then squelchy. My fingers longed to drop the packet and close around my ex-husband’s neck instead. And squeeze. It was hard to keep my distaste for him off my face, but the last thing I wanted was for him to spot me looking discontented without him.
He’d be forty-seven now. His hair was thinning on top, and the edges appeared a suspiciously brighter shade of brown than I remembered. He still looked in reasonable shape – as much as I could judge from the back, and with him sitting down. He said something to the girl, and she laid a hand on his arm and gave an over-loud laugh I wouldn’t want to hear too much of. Maybe he didn’t mind it?
“How long were you married?” Heather whispered, glancing across at them.
“Too long. Years too long.” I pulled a face. “Total waste of my thirties. I should have ended things years earlier.” Then I leaned closer to her. “But I guess I loved him once, and you don’t like admitting you’ve made a huge mistake.”
Heather wrinkled her nose. “I was lucky,” she said. “Rob and I were a total love-match for as long as we lasted. We knew his health was precarious for years, and we lived every day as fully as we could.”
I nodded slowly as I thought about that. “Better those really good years than a whole lot of mediocre ones.”
“Yes, that’s how I decided to think about it,” she said. “I didn’t have him forever, but I had him fully and lovingly. I’m so grateful for that.”
Was I jealous? Much? Moving on… “And who knows what the future will bring?” But it obviously wasn’t the time to tease her about Erik so I changed the subject. “I have something to ask you. Feel free to say no.”
Heather grinned and raised her eyebrows. “Okay, I’ll bite.”
“No, it’s nothing much. But Paul said you were a keen baker – almost entered The Great British Bake-Off?”
She dropped her gaze from mine. “Yes, but Rob dying knocked the stuffing out of me at just the wrong time.”
I bit my lip. This was hard. She was so obviously still hurting. “Understandable,” I murmured. “We have a really good bakery here – you had the Christmas pudding cupcakes from there last night.”
Heather nodded. “They were delicious.”
“Iona is a good friend, and run off her feet pre-Christmas. I cheekily mentioned you, and wondered if you might like to meet her and maybe do a bit of work there. But of course that was before the filming thing happened.”
“Working in a bakery?” Her big blue eyes positively glowed.
“It’s only a little place. Don’t go expecting anything too much. But I didn’t know if Paul was going to tie up all your time or if you’d maybe be at a loose end sometimes…?”
“I’d love to,” she exclaimed. “To be honest I was wondering what I’d do while he’s busy this close to Christmas. I was thrilled when the filming thing came up, but that won’t be happening right away.”
“With such a nice man attached,” I couldn’t help teasing.
“He is, isn’t he,” she said with a grin. “Probably come to nothing, but I’ll take it while it lasts.”
“You never know,” I said. It’s true. You never do. “Anyway,” I added, “Sometime later this morning we could go and meet Iona. Maybe buy something for lunch. We can find out what she might need help with, and if you’d be interested in doing it.”
“Or capable of it,” Heather inserted.
“I don’t think there’ll be any trouble with that,” I murmured, still keeping half an eye on Duncan’s back and picturing myself through his eyes. I’d put some decent jeans on, and a T-shirt that had a skyscraper design because it seemed to go with an American helicopter pilot. My hair was up in a messy bun and I’d given it a quick tidy after the headset came off. I wasn’t looking my worst, but I wasn’t looking my total best, either. Then again, the girl he was with had youth on her side but terrible glittery earrings that seemed weird for a beach café, and ultra-whitened teeth that dazzled as much as the earrings.
“I mustn’t take up all your time,” Heather said. “I know you’re busy, too.”
I put the packet of sugar down and took a deep breath. “Yes, but I work my own hours, and people are mostly pretty good. If I don’t like their attitude or their writing then I don’t do repeat jobs for them. My dyslexic lady, Elaine, is total fun. She always scans her paintings and sends them too, so I know what she’s trying to describe. Editing something like a translated engineering catalogue can be a hard slog. Lord Drizzle is writing his memoirs and that’s going to be an adventure sometime next year.”
Her eyebrows went up. “What – about being a farmer?”
“And a motorcycle racer in his youth. He said he wanted to do it for his family, but he’s always been a bit of a storyteller. And then of course finding out he was a Lord…”
She nodded, looking thoughtful. “Could be quite interesting, then. But you mostly do books?”
I was about to confirm that when there was an exuberant yell of, “Merry! Babe! You’re back from The Big Apple!”
John came striding toward the table with my coffee, looking entirely too delighted to see me. A great, tall, tawny beast of a man, snake-hipped, with a torrent of long
sun-streaked hair, and so much more athletic than Duncan could ever be. John’s certainly less than Ten Ton’s six foot seven, but appreciably more than Graham’s five-eleven. As his hair was down I assumed he’d intended going surfing. Maybe Erik had insisted he dragged those tight black jeans on over his board-shorts to do this bit of play-acting?
At the sound of my name Duncan turned in his chair. I avoided his inspection and gazed up at John, eyes wide open and boobs up-thrust, thinking I may as well play to my strengths. He set down the coffee and cupped my face in both big hands. I half expected he was going to plant a smacker of a kiss on my surprised lips. I wouldn’t have minded. In fact I would have quite liked it.
Up close he smelled amazing – of hardly anything at all, but I wanted to get closer and maybe work out what it was. And his lips had those edges that some mouths do – kind of well-defined and totally kissable.
But no… Instead he held my face as though I was treasure, brushing his thumbs over my cheekbones. He also sent me a sexy wink which Duncan wouldn’t have seen.
He gazed down at my boobs and then up into my eyes again as I sat there hypnotized and sniffing him. “Loooooove your skyscrapers,” he said. That was when the kiss happened. Not a smacker. A kiss longer and more lingering than Erik had given Heather so she could sample his liqueur chocolate the evening before. Possibly the best kiss I’d ever had. Gentle but firm. Definitely exploratory, which no-one else would have seen, but I could feel for sure. More of a kiss than was called for in the situation, but was I going to push him away?
For some reason, no. In fact I grabbed his long hair to stop him escaping. Buried my fingers in it and dragged my lips gently over his one more time, hoping he’d do the same in return so the kiss lasted even longer. And he did.
But dammit, I hadn’t meant to do that. I hadn’t meant to nip his bottom lip either. Or slide my fingers around to the back of his head, enjoying the soft warmth of his hair against the skin of my arms.
We finally pulled apart. I was panting slightly. John is so darn fit I don’t think anything would make him pant.
Job well done, Mr California! Just like that I was a world traveler and the object of enthusiastic admiration from a handsome hunk.
“John,” I gasped with a lot less panache than I’d hoped for. “Great to see you again too.”
From the corner of my eye I registered Duncan scowling and turning back to his date and Erik approaching with Heather’s tea.
“For our English Rose,” Erik said, blocking out my view of Duncan and allowing me to draw a couple of fast, desperate breaths.
“Thank you for the coffee – and everything,” I said after John had finally stood to his six feet whatever.
“Sounds like you found some interesting ‘friends’?” He said that with a lift of one eyebrow so I understood he meant the stock-truck intruders. Duncan would have surmised something entirely else. Heaven knows what. Did I even care?
“It’s amazing what you can see from a helicopter,” I agreed.
I sensed Duncan looking around at us again, but I kept my eyes up on John’s slightly flushed face.
“Nice to have you home safe,” he said. “Talk later.” And he strode back to the kitchen area and disappeared, leaving me bathed in the glow of his overwhelming masculinity. I fear I was grinning like an idiot and clutching at my chest to try and calm the hectic beating of my adolescent heart.
Erik folded onto the chair beside Heather. I could see what Paul meant about him being light on his feet despite being thick with muscle. He moved like a cat – unnervingly flexible for someone so strong.
My pair of Black Ops men. Could they really be? Did I care? I’d planned to pull old Isobel Crombie’s file down from Dropbox and have a really good read again this evening. Unless, of course, they were Tom Alsop’s files.
Actually, why would either of them have a file about Black Ops assassins? I couldn’t see Isobel searching for anything like that. How to grow dahlias or the best food for parsnips, maybe. And car-dealer Tom Alsop seemed only a little more likely. Maybe the awful Nam Cheng had more access to their shared computer than I knew about? Oh well, he was probably banged up in a horrible prison in his homeland after being deported, so for sure he wouldn’t be logging in any more.
I’d already tried quizzing DS Bruce Carver about John and Erik and got a series of mumbles and throat-clearings and nothing sensible at all. Enough to make me suspicious they were in some sort of cahoots. Although what?
I turned my attention to Erik and Heather as she whispered something to him and he touched her hair, running a finger slowly along the pale strands. “Yeah, we’ll keep it there, too,” he said. “That place has a lot more security than anyone will expect.”
I presumed he was talking about the barn on Kirkpatrick’s farm. “For the new one?” I asked. “When do you get it?”
He wound the strand of her hair around and around his finger and gazed back at Heather as though I was invisible. “That’s what I’m busy with any moment now and why we had to go early today.” He released her hair and I heard him sigh. “So I’ll see you both in a couple of days, and then we’ll get to work.”
“Miss you,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him. “Stay out of trouble.”
He gave her a much quicker kiss than John had just given me. “Count on it.” He rose and strode away, and I watched her watching him until he was out of sight. Then I picked up the well-handled little packet of sugar, tore it open with more force than necessary so the grains showered everywhere, and tipped the remainder into my coffee.
Heather stayed silent as she turned her teapot to and fro. “You and John?” she finally asked.
“It was a fake.”
She pursed her lips. “A very high quality fake?”
I screwed up the empty sugar packet. Tightly. And watched the questions flicker in her eyes.
She poured out a cup of tea and set the teapot down again. “Not you and Paul, then?”
Hmmm. Tricky. “Paul’s made it plain he’s not ready for a relationship with anyone yet.” I hoped that would deflect her.
She was no fool. “That wretched war,” she said. Softly. Bitterly. “Politicians don’t see the downhill tragedies. Paul went there to help and he was just about killed. Not with guns, but with unrelenting mental stress.” She covered her mouth with a hand. Closed her eyes for a few seconds and then looked at me again. “I’m glad he has people like you in his life.”
I took a deep breath and let it out. “Two murders here in the last couple of months. Possibly not the ideal environment after what he’s gone through. Not that anyone was expecting them, of course. We have the occasional hunting accident and some awful road smashes but not much else.” I held my tongue for a few seconds and then couldn’t help myself. “Did he tell you his prints were on the murder weapon of the first one?”
Her eyes shot wide open. “No! Surely he wasn’t under suspicion for it?”
She looked so appalled I wished I hadn’t mentioned it. “Not at all. In fact he was the missing link to solving it, in a strange way. Let him tell you sometime.”
She relaxed again and I felt terrible for worrying her. Taking one of the paper napkins from the holder in the center of the table I brushed the sugar grains into a small heap. “What a mess,” I said, trying to dab it up, and then wondering where to put it. In the end I laid it flat, added the little sugar packet and twisted them up together. “Have you had breakfast?”
Heather shook her head. “I’m still all at sea, time-wise. I really didn’t expect that long flight would knock the stuffing out of me quite the way it did.”
“Do you want something from here? I only had a tiny piece of toast – partly because of the early start, and partly because I was excited about flying and thought a full stomach might not be a good idea. I bet Erik and John both ate hours ago.” I glanced at my watch. “Or we could go and have something at Iona’s so you can meet her?”
Her big blue eyes really lit up at tha
t thought. “Yes please. You probably think baking is a strange ambition after acting but it’s something I’ve always adored.”
I took a sip of my coffee. “Each to their own. I’ve always loved dogs. I dog-walk sometimes for the animal shelter. And I have a house-and-pet sitting service for people if they’re on holiday or maybe in hospital. It gets me away from Gloomy Graham.”
Heather clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh. “He’s not!”
“Granted he wasn’t last night. He’d either got into the drinks on the plane or he met someone in Australia and did a bit of flirting. He’s generally much more morose. I hope this murder doesn’t throw him back into serious mode again.”
She tilted her head and rested her elbow on the table and her chin in her palm. “Anyone would be serious, knowing there was a murderer on the loose. Especially if there was a great chunk of cow left in your car. I wonder where the rest is?”
I rolled my bottom lip in over my teeth and took a deep breath. “This is nastier than Isobel’s murder. That poor boy was so young. And leaving him laid out like that is peculiar and spooky.”
We shrugged in unison, tipped our drinks up for a last sip, and put them down at the same instant.
“Twins,” Heather said, glancing from cup to mug. “Anyway, you said to remind you to tell me something – about the place that looked like it had a dressage ring?”
I glanced across to where Duncan Skene and his youthful companion were just scraping back their chairs and deserting their table. Once they’d moved away a few steps, I said, “Horse Heaven. There’s a handcrafts sale there this weekend. I wondered if you might like to go and have a look. For gifts to take home, maybe?”
Heather wrinkled her nose. “It’s too early to be thinking about that, but perhaps something interesting for our mother? She’s shockingly difficult to buy for. Paul’s conceded defeat.”
Sally Summerfield had been a challenge, too, but I’d give anything to have her alive so I could agonize over the problem of suitable gifts for her. I let out a quiet sigh. “I wrote a thing about the craft sale for the local paper. The Coastal Courier. Very small deal, but it keeps people in touch.”