Читать книгу Single Dads Collection - Lynne Marshall - Страница 30

WILL was thinking about that day out on the reef as he sat on the verandah with Alice and the hot air creaked with the pressure of the oncoming storm. He had done his best to keep his distance from her since then.

Again and again, he had reminded himself that she would be leaving soon and that there was no point in noticing the curve of her mouth, or the line of her throat, or the sheen of her skin in the crushing heat. No point in remembering how she felt, how she tasted. No point in thinking about how sweet and exciting and right it had felt to make love to her.

Not doing any of that was definitely the sensible thing to do. But it was hard.

‘Listen!’ Alice held up a hand suddenly, startling Will out of his thoughts.

‘What is it? Is it Lily?’ he asked, instantly anxious in case he had missed a cry.

‘It’s the insects.’

Will looked at her puzzled. ‘What insects?’

‘Exactly. They’ve stopped.’

And, sure enough, the deafening rasp, scratch and shrill of the insects, that was such a familiar backdrop to the evenings here that Will barely heard it any more, had paused and in its place was an uncanny silence.

The next instant there was a rip of lightning in the distance, an almighty crack of thunder overhead, and a deluge of rain came crashing down onto the roof. One second there had been the hot, heavy, waiting silence, the next there was nothing but sound and fury and the pounding, thundering, hammering rain. It fell not in drops but as a solid mass, bouncing back in the air as it hit solid ground, and overwhelming the gutters so that it simply cascaded in a sheet over the edge of the verandah.

Alice laughed with sheer delight. ‘I love it when it rains like this!’ she shouted to Will, but it was doubtful that he could hear her over the deafening roar of the rain.

Caught up in the elemental excitement of the downpour, she jumped to her feet. The sheer power of it was awe-inspiring, almost frightening, but exhilarating at the same time. Alice could feel the raw energy of it surging around the verandah, pushing and pulling at her, making her blood pound.

Normally she hated feeling so out of control, but a tropical downpour was different. She knew it wouldn’t last very long, but while it did she could feel wild and reckless, the way she would never allow herself to be the rest of the time.

She looked at Will, who had got to his feet too, moved by the same restless excitement generated by the breaking of the pressure that had been pressing down on them for the last few days. He was watching the rain, his intelligent face alive with interest, the stern mouth curling upwards into an almost-smile, and, as her eyes rested on him, Alice was gripped by a hunger to touch him once more, to feel his hard hands against her skin, to abandon herself to the electricity in the air.

Instinctively, she took a step towards him, just at the moment when the force of the rain finally succeeded in dislodging part of the roof and poured through a hole directly onto her head. If Alice had stayed where she was, the water would have splashed harmlessly onto the verandah, but as it was she was drenched instantly.

It felt as if someone had tipped a bucket over her, and she gasped with the shock of it before she started to laugh again. It was like standing under a waterfall, the water cool and indescribably refreshing after the suffocating heat, and as it was too late to get dry Alice closed her eyes and tipped her face up to the cascading water.

In seconds her dress was clinging to her, and her shoes—her favourite jewelled kitten-heels—were probably ruined, but right then Alice didn’t care. Pulling the clip from her hair, she shook it free and let the rain plaster it to her head as it ran in rivulets over her face and down her throat.

Will had been unable not to laugh at the sight of her ambushed by the leak in the roof, but as he watched her close her eyes and turn her face up to the water, as he watched the fine fabric of her dress stick to her breasts and hips, as he watched the rain sliding over skin, his smile faded at the extraordinary sensuality of the scene, and his body tightened.

As if sensing his reaction, Alice opened her eyes. Her lashes were wet and spiky, and she had to blink against the water running over her face, but her gaze was dark and steady.

There was no need for either of them to say anything. They both knew that the careful defences they had built over the last couple of weeks were no match for the downpour. For tonight, the rules, their hopes and their fears, meant nothing. There was only the two of them, the crackle of electricity, and the drumming rain. When Will reached for her, Alice reached out at the same time and tugged him under the rain still pouring through the hole in the roof.

They kissed with the water spilling around them, trickling from his skin onto hers, and from hers to his, their bodies pressing so close that it couldn’t find a way between them. They kissed and kissed and kissed again, hard, hungry kisses that fed on the power of the downpour and on the spiralling excitement that spun and surged as they touched each other with increasing urgency. Their hands moved instinctively over each other, clutching, clasping, sliding, shifting, finding long-remembered secret places, rediscovering the feel and the taste and the touch of each other.

‘Will…’ Alice pressed her lips to his throat in fevered kisses, revelling in the feel of his body, in the wonderful, familiar smell of his skin, arching and shuddering with pleasure at the touch of his hands, the taste of his mouth, How could she have told herself that she had forgotten how it felt? ‘Will…’ she gasped, inarticulate with need.

‘What?’ he murmured raggedly against her throat. They might as well have been naked already. Their clothes were plastered to their wet bodies, and should have felt cold and clammy, but the heat of their beating blood was keeping them warm. Will wouldn’t have been surprised to see steam rising.

Alice didn’t know what she wanted to say, didn’t know how to tell him how she felt. Her mind was reeling with pleasure, and all she could think about was the clamour of her body, the desire that was running rampant, unstoppable, out of control…

‘Tell me what you want, Alice,’ Will whispered, and then lifted his head so that he could look down into her face, his own streaked with water now too.

‘I don’t know,’ said Alice helplessly.

But she did know. She wanted him. She wanted more of him, all of him. She wanted him closer, harder, inside her. She wanted him completely—but the very strength of her need was beginning to alarm her, while a small voice of reason inside her was insinuating itself into the wild recklessness that had gripped her, telling her to be careful, reminding her about the past and the future, about the risk of abandoning herself utterly to the moment.

Oh, how she wanted to, though!

‘I want…’ she began unsteadily, and then swallowed. ‘I want to pretend that this is all there is,’ she told him at last.

‘This is all there is,’ said Will. ‘This is all that matters.’ And, taking her hand, he led her inside and out of the rain.

Alice lay next to Will and let her pounding blood slow, her breathing steady. Her entire body was still thrumming with satisfaction, and she felt heady and boneless. It was impossible to regret what had happened, even now the wildness and the excitement of the night had dissipated. Their bodies had remembered each other with a heart-stopping clarity, their senses snarling and tangling and tantalizing, surrendering together to the soaring rhythm of love until they’d shattered with release.

It had been wonderful. She could hardly pretend otherwise when the glory was still beating through her veins and shimmering out to the very tips of her toes. And it hadn’t been wrong. They were both single, both free, both responsible adults. No one was going to be hurt by what they had done.

But…

Why did it feel as if that huge ‘but’ was hovering, just waiting to be acknowledged?

Alice turned her head on the pillow to look at Will. He was lying on his back, and she could see his chest rising and falling unevenly as his breathing returned to normal. Outside it was still raining, although not with the ferocity of earlier, and the sound was comforting rather than exhilarating. If it had rained like this earlier, would they have still ended up in bed?

Perhaps. Probably, even. If Alice was going to be honest, she would have to admit that she had been finding it harder and harder to resist the tug of attraction as the days had passed. She’d only had to look at him reading a story to Lily, or at the helm of the boat, his hair lifting in the breeze and his eyes full of sunlight, or lifting a glass to his lips, and her mouth would dry and her stomach would clench. She could say what she liked about being friends, but the old chemistry was still there, and they both knew it.

So, yes, perhaps tonight had been inevitable, but what now? They couldn’t just go back to the careful way they had been before, but what other choice did they have? A tiny sigh escaped Alice as she stared up at the ceiling. She should have made it clear to Will that it had just been the storm, and that she wasn’t expecting anything to change just because they had made love tonight.

‘You know, you don’t need to fret.’ Will’s voice came unexpectedly out of the darkness, making Alice jump.

‘I’m not fretting!’

‘Yes, you are.’ Will rolled so that he could prop himself up on one elbow and look down at where she lay, her bare skin luminous in the faint light and her hair still wet and tangled on the pillow. ‘I know you, Alice. You’re planning your escape route right now.’

‘What do you mean?’ she asked uneasily.

‘You always look for a way out before there’s any chance that you might end up committing yourself.’

‘That’s rubbish!’ she scoffed, but not quite as convincingly as she would have liked. Will certainly wasn’t fooled.

‘Is it? Don’t try and tell me you weren’t lying there trying to work out how soon you could tell me that you only wanted this for tonight, that it didn’t mean anything to you and that it wasn’t meant to be for ever.’

‘What did you think it was?’ retorted Alice, glad that he had found the words for her.

‘I wasn’t thinking at all.’ Will’s wry smile gleamed in the darkness. ‘I can’t say I regret it, though. It wasn’t something either of us planned, but I think it was something we both wanted—or are you going to deny that?’

‘No, I’m not going to deny it,’ she said in a low voice. ‘There’s always been a special chemistry between us.’

‘I know that. You don’t need to worry, Alice.’ Will reached out and lifted a lock of her wet hair, rubbing it gently between his fingers. ‘You don’t need to explain or make excuses. I know you’re leaving, so you don’t have to think of a way out. Let’s just leave tonight as an itch that we both scratched.’

It ought to have made Alice feel better, but somehow it didn’t. She knew that Will was right, and that he was giving her exactly what she needed, but she didn’t want to be an itch.

Sitting up, she pushed her damp hair away from her face and reached down for the sheet that had slipped unheeded to the floor much earlier. ‘Is that it?’ she asked almost sharply as she wrapped it around her.

‘What more can it be?’

‘Well…there’s still three weeks or so until I go,’ she found herself saying.

There was a pause. ‘What are you suggesting, Alice?’ he asked, and it was impossible to tell from his voice what he was thinking. ‘That we keep scratching that itch?’

‘If that’s how you want to think of it.’ Alice bit her lip and pulled more of the sheet onto the bed. ‘You were right about the way out. There’s no point in pretending that I’m not leaving in three weeks’ time, so I’m not making any promises. I wouldn’t want you to think that I’m talking about for ever.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Will, at his most dry. ‘I learnt a long time ago never to think of you and for ever in the same sentence.’

‘Then, if we both know that, why not make the most of it?’

Part of Alice was rearing up in alarm at her insistence, and warning her that nothing good could come of getting involved with Will again. It was all very well to talk about scratching an itch, but, once you had given in to the need, it was almost impossible to stop. It was madness to think that she could sleep with him for three weeks and then calmly walk away. Better to leave things as they were, as Will himself had suggested, and treat tonight as a one-off. She had a nice house and a life to go back to in London. That was enough, wasn’t it?

But another, more reckless, part had her in its grip tonight. Why not? it was asking. How long was it since she had felt that gorgeously, fabulously good, that relaxed, that sexy? What was the point of not doing it again, when they had another three weeks or more to get through? They both knew where they were. They had no expectations of each other. And it had been great. Did she really want that to be the last time?

No, she didn’t.

‘It would be fun,’ she coaxed, realising at that moment that it was a very long time since she had let herself simply have fun. Ten years, in fact.

Will was silent for a moment. ‘I don’t want to fall in love with you again, Alice,’ he said.

‘We won’t fall in love,’ she said. ‘We’ve been there, and we know it doesn’t work. That doesn’t mean we can’t have a good time together.’

‘So you just want me for my body?’ said Will, but Alice was sure she could hear a smile in his voice.

‘We-el…’ She let the sheet fall and slid back down beside him, letting her hand drift tantalisingly over his flat stomach, and scratching him very, very lightly with her nails. ‘If the itch is there, we might as well scratch it, don’t you think?’

The downward drift of her fingers was making it hard for Will to think clearly. ‘So we’ll have the next few weeks and then say goodbye?’ he managed.

Alice’s hand paused for just a second. ‘Then we’ll say goodbye,’ she agreed.

Will knew that he was probably making a mistake but right then, with her fingers teasing him and her lips against his throat, and her body warm and soft and close, he didn’t care. Moving swiftly, he pinned her beneath him and put his hands on either side of her face. ‘All right,’ he said as he bent to kiss her. ‘Three weeks. Let’s make them good ones.’

It didn’t work, of course. They had about a week when they both resolutely closed their minds to the future, and thought only about the days with Lily and the long, hot nights together. It was easy to fall into their old ways, talking, laughing, arguing, making love…And inevitable, Will thought, that he should start wishing that it could go on for ever.

Knowing that, it made him increasingly tense and irritable. He was angry with Alice for her dogged refusal to consider taking a risk on the unknown, angrier with himself for agreeing to the one situation that he had most wanted to avoid.

Because of course he had fallen in love with Alice again. The truth was that he had probably never fallen out of love with her, and it wasn’t helping matters to have her there whenever he went home, as combative, challenging and stimulating as ever, as warm and responsive every night. Every time Will looked at her, his heart seemed to stop, and the knowledge that he would have to let her go gnawed relentlessly at him.

Three weeks, that was all they had. After the heady delight of that first week, Will did his best to distance himself from her. But how could he when she was there in his bed, when she lay warm against him all night, and her very nearness made his head reel?

Alice sensed his withdrawal, even understood it. It had been a wonderful week, but slowly the sensible side of her was regaining its natural ascendancy. Ah-ha! it cried. Told you you’d regret it! Look what a mess you’ve got yourself into now!

The three-week deadline changed her whole sense of time. Sometimes it seemed to rush forward with dizzying speed, making her panic, and at others it slowed to a lethargic trickle that made it impossible to imagine the future. Alice tried to focus on going home, but her life in England seemed increasingly unreal.

She had expected to start feeling bored by now, to start yearning for shops, cinemas, bars and the gossip and pressure of a proper job, but it hadn’t happened yet. She tried to make herself miss them, but how could she think about London when Lily chattered as she swung on her hand, and the lagoon glittered behind the coconut palms, and Will closed the bedroom door every night with a smile?

The arrival of Lily’s trunk only underlined how far she was from home. Having made such a fuss about Will not bringing his daughter’s things with him, Alice had to admit that none of the clothes were suitable for a tropical island. There were surprisingly few books, and a lot of very expensive and hardly-used toys, none of which seemed to interest Lily very much.

She had to find some way of detaching herself from life here, Alice thought with increasing desperation. It was too comfortable, too intimate, with just the three of them. She needed to get out and meet more people, make her life bigger again so that when she left there wouldn’t be an aching gap where Will and Lily had been. Deep down, Alice was afraid that she might have left it too late for that, but at least it was a plan.

When Will told her that he and his team were preparing for an open day at the project headquarters that Friday, Alice leapt at the opportunity.

‘Can we come?’

‘To the open day?’ Will looked taken aback at the idea.

‘Why not? It would be a chance for Lily to see what you do all day.’

‘I’m not sure it’ll be of any interest to a child. We’ve got a government minister coming, but it’s really about trying to involve the local community in the project, especially the fishermen, and getting them to understand what we’re trying to do.’

‘Why don’t you lay something on for all the children?’ said Alice. ‘They’re part of the community too, and if you get them on board now it’ll make things much easier in the future. You could lay on little trips for them,’ she went on, warming to her theme. ‘Or have a competition with little prizes…you know, they have to find out information as they go round and answer questions, or find something, like a treasure hunt.’

‘I suppose we could do something for the children,’ said Will slowly.

‘It’ll be good for Lily to start meeting other children before she goes to school, too,’ Alice pointed out.

Impressed by her enthusiasm, Will considered. ‘Could you run some activities for the children?’

‘Me?’

‘It was your idea.’

‘But I don’t know anything about marine ecology!’

‘We can give you the information you need. It’s putting it into an appealing format we’d find more difficult, even if we had the time to think about it, which we don’t. We’ve got enough to do setting up displays for the open day as it is, and we’re running short of time.’

So Alice and Lily found themselves at the project headquarters. The building was simply, even spartanly, furnished, but everything was very well organised. It was clear that all the money was spent on expertise and research equipment—no surprise with Will in charge. The whole project had his stamp on it; high quality, integrity, and absolutely no frills.

Will showed them round and introduced them to various members of the team, all of whom welcomed Lily kindly and eyed Alice with unmistakable curiosity. He had introduced her simply as ‘a friend’, and it was obvious that they were all wondering just how close a friend she was. Alice found herself unaccountably miffed that he wouldn’t acknowledge a closer relationship, because clearly they were more than friends. They were lovers.

Desire shivered through her at the thought of the nights they spent together. She would never guess it to look at Will now. He was dressed casually but with characteristic neatness in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, and his face was absorbed as he discussed some obscure issue to do with phytoplankton, whatever that was, with a bearded marine biologist. Looking at the back of those long, straight legs, Alice felt quite weak with the knowledge of how they felt against hers, of what it was like to kiss the nape of his neck and slide her arms around that lean, hard body.

‘Shall we go and look at the lab?’ Will turned to find Alice staring at him, and she gulped and jerked her gaze away.

‘Fine,’ she said brightly. ‘Lead on!’

In spite of herself, Alice was impressed by what she saw. She hadn’t realised quite what a major project it was, and she remembered how glibly she had suggested to Will that he give up his career and find another job in London. It seemed an absurd idea now. For it was clear that he was key to the project’s success. The staff made no secret of how much they admired him, and Alice could see why. He didn’t raise his voice, or show off or patronise anyone, but somehow he was at the centre of everything. She saw a young diver glow at Will’s quiet word of congratulation, and a secretary nod with enthusiasm at one of his suggestions. This was Will in his element, intelligent, focused, completely assured about who he was, what he was doing and why he was doing it.

It was very different from her own world of work where status symbols were so important, and how you looked and talked sometimes mattered more than what you actually did. Alice couldn’t help comparing Will with Tony, who was always so careful of his appearance and so competitive. Tony would talk himself up in meetings, never missing an opportunity to tell everyone how dynamic and successful he was, and even at home he hadn’t been able to wait to tell Alice how well he had performed in a meeting or how much better his results had been than any of his colleagues.

Alice’s own drive was less for success in itself than for the security it brought, but she sensed that the team had some reservations about her, and she supposed she did look a bit out of place in her narrow skirt, sleeveless top and high peep-toe shoes with their pretty candy stripes. Alice told herself that she didn’t care what they thought of her, and threw herself into the challenge of taking what she had learnt and making it fun and accessible for children.

Will found her a desk, and she and Lily spent the rest of the day happily playing around with ideas and thinking up simple questions that a child like Lily could answer by looking at the various display boards that were being prepared. Will disappeared out to the reef, and Alice found it easier to settle once he had gone. She chatted to the two locally employed secretaries, who adored Will, and were obviously longing to know more about his relationship with Alice but were too polite to ask outright.

‘I’m just helping out with Lily until the new nanny arrives,’ she told them, since there didn’t seem any reason to keep it a big secret. ‘I’m going home soon.’

Perhaps, if she said it enough, it would start to seem real.

She liked the atmosphere in the office. It made her realise how much she missed having to think and be part of a team, a train of thought Alice was keen to encourage in herself. Because missing that meant that she was missing work, which meant, obviously, that she was looking forward to going back to London and applying for what she was determined would be the job of her dreams.

Together with Lily, she came up with a competition and a treasure hunt, and begged the use of a computer to draft fun forms for the children to fill in. Then she rang Roger and cajoled him into sponsoring prizes for everyone who took part, as she was pretty sure Will wouldn’t approve of using his precious budget to finance frivolities.

‘It’ll be good PR for your company,’ she told him.

‘A bunch of children in fishing villages aren’t exactly our target market,’ said Roger, but he was happy to humour her, and the cost was negligible for a company like his in any case.

It wasn’t long before Alice was coming up with other ideas. She told Will about Roger’s offer as they drove home at the end of the day. ‘Why don’t you make this an opportunity to get more sponsorship?’

‘I haven’t got time for schmoozing,’ said Will, changing gear irritably. He was tense after a day spent trying to ignore Alice’s warm, vibrant presence in the office. It had been bad enough trying to concentrate on work before, when his senses had still been reeling with memories of the night before, but today had been virtually impossible. Wherever he looked, there she was, sitting on the edge of the desk, swinging those ridiculous shoes, chatting to the secretaries, bending over pieces of paper with Lily, their faces intent, studying the display boards…

Her questions had been intelligent, and she had made some acute observations, which shouldn’t have surprised him. Nobody could ever have accused Alice of being stupid, and he could see that, although the team had been wary of her initially, they had all been impressed by her ideas in the end. She had flair, Will had to admit. It was hard to put his finger on it, but there was a certain stylishness about everything she did, and there was no doubt that she had already made a huge contribution to the plans for the open day.

So he ought to be feeling pleased with her, not edgy and cross. Grateful as he was for her ideas, he wished that she had stayed at home. Now, when she had gone, he wouldn’t even be able to go to the office without memories of her waiting to ambush him.

‘You wouldn’t need to spend any extra time,’ said Alice, taking out her clip and wedging it between her teeth as she shook out her hair. ‘You’re having the open day anyway,’ she pointed out, rather muffled through the clip. ‘Why not invite businesses along at the same time and show them what you’re doing?’

Twisting her hair back up with one hand, she took the clip from her teeth and deftly secured it into place. ‘You’re the one who said how important the protection of the reef is to the economy. That makes it of interest to companies who operate here, local and international, and I’m sure lots of them would be interested in sponsoring you. Jumping on the environmental awareness bandwagon makes good PR for them.’

‘The point of the open day is to keep government support and to involve the local communities,’ Will grumbled. ‘You’re wanting to turn it into a jamboree.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Alice briskly. ‘All you need to do is lay on a few more drinks, and it’ll be worth it if you get some extra money for the project, won’t it? Besides,’ she said, turning to wink at Lily in the back seat, ‘if we make it a party, it’ll be a chance for Lily and I to dress up.’

Lily brightened. ‘Can I wear my pink shoes?’

‘You can,’ said Alice. ‘And I’ll wear my shoes with the bows. What do you think?’ she asked, ignoring Will’s snort.

‘I like them.’

‘I’m so glad we’ve got the footwear sorted out,’ said Will sarcastically as they turned into their road. ‘Now there’s nothing else to worry about!’

Although, as it turned out, there was.

An email from the agency in London was waiting for him when he went into the office the next day. Will sat at his desk and stared at the screen. They had found an excellent candidate, the email informed him. An experienced nanny, mature and sensible, Helen would be able to fly out to St Bonaventure as soon as required. Would he please read the attached CV and their comments on Helen’s interview and let them know as soon as possible if he wished to offer her the post.

Will lifted his eyes from the screen. Through the glass wall of his office he could see Alice on the phone. She had taken responsibility for the refreshments, and her face was animated as she talked, one hand holding the phone to her ear, the other gesticulating as if the person on the other end could see her.

When she had gone, he wouldn’t be able to look at that phone without imagining her as she was now. He wouldn’t be able to sit on the verandah in the evening without feeling her beside him, talking, stretching, waving her arms around, laughing, arguing, her face vivid in the darkness. He wouldn’t be able to lie in bed without remembering her kisses, her softness and her warmth, the silken fire of her.

When she had gone, there would be an aching, empty void wherever she had been.

‘I need to talk to you,’ he said to her that night after they had put Lily to bed.

‘That sounds serious,’ said Alice lightly. ‘Had we better sit down?’

So they sat in their accustomed places on the verandah, and Will tried to marshal the churning thoughts that had been occupying him all day. He hadn’t been able to talk to her at the office, and he didn’t want to say anything in front of Lily. He’d thought he’d decided what he was going to say, but now that he was here his careful arguments seemed to have vanished.

‘What is it?’ asked Alice after a while.

‘I had an email today from the agency in London. They’ve found a nanny who sounds very suitable and she can come out next week if I want.’

Alice sat very still. Funny, she had known this was going to happen—it was what she had insisted should happen—but, now that the moment was here, she was completely unprepared. Everything had worked out perfectly. A nanny was available. Lily was going to school soon, and there would be someone to look after her when Will wasn’t there. She could go home.

It was just what she wanted.

So why did her heart feel as if it had turned to a stone in her chest?

‘I see,’ she said, and from somewhere produced a smile. ‘Well, that’s good news. What’s her name?’

‘Helen.’

Helen would soon be sitting here with him. Helen would meet Lily from school and kiss her knees when she fell down. Helen would be waiting for him when he got home in the evening.

Is she pretty? Alice wanted to ask. Is she young? Will you fall in love with her?

‘When’s she coming?’ she asked instead.

‘I haven’t replied yet,’ said Will. ‘I wanted to talk to you first.’ He hesitated. ‘I wanted to ask if you would stay.’