Challenging Andie (7 page)

She was avoiding his eyes.

He knew it would be like this, once reality returned. Once the fears of the darkness subsided in the light of dawn.

Regret chased over him, washed down by a mouthful of coffee. “Give me a couple of minutes for a shower, and we’ll go into town.”

With hair flowing in a blonde cloud around her face, and the colorful clothing, she looked different from yesterday, and was almost unrecognizable from the pictures in the paper where her blonde hair had been pulled back in a ponytail. There was still the possibility…

“Maybe you should wear a hat or sunglasses or something.”

Andie nodded. “I pulled out a hat and a jacket. They’re downstairs.” She turned for the door, casting a quick glance back as her fingers closed over the door handle. “Hurry up.”

*****

When she’d woken with Ryan’s chest under her palm, and her traitorous body curled around his, Andie had instantly felt the burning desire to run. The night before she’d flung caution to the wind, and herself at him. She’d never behaved so wildly before. The fact he turned her down, instead of bringing relief in the cold light of day, brought with it mortification. She’d grabbed her clothes, and dressed in the bathroom. Then dashed downstairs before he woke.

I have to go home.
The thought burned through Andie’s mind as she rinsed out her coffee cup. If only she could talk to someone. Someone she could trust.

She dried her hands quickly on the tea towel from under the sink, and rooted in her bag for her cell phone. A list of unanswered calls scrolled through the tiny screen, many from numbers that she didn’t recognize. One number populated the list more often than the rest. Suz.

She dialed. “Suz, it’s me.”

“Andie, where the hell are you?” Suz’s familiar tones poured down the line. Andie closed her eyes and let Suz’s concern wash over her.

“I’m okay. I’m with…a friend.” She bit her lip. He was hardly a friend, but Suz sounded worried, and there’d be time enough to explain later.

“That guy from the TV?” A moment of silence, then Suz continued, “It’s crazy here, Andie. The press is tracking down people who were with you at the funeral. They’re camped outside my house, and Jenny’s café too. Apparently the fact that the famous Emily Harte had a daughter is big news—they’re desperate to find out more.”

Andie’s heart sank. She wanted to go home. Wanted to get away from Ryan and recover her equilibrium. “I know, they…”

“I saw them hassling you on the news. You have to stay away. At least until things calm down a bit. They’re
sharks
,” Suz spat out. “Don’t come home, honey. I could barely hold my own with them, and you know what I’m like.”

Suz was tough as nails. Had to be, to run the little school where Andie taught. Nothing ever intimidated her, so if she was advising staying away…

“Are you still there, honey?” Suz’s voice softened. “Are you okay?”

Andie made a split-second decision. “I’m fine. Ryan is looking after me. We’re somewhere they won’t find us. I’ll keep in touch.”

There was a noise from the stairs. She swiveled to see Ryan stepping off the final stair. He was dressed in faded jeans that emphasized his lean thighs, with a black shirt stretched over a broad chest open to reveal the strong column of his neck.

A flurry of tingles raced through her stomach as their eyes met.

“I’ll call you tomorrow, Suz. If you need to get in touch leave me a message. I’m keeping the cell off, but I’ll check it tonight.” She faced Ryan. “I was just calling a friend. I knew she’d be worried.”

Ryan nodded. “Let’s go.”

No one even glanced their direction in the trucker’s café.

All eyes were glued to the TV in the corner, but it was a football match that held the patron’s interest, not the news.

Andie took off her sunglasses the moment they got inside, but left the rainbow beanie hat on. It wasn’t the sort of thing she’d ever buy, but wearing someone else’s clothes was liberating, and she’d decided to go with the flow. It made a change from her work uniform of sensible tailored trousers and shirts. At the weekends and holidays she usually dressed in jeans and T-shirts, throwing on a sweatshirt for warmth. Brianne’s floaty clothes and honeycomb sweaters made her feel like a completely different woman. She sort of liked it.

Ryan’s strong fingers curled around his coffee cup.

Andie squeezed her lips together, remembering the feel of those fingers curled around her own. She swallowed and glanced away. He wasn’t just a stranger she’d flirted with; he was part of a different world. She must remember that. This fascination with Ryan was dangerous. She wiped a piece of bread around her plate, soaking up all the juices from the Irish breakfast, and chewed.

“Your mother—” Ryan started.

“I don’t want to talk about my mother,” Andie interrupted.

He had known her. Which was more than she had.

“We worked together, I admired her,” Ryan continued as if she hadn’t spoken.

Anger welled up.
Why is this man so infuriating?
Andie gritted her teeth. Breathed deep. Then plastered on a smile so fake it made her teeth hurt.

“Look, Ryan.” She leant her elbows on the table and fixed him with a smile. “That’s nice, an’ all, but I told you, I don’t want to talk about her.”

Once she would have been desperate to hear about Emily, the woman who’d given birth to her that she knew next to nothing about, from whatever source. Things had changed since she’d found and read the letters to her grandmother…

“Tell me about something else.” A thought flittered through her mind. He’d been looking for her, when they met in the line for the roller-coaster.
Why?
“Why were you looking for me?”

“I have your mother’s journals and diaries. I thought you would want them.”

All roads led back to Emily Harte.

Andie angled her head to her shoulder, ironing out the tension in her neck.

“I didn’t know if your father was alive,” he said. “But the press called you her only relative, so…”

“I have no idea if my father is alive either,” Andie parried back. “I guess if Emily had ever told me who he was, I might have, but she never did. She never stayed around long enough to be questioned about him either.” The words revealed too much. Andie swallowed the last of her coffee.

Ryan’s deep voice was no louder than a murmur. “My mother is dead too. It’s just Brianne and me.” He pushed his plate away. “She was killed in a car crash when I was twenty and Bri was eighteen.”

“I’m sorry.” At least Andie had her grandmother, and Emily hadn’t been dead, only absent. “Your father...”

Ryan’s jaw tightened. “My father isn’t in the picture. He left when we were young.” His gaze tangled with hers, and the banked pain evident in their depths took her breath away.

“After Mum died, the police visited and brought her effects.” His mouth thinned. The hand on the table clenched into a tight fist. “It was difficult, opening that parcel and seeing my mother’s wedding ring, and what remained of her clothes.” He swallowed. “I didn’t want you to receive Emily’s belongings through the post. I thought it might be easier if someone was with you.”

He’d crossed the world to deliver something to someone he’d never even met.

Andie swallowed.

She’d been treating him as a pariah, apart from the times when she’d been trying to lure him into bed, to use him to hide from the unwelcome thoughts that barreled into her like cannon-shot. He was a nice guy. One who didn’t deserve the treatment she’d meted out.

Shame made her restless, and she shifted on the cool plastic chair, and linked her ankles. “So, you came straight here? From Bekostan?”

Ryan nodded. “I flew into Heathrow, hired a car and drove straight out.”

She had to stay with him. All of her other friends were in Fullstowe, and by all accounts the entire village was besieged.

Andie breathed in. “I didn’t know my mother, not really,” she explained. “She was always away, and on the times she came home…”

“She found it difficult to settle?”

Andie thought for a moment. Was that it? Emily was always distracted whenever she returned to England. Always scanning the newspaper and watching the twenty-four hour news channels for snippets of information on Bekostan. “I always thought she was bored, you know, being at home with me.”

She’d never felt good enough, worthy of a mother’s love. Emily’s dedication to her job had felt like a desertion, a slap in the face.

“The troubles in Bekostan pull you in,” Ryan said in a deep voice. “Reporting on conflict is hard for some people. It was for your mother. She lived so closely with the people, felt their pain, I think she found it pretty difficult to stay detached. In the face of misery, everything here can seem so superficial. You must know that from your mother’s articles, and her TV reports.”

Andie looked down at her plate. “I never read any. Or saw any of her reports.”

Her grandmother had been adamant that Andie wasn’t to watch any of Emily’s reports. She’d been so over-protective that she’d created a wall of ignorance between the two of them. Gran had always warned Andie not to tell of the troubles she had in school, the teasing about having a grandmother attend sports day rather than a fit mother or father to run the egg and spoon race with.

“Mummy’s only here for a few days, Darling, don’t bother her with that,” Gran had whispered as her mother arrived. “I’ll talk to teacher, we’ll get it sorted.”

So Emily had been presented with a picture of a happy life. One where everything was under control—and a daughter who, although aloof, was well cared for and happy.

Gran, by the same means, had brushed away any concerns Andie might have had about Emily’s safety.

“Mum’s fine, Andie. She’d doing an important job—too important to come home for a while. I know it would be nice to have her home more often, but she
has
to work to pay the bills, do you see?”

The child Andie had nodded. Understood that her mother had to be on the other side of the world for her job.

And when Emily visited and was distracted, a stabbing pain had forced through Andie’s chest as she burned with the knowledge that Emily found even her job more interesting than staying at home with her mother and daughter.

When Andie was grown up, Gran was always beside her on the sofa in the evenings. It would have been cruel to insist on watching Emily’s reports when Gran was so determined not to.

Now, it was too late. A vision of the news report replayed, and she pushed it away. She couldn’t think of the way Emily’d died, couldn’t….

“So, you’ve brought me her journals.”

“Yes, and her diaries, a whole bundle of stuff.” Ryan’s mouth was set in a tight line, and parallel lines scored between his eyebrows.