Dream a Little Dream (3 page)

‘What?’ breathed Angie. ‘Liza, you’re brilliant! Has he gone insane?’

Liza shook her head. She had to suck up a little frappuccino before her throat would allow her to speak again. ‘He heard me swearing at a client – the client asked me out and I seem to have lost the knack of gracious refusal. And Nicolas told me’ – deep breath, swallow – ‘that everyone’s fed up with me making them the butts of my stupid jokes, and now that I’ve moved into driving clients away … He’s got someone lined up who, apparently, has both money and a fresh client list to bring to the party.’

Silence.

‘Was he creepy?’ Rochelle frowned.

‘Nicolas?’

She waved her hand. ‘No! The customer who asked you out.’

‘Client,’ Liza corrected automatically. ‘No.’

‘Smelly?’

‘Ugly?’

‘No, he was pretty hot.’ She paused for thought. ‘He’s got this kind of young Kevin Costner streaky dark blond thing going on. Or Eric from
True Blood
– kind of golden. Leonine. With Daniel Craig eyes.’

‘Ooh, dirty blond.’ Angie shivered. ‘I love a dirty blond. What else?’

‘He’s obnoxiously, quietly overconfident.’

‘Like Spike, from
Buffy
?’ suggested Angie, hopefully.

Rochelle snorted. ‘Spike’s platinum blond, not dirty. How can someone be quiet and overconfident?’

Liza shrugged. ‘It’s like anything he says, he expects to happen. He did deign to discuss why I didn’t want to go out to dinner with him but it was plain that he thought he could find a way to make it happen. He has a determined mouth.’

Angie made wide eyes. ‘Pass him my way.’

Rochelle was more cynical. ‘Married?’

‘No,’ Liza had to admit, ‘he’s fresh out of a relationship. But that wasn’t the point. I just didn’t want to go out with him. And knowing I completely overreacted makes me feel like an idiot.’

Drawing her frappuccino glass a little closer, she sucked the creamy coffee goo up, tiny sip by tiny sip, signalling how much she no longer wanted to talk about Dominic Christy.

Rochelle hooked Liza’s hair back from her face. ‘You used to love being asked out.’

‘That was then.’

Angie frowned. ‘Why have you been horrible to the others at the centre?’

‘I hadn’t realised that I had. But now Nicolas’s brought it up, I’m going to have to talk to Fenella, Imogen and Pippa.’ Liza groaned.

‘And isn’t it up to you how you speak to your clients?’

‘In a way. But the benefit of having several therapists under one roof is the potential for sharing clients around. Having – hopefully – loved their reflexology treatment, a client might be receptive to trying ear candling or Indian head massage with Fenella, or hot stone therapy and aromatherapy with Imogen. Nicolas says that me chasing away custom risks dragging the whole centre down. And, of course, we pay him a commission on every fee, so the fewer I receive, the less I pay him.’

Rochelle snorted. ‘Just don’t swear at any more customers. Go to work tomorrow and apologise, be repentant, penitent, whatever you think it needs. Sorted.’ She sat back, draining her cup.

‘And what about the mad fools Nicolas’s got lined up to take my treatment room? No. The whole Stables set up isn’t working for me, not just because Nicolas wants me out but because he’s a crap businessman. It ought to work, to have a treatment centre in the grounds of a posh hotel, with all those guests coming and going, but Nicolas has this stodgy old business model and doesn’t want change to come within shouting distance of it. He likes to present himself as the boss, but he’s just a glorified landlord, managing the premises, contributing little but taking a salary out. I know that Fen and Immi are worried, too, but they’re being a bit ostrich.’

Rochelle frowned in thought. ‘Can you become the investor? To keep these other people out? Then you could make all your whizzy changes.’

‘I might be able to raise some money, but that doesn’t resolve Nicolas being dead weight, or us pulling in different directions. Getting more deeply involved with him and his finances would make everything worse.’

Angie patted her arm. ‘You should at least try and stay where you are until you’ve got somewhere lined up. I’m sure the others realise that you’re not yourself. Everyone knows that Adam did this to you, Lize.’

‘It wasn’t his fault,’ she said, automatically.

‘Yes, it was!’ they chorused. ‘It was the way he and his nightmare of a mother handled the break up that knocked all the stuffing out of you,’ Rochelle added. ‘What does Cleo think about what’s happened?’

‘I haven’t told her. She’s got her hands full with baby Gus suffering from horrible colic. She and Justin haven’t had a night’s sleep since he was born and she’s extended her maternity leave. She’d probably tell me that I need to get out more.’

Angie dropped her cup back to the table with a clatter, eyes shining. ‘Yes, you do. With us. We’ll take you to clubs—’

‘Pubs to start with,’ Rochelle amended. ‘Let her work up to clubs when her good-time muscle memory comes back. Friday, Liza?’

‘Um … OK, thanks,’ agreed Liza, not feeling equal to resisting, but wondering if she really felt thankful. Friday was only two days away.

Angie twinkled at her. ‘And you ought to see men again, Lize, just to cure yourself of Adam.’

Hands slid from Dominic’s feet, to his legs; stroking, trickling. The woman was working her way up his body. Hands cool. Mouth hot.

In an instant he was hard and aching. He wanted to move, to pull her closer, to get her out of her clothes … but his limbs were disobedient: light yet heavy, as if he both floated in water and was pinned to the bed. He was aware of his nakedness, of her hair falling over her face, brushing his skin, tingling, prickling.

He watched. Wanting her. Wanting more.

Slowly, slowly, she turned her face and she was Liza Reece, wearing that grin that he’d glimpsed: conspiratorial, mischievous, lighting her eyes. Blue eyes. Laughing. Small soft hands. Stroking.

Waiting.

He wanted to say, ‘Don’t stop!’

He wanted to rise up and over her and find her mouth with his.

He wanted her out of that damned green uniform so that he could explore her body, in turn. He was definitely a gentleman, like that.

He could smell—

And then he was sitting up in the darkness and Liza had gone. His heart was pounding, his body was throbbing, but he was alone except for the shape of Crosswind curled into his doggie beanbag on the floor. The rectangle of light that outlined his bedroom door was from the lamp that burned on the landing so that Ethan wouldn’t be frightened if he woke in the night.

He was in Miranda’s spare room.

‘Damn.’ He fell back onto the mattress. His heart was trotting and his skin damp. His groin was heavy. He flipped his pillow, closed his eyes and tried to fall back into the erotic, arousing world he’d just left, where Liza Reece worked him over with her soft, supple, knowing hands.

Those skilful fingers could read his feet … what could they do to the rest of him? He ached to find out.

But dreams weren’t like that. His mind just fell into blackness.

PWNsleep message board:

Tenzeds: I’m finding a career break difficult. Unless there’s something to stimulate my interest, I can lose hours.

Nightjack: Set your alarms and get up at the same time every day, like you’re at work. And if you’re snoozy in the day, set your phone alerts to go off every half hour.

Sleepingmatt: Outdoors! Get out there.

Miranda’s and Ethan’s voices filled the kitchen as Dominic paced around the table, into the hall and back. After the noontime thirty-minute nap his neurological consultant recommended as “scheduled sleep” – Dominic, less clinically, called it catching zeds – he’d been refreshed. But, as the afternoon was wearing on, the now-familiar wooliness was trying to cloak his mind.
Resist it.

Patiently, Crosswind paced after, nails clicking on the quarry tiles. Named for the fact that anything could happen when there was a Crosswind about, his square face, amber eyes, tan-patched body and upright tail were all fox terrier, but his sandy bandy legs betrayed a mixed marriage somewhere in his pedigree.

‘Take you out after dinner,’ promised Dominic, bending to ruffle the dog’s wonkily folded ears. Crosswind had been all Dominic had bothered about holding onto as his relationship broke and failed. Natalie hadn’t put up a fight. Crosswind knew who his human was.

Ethan’s small-boy laughter burbled into the air and Crosswind turned to listen. Crosswind approved of Ethan, always good for a bit of needless charging around or a carelessly sported biscuit.

Ethan had lately joined a playgroup and was all high-pitched excitement about it. ‘Dommynic!’ he shouted as Dominic paced back into the kitchen, shouts being Ethan’s usual conversational mode. ‘Today I painted my hands, then I pressed yellow paper and every time it made a hand shape!’

Dominic grinned. ‘Wow! Every time?’ Ethan’s pint-sized personality had kind of snuck up on him. Until Dominic had moved into the spare room of Miranda and her husband, Jos, Ethan had just been Miranda’s kid; they’d met every few months and forgotten one another between times. But now he was coming to appreciate the developing brain, the entertaining child’s eye view, the cute pronunciation, the importance of packing a red
Cars
backpack with ‘stuff’ for outings.

‘Your hand’s always hand-shaped, Ethan,’ Miranda pointed out, reasonably, which somehow prompted Ethan, the natural enemy of silence, to thunder down the hall screaming, ‘Cheee-arge!’ Crosswind raced, barking, behind him.

In front of the Raeburn, Miranda stirred a sauce of tomatoes, courgettes, red cabbage and sweetcorn, a pan of pasta verde bubbling on the next burner. Mentally, Dominic sighed. Miranda was a great cook and he must be incredibly ungracious, but he just couldn’t share her joy in vegetarianism, even if he knew that fruit and water-rich vegetables were great for energy levels. Pity Liza Reece hadn’t agreed to have dinner with him. His mouth watered at the thought of a huge, overdone steak. Or a big, juicy mixed grill. With garlic bread. Bread made him drowsy but that didn’t stop him wanting it.

His mouth watered at the thought of Liza Reece, too, but that was a waste of good saliva. He wouldn’t be surprised if she’d rather eat rat salad alone than eat steak with him. He hoped it had more to do with the stupid remark she’d overheard than with his health or employment. Lack of. Or maybe he’d just opened up to her about the goblins too soon.

So that Miranda wouldn’t think he was hanging around just to sound her out, Dominic began to set the table with three full-sized place settings and one smaller set, red, Ethan’s ‘favouritist’ colour. ‘So, what do you know about Liza Reece?’

Miranda gave him a malicious grin. ‘Breasts about the size of grapefruit.’

He winced. ‘I’m surprised she didn’t call the police.’ He took out the wooden pepper grinder from a cupboard – Miranda didn’t believe in salt, which was another good reason to eat out, and soon.

‘Actually, I only know her to chat to if I see her around the village. Hope Jos comes soon, the dinner’s ready.’ Miranda stirred the pasta, fished a twist out, blew on it, then popped it in her mouth. ‘I’m friends with Liza’s sister, Cleo, so I know that Liza was in a relationship that ended badly.’ Reaching down the colander from its hook, she peeped at him questioningly over her glasses.

He put three plates to warm and fixed Ethan’s red bowl to the table with the rubber sucker that stopped it from whizzing off under the stresses of inexpert chopping and shovelling. Crosswind, an expert at recognising behaviours, took up strategic station under the table. ‘I asked her to dinner. She couldn’t have turned me down flatter.’

‘Dom! Are you nuts?’ A cloud of steam enveloped Miranda as she plopped the colander into the sink and poured in the contents of the pasta pan.

‘What?’ Innocently.

‘Tomorrow, you’re going to meet the owner of The Stables with a view to buying into it! It’s a business – not a personal harem.’

He blinked in mock surprise. ‘In that case, I’ll have to reconsider.’ Then he became serious. ‘Miranda, you know and I know that I’m not going to buy into a holistic treatment centre – it’s you that’s into all the complementary stuff. It’s just one of several business opportunities that the crap Peterbizop agency has waved under my nose, in a misdirected attempt to earn a commission. I’m only looking at The Stables because I like where it is, not what it is.

‘Liza treated me like a predator, and now you are. Get over yourselves! She’s hot and I’m single. The whole point about being single is that I can date anyone I want. Except if I’ve offended her with “macho bullshit”, of course,’ he added, reflectively.

Miranda laughed, wiping steam from her glasses with her cuff. ‘Actually, I think Cleo mentioned that Liza’s on some kind of celibacy kick. Cleo thought it was stupid – completely foreign to Liza’s personality.’

He winced. ‘And a crime against nature. She’s amazing.’

‘She’s an intelligent and capable young woman,’ said Miranda, severely, as if Liza being amazing was something it was not politically correct for Dominic to notice. Then her voice softened. ‘Aren’t you interested in the treatment centre, really, Dom? It would be fantastic to have you living nearby.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, neutrally. Of course, Miranda intended to train in therapy when Ethan was older and so Dominic having a therapy centre would be convenient. Before motherhood she’d had an incredibly sensible – read: soul-destroying – job as a supervisor in a call centre, and had no intention of returning to it after a career break in which she’d embraced all things holistic, complementary, green, alternative or conservationist. But Miranda also had mother-hen tendencies and he hoped she didn’t want him nearby so that she could cluck over him, because, much as he appreciated her, another benefit of being single was avoiding conversations that began, ‘How are you?’ and progressed through, ‘Taking your meds? How difficult are the mornings? How hard is the daytime sleep hitting you?’

‘Miranda,’ he began. He paused to soften his tone; she didn’t know about all the irritating things she’d just said in his head. ‘Mi, I’ve lost my ATCO licence, my driving licence has been suspended, my GP won’t pass me medically fit for scuba until “we’ve had a good look at how you go on” – and I can’t imagine an insurance company wanting to cover me or a divemaster wanting to take me down – and almost all my friends were in aviation, my lost world. It’s incredibly nice of you to want me living locally and invite me to stay while I try and sort myself out, but I’m not going to shoehorn myself into some touchy-feely business that so isn’t me. Can you really see me as part of the new-age music and pretty uniforms?’

Miranda tipped a tiny amount of sauce onto a teaspoon, to taste it. ‘I didn’t think the uniform was particularly pretty. And not all your mates are in aviation. What about Kenny King?’ Kenny was Dominic’s oldest and quirkiest friend, the yin to Dominic’s yang, Dominic excelling at maths, science and technology and Kenny compensating for his dyslexia with superhero performance on the sports field. Being brought up within a few streets of both Dominic and Kenny, Miranda had known larger-than-life Kenny King since childhood.

‘Yeah,’ said Dominic. Pulling out a kitchen chair, he dropped into it. ‘What about Kenny? An Outward Bound instructor in North Carolina, every day a new adventure. Loving life and getting paid.’

Miranda halted, spoon halfway from her mouth, eyes full of compassion. ‘Sorry. I’m so used to you being stubborn that I forget that sometimes you might have a point. I’ll shut up about you buying into the treatment centre. The premises are in a fantastic spot, though, aren’t they? Must be a lovely leafy place to spend your days. Fantastic views.’ She lifted her voice. ‘Eth-an, din-ner!’

‘Couldn’t agree more. Although I’m more interested in actually being outside than just looking at it.’

‘You outdoorsy guys. It’s not enough just to stroll around the park in your lunch breaks?’ She grinned as Ethan raced in, ‘Cheee-arge!’, Crosswind skittering to meet him and escort him to his chair. ‘Would you put Ethan on his booster seat, for me?’ She took down the plates with a tea towel.

Swinging Ethan up, Dominic didn’t bother reminding Miranda that being outdoors made it easier for him to be alert. ‘C’mon, Ethan, bend.’ Ethan had a strange habit of making himself the wrong shape for the seat by pointing his toes and sticking his legs straight down, like a human golf tee. Dominic’s training having involved a lot of problem solving, he simply tickled Ethan’s legs to make him giggle his knees up to his chest, ‘
Eep!
’

Miranda made sure Ethan’s food was in manageable pieces before putting it before him with an affectionate pat to his round cheek. ‘But I am sad if you’re still prejudiced against alternative therapies, Dom.’

‘I’m never prejudiced, it’s unscientific.’

‘Didn’t you enjoy the treatments?’

Dominic took the chair next to Ethan’s and prepared to help him dig pasta out of his red bowl with his red spoon. Beneath the table, Crosswind edged closer. ‘I didn’t enjoy the ear candling nonsense.’ Dominic laughed as he watched Ethan tutting over the challenge of capturing pasta on a spoon. ‘Use your fingers, Ethan, it’s more efficient. I did enjoy the reflexology.’ Oh yeahhhhh …

‘Yes, well, Liza’s a lot prettier than Fenella.’ Miranda ladled pasta and sauce onto the rest of the plates.

And then Crosswind barked and whirled to face the back door an instant before Jos, dark hair tied at the nape of his neck, walked in, bringing with him the scents of rain and engine oil. Crosswind woofed and wagged and Ethan squealed, ‘Daddee! Dad-deeeee!’

‘Hey, my little Ethan!’ Jos made a kissy noise at Crosswind and grabbed Ethan up for a cuddle, dislodging several pasta twists from various nooks, which Crosswind snaffled before they could even bounce.

‘Hiya, Jossy!’ Miranda gave her doe-eyed husband a dazzling smile, a soft kiss on the lips and a plate in his hand in a flowing series of movements, and the subject of Liza Reece was forgotten.

Except by Dominic.