In Her Secret Fantasy (5 page)

“I’ll keep it for you, no bother,” Louise said. “But if you don’t want it, Aidan can stay there while he’s here. He’s used to his own space, and if we get any guests…”

“No, that’s fine,” Izzy said so quickly that Chrissy guessed she’d been keeping it on only to support Louise, not because she’d any doubts about her relationship with Glenn. But Izzy wasn’t wealthy either.

Chrissy drew in her breath and faced Louise. “Is Aidan okay?”

The smile died on Louise’s lips. She shook her head. “No. No, I don’t think he is.”

“What’s wrong?” Izzy asked.

“I don’t know. I’m guessing work, but he doesn’t talk about it. I only knew he’d left the police when he arrived on Hogmanay. He didn’t even tell me he was going abroad until it came up on New Year’s night.”

“It’s a difficult job,” Chrissy said awkwardly. “It can get to you. Maybe he needs to talk to someone.”

Louise shook her head again. “I doubt he will. He never talked about stuff that bothered him, even when he was a kid. Bottled it all up and dealt with it alone. On the boat, usually. He used to disappear for days when he was a teenager—drove my parents nuts.” She shrugged. “Sooner he gets that boat back in the water, the better he’ll be.”

It shouldn’t have bothered him that he’d alienated Chrissy. Abusing some gangster’s hospitality was hardly something he’d break his heart over either—he’d done the same and worse many times before—and yet Chrissy’s words seemed to throw a blanket of confusion over him, reminding him of old customs and civilities, the old life that had been Aidan Grieve’s. But he wasn’t that kid anymore, he was a cop, righting wrongs he no longer understood. Chrissy wasn’t the bad guy here. Hell, even Brody had committed no obvious crime since getting out. And yet here Aidan was, pursuing them, threatening, the bad guy…
“Fuck off.”

Somehow, he found himself on the attic stairs, and halted. Glenn Brody sat on a step near the top, not looking at him, but still, Aidan was sure, aware of his position and every movement.

“Chrissy told you to fuck off,” Brody said with deceptive casualness.

“Behold me—er—fucking off.” Brody must have been out here, listening, waiting to see if he needed to intervene. Shame surged up from Aidan’s toes. The girl was brave, but she’d suffered too much already. He’d known that in his heart from their first encounter.

“What’d you do?” Brody asked.

Aidan stirred. “I asked too many questions about you.”

“Aye, that’d do it.” Brody turned his head and glanced up at him. “You should ask me. If you’ve got any more.”

Aidan swallowed, grabbing back what he could of himself, still thinking as he was trained to.

“I have, as it happens. My sister told me about your fishing trip plans, with your guests staying at the B & B. What sort of guests would they be?”

“Whoever pays. I won’t vet them.” To Aidan’s surprise, Brody indicated the step beside him. “On the other hand, I still know names to avoid. I won’t be welcoming known criminals. It’s not a cover-up for gangland conventions of my old pals.”

Aidan stepped down and lowered himself to sit beside Brody. “Thanks for your honesty.”

“You’re looking out for your family. That’s fair enough in anyone’s book.” Brody’s hard eyes scanned his face. “Still, you’ve got me flummoxed. I can spot the polis pretty much infallibly within a hundred yards. Most people like me can. But I never clocked you.”

Aidan’s lips twisted. “Maybe I wasn’t a very good polis.”

“Maybe. But I doubt that.” Brody glanced down at his hands which were hanging loosely between his knees. Big, scarred hands that had done some damage in their time and still could. Brody didn’t look as if the sight of them pleased him much. “You know what happened to Chrissy.”

Aidan thought about lying in order to learn more. What Brody thought had happened, what Chrissy had told him. But all his instincts, wherever they came from, urged the truth at this point. He nodded.

Brody said, “We don’t crowd her. We don’t loom or threaten or play arm-wrestling with her.”

Aidan gazed at the scarred, averted face and wasn’t even surprised. He couldn’t pretend to know who were the good guys and who the bad. But it seemed he still knew the good
things
.

When Brody turned to meet his gaze, Aidan let his lips quirk. “Looking after your family?”

Brody nodded once.

“She’s in no danger from me,” Aidan said quietly. “She never was.”

Brody stood as if he’d got what he’d come for and had no more reason to hang around. “Aye, well, it’s easy to piss Chrissy off. I should know.”

“How do you get round her again?” Aidan asked, standing with him.

“No idea. Either she forgives me, or she realizes she was wrong. So far. Good luck.” Brody nodded and clattered off down the rest of the stairs.

A whistle brought the dog hurtling from the flat and down the stairs. Aidan followed more slowly.
“Good luck,”
Brody had said. It had almost sounded as though he’d meant it.

Aidan didn’t come back for his coffee. Chrissy didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. Either way, when Louise left, she was still too wound up to go back to work. So she grabbed her coat from her room and decided to walk down to the beach and look for seals. And if there weren’t any, she was sure she’d felt some gaps in the cliff last night that might have been caves she could explore.

When she got down to the beach, the sky had clouded over and was dripping a constant wet sleet. It would be dark again soon. There were no signs of seal presence, so she just walked along the sand, wondering about Aidan. About why he’d come home and why he’d left the police. She could understand his suspicions about the people his sister had befriended. She recognized too that she didn’t have to like being interrogated about her friends, not by him, although “Fuck off” in return for an offer to carry a tray full of coffee cups might have been an uncivil overreaction.

But mostly, she worried about that desperate look she’d surprised in his eyes. There’d been misery in there, overlaying everything else, but the rest of the emotions roiling behind were a total mystery. She began to think he was more in need of help than anybody at Ardknocken House. Including herself.

As she approached the place where she’d bumped into him on New Year’s night, she veered into the cliff side, and began poking behind rocks and peering into the gaps and holes in the cliff. When she pushed her gloved hand into the larger holes, she came up against rock after more than a few inches. Until, about the fifth space she tried, when she began to sweep her hand out again, she found an open corner. Excited, she felt farther in. Although the hidden opening wasn’t large enough for a person to fit through, she could push her hand just a little— “Chrissy? Is that you?”

Startled, she yanked her hand out again, grateful for the gloves that prevented grazing all the skin off her knuckles.

A few yards behind her stood Len, the new accountant to whom she’d soon hand over the project’s books. With gratitude.

“Hello,” she said, slightly embarrassed. “I thought I’d found a cave.”

“And have you?”

“More of a tunnel to get my hand stuck in.”

“Bad idea in this weather,” he said with a faint grin. He shifted from one foot to the other, and it struck her he was trying to make amends for his admittedly pretty minor lunge just after the bells. More than that, she realized his presence didn’t bother her. In fact, now that she looked at him, he was really quite attractive. Although he was about fifty years old, his face was firm and full of character, his body fit and healthy.

“I suppose you’re right,” she said.

He took a step nearer. “Don’t suppose you’re heading into the village? Someone told me I could walk in along the beach.”

“Yes, you can,” she said, walking past him to point along the shore. “Just around that headland you’ll be able to see it. You’ll make it before the tide comes in. Though I doubt the shops will be open.”

Unexpectedly, he was right beside her. He didn’t grab her, just looked deeply into her eyes. “Come with me.”

And abruptly, she longed to do just that. In fact the strength of her longing frightened her because it was
wrong
. Her foot even lifted to walk forward and she had to force it down with a gasp before she could step back.

Now he did take her arm, still smiling. It was a nice smile. “Come on, Chrissy. If we hurry, we’ll be back before dark.”

Weirdly, her body wanted to go with him. It was her brain that refused, although it couldn’t make her body obey, and the conflict in her mind suddenly scared the crap out of her. What the hell was the matter with her?

Gently, Len urged her forward. Again, she pulled back, but it seemed to take a lot of effort, like one of those dreams where no matter how close your destination or how fast you ran, you never reached it. Panic surged.

“Chrissy!”

Another voice, calling from the cliff path. Len’s head snapped round, and she looked too. Aidan, striding down the path towards the beach.

Relief flooded her, and suddenly she could move quite easily, walking out of Len’s hold and then running towards Aidan. She didn’t look back.

As if he sensed her panic, Aidan left the path and dropped down the cliff face in two practiced jumps, much as he had in the dark on New Year’s night. As soon as he landed in front of her, she ran the last few paces and seized him by the sleeves.

“Something’s wrong with me, Aidan!” she gasped. “Something terrible…”

A fierce frown pulled down his brow, but he neither seized her nor shouted. “What happened? Did that guy hurt you?”

“Len? No, he just asked me to show him how to get to the village, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to go, only I couldn’t make myself
stop
going. Something’s wrong with me…”

He lifted his open hand, softly cupping her cheek, gazing into her eyes. “Look up,” he said. “Look to the sea, now the cliff…” Slowly, his frown cleared. “Nothing’s wrong with you, Chrissy,” he promised. “You’re wonderful.”

She gasped again, horrified as tears tightened her throat, trying to spill out of her eyes. Her mouth worked, trying to speak, to laugh at herself, anything but cry. After all, she’d just gone into a blind panic about nothing. And then, amazingly, his arms were around her, cradling her. She felt his cheek against the top of her head, and her tears broke free, trickling down her face and into his leather jacket.

“I think you just had a moment,” he said gently. “You were conflicted, and you didn’t like it.”

She’d run to him like her only saviour when she barely knew him. “I told you to fuck off,” she whispered.

“Lots of people tell me to fuck off. I understand.”

“I don’t want you to fuck off…”

“I don’t understand
that
. But I don’t want to hurt you, Chrissy.”

Her fingers tightened on his coat. “Or Glenn?”

This time there was a pause. Then, “No, I don’t think I want to hurt him either. Though I will if I have to.”

Her fingers opened, spreading over his thick upper arms instead. Under her cheek, and his jacket, his heart beat steadily.

His breath stirred her hair. “What is it, Chrissy? What’s wrong?”

“You know, don’t you?”

“I can guess some of it from what happened to you. I’m asking about you.”

She smiled into his coat, and another tear escaped. “Because you think I’m broken?”

“I know you’re
not
broken. Christ, we all bend a little with the blows.”

“Is that what happened to you?”

He went very still, then shook his head. It felt like a caress against her hair. “I don’t know.”

“Will you tell me yours if I tell you mine?”

Another pause, then, “All right. Do you want to go somewhere warmer?”

Her breath caught as memory roiled and surged. “Not now. I can’t now. Is Len still there?”

She felt his head turn, allowing the wind and the sleet to chill her scalp. “No. He walked on without you. I think you might find you’re having an affair with me when you go back to the house.”

“I won’t grace it with a comment. No one will come after you with a shotgun.”

His arms loosened, and she dashed the back of her hand quickly across her face before lifting her head from his chest, where she’d grown far too comfortable. She forced herself to meet his gaze, but she could read no discomfort there, or annoyance, just an intense focus on her that in spite of everything set the butterflies gambolling in her stomach. He just looked too good not to affect her. There was danger in that, and yet she’d drawn comfort from him.

“What do you want to do now?” he asked.

“Walk.”

“Will I come with you?”

She closed her eyes again against those bloody tears that she’d held in successfully for years before this. “No,” she whispered. “I don’t want to cry all over you.”

“I’m a cop. Making people cry doesn’t bother me.”

She gave a slightly watery laugh. “Stop it. I can walk this off, and next time, I’ll be fine.” He frowned with obvious reluctance, and she blurted, “Please. I need to be alone. I do.”

His frown cleared as if he understood that, but still his eyes searched hers. “At least you said ‘next time’. We can go for that sail, if you like, see if we can find some seals. I had the boat out the water, and it looks surprisingly okay now. I’ll take it for a test sail tomorrow, and if all’s well, we can go out in the afternoon, or the day after.”

“I’ve got to work.”

He swallowed that without a blink. “Do you get weekends off?”

She nodded. “Saturday’s good if you can get away too.”

He sighed. “Yes, Louise and I need to talk. But that’s another issue. I’ll meet you in the harbour on Saturday. What’s your number?”

She told him and he entered it on his phone with speedy efficiency. Then, dropping the phone back in his pocket, he glanced at her.

“I’m fine,” she repeated, both baffled and ashamed now of her odd behaviour, of running to him and crying. At least Len hadn’t seen her crying. He was a nice guy, but she wasn’t sure he’d work out at the house.

“Okay,” Aidan said. His lips quirked. He had quite full, firm lips that she wanted to brush with hers, to taste, to feel on her mouth, all over her body…