Please Forgive Me (26 page)

‘I suppose. I just really don’t know what to do...’

‘Well I do,’ she said firmly. ‘Until you get sorted with something else, I’ll be the only one bringing in a salary, and our first priority needs to be ourselves as a couple.’

Adam nodded. ‘I know. I’ll give her a call later to talk things through,” he said and Leonie was relieved he seemed to understand that there was no other choice.

‘You’ve got to be joking Adam!’ Even sitting two feet away from him on the sofa, Leonie could hear Andrea’s outraged squeals on the other end of the line.

‘There’s nothing I can do Andi, you must have heard about it on the news.’ Adam’s gaze met Leonie’s and he shook his head exasperated. ‘I know, and I’m sorry but it means we’ll all have to make some sacrifices – at least in the short term. It’s not ideal but what can you do? Yes, of course we’ll be able to contribute, just not at the same level and…what? Why?’

Moving the receiver away from his ear, he frowned and offered the phone to Leonie. ‘She wants to talk to you.’

Leonie raised an eyebrow. What did Andrea want with her? ‘Hello?’ she said into the mouthpiece with some hesitation.

‘This is totally unacceptable,’ the other woman began in her usual whiny voice. ‘It’s an outrage in fact.’

Leonie was mildly surprised that Andrea seemed to be just as upset about the plant closure as they were. Perhaps she’d misjudged her after all. ‘I know, it’s shocking isn’t it but –’

‘Well I’m telling you now I don’t like it. I don’t like the way you’re trying to sideline Suzanne like this. I always expected it mind you, but
-
’

At this Leonie’s eyes widened. So much for her understanding! ‘Andrea, I have never once tried to sideline her, she’s always been welcome here. But Adam lost his job today! Do you hold me responsible for that too?’ At this, her fiancé’s head snapped up angrily.

‘I certainly think you’re prepared to use the situation to your advantage. It’s obvious you’ve always had a problem with us, and this is the perfect opportunity to stick our noses in it.’

Shaking with anger, Leonie let Adam take the phone from her. How dare she? To think that the silly wagon had the gall to try blame
her
for this? Didn’t she realise that if it wasn’t for her salary she and her precious daughter would be getting nothing at all?

‘That was totally out of order, Andrea…’ Now Adam was back on the phone trying to appeal to his ex’s better nature.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said afterwards, sounding utterly deflated. ‘She’s being completely unreasonable.’ He put both hands up to his face. ‘I’m so sorry I caused all this Lee.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ Leonie tried again to reassure him, but she inwardly she was very

worried indeed.

If Adam was finding all of this hard to handle now, how on earth would they get through it when times really got tough?

My darling Helena,

I’m sorry but I just had to write to you again, as I badly need to reach out to someone now and you’re the only one who might be able to understand.

It’s getting tough here now, and sometimes I feel very lonely and incredibly afraid. It helps to think that there’s someone out there, someone who understands me, although I guess you still haven’t come to terms with what I’ve done or the decisions I’ve made. My love, I haven’t come to terms with that either. And the worst part of it all is you were so right. This is a crazy place, a crazy situation and I really shouldn’t be here – nobody should be here.

Just please try to understand that no matter where I am, or what I’m doing, I’m always thinking of you.

Please Forgive Me.

Nathan.

Alex was on her way out for an early evening run, when she was waylaid by Seth, who was sitting on the bottom step outside the house.

‘Hello there, stranger.’

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked warily. She didn’t want to talk to him, still found it hard to even
look
at him after that cheap trick he’d pulled with the car.

Doug had advised that if Seth was planning to kick up a stink it was probably best for them to come to some kind of agreement about it, but the car was her baby and Alex wasn’t going to give it up without a fight. So instead, she’d asked her lawyer to see if he could find some way round the shared asset situation, given that Seth had willingly bought it for her as a gift. Doug had told her he’d do what he could, but until this was sorted, Alex’s divorce plans had once again ground to a halt.

He smiled as if reading her thoughts. ‘Don’t worry – it’s nothing to do with us. I just found something today that I thought might be of interest to you.’

‘Like what? And why not just use the phone?’

‘I didn’t think you’d pick up if you knew it was me,’ he said, making a pretty good point. ‘It’s about that guy you and Leonie are looking for – Nathan.’

Coincidentally, Leonie had only that day shown her another one of his letters, but this – like the others – revealed little about where the guy was or what he was writing about, and she knew Leonie was becoming frustrated at the lack of progress.

‘Well, I was just on my way out,’ Alex indicated her running attire of shorts and trainers, ‘but I’m sure Leonie would…’

‘I checked. She’s not in, and it’s no problem – I could do with the exercise,’ he said, falling into step alongside her. ‘Fancy heading down by the Presidio?’

The popular city park bordering the Pacific was where they’d usually jogged back when they were together, and exactly where Alex had been heading. A huge playground of running trails, it was one of her favourite places for a run in the Bay area.

‘OK,’ she agreed, naturally suspicious of his motives, but at the same time interested to hear what he had to say. ‘So what did you find out?’

‘Well you know I’m back working at the dive shop,’ he said, jogging alongside her and Alex nodded. ‘Well, I was down there yesterday looking through some of our PADI paperwork from last year, and I came across the name Nathan Abbott. I only noticed it because I heard you guys mention it recently, otherwise it wouldn’t have meant anything.’ When she didn’t react, he went on. ‘Assuming it’s the same guy, it means he must have gone out on a dive with the company at some stage.’

‘When was this?’ she asked between breaths. ‘I mean, what date was the paperwork?’

‘Mid-march sometime last year. I thought it might help.’

‘Good lead and I’ll check it out, but chances are it might not be our guy,’ Alex said, explaining how they’d since learned that while Abbott was Helena’s surname, they couldn’t be sure if was Nathan’s.

‘Was she listed too by any chance?’

‘Helena Abbott?’ Seth frowned. ‘Not that I noticed. I could check though.’ He seemed uncommonly eager to please, she realised. Maybe he’d since realised that the thing with the Mustang was a cheap shot.

‘Thanks for that, it gives us something else to go on anyway. Leonie will be pleased.’

‘What gives with her and those letters anyway?’ Seth asked. ‘She seems kind of fixated by them.’

‘She is, and I can’t say I understand why. It’s just a bunch of letters after all. But I think she’s a bit of a romantic at heart.’

Seth smiled. ‘Whereas you, on the other hand, are a cynic.’

Alex kept running, the beginnings of a grin on her face. ‘I guess I am.’

‘You don’t think this guy deserves another chance?’

‘Well I don’t know what he’s done, so how can I decide if he deserves another chance or not?’

‘But it sounds like he really loves this girl though, doesn’t it?’

‘Well maybe he should have thought of that before he did something stupid.’ She looked sideways at him. ‘Just checking we’re still talking about Nathan here, right?’

Seth was all innocence. ‘Of course.’

Stepping up the pace, they continued jogging in silence for a while as they made their way towards the park entrance via Lombard Street. It was a beautiful evening and the park was busy with families, dog-walkers and lots of tourists. As if by rote, Alex and Seth cut across Lincoln Boulevard and headed straight for the northern end of Crissy Field to the coastal trail, which
offered sweeping vistas of the Pacific Ocean and the Marin Headlands.

‘You know, I really missed this,’ Seth said after a while, as up ahead the Golden Gate bridge loomed. ‘In Miami, most of the time it was too damn hot to run any great distance.’

‘I can imagine.’ Alex wasn’t sure if she wanted to talk about what he did or didn’t get up to in Miami, seeing as he hadn’t bothered sharing any information about it up to now. ‘Although I would have thought the whole laidback Caribbean lifestyle suited you perfectly.’

‘It did for a while I guess. Still, I always knew I’d be back – this is practically home, after all.’ Then, slowing his pace considerably, he grinned.
 
‘But whatever about being out of practice, I think I’m also a little out of shape! Breather?’

‘Sure,’ Alex slowed alongside him beneath the bridge and they both paused for a moment listening in silence to the thud-thud of traffic overhead, while below whitecaps crashed against the shore. Then, once he’d got his breath back, they took off again – this time at a more leisurely pace.

‘Leonie seems like a nice girl,’ he said after a couple of minutes.

‘She is.’

‘So what’s her story then?’

‘Her story?’

‘Yeah. I mean, I know that she moved here a couple of months back and works in a flower store, but what’s she doing here in the first place? Clearly there’s something else going on there, isn’t there?’

‘I didn’t think much about it, to be honest.’ It was interesting that Seth’s conclusions were pretty much the same as hers, although Alex wasn’t going to admit as much to him.

‘Yeah, I mean how does an Irish girl wind up halfway across the world for no particular reason?’

‘How does anyone wind up anywhere? There’s nothing unusual about it as far as I’m concerned and even if there was, it’s absolutely none of my business.’

‘So you
do
think there’s more to her than meets the eye!’ he teased, and Alex cursed herself for being so easy to read. ‘My guess is she’s running from something.’

No shit Sherlock
, she agreed silently.
 
‘Probably a guy. It’s nearly always a guy.’

‘Of course it is,’ Alex drawled. ‘What else
could
it be? I mean, it’s not as though our lives revolve around anything else, is it?’

‘OK, OK, maybe that’s a bit too simple. But when I was talking to her that time in Monterey, before you came along
-
’

‘When you were flirting with her, you mean.’

Seth suppressed a smile. ‘Anyway, I got the sense that she doesn’t trust people too easily.’

‘Or maybe she just proved herself immune to your charms?’ Alex couldn’t resist taunting him.

He shook his head. ‘Gimme a break Alex, I’m just telling you what I think, that’s all. As I said, she’s a nice girl and I think all this stuff with the letters is more than just a passing interest on her part.’

Alex was now genuinely interested in hearing his take on it too. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I just think they could have taken on some kind of extra significance where she’s concerned. Maybe she identifies with what’s going on with that couple because she’s going through or has been through something similar herself.’

Alex thought about it and decided it made some sense. Leonie did seem uncommonly fixated on reuniting the couple in the letters, irrespective of knowing what actually happened between them. She recalled how disappointed she’d been when the Helena Abbott they’d encountered in Monterey didn’t seem to be the woman they were looking for, and how determined she still was to find either one of the couple, despite Alex’s advice to leave well enough alone.

‘She’s certainly taken with their story, I’ll give you that,’ she said to Seth. ‘And she’ll be over the moon if she can get to the bottom of this. But as for her going through something similar, I couldn’t really be sure.’ She resolved to try and broach the subject again with her sometime, assuming that Leonie wanted to talk about it of course. Chances were she’d run away to put her problems behind her rather than confront them head on.

‘Well, either way, she certainly comes across as a romantic old soul.’ Seth said. He gave her another sideways glance. ‘And speaking of romance, how are things going with Dr Love?’

Alex stiffened. ‘Fine, thank you.’

‘Only fine? That doesn’t sound so great to me.’

‘Seth, knock it off, OK? I don’t want to talk to you about this now – or ever for that matter.’

He flashed a wide grin. ‘I’m sorry I just couldn’t resist. Don’t mind me, I think you guys make a great couple.’

She smiled, despite herself. ‘Sure you do.’

‘No honestly, Alex I really do. If you’re happy, I’m happy.’

‘Funny how you didn’t seem to think about that before you disappeared down to Miami,’ she said, the words out of her mouth before she could stop them. Damn it, she hadn’t planned on the conversation taking that turn.

Seth drew up short, panting. ‘It wasn’t like that,’ he said gently. ‘Things were crazy, and we both needed space...’

‘Well you certainly gave me that,’ she said, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

‘Alex…’

‘Anyway, it’ll all be over soon,’ she said brightly, unwilling to discuss it any further.

‘Sure it will,’ Seth agreed, but there was an edge to his tone that made her worry if he had something else up his sleeve.

On Monday morning, Leonie was at Flower Power inputting credit card details into the store terminal when she got a call.

‘It’s for you,’ Marcy said, handing her the cordless phone, ‘Some crazy woman from Ireland.’

Leonie frowned in confusion, wondering who on earth would be calling her here, and tentatively she held the receiver to her ear. ‘Hello?’