Rich Tapestry (3 page)

“Driving dangerously then? Not paying attention?”

“Of course not.”

“So, why should you feel guilty? You did nothing wrong. Quite the opposite. Badgers have no road sense, they often run in front of cars. You saved his life by bringing him here. He would have died within an hour or so if you’d left him at the roadside.”

For some reason I can’t quite put my finger on, his approval, his absolution matters to me. I should just leave it at that. I have no idea why I don’t.

“It was my fault. Maybe if I—”

Daniel Riche halts my flow of words by simply lifting his hand. The gesture is autocratic, commanding and totally effective.

“And maybe if I move Bryan to one of our recovery pens and wipe down the table, perhaps then I could lay you across it, lift that sexy little skirt and spank your bottom. Would that make you feel better?”

I gape at him, incredulous. Did I just hear him correctly? “What? What did you say?”

Daniel Riche looks at me, the expression on his devilishly handsome face quite neutral. “You heard. Would it help you to forgive yourself if I were to punish you? A good, hard, bare-bottom spanking usually does the trick. I’d be delighted to oblige.”

Even as I recoil, horrified, my pussy is spasming. My knickers are wet, for Christ’s sake. How? Why? The very idea is, is…

Delightfully, deliciously naughty. Wicked beyond imagining and so hot I could melt.

“You look shocked, Miss Jones. Does the idea not appeal? Or perhaps it does, and that’s why you’re so…uncomfortable.”

“I, I’m not uncomfortable. It’s just, I never… That’s outrageous!”

“Is it? Seems like an excellent plan to me.”

He smiles, and my eyes are drawn to his seductive mouth, the play of his lips, the gleam of his white, even teeth. I start to imagine those teeth trailing over my body, my most sensitive, private places. As if to emphasize the point my nipples swell and harden, my clit throbs. And all the while he lounges by the sink watching, waiting. Knowing.

“I, I… I need to go.” I turn, start for the door.

“Wait, I’ll walk you to the gate.”

“There’s no need.” I grab the door handle and open the door, grateful for the cool autumnal freshness of the outdoors against my flaming cheeks.

“I think there is. You’ll find you’re locked in. The park’s closed, I’ll need to let you out. First though, we need to make this chap comfortable.”

I turn back to see Daniel bending over the table, reaching for his stethoscope. I’m ashamed that I momentarily forgot poor Bryan, but Daniel Riche is clearly correct, we need to see to him first. I step back inside and close the door again.

Daniel’s movements are efficient and practiced as he checks Bryan’s heart, listens to his now much calmer breathing. The squat little legs are starting to move, mimicking the motion of running.

“He’s coming round. Best to get him into a recovery pen before he’s fully conscious and starts trying to eat us.” Daniel lifts the badger, chest drain still in situ, and gestures with his head toward an empty wire cage on the floor. “Could you open the door for me please?”

I hasten to do as Daniel has asked as the badger starts to wriggle clumsily, though his eyes remain closed. Daniel quickly transfers the creature to the relative safety of the recovery cage, before fastening the latch on the door.

“There, that should hold him until I get back from seeing you out.”

Bryan opens his eyes, and I’m immediately struck by how bright they are, small and black and very much alive. The badger regards us balefully through the wire of his small enclosure. I silently wish him well as I turn once more to leave.

Daniel follows me outside, then turns to lock the hospital door behind us. I start to march up the wide drive. In moments he’s beside me.

“I apologize, Miss Jones.”

“Why? What for?”

“For upsetting you. I pushed too hard, too fast.”

“Is that what you call it? You were threatening me?”

“I didn’t threaten, I offered. But I appreciate you may find that a moot point right now. Could we start over?”

“I really don’t think…”

“Dinner. Would you have dinner with me, Miss Jones?”

“What?” I realize I’m sounding particularly dim-witted, but this was the last thing I expected him to say. “You want me to go to dinner with you? Now?”

“No, not now unfortunately. I’m on duty here all night. How about tomorrow? Or later in the week?”

We’re almost at the outer gate now. I stop, turn to face him. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Can’t, Miss Jones? Why can’t you? Another boyfriend perhaps?”

“What? No, of course not.”
Another
boyfriend? Any boyfriend at all would be laughable. “I just—don’t. That’s all.”

We’re at the gate, but he makes no move to retrieve the key from his pocket. Somehow he’s maneuvered me into a position where the fence is behind me and he’s in front. I’m trapped. I start to panic, try to dart around him, seeking freedom. Safety. A muscular, solid arm stops me.

“A moment, please.” He steps forward.

I edge away, my back now pressed against the fence.

“Please, let me go, sir.” I’m whimpering, I can’t help it. He’s said nothing even remotely menacing since the quip about spanking me, but still I’m terrified. Something about this man utterly destroys my self-confidence, which is generally fragile at best.

He cups my chin with his palm, tilts my face up toward his. He’s gentle, unhurried, and for reasons I can’t fathom I feel less afraid when his hands are actually on me. There’s a strength in his touch, a sense of security.

“Open your eyes, Summer.” Again that compelling timbre, that perfectly modulated voice demanding obedience.

I didn’t even realize my eyes were tight shut until he spoke. I open them to meet his gaze.

And I’m lost. His eyes are warm, and so deep I’m drowning. Long moments pass as he bores into me, seeing…something…I never even knew was there. He’s offering me comfort, safety, pleasure and perhaps pain too. His gorgeous face is closer, his hypnotic eyes holding mine. Then he brushes his lips across my forehead. My eyelids droop again as he flutters small kisses across my cheeks, my eyes and finally my mouth.

His tongue slips between my lips and I let him in. My hands are on his shoulders. I hold on tight, steadying myself as he deepens the kiss. His hands are cradling my head, holding me still. There’s a slight tug as he grabs a fistful of hair at my nape, dislodging the neat barrette I fastened there. He tilts my head back a little farther. It doesn’t hurt, not quite.

My pussy is wet now, indecently moist. He moves in closer, his chest pressing against my breasts, my nipples now hardened to tight pebbles. His free hand trails across my shoulder and down between our bodies to cup my breast. He squeezes, molds…and the spell breaks.

What the fuck? What am I doing?

I push against his chest, hard, twisting my face away from his. Far from seeking to force the issue Daniel lets go of me instantly. His hands are up in a gesture not so much of surrender but one which says ‘I release you, you’re free to leave’. He steps back, allowing me the space I desperately need.

Confused, flustered, my one overwhelming wish is to get away. To be anywhere, somewhere, as long as I’m away from this man’s disturbing presence. I’m desperate to be alone, to think. But most of all I need to regroup, I need to sort my head out.

“I have to go. Now. Please. Open the gate. Please.”

Daniel nods once. “Another time then, Miss Jones. It’s been a pleasure meeting you.”

Moments later the gate is swinging open. I simply run for it. I dash past him, through the gate and sprint across the car park as fast as I can in my impractical heels. I operate Freya’s remote locking system from on the run and am able to just fling myself into the BMW. I start the engine and swing on the wheel to turn the car in the direction of the exit. I catch sight of Daniel Riche’s motionless figure, silhouetted in my headlamps, just where I left him inside the perimeter fencing. He may be frowning, though it’s impossible to be sure at this distance.

He lifts one hand as I pass in a flurry of shale. I don’t wave back.

Chapter One

Bristol, 2012

“Congratulations, Miss Jones. We’d like to offer you the place in the library and archives management training program.”

The disembodied voice on the other end of the phone pauses for a few seconds. This is just enough time for me to take in the news and return an articulate “Oh!”

The lady from the Bristol City Council personnel department ignores that and continues with the business in hand. “Are you in a position to know yet whether you will be accepting it, do you think?”

Wow. I can’t quite believe it.
They’re willing to let me be a trainee deputy manager.
Me!
And give me a pay rise. Not much, and the extra responsibility will more than outweigh the financial gains, but it’s still better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. And this is not about money anyway. Too bloody right I’ll be accepting it. I’ve only worked in the library department for a few months and this is the first time I applied for the training program. Most applicants get turned down the first two or three times, I never expected to be successful so soon. This is me getting my foot well and truly on the career ladder. The only way is up and all that.

“Yes. Thank you. Yes please, I’d love to be in the training program.” I try to listen carefully as the personnel manager reels off further details and instructions regarding the paperwork I’ll need to complete. She promises to email me the necessary forms. I thank her again and hang up.

I’m still bouncing along on cloud nine when my mobile trills again. I pull it out of my bag tucked neatly under my desk, expecting another conversation with the Council’s human resources department about my newly elevated position. Instead, I find myself on the wrong end of a nearly incoherent call from my mother, declaring that unless I get my arse back to Barrow immediately to help her out of her current spot of bother, the younger Jones’ will be taken into care—again.

I try to reason with her, or at the very least find out something about the nature and scale of this current catastrophe. But from the moment I first hear her voice on the other end of the line, in my heart I know it’s useless—a waste of perfectly good oxygen. It’s always useless. Each time I get myself sorted, set up somewhere, just when I’m doing okay, my mother hits another one of her crises and that’s it. Suddenly it all becomes
my
responsibility. It’s up to
me
to sort things out, to save the day. And when I express any opposition to that view,
I’m
suddenly the ogre. I’m the villain of the piece who’d condemn the little ones, poor innocent mites, to a life in care.

A life in and out of care was pretty much what I got growing up, and despite that, I somehow managed to scrape together a few GCSEs and get myself onto a college course to train as a librarian. My mother earned her living, our living, variously as a lap dancer, a stripper and, on rare occasions, a singer. And she worked as a prostitute when times were hard. Times were often hard. Her occasional convictions for soliciting resulted in a series of short but disruptive custodial sentences throughout my childhood, hence I regularly found myself thrown on the mercy of social services. On the whole the social workers did all right, though to be fair my standards were pretty low back then.

My academic success, relatively modest though it might be, was hard won. It came as a massive relief to me and was a source of some considerable disappointment to my mother, who had another career in mind for me. Joining the family business, you might say. I’d tried it for a few horrible, desperate months when I felt I had no option, but the experience was mortifying. It was quite enough to convince me I had to find a different path. Something, anything, was better than earning a living on my back.

Getting into college was my passport to a better life—a life of my own, away from Barrow—a decent, independent life, a life of self-respect, and best of all, of quiet predictability. And now I know with chilling finality that I have to leave my peaceful billet in Bristol and once more face the chaos that is life in the Jones’ house.

I’m still hoping this is just a temporary interruption when I phone the HR department back. I have to explain to the rather astonished manager on the other end that I need a bit of time to think and won’t, after all, be accepting the offer of the place on the training program immediately. It isn’t easy.

“Can I have a bit of time to consider the offer? Maybe a fortnight? In fact, I’m sorry but I need to take a few days leave as well, a couple of weeks probably.”
Hopefully.
“Personal reasons.”

She grudgingly agrees, but goes to some considerable pains to also stress that the offer is open for two weeks only. After that time, if I haven’t accepted it, they’ll assume I’m no longer interested in the opportunity and offer it to another candidate. She makes it abundantly clear how fierce the competition is for these places and how lucky I’ve been to have been offered this chance. She leaves unsaid the potentially dire consequences for my current position, but I have no illusions regarding my career advancement potential if I screw this up.
Fucking hell!

I leave work early to pack a suitcase. This is a meticulous affair. I carefully fold and arrange a fortnight’s worth of clothes on my bed before placing them in my case. I am meticulous about the order in which they are arranged. Dark colors to the bottom, lighter ones on top and underwear neatly to one end. I have a system for packing. I have a system for most things. I’ve noticed that the more stressed I am, the more systematic I become. Right now, I’m very, very stressed. My suitcase is ultra-tidy.

By half past five in the afternoon, I’m sitting on the platform at Temple Meads station waiting for the next train to Glasgow. I can change at Lancaster, and as long as there’s no delay, I might just manage the last connection to Barrow.

Shit!

The train is delayed by approximately thirteen minutes. The disembodied voice booming over the station platform is apologetic, but the stark fact of this is that I’m not going to make the connection to Barrow tonight. Not to worry, I have a Plan B. Instead of changing at Lancaster, I’ll stay on until the next stop and get off at Oxenholme, on the outskirts of Kendall. I have a friend, Freya, who lives about half an hour’s walk from the station. I can go there. Then I can either borrow Freya’s car to get to Barrow tonight, or maybe stay over with her until the morning then go to find out what unholy mess my mother has found herself in now.