Wednesday's Child (2 page)

Liam wiped his mouth on the serviette and stood. Wearing his lunch wasn’t part of the professional image he needed to project. A glance at his watch showed he had ten minutes to get back. Time, tide, and a class of thirty kids at Headley Cross Secondary School waited for no one. He could hardly chastise the kids about being late for class if he was guilty of the same offence himself, could he?

He began to edge out of the space which now seemed smaller than before, and bumped his hip on the table behind him.

“Hey, watch where you’re going.”

“Sorry.” Liam turned around, hitting the table again. He watched in horror as the table shifted, like a view in slow motion. The vase of flowers tipped over, sending water all over the laptop and papers.

“Oh no! That’s all I need.” The female voice, as soft and silky as he imagined, was tinged with dismay and anger.

His face flaming, Liam snatched a pile of napkins from her side. “I’m so sorry. Let me help.”

“I think you’ve done enough.” Irritation flashed in her hazel eyes as she glared at him. “Just leave it. I’ll do it.” She picked up the flowers and shoved them back into the vase.

Liam’s cheeks burned, matching the churning in his stomach as it rebelled against his lunch. Dumping the napkins on the table, he pulled a pen from his jacket and scrawled his number on one of them. “I’ll pay for any repairs your computer needs. My name’s Liam Page. This is my mobile number. The phone’s on all the time. If you get voice mail, just leave a message, Miss...?”

The woman flinched as she took it, her cool fingers sending waves of heat through him as they brushed his hand. “Miss Dorne. No doubt I’ll be in touch”—she glanced down—”Mr. Page.”

Liam took a deep breath, wanting to say more, but not sure what to say. His apology wasn’t enough, so what else was there? “I’m very sorry. If there’s anything I can do—”

Her cold voice cut him off. “I have your number.”

He took a deep breath and made a hasty exit, now later than ever. Glancing back, he could still see Miss Dorne sitting, staring at the mess he’d created. It looked like despair on her face, but he wasn’t sure. He hesitated. Should he go back in and help clean it up? He ought to but he’d made enough of a scene, and she’d been quite emphatic about wanting him to leave. She rubbed her face. Was she crying? Deciding in this case that discretion was the better part of valor, Liam turned away. He never had liked seeing a woman cry. There was something about a woman’s tears that rocked him to the core.

Part of him hoped she would call him about her computer. At least he’d speak to her again. She had captured his interest like no woman had since before he’d met Sally. But then maybe it’d be better if she didn’t call.

The repair bill would no doubt use a sizeable chunk of the money he had saved for his trip to Endarra in the summer. As well as the flights and hotel, he’d need travel money for cabs and other things.

The reason behind the trip was simple. He intended to hunt down the people responsible for the murder of his wife and see that justice was done.

Liam reached the school and punched in the code. The gates swung open. Since the Dunblane shootings, school security was tight. Not even parents could get into the building without permission or a prior appointment.

He dodged the children streaming across the car park and front quad and entered reception. Signing in, Liam smiled at the prefects carrying the registers to the form rooms and headed to the gents. He stood at the sink and splashed cold water on his face for a moment, his mind’s eye still seeing her at the table.

You’re an idiot. After ruining her laptop, you didn’t even get her number.
Shaking his head, Liam dried off and pulled the tie from his pocket. He buttoned his shirt, and knotted the tie before heading into the corridor to find the classroom where his class of fourteen year olds should be lined up by the door, waiting for their English lesson. Hopefully poetry analysis would keep the image of the attractive Miss Dorne out of his mind.

****

The café door swung shut. Jacqui shook her head as she gazed in dismay at the soggy sheets of paper and the equally soggy laptop with its blank screen. Water trickled from the casing, pooling onto the table beneath it.

Tears burned her eyes and she blinked hard. She put so much time and effort into this presentation, and now, thanks to the tall Irish stranger and a vase of long stemmed yellow, green, and white carnations it was ruined. Grabbing the napkins the man had left, she blotted the mess, praying as she did so.

Oh, Lord, what do I do now? I’ve got two hours before the meeting. That’s nowhere near long enough to redo everything—even if I did have time to get back to the office. Lord, there is so much riding on this. It’s my chance to prove both to the boss and myself that I can do this. Oh please, forgive me.

I hope I wasn’t too rude to him, even if he did deserve it.
She pulled herself up short. No one deserved any degree of rudeness, no matter what they’d done. Even if they had ruined both five weeks work
and
her laptop in one foul swoop.

Jacqui closed her eyes, seeing him again in her mind’s eye. His tight white shirt, with the three buttons undone, didn’t do a very good job hiding the perfect abs and broad shoulders beneath it. And his slacks emphasized a trim waist and hips. Never mind the intoxicating waft of cologne she detected as he leaned over her. He had a thick silver chain around his left wrist, peeking from under his shirt sleeve. And he was handsome...she’d never found beards particularly attractive on a man, but his…

She shook her head and massaged her temples. All men were the same and she didn’t want or need another one in her life.
That’s enough. Think of something else, like how to fix the mess you are in right now.

There was a backup file on the office computer—but she didn’t have time to drive all the way into Wokingham and back again. If someone could bring her that and a spare laptop she could still run her presentation.
Jacqui pulled her phone from her bag. At least that hadn’t been on the table during the flood. She dialed the office, hoping someone would be there.

Relief flooded her as the phone clicked. “Jekyll Foundation, Eve Myers speaking.”

“Hey, Eve, it’s Jacqui. Sorry to bother you, but I had a slight accident with the presentation.”

“What happened? Are you all right?”

“I made the mistake of stopping for lunch and had it on the table for a final check. Some bloke spilled water over the laptop and the papers. The laptop’s fried, no make that drowned as there’s water dripping from it, and the papers soaked. I don’t suppose you have time to bring a spare over?”

“No, but for you I’ll make an exception.”

Jacqui smiled.
Thank You, Lord, for friends like Eve.
“Thank you. I could hug you. The folder containing the files I need is on my office computer. It’s called Head Sec. I’ll have to find a printer here for more printouts, but…”

“Rubbish. Even if you find a local printer, it will cost you a fortune at five pence a sheet. It won’t take long for me to print more off. How many copies do you need?”

Sucking in a deep breath, Jacqui did a quick mental count. “Twenty should do it. It’s a three page document called Head Sec dot doc. It should be in the same folder. Are you sure?”

“Don’t argue or I might change my mind. Where are you?”

“Headley Cross. Where else would I be?” She glanced up as the café manager appeared with a pile of tea towels and cloths. “Thank you.”

The manager knelt and dealt with the floor.

“You know what I mean,” her friend chided. “Headley Cross may be small, but it’s a town of over two thousand people. Where in Headley Cross?” Eve’s voice was no longer tinged with concern. It was full on mother-hen mode. Just what she didn’t need.

People moved and chatted around her. Cutlery chinked and conversations rose and fell. Grateful she was no longer the center of attention, Jacqui grabbed another tea towel. “Right now I’m clearing up the mess he made. He offered to help, but I didn’t want him to. By the time you get here, I’ll be sitting outside Coronation Hall. It’s on the main road behind the precinct. You can also park for free for twenty minutes there.”

“Cool—my kind of car park. All right, it’s printing and collating, now. Give me thirty minutes at the most and I’ll be there.”

“Thanks, Eve. You’re a life saver.” Jacqui hung up and put away her phone. She looked at the manager. “I am so sorry about this.”

“Its fine, not your fault as we saw what happened. Do you want another meal to replace that one?”

She paused to look at her plate. Her cheese and tomato sandwich was swimming in a sea of water. A broken yellow carnation sat on top like some kind of crown. “No, thank you.”

“Let me at least get you a refund. I insist.”

Not wanting a refund, but wanting a fuss even less, Jacqui agreed. “OK, thank you.”

As he vanished behind the counter, she cleared up the rest of the mess. Scrunching up the napkins, she tossed them onto her plate. Folding the sodden papers, she left them on the plate as well. She shut the defunct laptop and not wanting to ruin its case as well, tucked it under her arm. She headed outside into the sunshine, without waiting for the manager to return with her refund.

A landscape architect working for the Jekyll Foundation, Jacqui couldn’t afford to lose this tender. She wouldn’t go as far as to say her whole career hinged on it, but it was the first time the Foundation had trusted her to prepare and present a proposal on her own.

Crossing the courtyard, she found a huge, twisted oak tree that provided shelter from the sun. Her favorite of all trees, it set her imagination ablaze with thoughts of all the ancient gnarled oak had seen in its long life. Battles, lover’s trysts, maybe even royalty passing. When this magnificent tree was a sapling, Henry VIII was king.

She pulled a band from her pocket and twisted her hair up in a ponytail. She hadn’t expected the day to turn out so hot. Most unusual for England, they were having a spring heat wave, bringing the ducklings and flowers out early.

A raised circular bed of yellow daffodils interspersed with red and orange tulips waved in the breeze. Bluebells filled the grass as far as her eyes could see and by her feet, yellow primroses and white snowdrops peeked through the earth around the base of the tree. No matter how good she or the others were at mixing flowers and colors, God always did it so much better.

A family of swans and cygnets glided along the tranquil water under the bridge. Her fingers smoothed over the gold cross around her neck, the last gift from her parents. She never took it off, clinging to the final link with them. Her gaze followed the swans. Family was something she didn’t have. Although she dreamed about meeting the perfect man, she didn’t expect to find him any time soon.

Her mind went back to the guy who knocked over the flowers. Hopefully the laptop was going to be all right. She didn’t want to have any more contact with this Mr. Page than was absolutely necessary, no matter how attractive he was. Flipping up the laptop, and hoping she wouldn’t get electrocuted, she tried starting it again.

Nothing. It wouldn’t even boot up. The black screen stared mockingly at her. Her lap got damper. She sighed. She wished she could have asked for a change of clothes as well. She zipped the laptop into the case, forgetting about saving the case. It would dry out a lot easier than the computer and her clothes needed to dry.

“Hey.” The voice of her colleague cut through her thoughts.

Jacqui looked up and managed a faint smile as Eve plumped down on the bench beside her. “Hi, Eve.”

“You look like the world just ended, or you lost a shilling and found a penny.”

“My grandmother used to say that. But it may as well have.”

“So what happened? Other than some guy spilling his water all over your work, that is.”

“Actually, it wasn’t his water. It was a whole vase of flowers.”

“I’ve heard of ‘say it with flowers’, but that’s ridiculous.”

Jacqui scowled. “To add insult to injury, the carnations were dyed green, and you know how much I hate florists faking the color in flowers, by soaking them in food coloring. But as far as the laptop is concerned, it won’t even boot up no matter how much I try. I’m sorry.”

Eve held up another case. “No problem. It’s hardly your fault. I brought another. I loaded your files on it, plus put a USB pen in as back up. I also put thirty copies of your print outs in there. I know you said twenty, but figured a few extra wouldn’t hurt.”

Jacqui smiled and swapped the case for one containing the damaged computer. “Thank you so much. I owe you.”

“You can bring doughnuts to work for coffee break for the rest of the week.” Eve crossed one leg over the other. “So, what’s he like? This mystery man who’s got you all worked up and hot under the collar.”

Jacqui took a deep breath. “He’s tall, has dark hair, a beard, brown eyes, and an Irish accent. He looks a bit like a movie star and scores an eight on the hunk rating.”

Her friend snorted. “You managed to take all that in as he knocked a vase of carnations on your laptop? You got it bad, girl.”

Jacqui pulled a face. She wasn’t in the mood for teasing. “The guy left me his name and number and offered to pay to get the computer fixed.”

“Did he? That was good of him. It may be fine once it’s dried out. You never know your luck.”

“I don’t do luck.”

“This time you may need it. I’ll get the I.T. guy to take a look at it this afternoon. If you give me his card, I can ring this guy if we need it fixed.”

“Sure I have it somewhere. Uh...” Jacqui fumbled for the napkin in her pockets, and then closed her eyes. “It was on a serviette. I must have used it to mop up the water. How stupid can I get?” She pushed her hands though her hair in frustration. “They better be able to fix it. I don’t want to have to pay for it, especially now I’ve lost his number.”

“Can you remember his name?”

Jacqui scrunched her nose up as she tried to think. “Page…Liam Page. I think he said. I wasn’t paying much attention,” she said, after a few seconds.