Worlds Apart (17 page)

The floaty sensation in her head reminded Roo of when she’d been given a local anesthetic to have a dislocated shoulder slotted back into place. After the pain had come an incredible high, an energizing buzz, a feeling that the world was perfect as long as her shoulder stayed in—and Niall wanted her. When he let her go, his face was wreathed in a smile.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

What for?

For once, Roo didn’t know what to say. Was he interested or not? Roo’s heart pounded.
I don’t want to want him, but I do. I don’t want to love him, but I do
.
Not really. Do I?
But those words weren’t going to jump from her mouth because he didn’t love her. More likely he wanted to check kissing her wasn’t going to kill him. He didn’t love her because he’d left her out there in the tent. He hadn’t even asked her to move in here with him.

As if.

“You need to move in here.”

Roo’s jaw dropped.
He loves me?

“Sutton Hall has plenty of bedrooms.”

Ah no, he doesn’t love me.

“No thanks,” Roo said and reached for the coffee. “I can find a place to live. I don’t need anyone—” That last part had slipped out. “Anyone’s help,” she added.

She poured the coffee with a shaking hand.

“Please don’t say anything to Taylor,” Niall asked.

He definitely doesn’t love me.
Didn’t matter, she still loved him because she was an idiot.

“About what?” Roo walked out.

This was like pulling the petals off a daisy.
He wants me. He wants me not.
She might as well crush the flower in her fist.

Chapter Eleven

“Roo, are you listening to me?”

She looked up to see Taylor glaring at her from his desk. “Sorry.” She hadn’t been listening. She’d been too busy thinking about Niall’s kiss and what it meant. Nothing probably. In fact it had probably been a peck on the cheek that she’d imagined into a full-frontal snog. She wished—

“Roo!”

“Yes?”

“Do you have any gym gear?”

She nodded and then furrowed her brow. Might have been a help to have had a clue as to what Taylor had been saying.

“We’ll pick it up on the way. Come on.”

Roo grabbed her purse and followed him. “So…the gym?”

Taylor
tsked
. “Jonas is watching a woman who’s made a massive insurance claim for an industrial accident. June Barnette isn’t supposed to be able to walk more than a few yards without a stick, but apparently she’s a member of the Hollins Hall leisure club. Using the pool would be fine, but she’s listed on gym classes.”

Taylor opened the car door for her and then got in the other side. He did have nice manners. And nice hands. Roo pinched her thigh.
Concentrate.

“Jonas went there this morning pretending to be a journalist writing an article about fitness so he could take a few snaps of the woman, but they won’t let him without written consent from the manager.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“She’s booked into another women-only session at eleven. I want you to say you’re thinking of joining but would like to try a class first.”

Taylor pulled up on the drive parallel with her tent. “Go and get your things.”

Roo hurried back with running shoes, a creased blue T-shirt and black shorts. She’d hardly clipped her seat belt before Taylor accelerated out of the drive and down Thorpe Lane.

“What’s the class?” Roo asked.

“Force her.”

“Force her? How?”

Taylor laughed. “No, it’s called
Forza
. Something martial arts related.”

Roo cringed.
Oh God, it’s going to hurt.

“You want me to take pictures,” she said. “What does she look like?”

“There’s a folder on the backseat.”

Roo reached for it and looked at several photos of June Barnette walking with a cane. She was thirty-two, had curly blonde hair and looked very fit—apart from the stick. She’d apparently slipped on a wet floor and injured her back. Roo was thrilled to be more directly involved in ICU. She could be much more than a PA and she was determined not to cock this up.

“Use my spare phone,” Taylor said. “It takes high-definition pictures. Practice now so you know what you’re doing.”

Roo picked the phone up from the dashboard shelf, and after figuring out what to do, snapped Taylor. When she looked at the shot, she gulped.
He’s really good looking.
There was already a shadow of stubble on his cheeks and chin. His nose was perfectly straight, his lips fuller than Niall’s.
Ah, Niall.
Was it wrong to like two guys at the same time? Not when neither of them liked her in that way. Niall’s kiss and the nearly-sex and then the earlier kiss—yeah, well Roo was inclined to think he was playing with her. She tucked the phone in her purse.

“You’re very quiet today,” Taylor said. “What’s wrong? Apart from the fact that you were sleeping in a tent in my garden and I caught you?”

She shrugged.
I’m confused.
And if she opened her mouth, she was going to blurt something she shouldn’t.

“Why didn’t you stay with a friend when you were thrown out of your bedsit?”

“I don’t…really know anyone that well. Since I moved up from London, I haven’t been able to find a proper job and I don’t have money to socialize.”

“No boyfriend?”

“No.” Roo pressed her lips together.

“Do you have family up here?”

“No.”

Taylor glanced at her. “So why Leeds?”

“I did eeny meeny miney moe at St Pancras station. I quite fancied Hogwarts but Leeds came up.”

Taylor chuckled. “Escaping from your lying, cheating, scumbag of a boss who I guess had also been your boyfriend.”

Roo gave an overly dramatic gasp. “Wow, you’re such a great detective.”

“And you were doing so well not pissing me off.”

Taylor pulled out to overtake a tractor. Roo clung to the seat and started to tap her foot.

“Have you always lived in Yorkshire?” she asked.

“I moved to London when I was eighteen. I only came back a few months ago.”

“Did you do eeny meeny miney moe too?”

He smiled and Roo’s stomach clenched. “I got tired of London traffic, the noise and the smell. I was born in Yorkshire. I guess the place somehow pulled me back. Plus Jonas was keen to move out of the capital.”

“Nothing more than that? If your business was doing okay in London, it must have been a wrench to leave.”

“Not really. I’m doing fine here.”

Roo looked out of the window. “It
is
beautiful. Wild moorland on the doorstep.” Heathcliffe sitting next to her. “The towns and villages don’t blur into each other. And the people are friendly though it took me a while to understand what they were saying. I still don’t understand—
Ah’ll go to t’foot of ahr stairs.
Why would they want to go to the bottom of the stairs?”

Taylor sniggered. “It’s just a polite way of saying—Really? An exclamation of surprise.”

“Ah.” Roo guessed she did a lot of surprising.

“Here’s the Marriott.” Taylor turned right at the traffic light and pulled up a steep hill, Shetland ponies grazing on the left, rabbits on the right. “Sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Yes. Are you going to wait in the car?”

“No, I’ll have a coffee in the bar. Come and find me when you’re done. You don’t need to stay for the whole session. Should take no more than fifteen minutes. Get the shots and leave.”

Roo gathered her gym gear and got out of the car.

It was surprisingly easy to talk her way into a class. She left her clothes in a locker, tucked Taylor’s phone in her pocket and one of the uber-buff male staff members showed her to the Forza room where her heart dropped into her stomach. Fifteen women, five lines of three, faced an Amazonian female instructor standing in front of a mirrored wall. They all wielded three-foot-long wooden sticks in perfect synchronized precision.

“Forza means force in Italian,” said the guy who’d brought her to the room. “It’s based on samurai training.”

“Without the blood and beheading,” Roo mumbled. Though she’d not had a go yet. Plenty of opportunity for blood, hopefully not the beheading.

He laughed and waved to the instructor. “Jody, this is Roo. Interested in membership.”

“Hi, grab a sword and join in at the back,” the instructor called back. “Put one hand about twelve inches above the other and follow our moves.”

Roo picked up the wooden sword and immediately thought of Uma Thurman in and thrust her shoulders back, and almost put her arm out of joint.
Kill Bill
. She shot straight into the role
Christ, this is hard.
The sword had to weigh a couple of pounds, which might not sound a lot, but when she had to brandish it over her head and then slash and skewer, it soon made her muscles ache.

But it was fun. She swashed and buckled, stabbing Tom, her scumbag ex-boss, in the belly, slicing into his neck on one side, then the other. Roo hit Niall over the head time after time to try to knock some sense into him, wacked Taylor too until she was panting so hard she could barely breathe.

“Control the sword,” called the red-haired instructor, who looked as if she had muscles like Niall’s. “Don’t let it control you.”

Roo was gasping and sweating and having a great if exhausting time until the instructor called, “That’s it,” and Roo realized she’d been having
too
good a time.
Shit. No photos.

She propped her sword against the wall and rushed to the front.

“That was so awesome. Do you think I could take a couple of pictures of everyone to show my friend? I’m sure she’ll want to come too.”

It was that easy. Roo made sure she had June in several shots, arms wielding the wooden sword over her head, and she even managed to video a few seconds of the woman lunging.

“You were pretty good at that for a beginner,” Jody said.

“Was I? Thanks.” Roo beamed.

“Want to try float?”

“I didn’t bring my bathing costume,” Roo said.

The woman laughed. “It’s not in water. It’s a combination of aerial acrobatics, Pilates and yoga. It’s slow and controlled.”

Roo watched as several of the women pulled at loops of cream material that hung from metal tracks on the ceiling. She realized they were silk hammocks. They locked in place, and as the women lay on them, the room was transformed into a cave of anemic bats. Roo looked to see if June was staying and she was.

“Okay.” Roo smiled. “I’ll give it a go.”

“Watch the others for a while and then I’ll come and talk you through.”

It looked effortless, so of course it wouldn’t be, but Roo stared in fascination as the women used the slings to lift themselves off the ground. They hung from them, entwined with them, stretched with them and Roo snapped June bending like a sapling. So much for her bad back. When Jody returned, Roo had all the material she needed but she couldn’t leave without having a go at this.

“It strengthens your core,” the instructor told her as Roo hung upside down three feet above the floor in the silky sling, clinging on for grim death. “Stretches tight muscles and eases aching joints.”

“So good if you’d had an accident and hurt your back?” Roo asked quietly.

“Only if you were fully recovered. This is quite extreme. You okay on your own?”

“Yep, thanks.”

Roo hung upside down and once she felt safe, found it surprisingly relaxing. But her arms and shoulders burned as she pulled herself up. When she finally stood, her legs shook, but this was the most fun she’d had exercising for years.

When Roo reached the entrance to the bar, she waved to Taylor, hoping he’d buy her a drink. He walked over, caught her arm and ushered out of the leisure club.

“I said fifteen minutes,” he snapped. “You’ve been in there an hour and a half.”

Damn, have I?
“It was soooo good. It made exercising fun, but I had to shower and…” She caught the look on his face and shut up.

Taylor opened the door of the car and Roo climbed in, clutching her gym clothes. When he sat beside her, she handed him the phone and then waited as he looked through the pictures she’d taken. Taylor sighed, Roo tensed, and when a smile lit his face, she relaxed.

“Fantastic. Well done.” He leaned over as though he was going to kiss her and then jerked away.

Roo felt flustered. What was it with guys flinching away from her?

“On the downside, I don’t have time to take you back to Ilkley. I’ll drop you in Guiseley and you can catch the train or get a taxi.”

“Thanks. Can I leave my gym stuff on the backseat?”

“Yep.”

“Anything special you need me to do when I get back?”

“The invoicing and you can chase up those who’ve not paid their bills from last month. Just a call, no threats.”