by Alix Kelso
“Jack’s here, we better get back,” he said when he hung up.
When they returned to the entrance, there was no sign of the Jaguar in which they’d arrived. Instead, Laura saw Jack stepping from an SUV, and his earlier chauffeur uniform had been replaced by jeans and a sweater.
Jack spread his hands as he came around to meet them, an anxious look on his face. “Bruce, I’m sorry! Claire got called into the hospital on an emergency, and there was no one who could watch the girls this late at night, so I had to bring them and come in our own car. All my drivers are booked tonight or I would’ve sent someone else.”
“We could’ve got a taxi back, Jack,” Bruce said. “It’s too late for the girls to be up.”
“Are you kidding? A night-time adventure in their pyjamas? They’re loving every minute of this. But look, I’m sorry. I know this ruins the end of your evening.”
“Don’t be silly.” Laura stepped forward and waved into the car, where she saw a little girl in a booster seat up front and a smaller girl strapped into a child seat in the back. “I’d love to meet Bruce’s nieces.”
“Jack,” Bruce said, taking his brother by the shoulders. “It’s fine. You haven’t ruined the evening, that’s just stupid talk. Now, let’s get home so you can get those girls to bed.”
Laura climbed into the back of the car, while Bruce got in the other side, with the child seat between them.
“Hi, Uncle Bruce,” the two girls said in unison.
“Hi, girls. Chloe and Isla, this is my friend, Laura.”
Two little heads swung in her direction. “Are you Uncle Bruce’s girlfriend?” Chloe asked.
“Well …”
“Yes, she is,” Bruce said, as Jack, laughing behind the wheel, got the car moving.
“Did you kiss her?” Chloe wanted to know.
“Chloe, I did kiss her, as it happens.”
Both girls, finding this hilarious, giggled and gawped at one another.
“We’re in our pyjamas,” Isla said. “Mine have My Little Pony on them.”
“I see that,” Laura said. “They look nice and cosy.”
“My pyjamas have got Wonder Woman, Laura, see?”
“I do see. Wonder Woman rocks.”
“Do you have Wonder Woman pyjamas, Laura?”
“Actually, I don’t.”
“She does have giraffe pyjamas, though,” Bruce said, grinning. “They’re kind of cool.”
“Giraffes are nice, I like giraffes,” Isla said, before turning once more to Laura and laying a pudgy little finger on the embellishments on the cuff of her sleeve. “I like your pretty dress.”
“Thank you.”
“Are these real diamonds on the dress?”
“No, sweetheart. These are just pretend.”
“Why aren’t they real diamonds?”
“Because I think it would cost too much to put this many diamonds on it.”
“How much would it cost?”
“Probably a gazillion pounds.”
Chloe and Isla looked at one another and giggled.
“Dad says you and Uncle Bruce were having a fancy dinner,” Chloe said.
“That’s right.”
“What did you have for dessert? Ice cream?”
“Chocolate cake.”
“We love chocolate cake. Dad, can we have chocolate cake when we get home?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I fear your mother too much to be foolish enough to feed you chocolate cake at this hour.”
“But Dad—”
“Hey, girls,” Bruce said, reaching into his pocket. “Would you like the little chocolates that came with our coffee? We were too full to eat them.”
“Yes!” the girls shouted, as their father shook his head at Bruce in the rear-view mirror and made time-out gestures with his free hand.
“They’re tiny chocolates, Jack, don’t worry,” he said, unwrapping them and handing one each to the girls.
Silence descended as the chocolate was consumed.
“Well, what did you think?” he asked his nieces.
“Yummy.”
“Are there any more?”
“That’s all I’ve got.”
Spying Isla’s sticky fingers, Bruce grabbed a packet of tissues from the door bucket and began wiping them. Watching, Laura found herself charmed to see Isla keep hold of Bruce’s hand after he’d finished wiping her fingers and fall asleep with her hand still tucked inside his palm.
And when Bruce leaned over and kissed Isla’s sweet little head as she dropped into dreams, Laura knew she was falling in love.
Both little girls were fast asleep by the time Jack stopped the car outside Laura’s flat. With whispered thanks, they got out and Jack drove off to take his daughters home.
Laura pulled her keys from her bag and walked up the path to the door. When Bruce remained on the pavement, she looked back over her shoulder.
“Are you coming up?”
“Am I invited?”
“What do you think?”
She smiled when he followed her into the tenement, catching the scent of his aftershave as he walked close behind her. As she slid her key into the lock, he laid a hand on her arm.
“Wait Laura, um, your flatmate, is she at home, because …”
“She’s at Olly’s.”
Smiling, he moved his hand down the curve of her back and let it rest at her waist. “Good.”
Inside the hallway, a lamp burned softly. The rest of the flat stood in darkness and silence. Her pulse raced at his closeness and the expectation of what would come next.
“Do you want coffee, maybe more wine, or—”
He caught her hand, pulled her close, and kissed her. Her breath hitched as he moved his lips from her mouth and down her neck.
“All I want is you,” he said.
The joy of his kiss and those whispered words made her heart soar. “You make me nervous, in a good way,” she said.
He gazed at her and once more took her hand in his. “And you terrify me.”
“I …”
But he put a finger gently to her lips. “Maybe we don’t talk any more. Maybe we just see what happens.”
It was so simple and so obvious. In his eyes, she saw only the promise of something wonderful, right now, if she would open herself to it.
She led him to her bedroom, her heart thundering, and there, with moonlight slanting through the window, there was no more talk, no more thought.
There was only the heat and the dark and the moment they made together.
Laura’s head lay on his chest as his fingers moved slowly through her hair. She was shimmering, floating. The warm smell of his skin felt like home.
“Can I stay tonight?” he asked.
“If you try to leave, I’ll tie you to the bed.”
“On second thoughts, maybe I really ought to go.”
Laughing, she grazed her teeth against his neck and smiled when a soft sigh escaped him.
“I liked taking you out tonight, Laura. And this – us together – it means something.”
“It ought to.”
“No, what I mean is ... since my marriage ended, I couldn’t imagine taking this step. But since we’ve got to know each other, I’ve been able to imagine it. In fact, it’s all I could think about. You’ve possessed me, Laura. I’m bewitched.”
Rising on her elbow, she studied him. She knew she was falling and falling fast, and the urge to tell him so, as those silvery grey eyes held her, was almost irresistible.
Almost.
But it would be too much. The man was only just coming out of the darkness of divorce. If she was the first woman he’d taken to bed, the last thing he’d want to hear were teary declarations of love.
He said he was bewitched. Bewitched was something, wasn’t it? She’d take it, and be satisfied with it. There would be time enough for whatever else might come, if anything else ever did.
“I had fun tonight,
Bruce.”
His gaze pinned her, and she thought he was about to say something. But he only smiled, laid his head back against the pillow, and began stroking her head. A flicker in his expression – doubt? disappointment? – made her regret her too-casual tone.
“The sunset over the sea tonight was beautiful,” she said.
“It was.”
“And so is this.”
She kissed his neck, slowly, softly. Being with him was like being wrapped up inside a dream she hoped would never end.
As he caressed her and kissed her, she felt sure she heard him murmur something against her heart where his lips touched her skin.
I love you.
She stared in amazement, caught in shock and wonder. But his head remained buried against her, his face hidden, and as his kisses continued she wondered if she’d only imagined it.
Later, as she drifted off with his arms around her, she decided it had only been wishing thinking after all.
Bruce woke to sunbeams floating through the bedroom window and the distant murmur of the radio in the kitchen. Turning, he saw Laura already gone from the bed. He could still smell the perfume she’d worn, caught on the pillow.
He’d been in love only once before. He’d loved his wife, of course he had, and he’d never imagined loving anyone else, at least not until the catastrophic end of the life that he and Heather had built. Since the divorce, he’d tried to think about what love might feel like in the future, although mostly it had been a purely theoretical exercise. Love had seemed like an impossible dream.
Until Laura.
He didn’t understand how it had happened, or how it could have happened so quickly. But it had. He’d fallen in love with her, unexpectedly and completely.
And he’d gone and blurted it out last night, in that blinding moment when she’d been wrapped around him. He hadn’t even known the words were coming until they’d been said. Lucky for him, she hadn’t appeared to hear his cack-handed declaration.
He pulled on his clothes and wandered through to the kitchen where he found Laura at the counter in her bathrobe, making toast and scrambling eggs.
“I was going to surprise you with breakfast in bed,” she said.
Wrapping his arms around her from behind, he kissed her neck. “I can hop back in there.”
She laughed and turned off the heat beneath the pan of eggs. “My shift starts at ten. If I go back to bed with you, I won’t make it in.”
“I am irresistible.”
Another laugh as she plated their breakfast, before she turned and slipped her arms around him. “I had an amazing time last night.”
“I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear that.” He kissed her and had to resist the urge to keep kissing her. “When do you finish work?”
“Four.” She stepped out of his arms and set a teapot on the table next to the mugs.
“Can we get together after? Maybe I could take you a drive somewhere.”
“Actually, after your little pep talk last night, I was thinking I ought to do a training run, get back into it while I still have a chance to get ready for this race.”
“Want me to come and carry your water bottle?”
She laughed as she sat down and forked up some eggs. “My own personal water carrier. That’s tempting. But I like to run on my own.”
“Let’s get together after.”
She studied him over the rim of her tea mug. “You haven’t seen enough of me after last night?”
“Not nearly enough.”
Smiling, she nodded. “Okay, I’d like that. So, what have you got on today?”
He poured their tea and told her about his plans for the day. Sitting across the table from her in her pretty little kitchen, eating breakfast, talking – it felt good.
Like how it always ought to be.
When they’d finished breakfast and he was kissing her goodbye, he found himself marvelling at how quickly things could change in life.
And about how love could come when you least expected it.
He thought about this as he walked towards Shaw Street and the pub. And, because he couldn’t help it, he thought about Laura. Just yesterday, he’d told Jack about what he felt for her and how it terrified him. Now, there was no terror, no fear. There was only the certainty that something wonderful was happening in his life, and it was all because of her.
As he crossed Shaw Street, his phone pinged. Grinning, he pulled it from his pocket, hoping it was a message from Laura.
It wasn’t.
It was a message from Heather.
The shock of seeing his ex-wife’s name on the screen caused him to come to a dead halt in the middle of the road. A van driver honked his horn. Bruce glanced up from the phone, saw the traffic coming at him, and quickly jogged to the safety of the pavement, raising a hand in apology to the drivers who’d had to slow to avoid him.
He looked in stunned disbelief at his phone. He’d deleted Heather’s details from his contacts long ago. But she must have anticipated this, because she’d begun the message by identifying herself.
Bruce, this is Heather. I need to talk to you. Could you call me?
The last time he’d spoken to her, he’d been hauling the last of his things from their home. And it hadn’t been speaking so much as a sort of seething grunting. He hadn’t even been able to bring himself to look at her. Ever since, they’d communicated through solicitors. Once the divorce was finalised he’d never expected, or wanted, to hear from her again.
But still he stared at the message. Why did she need to talk to him? And why now, when he was finally getting his life back together?
He had a choice. He could reply to her message. Or he could ignore it.
The months of hurt and anger he’d endured because of what Heather had done crowded his mind. Behind him lay darkness and a pain so deep he’d thought he’d never recover.
But he had recovered. And he’d found Laura. Thinking of her now, those months of heartbreak blew away like dust.
Bruce tapped the phone and his finger lingered only for a second before he deleted the message Heather had sent. What he wanted was the hope that lay in the future, not the torment that skulked in the past.
But still he found himself unable to stop wondering why Heather had sent that message and what possible reason she could have for wanting to talk to him. It was just basic human curiosity.
And for the rest of the day, those questions gnawed at his mind and wouldn’t let go.
Chapter 16
Not even old Mr Davidson, complaining furiously that his omelette was tasteless, could spoil Laura’s mood during her shift that morning at Valentino’s.
“It’s disgusting!” Mr Davidson wailed. “What kind of chefs do you have here?”
“We’ll make you another omelette.”
“Another? Don’t torture me by making me eat another. Just bring me a bacon roll. Surely the chef can manage that.”
“Okay, Mr Davidson.”
“And why are you smiling like that, young lady?”
“I suppose I’m just happy today.”
“Happy? What’s there to be happy about?”
Natalie appeared at the table. “If she told you, she’d only blush, and you wouldn’t like the answer anyway.”
Steering Laura away, Natalie drew her to the counter and pushed forward a tray of coffees that were ready to be served. “Don’t let that grumpy old fool spoil your mood.”
“Nothing could spoil my mood.”
A sly smile crept across Natalie’s face. “I take it you and Bruce had rather a lot of fun last night?”
Laura blushed and Natalie laughed. “Good for you. You have every right to look smug this morning.”
“I look smug?”
“It’s not a criticism, Laura. Enjoy it.”
Still blushing, Laura delivered the coffees, returned to the counter, and checked the order slip on the next tray waiting to be prepared.
“You two looked good together las
t night when I saw you drive past,” Natalie said, working the milk frother on the coffee machine. “I looked out the window, saw you both in the back of that car, and thought – now, there goes a fine-looking couple. I’m assuming you two will go out together again.”
“We’re seeing each other tonight.”
Natalie grinned over the fresh tray of drinks she was preparing. “That’s wonderful. You think there might be something serious between you?”
“Maybe, but …”
“But?”
Laura twisted her apron tie between her fingers and shrugged. “His ex-wife messed him up really badly. Sometimes I get the impression he might not be over that.”
“I imagine it will take him some time yet to recover. I know from Keith that Bruce’s wife had an affair and that it completely floored him.”
Laura ducked behind the counter and helped Natalie finish an order by adding some glasses of orange juice to the tray. “I’d hate to find out I was just his rebound fling.”
Natalie dusted chocolate over a cappuccino. “I doubt I’m speaking out of turn here, but Keith says Bruce has had a serious soft spot for you ever since he got here.”
“He has?”
“Apparently. And I happened to see how Bruce was looking at you last night as you drove past. That was not the look a man gives a woman when he’s interested only in a rebound fling. At any rate, don’t over think it. Things will be as they will be.”
“You’re right, I shouldn’t over think it. I should just enjoy it.”
“A good strategy.”
And Laura discovered that it was simply too easy to enjoy how she felt. Her lingering concerns about Bruce’s feelings following his divorce couldn’t puncture the glorious bliss bubble she bounced along inside all day.
Even during her after-work training run, she felt as if she was cocooned inside something wonderful.
She’d been dreading the run. It’d been more than a week since she’d last pulled on her trainers and hit the pavement. And while there was no ignoring the stiffness she felt to begin with, the muscle memory soon kicked in, and by the time she reached the gates at Mungo Park, she was in full flow.
There was work to be done to get back to where she’d been in terms of speed and stamina before the virus had struck. But, as she stood at her usual spot at the top of the hill, catching her breath and looking out over the city, she decided the run was going far better than she could have expected.
