In Her Secret Fantasy

by Marie Treanor

  For the rest, she imagined Len now understood the line.

  Jack had had a short sleep during the afternoon, so that he could stay up to bring in the new year, and he was still buzzing. Izzy couldn’t help but compare this year to the last, when she’d lived in the flat above Louise’s B&B and brought in the new year alone while Jack slept. Louise had popped in for half an hour and then, when she’d left, Izzy had gone to bed.

  This year, she had Glenn and a new home and a crowd of new friends with extremely dodgy pasts. None dodgier than Glenn’s. And she’d never been happier in her life. She still couldn’t believe her luck. She slipped her hand into his, felt the instant response of his long, strong fingers curling around hers as Jack said again, “When are they coming? Can I stay up all night?”

  “They’ll be here very soon, I think,” Izzy soothed, “and no, not all night. But a bit longer.”

  A rap on the door had Jack flying out of the room and down the attic stairs to throw open the flat door. Izzy and Glenn followed more sedately.

  “Happy New Year!” came a chorus of largely male voices, although Chrissy was in the lead, closely followed by Dougie. They all piled in, clutching bottles, shaking hands with Jack before surging upstairs to greet Glenn and Izzy. Izzy’s cheek was soundly kissed, even by the shy Thierry.

  They’d all helped at some stage with the renovation and alterations in the attic. Several had even helped haul furniture, but no one had yet seen their finished home. Well, it wasn’t quite as Izzy wanted it yet, but home it undoubtedly was, and after they’d poured everyone a drink in the comfortable living room, Izzy proudly showed them the rest of the flat, the new bathrooms, their own and Jack’s bedrooms, the spare bedroom, the kitchen, and through the porch area beside the roof garden, down the spiral staircase to the study, which had once been Glenn’s bedroom.

  “This is brilliant,” Archie enthused. “Who’d have thought these mucky old attics could look like this?”

  Izzy raised her glass, “Here’s to Lewis Dunn and Rab and all of you who helped make it what it is! Thanks, guys!”

  With twelve more people in the flat, it seemed to shrink in size, so Izzy kept her eyes on Glenn for any signs of the claustrophobia he was still fighting. So far, so good. The guys helped themselves to nibbles, and then Chrissy, bless her, suggested repairing downstairs to continue the party with more room, and everyone trooped downstairs again.

  Izzy and Glenn let them go. The plan was to leave via the new fire escape from the roof garden and reenter the house by the front door in order to first-foot the others in the traditional manner. As Izzy slid her shoes on, she said to Glenn, “I was thinking maybe we could walk down to the village and first-foot Louise?”

  “Sure,” Glenn said. “The night is young. You and Chrissy go and I’ll stay with Jack.”

  “Can’t I come?” Jack asked with such anxious disappointment that Izzy ruffled his hair.

  “I don’t see why not,” she replied. “We could all go. It could be another step forward between house and village.”

  “Aye.” Glenn’s gaze was steady. “And?”

  “And we should still take Chrissy. She met this guy in the village this morning who might be Louise’s brother.”

  Glenn blinked once and said nothing. Izzy nudged him. “Have you never thought Chrissy might be a bit lonely stuck up here with much of the village not talking to us? She deserves some fun. Besides, I’ve never seen her interested in a man before, not like that. Give her a chance.”

  Glenn drew in his breath. He was a tall, rangy man and he knew how to look forbidding. His too-long hair was tied back from his face, revealing all his lean, angular good looks, marred on one side by a scar on his cheek. His eyes could appear cold and hard as agates. This look no longer scared Izzy. It was a sort of default setting he lapsed into when lost in thought. On the other hand, disapproval now emanated from him in waves.

  “I’m not matchmaking,” Izzy assured him. “Just encouraging her to—er—investigate possibilities.”

  To her surprise, Glenn actually bit his lip with uncertainty. “Louise is a friend,” he said at last. “But don’t push Chrissy.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Izzy exclaimed, staring at him. Not for the first time, it struck her that Glenn knew more about Chrissy than he ever let on. Chrissy had a handgun. Or at least she’d had one in October, and had promised to get rid of it. There was more to Chrissy than met the eye.

  Glenn nodded and lifted his jacket from the hall stand. “All right,” he said, and led the way to the fire escape, snatching up a crate of beer and a whisky bottle on the way.

  After his interesting encounter with Christine Lennox from Ardknocken House, Aidan spent the rest of the day with his family, giving Louise space for her traditional New Year clean and helping out where he could. It gave him a glimpse of what her life was like, and he was appalled.

  His father’s memory had already been beginning to go when his mother had survived the horrific car crash five years ago. The doctors thought she’d had a minor stroke, which had caused the accident. Her legs had been mashed and a head injury had left her pretty deaf. The broken bones had healed, but never recovered their pre-accident strength. Although she remained bright as a button and seemed to have accepted her lot, she’d given up the housekeeping and the running of the B & B to Louise. She rarely walked farther than the garden now and needed help to get up and down stairs. She was old before her time.

  “It’s like looking after kids,” Aidan said to Louise once, trying to cover the grief as she must have done every day when he’d never even imagined this growing tragedy in among the huger if less personal ones of his daily life.

  Louise shrugged. “Well, they did it for us.”

  In the evening, his parents dozed in front of the television, and Aidan stared unseeingly at the unrelentingly Scottish programmes that always heralded the new year. At least the comedy was quite good and let him and Louise laugh together for the first time in…years.

  Shit. That was worrying enough. Worse was his realization that he seemed to be regarding his reintegration into his family much like an undercover operation. He bit the inside of his mouth until it bled.

  He didn’t expect a wild New Year. His parents woke up for the bells, and just after midnight, their neighbours Hugh and Myra came round. A little later, Morag appeared and looked flatteringly pleased to see him. He’d been at school with Morag, who’d left the village even before he did. But she’d come back sooner, and now she appeared to be one of Louise’s best friends.

  Just as Hugh and Myra stood to go, the doorbell rang again, and Louise went to answer it.

  “Happy New Year!” came a chorus of unknown voices which Louise greeted with delight.

  “Come in, come in!” she cried, and a moment later, he caught his breath as Christine Lennox walked into the room with another young woman, a small boy and a large, watchful man whom Aidan recognized at once as the murderer Glenn Brody, head honcho at the big house.

  He didn’t even need to gather himself into work mode. He was always working. That was going to change too.

  “Happy New Year,” all the newcomers said, and the kid ran up to his parents to repeat it. The woman Aidan didn’t know followed the child, smiling.

  With a curious sense of anticipation, Aidan turned his gaze on Christine Lennox. God knew it was no hardship. If she’d caught his attention this morning, tonight she was in danger of monopolizing it. Shrugging off her jacket to give it to Louise, she revealed a black lace evening dress, which may have been a bit Goth but on this girl looked stunning.

  Aidan held out his hand. “Hello again. Happy New Year.”

  Smiling with more confidence than she’d shown earlier—well, who felt confident with their sore bum planted on the ice and their legs in a tangle?—she took his hand and returned the greeting. A frisson of purely sexual electricity shot up his arm and down his spine.

  He leaned forward to kiss her cheek in time-honoured New Year traditio
n, inhaled her soft, strangely exotic scent with an exciting buzz, but as if she didn’t notice his gesture, she stepped nimbly out of his reach and his hold in order to greet his parents.

  Instead, Aidan found himself eye to eye with Glenn Brody, who offered his hand.

  “Happy New Year,” Aidan said easily. “I’m Aidan, Louise’s brother.”

  Brody shook hands—firm, but not challenging. “Glenn Brody.” He swung up a bottle of whisky and dropped it into Aidan’s hand. “Happy New Year.”

  The man had knife scars on his face; his knuckles showed traces of a hundred fights. And yet Aidan picked up just a trace of social awkwardness, like someone who knows he isn’t welcome but is determined to go through the motions of politeness. Also, he was younger than Aidan had expected. Although he’d done ten years of a life sentence, he must have been little more than a kid when he went inside.

  He too brushed past Aidan, saying, “Happy New Year, Mrs. Grieve. Mr. Grieve.” And for some reason, the gangster’s politeness to his frail parents surprised Aidan too.

  Then Louise was back beside Aidan with the woman he didn’t recognize. “Aidan, this is Izzy who used to have the flat upstairs, and her son, Jack, who beats Mum and Dad at Snakes and Ladders.”

  Ah. So this was the girl, Louise’s friend who was now Brody’s girlfriend. Interesting. He smiled at her. “Pleased to meet you at last.”

  He shook hands solemnly with the kid who had an engaging grin and was wide eyed with excitement at what was probably his first grown-up New Year.

  “And Chrissy,” Louise went on, “who runs things up at the big house.”

  “Tries to,” Chrissy corrected, exchanging brief hugs with Morag, who was also, clearly, well acquainted with all three visitors from the big house. How had this happened in Ardknocken?

  “We met already,” Aidan said, catching the girl’s eye while everyone but Izzy—presumably the other woman in the car earlier—looked from him to Chrissy in surprise.

  “Really?” Louise asked.

  “I had a disagreement with the ice,” Chrissy said. “Though fortunately the worst victim was only a bottle of vodka.”

  “Lucky,” Izzy agreed. “Could have been the whisky. Glad to meet you too, Aidan. You staying long?”

  “A while. Waiting for my new job to start.”

  “Where’ll that be? Glasgow?”

  Aidan smiled faintly. “Abroad, mainly.”

  Louise got it at once. He could see the blood drain from her face. Shit. His changing jobs only gave her something else to worry about.

  Chrissy’s gaze flickered to Louise, then back to him. He busied himself pouring drinks for everyone. Louise followed him, ostensibly to ferry the drinks, but in reality to interrogate him.

  “Abroad where?” she demanded in a low, oddly tight voice. “You might as well tell me now and get it over with.”

  He shrugged, as if it was no big deal. “They’re talking about Iraq to begin with. Phenomenal money for easy work.” He shoved a glass of whisky into her hand.

  Her fingers closed around it mechanically. “Easy?”

  He grinned. “I’m not going into battle against insurgents or anyone else. I’ll be babysitting fat businessmen with even fatter wallets. That’s Chrissy’s, and here’s Izzy’s.”

  Clearly, she had more to say, but remembering her manners, she closed her mouth on it and passed on the glasses.

  “So, no party up at the big house?” Aidan enquired when the chatter hit a lull.

  “Oh, it’s swinging,” Chrissy assured him, sitting back on the sofa next to Izzy, with her whisky glass half-empty. “We left them to it for a while.”

  Aidan let his lips quirk. “Not a hard-core party animal?”

  As if she sensed the challenge he was barely even thinking, she glanced at him. “Are you?”

  “God, no.”

  Louise laughed. “He’s broken up too many of them. Say ‘Happy New Year’ to the guys when you go back up.”

  “Sure,” Chrissy said, raising her glass to Louise.

  Brody eased his hip onto the arm of the sofa, and the kid, who suddenly seemed to have lost his legs, despite holding what was probably the latest of several fizzy drinks that night, wobbled over from where he’d been exchanging a shouted conversation with Aidan’s mother and sagged against him. Rather to Aidan’s surprise, Brody put one arm around him and took the lemonade glass from his fingers.

  “He needs his bed,” Louise observed with a sigh.

  Jack straightened like a ramrod. “No I don’t.”

  Brody smiled and released him, though he hung on to the lemonade.

  “Just five minutes,” Izzy warned. She cast Louise an apologetic look. “Sorry. Short visit.”

  “Glad you came,” Louise said warmly. “And brilliant to be Jack’s first first-foot!” Her warmth with these people, especially Izzy and her kid, wasn’t lost on Aidan. It was a complication that made him uneasy on several scores. It seemed this job wasn’t going to be quite as easy as he’d intended.

  “Unless…” Izzy glanced from Louise to Brody and then Morag and Aidan. “You’d all like to come back up with us? The boys’d be thrilled to have more company.”

  Aidan twisted his lips. “I doubt they’d be glad of mine. I’m an ex-cop.” Might as well have it in the open. And at least it gave him the satisfaction of attracting Brody’s startled gaze.

  “Is that worse than a parole officer?” Chrissy asked, finishing her drink.

  “Much,” Aidan said, refilling her glass.

  Brody said, “We’re all ex-something. You’re as welcome in our house as we are in yours.”

  Which was, Aidan thought sardonically, quite true. And Brody knew it.

  “Are you two having a pissing contest?” Louise asked with apparent interest, looking from Aidan to Brody and back.

  Brody let out a hiss that might have been laughter.

  Chrissy said, “No, Glenn means it. Come up whenever you want. If you want.” She didn’t look at Aidan, just at Louise and Morag.

  “We’ll see what we can do,” Louise said lightly.

  It must have been like this for her for most of the last few years, afraid to go out for longer than half an hour in case their mother fell asleep and Dad did something dangerous. He caught Louise’s eye and jerked his head towards the door. After all, he wasn’t sure he wanted to work tonight. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be anywhere near the strangely aloof Chrissy, who still took his breath away.

  In the black dress, her figure was even more alluring than he’d imagined, and the idea of running his hands all over those curves kept coming back to haunt him. He wondered how she kissed, how she fucked. If she’d only looked at him, he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself flirting with her. Which, on this mission, might prove an awkward complication.

  She didn’t seem to be aloof with anyone else. On the contrary, quick and unexpectedly witty, she drank and bantered with the others, not deliberately excluding him, just never addressing him. But he didn’t flatter himself he’d got to her in a sexual way. She’d found out he was a cop, and she was living with a bunch of ex-cons who were, presumably, up to no good, whether she knew about it or not. At best, she was protective of them. At worst…

  At last, Brody stood and swung the boy onto his back. The kid smiled sleepily, wrapped his arms around the ex-con’s neck and closed his eyes, nestling into him. A smile flickered across Izzy’s face as she gazed at them and rose to her feet.

  Among the flurry of good-byes and “Happy New Years” flung from passersby in the street, Aidan found himself on the doorstep beside Chrissy Lennox. Awareness sizzled between them—or at least sizzled through Aidan. Chrissy had barely looked at him since she’d arrived. And yet when he turned his head towards her now, she was looking all right, and with unexpected intensity. She didn’t even drop her gaze when he caught her staring.

  She wasn’t really beautiful, strictly speaking. Her mouth was too large, her features just a bit too strong for soft f
emininity and she seemed to play that up with make-up that made her look just a little fierce—which caused him to wonder all over again what she was like in bed. His jeans stirred. God knew she had an alluring body that he longed to explore, to lose himself in. Those full breasts filling his eager hands, and her long, long legs wrapped around his waist while he buried himself in her hot, wet depths, over and over. Blind lust, delicious oblivion…

  So not why he was here.

  He contented himself with a faint, tolerant smile. “What? Am I a handsome devil, or have I left my dinner on my face?”

  She blinked. A frown flickered across her brow. “Your smile’s broken,” she said. Then her breath caught, she dragged her gaze free and bolted up the path after the others.

  Chapter Three “Your smile’s broken.” What a stupid thing to say to anybody! The words had just tumbled out. After her brains. She’d been gawping at the poor man. She could blame that on a combination of too much whisky and his own male beauty. But telling him his smile was broken was just crass idiocy. She cringed all over again and walked faster.

  It was four o’clock in the morning, and this part of the beach was deserted. Nearer the village, some young people had built a bonfire and were still partying around it. Up at the big house, the boys had just about drunk their fill, although the party had degenerated into mostly maudlin singing that was really quite painful on the ears. Chrissy had left them to it, but she couldn’t face bed yet. She couldn’t sleep with her stomach churning and her head spinning around the same words.

  It didn’t even matter. She was nothing to him nor he to her, and that was not going to change. He was Louise’s brother, a cop who probably despised the Ardknocken House project and everyone involved, including her. He might even be aware of her own story, although she hoped not. He’d be gone soon. In the meantime, she had her job, and the new people to integrate, their new plans to bring to fruition. She had an appointment next week with Dan MacDonald to talk about the land, and the evening workshops to organize and advertise. Maybe she wouldn’t involve Aidan Grieve in the sailing lessons; there was no point if he wasn’t staying.