In Her Secret Fantasy

by Marie Treanor

  “How do you get round her again?” Aidan asked, standing with him.

  “No idea. Either she forgives me, or she realizes she was wrong. So far. Good luck.” Brody nodded and clattered off down the rest of the stairs.

  A whistle brought the dog hurtling from the flat and down the stairs. Aidan followed more slowly. “Good luck,” Brody had said. It had almost sounded as though he’d meant it.

  Aidan didn’t come back for his coffee. Chrissy didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. Either way, when Louise left, she was still too wound up to go back to work. So she grabbed her coat from her room and decided to walk down to the beach and look for seals. And if there weren’t any, she was sure she’d felt some gaps in the cliff last night that might have been caves she could explore.

  When she got down to the beach, the sky had clouded over and was dripping a constant wet sleet. It would be dark again soon. There were no signs of seal presence, so she just walked along the sand, wondering about Aidan. About why he’d come home and why he’d left the police. She could understand his suspicions about the people his sister had befriended. She recognized too that she didn’t have to like being interrogated about her friends, not by him, although “Fuck off” in return for an offer to carry a tray full of coffee cups might have been an uncivil overreaction.

  But mostly, she worried about that desperate look she’d surprised in his eyes. There’d been misery in there, overlaying everything else, but the rest of the emotions roiling behind were a total mystery. She began to think he was more in need of help than anybody at Ardknocken House. Including herself.

  As she approached the place where she’d bumped into him on New Year’s night, she veered into the cliff side, and began poking behind rocks and peering into the gaps and holes in the cliff. When she pushed her gloved hand into the larger holes, she came up against rock after more than a few inches. Until, about the fifth space she tried, when she began to sweep her hand out again, she found an open corner. Excited, she felt farther in. Although the hidden opening wasn’t large enough for a person to fit through, she could push her hand just a little— “Chrissy? Is that you?”

  Startled, she yanked her hand out again, grateful for the gloves that prevented grazing all the skin off her knuckles.

  A few yards behind her stood Len, the new accountant to whom she’d soon hand over the project’s books. With gratitude.

  “Hello,” she said, slightly embarrassed. “I thought I’d found a cave.”

  “And have you?”

  “More of a tunnel to get my hand stuck in.”

  “Bad idea in this weather,” he said with a faint grin. He shifted from one foot to the other, and it struck her he was trying to make amends for his admittedly pretty minor lunge just after the bells. More than that, she realized his presence didn’t bother her. In fact, now that she looked at him, he was really quite attractive. Although he was about fifty years old, his face was firm and full of character, his body fit and healthy.

  “I suppose you’re right,” she said.

  He took a step nearer. “Don’t suppose you’re heading into the village? Someone told me I could walk in along the beach.”

  “Yes, you can,” she said, walking past him to point along the shore. “Just around that headland you’ll be able to see it. You’ll make it before the tide comes in. Though I doubt the shops will be open.”

  Unexpectedly, he was right beside her. He didn’t grab her, just looked deeply into her eyes. “Come with me.”

  And abruptly, she longed to do just that. In fact the strength of her longing frightened her because it was wrong. Her foot even lifted to walk forward and she had to force it down with a gasp before she could step back.

  Now he did take her arm, still smiling. It was a nice smile. “Come on, Chrissy. If we hurry, we’ll be back before dark.”

  Weirdly, her body wanted to go with him. It was her brain that refused, although it couldn’t make her body obey, and the conflict in her mind suddenly scared the crap out of her. What the hell was the matter with her?

  Gently, Len urged her forward. Again, she pulled back, but it seemed to take a lot of effort, like one of those dreams where no matter how close your destination or how fast you ran, you never reached it. Panic surged.

  “Chrissy!”

  Another voice, calling from the cliff path. Len’s head snapped round, and she looked too. Aidan, striding down the path towards the beach.

  Relief flooded her, and suddenly she could move quite easily, walking out of Len’s hold and then running towards Aidan. She didn’t look back.

  As if he sensed her panic, Aidan left the path and dropped down the cliff face in two practiced jumps, much as he had in the dark on New Year’s night. As soon as he landed in front of her, she ran the last few paces and seized him by the sleeves.

  “Something’s wrong with me, Aidan!” she gasped. “Something terrible…”

  A fierce frown pulled down his brow, but he neither seized her nor shouted. “What happened? Did that guy hurt you?”

  “Len? No, he just asked me to show him how to get to the village, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to go, only I couldn’t make myself stop going. Something’s wrong with me…”

  He lifted his open hand, softly cupping her cheek, gazing into her eyes. “Look up,” he said. “Look to the sea, now the cliff…” Slowly, his frown cleared. “Nothing’s wrong with you, Chrissy,” he promised. “You’re wonderful.”

  She gasped again, horrified as tears tightened her throat, trying to spill out of her eyes. Her mouth worked, trying to speak, to laugh at herself, anything but cry. After all, she’d just gone into a blind panic about nothing. And then, amazingly, his arms were around her, cradling her. She felt his cheek against the top of her head, and her tears broke free, trickling down her face and into his leather jacket.

  “I think you just had a moment,” he said gently. “You were conflicted, and you didn’t like it.”

  She’d run to him like her only saviour when she barely knew him. “I told you to fuck off,” she whispered.

  “Lots of people tell me to fuck off. I understand.”

  “I don’t want you to fuck off…”

  “I don’t understand that. But I don’t want to hurt you, Chrissy.”

  Her fingers tightened on his coat. “Or Glenn?”

  This time there was a pause. Then, “No, I don’t think I want to hurt him either. Though I will if I have to.”

  Her fingers opened, spreading over his thick upper arms instead. Under her cheek, and his jacket, his heart beat steadily.

  His breath stirred her hair. “What is it, Chrissy? What’s wrong?”

  “You know, don’t you?”

  “I can guess some of it from what happened to you. I’m asking about you.”

  She smiled into his coat, and another tear escaped. “Because you think I’m broken?”

  “I know you’re not broken. Christ, we all bend a little with the blows.”

  “Is that what happened to you?”

  He went very still, then shook his head. It felt like a caress against her hair. “I don’t know.”

  “Will you tell me yours if I tell you mine?”

  Another pause, then, “All right. Do you want to go somewhere warmer?”

  Her breath caught as memory roiled and surged. “Not now. I can’t now. Is Len still there?”

  She felt his head turn, allowing the wind and the sleet to chill her scalp. “No. He walked on without you. I think you might find you’re having an affair with me when you go back to the house.”

  “I won’t grace it with a comment. No one will come after you with a shotgun.”

  His arms loosened, and she dashed the back of her hand quickly across her face before lifting her head from his chest, where she’d grown far too comfortable. She forced herself to meet his gaze, but she could read no discomfort there, or annoyance, just an intense focus on her that in spite of everything set the butterflies gambolling in her stom
ach. He just looked too good not to affect her. There was danger in that, and yet she’d drawn comfort from him.

  “What do you want to do now?” he asked.

  “Walk.”

  “Will I come with you?”

  She closed her eyes again against those bloody tears that she’d held in successfully for years before this. “No,” she whispered. “I don’t want to cry all over you.”

  “I’m a cop. Making people cry doesn’t bother me.”

  She gave a slightly watery laugh. “Stop it. I can walk this off, and next time, I’ll be fine.” He frowned with obvious reluctance, and she blurted, “Please. I need to be alone. I do.”

  His frown cleared as if he understood that, but still his eyes searched hers. “At least you said ‘next time’. We can go for that sail, if you like, see if we can find some seals. I had the boat out the water, and it looks surprisingly okay now. I’ll take it for a test sail tomorrow, and if all’s well, we can go out in the afternoon, or the day after.”

  “I’ve got to work.”

  He swallowed that without a blink. “Do you get weekends off?”

  She nodded. “Saturday’s good if you can get away too.”

  He sighed. “Yes, Louise and I need to talk. But that’s another issue. I’ll meet you in the harbour on Saturday. What’s your number?”

  She told him and he entered it on his phone with speedy efficiency. Then, dropping the phone back in his pocket, he glanced at her.

  “I’m fine,” she repeated, both baffled and ashamed now of her odd behaviour, of running to him and crying. At least Len hadn’t seen her crying. He was a nice guy, but she wasn’t sure he’d work out at the house.

  “Okay,” Aidan said. His lips quirked. He had quite full, firm lips that she wanted to brush with hers, to taste, to feel on her mouth, all over her body…

  She shivered.

  “You are wonderful,” he said. “You’re amazing and you’re strong.”

  She let out a little choke of derisive laughter. “How, exactly?”

  He smiled, and at least there was softness in his reflective blue eyes. “I’ll tell you on Saturday.” His hand came up once more, touching her face with a briefer caress than before. “Take care.” Then he turned and strode off towards the village.

  She’s been right to send him away, to have the time to rein in her emotions in solitude. Why then did she have such an urge to run after him? Remembering her weirdly conflicted reaction to Len’s invitation, she tried turning away from Aidan and walking in the other direction.

  That worked.

  Sighing with relief, she looked around her. Where was I before all this happened? Ah yes, the cave…

  Deliberately, she grabbed at something else to focus on. She found the cave again without difficulty, sliding her hand straight in. Reaching farther this time, she touched something soft and furry. Thinking it was a dead animal, she jerked her hand away with a small cry. But then, realizing there had been no solid flesh, she felt around again, drawing it towards her until she realized its considerable size. Like a fur coat.

  She withdrew her arm, remembering for some reason the selkie stories Aidan had talked about on New Year’s night. When selkies took human form, they hid their seal skins, because if the skin was lost or destroyed, they couldn’t return to the sea.

  She stared towards the village, just in time to see Aidan disappearing around the headland. Bizarre suspicion entered her head.

  She smiled. “Nah,” she said, and walked in the opposite direction, brisk and energetic. At least she no longer wanted to cry.

  Chapter Five As they walked in different directions, Aidan glanced back at her a couple of times, saw her exploring inside some cleft in the cliff. Distracting herself, probably, with matters far removed from her own strange episode.

  It had taken her by surprise. Aidan, who’d come across victims of many horrendous crimes in his work, knew the trauma could manifest itself in strange ways, and at odd times. Although it had been a while ago, and although she’d moved on with her life with such supreme courage, her recovery could only be partial.

  He felt again the huge surge of protectiveness that had consumed him when she’d run to him, clutched him. She’d even let him hold her, had seemed to draw comfort from his closeness. His own emotion had taken him by surprise. He’d dealt with victims on both sides of the law every day for years, so many that the line between those sides was blurred into nonexistence. But he’d learned the value of detachment. You couldn’t help, you couldn’t go on, if you empathized too closely.

  And yet if the ex-con on the beach had hurt her, Aidan would have beaten him to a pulp. Only immediate care for her had kept the emotion in check, but it had swamped him—fury and pity and the urge, the need to protect.

  Oh yes, he was broken. He’d known her what, three days? She was nothing to him, and yet he cared. He cared too much.

  Or perhaps he was trying to distract himself from the impossible problem of his parents. They were his responsibility. So was Louise. And he’d been neglecting them for far too long.

  When he got back to the B & B, Louise was making dinner. His dad was rocking in his chair, making a tuneless humming noise reminiscent of a baby. It was probably a blessing his mum couldn’t hear it. She smiled sweetly at Aidan, though.

  “There you are!” Louise called from the kitchen. “Izzy says she doesn’t want the flat and she’ll come round tomorrow and make sure all her stuff’s out, so you can move up there when you like.”

  “Great,” he said. It would give him space, a bolt hole from the continuing tragedy downstairs.

  It wasn’t until the evening that he got the chance to talk properly to Louise. They’d got their parents to bed and collapsed in the living room. Instead of the hot chocolate Louise had first suggested, he’d poured them both a whisky from the New Year bottle Glenn Brody had left.

  “It’s much quicker when you’re here,” Louise observed. “Thanks!”

  Aidan shrugged irritably. “They’re my parents too. You’ve been flying solo too long.”

  “I wasn’t keeping it from you. It got worse so gradually, and we’re not very good at staying in touch.”

  Aidan took a mouthful of whisky, let it burn down his throat. “True. But I know now, and you can’t go on like this.”

  “It’s not always easy, but I cope.”

  “I know you do. What you don’t do is have much fun.”

  Louise shrugged. “It won’t be forever,” she said bleakly.

  He stared at her. “Louise, it could be years. Neither of them is that old. You can’t do this alone.”

  She glared at him. “Are you offering to stay?”

  “No, I’m saying there are other options.”

  Her eyes widened. “Stick them in a home in Fort William?”

  “I don’t think you need to ‘stick’ them anywhere. Professional care isn’t a bad thing.”

  “They’ve lived in Ardknocken all their lives. How could we take them away from that?”

  Aidan blinked. “Dad doesn’t know where he is, and Mum barely goes out. They can come back for days out. I’m not suggesting Outer Mongolia.”

  “You might as well. It’s not happening. I don’t mind doing this. I want to do it.”

  “Shit, Louise, you can’t want to. No one wants to do this. You think you should, because they looked after us when we were helpless, but it’s not the same thing. We were tiny kids and we grew.”

  “They’re our parents!”

  “Yes, and they’d want that chance for you too. You can’t let life go right by you like this.”

  Louise knocked back her whisky in two gulps and stood up. “What gives you the right to dictate my life? Or theirs? You don’t even live here, Aidan, so stop pretending that you do.”

  When she’d stormed off, Aidan refilled his glass and stared into space.

  Well, that didn’t go too well.

  In fact, it hadn’t really been a day of successes. Although at leas
t Chrissy was talking to him again. Stupidly, he still felt the pleasure of her running to him and that had little to do with his job.

  He downed the whisky, poured himself another, then picked up the bottle and took both to his old bedroom, where he sprawled on the bed and opened his laptop. He didn’t really want to know the details of the attack on Chrissy. His research so far, on all the residents of the house, had been general and to do with crimes and connections. Now it was time to know about her. At least the whisky would take the edge off.

  He called up police reports and newspaper articles.

  One of her clients, Robert Howard, a big, heavy man convicted twice of violent if not sexual crime, had been accused of raping her in her office in broad daylight while the building was fully staffed. Howard’s defence was that they’d been conducting an affair this way for weeks. She’d only accused him of rape because one of her colleagues had walked in on them, and she’d been fighting for her career. Another lowlife had come forward to say he’d had the same privileges as Howard.

  But the jury had convicted quickly and unanimously. And studying the police reports, Aidan could see why. Sickened, he looked at the bruising and the injuries she’d suffered. Not on her face, but on her body, where her colleagues wouldn’t have seen them as she’d been led out of the office. Which may have explained the lukewarm support she’d later received from some of them. No one had heard her scream due to Howard’s hand being over her mouth. There was a photograph of her bite mark on his palm to prove it. Only the sound of her shoe heels drumming constantly on the floor had finally attracted her colleagues’ attention.

  She’d done all the right things, and Howard had quite rightly gone down for it. So where had the rumours about her false allegation come from? Because mud stuck. No one had troubled to disprove the smearing of her reputation in general, because the facts of the actual attack were so obvious. And what had been said in public was never unsaid. Rumours had begun among those who hadn’t actually been involved in the case. And Chrissy was still paying for what had been done to her.

  Ignoring the glass, Aidan raised the bottle to his lips. Jesus fucking Christ.