In Her Secret Fantasy

by Marie Treanor

  It didn’t matter. They’d had a moment in the woods, wholly inappropriate, but also unimportant. She hadn’t yet made a complete fool of herself and hell, she’d got over worse. She barely knew him.

  And yet the binoculars flew out of her hand, hurled at the opposite wall before she could stop herself. She wanted to cry. But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t.

  “Well,” Runi said when Dyrfinna joined him on the nearest island. “That wasn’t very successful, was it?”

  “Not yet,” she said serenely, smiling to cover her anger. She liked that boy. She’d always liked him, and as a man… “I still got on better than you.”

  “My aim at that point was not seduction. I was trying to distract her before she found my skin.”

  “I could have told you she wouldn’t go for that look.”

  “I didn’t want her to,” Runi said with exaggerated patience. “She had her hand in the cave. If I couldn’t distract her, I didn’t want her associating me with the skin. That’s why I took a different form.”

  “So when do you actually mean to seduce her? Are you afraid?”

  He smiled. “Like your desired lover?”

  “He wasn’t afraid,” Dyrfinna protested. “I moved too fast for his human sensibilities.”

  “Or he likes my lover better.”

  “Don’t call her that,” Dyrfinna snapped.

  His smile broadened. “Why not?”

  “It isn’t true.”

  “Yet,” he insisted.

  “We’ll see,” Dyrfinna said. “We’ll see.”

  In the morning, Dan MacDonald came over. Chrissy and Glenn gave him the tour of the house, which was a hive of different activities, and then took him out to show him the land they wanted to cultivate. They left him there to poke around and take soil samples, and walked back to the house together.

  “I think he might go for it,” Chrissy said. “I think we impressed him.”

  “Aye. At worst, he’ll have advice. At best, he’ll take it on. What about the sailing—got anywhere with that?”

  “I spoke to a couple of guys on the phone, but they seem pretty much occupied and reluctant to commit to more than the odd weekend.”

  “Local guys might be better,” Glenn suggested.

  Chrissy walked through the open front door and crossed the hall. “Aidan Grieve’s got a boat and he can sail, but he’s leaving before the spring. Come to think of it, I suspect Dan can sail too.”

  She spoke with deliberate carelessness because she didn’t want to think about Aidan, let alone to talk about him.

  Glenn followed her into the empty office and closed the door. “Talking of Aidan, do me a favour, Chrissy.”

  “What?” she asked suspiciously, throwing her coat on the sofa.

  Glenn took a slightly crumpled envelope from his jacket pocket. “For any number of reasons, neither of us wants to be seen as in collusion with the other, but I need him to know our alibis and that none of our vehicles were used over the holiday.”

  She glared at him. “You want me to hand it in?”

  He shrugged, looking a shade uncomfortable. “You’ve more cause to visit Louise. Either of them, in fact.”

  She curled her lip. “You mean our twilight stroll in the woods was noticed? Or has Len blabbed at last?”

  “Blabbed what?” Glenn asked.

  “Nothing,” Chrissy snapped, snatching the envelope from his fingers.

  “I’ll watch the office,” he offered.

  “Now?” she said, refusing to acknowledge the nervous little flip of her stomach. “All right, I can take a hint.” She stuffed the envelope into her bag and picked up her coat. “I’ll walk,” she said. “So I may be some time.”

  Only when she finally rang the bell of the B & B did it strike her that it would have made far more sense for Izzy to play messenger. A flush rose up into her cheeks. Surely Glenn wasn’t pushing her into Aidan’s path? Not Glenn, who kept out of everyone’s private life unless it was shoved in his face…

  At least it was Louise and not Aidan who opened the door.

  “Chrissy!” she beamed, standing back by way of silent invitation. “Did Izzy send you for the books she left in my living room?”

  “No,” Chrissy confessed, “but I’ll take them.”

  “Only if you brought the car—it’s quite a big box. She put them down to have a cup of coffee yesterday when she was clearing the last of her things out of the flat. And then forgot them.”

  “Sounds like Izzy.” Chrissy followed Louise into the living room, where the old people were asleep in the arm chairs. At least Mr. Grieve might have been asleep. His head was so far forward that Chrissy couldn’t see his eyes, and he was making an odd humming sound.

  “Come through to the kitchen,” Louise said. “Shame to wake them.”

  It was, Chrissy reflected, like making the most of children’s daytime naps.

  “Tea or coffee?” Louise asked.

  Chrissy hesitated. She wanted to give Louise the envelope for her brother, and bolt. But there was such eagerness in the other girl’s face that she said, “Oh go on then, quick coffee, but I’m AWOL—need to get back.”

  “What can I do for you?” Louise asked, reaching for the coffeepot and waving Chrissy to a seat at the kitchen table.

  Chrissy sat, took the envelope from her bag and placed it on the table. “Glenn asked me to drop this off for Aidan.”

  Louise’s eyebrows flew up. “Really? Well, there you go. I knew he’d like him eventually.” She pushed a mug of coffee towards Chrissy and put a jug of milk on the table beside the sugar bowl. “Help yourself. Aidan’s just bunging some stuff in the flat. I’ll get him.”

  “No need,” Chrissy said hastily, wishing she’d just shoved the damned envelope through the letterbox of the upstairs flat and run for it. “So, how’re things? Guests rolling in yet?”

  Louise shrugged. “Got my regular truck driver on Tuesday, and an enquiry about the Easter holidays. Looks like I won’t be buying my private jet just yet.”

  “Me neither,” Chrissy sympathised. “Maybe you and Aidan should brainstorm some new business ideas.”

  Louise waved one dismissive hand and sat down opposite Chrissy. “Not his thing. Besides, he’s going away again. Ardknocken’s always been too small for Aidan!”

  Chrissy shrugged and sipped her coffee, trying hard to talk herself out of her next words, and failing. “People change. If he has a girlfriend here—”

  “Ha. Well, he hasn’t. Trust me, I’d know. Not the sort of thing you can hide in Ardknocken.”

  “Well, he was on the beach with a girl last night,” Chrissy said as casually as she could. Why was she doing this to herself? It didn’t matter who he was with.

  “Was he?” Louise asked, clearly intrigued. Worse, a bump and a screeching hinge came from the direction of the front door, and while Chrissy’s stomach dived, Louise called, “Hey, Aidan!”

  A moment later, Aidan’s stunning blond head appeared around the door, and before Chrissy could even try to prevent her, Louise demanded, “Who were you on the beach with last night?”

  His gaze flickered to Chrissy, and he nodded to her with the casual manners of old friendship. Ha, wasn’t that funny?

  “Ah,” he said. “Well, strangely enough, I wanted to ask you that.”

  He came in, his bulk filling the kitchen as he reached over for the coffeepot and poured the remains into a clean mug. With his foot, he pulled out the chair between Chrissy and Louise and sat down. Chrissy refused to move her elbow out of his way, but every nerve shrieked at his nearness.

  He looked at his sister. “A girl about your age, maybe a couple of years younger. Long black hair. Pretty. Voluptuous, even. A bit wild, if not missing a few pennies from her shilling. Mean anything to you?”

  “No,” Louise said. “Unless it’s Nicole Graham?”

  “It was not Nicole Graham.”

  “No idea, then. Why? Did you entice her for a long walk?”

 
More than a walk, judging from what I saw… Chrissy lifted her mug, drinking while gazing at nothing, as if she was thinking about things quite removed from Louise and Aidan’s conversation.

  “Hardly. I ran into her on the beach. She was looking for her clothes. Seems a bit of a danger to herself.”

  Chrissy, her heart beating faster, sneaked a look at him, as if she could gauge the truth from his face, and found him watching her. She lifted her chin.

  “Bizarre,” Louise remarked. “She can’t live here. Must have been someone passing through. Her friends will have been nearby—probably having hidden her clothes in the first place.”

  “Maybe,” Aidan allowed without releasing Chrissy’s gaze. “See any seals last night?”

  He knew, the bastard. He knew Louise had got the gossip from her.

  “Nope,” she replied. “Dull night for seals.”

  “They’re early this year,” Louise observed, glancing from her brother to Chrissy and back. “Don’t normally come ashore until the end of the month. They breed sometimes on the beach north of Ardknocken House. Chrissy brought you this.”

  Almost, it seemed, with reluctance, Aidan looked at the envelope Louise slid over to him.

  “From Glenn,” Chrissy said hastily.

  Aidan picked it up. “Thanks.”

  Louise set down her mug with a bump, her eyes wide. “She was a selkie!”

  Aidan’s gaze flew up to her. “Who?”

  “Your girl on the beach. I’ll bet you anything you’d have found her seal skin if you’d searched, not human clothes.”

  “Aye, that’ll explain it,” Aidan agreed with heavy sarcasm. Except his eyes weren’t sceptical. They looked slightly awed. Or perhaps…anxious.

  “Well now, it might explain a lot of things,” Chrissy said, pushing her mostly finished coffee away from her. “I found something like a fur in a cave the other day. Selkies are real and living in Ardknocken. More than that, they’re out to seduce the local prodigal son.” She stood up, giving him what she hoped was a dazzling smile. “Good luck with that. Thanks for the coffee, Louise, and I’ll remind Izzy about the books.”

  “She walked down,” Louise told Aidan, who immediately stood up.

  “I’ll give you a lift back up.”

  “No need. I like the walk.”

  “Can’t have you running alone into stray selkies,” he said severely. “I understand they’re very persuasive. Besides, Louise wants rid of the books. She fell over them twice.”

  “Did not,” Louise protested, but she was smiling as she shooed them both out of the kitchen.

  Chrissy was more than capable of getting out of this. She had every intention of dismissing Aidan as soon as they left the house. With or without the books. Except that as he opened the front door for her and she sailed past him, he murmured, “Don’t bolt, I’d like to talk to you.”

  Tough. Only the knowledge that her anger was unreasonable—whoever the girl on the beach had been, and whatever she’d kidded to herself was developing between herself and Aidan—kept her silent. And so she waved farewell to Louise and walked out of the gate ahead of Aidan.

  “What?” she said ungraciously as he led the way along the road.

  “The car’s round in the garage. You still on for our sailing date tomorrow? The weather shouldn’t be too bad.”

  She had the horrible feeling her mouth actually dropped open. It seemed to do that a lot around this man. She closed it and swallowed.

  “Look. Even if I could, I’m not coming between you and your girlfriend. And I’m not prepared to provide the cover to keep Louise and the village gossips off your back either.”

  His head jerked round to her in what looked like genuine astonishment. “Wow. You really do think I’m that Machiavellian.”

  “Aren’t you?” she retorted.

  His eyes glazed slightly. “Maybe. Yes, I suppose I am. I suppose it would do no good to tell you there is no girlfriend? Or that I’ve no idea who the girl on the beach was?”

  “Nope. She looked pretty comfortable in your coat.”

  “She did, didn’t she?” he agreed. “She’s still got it as well, and I didn’t bring any others with me. Do you really think I’d throw one girl to the gossip-wolves just to keep their claws off another?”

  She shrugged. A faint blush of shame seeped through her body. “Wouldn’t you?” she challenged.

  There was a pause. He might have been remembering which of the four garages was his. “I don’t know,” he said. “I never thought of it before. I could try telling Louise I’ve gone sailing with Izzy.”

  “Only if you want Glenn to break your legs.” Appalled in case he took that seriously, she added, “Only kidding.”

  “Shit, really?” Aidan marvelled, lifting the garage door.

  It was, she realized, the first hint of anger she’d seen in him. Even yesterday, interrogating her in the office, accusing her of lies and murder, there had been no fury. She’d sensed only tension and tiredness lurking behind his calm facade. The anger had all been hers. Until now, when she’d felt it necessary to explain a joke.

  Aidan shoved the box of books in the boot, got in the driver’s seat, and reversed the car out of the garage. When Chrissy climbed in, and fastened her seat belt in silence, he dropped Glenn’s envelope into her lap.

  “What does it say?” he asked, driving along the bumpy ground to the road.

  “I don’t know. Alibis and car mileage, I think.”

  “Read it to me,” he suggested.

  She stared at his profile. “Is this an expression of trust? Or apology?”

  “Oh no. I can’t read and drive.”

  For some reason, a smile tried to form on her lips. Biting it back, she tore open the envelope and tried to decipher Glenn’s handwritten scrawl.

  “All right. Everyone in the house was seen on the late afternoon or evening of the second of January, by either Glenn, Izzy or me. Or some combination of us. Apart from Frog—Thierry—who was alone organizing things in his caravan.”

  Aidan grunted. “He’s got a car too, hasn’t he?”

  “Yes, but I never saw it leave the back area where he parked it next to the caravan.”

  “But did you notice it was there?”

  “Glenn thinks very highly of Thierry.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “They were friends inside. Plus… Look, off the record, Thierry’s a computer whizz. He can access and collate stuff no one else can. Glenn’s never said a word, but I’m pretty sure it was Thierry who really pulled the plug on Raymond Kemp, Izzy’s ex. He’d do anything for Glenn. And he’d never endanger the project.”

  Aidan changed gear as the hill steepened. She found herself watching his hand. Her body heated as she remembered the feel of it on her breast. He had good hands…

  He said, “You’re pretty easygoing at the house, aren’t you? People come and go when they like, without necessarily telling anyone else.”

  “Blessing of freedom.”

  “But you can see from your office who leaves. I need to know every time someone leaves in a car.”

  “Shit, Aidan! When did I sign up to spy on my colleagues? I don’t know how my gun got from here to your murder victim, but haven’t we just proved it was no one from Ardknocken House who killed that man?”

  Aidan lifted his hand from the gear lever and rubbed his forehead. “There’s a connection. A passing stranger couldn’t just have stumbled on your buried gun. Not without a JCV.” His eyes widened. “Or a metal detector.” He slowed and turned in the freshly painted gates to Ardknocken House. “Who’s got a metal detector?”

  “No one that I know of!”

  He sighed. “Long shot, anyway. Out of all this”—he waved one hand to encompass the whole surrounding countryside—“you’d have to be damn lucky to hit that particular piece of metal.”

  He pulled up in front of the open front door and paused, his hand on his seat belt. “The other thing is, the gun implicates you. There
wasn’t much attempt to hide it. Who’ve you pissed off recently?”

  “Besides you?”

  Unexpectedly, his eyes softened to the first full smile she’d ever seen there. It deprived her of breath. “Oh, you haven’t pissed me off, Chrissy.”

  A deep flush surged up into her face. “Give it time,” she muttered. “And as for these guys, they’ve never done anything but look out for me.”

  To cover the stupid flood of pleasure—why, for God’s sake? “You haven’t pissed me off” wasn’t really the accolade that made most girls go weak at the knees—Chrissy shoved Glenn’s notes back in the envelope and thrust the lot onto the dashboard shelf before she opened the car door and slid out.

  By the time she shut the door, Aidan was taking the box of books out of the boot. “Think about it,” he said. “And I’ll meet you at the harbour at ten tomorrow morning. Wrap up warm.”

  Chapter Eight After dropping Chrissy off, Aidan spent the rest of the day checking out the land. A sense of pleasurable anticipation lifted his spirits, because he’d see her tomorrow, away from all this, sail with her. Right now, he needed to find the connection between Ardknocken and the dead man.

  From the house, he drove on up the hill, checking out what could be seen from where. It had always been likely, given Gowan’s movements, that the drugs were coming in from the sea, and both Oban and Ardknocken were on the coast. Aidan suspected Gowan’s death was part of a change, a change of leadership, perhaps, or of location of the entry point, or more likely, both. He then drove along the road to Mallaig and did much the same thing. He had a direction in mind for his sail tomorrow.

  When he got home, Louise was on a lightning raid to the shops, and Hugh from next door was sitting with his parents. Or at least he was standing at the foot of the stairs, trying to heave Aidan’s dad up from where he’d fallen, while Aidan’s mum wrung her hands in the living room doorway.

  Anger swamped Aidan because it had come to this for his once vigorous parents. Anger with Louise for refusing to do the obvious. Mostly, anger with himself for letting it go so far without even being aware of it. But anger did no good.