Ally woke with a start to the sound of a car engine revving in her ear. She slammed her hand on the alarm. Finn’s clock looked like a car but she hadn’t realized it would sound like one. She’d slept in fits and starts, dropped off at four thirty and now, an hour later, been rudely awoken. Nightmares about flowerpots, trains and locked basements had prevailed over memories of what she’d gotten up to with Caspar, and in a way, Ally was grateful. Despite the terrible details of what had happened to him, it was how she’d fallen to her knees on his decking that kept sliding into her mind.
What the hell was I thinking?
At least she’d managed not to drag him between the sheets on the first night, but it had been close. Very close. She rolled out of bed and padded to the shower.
* * * * *
At six, Ally walked into the café and Rose dramatically sagged with relief. No customers yet, but the sweet smell of something baking filled the air.
“Morning, Ally. You are such an angel. I worried you’d change your mind.”
Ally smiled. “Morning. Just point me at what needs doing.”
Rose poured her a coffee. “Chop, slice and dice. Start with the tomatoes and cucumbers, please.”
“When does it get busy?” Ally looked around at the deserted café.
“After six thirty. People commute to Derby and Manchester as well as Buxton.”
Ally raised her eyebrows as she chopped. “That’s quite a drive.”
“They have to go where the jobs are. There’s nothing around here.”
Bang went Ally’s hope of finding something local.
“No tears then?” Rose asked, shooting Ally a glance.
“Well, if I can’t land a job around here, I can always move.”
Rose laughed. “I’m not talking about work.”
Ally frowned. “Why should I be crying?”
“Our resident heartbreaker?”
The frown turned to a smile. “Oh Caspar. Why would he upset me?”
“I heard through the grapevine he had his eye on you. He’s working his way through every pretty woman in the district and some not so pretty ones. Caspar’s king of the one-night stands. Their bed, never his, and he leaves before they wake. No phone numbers exchanged, no promises made and he never sleeps with them again.” She smashed chunks of egg more vigorously with the fork.
Ally’s hand faltered as she sliced a cucumber. “Have you…?”
“Me? No. I’d never cheat, but a friend of mine is one of his victims.”
“Hardly a victim.” Ally bristled.
“In many ways I like him, but if I were single and available, I wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole.”
“If his reputation is what you say, then women know what they’re getting into.”
Oh God, am I like all the rest? She’d been warned and she still fancied him. But Caspar had invited her into his bed. He’d blurted that he’d washed the sheets. They’d exchanged phone numbers. He wanted to see her again. She wasn’t like the others. Or was she deluding herself?
“Have you slept with him?” Rose asked.
“No.”
Rose nodded. “That’s why you still like him.”
And maybe why he’s still interested in me?
Conversation paused while they served customers, but Ally couldn’t let this go. Caspar didn’t deserve this level of disapproval. “Caspar told me what happened in Albania.”
Rose raised her eyebrows. “He did? And what spin did he put on it?”
“He told me the truth.” But you can never tell anyone. Ally remembered Caspar’s words but didn’t understand why she couldn’t explain that he hadn’t done what he’d been sent to prison for.
“He ruined a lot of lives,” Rose said.
Including his own. Ally wanted to help him but didn’t know how.
“I bet he didn’t tell you what he was doing when his sister disappeared,” Rose said.
Ally thought back. No, he hadn’t. Caspar said they were in a bar and he’d left her alone for a couple of minutes. A trickle of unease skittered down her spine like a sharp fingernail.
“Be careful, Ally. His parents mean a lot to people around here and what he did destroyed them.”
Ally kept her mouth shut in case she was tempted to blurt something she shouldn’t. Rose changed the subject and chattered away about the arrival of the BBC to film Jane Eyre. Ally’s eyes opened wide at the news that Sean MacAlister had been cast as Mr. Rochester. The blond American movie star would have to dye his hair and stop smiling because Rochester was far more like Caspar—handsome and dark, with a tendency to brood.
“Who’s got the part of Jane?” Ally asked.
“Some lesser-known actress. Lina Moon. Lucky thing, getting to snog Sean MacAlister.”
“Not sure there’s a lot of snogging in Jane Eyre.”
“I wonder if Sean will come in here for a bacon sandwich.” Rose sighed.
“You might pick up some extra business.”
“I think they bring their own catering team.”
“Doesn’t mean to say they won’t call here too.”
“That’s true.” Rose nodded. “Saturday tomorrow and my husband’s back tonight so I won’t need you, but if we get busy next week, can I call you?”
“That’s fine.”
The morning was as manic as the day before, but when the noise level dropped significantly after the door opened, Ally knew why before she looked up. Caspar. A knot of lust unraveled in her chest. Her desire for him filled her to bursting point. Ally saw the worry on his face and smiled first. His answering smile made her stomach quiver. But did he only want her because she hadn’t yet slept with him?
She nodded toward a table by the window and untied her apron as she turned to Rose. “Okay, that’s me finished. I’m going to have a bacon sandwich with Caspar. You can take it out of my wages.”
Rose pressed twenty-five pounds into her hand. “Have breakfast on me.” She caught Ally’s fingers. “Be careful.”
Ally put the plates on the table, went back for two mugs of coffee and sat opposite Caspar. “Good morning.”
He pressed his knee against hers under the table. “Morning. How come you look so chipper?”
“It is ten o’clock.”
“Ah, you haven’t been pining for me all night like I did for you?”
Ally smiled as she chewed her sandwich. “Did you sleep in your socks?”
Caspar laughed. “No, in case you changed your mind.”
“I slept in mine. I didn’t realize it was so cold up here.”
“I did volunteer to be your hot water bottle.”
“You have to stop volunteering for things and find a job that earns you money. Talking of which, I’ve got a plan,” Ally said.
“Oh yeah?” He didn’t look convinced.
She clasped her hands and leaned across the table. “We’re going to work on this together, using my laptop. We’ll buy the newspapers and look for positions for both of us. We need to make lists for each other of the sort of things we’d like and where we’d work, minimum salary, stuff like that. We can make appointments to see recruitment agencies in the nearest towns and go together. I even wondered about advertising our skills. Multi-talented couple will do anything for cash. What do you think?”
What did he think? Caspar thought she was beautiful, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and completely deluded.
“Sounds great,” he said.
“Want to work on the list of what we’re looking for here or back at my place?”
Caspar sensed every ear in the café swiveling like radar antennas. “Your place.”
Ally finished her coffee and took the plates and mugs back to the counter. When they stepped outside, Caspar reached for her hand and Ally smiled at him.
“Is that in case I trip over a leaf?” she asked.
“Something like that.”
Caspar didn’t do holding hands, but after he’d realized how good it felt last night, he was converted. Thou
gh maybe it was just being with Ally that made him feel…happy. After they’d called in at the newsagents, they trekked back up the hill. Caspar, having paid for the papers, now had less than five pounds in his wallet but tried not to think about it. A line of BBC vehicles passed them going toward the hall.
“Rose told me Sean McAlister is going to be Mr. Rochester,” Ally said. “When word gets out, Wyndale will be packed with screaming women.”
“Are you are a screaming woman?”
Ally squeezed his fingers. “I thought I did a fair impression of a lesser spotted owl.”
He chuckled.
“Do you think they’ll bring everyone they need with them?” Ally asked. “It might be worth offering our services. You know the area, which could be useful.”
“Maybe.”
Caspar had his pride but he needed to eat. If he thought anyone would take him up on it, he’d have knocked on every door in the village and offered to do odd jobs.
Ally unlocked the door of her brother’s place and Caspar followed her in, bereft he no longer had her hand warming his. Stone Cottage was a complete contrast to the Gatehouse. Warm, stylish, clean. He caught his breath when he walked into the kitchen, a wide open space with room for a white-wood table and six chairs plus a comfortable-looking red couch loaded with cushions. A sloping glass roof made the room light and airy, and a wall of sliding glass doors revealed a small patio that faced the woods beyond.
“Very nice,” Caspar said, trying not to sound bitter.
He could never afford a place like this, never afford to give Ally this lifestyle. Even when he inherited Wyndale Hall—and there was no certainty he would, considering the way his father currently felt about him—the place was a mausoleum of antiquity. Apart from the fifty-inch flat screen TV. Caspar didn’t even have a TV. He couldn’t afford the license and wasn’t about to risk getting caught without one.
“I hardly dare touch anything,” Ally said. “Every time I walk in here, I think I’m dreaming.” She ran her fingers over the polished granite countertop. “My bedsit had a bathroom so tiny you had to sit on the loo to clean your teeth. You could have fitted the whole thing into this kitchen.”
“Does your brother know you’re here?”
Ally winced. “No. I don’t think he’ll mind as long as I don’t throw a wild party and wreck the joint.”
“Have you told him about what happened to you in London?”
“No,” she said firmly. “I don’t want him to worry. There’s nothing he can do from the States. Want to explore the cupboards and make us a coffee while I get my laptop?”
Was she changing the subject? Wouldn’t Finn be the first person she’d tell? Caspar couldn’t help but wonder if the story about the train and the rest were lies, something she’d made up to make him feel less sorry for himself. He suspected she’d been with a guy who hit her. Caspar could wait ’til she felt able to talk about it. He understood that sort of reticence.
By the time he’d made them a drink, Caspar felt even more inadequate. Cupboards full of stylish crockery, top-of-the-range brushed stainless steel electrical appliances, shining cutlery—he couldn’t see how he could ever live like this. He’d never get a decent job, and if he did, he’d be passed over for promotion. Where was the gun for him to shoot himself?
Ally put her laptop, a pink folder and a mini printer on the table next to the newspapers.
“Nice computer,” Caspar said. His father had bought him a basic model. He’d probably gone into the store and asked for the cheapest, ugliest and slowest they had.
“It used to be Finn’s. Oh Christ, a hundred and thirty-seven items of spam. At least half of them offering to enlarge my penis. Twenty in my inbox. Ugh—most of them from my ex-boss. He can wait. Sit closer.”
Caspar was happy for an excuse to nudge his chair beside hers. He really wanted to whisk her upstairs to bed but he was trying to behave himself. Not easy when she smelled so sweet and the merest brush against him made his heart flutter and his cock preen. But he wasn’t going to touch— Oh fuck.
She turned and kissed him. A gentle press of her warm lips against his, and Caspar forgot all his good intentions. On the point of lifting her onto the table and sliding his hand into her pants, Ally pulled away.
“Just wanted to check I hadn’t dreamt last night,” she said.
“And you could tell from that quick peck?” He twisted a lock of her hair in his fingers. “I’m not sure. I think you need to convince me.”
He inhaled when Ally slid her palm over the bulge in his pants.
“Liar,” she whispered.
Caspar’s pulse rocketed.
“Focus. We need to find jobs.” Ally took a sheet of paper from the folder. “My resume.”
Caspar wrestled his brain into submission but didn’t bother trying to subdue his cock. He took the paper from her. “Want to print off mine? I can get it from my emails.”
Ally pushed the laptop toward him. “Help yourself.”
Caspar logged into his account. Three items of spam, none of which offered to enlarge his cock and nothing in his inbox. He downloaded the CV that had so far got him precisely nowhere and read Ally’s with increasing incredulity as his printed.
“The first one I did was five pages long,” she said. “I thought I was supposed to put all my jobs on there, even the stint as a rat catcher. Finn suggested one page was plenty.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Rat catcher?”
“One day. Well, no, that’s lying. Three hours. I didn’t catch a rat. It was the way I constantly worried about stepping on one that made the guy suspect it wasn’t going to work.”
Caspar lifted his head. “And you used to babysit a chimpanzee?”
“Very weird. The owner, not the chimp. The chimp was cute.”
Caspar put the page down. He wondered what she’d left off if she put those things in.
“Why didn’t you go to university?” he asked. “You got good A-Levels.”
“Mum and Dad died and I went off the rails.” She blew out a breath. “I’d been so happy. They made my life something I could never have imagined, though I spent too much of it worried it would get taken away because that’s what always happened. And I was proved right when they were killed.” Her face clouded and then she smiled again. “Oh wow, you’re clever. You can speak all those languages?” She looked up at him. “I don’t think you ought to say you were in prison. You could just say you were—finding yourself in a foreign country.”
Rather than avoiding getting fucked in the ass by guys twice his size.
“I figured I might as well get rejected outright as partway down the line when I’d started to hope. Anyway, I have to include it. It’s the law.”
“That’s not fair,” Ally blurted.
“Yeah, it is. Why should I be given a second chance above others who never made a mistake?”
“The only mistake you made was to take your eyes off your sister. Anyone could have done that. What happened after wasn’t your fault.”
But it was. If he hadn’t left Jem, if he hadn’t gone after Bekim Hassan, if… No point in ifs.
“Maybe you should start your own business, and then it wouldn’t matter about Albania.”
Caspar gave a little laugh. “One problem. No bank would lend me money.” Another reason to sell the medal. He wished someone would wave a magic wand and sort out his life.
Ally sighed. “Well what sort of job do you want? Anything you won’t do?”
“No. But if I can’t live here rent free and have to relocate, it has to pay enough to cover the cost of accommodation.”
Caspar scanned the newspapers as Ally checked out recruitment agencies. She was wasting her time as far as he was concerned. Sadly, so was he. The positions advertised in the papers weren’t suitable for Ally. They were for him but he’d never get them.
Instead of this being a fun thing to do together, they grew steadily more dejected. Caspar could think of something he’d much rather b
e doing. His cock agreed with him, but then it had been semi-hard all morning.
“Listen. Found a great job for you,” she said. “Wanted—Person who can build up and maintain close relationships and has the ability to balance authority with a large amount of compassion and understanding.”
Caspar gave her a blank look. “No one talks to me. No one listens to me and to be honest, I don’t give a fuck. What’s the job?”
“Prison officer.”
He laughed.
“What about this for me?” Ally asked. “A sales position requiring a motivated self-starter, high commission salary.”
“What that means is they don’t give you any leads, you get no help apart from a telephone directory and you’ll be expected to use your own phone. And look at the web address. It’s selling glitzy bird tables. You’d be lucky if you broke even.”
“Cynic.”
“Realist. I’ve been looking longer than you. I can read between the lines. Able to handle a heavy workload means if you moan, you’ll get the sack. Some overtime required means you’ll be expected to work most nights and particularly those evenings you have something planned. For competitive environment read—watch your back because everyone who works here hates everyone else.”
“A realistic cynic. Well, we’re both going to apply for this one. It’s the best advert I’ve read for ages. Would you like to work for an inconsiderate, demanding bastard? For a ridiculously large salary I want someone to work twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Three hundred and sixty-six next year. You’ll speak at least three European languages, and it would be an advantage if you were able to do at least some of the following—dive, cook, ski, sail, ride, climb, fly and bench press one hundred kilos. If you don’t like being shouted at, don’t apply.” Ally lifted her eyebrows. “What do you think?”
“You’re making it up.”
“I’m not. Look.”
Caspar read the ad and shook his head. “It’s a joke.”
“I don’t think so. We must be able to do all that between the pair of us. I speak English so that’s one language.”
Caspar chuckled. “What about the rest of the list.”
Ally scanned it. “I can cook, ride a bike, fly a kite and dive off the side of a pool—given the right encouragement.”
Kiss a Falling Star Page 10
