Kiss a Falling Star

by Barabara Elsborg

  “Well, it’s true,” Emma said. “I wonder what it’s like when its—”

  “Emma,” they all shouted.

  “We all want to know,” Emma said. “No point pretending we don’t. I’ve never seen a stranger’s cock before. Not in real life. Only on the internet.”

  Another burst of laughter followed that.

  “Do you do internet stuff?” Kerry asked.

  She’s talking to me? “I’ve never done this before,” Caspar blurted.

  “Oh, that’s so cute,” Bryony said. “You’re a virgin.”

  More laughter and Caspar felt his cheeks redden. What the fuck was he doing?

  “Okay. Stop now,” Juno said. “Let’s see how you’ve got on.”

  Once they’d begun to look at each other’s drawings, they fell about in hysterics. Caspar looked for a stone to crawl under. Sadly, there was no gap under the couch. He felt sure his balls had now shriveled to the size of peas, but he refused to look. He’d thought about draping the towel over his lap, but what was the point?

  Every time he glanced at Ally, she was looking down, drawing. Had she seen the newspaper? Was she going to make breaking up easy for him?

  “Oh my God, Delia,” Kerry said. “What’s that thing supposed to be?”

  “His arm,” Delia said.

  Sal chuckled. “You’ve made his arms longer than his legs.”

  “You can talk. What the hell is that between his legs?” Kerry asked.

  “Can I have a look?” Caspar asked, male pride hoping for one part of him to be in proportion. He wanted to see what Ally had drawn, but she didn’t hold up her pad. He couldn’t help smiling when he saw the sketches. No worry he’d be recognized. Artists they were not. “You got my arm just right.” He pointed to Bryony’s drawing.

  “That’s your hip,” she told him, and snorted.

  “I like the artistic shading in yours,” he said to Delia.

  Delia giggled. “That’s where I went wrong and tried to rub it out. But it does look good, you’re right.”

  “Another pose,” Juno said. “Kerry, you choose how you want Caspar to stand.”

  “Or lie,” Sal said. “Tell him where to put his hands.”

  Oh Christ. No way could Caspar look at his tackle. He could feel it shrinking.

  “This time instead of trying to draw all of him, concentrate on getting one part of your sketch right and work out from there,” Juno said.

  “Can you stand and cross your arms behind your head?” Kerry asked. “Oh maybe stick one hip out? Pout. No smile.”

  And balance on one leg and make his pecs dance and sing at the same time? Caspar did as she’d asked and stared into the distance. Usually in the vicinity of Ally, his cock started to look forward to finding a warm, wet home, but the presence of a group of giggling women had been an effective dampener on his libido.

  Caspar let his mind drift while he stood in whatever position they wanted. Ally was uncharacteristically quiet. Because he stood here stark, bollock naked? Or had she seen the paper? God, I need to know.

  There was another outpouring of laughter when they looked at the next lot of drawings, though not a glimmer of a smile from Ally who refused to show hers until the end. Juno laughed so hard she cried. Lovely. But when Caspar saw why, a smile slipped onto his face. Juno had told them to concentrate on one getting one part right. Jen had produced a beautiful sketch of the couch.

  “I like the build up,” Jen said.

  “I like my willy,” Bryony said. “Look at the wrinkles.”

  Caspar wished he had one that long. Or maybe not. He took another swallow of champagne. Why wouldn’t Ally look at him?

  By the end of the hour, with the bride-to-be well and truly teased, Caspar felt exhausted. He could hardly believe it. Tired and he’d done nothing more than stand, lie, sit, kneel and bend over backward from a kneeling position—not comfortable—for the last sixty minutes. The experience hadn’t been as horrendous as he’d expected. No one had groped him, laughed at his tackle—only their renditions of it—and if Ally had met his gaze and smiled, he’d have felt better, but she hadn’t. And how could he relax when he knew what was to come?

  Juno bustled him out of the room and pushed bank notes into his hand.

  She beamed at him. “You were brilliant. Would—?”

  “Never again,” Caspar said.

  She sighed. Caspar shut himself in the room where he’d left his clothes and got dressed.

  He hurried, but by the time he went back into the other room, it was empty. All but one of the sketch pads had gone. Caspar knew before he walked over that the one left behind was Ally’s. His heart felt as though an iron fist had clamped around it. She’d left it for him. Left him. Was that what this meant? They were over? It was that easy? Why didn’t he want it to be easy?

  Caspar picked up the pad and flicked through it. Oh Christ. Ally was a brilliant artist. Sketch after sketch in every pose, though never with detail on his face. Not until the last. That drawing was of only his face. It was like looking in a mirror except Caspar didn’t smile much when he did that. This image was of a smiling Caspar, his face alive and alight with joy.

  Ally’s Caspar.

  He dropped the pad and rushed out of the room. No sound of women laughing, but he did hear the noise of a vehicle pulling away. Please let that be Juno. Caspar flung open the door and dashed outside to see a minivan travelling down the road.

  “She’s gone.” Tom sounded furious. “She saw this.”

  Caspar spun around to find Tom brandishing a newspaper.

  “Lend me your car?” Caspar asked.

  “No.”

  “Please.”

  Tom shook his head. “I’m not letting you race off in my car.”

  Caspar stared after the receding vehicle. Shit, shit, shit.

  * * * * *

  Ally stood around the corner of the building, the suitcase she’d packed for the last couple of days at her feet. She’d been tempted to leave with her friends, to go back to London if only for a few days, but instead she’d waved them off and then slipped out of sight when she heard Tom come out. She always ran from things that upset her. This time she wouldn’t.

  “You’re such a stupid fucker,” Tom said to Caspar. “You were the same at school. I’d never have gotten into trouble if it hadn’t been for you, but something about you made me jealous even then. I couldn’t work out how you could always be up to no good and yet be so popular. I decided if I couldn’t beat you, I might as well join you.”

  “You were worse than me,” Caspar said. “Remember when you put the biology teacher’s car in the middle of the cricket pitch? You were only eleven. I was really impressed you could drive. And that time you drew a moustache on the portrait of the school founder?”

  “And you took the blame both times because you knew they’d have expelled me.”

  “My father was occasionally good for something.”

  “He still is.”

  Ally didn’t hear Caspar’s answer.

  “So is this rumor true?” Tom asked, and Ally’s heart thumped against her ribs.

  “Which one?”

  Oh Christ, how many were there? She chewed her fingernail. Ally felt guilty eavesdropping but no way was she moving.

  “That you left Jem while you went to help someone? The way the grapevine is growing, they’ll soon have you jumping off a bridge onto a moving speedboat, diving from a dam and wrestling a couple of alligators into submission at the bottom.”

  “What did Ally say I did?” Caspar asked in a quiet voice.

  She chewed harder and made her finger bleed.

  “Nothing, but she put the idea in my head that conclusions might have been jumped to, that maybe you’d seen one of your contacts in trouble and gone to help and that it would have been fairly easy to set you up after everything that happened.” There was a pause before Tom spoke again. “Were you a spy?”

  Ally’s heart hammered against her ribs. Why had she ever th
ought spreading that rumor was a good idea? The only difference between her and the vicar’s wife was intent.

  “You can’t expect me to answer that,” Caspar said.

  “It’s what everyone thinks.”

  “Ally had no right telling everyone that sort of rubbish.”

  Caspar sounded furious and she winced. Ally had only said it to Rose and hinted to Tom. And was it rubbish?

  Tom sighed. “I suspect she only said something to two people. Me and Wyndale’s home-grown tsetse fly. Rose couldn’t keep her mouth shut if her life depended on it.”

  Damn. She might not have known that about Rose, but Ally couldn’t deny she wanted everyone to think better of Caspar. The downside was he now thought worse of her.

  “Did you do what you were sent to prison for?” Tom asked.

  “I confessed.”

  Ally clenched her fists. Why couldn’t he tell the truth? Why would he want to make life so difficult for himself? Why—? She gulped. Maybe he was protecting someone else.

  “You killed the guy who took Jemima. His family wouldn’t let you get away with it so they set you up. Why did the Foreign Office leave you out to dry?”

  There was a long pause before Caspar spoke. “Nothing to be gained by raking all this up again.”

  His self-sacrifice had to be for a reason. Ally’s heart beat faster.

  “Fucking hell, Caspar. You think this village wants to hate you? Or is it that you want to be hated by the village? Does it make it easier to cope with your guilt over Jemima? Ally thought that you— Christ, you’re an idiot. Lina Moon will flick you off her nail like a piece of dirt once she’s had enough of you. She’s nothing compared to Ally.”

  “I know.”

  Ally swallowed hard.

  “So what were you doing having a cozy tea with her in Buxton? Why does the press think an engagement is imminent?”

  A pack of hungry wolves couldn’t have dragged Ally away now. She checked over her shoulder.

  Caspar sighed. “Lina engineered it so those photos were taken. I’d guess she has some motive of her own. The reporter and photographer knew where we’d be. Ally’s jumped to conclusions, like everyone else always seems to do, and she’s run.”

  Ally stepped out from behind the building. “I haven’t run.”

  Caspar’s eyes opened wide. She guessed Tom had known she was there.

  “But I ought to.” She glared at Caspar. “You could have told me about Lina, told me what you were going to do this morning. How would you like it if I stripped in front of your friends so they could draw me?”

  Tom gaped at Caspar. “Is that what you were doing in there?”

  Caspar faced Tom. “The price for keeping your mouth shut?”

  Tom smirked. “I’ll let you know.” He backed away and disappeared into the building.

  Caspar turned back to Ally. “I thought you’d left.”

  “I was tempted after I saw the newspaper.”

  “So why didn’t you?”

  Because you’re more tempting. Because I want you to ask me to stay. Because I love you.

  “I don’t know,” she said quietly.

  Caspar dragged his fingers through his hair. “You ought to leave. I’m only going to drag you down. I think it’s best we don’t take this any further.”

  A dagger in her heart couldn’t have been more effective. Ally leaned against the side of the building before she fell.

  “All those attempts on my life and words hit me hardest,” she said, and mustered a little smile.

  “Ally, maybe you need to talk to someone.”

  She blinked. I’m talking to you.

  “I think you’re letting your imagination run away with you. Telling people I’m a spy, thinking someone’s out to get you.”

  “Get me? Oh God.I thought you believed me,” Ally whispered.

  Caspar opened his mouth and closed it again.

  Her heart verged on stopping. “The flowerpot, the car, the train… No one believed me, but I thought you did.”

  “If it was Jack, it’ll stop now.”

  Speaking was beyond her. Breathing seemed impossible.

  Caspar stared at Ally, pain all over her face, and his head ached as if spikes had been driven into it. He deserved it because of the look in Ally’s eyes when he’d told her to leave and when she realized he didn’t believe someone had been trying to kill her. He wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her forever, and instead he’d pushed her away and hurt her. Once she was out of Wyndale, he could revert to form and wallow in misery. The sooner she went the better.

  “You need to go back to London,” Caspar said.

  “I don’t understand,” Ally whispered.

  “I don’t think I can make it any clearer.”

  If Ally stayed in Wyndale, she wouldn’t give up until she’d cleared his name. But she couldn’t be allowed to continue to spread rumors that he’d been a spy. Richard had made that quite clear. Caspar didn’t care about his life, but Ally had enough problems without him adding to them.

  Photos of Caspar with Lina hadn’t made Ally run or the suggestion of an engagement, nor him posing naked, so he had to hammer more nails into her heart.

  “What on earth possessed you to go around telling everyone I was a spy?” he snapped.

  She cringed. “I didn’t go around telling everyone.”

  “You as good as did when you told Rose. Christ, my own father thinks he has James Bond for a son.”

  The brightness faded from Ally’s eyes and the pain in Caspar’s head worsened.

  “You said something to Tom too.” Caspar made himself bark at her again. “Why did you have to open your fucking mouth? This has nothing to do with you. Do you have some mission in life to put my world right because you can’t sort out your own? You trying to make yourself feel good, Ally? Did you do this for me or for you?”

  She pressed her lips together so tightly they lost color.

  Caspar took a breath. “You asked why I left Jem and I’m going to give you the truth. I left my sister nursing a lemonade and went to fuck a woman in the washroom. Didn’t take long but time enough for Jem to be abducted. Nothing to do with espionage. Everything to do with sex. You know how I like to fuck. Thanks very much for dragging it all back to people’s minds.”

  Oh God. He’d not realized how hard this would be.

  Ally wrapped her arms around her body as she shivered in the chill wind. “I didn’t ask you. I’ve never asked you.”

  “But you wondered just like everyone else.”

  “I only wanted to help.”

  “I know.” Christ, I know that’s what you were trying to do.

  She lifted her head and looked straight at him. “Are you engaged?”

  Oh God. “More or less.”

  “Do you believe someone pushed me in front of a train?”

  “Not deliberately.”

  Caspar stuffed his hands in his pockets to stop himself reaching out to her. The pain in his head spread to his heart. Ally’s cheeks hollowed and her eyes glinted with tears.

  He pulled out the money Juno had given him and thrust it toward her. “Buy a ticket back to London.”

  She looked at the final nail in his hand and then up into his face. “’Bye, Caspar.”

  He watched her walk away with her case and wished he were dead.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Emma didn’t know what had Geoff in such a snit. He’d snapped when she’d asked him to stop at a service station so she could use the loo, jumped down her throat when she’d asked him to come with her to have lunch at her parents next week and then given her a look that would have frozen water when she asked him to slow down. The others shot her sympathetic glances that made Emma feel even more vulnerable. He seemed desperate to get back to London. Emma was keen to get back too, though she’d hoped to do it in one piece.

  Maybe she did know what had him in such a bad mood. Ally wasn’t interested. Emma smiled and then her smile faded. Could b
e he was pissed off because he’d had to leave Ally in Derbyshire. Maybe he’d spent Saturday and Sunday night with her. Emma hadn’t actually seen the tent and Ally hadn’t stayed in the adventure center. Had the flirting with Tom been to throw her off the scent?

  The worm of doubt in Emma’s chest grew to the size of an anaconda and wrapped around her heart. Geoff was going to finish with her. If he dropped her off last, it would be because he wanted to tell her he didn’t want to see her anymore. Emma didn’t like to end things until she had another guy lined up, but no way was she letting Geoffdump her. Emma’s Saturday night teasing of Sean MacAlister had got her precisely nowhere, not that she’d seriously thought she stood much of a chance, but the idea of Geoff preferring Ally cut very deep.

  Too deep.

  * * * * *

  Jack sat in his stationary car, looking at nothing. He was a physical and emotional wreck. He’d had to call a lawyer and tell the police everything. He had no fucking choice. Ally had destroyed him. He’d been stupid to open his mouth and tell her the truth. He’d hoped for compassion. What a joke. Now he’d been accused of attempted murder along with everything else. He wanted to laugh but instead he cried.

  * * * * *

  Mark drove down the motorway, thinking about what to say to his boss.

  “Ally found someone she likes better and dumped me.”

  That wouldn’t work. Mark didn’t want Frank to think there was something deficient about him.

  “Ally decided she wasn’t ready for the commitment I wanted to show.”

  In other words, Mark had misread the situation entirely. That wouldn’t look good either.

  “Ally’s going on a long trip and didn’t think it fair for me to wait. But I will.”

  Well, he’d wait long enough to impress Frank and make sure he kept his extracurricular activities with Belinda out of sight, which was where he wished Ally had ended up.

  Off the fucking radar.

  * * * * *

  Ally’s heart was full of holes, her love for Caspar leaking out. She wanted to run but made herself walk. No use blaming anyone but herself for this mess. She’d been so consumed with making Caspar popular again, she hadn’t thought of the consequences of what she’d said. Of course he didn’t want anyone to know he’d been a spy. People he’d been involved with in Albania might now be in danger. Ally didn’t believe his story about the bar, didn’t want to believe he was engaged, but it didn’t matter. Caspar didn’t believe someone had been trying to kill her and he didn’t want her anymore.