A Flame On The Horizon

by Daphne Clair

  When they reached home her flatmates were back from work and she invited Reid to stay for a meal. He left quite early, drawing her out to the old front porch with him, closing the door behind them, and this time he didn’t ask if he could kiss her. He pulled her into his arms and brought his mouth down on hers as if he knew that she’d been waiting all day for this, and as if he had too.

  ‘I have to go away again,’ he said when they had drawn apart a little, her hands held in his warm clasp.

  ‘When?’

  He sighed, frowning down at her fingers in his. ‘Tomorrow.’

  I’ll die! Annys thought. She clutched at his hands and then, ashamed of herself, tried to free them, but he wouldn’t let her.

  ‘Three weeks,’ he said, answering the question she hadn’t asked. ‘I’ve got a job on in the Cook Islands. I have to go, Annys.’

  ‘Of course you do.’ Of course he couldn’t rearrange his life, his work, for her.

  ‘I’ll see you when I come back,’ he told her. ‘Promise.’

  Annys nodded. He seemed to want something more, and she said, ‘I’d like that.’

  Reid smiled then. ‘I can’t wait. You wouldn’t...’ He paused, then dropped her hands and said, ‘No.’

  ‘What?’

  He shook his head. ‘Never mind.’

  ‘You can’t go off for three weeks and leave me wondering what on earth it was you were going to say,’ Annys complained.

  He smiled wryly. ‘I was going to say, you wouldn’t think of getting a place on your own while I’m away, would you? Much as I like your friends, your flat’s short on privacy.’

  Tempted, Annys hesitated a moment before common sense intervened. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t. For one thing, I can’t afford to,’ she added frankly.

  ‘And you wouldn’t let me help, of course,’ he guessed.

  ‘I certainly wouldn’t!’

  ‘Not that sort of girl, Annys?’

  ‘Did you think I was?’ she asked him, slightly shocked.

  Reid shook his head. ‘Not for a minute. I’m not that kind of guy, either. I don’t make a habit of offering to pay the rent for a woman. It wasn’t a love-nest I was thinking of.’

  It crossed her mind that, for all she knew, he had one already, or several. He travelled a good deal, and maybe it would suit him to have a few cosy establishments in his different ports of call.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked her. ‘That’s a very odd look you’re giving me.’

  Embarrassed, she said, ‘I was thinking I don’t know very much about you.’

  ‘Ask.’

  ‘Do you have a family?’

  ‘Sort of. A brother in America. A sister in Perth. I see them occasionally when my work takes me near. Both my parents are dead. They were divorced when I was ten. I stayed with my father, but my younger brother and sister went to live with my mother. Eighteen months later she committed suicide.’

  ‘How awful,’ Annys said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It was hard for my brother and sister. Harder still for my father. He blamed himself, and it haunted him for the rest of his life. Dad died of lung cancer two years back. What about your family?’

  ‘My parents married late and I was their only child. They live in Northland, have done all their lives.’

  ‘They must have missed you when you left home.’

  ‘I suppose, but they wanted me to do well, to go to university. I had to come to Auckland for that.’

  ‘And stayed.’

  ‘Northland has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the country. I had no hope of getting work there.’

  Still holding her hand, he brushed a strand of hair from her face, his fingers lingering on her cheek, shaping the curve of her ear, caressing the line of her neck. When they wandered to her neckline, she moved slightly, and his hand fell away from her.

  ‘You’re a bit wary of me, aren’t you?’

  Annys shook her head. ‘Of course not! Should I be?’

  ‘Not for any reason I can think of,’ he assured her seriously. ‘Can I ask you to show me you’re not?’

  He didn’t need to explain. She put her hands on his shoulders and placed her lips warmly on his. Felt his arms go round her, and then her back was against the wall by the door and his hands touched her breasts through the soft cloth of her sweatshirt. Her mouth clung to his, the taste and scent of him filling her with a wild, desperate longing. One hand clutched a handful of his shirt as though it would steady her, and the other touched his hair, his face, blindly.

  Knowing what she wanted, he shifted his feet and bent her body to his, his hands sliding round to her waist and down, holding her as he went on kissing her.

  Annys made a little sound in her throat, and he lifted his head and whispered, ‘What is it, sweet? Darling?’

  ‘I...n-nothing.’ Her teeth were chattering. She was overwhelmed by sensations that she had never experienced so powerfully before. She felt as though she’d left the ground behind and was floating somewhere among the stars. The strength of her feeling for this man was almost frightening.

  She pushed against him, tentatively, and he eased his hold on her, his lips nuzzling her brow. ‘Annys,’ he said, quietly triumphant, ‘I do believe you want me almost as much as I want you!’

  ‘Probably more,’ she confessed with stark honesty, and he laughed delightedly, breaking the tension.

  ‘Impossible,’ he told her, holding her hands tightly in his. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t consider coming back to my hotel with me?’

  With an effort, Annys shook her head.

  ‘No,’ he said wryly. ‘I thought not. And you’re right. You deserve better.’ He smiled down at her. ‘I won’t rush you, Annys.’

  He’d kissed her quickly then and was gone, leaving her feeling a mixture of regret and relief, shock at herself, and doubt.

  He never wrote when he was away, either before or after they were married. He’d phone her, say, ‘I just wanted to hear your voice. How are you? What have you been doing?’ And he’d talk about the job, the place where he was, the people he worked with. Mostly they were men; she always pictured him among men, poring over plans and blueprints, climbing half-finished structures in hard hats, talking over boardroom tables. Strange, she thought, years later, that with all her own staunchly held ideals of feminism, her belief that men and women were equally capable of doing almost any job in the world, she had imagined Reid’s world as a totally male one. Strange and in hindsight rather stupid. Perhaps, subconsciously she’d been wilfully blinding herself.

  Those three weeks before he came back she seemed to live in a hiatus, a world where nothing was quite real, where she functioned like a robot, insulated from everything about her by a kind of warm shell where she lived alone and waiting.

  And then he was there again, lounging outside the gym when she finished work, and without thought she flew into his arms and they kissed as if they’d been parted for years.

  They had the rest of that day, which they spent picnicking in a park overlooking the harbour, and talking-agreeing and disagreeing on music, politics, personal likes and dislikes. She picked the red and green peppers out of the salad they had bought and he ate them while she decried his taste. They argued about who would have the last of the avocado, and in the end Reid cut it carefully in half.

  He got her to talk about the new designs she was working on, and gave her the name of an Australian firm that might be interested in buying. He knew the manager, he said, writing it down for her. They fed the remains of the picnic to the gulls, pigeons and sparrows, and strolled through the park with his arm about her shoulders, and looked down at the harbour, watching the ferries and a few yachts on the Waitemata.

  Then he had to fly to Wellington. Annys went to the airport with him and watched his flight leave, standing on the observation deck and waving long after the plane was aloft and he couldn’t possibly have seen her any more.

  From Wellington he phoned her ev
ery day, but when he came back ten days later he was on his way out of the country again. ‘Europe,’ he explained when she asked him where to this time. ‘But it’s only a short trip. Just the final check on a job I did last year. I’ve got one night in Auckland, so let’s paint the damn town.’

  He instructed her to put on something glamorous and took her to dinner in style. He looked very handsome in an evening jacket and black tie, and she told him so. He grinned and thanked her, and said she was a stunner herself.

  When he took her home the others had gone to bed or were still out, and for a while they sat on the sofa in the living-room, two cups of coffee forgotten as they went into each other’s arms.

  The coffee was cold when Reid finally tore himself away from her, running a hand over his hair. ‘I haven’t gone in for this sort of thing since I was a teenager,’ he complained, picking up one of the cups and putting it down again with a grimace.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Annys got up and walked away from him, going to fiddle with some photographs on the mantelpiece. She took a deep breath and turned to him, keeping a firm grip on her emotions. ‘I’ll make some more coffee,’ she offered.

  Reid erupted from the sofa. ‘I don’t want coffee!’

  He came over to her, taking her hands in his, and in a softer tone said, ‘You know what I want.’

  Annys stiffened, looking away from him. ‘Yes, I know.’

  He waited, then sighed. ‘I’m rushing you, and I promised I wouldn’t. Sorry.’ He bent and kissed her forehead. ‘By the way, I have a clean bill of health,’ he added. ‘I’m well aware of all the dangers of foreign travel, and I don’t take chances, ever.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Annys said. She looked into his eyes. ‘I don’t want to become involved with someone who... who might not stay around.’

  Reid looked at her shrewdly, and nodded. ‘I don’t hold any records in that department,’ he admitted. ‘But there is something special between us, isn’t there, Annys?’

  ‘There is for me,’ she said.

  ‘For me too. Don’t you believe that?’

  ‘I think I do. I want to.’

  He nodded again, looking down at their linked hands. ‘Fair enough.’ He looked up again. ‘Annys, do you love me?’

  She moistened her lips, part of her protesting, Unfair, he has no right to ask me that. Then she said, ‘Yes.’

  He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her closer. ‘I love you, too,’ he told her, and kissed her almost reverently. Then he eased her away from him, and looked at her with a faintly brooding expression. ‘We’ll work it out,’ he said. ‘When I get back.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Annys hadn’t dared to think how he meant to work it out.

  On his return, finding her alone in the flat, he took her in his arms and kissed her until she was dizzy with delight and mindless with need.

  When he loosened his hold, he kissed her forehead and laid his cheek against her hair and said, ‘I needed that, like a dying man in the desert.’

  ‘Do you want a drink?’ Annys asked, easing herself away from him. She could do with a little distance, some distraction, herself. She found it unsettling, this driving, inexorable emotion that was between them.

  Reid laughed, holding her upper arms a moment before he let her go. ‘What have you got?’

  ‘Gin, whisky, beer. Some wine, I think.’

  ‘Ice?’ he queried. ‘Whisky, then.’

  When she’d got it he sat on the sofa beside her, toying with her hair as they sipped their drinks. ‘Take me to see your parents,’ he suggested. ‘This weekend—I’ll still be here.’

  ‘It’s a three-hour trip.’

  ‘So?’ He grinned. ‘I’ve just come from a thirteen-hour plane ride. And before that I’d barely slept for sixteen hours.’

  He was used to it, of course, but she could see now that he looked strained about the eyes, and under his tan there was a pallor.

  She said, ‘You must be dead!’

  ‘Possibly,’ he agreed. ‘I did think, just now, maybe I’d died and gone to heaven.’

  Annys laughed. ‘Should you be drinking? Isn’t it supposed to aggravate jet lag?’

  ‘Haven’t had jet lag in years,’ he told her. But when he’d had two drinks, and pulled her close to him with her head on his shoulder, he sighed and murmured something into her ear, and fell instantly asleep.

  When her flatmates arrived home he was lying on the sofa with a blanket over him, and Annys met them each at the door with instructions to keep quiet and not disturb him.

  Four hours later he woke and found her curled up in an armchair with a book on her lap. But she wasn’t reading, she was looking at him. The others had left the lounge to them, and she’d turned off the lights except for one table lamp at her side.

  He stretched out a hand to her. ‘Come here.’

  She went immediately, knelt on the floor at his side and kissed him.

  ‘Great way to wake up,’ he told her, when she sank back on to her heels. ‘Sorry I dozed off.’

  ‘Maybe I should be insulted.’ She smiled at him.

  His eyes smiled back. One hand lifted a strand of her hair, watching it fall softly. ‘Are you?’

  Annys shook her head. ‘You were very tired.’

  ‘I’m not tired now,’ he said, putting his hands on either side of her face to draw her down to him.

  Several breathless minutes later she said, ‘No, you’re not!’

  He laughed, sat up and swung her up on to his lap, ‘Are you?’

  Her eyelids flickered down. ‘Not specially. But—’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I know.’ He adjusted a cushion and eased her head down against it, then his hand began a slow, sweet exploration of her body from the rise of her breasts to the slimness of her waist, over hip and thigh and sweeping right down her bare calf to her ankle. On the return journey, he held her eyes with his as his hand slid under her skirt and along her thigh, then down again before she could protest.

  ‘You have lovely legs,’ he said. ‘Gorgeous. Long and firm and strong. I can imagine them...’

  As he stopped abruptly she knew what he’d been going to say, and colour flooded her face.

  He saw it and grinned down at her. Annys made to struggle up, but he bent and put his lips to hers, coaxing hers open, and shifted his legs so that she lay by him, their legs entwined.

  His kisses were languorous, almost lazy, as though he was content to have her close to him as long as she gave him her mouth. But after a time they changed, becoming insistent, passionate, probing. Annys wriggled away from him, slipped from his arms and stood up.

  Immediately he was behind her, wrapping his arms about her, his breath in her hair. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Nowhere. I—just need a minute.’

  ‘OK.’ He nuzzled her ear, rocking her in his arms. ‘Take it.’

  Annys gave an unsteady little laugh. ‘Let me go, Reid.’

  Reluctantly he released her. When she turned, he was sitting on the sofa, one arm thrown across the back of it, his eyes regarding her with a thoughtful air.

  She said, ‘Why did you ask me to take you to see my parents?’

  ‘I’d like to meet them.’

  That didn’t tell her anything. She looked away from him, and he laughed suddenly. ‘Annys,’ he said, and got up to catch her hands in his own. ‘Annys, will you marry me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said instantly.

  She saw the surprise in his eyes, and laughed in her turn. ‘You didn’t expect me to accept?’

  ‘I expected you to want time to think about it.’

  She didn’t need to think about it. The proposal of marriage answered all her doubts. He didn’t want just a convenient mistress, or a temporary, part-time lover. She was important enough for him to commit his future happiness to her. He wanted her as a permanent part of his life.

  And she wanted the same from him.

  Her parents were impressed with Reid, b
ut unhappy when he and Annys broke the news that they wanted to be married before he left on his next trip abroad.

  ‘I’m going to one of the Hawaiian islands,’ he’d told Annys, ‘to advise on the building of a new wing at a resort hotel. I’ll be living in one of their self-contained bungalows near the beach. It’s a great place for a honeymoon, and we could hire the bungalow for a week of holiday before I have to begin work. And when I do, I hope you’ll be waiting for me when I come home, just as you were when I flew back from Europe.’

  As eager as he, Annys overrode her parents’ objections. ‘I’m twenty-four,’ she told them, ‘not a silly teenager being swept off my feet. I know I want to marry Reid; there’s no reason to wait.’

  So confident, she’d been. So sure that a man she barely knew was the one she wanted to live with and love for the rest of her life.

  She had been remarkably naive for her age, the older and wiser Annys decided. In spite of a couple of youthful episodes when she’d been sure her heart was broken, her various boyfriends had made no lasting impression. At university she had been dedicated to her study, and although she’d enjoyed herself in a closeknit group of friends of both sexes she hadn’t wanted to be involved in any one-to-one relationship. She’d seen too many students lose their grip that way, coming to grief on the rocky shoals of starry-eyed romance.

  And then her career plans had taken up most of her energy. Her father had spent all his life in a blue-collar job working for a large company, one of their longest-serving and most diligent staff. And when the company had got into financial straits, he had been made redundant ahead of several younger, newer men. Not ready to retire, he at first had declared his intention of getting another job. But he was already past middle age, and Annys and her mother had watched as discouragement and disillusion prematurely turned him into an old man.