She covered her ears, squeezing her eyes shut, as if to block it all out. Lucas pulled her towards him, holding her tight. ‘It’s all right. It’s okay, Thea. You’re safe now.’
‘No. I’ll never be safe. You don’t understand.’
Holding her now was too little and too late, but it was all he could do. ‘You did a very brave thing, Thea. I couldn’t have done it.’
‘Yes, you could.’ Her voice was quiet, expressionless again. ‘It’s what you would have done. I told myself that.’
Lucas choked. She’d turned him into some kind of hero, someone to follow and look up to. And in reality he was the worst kind of villain. ‘Dear God, Thea…’
She pulled away from him so that she could see his face. ‘Isn’t it what you would have done?’
Lucas let go of his pride. Without as much as a wave goodbye. ‘I don’t know. It’s easy to say what’s right and wrong now, but in that situation, under that kind of pressure, no one knows what they’d do. All I know is that you did what I would have wanted myself to do. Something that I’d have been proud to have done.’
She stiffened suddenly, pushing him away. ‘No, you wouldn’t. You don’t understand.’
It all seemed shockingly clear in his head. He’d driven her away, and she’d paid the price for it. He should tell her that. Find some way to apologise, even if words were never going to be enough.
Lucas hesitated, and in that moment everything was lost. She slipped away from him, almost running for the front door, tearing at the lock and wrenching it open. Her car was only a few steps across the gravel. She got in, yanking the door closed, and started the engine.
* * *
All Thea wanted to do was to get away from him. If she was alone, she could get everything back under control again. Stop the feelings that threatened to engulf her.
She switched the headlights on and saw him, blinded by the light, standing right in her path. She’d backed the car into the shade of a tree when she’d arrived that morning, and her only way out was forward.
‘Get out of the way, Lucas.’ She muttered the words, smacking her hand on the horn. When he didn’t move, desperation began to claw at her and she wound the window down. ‘I’ll run you down if you don’t move.’
‘Go on, then.’
Perhaps he thought she wouldn’t. She let go of the handbrake and the car slid forward a couple of inches before she slammed her foot on the brake. Perhaps he was right.
He fell to his knees. Not the smartest of things to do, in the path of a car driven by someone frantic with remembered grief and anger and who had nowhere else to run. She pulled the handbrake up as tight as it would go and switched the engine off.
He didn’t move so she got out of the car, the gravel from the drive digging painfully into her bare feet. Walked over to him with as much dignity as she could manage. ‘Lucas, this is crazy.’
‘No. It’s not. I know there’s more. You have to tell someone. And I need to know.’
‘Why?’
He didn’t answer for a moment and she turned away from him. Suddenly he was on his feet.
‘Because it was my fault. I lied to you. I always meant to go to Bangladesh on my own. When you told me that I thought that I had to trash my ideals in order to love someone, you were right. I chose my ideals over you. I never thought you’d put your own career on hold and come with me.’
She’d always wondered. Now that Lucas had said it, it almost came as a relief. ‘You thought wrong, then.’
‘Yes, I did. It’s not your fault that you ended up in that cell. It’s mine.’
‘You’re overestimating yourself, Lucas. You can’t assume that you’re responsible for everything I did since you left. I do have some hand in my own life.’ Hadn’t she been thinking the same as him all along? That if Lucas had been there it would have been different? She wouldn’t have got herself into that mess, or, if she had, he would have been there and helped her out of it.
He didn’t seem to be listening. ‘I won’t let you go this time, Thea. We’re going to go inside and you’ll tell the rest of it. I know there’s more.’
‘It’s of no consequence. Let it go.’
She didn’t really want him to let it go. Didn’t want him to let her go. When he took her hand, she let him lead her into the house. He shut the door on the darkness outside and walked behind her into the sitting room. Then he waited.
It was as if someone else was speaking. Someone who loved and trusted the man sitting beside her. ‘The other workers at the clinic got me a lawyer from Dhaka, a really good man. He found someone to back up my story that Ayesha had run away, and he got me out. Then it started.’ Thea felt herself start to tremble uncontrollably.
‘Okay, sweetheart. Take a breath. Take it slowly.’
He held her hand, counting out the breaths for her. Finally her heart began to stop thumping in her chest.
‘Everyone knew what had happened. The local press were waiting outside the police station, and when I wouldn’t answer any questions they shouted at me. They called me…’ The words stuck in her throat and she started to panic again.
‘Okay. I’ve got the picture. What happened then?’
‘It got worse. When I wouldn’t talk to the press, they spoke to the director of the clinic, and he said that what I’d done was culturally insensitive. They went to town with that and started printing all kinds of lies. That I’d sent her to the city to fend for herself, that I was involved in a prostitution racket even. There were groups of men outside the house, shouting and throwing things. Someone poured…’ She choked on the remembered smell. ‘You don’t want to know what they poured through the kitchen window.’
He was shaking his head in disbelief. ‘And they drove you out.’
‘I wanted to stay and explain, but the director came to the house after about a week. Gave me two hours to pack, and then drove me to Dhaka and put me on a plane.’ She shrugged miserably. ‘Maybe there was nothing to explain. I have no idea what happened to Ayesha. Maybe I just made things worse for her, I’ll never know.’
‘You tried, Thea. You saw a young girl, suffering terribly and you helped her. If the people who bullied you won’t let you be proud of yourself for that, then let me be proud for you. Because I am. More than I can say.’
The sincerity in his voice seemed to drown out all those other voices. She wound her arms around his shoulders, yanking him roughly towards her. She heard his sharp, exhaled breath and then felt him holding her, gently at first and then hard and tight. She knew from the tremble of his body that he was weeping silently.
This was her safe place. It was the one she’d been looking for all this time. It was the place that she could finally cry. When there was no more strength left for tears they just held each other.
‘Did you know that I’m going back?’ Just saying it made it seem a little less challenging.
‘Back? Where?’
‘To Asia. You know that Michael put a condition on my leading the TB team?’
He nodded. ‘I heard something about it. You’re writing a paper on the work.’
‘I’m presenting it. At a conference. It’s in India.’
‘The one in September?’
She’d been trying not to think about it, but suddenly it all seemed real. ‘Maybe I’ll think of a way to get out of it. Break my leg and miss my plane?’ She grinned, but it didn’t seem like much of a joke.
Lucas wasn’t smiling. ‘Maybe you need to go.’
‘Maybe I do. I don’t want to, though.’
‘I’m booked to go to that conference. I don’t have my flights yet so maybe we could travel out there together.’
A faint echo of the last time that she’d hoped to meet Lucas at the airport made her shiver.
But if she couldn’t find an excuse to get out of going, then this actually didn’t seem like too bad an option. At least there would be someone she knew there. ‘Okay. If I go.’
Lucas narrowed his eyes, as if h
e was about to press the point, but seemed to realise that Thea didn’t want to talk any more. ‘Think about it. Where are your jeans?’
‘I left them in Ava’s room when I changed to go out. Why?’
‘Go and put them on.’
CHAPTER TEN
LUCAS, AS USUAL, had managed to get things exactly right. A gesture that was somewhere between spending the night together and letting her go home. He caught her hand and led her across the lawn, which stretched across from the back of both his house and his parents’ house next door.
‘Where are we going?’ she whispered into the darkness. Not that she really cared, she would have gone anywhere with him at this moment.
‘Remember the tree house?’
‘The one that your dad built for you and Sam? That you nearly fell out of that time…’ They’d sneaked outside, at two in the morning, climbed the tree and Lucas had laid a blanket down on the wooden platform. Hidden from view, they’d curled up together, listening to the sounds of the night and the rustle of the leaves over their heads.
‘I didn’t fall; I was trying to get out of the way of your elbows. Anyway, it’s undergone something of an upgrade since then.’
He stopped at the foot of the oak tree, next to a pile of large floor cushions and a box, which he must have carried out there while she’d been upstairs. Lucas tested his weight on the sturdy framework that ran up the side of the trunk, and disappeared up into the branches.
‘Pass me the box.’ His hand appeared, reaching down, and Thea held the box up over her head, feeling him lift it out of her hands. A moment of stillness, there in the dark, and then light glimmered from the branches.
‘Now the rest.’
The cushions were large and unwieldy, but she held them up, feeling him take their weight. Then the bundle that lay beneath them, a throw, wrapped together with a roll-up mattress and a waterproof sheet. Another pause, and then Lucas reappeared, climbing back down.
‘Now you. Can you climb?’
Of course she could, but she let him guide her up the framework of steps just for the sheer pleasure of it. As they got up amongst the branches she could see the platform, still there and now surrounded by sturdy guardrails.
‘Ava uses this in the summer. She and her friends go up there and… I don’t know what they do. Play bridge, probably.’
‘No boys?’
‘No boys. This is a women-only tree. Apart from me, that is.’
‘One rule for her and another for you?’
‘Yep. That’s the way it goes.’ Lucas guided her forward and she climbed over the guardrail, her feet meeting softness. Lucas had spread the mattress over the wooden platform and it was strewn with cushions. Shot silk and gold thread gave a rich, sumptuous feel to the fabrics, and above her head a light glimmered.
‘What is that doing there?’
‘Seemed like the right place for it.’
Not many trees could boast a chandelier suspended in their branches, let alone one that lit up. ‘Suppose so.’
‘We found it in a junk shop. It polished up quite well, don’t you think?’
‘It’s lovely. I like the red sparklies.’ Thea craned up to see where the cable that ran from the top went.
‘There’s a solar panel further up. You just have to hang the chandelier and clip the cable on.’ Lucas guided her over the rails and onto the platform. ‘Make yourself comfortable.’
Thea sat down. The night was still warm, and the twisted branches over her head seemed to curl protectively around her. Nothing could touch her here. The leaves rustled as the breeze caught them and the red glass hanging from the chandelier tinkled. She slipped off her shoes, and stretched out on the cushions.
He levered himself up, and onto the platform next to her. ‘You like it?’
‘I love it. It’s so peaceful up here. It feels like a secret place, where the world can’t find us.’
In the half-light his face seemed even more handsome. The worry lines that creased his brow had softened, and his smile seemed warmer somehow. Lucas reached for her, and she curled into his arms.
* * *
Lucas was dimly aware of the breeze on his face and the sun, somewhere beyond his closed eyelids. And that there was a warm body next to him. He moved on the makeshift nest of cushions, and Thea stirred then settled back into sleep.
He’d thought about this often. He hadn’t reckoned on it ever happening again, and certainly not quite like this, but the warm remembrance of waking up with her had never quite left him. He’d missed the sex but he’d reconciled himself to that loss. Now he realised that the thing he’d really never come to terms with losing was waking up with Thea.
His shoulder ached, and he’d lost the feeling in one arm. Gingerly he slid it out from under her, and she shifted again. Then her eyes opened.
He’d wondered if she might not remember where she was and start to panic. But she just smiled sleepily. ‘Hello.’
‘Hey. All right?’
‘Mmm. It’s nice and warm up here.’ She snuggled against him under the quilt. ‘Are you warm enough?’
‘Yes.’ Lucas curled his legs up to slide his feet under the covers and felt them tangle with hers. Felt her toes brush against his.
‘Ow. Your feet are freezing!’ He felt her foot rub against his. ‘I’ll warm them up.’
He found himself laughing quietly, at the pure joy of it all. He hadn’t quite meant for them to finish up like this but, then, he hadn’t meant for them not to either. All he’d known last night had been that she shouldn’t be alone, that she’d needed a friend and not a lover. And this old tree had been a place of refuge for him all his life.
‘What’s the time?’ Her fingers curled around his wrist, and he moved his arm so she could see his wristwatch. Such a little thing, but one of the many little things he remembered her doing when they’d been together. Lucas’s heart almost exploded out of his chest.
‘It’s early. Seven o’clock.’ She put his arm back where she’d found it.
‘We’re okay for another couple of hours, then. Ava never surfaces before ten on a Sunday and Mum and Dad like a lie-in too.’
‘So they won’t catch us here.’
‘No. No one’ll catch us. Go back to sleep. I’ll go and get some coffee.’
She laughed sleepily. ‘Bet you spill it, climbing back up again.’
‘You want coffee up here?’ Lucas had intended to set the table in the kitchen and cook breakfast for her.
‘Of course I do.’
‘Then I’ll just have to be careful, won’t I?’ Lucas untangled himself from her limbs, tucking the quilt around her, and found his shoes. While the coffee was brewing, he’d find the booking form for that conference in India and put it in his briefcase. He’d need to get that off on Monday morning if he was to be sure of a place.
* * *
Fresh coffee and warm croissants, in a tree, on a warm, bright Sunday morning. And Lucas to shake her gently awake again. If that wasn’t heaven, Thea didn’t know what was.
She sat up on the cushions they’d slept on, straightened her T-shirt and ran her fingers through her hair, almost expecting to find it tumbling down her back, the way it once had.
‘When did you cut your hair?’ He was watching her thoughtfully.
‘When I got back from Bangladesh. Do you hate it?’
‘No. I hate the reason you cut it. I hate the reason that you wear grey all the time when red suits you better.’
‘I wore red last night.’
‘Yeah. Do you regret that?’
She knew what he was asking, and it wasn’t about the dress. ‘No. I don’t regret one minute of last night.’
‘Me neither.’ He flopped back onto the cushions, surveying the branches above his head.
‘What’s that?’ Lucas had changed his creased shirt for a T-shirt when he’d gone to make the coffee. She could see a thin blue line tracing out from under one of the sleeves.
He grinned. ‘I indulge
d in a little body art. While you weren’t looking.’
‘How many?’ Thea bit back the temptation to ask where. That might well turn into something she couldn’t handle at the moment.
‘Two. Both here.’ He laid his hand on the top of his arm.
She breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Well, what is it, then? An anchor? Sea serpents? Let’s see it.’
He sat up and pulled at the sleeve of his T-shirt. ‘That’s really nice.’ Thea didn’t usually go for tattoos, but this one was tasteful and understated. A curved design, with roman numerals in the centre. She ran one finger across them and felt the muscle flex at her touch.
‘Is that a date?’
‘Fifteenth of May. It’s Ava’s birthday. When I first adopted her, she tested me, all the time. Wanted to know that I wasn’t going anywhere. One of the things that she threw at me was that I’d forgotten her birthday the previous year and turned up with a present a week late. I promised I wouldn’t do that again, but she said that was easy to say.’
‘So you had her birthday tattooed on your arm.’
‘Seemed like an idea at the time. Of course, I hadn’t reckoned on her wanting one too. She was only seven.’
Thea choked with laughter. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said that tattoos were for adults. If she wanted one when she was eighteen…’
‘You’d still say no.’
‘Yeah. Something like that.’
‘I think that’s really sweet of you. Any girl would love a gesture like that. Where’s the other one?’
He ran his finger across the top of the design, birds twisted together in flight, and Thea caught her breath. ‘That part’s separate?’
Lucas nodded, watching her face.
‘They look like swifts.’
He grinned. ‘Remember lying on our backs in that field in France, watching them fly?’
That had been when they’d had plans and dreams. When reaching for the freedom of the sky hadn’t seemed impossible. ‘I haven’t thought about that in years.’
‘It’s a reminder. Of that time. Of you.’
She stared at him. On one level this was the sweetest, nicest gesture she could think of. On another it meant the ultimate sadness. There was a sort of finality about it, as if what they’d had only existed in a past that was locked away now. Something dead that could only be commemorated.
Daring to Date Her Ex Page 9
