by Dani Atkins
‘I still can’t believe that this… us… has actually happened,’ Jack breathed into my hair.
‘You can’t?’ I questioned, leaning back to see his face.
There was a half-smile on his lips. ‘And yet, I don’t know why. Because I’ve certainly been having some fairly graphic dreams about it for the last few weeks.’
I felt the heat in my cheeks, but I didn’t lower my eyes.
‘Mr Monroe,’ I said, trying to sound like a shocked Austen heroine, which was tricky to pull off when I was pressed against a very firm and obvious part of his body. A part which I couldn’t recollect any character in Miss Austen’s books ever having mentioned.
‘You have no idea,’ he said, nuzzling my neck. The kettle boiled, but we both ignored it. ‘I’m just sorry it’s taken us this long to get here, and that we’ve got so little time together before I leave.’
Suddenly I was very glad that I wasn’t looking at him as he spoke those words. Practicalities and reality hadn’t even begun to pierce the bubble I had happily been floating in for the last twelve hours. Maybe I was just being naïve, but it hadn’t occurred to me that after the night we’d just shared, Jack would still willingly walk out of my life.
‘Can you… can you maybe stay a little longer?’ I tentatively asked the skin just below his collarbone.
‘I wish I could, but it’s just not possible.’
There was a very long pause, when the only sound in the kitchen was the gentle hum of the fridge and my hopes crashing to pieces on the floor.
Very gently, Jack lifted my chin with his hand until I was looking directly into his eyes.
‘This wasn’t just a one-night thing for me, Emma. You do know that, don’t you?’ I nodded dumbly, unsure the path our conversation was taking. ‘We’ll find a way to make this work,’ he promised softly. ‘We’ll still see each other. I can manage to get over here every three months or so, and then we can make arrangements for you to come out and visit me…’
‘A long-distance relationship,’ I said quietly, looking past him at the jewel-bright sunshine razoring through the glass doors, and trying very hard not to let him see the moment when all of my dreams were crushed and shattered by his words. I don’t know what I’d been hoping for, or expecting… No, that’s a lie, I did know what I’d been hoping for, and it definitely hadn’t been a long-distance transatlantic relationship. I had wanted it all: commitment, a promise, a future.
‘I know it’ll be difficult,’ Jack continued, his arms clasped behind my back, ‘but if we both try hard enough, we’ll make something of it.’
I tried a smile, which didn’t feel entirely natural. That there was something real and powerful between us was undeniable. But I was only now starting to realise that we had very different ideas of where it should go next. Jack’s view of the future might have differed from mine, but one thing I could never accuse him of was not being intuitive or being able to read me well enough to know when something was wrong. ‘That’s not going to work, is it? It’s not what you wanted?’
I felt the sharp sting of tears and tried to blink them away, but I had to be honest with him. ‘No. Not exactly.’
He looked sad for the first time that day, and I hated that I was the one who had put that expression on his face. ‘We both knew this could never work out that way. It’s what scared me about ever letting this happen. You have commitments and family that you can’t abandon, and so do I. Perhaps it might have been better if we’d never—’
I silenced him by placing my fingers against his lips. ‘No. Don’t say that. Don’t even think it.’
We smiled sadly at each other, and I fought hard not to let what I was feeling show on my face. There were compelling reasons that kept us on either side of the world, but whose were the most valid? What Jack was offering me was so much more than what he was usually prepared to give, and so much less than what I wanted from him.
‘I don’t want to lose you,’ he said softly, the tenderness in his voice almost my undoing.
‘Then stay,’ I said, knowing how unfair I was being, asking him to leave the daughter he had only recently found.
‘Come with me,’ he countered. I shook my head in denial, even while visions of what could be were flashing through it like glorious excerpts of something you’d been longing to see. ‘We could work something out, Emma. We could. Think about it, seriously, and then…’ he paused and kissed me so expertly that any coherent thought was impossible, ‘… then just say “yes”.’
I loved the intimacy of preparing our breakfast together, loved the fact that he couldn’t walk past me without a brief kiss or a lingering touch, and even from the other side of the kitchen I could feel his eyes on me as I prepared scrambled eggs at the stove and made toast. When our hunger was satisfied, at least for food, I went to tidy up the mess I’d made, but Jack caught my wrist as I passed his chair, easily stopping me.
‘Leave it,’ he instructed, ‘I’ll do it later. Right now I’d much rather do this.’ He got out of his seat, towering above me in my bare feet. Effortlessly he lifted me up and sat me on the edge of the kitchen worktop, evening up our height difference. Jack’s arms slid behind me, as mine wound around his neck. His fingers coiled through my hair, holding me close, as he kissed me with increasing intensity until we were both breathless.
‘I can’t believe we only have four more days together,’ I said regretfully, my lips against the side of his neck.
‘Not even that long,’ he replied sadly. I shifted in his arms and pulled back to see his face. ‘I’ve got meetings scheduled in London over the next two days. I can’t put them off. I’ve booked into a hotel for a couple of nights.’ I must have made a pretty poor job of hiding my disappointment at being robbed of the time I thought we’d have. Jack looked equally unhappy.
‘Come with me,’ he urged suddenly. ‘My meetings won’t take all day, and even if they do’ – his voice dropped in timbre – ‘we’ll still have the nights.’ We shared a secretive intimate look that new lovers the world over would instantly recognise.
‘All right,’ I agreed rashly. Two days and, even more enticingly, two nights, with him? I’d have been a fool to say no.
Jack’s smile took on a new depth as he pulled me closer to him once more. I was lost in our kiss, and the delicious sensations running through me as he slowly began to unbutton my shirt. His hand moved leisurely over my heated flesh, cupping my breast as his fingers found the hardened nipple. I groaned against his mouth, and his answering sound almost obliterated the distant banging noise of someone hammering on the front door.
I froze in his arms, but he didn’t allow me to move back. ‘Ignore it,’ he growled. ‘They’ll go in a minute, it’s probably just the postman or someone.’ His tongue silenced my reply as his mouth returned to mine. The knocking persisted for a minute more, and a tiny voice tried to cut through the red haze of desire to remind me that today was Sunday, and there were no postal deliveries. I ignored both the voice and the impatient rapping sound, concentrating only on the warmth flooding through me as Jack reached under the shirt to pull me closer against the hardness of his body beneath his jeans. The knocking stopped.
‘See. I told you they’d go,’ he murmured.
My hands, which had been fastened upon his arms, reached down to the clasp of his jeans. I caught a fleeting passing shadow in my peripheral vision which, thankfully, stilled my fingers on the zip. The pounding was back, but this time it was much closer, its source now evident from the large angry figure of a man hammering on the glass doors.
Every worst nightmare I have ever had was encapsulated in the next few minutes of my life. Jack and I sprang apart so suddenly that my nakedness was easily visible to the figure standing a few metres away behind the glass doors. My hands were shaking as I hurriedly covered myself with the edges of the open shirt.
‘Why aren’t you answering your fucking phone?’ Richard’s voice was an angry roar, clearly audible even through the doors. Jack was a
lready striding towards them, while I remained in a motionless shocked daze on the worktop.
‘What?’ I said stupidly, when the shock which had robbed me of speech allowed me to talk. Jack was still unlocking the doors as Richard continued to yell at me through them.
‘Your phone, Emma! Where the hell is it? Why aren’t you picking up? I’ve been trying to reach you for hours!’
The click of the releasing lock was lost as Richard torpedoed into the room, not even looking at Jack and heading straight at me like a raging bull. I scrambled off the worktop, still dazed and confused as Richard charged in my direction. He was stopped a metre or so from me by Jack’s hand which fastened menacingly on his arm. Richard turned on him, with matching ferocity. ‘Get your fucking hand off me!’ he spat out.
After a brief and terrifying second, when the whole situation could have rapidly exploded into violence, Jack did as Richard wanted. He did, however, quickly cover the distance between us, ensuring that he could easily intervene if Richard looked as though he intended to hurt me.
But that wasn’t what he was here for, I knew that now. As the numbing terror which had first gripped me began to abate, a cold foreboding ran through my veins.
‘Why haven’t you answered your phone?’ thundered Richard again, almost spitting into my face with fury.
Because it’s still in my bag, which is on the front seat of my car, where I left it last night in my hurry to fall into Jack’s arms and be carried to his bed. That was the reason, though not one I was going to offer him.
‘What’s wrong?’ I fired back at him anxiously, but Richard wasn’t rational or sensible enough to answer me straight away. ‘Your dad is going frantic trying to get hold of you. He thought you’d spent the night with me!’ he said bitterly, throwing an ugly and disgusted look at Jack, before turning back to me. ‘I guess he hadn’t realised you were the type to screw around.’
There was an angry sound and Jack’s hand was back, this time shoving forcefully into Richard’s shoulder, pushing him backwards. ‘That’s enough,’ he said, his voice more terrifying for its low warning note than if he’d been yelling like Richard.
‘What’s this all about? Is it because I didn’t come back last night?’ I felt the guilt spear me like an arrow. It hadn’t even occurred to me at the time to think about my parents and how they would worry when I hadn’t returned. I’d been so selfishly lost in Jack, I simply hadn’t even considered them. I was mortified at my thoughtlessness.
‘It’s not you being missing that’s concerning anyone,’ Richard spat out venomously, ‘it’s your mother.’
There was a moment when no one spoke or said anything. I felt like I was teetering on the edge of an abyss, as the ground beneath my feet began to crumble away. Unthinkingly I reached out to Richard and grabbed the material of his shirt sleeves in both hands.
‘How long has it been?’
He shook his head. ‘No one knows. Your dad woke up at six o’clock this morning and she was already gone.’
I gave a small moan of despair. ‘Where have you looked?’
‘Everywhere. We’ve looked everywhere. We all know the drill.’ I saw him flick a disdainful glance at Jack, who had suddenly become a complete outsider in this unfolding drama. ‘We called the police two hours ago. They’re organising a search.’
My hands left his arms and flew up to cover my mouth. Jack’s shirt gaped open, and I saw Richard’s eyes skim me, a look of raw pain clearly visible on his face. I gripped the garment’s edges tightly in one hand as I spun from him and ran to the hall. ‘I’ll be one minute,’ I shouted as I pounded up the stairs, not really sure which man I was addressing with that remark.
I was half sobbing as I scrabbled beneath the bed, frantically looking for my missing clothes. Jack joined me moments later, pulling me to my feet and handing me the items I’d been desperately searching for. I yanked on the clothing, my mind spiralling through every disaster which could have befallen my lost parent, while all I’d been thinking about was myself.
‘They’ll find her,’ Jack reassured me, holding my shirt out. I grabbed it wordlessly from his hands, and rammed my arms into the sleeves. In far less time than it had taken to get me out of them the night before, I was back in my clothes and racing downstairs, my heels thundering noisily on the wooden treads.
Richard was waiting in the hall beside the open front door, an unreadable look on his face. ‘They’ve set up a control point for the search at the edge of the woods.’
I nodded dumbly, heading towards the open door. Suddenly my steps faltered, as I turned to my former fiancé in panic. ‘Where’s my dad? Is he still at home?’
Richard grabbed hold of my arm and began to propel me outside. ‘No. He’s with some police liaison woman at the search HQ. He refused to stay at home; he said it made him feel useless, that he had to be involved. Your neighbour is waiting at your place in case Frances comes back alone.’
I shook my head again and tried really hard not to cry. Not once, not ever, had she made it back home under her own steam. We’d always had to go out and find her.
‘And the school has been thoroughly checked, because you know how much she likes to go back—’
For the first time there was a look of sympathy in Richard’s eyes. ‘It was the first place I went,’ he assured me. ‘She wasn’t there. But I called the head and some guys from the department and they’ve gone back and they’re going to stay there until… until we find her.’
I looked at him in gratitude. ‘Thank you.’
He shook his head, looking at me as though he’d just seen someone he almost recognised hiding behind a mask. ‘Come on. We’re wasting time here.’ Interesting choice of words. ‘We have to go.’ He began to walk briskly towards his car, which was parked behind mine in Jack’s drive.
Jack. I suddenly turned back to the house. I hadn’t even said goodbye, I’d just walked out. I hesitated, as Richard looked back at me impatiently. He was already beside his car, the door open. I looked back at the house and felt something tearing me clean down the middle. And then Jack was suddenly at the door, pulling it closed behind him. He had put on a sweatshirt and boots and his car keys were in his hand.
‘You’re coming?’ I asked, not realising my voice would come out on a note of such disbelief.
‘Of course, I’m coming,’ he responded, giving me a ghost of a smile which I couldn’t return.
‘Emma!’ Richard’s summons was imperative and urgent.
‘Go,’ urged Jack, as I turned and began to run to my car, ‘I’ll be right behind you.’
I’ve never been involved in a search party before, so I’ve no idea if this was par for the course, but the sheer number of police cars, sniffer dogs and volunteers filled me with despair. Not to mention the helicopter which was already circling overhead. I parked my car haphazardly on a gravelled area with about twenty other vehicles and ran to where Richard was waiting.
‘They’re just beyond the brook,’ he advised, not bothering to slow his speed walk, not that it mattered, I was already running.
‘And Dad?’
‘He’s there too.’ I nodded, trying to pull myself together before I saw him. He would be in pieces and the last thing he needed was for me to be the same.
‘How did you know where to find me?’ I gasped out as we rounded a small copse and the brook came into view.
‘I phoned Caroline. She told me where you’d be. I guess it was inevitable that I’d be the last to know.’
There was nothing I could say, and it wasn’t the time to think about Richard’s shock or his bruised ego. This wasn’t about anything except finding my missing parent, safe and well.
Several makeshift tables had been erected, upon which they’d laid out large ordnance survey maps of the area, held down at the edges by stones to stop them blowing in the wind. Although the sun was out, there was still a sharp coolness to the air from last night’s storm. What had Mum been wearing when she’d walked from her bedroom,
down the stairs and out of the front door? Was she out in these conditions in just her nightwear? Had she pulled on a coat, or was she wandering somewhere lost, barefoot and freezing? How long does it take a person to get hypothermia? Wordlessly I shook my head in denial and raced towards an adjacent police car, from which my father shakily emerged, a bright red blanket draped around his shoulders.
I could see he was crying even before I flung myself into his outstretched arms.
‘Oh Daddy,’ I cried as I fell against him, somehow reverting to the name I hadn’t called him by in over a decade.
‘Emma, Emma, Emma,’ my dad replied, his voice as shaky as the hand which smoothed down my hair as he held me against him. ‘Where is she? Where has she gone? Where’s my Frannie?’ I gently pulled back from his hold and looked at him worriedly. He looked like he’d aged about twenty years since the day before. I glanced over at a kindly-looking uniformed woman waiting beside the police car, who I assumed must be the liaison officer.
‘Now don’t you worry, Bill. I told you, we’re going to find her for you. You just have to trust us. We know what we’re doing here.’
I didn’t doubt her words. I glanced around me and back at the tables and a group of officers, who were listening intently to instructions being delivered by a tall grey-haired man, who I guessed must be the detective in charge. As well as the uniformed officers there were four policemen with sniffer dogs, who were each being passed my mother’s pink cardigan. It was what she’d been wearing the last time I’d seen her. I gave a small helpless gasp as each dog in turn inhaled deeply of her scent and then began to pull vigorously on their leads, anxious for the search to commence.
‘I’m just going to go over and talk to the officer in charge,’ I said to my dad, squeezing his hand.
