A Special Kind of Woman

by Caroline Anderson

  Cait turned the lock on the door and eyed him blatantly, disguising her sudden confusion with a jokey appraisal of his body. ‘Mmm. Those shoulders could be a problem,’ she teased, and he smiled.

  ‘Ah, well. Never mind the gown, I’ll settle for a coffee.’

  A coffee. She had tea, she had hot chocolate. Coffee she was out of—and the kitchen looked as if a bomb had gone off in it. ‘Um—’ she flannelled, but he cut her off.

  ‘I’ve got the day off. I just called on spec because I thought you’d be in, but—as you’re shut—maybe we could go out—if you’d like to, that is, or you’ve got time?’

  ‘Out?’ she said blankly, and could have kicked herself for sounding so vacant.

  ‘Out—you know, maybe to the seaside or a craft centre or something? I don’t know. Whatever you fancy.’

  He sounded a little lost, and she tipped her head on one side and studied him thoughtfully. ‘You miss him, don’t you?’

  Owen’s mouth kicked up at the side and he gave a short huff of laughter. ‘Rumbled,’ he said wryly, and searched her face. ‘How about you?’

  Cait shrugged. ‘It seems very odd. She’s rung me a couple of times, when she’s been able to fit it in—they seem to do nothing but go from one party to another. I can’t get her on her room phone at all.’

  ‘Ditto. Josh says the medics really know how to party. I don’t think he’s been to bed for more than a hour at a time for the last week and a half.’ He shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. ‘So—fancy playing hookey?’

  Her mouth tipped in a slow smile. ‘Do I ever,’ she said with feeling. ‘I have an essay to finish for tonight for my Law evening class, I have to put that wedding dress together now she’s had a fitting, and the place is a tip. Oh, yes, I fancy playing hookey—in capitals!’

  He laughed. ‘Let’s go, then.’

  ‘I need to change,’ she said, eyeing his suit, but he shook his head.

  ‘No. You’re fine. I wish I was wearing something less formal. I hate suits.’

  ‘So why did you put it on?’ she asked, puzzled.

  ‘Because my day off was unscheduled. They had to close my theatre because of staff shortages, so my list was cancelled at the last minute. I suppose we could go via my house and I could change. How long can you spare?’

  Cait thought of everything she had to do, and then thought of the rest of her life spent doing just that, and smiled defiantly. ‘As long as you like.’

  He nodded, a smile hovering in his eyes. ‘OK. We’ll go via mine and I’ll change. You can meet the dogs then—are you all right with dogs?’

  ‘I love dogs,’ she told him. ‘I just can’t have one in the flat. The garden’s tiny and it’s not really fair when I’m at work all day, even if it is just downstairs.’

  Owen pulled a thoughtful face and nodded again, slowly. ‘I agree. I didn’t know what to do about mine when Jill died, but I think they’d probably rather stay with me and put up with my long hours at work than be rehomed, and anyway, I’d miss them. Still, I have a home help who comes in every day for a couple of hours, so it’s not too bad.’

  Every day, Cait thought enviously. She’d give her eye teeth for someone to come and run a vacuum over the flat once a month, never mind every day. She kept the shop immaculate, but the flat always seemed to run away with her. Ah, well.

  ‘What do I need?’ she asked, and he shrugged.

  ‘Coat? Shoes for walking if you fancy walking, or not if you don’t. Nothing much.’

  She nodded. ‘Give me five seconds and I’ll be back,’ she said, and then threw over her shoulder as she headed for the door marked PRIVATE, ‘You could pick out your ball gown while you’re waiting!’

  She ran up to the flat, apologised to Bagpuss for deserting her and dithered for a moment over her make-up. No, too obvious, she decided, and grabbed a coat and her trainers and bag and ran back down.

  ‘I thought this one,’ he said, holding up a few strips of gold held together with imagination. It was an outrageous gown and just the thought of Owen in it made her lips twitch.

  She shook her head. ‘No. You need a bigger bust to carry it off,’ she told him, deadpan.

  He hung it up again, pulling a regretful face, and she laughed.

  ‘Ah, poor baby,’ she teased, and his mouth quirked.

  ‘You’re a hard woman—I’m sure my bust is big enough for that dress.’

  ‘You’d have to wax your chest, though,’ she pointed out wickedly, and he winced.

  ‘Perhaps not, then. I’ll stick to the DJ.’

  ‘Might be safer.’

  Cait locked the shop behind them, and he settled her into the luxury of the passenger seat before going round and sliding behind the wheel. The car purred to life and slid out seamlessly into the traffic, and she settled back against the seat and allowed herself to be pampered.

  Soft music flowed around them, and as he drove they chatted about this and that. He was so easy to talk to, she thought, with his teasing sense of humour and his ready wit, but there was so much more to him, such depth and breadth and a wonderful human warmth that drew her like a moth to a flame.

  Don’t start having fantasies about him, she warned herself, but it was pointless. Every moment in his company she felt herself drawn closer to him, and by the time they arrived at his house she knew she was in deep trouble.

  For the first time in her life, she realised, she was in serious danger of falling in love. Not lust, not a teenage crush or the hopeful dreams of a lonely young mother, but love.

  And only a fool would allow herself to fall in love with a man who was so clearly out of reach.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  IT WAS a wonderful house. Snuggled into the side of a hill off a winding country lane, the old half-timbered barn looked out over the gently rolling farmland to the woods on the far side.

  Autumn colour was just beginning to touch the leaves, and Cait guessed that in a few weeks the blaze of colour would be spectacular. In between, the land was freshly ploughed, the turned earth like rich, dark chocolate, and in the distance she could see a tractor moving slowly across a field, seagulls swooping and fluttering in its wake like the tail of a kite.

  She breathed deeply of the fresh country air and thought of Josh and Milly stuck in the middle of London, surrounded by all those fumes, and she wanted to cry for them.

  Owen opened the door and held out an arm to her, beckoning her inside with a smile. ‘Come on in—dogs, get down!’ he said, and the dogs subsided, wagging round them both and sniffing her with interest. ‘They’re just checking you out, they won’t hurt you,’ he told her, not that she needed reassuring. She guessed she was more in danger of being licked to death. ‘This one’s Daisy, the other one’s Jess. Say hello nicely, girls.’

  Cait looked at them, identical chocolate Labradors, and wondered how on earth he could tell the difference.

  ‘Different collars,’ he explained, reading her mind, and she laughed and patted them, introducing herself and trying to learn the difference, and then she straightened up and saw the interior of the barn, and fell in love all over again.

  ‘Oh, wow,’ she said softly, her breath almost taken away. They were in a lobby near one end, and through the open doorway she could see a wonderfully cosy sitting room at the end nearest her, and then beyond an open studwork partition the dining room soaring to the roof, with huge windows on both sides stretching up to the eaves.

  A massive stove squatted between the two rooms, a gleaming stainless steel stovepipe emerging from the top of it and stretching up towards the roof. At the far end of the dining room two steps rose to the kitchen, with more open studwork to divide it from the central area.

  ‘Come on in,’ he said.

  She followed Owen through the cosy and inviting sitting room into the central dining room, and tilting her head back she looked up into the great beamed vault of the roof. The ends were divided off with closed studwork, the beams still visible, s
o that over the kitchen and sitting room were two rooms, presumably bedrooms, and between them a walkway was suspended from the tie beams by steel rods, accessed by a sweeping spiral staircase in gleaming steel.

  It was a fascinating mix of ancient and modern—sort of high tech meets country, Cait thought, and then she moved her head and caught a glimpse of the view through the wall of glass, and she was spellbound.

  ‘Oh, it’s gorgeous!’ she said with feeling.

  ‘You like it?’ he asked, sounding curiously vulnerable. She turned to him in amazement.

  ‘Like it? It’s wonderful! Of course I like it!’

  ‘Not everybody does. Bit rustic. Jill wouldn’t have liked it—she used to say she couldn’t understand why anyone would want to live in a shed.’

  Hence the vulnerability. Oh, yipes.

  ‘Maybe it wasn’t her kind of thing,’ she said carefully, anxious not to criticise the dead woman. ‘It might be a bit…informal for some tastes.’

  Owen nodded. ‘She liked order and everything in its place. We had a big Victorian house in the town before—formal and elegant and no surprises—and for all she loved them to bits, the dogs weren’t allowed out of the kitchen and breakfast areas.’

  ‘And now I suppose they sleep on your bed,’ she teased.

  He laughed softly. ‘No. Just the settees. It’s a bit hard to stop them when there isn’t a door to close, but I don’t care. It’s not a showpiece, it’s a home.’

  ‘I think it’s gorgeous,’ she said, wondering how to ask him to show her round and unable to say the words. She didn’t know him well enough, and it was such an intrusion.

  ‘You want a guided tour?’

  She pulled a wry face. ‘I’m sorry. Is it so obvious?’

  Owen laughed. ‘Don’t worry. I know what it’s like. I love looking at other people’s houses. It’s so revealing.’

  Thank goodness I didn’t let him up into the flat this morning, then, she thought with a bubble of hysterical laughter threatening. Revealing wasn’t in it. He would have run a mile!

  He took her through the ground floor first, back past the front door in the lobby and through to a pair of bedrooms each with doors out to the garden and their own shower room just next to them. ‘Josh has this bit of the house,’ he explained, but it was self-evident in the posters and clutter and general abundance of teenage gear, even without all the things he’d taken away.

  ‘What a good idea,’ she said, regretting the smallness of her flat. ‘It must be more peaceful. Milly’s music drives me potty.’

  He laughed. ‘Ditto. The house isn’t very good at being soundproof with all the open studwork. This way I didn’t have to listen to his dreadful choice in music.’

  They retraced their footsteps back through the sitting room and dining room and into the kitchen. While Cait looked round enviously at all the cupboards and conjured with the very thought of having enough room for a central work island, he put the kettle on the Aga and gave her a quick glance at the pantry and utility room, then he led her up the staircase to the bedrooms.

  ‘This is the spare room,’ he said, taking her along the walkway to the one over the sitting room.

  ‘Oh, it’s huge!’ Cait said, looking round at the four-poster bed nestled under the roof, with the window opposite so you could lie in bed in the morning and look at the woods and the fields and wallow in the beauty of it all.

  ‘Why don’t you sleep in here?’ she asked, sticking her head round the door of the en suite bathroom. ‘It’s gorgeous.’

  ‘I know. It’s a lovely room and it’s got a fabulous view, but I prefer the other one. It’s over the Aga and it’s warmer, and it’s got a funny door. It just appeals to me.’

  She followed him back down the walkway to the other room, and he pointed out the door that was cut along the top to fit the contours of the beam. She had to duck to clear the beam, and climb three little steps, and then they were in his bedroom.

  The bed was huge, and yet it seemed scarcely big enough for the vast expanse of space. A row of doors in aged oak led to the little shower room, the loo and the walk-in wardrobe down one side, and on the other was a window criss-crossed with beams, looking out over the valley again.

  Owen glanced round and rubbed his chin ruefully. ‘I’m sorry, it’s not exactly tidy. Mrs Poole doesn’t arrive until eleven and I left in a bit of a hurry this morning, so I didn’t make the bed.’

  ‘Don’t apologise—I didn’t make mine, either,’ she said with a laugh, but her eye was drawn to the tousled quilt and the dented pillow, and she felt a shiver of hot and cold run over her. Suddenly the enormous room seemed tiny and Owen seemed very, very close—scarily close, and extremely male.

  I’m going to make a fool of myself, Cait thought, but then a noise caught her attention, a high-pitched whistle, and he turned towards the door.

  ‘The kettle’s boiling,’ he said. ‘Mind your head on the way out.’

  ‘Why don’t I go and take it off while you change?’ she suggested, and he turned on the steps and bumped into her, reaching up to steady her.

  Their eyes locked, and Cait couldn’t breathe. Oh, lord, now what? she thought, but he seemed to pull himself together visibly. ‘Good idea,’ he said, and stepped back, knocking his head on a beam behind him.

  He ducked and swore softly, and Cait made her escape down the stairs to the kitchen, stifling a chuckle.

  The dogs were bracketing the Aga, and she stepped over them to remove the kettle. ‘I hope you really are friendly,’ she said, and they thumped their tails and grinned at her. ‘I take it that’s a yes.’

  ‘Coffee’s in the cupboard next to the Aga,’ Owen called down. ‘Instant or real—take your pick. There are teabags, too. The fridge is in the corner.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she called back, suddenly aware of how close he was and what he was doing. Excitement tingled along her veins, and she tried not to think about him changing his clothes so very close to her. She could hear the odd clonk that was probably shoes coming off or going on, and drawers and doors opening and shutting, and the slight creak of the bed as he sat on it.

  There had been a towel draped over the end of the bed, but she hadn’t noticed any pyjamas lying around. Did that mean he slept naked? Heat shimmered over her skin, and she slapped her wrist.

  ‘Cait, behave,’ she told herself fiercely. ‘It’s none of your business.’

  But she wanted it to be. For the first time in her adult life, she really, really wanted to develop a relationship with a man—this man, this funny, sensitive, generous man with eyes like molten toffee and lips she was aching to kiss…

  Owen sat on the edge of the bed and sighed. He was going to make an idiot of himself over her, just because she was warm and gentle and funny and seemed totally unaware of how lovely she was.

  He’d nearly kissed her when he’d turned on the steps and bumped into her, and her mouth had been just there in front of his, soft and slightly parted with surprise, and the longing had hit him like a thunderbolt.

  Then he’d leapt out of the way and crowned himself on that beam, and she’d run down to the kitchen, no doubt splitting her sides laughing at him.

  He rubbed the back of his head ruefully and sighed again. Damn. He had a bruise. Oh, well, it would serve him right—remind him not to make an idiot of himself. Or at least a worse idiot than he already had. He tugged on his jeans and a thick rugby shirt, pulled a sweater out of the drawer and put on his comfortable old shoes, then ran down to the kitchen.

  ‘What did you make?’ he asked, but she just smiled that lovely wide smile and shook her head, and heat slammed through him.

  ‘Nothing. I didn’t know what you’d want. I’ll make it now, if you like.’

  Suddenly the kitchen seemed terribly small and intimate, and with nobody else around to dilute the atmosphere he could hardly breathe. Plus any minute now Mrs Poole would be here, and he couldn’t cope with her insatiable curiosity. ‘Let’s go out,’ he suggested rapidly. ‘W
e’ll get coffee somewhere—unless you’d rather not?’

  She shook her head again. ‘I don’t mind. Whatever.’

  ‘We’ll go out,’ he said, more firmly, and headed for the door.

  Was it something she’d said? Owen seemed preoccupied and uncomfortable, and Cait wondered if it was because she’d said she liked the barn and reminded him about his wife.

  Had he taken her remarks as a criticism? Surely not—she’d only said she liked the house, but maybe he felt guilty because he liked it, too, and if Jill wouldn’t have done—oh, it was hopeless. She couldn’t work it out, she didn’t know enough about him, so she sat quietly beside him as he drove across to the coast, and they walked along the front at Aldeburgh in the keen October wind, and when their fingers and noses were frozen they took refuge in a hotel bar for coffee.

  He seemed more relaxed now, and so she found herself able to relax and enjoy his company. He was very easy to talk to, and after a while she found herself talking about Milly.

  ‘I was so worried about how she’d cope, but she seems to be having loads of fun. Partying till dawn, by all accounts. I don’t know, I never had so much fun when I was her age—well, of course I didn’t, because I had her running around underfoot all day and night.’

  He studied her thoughtfully over his coffee cup. ‘You must have been very young when you had her,’ he said in a gentle voice totally devoid of criticism. ‘It must have been hard.’

  ‘It was. I was seventeen—just. My parents were in the throes of splitting up, my boyfriend’s parents had split up—we were in the same boat, really, and I suppose we just turned to each other for comfort. Anyway, when I found I was pregnant my parents went off at the deep end and threw me out, and he was sent away to sixth-form college, and that was the end of that. He wrote for a while, but he never sees her and he’s living abroad so I don’t get any financial help from him. I never have had—well, that’s not quite true. He sent her a cheque for a hundred pounds for her eighteenth birthday and she gave it to me because she said she didn’t want it and my car needed servicing.’