Since You've Been Gone

by Anouska Knight

  “Head further into the woods,” Ciaran called over, “it’ll be drier there.” He’d already picked up his pace when I called an okay back to him. He definitely hadn’t forgotten much from his riding days as I watched him picking his way through the trees. He’d been quiet since we’d packed up the picnic, but I’d run through the conversation twice now and couldn’t think what I’d said to offend him.

  I fell into my stride and began to canter through the woods, gradually gaining on Ciaran. I was watching him as he took his horse deeper into the beech trees, where the ground swept away spaciously between each of the neighbouring trunks. I’d been so busy watching him, trying to keep up with him, that I hadn’t noticed the reaching branch at head height.

  A sudden hot searing lash tore across my face and my horse whinnied beneath me as I cried out. I grabbed at whatever felt embedded in my eye, finding nothing to pull away.

  “Holly!” Ciaran shouted.

  I was panicking; I couldn’t see. Had I hurt myself? As in badly?

  Hooves thudded into the ground next to me.

  “Holly? What happened?” I was trying to rub the grinding ache from my eyes, and felt the soreness cutting a trail across my cheek. “Holly, talk to me!”

  I felt my horse pulled suddenly over towards Ciaran’s voice, then his hands finding their way to the clasp under my chin. I tried to blink against the sting but my eyes wouldn’t open. The hat was pulled free of my head, and the weight of my displaced ponytail slumped against the back of my neck. A cool hand, either side of my face, and then the patter of raindrops on my skin.

  “I think it was a thin branch. I didn’t see,” I said, trying to blink away what felt like a lump of wood stuck in my left eye.

  “You’re not cut. Just relax. Keep blinking. If you’ve scratched your eyes, it’s going to feel uncomfortable for a while but you’ll be okay.”

  I could feel the water already streaming from my eye as my body mechanisms swung into action, trying to rinse any debris from in there. I could tell now that it was mainly my left, with the right eye just doing that solidarity thing that eyes tended to do.

  “That’s it—just keep batting those lashes.”

  I could feel his breath on my cheek. Ciaran still had hold of me, holding my face up to the cooling sensation of rain against my eyelids. Finally, the left blinked open through eyelashes thick with salt water. He was looking straight into them, examining them for damage, and, as the stinging slowly ebbed away, I began to take full advantage of my own chance to look right back into his.

  “That’s it,” he whispered. “I can’t see anything that shouldn’t be there.”

  A familiar warmth began under the spot where his hands still lay against my cheeks, fanning out to where his fingers reached into my hair. Another wave of stinging behind my eye and I shut them tight before it could worsen. I held them like that for a moment, until the burn subsided and the taste of Ciaran’s breath danced over my lips.

  I felt my breathing quicken, then a new warmth moved in against me, delicately pressing a gentle kiss to my mouth.

  I responded to him.

  The tiniest movement, but it was enough, enough to tell him it was okay. Ciaran responded, too, slowly working his lips over mine so that I could taste every edge of them, every softness they had to offer. In the distance, something neighed and shifted under me, and like that, we were broken. Before I opened my eyes again, his fingers slipped from my hair, and the rain began to fall on my face again. Perhaps it had never stopped.

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly as I peeled my eyes open. “I should have asked.”

  I felt myself nodding. My body answering him before my brain had caught up.

  He looked at me, unsure, and then again he pulled my horse closer before his hand found its place again at the back of my neck. He sat there, holding me that way, giving me a fighting chance to say no, but I was ready for him this time, I knew what to do. I leaned into his hand, this time finding the back of his neck, too, slipping my fingers through the hair there and breathing in every drop of the aftershave that clung to him. I saw him lean in this time, watching him draw all the way in before I let him kiss me again. Slowly, sweetly, as though he were opening his favourite present.

  And I kissed him right back.

  * * *

  Neither of us said anything as Ciaran led us slowly through the woods. My eye was still streaming, but that wasn’t the part of my body bothering me. Everything was tingling.

  I know I blushed every single time he checked back on me, but what could I do about that?

  I hadn’t even noticed where we were until Ciaran’s hushed voice broke the sounds of the horses moving through the leaves.

  “Son of a bitch!” he growled.

  chapter 24

  The dense copse of holly right over on the north side of the forest had been Charlie’s favourite area of woodland on account of the holly trees here. Of course, there hadn’t been an enormous Sold sign nailed into one of them when I’d last been there.

  “No! They can’t have sold this off, not yet!” All thoughts of kissing left me as I jumped down from my horse. Even Ciaran looking at me couldn’t curb my sudden need to cry. “They can’t! This was where Charlie wanted to set up the school, so the kids could see the mistle thrushes guarding the berries!” I said, fighting to hold back the tears.

  Ciaran booted a rock on the ground, sending it bouldering angrily over the path. For a property developer, I was surprised by his reaction as he stood glaring at the second sign. Sawyers’ Developments stood boldly in white against its stark teal background. It was an ugly sign.

  “I’m sorry, Holly,” he said, touching my elbow. “Sawyers have a nose for deals like this.”

  “You know them?” I asked, looking at their name again.

  “I know them. No shark grew fatter off us than James Sawyer.”

  “What do they develop? Please don’t say houses.”

  Ciaran blew a large breath away and seemed to look for another rock to kick.

  “I’m sorry, Holly. But there will probably be houses on here within the next few months.”

  I kicked a rock of my own.

  For two years I’d had my head stuck up my own ass, ignoring what was going on around me. I’d done nothing to support the action group campaigning against the sell-offs and now I had absolutely no right to whine about it.

  For the entire journey home, all I could think of was the cost of my long-standing inaction in the woods, interrupted only by my more recent actions in them.

  I’d have felt more awkward had Ciaran not seemed so pissed off next to me.

  “Did Charlie enjoy his work?” he asked, breaking the twenty minutes of silence we’d just shared.

  Ciaran made the turn and we crunched up the track to the farmhouse, wet and fed up.

  “He loved it. Loved everything about it. That’s why we never got round to finishing this place off. We were either disagreeing on paint colours all the time, or working.” So much time wasted.

  “I take it you’d have finished it if you’d had the chance, then?” he said, looking over the steering wheel at our beautiful cottage.

  Even my house had a brave face. Looking at it from out here, no one would ever guess the turmoil the place was in on the inside.

  “I’d need to take a few weeks off to even make a dent on it. I’ll get round to it, one day. The structure’s all sound now. It just needs someone with more of an idea than I have to come up with a decor that works. Would you like to come in for coffee?” I asked, but even to me it sounded paltry.

  “No, thanks. I’ve got to get back. Check Fergal’s not up to mischief.” I smiled at his joke, uncertain of how we should part ways. “I’m sorry about the woodland, Holly. I was having a good time until then. Well, I’m sorry about the b
ranch, too, but what I mean is that there were parts I really enjoyed today.”

  I was fixed by brown eyes again.

  “Me, too.” There, I said it. I had enjoyed today, had enjoyed feeling that way again. “I’m sorry I’m such hard work, Ciaran. I’m just...not used to this. It doesn’t come easily to me.”

  “Shall we have another crack at it? Maybe somewhere less...wooded? Seeing as trees seemed to be our main stumbling block today.” He was smiling, and I couldn’t help mimicking him.

  “That sounds nice, Ciaran. Thanks.” How had I not sent him running yet?

  “Okay, but it’s my turn to choose, right?” he asked.

  “Seems fair.” I winced. “Where were you thinking?”

  “Leave it with me. I’ll call you.” He jumped out of the car and shot round to open my door before running the remnants of the picnic to the house for me. He didn’t make a big deal of the goodbye, which I appreciated.

  “I’ll call you,” he repeated, hovering at my door. A lingering peck on the cheek and he was out of there.

  * * *

  It was strange how the mere act of closing your eyes could help you to see something more clearly. The contours of a person’s mouth, for example, the tender parting of lips. I reached a hand up to feel where those lips had been just an hour ago, to remind my own of the sensation, and was hit by the pungent aroma of horse.

  No wonder Dave had sniffed me to death. I’d thought he was after the food bag. Ugh. I’d leave the coffee until after I’d showered. As soon as I crossed the hall, I could hear the muffled buzz of my mobile where I’d left it on the bed this morning. Oh, no! Today was going to be the day I was about to find out that my poor sister had delivered her own baby on the front lawn because she couldn’t get hold of me!

  I flew up the stairs and into the bedroom, tossing the sweaters aside to see Martha flashing angrily on the screen.

  “Hello? Martha? Hello!”

  “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling you all day!”

  “What’s happened? Are you okay? Have you had the baby?”

  “No, you lunatic. But good to know you’re on hand, Hol.” I started to breathe again. This baby was already giving me heart attacks and it wasn’t even born yet! “Anyway, back to my original question. Where the hell have you been?”

  “Nowhere. Just out,” I panted.

  “Don’t lie to me, Holly Jefferson. I know you’re keeping something from me, and I’m not getting off the phone until you come clean.” I didn’t want to set Martha off on some big misunderstanding about my friendship with Ciaran, a friendship I didn’t understand myself. “How long have you been sneaking around with Ciaran Argyll?”

  His name was sharp in my ear.

  “What? I’m not sneaking around with him. Have you been talking to Jesse?”

  “Oh, so Jesse knows? The whole of the county knows, but I have to guess?”

  “Martha, calm down. The whole of the county does not know anything. There’s nothing to know!”

  “Well, they do now. As of this morning, your picture has been through every letterbox courtesy of the Sunday Journal.”

  “What? The Sunday Journal? What picture?”

  “The picture of you, my sister, slipping into a limo with those Diors in your hands, followed by Ciaran Argyll! That is you, isn’t it? It didn’t look like you at first, wearing a dress, but the shoes in your hands gave you away.”

  “Oh, no, no. Martha, hang on to that paper. We don’t get the Journal here. I’m having a shower then I’ll be over.”

  “Forget that. I’ve been stuck in this house counting stretch marks for weeks. I’ll be there in half an hour.” The phone clicked dead. Twelve calls I’d missed from her. Twelve! I dreaded what the article said. The Journal covered the whole of Hunterstone, and the city—where most of my customers came from.

  I spent most of the time in the shower running through the pictures I’d seen of Ciaran on the Net. Ciaran with a blonde, Ciaran with twins, Ciaran covered in blood with a barefoot woman. I was a statistic. I hadn’t so much as—well, done more than kissed the guy, and I was already the latest in a long line.

  I’d only just stepped from the cubicle when Martha screeched into the yard. She must have been flat out all the way here. She wasn’t even supposed to be driving. I hurried into my room for a quick change, watching Martha waddle comically across the yard like a little plump duck.

  The front door swung open. “Hellooo? Come out, come out wherever you are, lady.”

  I threw on my joggers and an old baseball tee over still wet hair.

  “Hey,” I shouted, bracing myself.

  “Don’t you ‘hey’ me. Who’s been keeping secrets?”

  I walked to the landing and looked down the stairs. She stood in the hallway, one hand on where her hip used to be and the other holding up the paper. “Not now, Dave!” she snapped as I trudged down the stairs. Dave was outsized, and he knew it.

  Opened out to page four, Martha held aloft the half page devoted to a picture seemingly showing two people, mid-escape from some sort of rampage. The headline shouted Prodigal Son on the Verge of Losing Argyll’s Bidding War! And already I had a feeling it wasn’t going to say kind things.

  “You look like Bonnie and Clyde, Hol! What’s going on?”

  I took the paper from her and walked through to the kitchen with it, skimming over the caption beneath the photo.

  “Put the kettle on, Martha.”

  Playboy lout beats hasty retreat with latest squeeze.

  “You’re going to want something stronger than coffee,” Martha uttered.

  “Shhh!”

  The only son of property tycoon Fergal Argyll has plunged Argyll Inc. into yet more hot water after failing to behave himself at his own birthday celebrations. Argyll, who turned thirty last week, was seen leaving the Gold Block, a prestigious Argyll Inc. development in the heart of the city, sporting facial injuries after an altercation with an unidentified bystander. Argyll was reported to have then commandeered a fellow guest’s limo before fleeing the scene with an unknown woman in a state of undress...

  “‘A state of undress’! I was holding my shoes!”

  This comes just weeks after Argyll Inc. were warned in no uncertain terms that their bid on five hundred acres of prime development land was at risk of refusal if the company courted any more bad publicity. The Lux Foundation, current owners of the land situated in close proximity to the government’s latest proposed high-speed rail route, are notoriously thorough in their vetting of potential investors.

  Argyll Inc.’s chief competitor, Sawyers’ Developments, must be ecstatic at Argyll’s latest blunder, which could only serve to strengthen Sawyers’ position in the bidding war. Fiery relations have long been documented between the two rival powerhouses, said to have started when Clara Sawyer, James Sawyer’s daughter, broke off her engagement to the hotheaded Argyll heir. Judging by this photo, we doubt it’s a decision she regrets.

  I was dumbstruck.

  “That’s not right. That’s not...fair,” I said, as Martha sat our mugs between us. “He didn’t do anything wrong that night. He was a complete gentleman.” Martha said nothing. “How can they write that kind of thing when they don’t know?”

  “So he wasn’t involved in a fight?”

  “It wasn’t like that, Martha. There were these guys and—” Martha didn’t need to know this crap. “They were fighting, and he tried to break them up. That’s all. He wasn’t fleeing from anything. He just said that he couldn’t go back inside the party looking like he did—it would court attention.”

  “He’s already done that. What were you doing there in the first place? And dressed to kill, Holly!”

  I told Martha how I’d come to find myself at the Gold Rooms, skirting around any incidence of my
interaction with Ciaran. It was pointless not telling her that he’d stayed over, though. She’d hear it from Jesse at some point. As soon as I’d told her, she didn’t stop grinning.

  “Didn’t you see that you were being photographed?” she asked, still utterly thrilled that Ciaran had been sat at this very breakfast bar.

  “No, I didn’t have a clue. I’d have put the shoes back on.” I smiled.

  “They sound like they’ve really got it in for him, the papers. And to splash it around that he was dumped by the Sawyer girl. That’s harsh.”

  “You’re a fan, Martha. Did you know that he was engaged once?”

  “Not since he’s been on my radar—” she grinned salaciously “—but I only follow the more spirited ones. If he was engaged he must have been a lot quieter back then. Ooh, let’s look her up on Google. What was her name? Cara? Clara?”

  “No! We’re not doing that, Martha. It’s none of our business. The guy’s got enough people poking around in his life.”

  Martha watched me carefully with richly hazel eyes, made prettier still by the length of her lashes.

  “You like him,” she said, burning me with the same look Mum had.

  “No, I don’t!” I retorted. It was possibly the most childish response I could have offered.

  “Fibber. Your cheeks are a dead giveaway.” She smiled. “You’re as red as a berry, Holly. Even your eye is turning pink.”

  “Actually, I poked it on a twig.” I slid from my stool and started to unpack the bag of picnic food on the other side. “Don’t you have a long painful labour to get to, Martha? Don’t let me keep you.”

  She ignored me, moving over to pick at the food as I took it from the bag.

  “So what’s with all the food? You made coleslaw! Uh-oh, and two cups! You’ve been out with someone, haven’t you? You’ve been on a date! Was it him? Was it Ciaran?”