by Carys Jones
Amanda pressed down harder on the red cancel button than she needed to. The dull drone of the dial tone replaced the caller’s challenging tone. Staring at the handset, Amanda froze. She hated getting weird calls, especially since she was at home working on her own all day. If she was in an office or something it’d be easier to brush off.
Jake Burton.
The name danced around her mind. No matter how much she wore it out it remained foreign to her. She truly knew no one by that name. Her mind was drifting to the dinner preparations when the phone rang again. The sound was even more piercing when fired straight out of the device which was still in her hand.
Amanda let it ring once. Twice. Her heart started to race. What if it was the weird caller again? What if they weren’t going to take a hint and were intent on harassing her? Would she have to disconnect the landline? Will would be furious. Not at the disconnection of the phone but at someone making Amanda feel like she had to go to such lengths. Will was a traditional alpha male in that sense. He saw Amanda as something he had to protect, something he had to shield from the true ugly nature of the world.
Three rings. Four. Swallowing down a deep breath, Amanda answered. Her hand tightened against the phone.
‘Hello?’
She must have sounded a suitably high level of annoyed as the woman on the other end of the call was instantly apologetic.
‘Oh, Mrs Thorn, I hope this isn’t a bad time. I know I wasn’t supposed to call until tomorrow but was hoping I could just catch you.’
Amanda instantly recognized the voice of Marnie Collins, the head of marketing for Diowater. She wilted with relief against the kitchen counter as around her the air became thick with the rich scent of cooked meat.
‘Oh, hey, Marnie, no this is a good time.’
As Marnie started discussing the changes Amanda had made to the site in her trademark clipped, formal tone, tyres crunched on gravel outside as Will arrived home from work.
Less than a minute later he was pushing open the front door and stepping inside.
‘Yes, uh-huh,’ Amanda was nodding along to the call, raising a hand to silence her husband as he walked into the kitchen to greet her. The T-shirt he was wearing fit tightly against his sculpted chest and he was holding the plastic bag he took to work to keep his lunch in. ‘I’m glad you liked those changes,’ Amanda was saying as she paced once again around the tiles. She was focused on her work call, all thoughts of Jake Burton momentarily banished from her mind.
2
Meeting Will Thorn was like stepping in quicksand. The more you tried to fight against it, the deeper you sunk. Amanda had been in her local DIY store when she first felt the heat of his gaze upon her. In an aisle filled with wrenches and hammers she was doing her best to look like she belonged there. The sink in her apartment’s kitchen was leaking… again. Amanda had lost count of the nights she’d had to fall asleep to its militant dripping sound echoing through her small home like a tinny heartbeat.
Apparently she needed a certain wrench to tighten the base of the tap. And Amanda was determined to not only source the item herself but also fix the problem. She still felt the hole in life where Shane had been, especially in these moments. He wouldn’t have known how to fix the tap; he wasn’t that kind of guy, but together they’d have sussed it out and had fun in the process. Or at least the old versions of themselves would have.
‘You look a little out of your depth.’
Amanda’s head pivoted to look at the handsome stranger standing further down the aisle. He almost completely filled the space between the two display racks. Grinning at her, he ran a hand through his thick dark hair. His body looked so big, so powerful, as though he’d been carved out of stone rather than flesh.
‘Oh, does it show?’ Amanda could feel her lips twinging up into a flirtatious smile, which really wasn’t her style. She was always the shy, nervous girl in the shadowy corner of the dance floor.
‘Maybe I can help?’ the great mass of a man took a step towards her, still smiling kindly. ‘These stores are kind of my comfort zone.’
Each word he spoke was rounded by his warm Scottish accent that had a slightly guttural edge to it. He sounded exotic and welcoming all at once.
‘I’m Will Thorn,’ he extended a large hand to her. ‘I don’t pretend to be some DIY expert. I promise you I’m just offering some honest to goodness help, I’m not some weird billionaire preying on hot women in hardware stores.’
Amanda laughed. The light sound filled the space between them. Had he just made a playful reference to the infamous Fifty Shades? Shane had refused to acknowledge that such books even existed; he was so straight-laced.
‘So you’ve read the book?’ Amanda wondered teasingly, tilting her head to the side and eyeing him with interest.
‘Sorry?’ Will’s eyes crinkled at the corners as his grin widened, revealing a set of perfect white teeth. He was like a lumberjack who moonlighted as a model on the weekends. He was rugged, earthy, yet undeniably handsome. Amanda could feel her cheeks burning up as she laughed again.
‘Or maybe seen the movie?’ she added with a flirtatious bat of her eyelashes.
‘Book, movie,’ Will waved a dismissive hand through the air. ‘I’m just trying to help is all. With no creepy undertone.’
‘You here visiting?’ Amanda had deliberately tucked her chin down and peered up at him coyly through her curtain of blonde hair.
‘No,’ Will took another step towards her, allowing her to breathe in his oaky cologne. ‘I actually just moved to the area.’
A week later they had their first date. Within a month their first sleepover. Being with Will was like being on a rollercoaster that had one speed setting: fast.
*
‘Hey, baby,’ Will carefully whispered his greeting as he entered the kitchen and stooped down when he reached Amanda to plant a soft kiss upon her cheek.
‘That could totally work,’ Amanda was continuing her work call as she flashed him a quick smile. ‘Yeah, I know what you mean.’
Will placed his carrier bag down on the counter and stalked over to the refrigerator. Reaching inside, he plucked out a cooled bottle of beer and removed the cap using nothing more than the strength of his own grip. Amanda had giggled girlishly when he’d first done that trick for her. Being around Will brought out all the characteristics in herself which were normally dormant. He made her feel feminine and elegant whilst with other men she’d always felt gangly and awkward. He made her want to laugh at his jokes and get tangled up in his powerful embrace.
Beer in hand, Will was pointing towards the living room. Amanda could only nod and turn her back on him.
‘A week?’ she was saying into the cordless phone. ‘Yes, that’s doable.’
Half an hour later the couple sat down to have dinner. The French doors to the back garden had been thrown open allowing the heat of the day to filter inside and dance around their ankles as they sat at the small dining table.
Will insisted on always sitting down to eat dinner together.
‘It’s the proper way to eat dinner,’ he’d say stiffly. Shane had been content to sit on the sofa with his dinner in his lap. It was just another way in which the two men couldn’t be more different.
‘How was your day?’ Amanda asked as she used her knife and fork to neatly cut up her steak.
‘Same as ever,’ Will rolled his eyes and reached for his beer.
‘You’re too smart for that place. You should look for a job elsewhere.’ Amanda felt like a record on repeat as she said the words. She noticed Will clench his jaw before drinking deeply from his beer bottle.
‘I’m fine,’ he assured her briskly as he put the bottle down.
‘You’re wasted there,’ Amanda pressed on as they became engaged in their usual dance for the evening. Each move had been rehearsed and committed to memory. The night would either end in the slamming of numerous doors or a passionate union between the sheets. It was a romance forged on stormy seas ra
ther than the tranquil waters Amanda had been used to with Shane. But she liked that. She liked how Will sometimes showed flashes of a powerful passion that made her knees grow weak.
‘We’ve been through this,’ Will growled the words at her. ‘I’m fine there.’
‘You’re wasted there,’ Amanda repeated.
‘But I’m happy.’
‘How can you be?’ Amanda put down her cutlery to stare boldly at her husband. ‘You’re far too smart for the job. You could be doing so much more with your life.’
Shane had been driven. But it was that drive which had ultimately pushed Amanda away. Last she heard he was doing really well at the local precinct, had even made detective.
‘I’m happy with my life,’ Will reached across the table and placed a hand over Amanda’s. She knew from the pressure in his touch that, this time, they were destined to collide together beneath the sheets. Her skin tingled at the prospect. ‘Tell me about your day,’ Will was swift in diverting the conversation away from himself.
‘I’m still on the Diowater project,’ Amanda sighed. ‘And it looks set to go on for a few more weeks yet.’
‘It’s good for your portfolio though, right?’
‘Right,’ Amanda agreed with a nod. ‘As clients go they can just be very… particular.’
‘They have a vision for their brand, I get that.’
‘Yeah,’ Amanda’s mind was still racing from her work call. She already had at least a dozen things to do to the Diowater website the following day. There was a time when she’d have worked late into the evening, while the conversation was still fresh in her mind. But Will insisted on ending their working days at a reasonable time which Amanda didn’t mind, it helped keep things balanced.
‘We don’t want to risk getting burned out,’ he’d say.
‘Anything happen other than work?’ Will pressed.
Amanda pushed her hands through her icy hair, banishing it back over her shoulders. She mentally replayed her day, how she’d gone jogging, done some work, made a few calls. And then paused halfway through discussing her call with Diowater, her eyebrows thoughtfully pulling together.
‘Actually,’ she leaned back in her chair, stretching out her legs beneath the table. The weakening rays of the sun bathed her feet in a pleasant warmth. ‘I got a weird call earlier.’
‘Oh?’ with his plate clear Will drained the last of his beer and swiped the back of his hand across his mouth.
‘It was just a wrong number,’ Amanda rolled her eyes. ‘But pretty annoying.’
‘What did they say?’ an edge crept into Will’s voice. He didn’t like to think of anyone annoying his wife in his absence. He was always so protective of Amanda. He made her feel safe not just because of his size but because of his passionate loyalty too.
‘It was weird,’ Amanda began massaging the back of her neck. ‘Like I said, it was a wrong number. They kept asking for this guy and they wouldn’t listen when I told him they don’t live here. I mean, I think I should know who lives in my own house.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And his accent, the inflection in his voice was kind of similar to yours. I figured maybe he was from Scotland too.’
‘Who did he ask for?’ Will asked the question in a steady tone but a blush was creeping up his neck, making his thick ebony hair and deep-set dark eyes look almost demonic. It was a look which he rarely ever wore.
‘Umm,’ Amanda pulled her lips into a tight line. The name had been right there before. It was still lingering in the house, she should be able to just pluck it out of the surrounding air. ‘Jack… John…’ the Diowater call had pushed the name out of her mind. ‘Does it matter?’ she shrugged.
‘I just wondered that’s all,’ Will’s jaw twitched as his cheeks remained blood-red.
‘I guess I’ve forgotten,’ Amanda began gathering up their plates. She was halfway back towards the kitchen when the name returned to her as sharp and sudden as if she’d just stepped on broken glass.
‘Jake Burton,’ she blurted, not bothering to look back. ‘That was it.’ Stooping down, Amanda loaded the plates and cutlery into the dishwasher. ‘The caller was proper insistent that he lived here,’ she shouted over the sound of the clattering kitchenware. ‘It was pretty creepy.’
‘What did he say exactly?’
Amanda jumped. She hadn’t expected Will to be so close. Normally he dropped down on to the sofa after dinner to catch the evening news or a televised football game. Instead he was standing in the doorway, blocking the way back into the small dining room.
‘He, um…’ she straightened, relishing the cooling sensation of the kitchen tiles beneath her feet. ‘He said he was certain that there was a Jake Burton living here and that I was wrong to think otherwise,’ she was talking quickly, hurriedly relaying the facts.
Will’s expression hardened.
‘It was just a wrong number,’ Amanda said soothingly as she stepped towards him. She pressed her hands against his strong chest. It was as solid as a brick wall. ‘You don’t need to get all jealous,’ she told her husband teasingly.
Will could get frightfully jealous. More than once Amanda had been forced to pull him out of a pub after he threatened to punch out a guy for checking her out. She was pretty certain that he was getting jealous about the call, winding himself up unnecessarily.
‘Don’t stress about it,’ she swept her hands further up his chest. This was usually the moment when he’d cup her waist and spin her around with such power and speed that Amanda felt as light as a feather. She wanted to lose herself in his strength, in his passion. If she didn’t she’d only spend her entire evening fretting over the workload Diowater had given her.
‘What time was the call?’ Instead of scooping her up in his arms Will was staring into space. Both his gaze and his voice were distant.
‘I don’t know,’ Amanda stepped back in annoyance, raising her arms. ‘Just before the Diowater call. Don’t make this a weird jealousy thing, Will.’
She’d stopped feeling flattered by his jealous nature when he’d shouted at Shane in Tesco’s during their first month of marriage. Shane had merely come up to the couple to offer his congratulations, though the smile he wore didn’t extend to his green eyes, which had lost their sparkle in recent years.
‘She’s mine now, bud,’ rage had simmered just beneath Will’s usually composed surface as he came face to face with Amanda’s ex-boyfriend. Shane had been the guy she fell for at university, the guy who had been in her life for years, waiting to be discovered. But as Shane got more drawn towards the police force, he stopped being so enamoured with Amanda’s line of work. Back then she hacked via the darknet to support her studies. She operated outside of the law in the virtual world, and Shane had been okay about that, supportive even. But support turned to judgement and judgement turned to disdain as Shane rose up the ranks within the police force. With every barbed comment or cold look the canyon between the couple widened until it reached a point where neither of them could cross back over to the other.
‘Hey, I was just offering my congratulations,’ Shane had defensively raised his hands. He matched Will in height but like Amanda he looked painfully slight beside him, as though he could disappear in Will’s shadow.
‘Well don’t bother,’ Will’s hands had tightened around the trolley he’d been pushing so that his knuckles were bleached of colour.
‘He’s just being nice,’ Amanda had whispered, trying to avoid Shane’s concerned gaze.
‘He needs to forget about you,’ Will had barked. ‘You’re mine now.’
Amanda blinked away the memory which grew more painful with time. She often reminded herself that they were from different worlds. Will’s life up in Scotland had been so traumatic that he couldn’t even bring himself to talk about it. So she made allowances for him, excused away his temper. But if Will was getting jealous over a wrong number then they had some serious problems.
‘It was just a wrong number,’ she dwelled o
n each word, stretching them out for a beat longer than necessary.
‘Did you tell your little cop boyfriend about it?’ Will snarled.
Amanda’s mouth fell open in shock. Had she told Shane? She’d not spoken to Shane since Will had humiliated her in Tesco’s.
‘Did I tell my ex-boyfriend about a wrong number?’ she almost laughed at the absurdity of the accusation. ‘No, Will. I did not. Jesus, what the hell is wrong with you tonight?’
Will groaned and began massaging his forehead. ‘I’m sorry, baby,’ he stepped forward and reached for her. Amanda allowed herself to be folded into his embrace. The musky scent of sweat and toil still clung to Will. Amanda pressed herself against his chest, breathing him in. ‘I’m just stressed right now,’ he mumbled as he leaned down to kiss the top of her head.
‘It’s okay,’ Amanda closed her eyes contentedly. This was what she’d always wanted; a man who’d come home to her every night. A man who would place her at the top of his list no matter what. And that was Will. He was as loyal and as powerful as a Doberman.
‘Jake Burton, you’re sure that was the name?’ he wondered aloud.
‘Uh-huh. Why?’
‘No reason.’
*
Yawning, Amanda lifted the remote and turned off the television. She was stretched out across the sofa, left alone to watch her favourite shows on Netflix since Will had gone to bed an hour earlier with a headache. She’d been disheartened by his desire to go up early but her sadness had quickly been assuaged when she realised that it meant she could indulge in a Gilmore Girls marathon.
Being the last one to head upstairs meant that it fell to Amanda to check all the doors were securely locked. She wandered into the dining room and pressed down on the white door handles. The double doors remained firmly closed. Outside, the garden glowed beneath the silvery light of a full moon. Stars sparkled like distant diamonds in the tapestry of the night sky. It was a beautiful summer’s evening. Amanda took a moment to dreamily gaze outside at the small strip of green lawn that was slowly succumbing to the burning heat of the summer. No droplets clung to each tiny blade. Will had clearly neglected to water the lawn tonight.
