Summer Madness

by Susan Lewis

  ‘There’s not a whole lot of room on board, ma’am,’ one of the ground staff shouted over the noise of the engines, making her jump as he broke into her thoughts. ‘Would you like to store your hand baggage in the hold?’

  Louisa looked at the man in his bulky headphones and leather jacket and wanted desperately to say no, she would rather turn right around and go back into the airport. ‘Thank you,’ she said, handing it over. Then turning to look at the great blazing orange ball of the sun as it sank down over the Pacific she said, ‘Do you have a lot of sunsets like this?’

  ‘We sure do, ma’am,’ the man answered. ‘Would you like to step aboard now.’

  It seemed only minutes later that the aircraft was taxiing down the runway, soaring outwards and upwards as though to shave the curved edge from the dazzling, melting crescent of the sun and carrying her relentlessly, inexorably towards a city she now never wanted to see.

  This all felt so horribly wrong that she wished she could wake up and find out it was all just a nightmare. What on earth was he going to think? That she was insane was probably the best she could hope for. Whatever, he obviously wasn’t going to be pleased because if he’d wanted to see her he’d have told her. In fact, what he’d told her was that he didn’t want to see her. So what was the matter with her? Did she really have to have it spelled out this way?

  The grinding nerves in her stomach intensified as she reminded herself that she had to give this a try, if only because she had to satisfy herself that she had done everything in her power to give them a chance. And if he turned her away then at least she would know that she really was wasting her time to go on hoping. And she must stop asking herself what kind of self-respecting woman went chasing after a man this way, because she knew that it was a woman who felt the man was worth fighting for. The maddening thing was that it had all seemed so easy when she was just talking about it, doing it was another thing altogether.

  Her brown eyes were wide and anxious as she stared out at the darkening night sky. Each passing mile seemed to be draining her confidence, dissipating it, shredding it like the propellers breaking up the meandering drifts of cloud. She fought hard to keep it locked firmly inside her, but there were so many doubts, so much misgiving and apprehension that by the time the plane swooped down over San Diego she knew her nerve had failed her completely. She felt pathetic and angry as she pressed her way through the crowds in the arrival hall, thankful only for the fact that no one could see her shame. She collected her luggage and made her way to the exit, thankful for one other thing – that in this country that suddenly felt so foreign at least everything was in English. Catching a quick glimpse of her reflection she almost wanted to laugh. Her tawny hair fell softly over one cheek, the fine bones of her face, her slender neck, the black sweater and leggings she’d chosen for comfort, all gave out an elegance and poise that she was so very far from feeling. Then pushing hurriedly out through the big glass doors she discarded the faint hope that Sarah might have called him to tell him she was on her way. If Sarah had, he hadn’t responded.

  In less than half an hour a taxi delivered her to the hotel in La Jolla, a district of San Diego that appeared as resplendent in bright white Spanish style buildings, glittering lights and gently swaying palms as it did in wealth. Though she didn’t know where exactly La Jolla was in relation to Rancho Santa Fe where Jake lived Sarah had told her that it wasn’t far. But it didn’t matter how far it was, she was quite resolved now that she was going to save them both the embarrassment of calling him.

  Before getting into bed she picked up the phone and dialled Sarah’s number. Maybe Sarah would say something to help pull her out of this jungle of indecision and misgiving.

  ‘Hi, where are you?’ Sarah said.

  ‘At the hotel in La Jolla.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  Louisa frowned. For some reason Sarah sounded disturbed by that.

  ‘Have you called him yet?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘No. I don’t think I’m going to.’

  ‘Oh,’ Sarah said.

  Louisa’s heart turned over at the flatness of Sarah’s tone. She’d felt sure that Sarah was going to encourage her to call, but it seemed that Sarah had undergone a change of heart too.

  ‘When did you get there?’ Sarah said.

  ‘About an hour ago. Sarah, I really wish I hadn’t done this now. It feels all wrong. But I just can’t reconcile myself to coming all the way home again without calling. Tell me what I should do. For God’s sake tell me what I should do!’

  ‘Oh shit,’ Sarah groaned. ‘I wish I was there with you.’

  ‘I wish you were too.’

  Sarah took a breath, then very gently she said, ‘Louisa, I have to tell you this … He knows you’re there.’

  Louisa’s eyes closed as her heart folded around the cruel rejection Sarah’s words had conjured. ‘What do you mean?’ she whispered. ‘How does he know?’

  ‘I called him just after you left in the hope he might come to meet you at the airport.’

  ‘I see,’ Louisa said, her eyes moving sightlessly over the heavy, brocaded curtains. This couldn’t be happening. Sarah hadn’t done that. He couldn’t know she was there, please God, he couldn’t. ‘Well, I guess I know now what I came to find out,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Sarah said miserably. ‘I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing, but Morandi thought it might go better for you if Jake had some warning that you were coming. Oh God, Louisa, I’ve ruined it for you now and you’re such a long way away …’

  ‘No, you haven’t ruined it,’ Louisa told her, wanting so desperately to see him now that it was consuming every part of her. He knew she was there and he hadn’t come! ‘What you’ve done is given him the choice of whether or not he wants to see me.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Book myself on the first flight out tomorrow.’

  There was a pause before Sarah spoke again. ‘Maybe you should try calling him anyway,’ she said. ‘He might feel differently once he hears your voice.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Louisa answered. ‘I’m going to ring off now, I’ll call you again with my flight details. Can you pick me up from Heathrow?’

  ‘Of course.’

  After calling the front desk to reserve her flights Louisa lay down on the bed, hugging herself and trying to contain the crying ache inside her. It felt so much worse now that they were in the same city, so much more vital now that she knew it wasn’t possible. It was so bad she could hardly bear it. She could sense his anger at what she had done as though it were there in the room, stealing through her as unrelentingly as the pain of the rejection. She felt such a fool, such an intruder in a city that was his. It was where he belonged with Antonia and his father – and his memories of Martina. What they had shared in France belonged to that one isolated summer and she had no right to trespass beyond it. He had told her so many times that there was no future for them and she’d sworn, even to herself, that she believed him. But of course, she hadn’t, if she had she wouldn’t be here now, putting herself through such unnecessary pain and humiliation.

  The night passed in a blur of misery and fury at her own stupidity, all she wanted was to be on a plane back to London, to be as far away from him as she could get.

  Her breakfast was served on the wrought-iron balcony overlooking the incredible blue Pacific. She had no appetite so leaning her elbows on the balustrade she cupped her face in her hands and stared out at the faint grey smudge of pollution on the horizon. The gentle ocean breeze carried the flowery scent of the gardens below and the distant sound of traffic. She could hardly bear any of it as the need to know what he was doing, where he was in this city she would never see, lapped over her heart like the waves lapping the shore.

  An hour later she called down to reception for someone to come and collect her bags. When they’d gone she stood staring at the phone. Its silence throughout the night had told her all she needed to know, but still she
was asking herself if she could really have come all this way just to turn around and go back? It seemed insane, more insane than having come here in the first place. And quite suddenly, without giving herself time to think, she took his number from her bag and dialled it. A man’s voice, not Jake’s, answered after the second ring.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Could I speak to Jake Mallory please?’

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ the voice answered, ‘he’s not at home right now. Can I give him a message?’

  ‘No, no message,’ she said and with her heart pounding through her ears she hung up. She guessed that he was probably there, that he had told whoever answered the phone to say he wasn’t at home. For one terrible moment she wanted to scream, to lash out at him and tell him how much she hated him for making her behave like this. Seeing his number in her diary she picked up a pen and scored thick black lines across it. If only it were so easy to blot him from her life. But she would, she’d have to now – and, feeling a bitter resistance to the comfort she tried to draw from the fact that there could no longer be any wasted hours of hope or futile dreams of reunion, she picked up her bag and turned towards the door. Now all she wanted was for the hours to melt into minutes, the distance to contract into nothing and to find herself back in London where she could perhaps pretend that she had never embarked on this fool’s mission.

  Pulling the door open she checked in her bag for the key. Then as she looked up her eyes dilated in shock. She tried to speak but no sound came out as she felt herself faltering in the dark intensity of his eyes. His shoulders were resting against the opposite wall, his hands were in his pockets and as he shrugged himself away from the wall for one panicked moment she almost turned and ran back into the room. But the compelling anger and pain in his expression stopped her.

  As he gazed down into her frightened yet defiant eyes and saw how tired and torn apart she looked, his mouth hardened even as he raised a hand to stop her closing the door.

  ‘Why have you done this?’ he growled.

  Her mouth trembled as she answered. ‘Why do you think?’ she answered, pain edging her voice with anger.

  He turned and stared off down the corridor, his hand still resting on the door above her head. He was so close, so unbearably and overwhelmingly close, yet there was a barrier between them that was holding her away, pushing her back with the same force as his magnetism drew her.

  She looked at the bandanna knotted untidily at his throat, the brilliance of his white shirt that made his hair and his skin seem so dark, the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, the hard set of his jaw as he turned his haunted eyes back to hers. The telltale signs of grief were etched deeply at the sides of his mouth, the ageing shadows of sleepless nights ringed his eyes.

  ‘Why didn’t you call last night?’ he said gruffly.

  ‘Because I knew when I got here what a mistake it had been to come.’

  He nodded. ‘So?’

  ‘So I’m going home,’ she said angrily.

  He dropped his head, wiping a hand over the inky black stubble on his chin. Despite the distance he was holding her at, despite the resolute hardness in his heart, he could feel her moving into him the way she so often did at night, the way she had in those hours before Martina died. The thought was like oil on the flame of his anger. She had no place in his life, so why had he come here? Why didn’t he just let her go? Her vulnerability was stealing into him, filling him with the crying ache to hold her, to crush her in his arms and forget everything that had gone before. But the guilt of loving her more than he had loved Martina was so heavy within him he couldn’t find a way past it.

  He raised his eyes back to hers and the delicacy of her face, the fullness of her lips and the troubled depths of her luminous eyes closed around his heart like an excruciating, comforting pain. He harboured no fool’s dream that they could pick up where they’d left off, it just wasn’t possible. But to go on hurting her this way was no answer; to assuage his guilt by denying her his love, by shutting her out and blinding himself to what existed between them was only going to cripple him further. The words came almost of their own accord. ‘We should talk,’ he said.

  She looked long into his eyes before slowly shaking her head. ‘No. You’re not ready and I …’

  ‘We need to talk,’ he interrupted harshly.

  ‘How can we,’ she cried, ‘when you’re in this kind of mood and …’

  ‘You took that risk by coming here,’ he snapped.

  ‘And I was a damned fool to have done it, so I don’t need you coming here and making me feel even worse than I already do.’

  His jaw tightened, but as he rolled his eyes and a ghost of the irony she remembered so well stole into them she felt tears start to swim in her own.

  ‘Jake, please,’ she said, swallowing hard. ‘I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to do either, but I’ve booked my flight home now and …’

  ‘Cancel it,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t,’ she whispered, lowering her eyes.

  ‘Why?’

  As she shook her head she could feel the emotion tightening her throat, choking off her answer. It was so hard to be sure if he really wanted her to stay or if he was only saying it because …

  ‘Why?’ he repeated, putting his fingers under her chin and lifting her face. The surprising gentleness of his touch, the probing tenderness in his eyes sank deeply and painfully into her heart.

  ‘Because I don’t think you really want me to.’

  ‘I want you to,’ he said, fighting against the words even as he spoke them. But they were true, he wanted her to stay. He wanted … His eyes dropped to her mouth, then with a humourless laugh he closed them and let his hand fall away. How could he be thinking of making love to her now, of holding her exquisite, slender body against his own, when he was so damned mixed up, so unsure of what he really wanted, it was driving him crazy.

  She could sense the dilemma in him as acutely as she could sense her own fear. But he needed her, she felt so sure of it, but still she was afraid. Slowly, tentatively and hardly daring to breathe, she reached out to touch him, resting her hand lightly on his chest as she watched his eyes open and gaze into hers.

  ‘Will you cancel it?’ he said.

  She nodded.

  His eyes were burning into hers as covering her hand with his he drew her into the circle of his arm and brought his mouth harshly down on hers. The taste of him, the smell of him and the feel of him was like a slow burning power spreading its heat through her veins. But it wasn’t right, his passion felt like a punishment. She tried to push him away, but he held her firmly, letting go of her mouth and wrapping her in his arms as he buried his face in her neck. ‘Don’t go,’ he whispered.

  ‘I won’t,’ she said, holding him tightly. ‘But stop hating me. Please, stop hating me.’

  ‘I don’t hate you,’ he said, pulling her back to look into her face.

  ‘Then what is it?’

  His eyes looked searchingly, almost desperately into hers. Didn’t she have any idea how much he had suffered for loving her? But no, she didn’t, how could she, he’d never told her. He’d shut her out and made her suffer too.

  ‘It’s a whole lot of things,’ he said, holding her against him. Then a light of incredulous laughter flickered in his eyes as he added, ‘You took one hell of a gamble coming here and I’ve got to tell you I was pretty damned mad when Sarah called to tell me you were on your way. But then, when you didn’t call last night was when I realized … Well, I guess I realized that I couldn’t let you go without seeing you.’

  ‘And now?’

  His eyes held hers. It wasn’t the moment to tell her that he still didn’t know if he could forgive himself for loving her while Martina was still alive, that was something they would have to deal with in the days, maybe the months, to come. What mattered now was that he took the uncertainty from her eyes by letting her know that whatever was waiting for them in the future, good or bad, he wanted to
be there for her the way she was here for him now. And the only way he could start was by letting the love show in his eyes as he gazed down into hers and offered her the single most precious thing in the world to him, ‘Now,’ he said, ‘there’s a little girl not too far away from here who I think is going to be happy to meet you.’

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  Epub ISBN 9781409008170

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  Published by Arrow Books 2009

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  Copyright © Susan Lewis 1995

  Susan Lewis has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  First published in Great Britain in 1995 by

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