“Okay, I’ll say something tonight. Now drop it.”
Flick pulled into Morrison’s car park. “Twenty minutes. No longer or I turn into a demented axe murderer.”
Kirsten had given them a long list and they weren’t allowed to come back without everything. Flick gave the list to Josh and then pushed the cart at breakneck speed down every aisle. He grabbed food from the shelves and flung packets and bottles in her direction. Two elderly ladies actually clapped when Josh threw two bags of crisps and Flick let go of the cart to catch one in each hand.
“Go for the alcohol,” one of the woman shouted after them.
“They think we’re doing one of those three minute dash-around-and-pick-up-as-much-as-you-can affairs,” Josh panted. “Slow down, Flick.”
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“Having a party?” asked a woman behind them.
Flick looked on the belt at the fifteen French baguettes, one hundred tiny sausages, thirty packets of crisps, five huge wedges of cheese, four tubs of ice cream and enough booze to stock a pub.
“No, I’m a raging bulimic and he’s a recovering alcoholic.” Flick turned to smile at the woman who’d spoken and gasped.
“Does Gordon know you’re bulimic?” The woman glared at her. Flick took a deep breath. “Sally, I—” She found herself talking to thin air.
“Who was that?” Josh asked.
“Just someone from work.”
“She doesn’t really think—”
“Hey, do you think we’ve got enough sausages?”
“Yes.”
“This lot should last us until tomorrow, don’t you think?”
“Possibly,” he said with a laugh.
Flick wasn’t so cheerful when Josh couldn’t see her face. Why did Sally Greene dislike her so much? Enough to make it look as though she’d stolen from Grinstead’s?
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Chapter Seventeen
When Kirsten sashayed into the kitchen that night, wearing the slinky red dress Flick had given her, Josh’s gasp coincided with the one shooting out of Flick. Of course Flick didn’t also get the instant hard-on. Josh grabbed a kitchen towel to hide his crotch.
“What’s the matter? Too much?” Kirsten asked.
Josh opened his mouth, closed it and then shook his head.
“You look sensational,” Flick said. “I didn’t know you had such an amazing cleavage.”
“It’s a work of art. Strategically placed sticky tape.”
If only he could unwrap her. “You’re a work of art,” Josh spluttered. He handed her a glass of champagne. “Happy birthday.”
The three of them chinked flutes.
“Not wanting to wreck the mood,” he said, “but you two should pace yourselves, otherwise you’ll be pissed by nine and asleep by ten.” He looked at Kirsten when he said that. A couple of glasses of wine in the evening and Kirsten usually dropped comatose onto the couch. “Overdo it and your companion for the night could turn out to be a chunk of white porcelain.” He stared at Flick.
“Okay, Dad,” she said and tipped the rest of the glass straight down her throat. Kirsten laughed.
“We have a surprise for you, birthday girl,” Flick said. “All this time you’ve spent soaking in the bath and using the last of the hot water—but we won’t yell at you because it’s your birthday—we’ve been busy.”
Josh took a deep breath and grabbed Kirsten’s hand. “Shut your eyes and no peeking.”
He led her out of the back door and nodded to Flick to switch on the lights.
“Okay, open them now,” Josh whispered.
Kirsten gasped. The whole of the garden twinkled with lights. Every tree, bush and even the hedge had been decorated.
“It will look better when it’s really dark,” he said.
“We borrowed sets off everyone.” Flick ran on to the lawn and twirled in a circle.
“It’s the most beautiful thing I ever saw.” Kirsten sighed.
“It was Josh’s idea,” Flick said. “I’m just the laborer. He remembered how you didn’t want to take the lights down at Christmas.”
“You are so sweet.” Kirsten smiled at him.
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“And he has his own hair and teeth,” Flick yelled. “Mostly anyway.”
She swerved as Josh tried to grab her. “I’m going for a shower. Put some music on. Turn it up so I can hear.”
Alone. Josh could feel his heart trying to burst out of his chest. All he had to do was pull Kirsten into his arms and give her a birthday kiss. Do it. By the time his arm moved, so had Kirsten.
“Music!” Kirsten said with a laugh.
Josh followed her into the house. When Kirsten had announced she wanted a James Bond party, he’d spent hours downloading appropriate songs from the movies. He’d produced two full CDs, all the theme tunes interspersed with songs he knew Kirsten liked. If he hadn’t managed to kiss her by the end of the first disc, he’d shoot himself.
* * * * *
When Flick came back downstairs Kirsten and Josh were giggling in the kitchen. Josh was in his tux. They’d already opened another bottle of champagne. Flick wondered what had happened to pacing yourself.
“Wow, Flick. Is that one of your creations?” Josh asked.
“Originally French Correction. More recently, Help the Aged charity shop in Otley.”
“If any aged men see you in that they will need help.” Kirsten laughed. Flick wore a strapless black tube dress, two sizes too small and tourniquet tight. She’d unpicked the seams and sewn it back together with long lengths of thin red ribbon. It clung to every curve and she wore nothing underneath. Beck had better come.
“Are they new?” Kirsten stared at her shoes while Josh’s eyes hadn’t dropped that far.
“New-ish,” Flick answered. Her shoes from work—high-heeled, strappy red things she danced in.
“Josh, put your tongue away.” Kirsten frowned.
He turned back to her. “Reflex response. Can’t help it. Flick needs locking up.”
“Make sure you lock someone nice in the room with me.”
Flick knew almost none of the people Kirsten had invited. Most worked at the law firm. The others were university friends or Josh’s colleagues. Although Flick told Kirsten she’d asked half a dozen people, in fact she’d invited no one. Her friends at Grinstead’s had drifted off after the trouble and she’d drifted off too. She didn’t want to keep in touch because it reminded her of what she’d lost. Flick had hoped some of her former colleagues would keep in contact, but they hadn’t. She understood. They still floated while she’d sunk. If they took her hand, she might pull them under.
* * * * *
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Kirsten took a photograph of each guest as they arrived. She’d assumed the men would wear black tie and the women their sexiest dresses but many had come as Bond characters. Her supervisor had dressed as Odd Job, complete with bowler hat. The guy she shared an office with arrived holding a stuffed cat and asked Kirsten to stroke his pussy.
“Very soft,” she said, tickling the cat’s head.
“Like me to stroke yours?” he asked.
“I don’t have—oh very funny, Simon.” Kirsten rolled her eyes. Several people sported gold-wrapped fingers and one imaginative guy had even come with a makeshift Union Jack parachute hanging out of a backpack. Most of the women wore pretty dresses but Sarah, another trainee solicitor, had come as a female Q
in a lab coat and nothing else. She tried to waylay Josh but he made straight for Kirsten.
“Don’t look now,” Kirsten said, “but the guy Flick fancies has just walked in.”
“Where?” Josh turned.
Kirsten grabbed his bow tie intending to yank his head around but the whole thing sprang away from his collar. She was so surprised she let it snap back. Tears sprang into his eye
s.
“Sorry. Hey, I bought you a proper one last Christmas.”
“I can’t tie it,” he said.
“I’ll teach you.”
“Will you?” Josh stared at her.
“Course I will.” She hugged him. “There, does that feel better?”
He nodded.
“No stinging pain across your lower face?”
He shook his head.
“Liar.”
For a moment, neither of them moved. Why was he looking at her like that? Like he wanted—
“I have to take a photograph,” Kirsten whispered and turned to the new arrivals. Willow hugged her and introduced the pretty blonde standing next to Beck.
“Kirsten this is Isobel. She’s working on the dig.”
Isobel gave Kirsten a bottle of champagne. “Hope you don’t mind me gatecrashing.”
“Not at all.” Kirsten felt bad for Flick.
Isobel was the ultimate Bond girl. She’d wrapped herself in a white bed sheet, her hair tousled and her face made up to look flushed, as if she and James had just fallen out of bed. Beck wore naval uniform, complete with cap, and he looked divine. He presented Kirsten with a large box of chocolates and a bottle of wine. 115
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“How’s your snake bite?” she asked, glancing at his bandaged hand. When a sea of faces turned in his direction, Kirsten realized her mistake. “Sorry,”
she mouthed.
“You said you’d cut yourself on broken glass. What happened?” Isobel demanded.
* * * * *
Flick turned at the end of the dance and saw Beck in the corner of the room. He looked so drop-dead gorgeous she almost did drop dead. Then she saw the drop-dead gorgeous woman in the sheet holding onto his arm, stroking his hand and looking into his eyes and Flick felt something break inside her.
So there would be no kiss. He’d probably be allergic to her. After all, she’d wrecked his dig, tried to drown him, blow him up, bury him under a ton of stones and even done the Cleopatra bit with the snake. He’d told her to go away at the hospital and turned up tonight with a half-naked woman on his arm. She should forget him. Flick grabbed the nearest bloke, pulled him to the middle of the room and found a motheaten cat in her arms. Flick had made many important decisions about men based on their dancing ability. She’d found rhythm and energy levels on the dance floor to be excellent indicators of whether there was any chance of compatibility in bed. The cat had more life than the guy she’d just shimmied away from. Miserable Bastard had been a pretty good dancer, though a little inclined to forget Flick danced with him. Giles, who had just moved in front of her, was appalling—all hips—so that the top half of his body looked unconnected to the bottom half. Sheet-woman was dancing with Josh and bobbed up and down on the spot, her arms clamped to her sides. That it could hardly be called dancing didn’t matter when you had boobs like hers. Flick sighed. Beck, within touching distance and dancing with Lab Coat, moved with a languid grace that reminded her of a big cat. Just once Flick had caught his gaze and she sizzled like an ice cube tossed on to a bright halogen hob. Forget playing cool, she was desperate to dance with him. One dance wouldn’t do any damage.
Beck hoped his mouth hadn’t dropped open when he’d seen Flick’s dress. She looked as though she’d been poured into it. She was the sexiest thing in the room and boy, could she move. Like watching a strip of material floating in a breeze, she had grace and style. No jerky arms. No dipping and diving. No self-conscious shimmying. He was in trouble. He wanted her.
Only he also wanted to take a leak. As soon as this dance finished and he could get away from the corporate lawyer who’d zipped herself to him, he’d head to the bathroom. Then he’d take his life in his hands and ask the redhead to dance. As the music changed, he dashed out of the door.
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Flick tsked. She couldn’t get a much clearer rejection than that. Beck couldn’t get away fast enough. She stamped off to the kitchen and scooped up a cup of punch, taking a large gulp before she remembered how terrible it tasted. With the way to the sink blocked, she couldn’t spit it out and had to swallow. Desperate for something to take the taste away she picked a gold foil wrapped chocolate ball from the pyramid Josh had carefully built, only to see the whole lot collapse.
“Fuck.”
Flick scrambled about on the floor, gathering up the chocolates and putting them back on the table. Two had come out of their wrappers so she popped them in her mouth and stood to find herself facing Beck.
“Hi.” He smiled at her.
Speaking was impossible. She attempted a smile.
“Why do you look like a hamster?”
Flick sucked both chocolates out of her cheeks and into the center of her mouth, chewed frantically, swallowed and a piece of nut lodged in her throat. She began to cough. Beck offered her a glass of punch.
Flick shook her head. “It tastes like rat poison,” she gasped. Beck pushed his way through to the sink and poured it away, refilling the glass with water.
Flick drank the lot. “Thanks.”
“How do you know it tastes like rat poison?” Beck asked.
“I helped make it and I did try rat poison once when I was a child. Just a lick.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“How’s your bite?”
“Fine.”
Kiss him. Kiss him. Kiss him. He looked at her with those dangerous eyes and Flick lost her nerve. She picked up a couple of strips of carrot from the dish on the kitchen table.
“Talking of rats has just reminded me I’ve forgotten to feed Hannibal.” She had to get away from Beck before something bad happened.
“You have a rat?”
“Hamster.”
“Can I help?” Beck asked.
She briefly considered getting him to sign a waiver in case Hannibal leapt for his jugular. “Okay. It’s upstairs.”
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underwear. He wanted to run his fingers down the ribbons. Actually, he wanted to take a pair of scissors to the ribbons.
He followed her into a bedroom. One look at the bed—a four poster draped with acres of translucent voile and a pale pink duvet—and he pictured Flick lying on it, naked, her long legs wrapped round his waist, still wearing those high heels with her hands gripping the headboard. Maybe tied to the headboard. He stifled a groan.
“You live here with Kirsten?” he asked.
“She lives with me. It’s my house. Mine and my sister’s, but she’s away at university. It’s her hamster and it’s not called Hannibal. Its name is Fluffy but it has a lot in common with Hannibal Lecter. It likes human flesh. It’s bitten me every single time I’ve touched it. The little monster lies in the cage, pretends to be dead and the moment I reach in to check, it lunges for me.”
“So you’re not a veterinary nurse specializing in hamsters?”
“No.” Flick blushed.
In the corner sat an elaborate system of multicolored tunnels curving in every conceivable direction to connect several rooms. There were see-through turrets, a maze and even a gym with a seesaw and exercise wheel.
“Wow, hamster paradise,” Beck said.
“Clever marketing strategy. Pet shops sell hamsters for a few quid, but to house them and keep them happy takes an entire week’s wages. This system can be added to ad infinitum. Hamlet to conurbation in the flash of a wallet. But although Hannibal has its own mini-city with every treat imaginable, it would rather live under the floorboards snacking on electric cables—and me.”
Beck liked the idea of nibbling on Flick.
“If it weren’t for the problems a cat would bring, like scratches, nips and fleas, I’d have considered getting one so if the hamster does escape, nature could take its course. The idea of those sharp yellow teeth wandering
the house while I’m asleep terrifies me.”
As they approached Hamsterville, Fluffy stood up against the bars of the cage, big brown eyes fixed on Beck, whiskers twitching, looking docile and cuddly. Flick scowled. “I know what you’re thinking and you’re wrong. It isn’t sweet or cute. Don’t be seduced by those big, dark eyes. It has the heart of a psychopath.”
“I’ve always been a sucker for big, dark eyes,” Beck murmured as he reached toward the cage, but looked at her.
“Don’t put your fingers near the bars. Just distract it while I put this food in.”
But as soon as the hamster heard one of its escape routes being unclipped it raced through the twisting tunnels faster than a Formula One driver. When Flick froze, Beck took a piece of carrot from her fingers and held it at the opening.
“Please don’t let it escape. I won’t be able to sleep in the house if it gets out.”
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The hamster screeched to a halt at the end of the tube, sniffed once and then crawled onto Beck’s outstretched hand. It picked up the piece of carrot, bit it in half, stuffed both pieces in its pouch, raced up his arm and then moved over to explore his chest.
Flick glared in disbelief. “How do you do that? Hannibal is exactly the same with Stef—completely normal. The perfect bloody pet.”
“She’s sweet.” Beck smiled.
“She?”
“It’s female.”
“How can you tell?” Flick asked, then blushed.
“Years of experience. The males have lumpy bits at their rear. Females have lumpy bits somewhere else.”
“Is that the technical term?”
Beck laughed. “Try holding her. Sit on the floor and cup your hands.”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’ll be fine. Trust me.”
“It’s not you I don’t trust.”
“Good.” He grinned and raised his eyebrows.
Flick hesitated and then with some difficulty, due to the tightness of her dress, she sat on the floor and cupped her hands. Beck allowed the hamster to run from his palm onto hers and for a moment it sat there, cleaning its face.
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