by Heidi Rice
Chad had given him a long lecture about ‘responsible camping behaviour’ and ‘the black bear safety rules’. Although Chad insisted that incidences had been rare in the past couple of years due to ‘bear programming’, Luke had listened carefully to the instructions, not wanting to get bitten on the arse by a six-foot black bear in his sleep because he’d failed to wash out their cooking gear properly or store the leftover foodstuffs in a secure location.
However, a clandestine visit from Yogi the Man-eating Bear was not his primary concern at present. Bedding down in a confined space with Halle was. And yet he’d elected not to put up the other tent after her suggestion. Even though he should have, because the odd smashed knuckle would be a lot less painful than a night spent with blue balls.
She’d made him tell her about his breakdown. And then looked at him with that combination of disbelief and shock and pity. Shooting his tidy game plan—of repairing their relationship as Lizzie’s parents without raking up all the shit from their past—right out of the water.
She hadn’t commented on his revelations, hadn’t probed further. But rehashing that time in his life, when everything had basically collapsed into a pit of self-loathing and despair, had left him feeling tense. And exposed.
Unfortunately, that hadn’t made him feel any less horny, which surely meant he needed to be sectioned. Everything was way too raw at the moment to even contemplate sex with Halle. She might as well have a neon sign on her forehead saying ‘Danger: Drama Ahead’.
He’d spent the past sixteen years carefully separating sex from emotion precisely because it could lead to this sort of situation. And he wasn’t about to break his own rules just because he felt a little horny.
He dragged the kayak onto the bank and fastened it securely.
Halle wiggled back out of the tent and unrolled the sleeping bags. Then paused to hold up the two bags. His breathing stopped as he willed her to unzip them and turn them into one bag.
OK, a lot horny.
The bags remained unzipped, and she flung them into the tent. Side by side. The tension in his gut, though, didn’t ease.
She stood to brush the sand and bits of leaves off her pyjamas. ‘It’s getting chilly,’ she said, squinting into the dying light.
Without the shield of immaculately applied make-up she usually wore, she looked younger, and more vulnerable, the reddened patch on her chin where she’d hit the deck earlier matched by a scratch across her cheek.
The sunset illuminated the golden strands in her hair for a few seconds. She’d rinsed the blonde mess before cooking supper, making it spring around her head in a mussy halo. Wild and only partially tamed by the loose knot.
She toyed with the bottom button on her pyjama top, which she’d fastened right up to her neck. Decorated with dancing pink elephants, the cotton pyjamas were cosy and girlish and more than bulky enough to disguise her lush curves.
She shouldn’t have looked the least bit hot.
He’d never seen anything so hot in his entire life.
She glanced at the tent. ‘Right, we’re all set. I’m gonna crash.’
And that was all the encouragement his cock needed—never the smartest part of his anatomy—to get thick and heavy in his shorts. ‘Go ahead, I’ll be in in a minute.’
‘Fine, but don’t wake me up, even if a bear decides to come calling.’
‘I hate to break it to you, but my bear-wrestling abilities are fairly minimal, so I may have to wake you up if one decides to drop in for a visit.’
Was he actually hoping for a bear attack just so he’d have a reason to wake her up now?
Apparently, with Halle, your libido is still stuck in a nineties time warp.
‘I wasn’t expecting you to wrestle the bear,’ she said. ‘I was expecting you to present yourself as bait.’
He laughed, the sound strained. ‘Right, I guess I can manage that much.’
‘Good.’ She jerked her thumb towards the tent. ‘See you tomorrow, then.’
‘Sleep tight.’ Because I won’t be.
She was curled up like a boiled prawn when he edged into the cramped space twenty minutes later. The blonde fuzz was the only thing visible above the lump of her sleeping bag. He kicked off his boots, pulled off his shirt and shorts and shuffled into his own sleeping bag, shivering in his boxers. He stared at the dancing light of a firefly through the thin tent fabric, listened to the sibilant sound of her snoring and closed his eyes. Tight.
While on assignment, he’d slept soundly in a bombed-out building in Gaza, in a favela during the Rio Carnival and at a Woodstock revival concert in Upstate New York with a thousand geriatric hippies outside his tent singing ‘Blowing in the Wind’ at top volume as they got stoned for old times’ sake.
He could manage one night sharing a two-man with Halle with a raging hard-on.
If he had to.
Chapter 15
Call me, bleep me, if you wanna reach me.
Lizzie hummed the theme tune from Kim Possible, emboldened by the image of the kung-fu-fighting high school secret agent as she slotted in behind an ancient Asian lady on the escalator. Her gaze remained riveted on Trey as he stepped off thirty steps above her. Darting out from behind her cover, Lizzie leaped up the stairs two at a time, racing to catch Trey before he exited the tube station.
Move over, Kim Possible. Lizzie Best is on fire.
No way was she losing track of him now. Not after following him all the way from Aldo’s school in Notting Hill Gate through two interchanges on the tube in the middle of the Monday morning rush hour all the way to St John’s Wood.
Maybe her super-secret mission was a bit nuts. But after days of full-on flirting with the guy, she needed an answer to the burning question: where the bloody hell was he disappearing to every day?
Because just like a guy, despite her less and less subtle probing, he was not giving up the information. Or even any useful clues.
Given that she couldn’t just ask him, because—duh—she would totally expire from embarrassment, what other choice did she have but to take affirmative action? And turn her morning jog into a spot of top-secret surveillance work.
Trey glanced to the right as he stood at the zebra crossing. Lizzie ducked behind the low wall that edged the shrubbery in front of the station, her heart kicking her tonsils. A city worker tripped over her and shot her a stern, disapproving look. She glared back at the nosy bugger, but her heart glided back down her throat as she peered over the planter, to see Trey crossing the road, still oblivious to his tail.
He headed down a side street.
She crossed the main road and headed after him, keeping a safer distance.
If he spotted her, it would be a lot worse than embarrassing. As in completely mortifying. With possibly devastating consequences. She didn’t want him to think she was a stalker and never talk to her again.
But Trey spotting her was a risk she’d have to take.
Because she needed to know what he was up to. Had a right to know, in fact, unless she’d totally misinterpreted all those hot looks he’d been giving her whenever they were alone now.
Yesterday had been the last straw, when they’d ended up in the pantry, fetching stuff to make pasta for Sunday dinner. She’d made a quip about sun-dried tomatoes being an aphrodisiac—not exactly subtle, and also complete bollocks—but even so his gaze had hit her mouth, the potent I-want-to-kiss-you vibe alive in those warm brown eyes. And everything inside her had melted like one of her mum’s dark chocolate soufflés just out of the oven—making even the air around them feel hot and decadent and sinfully delicious. But he hadn’t made a move. So she’d sent him her best please-stop-pissing-around-then-and-do-it vibe back to encourage him.
And … waited.
And … waited.
And … nothing.
Not even a peck. Just several more never-ending moments of gut-melting tension followed by a meal of sun-dried-tomato-pesto spaghetti that was completely indigestible thanks to the fir
eball of unrequited lust burning in her belly.
There had to be some kind of impediment he wasn’t telling her about. Because sun-dried-tomato-pesto-gate wasn’t the first almost-snog they’d had. And they both knew his I’m-your-mum’s-employee excuse had become totally redundant about ten almost-snogs ago.
What if he had a girlfriend? Or a wife and child? It wasn’t impossible. Her mum and dad had had her when they were younger than Trey.
Who cared if following him for half an hour across most of West London was borderline insane behaviour, worthy of a restraining order if she got caught? It had to be done.
She hung back, realising the tree-lined street he’d entered didn’t provide a lot of camouflage because it was empty apart from the two of them, and a couple of Japanese tourists wearing Beatles T-shirts whom she guessed must be planning to snap a picture of themselves on the Abbey Road crossing round the corner.
Her steps faltered. No. Never. Surely Trey couldn’t be lame enough to be a Beatles fan? He was old before his time, but he wasn’t that ancient. Her panic eased, though, when he carried on past the turning.
Wherever Trey was going, he looked absorbed in the destination. His stride was measured and purposeful if unhurried. Frankly, she ought to get a medal for managing to follow him this far without being spotted. If only she’d been this proactive with bloody Liam, she would have discovered just how skanky he was before she’d caught him with his dick down Amber’s throat.
Lizzie’s pulse hit maximum velocity when he stopped abruptly twenty yards ahead.
Had he reached his destination? And what exactly was she supposed to do if he just walked into a flat? Or a house? What would Kim Possible do in such a situation? Or, better yet, James Bond?
Damn, if only she’d watched more Bond movies with Aldo.
But there weren’t any houses nearby. The red-brick monolith of a hospital built in the Victorian era took up the whole of their side of the street, its historic design ruined by the grey pollution stains running down the elaborate cornices and the clumsy addition of a disabled ramp.
But all his attention appeared to be concentrated on the sleek modern two-storey building on the opposite side of the road. Large windows and a flat white frontage gave it a striking mock-Georgian appearance to match the grandeur of the leafy North-west London suburb’s genuine Georgian architecture. Blue block lettering on one side of the entrance declared the building to be part of the same NHS hospital, St John’s and St Elizabeth’s.
Trey buried his hands into his jacket pockets and crossed the street.
A hospital? Was he sick? Or visiting someone? Is this where he had been going every single day? For hours?
Lizzie suppressed the pulse of panic as the large automatic doors slid open and Trey disappeared inside.
She crossed the road behind him, bewilderment beginning to mute the excitement of the chase. Careful to stay far enough outside the double doors not to trigger the opening mechanism, she watched as a male nurse in a blue uniform arrived to greet Trey in the lobby. The older man touched Trey’s arm, the gesture consoling.
Trey followed the nurse through another set of sliding doors to the right of the reception desk.
The last of Lizzie’s exhilaration collapsed as she read the sign above the frosted glass door that slid closed behind him.
St John’s Hospice.
She could have gone home. She could have pretended not to know what she now did. But she sat in the corner café by the tube station instead, nursing one cappuccino for over an hour—and getting increasingly pissed-off looks from the guy behind the counter—while waiting for Trey to reappear.
When he finally did, instead of heading into the tube station he walked past the café and carried on going down the main road. Tuning out the angry shout from the counter guy when he realised she’d left only a ten-pence tip, Lizzie sped out of the café, intending to catch up with Trey—and say … what?
How did you explain you’d followed someone for close to an hour, then hung around waiting for them to come out of a hospice? Without sounding like a psychopath? Somehow she didn’t think saying she’d been a massive fan of Kim Possible when she was twelve was going to cut it.
She was out of breath, and still hadn’t come up with a believable excuse, fifteen minutes later as she followed Trey through Hanover Gate into Regent’s Park. The manicured grassland, leafy trees and elegant pathways opened up like an oasis in the midst of the city’s traffic-choked streets. Not too busy on a weekday at noon, the boating lake at the north end of the park had only a few aimless pedaloes on it manned by easily amused tourists.
Trey wound his way through the empty rows of deck chairs that faced the lake. And sat down in one. She watched him pay the required fee to the hovering deck-chair attendant.
She hesitated several rows behind him. Now he was static, there could be no more excuses.
Still, she approached slowly, noticing the defeated stoop of his shoulders. He thrust shaking fingers through his cropped hair and spent a long moment holding his head in his hands.
She stopped, feeling like an interloper. Intruding on his despair, his personal secrets. Who had he been visiting in the hospice?
Whoever they were, they must be really important to him.
The peacefulness of the park made the bump-bump-bump of her pulse seem deafening.
Whatever he was going through, and from the hunched posture, the weary body language, she could see it was a lot. She didn’t want to add to it, but she couldn’t just walk away, either. Because that would make her a coward, and a liar, as well as a stalker.
‘Trey,’ she murmured, not wanting to startle him. His head jerked round anyway.
‘Lizzie?’ He sounded unsure, as if she might be an apparition.
I wish.
‘Hi, can I join you?’
‘Yes.’ He indicated the deck chair next to his, still frowning, but then his lips lifted in a quizzical smile. ‘I didn’t know you came to Regent’s Park to jog.’ His eyebrows popped up. ‘You didn’t jog all the way here, did you?’
She pushed out an unconvincing laugh. ‘Not exactly.’ She took the seat next to his, brutally aware of the strain in his expression and the puzzled half-smile. A smile that was about to disappear when he discovered what she’d done.
She perched gingerly on the deck chair’s crossbar.
Not all about you, remember.
He glanced past her, as if expecting to find a reason for her sudden appearance. ‘Then how come you’re …?’
‘I followed you here.’
His gaze snapped back, the half-smile disappearing on cue. ‘You … I don’t get it.’
‘If it’s any consolation, neither do I.’
‘Where did you follow me from?’
The tone was still bemused rather than annoyed. But she didn’t kid herself it would stay that way.
‘From outside Aldo’s school, when you dropped him off. I’ve been following you all morning.’
He straightened in the chair, his back stiffening. Blank confusion gave way to shock as it dawned on him where he’d been. What she’d seen. ‘What the … What the fuck did you do that for?’
The swear word shocked her. She’d never heard him use the F-word before, not once. Even though she used it liberally and often.
Self-disgust clawed at her throat, making it hard to speak. ‘If I’d had any idea where you were going, I wouldn’t have done it.’
She’d always known she was a screw-up. But it wasn’t until right this second, as she watched the emotions cross Trey’s face—none of them remotely complimentary—that admitting it wasn’t just another invitation to her five-year-long pity party.
‘That’s not an answer,’ he said. ‘Why did you follow me all that way?’
‘Because I wanted to know where you were going every day,’ she said. ‘And you wouldn’t tell me.’
He swore again, levering himself out of the chair, and paced off in the direction of the lake.
/> She wondered forlornly if he’d keep on walking. She wouldn’t blame him if he did.
But he stopped a few steps from the water.
‘Miss, that’ll be five pounds for the next hour. Or twelve pounds for the day.’
Her head whipped round to find the gawky deck-chair attendant standing beside her. She wanted to tell him to piss off. But how could he know he’d just interrupted a pivotal moment in her life?
She handed him a tenner. ‘I’ll pay for an hour.’
‘Cool.’ He gave her the change, and a ticket on which he jotted the time and thankfully left.
‘What the hell gave you the right to do that?’ Trey had returned. He stood in front of her, his arms folded over his chest, his stance taut with barely suppressed fury.
She steeled herself, although mortification didn’t seem like such a big deal any more. ‘I thought you were going to kiss me yesterday.’
His face remained rigid, the expression blank and unyielding.
‘In the pantry,’ she hinted. ‘Over the sun-dried tomatoes.’
He said nothing.
‘And then, when you didn’t,’ she continued, ‘I wondered if there was a reason why you hadn’t. I thought maybe you had a girlfriend. And I wanted to know. So I … I didn’t mean to …’ She stuttered to a halt.
Don’t hate me, please don’t hate me.
‘Didn’t it ever occur to you that maybe I didn’t tell you where I was going because I didn’t want you to know?’
She lifted her hands, beseeching, as guilt assaulted her. ‘I’m so sorry …’ The plea choked off. What could she say in her own defence? ‘I didn’t think.’
‘No, you never do.’ His voice rose, his handsome features grim with disgust. ‘You know what you are?’
She shook her head, the tears stinging her eyes, making her throat raw.
Please don’t say it. Not you.
‘You’re a spoilt attention-seeking little girl. Why would I want to start something with you?’
The accusation cut deep, wounding her in ways Liam’s goading, Carly’s teasing, her mother’s silent censure never had.
‘You think just because you’re beautiful and smart and rich and you live a charmed life that you get to have whatever you want?’ he continued, confusing her.
