by Maggie Cox
Be still, my poor, beating heart… Rowan thought silently beside him.
‘Bring it on!’ Laughing out loud, she deliberately broke into a run, letting loose a wild whoop as she pounded across the sand. Behind her, Evan stopped smiling. He suddenly knew he was in deep trouble…emotional trouble. The kind he’d sworn to avoid like the plague.
‘So you’ll come?’
‘But, Jane, a party?’
‘Yeah. Dreadful, isn’t it?’
In spite of her deep reservations about going to London for the weekend and attending a party where she would inevitably bump into one or two friends of both hers and Greg’s, Rowan had to smile. Since her power walk on the beach this morning with Evan her spirits had remained optimistically high. It had given her a sense of wonder and strength, a belief that maybe she could achieve things she usually avoided out of fear. Greg was gone. Nothing on this earth was ever going to bring him back. She had to get on with her life. Not be afraid. Have fun. He surely wouldn’t have begrudged her that?
‘All right. I’ll chuck a few clothes into a bag and be at your place about six this evening. Party or not, it’ll be good to catch up. You can tell me all about this new man of yours. Will he be there tomorrow night?’
‘Of course.’
Hearing the smile in her friend’s voice, Rowan couldn’t help but be delighted for Jane. Having just turned thirty, convinced she was destined to remain single for the rest of her natural life, she had recently met Andrew, the man of her dreams—in a doctor’s waiting room, if you please. Rowan couldn’t wait to hear the full story.
‘I know it hasn’t been easy for you, Rowan—God, that must be the understatement of the year! But I really think it would do you good to come up to London for a while. I’ve missed you. One thing’s for sure—work is a duller place for your absence.’
‘I miss it sometimes too,’ Rowan conceded, raking her fingers through her hair, ‘but I’m loving it where I am. One weekend soon you and Andrew must come down for a visit. Trust me, you won’t want to leave.’
‘I’ll take your word for it. Personally I wouldn’t want to be stuck out in the middle of nowhere with just myself for company. Don’t you get even the slightest bit lonely?’
Her mind gravitating helplessly to her handsome next-door neighbour, Rowan chewed down guiltily on her lip. ‘No,’ she said firmly, even knowing he wouldn’t be there forever. ‘I don’t get lonely at all.’
‘We’ll have to postpone our beach walk till Monday,’ she told him, dark eyes sliding guiltily away. ‘I’m going up to London to stay with a friend for a couple of days.’
Disappointment was fierce. Evan felt it deep in his gut, like a piece of bad news he didn’t want to hear. Distracted for a moment by the loud squawking of a passing gull, he shielded his gaze with his hand from the sharp glare of the sun before levelling it back down to Rowan. ‘Spontaneous decision, was it?’ he asked casually.
Meeting the impenetrable barrier of his glance and feeling a sharp tug of something that resembled regret, Rowan heaved a sigh. ‘You could say that, yes.’
‘Country life must be beginning to pall, then.’
‘Not at all. I’ve got friends in London I haven’t seen for a while and I’ve been invited to a party, that’s all.’
There was no earthly reason why Evan should feel apprehensive about that, but he did. Along with a strange feeling of foreboding that he shrugged off as just his imagination, in the deep silence of his mind he had to admit he didn’t want her to go. Now that he’d got used to seeing her around, the weekend would be interminable—knowing she wasn’t pottering about next door, valiantly experimenting with her DIY or tending her rambling back garden.
‘A party, hmm?’ His singularly unimpressed tone told her that it was the last thing in the world he would want to contemplate. Still, something perverse made her ask the question.
‘You could come too if you wanted. My friend has a large flat. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you stayed. I’ve got a spare sleeping bag somewhere, if you don’t mind sleeping on the floor. I mean, I—that is if you…’
Her heart thumped as he slowly folded his arms across that impressive chest of his and fixed her with the most lustful stare she’d ever experienced in her life.
‘You inviting me to come and share a sleeping bag with you, Rowan?’
Heat stung her cheeks. ‘I didn’t say that. You know very well I wasn’t inviting you to do any such thing!’
‘I don’t go to parties,’ he said clearly, then started to turn away. ‘Not any more.’
All of a sudden Rowan wished she hadn’t told Jane she would go. The idea that Evan would spend the weekend on his own, with no one to talk to or even pass the time of day with, filled her with deep regret. She knew him well enough now to know that he would immediately insist that he preferred his own company anyway if she so much as hinted he would be lonely on his own, but still the feeling that she was somehow abandoning him lingered. Pushing her hair out of her eyes, Rowan searched frantically for a way to make him stay on his doorstep a little longer.
‘I really enjoyed our exercise session this morning. I’m probably going to ache like God knows what tomorrow, but for the first time in ages I really felt alive, you know?’
Evan did know. He had felt it too, but unlike Rowan he didn’t put it down to the exercise alone.
‘Exercise can do that for you. As long as you don’t take it to extremes.’ Shame he didn’t know how to take his own advice…
‘I doubt if I’d do that. I’m not an extreme kind of person. Slow and plodding, that’s me.’
Suddenly Evan experienced a raw stab of anger at himself, at his sorry inability to take heed of his own cautionary warnings not to get involved with a woman ever again except in the most basic way. Because when he gazed at beguiling Rowan Hawkins, with her glossy brown hair and shining dark eyes full of hope and optimism, he wanted something that he knew would only bring him more heartache and pain. Best he sever any hope of that right now before things went any further. He’d keep his promise to help her get fit, but other than that he would keep contact strictly to an impersonal minimum.
‘Well.’ Rubbing his hand round the back of his neck, he gave her a brief, cursory nod. ‘You’d best get going. It’s a long drive to London. Drive safely.’ And with that, he turned around and went inside, shutting the door firmly behind him.
She’d forgotten how noisy people could be. Jane’s production manager’s house, where the party was being held, was large and rambling, with lofty ceilings and revitalised Victorian grandeur. But even so, with humanity spilling out of practically every room, Rowan was beginning to feel a bit like a cornered rabbit, hemmed in as she was by a couple of girlfriends and Jane’s affable new boyfriend, Andrew. She strained to keep the drift of the conversation as music boomed out from strategically placed speakers, unable to suppress a sudden, almost desperate longing for the peace and quiet of her little cottage near the sea.
‘You’re a brave woman, hiding yourself away down there in the wilds of Pembrokeshire,’ Andrew was saying, his friendly blue eyes smiling down into hers. ‘Don’t you miss the buzz of living in the city?’
Rowan had no hesitation in her reply. ‘No, I honestly don’t. You can’t imagine how wonderful it is to just wake up to the sound of birdsong and seagulls crying, and the wind rattling the windows. And the smell in the air is something else! So clean and fresh and unpolluted. As far as I’m concerned there’s just no contest.’
‘So you’ve no plans to come back to London anytime soon?’
Her brown eyes were emphatic as she cradled her wine glass. ‘Definitely not. I’m quite happy where I am, thank you. And you and Jane must come for a visit soon.’ But not too soon…
Her smile was particularly bright because the stray thought coming out of nowhere made her feel foolishly guilty. But Rowan told herself she was thinking of Evan as well. The last thing the man wanted was strangers tramping all over the place when he h
ad gone down there in search of peace and quiet. She wondered vaguely what he was doing right now. Perhaps reading one of those thrillers she’d seen piled up on his coffee-table, or taking a walk on the beach on his own? She experienced an inordinate pang of longing to be there with him. Oh, why had she let Jane persuade her to come to this noisy, smoky party when she’d much rather be at home?
After establishing that Rowan wasn’t hungry, the girls departed in search of nibbles from the generously supplied dining area. Andrew lingered for a few minutes longer until he spied Jane entering the room, then excused himself to go and talk to her. Taking an absent-minded sip of her wine, Rowan backed up against the window and perched herself on its glossed white ledge with a relieved sigh. Glancing at her watch, she saw the time was a little after eleven. If she were at home now she’d be snuggled up in bed with a good book or listening to late-night radio.
‘Well, well…what a surprise! If it isn’t my old friend Greg’s pretty little wife, Rowan. How are you? You remember me, don’t you?’
Matthew Napier. The one colleague of Greg’s that she had never really got along with. Opinionated and arrogant, he had a knack of rubbing people up the wrong way. As Rowan tried to summon up a smile, she looked into his leering pale grey eyes and prayed for someone to take pity and come and rescue her soon. But Jane was preoccupied with Andrew and her other friends had disappeared off somewhere else in the rambling house, so it would be down to Rowan herself to come up with a quick getaway plan.
‘Matthew…of course I remember you.’ Self-consciously she moved her hands to the modestly low neckline of her silk floral dress and tried to raise it a little, so as not to expose too much creamy, smooth flesh to this man’s lascivious gaze.
‘Dreadful about what happened to poor old Greg, wasn’t it?’
Obviously when God had been handing out tact and discretion, Matthew Napier must have been at the back of the queue.
‘I’d rather not talk about that, if you don’t mind.’
‘So what are you doing with yourself these days? I haven’t seen you around for quite some time.’
Deliberately moving in closer, Matthew took a generous slug of his drink as he waited for Rowan’s reply. Biting back the urge to tell him to back off, Rowan tried not to feel disgust at his liberal overuse of cologne and concentrated instead on giving him the briefest of answers in the vain hope that he would take the hint and leave her alone.
‘I moved out of London.’
‘Oh. Where to?’
She didn’t want to tell him. Having had to fend off the man’s unwanted attentions at parties and dinners in the past, she wouldn’t put it past him to take it upon himself to pay her a visit. A helpless shudder ran down her spine.
‘As far away from London as possible.’ The reluctant smile she’d intended barely made an impression on her lips. Matthew seemed to consider her answer for several seconds before pursuing the conversation.
‘Still as prickly as a pear, I see.’ He grinned, but there was something deeply unpleasant about the outwardly normal gesture. ‘You never did like me, did you, Rowan? Always thought you were so much better than me, didn’t you?’
It was suddenly clear that he had been drinking heavily. Rowan’s stomach clenched tight with distaste. She started to get up off the window-ledge, shocked to her bones when Matthew stretched out a hand to push her back down.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘I think it’s about time you and I had a little talk. Set the record straight, as it were.’
‘What record? What are you talking about?’
Suddenly she knew she needed to get away from this man. He was right, she didn’t like him, and as far as she knew Greg had only tolerated him because he’d to work with the man on occasion.
‘Got another man in your life now, pretty little Rowan?’
‘That’s none of your damn business! Now, please get out of my way; I want to go and find my friends—’
‘Greg had someone else in his life. Didn’t know that, did you?’
About to push past him, Rowan sank back down onto the window-ledge, her brown eyes startled. What the hell was the man rambling on about now?
‘You’re talking utter nonsense.’
‘Am I?’
Matthew’s face contorted nastily. A wave of nausea rolled through her and kept her pinned to her seat.
‘Didn’t know he had a girlfriend and a baby in Turkey, did you?’
Now Rowan really did feel nauseous. If only she’d moved away before he’d started spouting his gibberish. Desperately in need of support, she scanned the room for Jane and Andrew, but they were nowhere to be seen. Probably they’d slipped away to a quiet spot somewhere upstairs where they could be alone for a while. Wasn’t that what she would have done if she’d been here with the man she loved?
Suddenly frightened, she pushed to her feet, determined to show Matthew that it wasn’t so easy to intimidate her as he imagined. But when she met him eye to eye and his hand snaked out and curved possessively around her bare arm, she found herself curiously unable to move. ‘Let me go.’ Her voice didn’t sound like her own over the thickness in her throat.
‘Her name’s Anya and her baby son’s called Gregory. Gregory junior. Naturally, after his father. If you don’t believe me, why not ask Dave Madsen or Paul Rutherford? They’re his best mates. They know. They were always a little clique, those three. Always kept me on the outskirts of whatever was going on. “Make the tea, Matt.” “Bring the extra camera…” “Go and talk to the manager and see if you can get us a better room, Matt.” But I was smarter than they thought. I put two and two together when Greg and Paul kept making stopovers in Turkey on the way home. And one night, when Paul had had a bit too much to drink, I wangled the truth out of him. Of course, he made me swear on my mother’s grave that I’d never tell a soul, but then I never could keep a secret. Not when it gives me such undeniable pleasure to reveal it.’
‘You’re sick.’ Jerking her arm free, Rowan pushed her way through the throng of people talking and dancing and headed almost frantically to the door. Weaving her way through a maze of stairs and corridors, she finally found herself in the cool lantern-lit garden, the scent of azaleas and early blooms wafting seductively round her senses. Leaning against a granite wall, goose-pimples dotting her skin, she took a few deep gulps of air before rubbing her fingers against her throbbing temple. The man was mad, surely? Deranged, almost. What had possessed him to come up with such an outrageous lie? But even as her brain fought against his perfidy, her heart was thudding so heavily in her chest that Rowan suddenly felt quite unwell.
Greg would never have betrayed her like that. Not in a million years… OK, so they might have spent a good deal of time apart because of the nature of his work, but she’d trusted him absolutely. ‘Solid, dependable Greg.’ Wasn’t that what all her friends had used to say? And not without a tinge of envy. Now, as her mind automatically remembered all the delayed arrivals home, sometimes by as long as a week or more—‘because something unexpected had come up’—she tried to shut off her horrible little suspicions, telling herself that she should remember that Matthew Napier was only being vindictive because he’d been jealous of Greg’s popularity and knew of Rowan’s own aversion to his company. Oh, God… She wished she’d never come to this stupid party. Oh, why hadn’t she just gone with her instincts and stayed home with Evan?
But ‘home’ was one thing and Evan another. The two weren’t really connected at all. He was her neighbour, that was all, and a temporary one at that. And it wasn’t as though they were close. He tolerated her, nothing more. Pushing disconsolately away from the wall, she ran her fingers desperately through her softly tousled hair, a course of action forming in her mind—vague, indistinct, but motivating enough to shake her out of her painful reverie.
‘Rowan! Are you all right? Cathy and Linda said they saw you run out here as though you were upset. What’s wrong? What’s happened?’
&n
bsp; Jane, sweet and concerned—was stroking her arm, staring back at her, with Andrew hot on her heels, looking equally anxious. Rowan released a ragged breath, willing herself not to break down in front of them. Later, when she was home again, she could give vent to her hurt, anger and shock.
‘I suddenly don’t feel terribly well. Would you mind if I went home?’
‘Of course not. I’ll drive you back to the flat myself and you can crash out to your heart’s content.’
‘I mean home to Pembrokeshire.’
Jane stared at her as if she was mad. ‘Tonight? Driving all that way? You must be joking! Do you think I’d let you go when you’ve just told me you’re not feeling well?’
‘I’ll be fine once I’m in the car and driving. It—it relaxes me.’ Which wasn’t entirely a lie. At least in her car, driving through the night, she would be alone with her thoughts and maybe able to think things through more clearly.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, Rowan, if you don’t mind me saying, love.’ Putting his hand on her arm, Andrew smiled down at her as though she were a little child, not capable of knowing what was best for her. Suddenly it was all too much for Rowan and she knew a profoundly urgent need to escape. From the noise, the people, the music, from well-intentioned friends who took it upon themselves to act in her best interests.
‘Please, Jane! If you don’t want to drive me back to the flat to get my things, I’ll phone a cab.’
Jane relented, as Rowan had known she would. ‘If it’s that important to you that you drive back to Pembrokeshire tonight, of course I’ll take you back to the flat to get your things. As long as you assure me you’re going to be all right. Ring me and leave a message on the Ansaphone as soon as you get back home, will you?’
‘Thanks, Jane.’ Giving her friend a brief, fierce hug, Rowan turned and walked ahead of her up the steps leading back into the house.
CHAPTER SEVEN
TURNING over onto his side in his sleep, Evan could have sworn he heard the slamming of a door. He squinted at the small chrome alarm clock beside the bed, and registered seven a.m. Convinced he must have imagined the sound, he told himself he would have a lie-in, in deference to Sunday, then deliberately shut his eyes and went back to sleep.
