by Georgia Hill
Something, some sixth sense, made her open her eyes. Squinting through the steam, she saw, on the taps and just above her toes, a dark blob. Focusing harder she made out the biggest, hairiest spider she had ever seen.
She froze.
Rationally she knew the spider was harmless and that it would go on its way without bothering her. But phobias aren’t rational and Rachel had a phobia about spiders. She loathed them, and as if sensing this, the spider froze too. The idea that the spider was possibly staring back at her was the final straw. Rachel screamed and launched herself out of the bath. Grabbing her wrap, she fled out of the bathroom.
There was a furious hammering at the front door. Snatching the silk around her wet body she tripped downstairs and wrenched open the door to find Gabe standing there with a tool box.
‘Rachel, you all right?’ I thought I heard a scream. ‘Dad asked me to drop this off,’ he began and then, taking note of her ashen complexion, stopped. ‘There is something wrong.’ He backed her into the hall, dropped the box and kicked shut the door behind him. ‘Rachel?’ He took her by the arms to find her shaking uncontrollably.
‘I’m f-fine. Spider. In the bath.’
Gabe relaxed. ‘Oh is that all? I thought it was something serious.’
‘It is! To me!’
Gabe took another look at Rachel’s face and nodded. ‘Okay, I’ll go and slay the beast, shall I?’ He made his way along the hall.
‘Gabe?’
‘Don’t kill it.’
He waved a hand as he ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
After a few minutes, when she thought it might be safe, Rachel followed him. She met him coming out of the bathroom, an enormous smile on his good-looking face. ‘You were right, it was a big one.’
Rachel paled again.
Gabe came to her. ‘All sorted now. I put it out of the window. You really don’t like them, do you?’ Going with the moment, he took her in his arms and inhaled more of the intoxicating scent from the bath. She smelled expensive and female. She burrowed into his chest and shook her head against his shirt.
‘Poor lovely.’ Stroking her hair, damp from her bath, he couldn’t quite believe it was the usually remote, strung-up Rachel he had in his arms. She nestled in closer and the trembling lessened. ‘Just as well you’ve got Big Bad Gabe to get rid of the nasties for you.’ He felt her giggle vibrate against his chest. It made him harden. He stroked a hand across Rachel’s narrow waist and felt her still in response. The clinging silk robe made every curve of her body beg to be caressed.
‘Gabe?’ She gazed up at him, eyes huge in a white face.
He couldn’t resist. Didn’t want to. Risking everything, he threaded a hand through her cool hair, pulled her to him and kissed her. She tasted of toothpaste and desire. He was painfully aware of her naked body beneath the flimsy robe and he could feel her breasts pressing against his shirt and making it damp. Need pulsated through him.
For the second time in her life Rachel did something truly impulsive, possibly even a little mad.
She kissed him back.
She arched into him so she could sense every sinew of his lean, strong body against hers. He felt so good. It felt so right kissing him. Rachel opened her mouth and deepened the kiss. It was heaven – or as close to it as she’d ever been. She inched her hands under his linen shirt and stroked the smooth skin beneath. She’d never met a man who was so sexy, who she wanted so urgently.
Stepping out of his embrace and smiling at his expression, she took his hand and led him to her bed.
It was like being immersed in liquid, was Rachel’s last coherent thought. Warm, slow-moving liquid, with heat at the edges taking control and sweeping them up into fire.
She came to with Gabe lying half across her. She stroked a hand over his hair and discovered it was something she’d always longed to do. No wonder it was always escaping the ponytail, she giggled, it was cut in layers. It felt as silky as it looked. Golden brown with lighter highlights from all the sun they’d been having.
Rachel felt as if she had the sun inside her, she was so warm and replete. Relaxed. Satiated. Gabe was breathing quietly and regularly so he must be asleep. Resting her hand on his smooth, brown shoulder, Rachel followed.
It was almost dark when they woke. The last of the evening shadows lengthened in the room and brought with them a breathing, pulsing intimacy.
Gabe gave a cat-like stretch. ‘Sorry, did I crash out?’ he murmured and pulled her close again. ‘Busy day.’
Rachel smiled. ‘Have you been working hard today?’
‘Not as hard as I just did.’
She giggled and he kissed her.
‘I was right,’ he said, his mouth inches from hers.
‘What about?’
‘You are like a glass of water. Long and cool. To be sipped slowly.’
Rachel raised her brows quizzically. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re on about.’
‘That’s what I thought when I first saw you. Outside the cottage. Long and cool.’
‘Not a stuck up in-comer?’ She asked on a sigh as his kisses travelled along her jaw, to where she was most sensitive.
Gabe grinned and nipped her ear. ‘More sort of aloof.’
‘So, I’m an aloof, cool drink to be sipped slowly? I still have no idea what you mean.’
Gabe traced a lazy tongue around the areole of a breast, making Rachel suck in a breath and then trailed leisurely kisses over her stomach to her sex. Cupping her with gentle hands, he parted her thighs. As he lowered his head, his hair slipped forward and tickled deliciously. ‘To be sipped again and again,’ he whispered. And did.
The cool, early-morning air sliding over their naked skin, and the dawn chorus woke them. Indignant, the sparrow was in overdrive.
Rachel rolled onto her side to peer at the clock. Neither of them had got much sleep, but she’d never felt more alive, more revitalised. She looked across at Gabe, who was scrubbing a hand across his face. What a beautiful man I’ve just bedded, she thought, gazing at his wide, suntanned shoulders and strong hands, with their square-tipped capable fingers.
‘Morning,’ he said, scrubbing at his eyes and yawning hugely. ‘What’s the time?’
‘Just after five.’
He grimaced. ‘Better go home. Got to get over to the Hallidays and I need to get changed first.’
The image of Gabe standing at the door flashed into Rachel’s memory. He’d been dressed smartly, in a linen shirt and the black trousers she’d seen him in outside the nightclub. Jealousy gnawed again. ‘Where were you going last night?’
He glanced at her. ‘Only off out to see a film with Dawn and Paul and the gang.’ He flung himself onto his back and stretched, making the bed shudder with his weight.
Rachel admired the length of his side, slightly paler than the rest of him, ribs showing through the thin skin as he raised his arms above his head. She even liked the look of the soft brown hair growing in his armpits and the trail of it leading towards his groin. He was very male, masculine. Nothing metrosexual about Gabe.
‘It’ll be okay, they’re used to me not turning up sometimes.’ He gave Rachel a wicked look. ‘They’ll put it down to a woman. Only this time they’d be right.’ He rolled over to her and kissed her shoulder, looking up from under dark lashes, the sherry-brown eyes impish.
‘Had many women, have you Gabe?’
‘A few. Not as many as folk say. They like to think of me being some kind of stud round here.’ He shrugged. ‘You know how they like to gossip.’
‘Only too well,’ Rachel said drily.
‘Well, don’t believe everything they say.’ Lifting the duvet, he slid his warm body against hers. Instantly, she wanted him again.
She bit down on her lust. ‘How old are you, by the way?’
Gabe slid a hand under the duvet and across Rachel’s flat stomach, into the dip between her hip bones. He kissed her shoulder again and nuzzled at her arm so he could kiss
the delicate skin at the side of her breast. ‘Twenty-six. Twenty-seven in November.’ He gave a muffled laugh. ‘I’m legal, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
Rachel tried hard to concentrate, but was distracted by her desire for this man. ‘You’re older than I thought.’
With strong hands, Gabe slid her under him. ‘Good genes,’ he said and took her nipple into his mouth, ‘and all the clean living. And you’re thirty.’ He grinned at her startled expression and moved downwards. ‘I saw the birthday cards. Kind of turns me on, the older- woman thing.’ He settled in closer and kissed her hard.
‘I thought you had to go,’ she gasped, as he slid into her.
‘I do,’ he said on a groan of pleasure. ‘And Rach?’
‘Yes, Gabe?’ Rachel managed, on a breath, the waves of ecstasy already building.
‘I’ll need a cup of tea afterwards …’
Chapter 26
Fordham was looking chocolate-box pretty in the mid-summer sunshine. Bright-pink petunias spilled in profusion from hanging baskets fixed to the timbers of the black-and-white market hall and everyone seemed to have a smile on their faces. Or so it seemed to Rachel. She returned their cheery ‘good mornings’ as if she was a native.
She hesitated, with her hand on the door of Foster, Grant and Fitch Estate Agents, before pushing it open. This wasn’t going to be easy.
Neil was alone in the office and rose to greet her. ‘Rachel, what a lovely surprise!’ He took her hands and kissed her on the cheek. ‘What a shame you didn’t come in a little earlier, I have to go out to an appointment in a moment.’
He was as well-mannered and dapper as ever. Rachel felt her guilt lie heavily.
‘Neil, have you got a minute to talk first?’
‘With you? But of course! I’ll just make a phone call and say I’ll be delayed.’
Rachel put a hand on his arm to stay him. ‘Please don’t, I’d hate to interrupt your working day. This won’t take long.’ Was it imagination or wishful thinking, or was there a glimmer of understanding in Neil’s beautiful blue eyes?
‘I’m not sure how to say this.’ she began. Neil raised his brows in query and indicated a chair. He perched on the edge of his desk, one long leg swinging. Rachel sat down. Flicking her hair nervously, she launched into her carefully prepared speech.
Driving back afterwards, Rachel couldn’t believe how gracious Neil had been. Without mentioning Gabe, she’d simply explained the wish that she and Neil would stay just friends. When she said she hoped he hadn’t got the wrong impression about the weekend at her parents, he’d given a shrug.
‘Do you know, Rachel, I sort of knew you didn’t feel about me as I was beginning to feel about you.’
Rachel blushed. ‘You are a lovely, decent man, Neil.’
‘Just not right for you.’
‘Just not right for me. I’m so sorry.’
Neil put his head on one side. ‘I admit to hoping, but after I dropped you off after our weekend away, I suspected it wasn’t to be.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll just have to chalk it up as one of those things.’ He got to his feet.
Rachel took it as a hint that she should go. She jumped up. ‘I can’t believe you’re still single,’ she said impulsively and kissed him on the cheek. ‘You’re such a lovely man.’
‘Yes, well,’ he replied, embarrassed. He gave her a hard hug. ‘Friends it is, then.’
They broke apart as Roger crashed into the office. He was bearing the inevitable box from Mervyn’s.
After exchanging pleasantries and assuring him she wouldn’t be a stranger and would return soon for coffee and cakes, Rachel had made good her escape.
She just hoped the village gossip machine wouldn’t catch up with Neil too soon. He was a nice man and didn’t deserve to be a victim of malicious tittle-tattle.
As she gunned the Fiat’s noisy engine along the main road, back to Stoke St Mary, she turned up the radio. Radio One unexpectedly blasted out, but she didn’t bother retuning. She hummed along instead.
Neil might well be the more suitable man, but it was Gabe who floated her boat. And Gabe floated her boat very nicely. Rachel grinned even more widely and turned up the radio further. ‘Who let the dogs out,’ she yelled, along with the inane pop song playing. Winding the window down, to let the hot summer wind blow through her hair, she put her foot down. She was happy.
Lying in bed with Gabe a few nights later, Rachel explained she’d spoken to Neil.
Gabe grunted. ‘Thought you said there wasn’t anything between you two?’
‘There never was,’ Rachel said indignantly.
‘Good.’
‘What about you, then? Rachel asked. ‘Any other women on the scene?’
Gabe rolled her over onto her front, so she couldn’t see his expression. He feathered a light finger down her spine and relished how it made her shiver. He loved the feel of her skin, he loved how she was so self-contained, so cool – and then exploded into passion with him. Letting his mouth follow where his finger had led, he delayed answering.
He’d never had a woman quite like Rachel. He loved her. Everything about her. The way she stroked a pencil lovingly across the page to create beauty, the way she worried over her friends, even her obsession with Hetty. But he wasn’t about to tell her. He’d never felt like this about anyone and he wasn’t sure how to handle it. One thing he was sure of, though, the time to tell her wasn’t now.
‘One or two,’ he said airily, ‘but not one compares with you.’
Distracted by his kisses, Rachel had to be content with that.
Chapter 27
Rachel and Gabe settled into a sort of routine. Gabe continued to work on the house, with Brian continuing the rewiring and Kev working alongside him, but didn’t go home at night now. Instead he and Rachel would share a simple meal – a steak or some pasta – and then he would settle down to an evening in front of the television while Rachel worked at her drawing board in front of the window.
It amazed Rachel how she could get so much done, with the noise of Big Brother blaring out from the small portable, accompanied by Gabe’s comments as he read the local newspaper from cover to cover. When she’d had enough of work and her back was aching, she’d slide onto the sofa beside him, open a bottle of wine and the kissing would take over.
It was remarkably companionable and easy having Gabe around, even if he did insist on watching trashy television and preferred a can of Stella to any wine she might offer.
They didn’t talk much. Often Rachel was engrossed in Hetty’s journal and Gabe in the football results, but it suited them.
Mike came over, when he could, in between tasks on the Hallidays’ cottage. Rachel often felt his eyes on her, but couldn’t tell how he felt about the situation.
She wasn’t all that sure how she felt about it herself. It had all happened so fast.
June 1963, Clematis Cottage
I have just seen off the district nurse. She got into her Mini and disappeared down the track at speed. The woman is as irritating as that damn fool curate at St Mary’s. Always telling me what is best. As if I don’t know. Yesterday, Duncan Wilson had the temerity to lecture me on the Great War and he not dry behind the ears! He is still very interested in what he insists on calling My Life, but refuses to accede to the request I made last November. So be it. This journal will become Richard’s memorial instead.
And motor vehicles for nurses? What is wrong with walking, or a bicycle? How I loved my first bicycle. It brought me freedom, work and a deep friendship when I had given up on finding it.
I learned how to ride Flora’s bicycle on the carriage drive in front of Delamere. It was some months after the hunt ball. I think it may have been April. I remember the swallows swooping low over us. A wonderfully sunny spring day. Before the war. Before it took Sam, David Parker and Edward from us. Richard too, in a way.
It was one of the few days Richard spent at Delamere. I wondered if he was avoiding me. I no longer understood or trust
ed him, but I was still, in some mysteriously physical way, deeply attracted. I had come to consider his behaviour at the ball had been, at the very least, un-gentlemanlike.
Learning to ride a bicycle had been difficult; I had never been blessed with much physical coordination. Flora and Richard held me upright, shouting to mind the ruts in the unkempt drive. How I’d wobbled about! I thought I would never master the thing, that it would be consigned to the same scorn I kept for horses. I had been flying over the rough gravel screaming and screeching to Richard not to push me so hard, that this was quite fast enough, when I’d looked around to see Richard and Flora tiny on the horizon, standing by the crumbling portico of the great house and waving. And I’d screamed again, this time with laughter and joy that I’d done it! I could ride a bike – just like Flora!
And had promptly fallen off.
Flora came rushing to me, a look of concern on her pretty face. ‘Hetty! Darling Hetty, are you alright?’
‘Of course she’s alright,’ Richard drawled as he strolled over. There was something cruel in his face that I did not like. He reached a hand down and pulled me to my feet. ‘Made of solid stuff is our Hetty.’ There was a nasty streak of sarcasm in his voice. ‘One bloodied knee isn’t going to put her off. Get back on, old girl. Straight back on the horse, as Flora’s father always says.’ They exchanged a look which excluded me. My old dislike of Flora resurrected itself.
Richard hoisted me, none too gently, back onto the saddle and pushed me, wobbling precariously, back to the house.
And I did have a bloody knee and an enormous hole in my stocking. But, as Cook tutted over it and cleaned out the gravel, I could only feel Richard’s arms around me as he gripped the handlebars to steady my hold and feel the cold vacuum left when he released me.
I had made a mistake with him, that evening at the hunt ball. I could see that now. But, how was I supposed to have conducted myself? I was no sophisticate. I’d had no opportunity to practise flirting and risqué small talk with men, as I’d seen Flora do. I didn’t know what men wanted and, more importantly, how to rebuff them without injury to their pride.
