The Pleasures of Summer

by Evie Hunter

  The memory of the last time he had gone down a narrow mountain path carrying a woman rose to torment him. Was there anything he could do in his life that didn’t bring him right back to Summer? The woman in his arms was a different shape, a different smell. Was every woman he met for the rest of his life going to be compared to Summer? And suffer in comparison, too.

  Shut up and concentrate. This is no time to be thinking about Summer O’Sullivan. Focus! As if the words conjured it, his foot slammed down on a rock. His foot went sideways and his knee twisted.

  Agony shot up his leg, stopping his breath. He was running so fast that his momentum kept him going, but his right knee was a blaze of agony. The woman in his arms was suddenly the weight of a baby elephant. He had to drag every last ounce of strength from his muscles to keep holding her. To keep running.

  Keep running. Keep running. That was the only thought in his head. Everything else had gone. His world was reduced to the agony of putting one foot in front of the other. Dragging one more breath into his lungs. Holding onto the woman in his arms. Step. Agony. Step. Agony.

  His knee was on fire. Every time he put weight on it, the pain increased. Now it was being stabbed by a dozen rusty knives. The knives were getting hotter. More of them.

  Vaguely he wondered what he had done to himself. He knew he was running on adrenaline and sheer cussedness. Had he broken his kneecap, or just torn ligaments? he wondered. Maybe both. Was this the end of his career? Would he ever be able to walk again?

  Somewhere at the back of his mind, a tiny vision of Summer egged him on. He ignored the pain that lanced through him and kept running. A bullet thudded into his back. Even through the body armour, it bruised him.

  The boom of the explosion was a welcome change. The chase slowed up for a few minutes, but Flynn kept going.

  The whirling rotors at the bottom of the mountain were the most welcome sight he had ever seen. With one last burst of speed, he flung the woman onto the floor of the chopper, and himself in after her.

  ‘Who is that?’ Niall demanded, but Flynn couldn’t answer. He passed out before the chopper took off.

  31

  Summer blinked several times, trying to adjust her eyes to the darkness. The lumpy mattress beneath her was nothing like her own. Okay, don’t panic. Don’t panic. Just breathe. The memory of Flynn’s words calmed her and she took several deep breaths.

  She had a fuzzy memory of being carried down a flight of stairs and the smell of air freshener, which failed to mask the stink of cigarettes. A wave of nausea swept over her and she rolled over onto her side, kicking off the blanket. What the hell had they injected her with?

  When the nausea passed she staggered unsteadily to her feet. Somewhere along the way, she had lost one of her pumps. She kicked the other one off and, arms outstretched, she moved slowly towards the crack of light at the far side of the room. She needed to see.

  The chink of light was high above her head. Her hand hit something solid. The surface was uneven, like painted bricks. Where was she? A garage? Some kind of storage unit? Standing on tiptoe, she stretched towards the light, patting the wall lightly. There. Her fingers came in contact with something smooth, some kind of tape. She scratched with her nails until it came away from the wall.

  More light flooded into the room and she looked around her. Apart from a bare mattress, the room contained no furniture. A cardboard box in the corner announced that it killed all known germs and a single light bulb hung from the ceiling. She squinted at her watch, trying to figure out how long she had been here. Four-thirty.

  Late afternoon. She had missed her lunch date with Sinead – her cousin would be pissed. But her dad wouldn’t be back until Wednesday. Would the men who took her know that? How would they convince her father that they had her? Would they chop off one of her fingers the way they did in horror movies and send it to him? Summer’s heard pounded at the thought of it.

  Stop it. Don’t think like that. Positive mental attitude. Remember? Flynn had told her that if she was ever taken, she should co-operate. Kidnappers didn’t want her, just the money she represented.

  She took several deep breaths before she recommenced her assault on the layers of duct tape, pulling it away from the wall inch by inch. She winced as she broke one of her nails. Bugger. She bit down on it and removed what was left of the jagged edge. After what seemed like an hour, she was able to pull the covering away.

  The small window had white painted bars. Through them, she could see a flight of stone steps with a wrought iron balustrade. She craned her neck and caught a glimpse of blue sky. ‘Okay, Sherlock, what does that tell you?’

  Focus. Just focus and stay calm. She had only been taken a few hours ago and already she was talking to herself. It was a basement, probably in a period house, and she couldn’t hear any traffic, only birds’ song, so definitely not in the city. Given the time lapse since they took her, she couldn’t be too far away from London.

  The sound of voices made her jump. She patted the tape back into place around the window and jumped back onto the mattress, pulling the blanket around her. The lock clicked and electric light flooded the room. She held her breath and heard footsteps as someone approached.

  He shook her shoulder roughly. ‘Wake up. No more sleeping.’

  Summer feigned bewilderment as she opened her eyes. ‘Where am I?’

  He wasn’t one of the men who had taken her. His jet-black hair was flecked with grey and his swarthy complexion made him look like a gypsy. ‘Up. Up. You eat now. Then I take you to bathroom.’

  The rattle of crockery announced the arrival of the second man. The one who had been with Uri. At the smell of oxtail soup, her stomach gave a welcoming growl. She had eaten hardly anything since the day before. He placed the tray on the bed. One bowl with a plastic spoon, a bread roll and a bottle of water. It was better than nothing. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  Uri’s friend grunted in response. As he stood up, his jacket moved and she caught a glimpse of a gun tucked into his belt. Any idea she had of making a run for it vanished at the sight of it. ‘Why have you taken me?’

  A flash of amusement crossed his face and he broke into a laugh. ‘Why do you think? Your father will pay much to get you back.’

  ‘My father is in Atlanta.’

  That piece of information took him by surprise. He exchanged a glance with Gypsy who shrugged. ‘No matter. He can take one of his own aeroplanes home. Be good girl and you will be free soon.’

  With that, both men left the room. Summer heard the lock clicking back into place. At least they had left the light on. She ate the lukewarm soup slowly, trying not to gag. The door opened again as she scraped the last mouthful from the bowl.

  ‘Come now.’ Gypsy was back again, carrying a small plastic bag. Barefoot, she followed him into the corridor, glancing left and right from beneath her eyelashes, trying to establish where she was. She caught a glimpse of a row of brass pans in what appeared to be a kitchen, and an iron-gated wine cellar. At the end of the corridor, Gypsy opened a door that led into a toilet with a tiny sink.

  He handed her the bag. ‘You have five minutes.’

  As if to warn her, he tapped the face of his watch. Summer nodded and closed the door behind her. It was too much to hope that the bathroom had a lock. The plastic bag contained a travel-size toothbrush and toothpaste.

  Summer used the facilities as quickly as she could. She was still brushing her teeth when he pounded on the door. She spat into the sink and rinsed her mouth quickly. Gypsy didn’t have a lot of patience.

  When she returned to her room, Uri was waiting. ‘We make a little movie, yes?’

  She nodded. Somehow she didn’t think that her dad would like this one any more than her last starring role.

  Uri’s friend returned, carrying a mobile phone and a newspaper which he placed beside her. ‘You will sit on the bed and read from this.’

  Summer took the paper from him. The prices of O’Sullivan Airlines shares on
the stock market made her want to laugh, but the words on the page blurred before her eyes as her new reality came home to her. If something went wrong, she was going to die.

  Flynn blinked his eyes free of the narcotics that were trying to hold him asleep. There was something driving him, something he needed to do. His head was still full of woodpeckers with pile drivers, but he couldn’t stay unconscious any longer.

  The soothing white ceiling and smell of a hospital greeted him. Fuck, not another one. He had spent far too long in hospital this year. He was getting old. It took a few minutes before the mission in Afghanistan came back to him. Ah well, not bad for an old guy.

  He pressed the call bell under his hand. The nurse who answered looked tired, but smiled when she saw him. ‘Herr Grant. You’re awake.’ Why did medical people always need to state the obvious, he wondered. ‘I heard what you did. You’re the hero of the hospital.’

  ‘I’m a hero?’ he repeated stupidly. He knew there was no way Niall would ever have leaked anything about their mission to anyone here.

  The nurse checked his chart, examined the machines beeping beside him and finally handed him a beaker with a bendy straw. ‘Yes, Doctor Blé told us all what you did, how you carried her down the mountain with a dislocated knee and torn ligaments.’

  ‘Doctor Blé?’ Flynn asked.

  ‘Doctor Simone Blé of Los Medicos Voladores. She had been held captive for two months before you rescued her. She can’t sing your praises highly enough.’

  That explained who the French woman was, and why he hadn’t heard about her capture. Flynn trusted Niall would look after her and return her home. He went back to the other part of the nurse’s comment. ‘What’s wrong with my knee?’

  He held his breath while she checked his chart again. One of these days, he would have an injury he couldn’t recover from, and he had no idea how he would cope. His mind shied away from living as a cripple.

  ‘You’ve got grade three tearing on your ACL and medial ligaments. It’s a miracle you were able to move at all, never mind run. If Simone hadn’t told us herself, we wouldn’t have believed you could have done it. We’ve operated on you, but I’m afraid you’re out of action for at least six months.’

  ‘No way. I have a wedding to go to. I am not going on crutches.’

  The nurse looked at him sternly. ‘If you don’t want to regain the use of your knee, that’s fine. I’ve seen your record; you’ve already used up all your luck when it comes to injuries. Abuse your knee and it will never work properly.’

  Flynn flopped back against the pillow. Six months on crutches? It wasn’t possible. He couldn’t stand that. He’d be a laughing stock at the wedding.

  And Summer? Somehow things had rearranged themselves in his mind when he was unconscious. Summer was HIS. So she wasn’t the perfect little sub that Lorna had been. So, she was high maintenance, headstrong and bratty. He loved those things about her. And even more, he loved her willingness to explore, her loyalty, her vulnerability, her sensuality, her big heart. And it didn’t hurt that she had a body like Venus, he admitted.

  Summer wasn’t his principal any longer. He wasn’t exactly the sort of man she usually dated, but to hell with that. He knew what she wanted. He’d shower her with kink from night to morning if that’s what it took to make her happy.

  He had hoped to make a more athletic entrance but to hell with it, he couldn’t wait. His phone was gone, so he demanded the hospital phone and stuffed his credit card into it. ‘Hi Niall, put me through to Summer. I need to talk to her.’

  Niall laughed and told him to hold on. The wait dragged on and on. The numbers on his phone cranked up and up, and were over a tenner when Niall came back on the line. ‘We don’t know where she is. She gave McEntaggart the slip.’

  Despite the heat of the hospital, Flynn’s skin chilled. ‘When?’ His lips were stiff.

  ‘No one has seen her in several days.’

  ‘Find her, Niall. I’ll be with you soon.’ He hung up and jammed his finger on the call button.

  When an annoyed nurse arrived, he told her, ‘Get me my clothes, a knee brace and a wheelchair. I’m discharging myself.’

  She gave an impatient sigh. ‘I can’t stop you from leaving, Herr Grant, but I must remind you if you don’t give yourself time to recover, you may be limping permanently.’

  Try to keep track of time and establish routines – item nine or whatever it was on Flynn’s list. She was lucky that she had a watch, although unsticking the masking tape around the window to read the time was a pain.

  She hadn’t managed to sleep much. The room was cold and the thin blanket did little to keep her warm. She had seen no one for almost eight hours. Were they still in the house? Had the ransom been paid? Maybe something had gone wrong?

  That thought prompted her to climb off the mattress again and make her way to the door. The silence was broken by footsteps. Someone was coming. She stood on her abandoned shoe in her hurry to get back and had to stifle a yelp of pain.

  The light was switched on and the door opened. It was Gypsy. ‘Bathroom, then food.’

  She walked slowly down the corridor, trying to stretch her legs. She would have to exercise, maybe do some circuits of the room. Anything to stave off the boredom and stop her thinking.

  ‘You slept?’ Gypsy asked her.

  She shook her head. ‘Not a lot. It was cold.’

  ‘Five minutes.’ He tapped his watch and Summer scurried inside. This time she checked the tiny room thoroughly. There was a window but it was too small for even a child to climb through and there was nothing here that she could use as a weapon.

  She washed quickly and opened the door a crack. There was no sign of Gypsy. Could she make a run for it? The kitchen door swung open and she heard voices. Summer stepped back inside and closed the door.

  ‘You come now.’ It wasn’t Gypsy, but the sidekick. She had heard Gypsy call him Andrei.

  He propelled her ahead of him back to her room. On a tray in the middle of the mattress was a bowl of cereal and a small carton of milk. Best of all was the smell of coffee coming from a red mug. Summer’s mouth watered. She devoured the cereal quickly and finished off the milk, not sure when they would feed her again. She wrapped her chilled fingers around the mug and sipped it, grateful for the warmth. Andrei stood in the doorway, watching her every move until Gypsy re-appeared carrying a plump bed throw.

  ‘Hey, Uri said no touching stuff from upstairs –’

  ‘Pfff,’ Gypsy shrugged. ‘Do you want her getting sick?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Andrei replied, but he looked on with disapproval clearly written across his face as Gypsy laid the throw on the end of the mattress.

  ‘Thank you.’ Summer smiled gratefully at him. She drained the last of her coffee and placed the mug back on the tray. Gypsy picked it up and headed to the door. ‘Could you leave the light on? Please?’ She hated sounding anxious, but the thought of another endless day here in the dark was more than she could tolerate.

  The door closed behind them. The lock clicked into place and then the room was plunged into darkness. She heard voices outside, and almost immediately the light came back on again. She pulled the throw around her, thankful for light and warmth.

  32

  Flynn fumed as he limped into the terminal and switched on his phone. Bloody plane. It was bad enough that he had been stuck on a commercial flight for hours. Niall would have a cow when he got the bill for the three first class tickets he’d bought so that he could stretch out his leg. The client would probably end up paying for it.

  When he reached the arrivals hall, a tall figure sloped away from a pillar and came to greet him. Andy McTavish could wear a dishrag and still look elegant. The joke at the agency was that Andy made ‘tall dark and handsome’ sound like an understatement. Niall often used him as bait for missions involving women.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Flynn demanded.

  ‘I’m your driver. I hear you’re all injured and
delicate and we have to look after you.’

  ‘Fuck off, Andy.’ It didn’t help Flynn’s temper that it was true. His leg was encased in a giant plastic and metal brace that make him look like RoboCop, and he had a long list of things he was not to do if he ever wanted to use his knee again.

  He directed Andy to drive to Dunboy House. Chances were that there would be some clue there as to where Summer had gone.

  The butler was his usual disapproving self, but to give him his due, Malcolm seemed genuinely upset by Summer’s disappearance. He wrung his hands with uncharacteristic agitation when he told Flynn that he had gone to the doctor’s the last time Summer was here.

  ‘That nice Mr Fielding gave her a lift home. I did offer to make up a room for him after the drive, because it was late at night, but his bed wasn’t slept in.’ He gave Flynn a pointed look, which he ignored.

  ‘When did you see her after that?’

  Malcolm shook his head. ‘I didn’t. I had a medical appointment that morning, and I missed her. She was gone when I returned.’

  No matter how much he probed, Flynn couldn’t get anything else out of the butler. He left Malcolm polishing silver and checked the rest of the house. Summer’s room had been tidied, but still smelled of her.

  Was it really less than a month since he had been here? He lifted the bottles on her dressing table and sniffed them. None of the scents were half as exotic as the smell of her skin or her hair or the taste of her as he buried his face between her thighs.

  Down boy. Keep your focus on the mission. A small tissue-wrapped parcel caught his attention and he opened it. A pebble from the loch, the one with the pattern that looked like a star; he had found it for her. A small pinecone like the ones that littered the forest floor where he had found her the night she ran away. A pale orchid with a touch of pink at the centre, a little battered around the edges. All memories of a Scottish summer.