Someone Like You

by Victoria Purman

  She had to finish this.

  ‘The coppers told me later that they’d probably set out to steal my handbag. That I was an easy target. A woman, out late on her own. I was so close to the worst thing imaginable. But I screamed and screamed until I was hoarse. Three blokes coming out of the Indian takeaway across the road heard me and ran over. They dropped their food and chased the bastards away…just in time.’

  Time. The trick of time meant that she’d been walking along that London street at the exact time that two men with vicious intent were there, too. One minute earlier or later, and it wouldn’t have happened. Or it might have happened to someone else. Ever since, she’d felt hostage to that twist of fate.

  Dan’s fists were jammed into the pockets of his trousers, his wide stance making him look like he was on the hunt. And that he was prepared to kill.

  He drew in a deep breath. ‘Did the cops ever get them?’

  Lizzie shook her head, wrapped her arms around her waist, shivering now without Dan’s warmth surrounding her. ‘I didn’t see their faces, it was too dark. And neither did the three blokes with the food.’

  ‘And this Billy guy. What happened with him? You said he lasted a week after this happened to you?’

  Lizzie could barely force the words out, but pushed herself to keep going.

  ‘Billy said I should just get over it, to stop moping about. He was a London party boy, not someone who did tea and sympathy.’

  ‘What?’ Dan said, his voice a bark.

  ‘He just wanted to have a good time, to fuck me, not hold my hand when I cried. Apparently, I wasn’t “fun” anymore.’

  ‘You’re fucking kidding me.’

  ‘After that, I couldn’t stay there. I couldn’t get on a bus; I couldn’t walk a street in the dark. I was jumping at shadows and there were too many in London. As soon as I could, I packed my suitcase and jumped on the next flying kangaroo out of there.’

  ‘And you came straight home, back here.’

  ‘Right back to Middle Point. Right into Mum’s diagnosis of breast cancer. You see, she hadn’t told me she was sick. Since she’d been stuck here her whole life, she wanted me to have the adventure I’d always dreamed about. She didn’t want to burst that bubble for me. So I spent the next six months nursing her until she died.’

  ‘No wonder you want a regular day,’ Dan said gruffly.

  She steeled herself for the rest of her secret, so long hidden. ‘It was only after Mum died that I finally fell apart.’ Tears threatened and she let them fall. ‘I had my first panic attack two months after she was gone, when I’d packed up all her things from the house, donated them to charity. I went home, walked into the kitchen and it really hit me, everything. I thought I was having a heart attack.’

  Dan stopped. Met her eyes, a huge sigh escaping his lips, his chest rising and falling so hard she could see it in the dark. His arms now hung loosely by his side but the flicker in his jaw gave him away. ‘So that’s how you knew.’

  Lizzie nodded and rested a hand on her heart to calm the churning memories that still hid there, of a daughter’s grief that came to harrowing life every now and then. ‘My doctor told me that a panic attack is a sign of having tried to remain strong for too long. That was me.’

  ‘Do you still get them?’

  Lizzie shook her head. ‘Not for years. So you see, Dan, I’ve been wondering for months about what was going on with you. Tonight, I saw it in your eyes for the first time. I didn’t want you to go through it alone. Like I did. I hid away from the world, too. Some days I couldn’t get out of bed. I was a blank. Happiness, sadness, anger. I didn’t feel anything.’

  ‘Elizabeth…’

  ‘For too long, I was ashamed, too scared to tell anybody in case I’d get a label pinned on me for the rest of my life. You probably don’t know what small towns are like. Nicknames stick here. I never, ever wanted to be “poor Lizzie”. Or even worse, “crazy Lizzie”.’

  ‘So you didn’t tell anyone?’ There was confusion in his voice and on his face.

  ‘Apart from my doctor?’ She shook her head. ‘No one. Not even Jools. Or Joe.’

  ‘But…you’re telling me.’

  Yes, she was telling him. Everything. Ripping open her heart and baring her most painful secrets. Things so hard she’d kept them buried, things she believed no one else would understand.

  ‘I’m telling you because I want to be fair to you, too, Dan. This is the real me. I don’t want secrets from you, either. For better or worse, this is who I am.’

  Dan moved to her, sat beside her. He leaned forwards, his elbows on his knees and was still. Silent. He didn’t touch her.

  Lizzie felt emotionally wrung out and physically exhausted. While the weight of the burden of her secret was finally revealed, she didn’t magically feel any better. A heaviness had settled in her chest, tight around her lungs, squeezing her heart to hurting. She felt a shiver, clutched herself tighter against the sudden gust of chilled wind that had whipped up from the beach below them and ruffled her dress.

  Then Dan shifted, found her hands and wrapped them in his. Without a word, he pressed his lips to them, held the kiss. When he finally found his voice, he turned to her. And even in the dark she could see the real Dan in his emerald eyes.

  ‘Come home with me.’

  For a fleeting second, she wondered if Ry and Julia needed her to do anything more. And then it passed. If this was the first day of the rest of her life, she wanted it to start.

  Her answer was yes.

  Soft, romantic music floated all around Ry and Julia as they danced in each other’s arms. The party was winding down and many of the older guests had already left. Barbra and Harri were already tucked up in bed, worn out by the party, and Joe had left, too. So had Anna. As befitting their non-traditional nuptials, the bride and groom were among the last to leave. They simply didn’t want the party to end. Julia held on tight to her husband and Ry smiled lovingly down at his wife.

  ‘Mr Blackburn?’ she asked, her lips a soft caress on his cheek.

  ‘Yes, Ms Jones?’

  ‘Lizzie’s speech was interesting, don’t you think?’

  ‘Didn’t hear a word. I was too distracted by my beautiful bride.’ Ry pressed a gentle kiss to her lips.

  ‘I was thinking about the part where she and Dan took credit for us. For this. For pushing us together.’

  Dan shrugged. ‘Let ’em think that, JJ. What does it matter? We’re here. You married me. Thank God.’ Ry kissed the top of her hair, gave her a squeeze.

  ‘It’s just that…what strikes me as hilarious is that they have absolutely no clue that we’ve done the same for them.’

  ‘You’re talking about Operation Dan and Lizzie.’

  ‘Exactly. Our brilliantly executed plan to help Dan by throwing Lizzie at him. It’s been an outstanding success, don’t you think?’

  ‘Seems so.’

  ‘Although they sure turned into the worst best man and bridesmaid I’ve ever seen. They didn’t even come over and say goodbye.’

  ‘Have they left?’

  ‘They walked out of here about half an hour ago, hand in hand, looking like they wanted to rip each other’s clothes off.’

  ‘Where was I? How come I didn’t see this?’

  ‘Because and, although I’m very grateful for it, you’re a guy, Ry.’

  ‘Yes I am. Who wants to get his girl home. Right now.’

  Julia looked around at the stragglers. There would be only a few people to say goodbye to, to thank for the gifts. She moved out of his embrace, slipped her hand into his.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  An hour later, Dan and Lizzie were tangled, limbs entwined, arms around each other, sharing their breaths and their heartbeats. They’d found their way to Dan’s place by instinct, not needing to talk, finding it completely unnecessary to fill the space between them with any more words. They were talked out.

  When Dan had pushed open his front door, he’d turned to Liz
zie, his eyes filled with wanting her, and she’d reached for him, pulling and twisting his shirt from his body, slowly undoing the buttons, trailing kisses up the hard plane of his stomach to his pecs. At each nipple, she’d teased and flicked with her tongue and his groans told her he wanted more. After his shirt fell to the floor, he’d reached behind Lizzie, tugged at the zip of her dress with gentle fingers until it freed her, and had slipped it from her shoulders. There was another groan when he’d seen her matching pale blue bra and knickers, and with a skilful flick he’d freed her breasts, pressing and rubbing her hard nipples with the pads of his thumbs. Then she was naked, too, beautifully naked in the moonlight, and as he’d traced his lips over her neck, she’d let her hands drift from his shoulders, down his chest, to the hard desire she found lower.

  This was exactly what she wanted, she knew. She felt released. She’d shed her skin, was free to be who she really was. She didn’t have to hide from him anymore, protect her heart from something that could cut it in two. She had opened up to him, and there was nothing left to lose. She didn’t know what was going to happen next and at that very moment, in his arms, it didn’t matter. She’d freed herself. Saved herself. She’d turned into her own guardian angel, after so long.

  And knowing his secrets didn’t scare her away. She loved him all the more for his honesty. For exactly who he was.

  Loved him.

  Yes, she realised as he’d led her to his bedroom, she really loved him. She finally felt free to love him fully and honestly, with every part of herself.

  Lizzie finally found her breath, the rise and fall of her chest slowing after an orgasm that had shaken her into whimpering. What Dan could do with his fingers and his tongue. Spin her into an orbit and around in a cloud of bliss until she came back down to earth with a cry.

  Afterwards, Dan pulled the blanket over them and cradled Lizzie in his arms.

  ‘I just realised something,’ Lizzie whispered, not having the energy to speak any louder.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘We forgot to say goodbye to the bride and groom.’ Lizzie kissed the perfect skin of his chest, traced a finger over the ridges of his abs, found his belly button. ‘You think Ry and Julia will ever forgive us?’

  ‘It’s their wedding night. Don’t think they noticed.’

  Lizzie chuckled. ‘They looked happy, don’t you think?’

  ‘Happy as pigs in the proverbial. I suppose they’ll be all happy families now. Kids. All that stuff.’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘We’re going to get sucked into that too, you know. For the rest of their lives. Baby showers and christenings and whatever the hell you call all that stuff. If they have a kid, they’ll ask us to be the godparents.’

  ‘Of course they will,’ she murmured.

  Lizzie felt loose-limbed and limber in his arms and he could hear in her breathing, softer now, that she was starting to drift off. Dan wanted to keep her there, in his bed, talking, feeling her move against him. Her hand splayed on his stomach. The feel of her breast on his chest, full and heavy.

  ‘Elizabeth?’ He searched her face in the dark. Her eyes had fluttered shut, her plump lips slightly parted as she lay there, on the verge of sleep. ‘You tired?’

  ‘Yes.’ She barely shifted.

  He reached up to stroke her hair, gentle and soft, a move that calmed him more than it did her. ‘Just go to sleep.’

  Her fingers pressed into his abs. ‘Can we talk in the morning? There’s lots to talk about.’

  ‘I know there is. Just close your eyes. You can go to sleep right here. In my arms.’

  And Lizzie did, almost immediately, drifting away in the loving warmth of his arms, his bed and his little green beach house.

  Dan roused early, the morning sun in the eastern sky waking him way earlier than made good sense, considering the events of the week and the night before. Lizzie was still asleep, dead to the world. As he shifted from his back to his side, so he could watch her, she didn’t stir. He liked watching her sleep. It hadn’t come easily to him in the past six months, so he couldn’t begrudge anyone who could sleep like she did. He missed the Sunday sleep-ins until midday, the late lunches and wasted afternoons with the papers. He wondered which section of the paper she liked to read first. He looked forward to getting back into the rhythm of that.

  Dan knew he was getting back into the pattern of something resembling a normal life now that he was back at work. The routine of it felt good, worthwhile. Since The Market had been completed, he’d been head-down, arse-up on the housing development. Tenders, schedules, plans, contractors and contracts. That focus had also served as a massive distraction from thinking about the woman lying next to him.

  And now he couldn’t think of anything else.

  Everything, from this day on, was about her.

  Dan turned, lay on his back again, his hands clasped under his head. He went over and over about what had happened to her on that dark London street. Those two arseholes. Those two…there weren’t words strong enough for what he felt about men who did that to women. Just thinking about what they’d done set his jaw to stone.

  And Lizzie — scared, young, small town Middle Point girl Lizzie — had screamed and kicked and fought. Then, she’d packed up her heartbreak and come home to more of the same. And all she’d gone through since? It would be enough to rock anyone’s foundations and their ideas for their life.

  But she’d survived.

  Didn’t she realise she’d always been strong, that it had been in her all along?

  She was Elizabeth Blake. And she was magnificent.

  Her perfect, sleeping face was at peace. Her cheeks soft, her blonde eyelashes resting on her cheek, a smattering of freckles across her nose. She looked released. Free.

  And he then wondered if he could he really ask her. How could he ask Lizzie to be with him here, in Middle Point, when it meant asking her to remain in hiding? To stay here would mean she would always feel a little bit like the small town crazy girl who tried to have a life but ended up running from it instead.

  Could he let her do that?

  Lizzie woke to an empty bed and an empty house. Dan’s note, slipped into a clean and empty coffee cup he’d left on the kitchen counter, said simply:

  Be back soon.

  She let it flutter to the kitchen bench, pulled Dan’s dinner shirt tighter around her middle. She stared out his front windows to the roadway and the beach beyond. Cars were already parked and unloaded, their drivers and their contents spilled onto the sand for another summer’s day in paradise.

  Another day. She looked around Dan’s house, listened to the sound of nothing. It felt empty without him, without his voice and his body and the look in his eyes that he tossed her way and that sent her knees buckling. She didn’t need to think too much about where he’d gone. She knew he’d be back because that’s the kind of man he was. But what would he say when he returned?

  Had her secret scared him off? And as she wondered about that, searched deeper, she had to ask herself if she’d wanted it to. If she was being honest, part of her was relieved he wasn’t there. It would have meant having the conversation. About what came next. About where they went from here, if anywhere.

  What did she want? Really, really want? Saying it out loud, really wanting it, would mean the disappointment would be so more crushing when it didn’t happen. Since she’d come back from London, she hadn’t dared wish for anything.

  Until The Market. She’d let herself imagine something there and had helped it come to life. Could she apply that same strategy to Dan? If she imagined a life with him, could she help it come to life?

  Perhaps it was time for Operation Lizzie, time to start plotting the story of the rest of her life. Up until now, she’d let it happen to her, let it run on the ‘shit happens’ principle. Maybe now it was time to create that life for herself.

  Lizzie rubbed her eyes, suddenly energised. She found her dress, slipped it on. Looped the straps of her sa
ndals around an index finger and closed the door behind her as she left.

  CHAPTER

  34

  Lizzie stood in her kitchen, arms crossed, wishing the kettle would bloody well hurry up and boil. This was going to be the first day of the rest of her life. If she’d ever needed caffeine, it was now. Right now.

  What she didn’t need was a smirking big brother, especially one who was staring at her with suspicious eyes, noticeably taking in her crumpled blue bridesmaid’s dress.

  ‘Morning, Lizzie.’ He bumped her aside with his hip and grabbed some juice from the fridge. He reached up to a high shelf for a glass and filled it. Drank it in one swallow. Filled it again. Placed it carefully on the counter.

  ‘Joe.’

  ‘Great night last night, huh?’

  ‘Yeah, it was. Did you have a good time?’

  He smiled, and she saw something in his eyes. Something self-satisfied and macho. ‘I did, as a matter of fact. And you know what? You were right. I did need some no-strings-attached dancing. It’s done me the world of good.’ Joe stretched his arms high, almost meeting the ceiling, and then fisted his chest like King Kong. ‘Man, I’m feeling fantastic this morning.’

  What had got into him? Lizzie wondered. She reached over, patted him on the shoulder. ‘Excellent news.’

  ‘And what about you, Mosquito? Enjoyable night?’ His curious eyes ran up and down yesterday’s dress.

  ‘I’m not telling you anything.’

  ‘Not even about the way you ran off with—’

  ‘I said no questions. I’m not in the mood for a press conference today, okay?’ She didn’t know where the edge in her voice had come from, but it was there. And she suddenly felt on edge. She was feeling nervous about Operation Lizzie all of a sudden. Maybe it was the lack of sleep. Maybe it was thinking about Dan and The Talk.

  Joe held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘No questions from me. Can’t think of a single one.’