Dream a Little Dream (20 page)

‘Tricky.’ Cleo slowed the car to pass a tractor and muck spreader. ‘If the worst-case scenario would be that you accept his offer and things don’t work out, what happens next?’

‘I suppose I relocate.’

‘So you need to assess whether it’s better to relocate now, or hang on to see what happens between all the other parties in case you can salvage something, or give Dominic a try. Which option gives you the greatest opportunity for reward?’

Liza groaned aloud. ‘Cleo, plain English! What reward?’

Cleo took a hand from the steering wheel to enumerate with her fingers. ‘Which option will make the most money? What provides the opportunity to run your business as you want to and create your own success? Emotional reward – well, who the hell knows what shape that would take? Not you, apparently. But, at the very least, you show signs of liking Dominic.’ She glanced sideways at her sister with a wink.

Unwillingly, Liza laughed. ‘Probably accepting Dominic’s offer. But I could, conceivably, achieve it all if he would back off and leave The Stables to me.’

Cleo checked her mirrors and steered the car into Main Road. ‘Liza, that boat has sailed.’

Although Liza’s schedule said she’d begin work at three, it turned out that her first appointment wasn’t until four. Wishing she’d thought to ring Pippa before bursting a vessel to get to work, she washed and dried the glasses used for after-treatment drinks of water, tidied her desk and checked her appointment list, ready to get out notes for any returning clients. She paused. Damn. Her eight p.m. client was Dominic.

She’d planned to keep out of his way until she’d decided how to feel about all kinds of things. Including him. And his offer, which was both too good to be true and too good to refuse. Yet she hadn’t accepted it.

Because she was being sensible. Or a scaredy cat. Or a moron.

She grabbed her towels and fleece blankets from the dryer in the kitchen to fold them neatly into the treatment room cupboard. Deep ruby red, for the towels, had been a mistake. It wasn’t a peaceful colour and it wasn’t a Liza colour. Cleo was reds and oranges; Liza was blues and blacks and purples. She’d order blackberry or hyacinth, next time. Her hands halted and she stared sightlessly at the fluffy fabric. When and what would ‘next time’ be? Would she still be at The Stables? She loved its peaceful, leafy, dramatic location in Port Manor’s great park. She’d hate to relocate to soulless, ugly brick-box premises in Bettsbrough or Peterborough. And not all her clients would migrate with her. Once again she’d have to grind through relentlessly enthusiastic promotion to rebuild her list and hope she could pay the mortgage, meanwhile. She wouldn’t have the back up of being able to sell her car to tide her over because the new premises, unless she moved house, too, would no doubt be a car ride away.

And she didn’t want to move out of Middledip.

Which brought her back to Dominic’s offer … and there she was, thinking about him all over again.

And she was shattered. Really, truthfully, shattered. She yawned until her eyes watered. The rest of the day was going to be horrible if she couldn’t shake off this dragging lethargy. She checked her watch. Still half an hour until her four o’clock client. Taking out her phone, she set an alert for twenty minutes, grabbed one of the freshly laundered blue fleece blankets and hopped up onto her treatment couch. Closing her eyes, she stretched and yawned, took a few yogic breaths and let herself soak into the couch as if she were made of syrup. Sink. Ooze. Her yoga classes were about the only thing she really missed about Peterborough. Pity there wasn’t room at The Stables to get instructors in to take classes …

When her phone buzzed and beeped twenty minutes later, she could have thrown it across the room in frustration. Not fair! She’d only slept for about two minutes, hadn’t she? Although she did also feel sufficiently grit-eyed and fuzzy-headed to have slept for a thousand years.

It seemed as if daytime napping worked better than that for Dominic—

Damn. Thinking about him again.

In fact, she thought about him, indirectly, throughout her next two appointments, gradually acknowledging the sad fact that he had access to more cash than she did. That made him more attractive to the hotel, as well as to Nicolas, and her shoestring plans didn’t stand up well against his big, properly financed ideas.

Did Dominic seem likely to get The Stables?

Yes.

Was he really a douchebag?

Not much. OK, no.

Then she’d rather that he didn’t have to line Nicolas’s pockets any more than was reasonable.

During her break, she approached Nicolas’s office, reflecting that only a matter of weeks ago his door would have been wide open rather than barely ajar and she would have bounded in with whatever was on her mind.

She knocked and pushed the door open. ‘Hello,’ Nicolas greeted her, unenthusiastically. He didn’t wave her to a chair or smile.

She took a breath. ‘I’m not going to pursue the idea of renting The Stables, Nicolas.’

‘Oh?’ His frown was sudden and startled. ‘Why’s that?’

Obviously, she couldn’t say, ‘I’m pulling out so Dominic can knock you down on the price.’ So, improvising the sort of vocabulary she thought that Cleo might use, she said, ‘I’ve run a variety of scenarios with my business adviser’ – Cleo had advised about the business, right? – ‘and with the bank, and have concluded that there are probably better options for me.’ She turned back towards her own room.

‘Liza!’ Was that a note of alarm in his voice? His frown had certainly deepened into furrows. ‘I’m sure you’ll appreciate … Business being …’ He cleared the hesitations from his throat and produced a whole sentence. ‘May I ask you not to speak about your decision, for now?’

‘Actually, I can’t commit to that.’

An instant’s fury blazed across his face, but he replaced it with a wistful smile. ‘Why don’t you sit down for a moment, and I’ll get Pippa to bring us coffee? It’s really quite important that I can rely on your discretion.’

‘Important to you,’ she agreed, not sitting down. ‘But I have to look after my own interests. Got to go – I’ve clients booked in right up until nine.’

‘Yes, but Liza—!’

She left his words on the air behind her.

It was exactly eight when Dominic arrived. Pippa, Nicolas and Fenella had gone home and Liza and Imogen were showing in their own clients. ‘Hi,’ he said, casually, shaking drizzle from his hair and unzipping a black hiking jacket beaded with moisture. He followed her to her room. Quietly courteous, he behaved as if there had been no sizzling sex between them, no roaring row.

But he didn’t sleep whilst she did his feet.

Liza was conscious of his half-open eyes and that he didn’t let go completely. When the session was over, she’d held the warmth of his feet in her hands for the last time and he’d drunk his water and they’d talked about whether he’d slept well after his last treatment – he said that he had – he replaced his socks and shoes and slid into his jacket.

She waited, sure he’d made the appointment for a reason, either to repeat his business offer or to reverse gracefully out of it. But he just smiled a smile that barely reached his eyes, nodded, and made to leave, and it was her own voice that she heard. ‘I told Nicolas that I’m no longer interested in the lease.’

He paused in the doorway, checked Nicolas’s office was empty, then returned. ‘Oh?’ His eyes looked particularly bright when his attention was caught.

‘I just thought it would be useful information for you.’

Slowly, he nodded. ‘You’re right.’ His expression gave little away. She’d become used to the slow smiles that echoed in his eyes. ‘How about you tell me on Saturday whether you’re in or out on my project?’ And he stepped forward, pressed a brief, impersonal kiss on her forehead, and left without waiting for her reply. Evidently, he wasn’t angry now. He didn’t look stressed or depressed or fatigued. He might have made the appointment to mess with her head or just because he liked having his feet done.

But she saw that what he’d snapped at her last night was true – whatever happened at The Stables, Liza was optional.

He was focused on his project. His dream.

PWNsleep message board:

Tenzeds: I think the sleep hygiene’s making a difference. I’ve got loads on, but I cope if I stick to my sleep schedule.

Inthebatcave: Yeah, definitely a balancing act, sleep-v-activity. Even stuff you want to do can get to you if you don’t get your rest.

Girlwithdreams: Do other forms of relaxation help? Like deep relaxation, yoga style? It helps you deal with stress.

Tenzeds: Lying down relaxation? It kinda turns into a nap. 

Natalie smiled but Kenny just stared. Dominic could see a shadow behind Natalie and fear rocketed through him. He didn’t know what that shadow was but he knew it was bad and it was threatening Natalie. And Kenny wasn’t trying to help her. Dominic tried to shout, to move his arms
 …
and couldn’t. Natalie began to cry as the shadow came closer and he tried to shout to Ken, ‘Get her, get her, get—’

Dominic woke, heart pounding. Natalie wasn’t there. Kenny wasn’t there. There was no shadow. In fact, the room was dark. The reason he couldn’t move his arms was that Crosswind was standing on him, whining. Not Natalie crying.

He dragged his hand from the quilt and sleepily ruffled Crosswind’s furry flank. ‘’S’OK.’ Probably he’d been thrashing in his dreams, catapulting Crosswind into doggie worry.

He didn’t let himself fall back to sleep. The dream was too near the surface, waiting to drag him back. He’d suffered from nightmares long enough to recognise them for what they were: unpleasant, scary at the time but, ultimately, just another dream in a long list of dreams. But he didn’t want to see Natalie cry.

It was six thirty so the alarm would go off in half-an-hour, anyway; he was only that amount short of a perfect eight hours. He swallowed his meds, showered himself completely conscious, dressed, and took Crosswind for a dawn walk across the playing fields, down Port Road, through The Cross. The morning was blustery and wet and he turned his face into the rain, letting it wash away the stupid nightmare and bring him properly into the day. Liza’s house showed a light upstairs, as he strode past, Crosswind running, nose down and tail up, beside him.

Turning back up Main Road, Dominic wondered whether Liza, Ms Unpredictability, would, ultimately, turn down his offer because of the sex. If so … had it been worth it? That night had been amazing, but if he’d been able to get her on side first, he might have still had the amazing night (maybe more), at a later date.

On the other hand, if she had persisted in her unreasonable philosophy that working and sleeping with him were mutually exclusive, he might never have had the amazing night at all.

So, it had been worth it. Bliss had no price. Heaviness settled in his groin when he thought of those sensitive hands trickling over his body, her lips soft, white skin flushing pink with desire, her body filling the spaces his didn’t. That kind of connection was much more than sex.

Yesterday evening’s reflexology treatment had been a fishing expedition. Lying on her couch, his mind had at first worked furiously as he tried to assess whether her emotions were still high and irrational, or whether she’d be receptive to him saying, ‘OK, I know what I suggested is definitely a Plan B, for you. But it’s a good one. I’m not Nicolas, all negativity and interference. The treatment centre will be your baby but the financial risk will be mine.’ But he knew that she’d wanted it all, risk included; her professional persona had made her mood difficult to assess … and her hands on his feet had exploded his concentration. He’d felt himself sliding sideways into that place where ‘alert’ didn’t figure. Asking for her to opt in or out of the project by Saturday had been about his limit of functionality before he wandered back to his bed in Middledip and dropped into the blackness.

And now, as Liza definitely came under the heading of things he couldn’t control – in fact, half the time she made him forget who he was and what he was doing – he might as well turn his mind to compiling a mental ‘to do’ list of things he could.

At nine he rang Stuart, an estate agent who was still e-mailing him copious property details. ‘I need a place in Middledip, now, possibly very short term. I want to be in within days.’

Stuart sucked in his breath in traditional estate agent doubt. ‘Well, I don’t know—’

‘It can be done,’ Dominic inserted, gently. ‘It just needs you to identify a property that the owner is desperate to let because it’s been on the market for ages. Tell him or her that I’ll pay double the deposit if the rent’s right but I’m not committing to more than a month at a time until my affairs become more settled, and to think of me as a stopgap that might turn longer term.’

Stuart laughed. ‘Mr Christy, it’s not as easy as you make it sound.’

‘No problem. I’ll ring an agency that can make it easy.’ Dominic pressed ‘end call’. He grinned at Miranda who was preparing apples for the freezer and trying not to trip over the ball of fluff at her feet begging for apple peel. ‘How long do you think it’ll take him to ring back?’

Miranda pushed her glasses up her nose with her wrist. ‘Three minutes.’

‘I say two.’

‘You know you’re welcome to stay here as long as you want.’ She held up a big S shaped piece of peel and Crosswind rose on his hind legs in ingratiating showmanship, ready to swipe it out of midair.

‘I know.’ Dominic leaned back and linked his fingers behind his head. ‘You and Jos have been fantastic.’

‘I teased you too much about Liza, didn’t I? Sorry. You don’t have to go, Dom, I’ll butt out.’ Miranda looked apologetic.

‘That’ll be the day.’ He grinned. ‘But I do want my own space. It’s way past time.’ The phone began to ring. He checked the screen. ‘See? Two minutes.’ On the sixth ring, just before the call could go to voicemail, he picked up.

‘It’s a bit unorthodox, but if you give me an hour to collect some information, there might be a couple of clients I can talk to.’ Stuart had evidently realised that he had to act in order to earn his commission, but chose to save face by making it sound as if he was doing Dominic a massive favour.

‘Sure,’ Dominic agreed, affably. ‘Ten o’clock, mate.’

Dominic rang off as Kenny shuffled in, bent at the knees so that Ethan, clinging in monkey mode to his back, wouldn’t be concussed by the doorframe. ‘What’s happening at ten?’

Dominic explained. Then, ‘If I can get sorted with a place, will you drive me back to yours to get the rest of my stuff? I can ring for the furniture in storage to be delivered.’

Kenny yawned. In the past days, he’d demonstrated an awesome ability to lie-in on Miranda’s sofa, through Jos getting ready for work and playing games with Ethan, Miranda preparing breakfast and Dominic taking Crosswind out, his excuse being that he was last in the bathroom queue, anyway.

Morning pressure on the bathroom was yet another reason for Dominic to move out. Maybe he’d been spoilt, but he valued staggering straight to the shower when he got out of bed without allowing for the small-child-means-small-bladder equation and Ethan’s screams of distress if the bathroom was occupied when the small bladder reached capacity. And, although he’d dismissed with a joke Miranda’s guilty conclusion that she should butt out, he was tired of living under her well-meaning gaze.

Kenny swung Ethan down onto the floor. ‘Fantastic. I can crash with you for a bit until we see what’s what with the adventure centre and I get moved up here.’

Trying to ignore an unexpected sinking sensation, Dominic managed a smile. ‘What else?’ What else? He’d used Kenny’s place when it had suited him; he’d asked Ken to come up to Cambridgeshire to look at the adventure centre. He could hardly refuse him a bed. It kind of crossed any one-bedroom properties off the ‘possibles’ list, though, because damned if he was going to trip over Kenny on the sofa for the next few months – if he got The Stables lease. Mentally, he crossed his fingers. If he didn’t get the lease, Kenny would disappear to find another job and when Dominic next heard of him he’d be in Tasmania or Timbuktu.

He’d give Nicolas until Monday to stew, and then put in a cheeky counter-offer.

Getting the lease was looking more likely now that Liza had told Nicolas that she was out. Typical of Liza to make up her mind what to do, do it, and tell him when it was done. In fact, there had almost been a challenge in her voice.
OK, it’s yours. Put your money where your mouth is.

Putting Liza and his mouth together in one thought created a dizzy rush of desire. Once she’d made up her mind to have sex with him, she’d really gone for it. Hot, urgent, focused—

‘Dommynic, you got a sword, yet?’

Dominic jumped from his reverie to see Ethan standing before him, a black pirate’s patch affixed drunkenly over his left eye. ‘Afraid not,’ he said, apologetically.

With a great grin of joy, Ethan whisked two plastic daggers from behind his back. ‘I got some! Now we can play pirates—’

‘Ethan!’ Miranda dropped two slices of apple in horror, and Crosswind’s teeth came together with a satisfied click as he made them disappear. ‘Where did you get weapons?’

The smile slithering from his face, Ethan retreated a step from the wrath of Mummy. ‘They’re not weapons, they’re swords. Maff-yoo’s mummy said I could bring them home to play.’

Miranda made a visible effort towards calm. ‘Swords are weapons, Ethe. You didn’t have them with you when I picked you up from Mathew’s house.’

Ethan stuck out his bottom lip. ‘They was in my packpack.’

Dominic smothered a grin at Miranda’s outrage, feeling sorry for Maff-yoo’s hapless mummy who, evidently, was not aware of Miranda’s pacifist philosophies. But probably soon would be.

‘I’ve explained why I don’t like you to play with toys like that.’

‘But Mummeeeee—’

‘Ethan, hurting people is wrong, so it’s not nice to pretend to.’

‘Aw, MummEEEEEEEEEEEEE—’

Over Ethan’s head, Dominic watched Kenny melting out of the kitchen, down the hall and through the front door, pausing only to swoop up his walking boots. Kenny wasn’t big on Ethan at full wail. Which left only Dominic to offer distraction. ‘Would you like to watch Crosswind skateboard, Ethan? Just until I get the phone call I’m waiting for?’

Two cross faces cleared miraculously and Ethan reached Dominic’s side in two Tigger-like bounds. ‘Yeah!’

‘Yes, please,’ Miranda corrected, automatically. Dominic sent her a ‘give him a break’ look and she turned back to her apples with, ‘Thanks, Dom.’

‘Thanks, Dom,’ echoed Ethan.

So Dominic spent the next half hour in the road outside, bowling his skateboard along the asphalt whilst Crosswind hurled himself onto the deck with ecstatic barks, and a dancing Ethan roared encouragement from the pavement.

By the time it was time to go indoors, Crosswind was panting, Dominic’s legs were feeling the burn, but at least Ethan had forgotten his earlier disappointment sufficiently to race through the kitchen screaming, ‘Chee-arge!’

Then Dominic’s phone rang and Stuart told him he had two flats for him to look at in Bankside. He needed only a little nudging to agree to meet Dominic at eleven, leaving time for a cup of strong coffee first.

One of the flats proved to be little more than a studio, a lounge with a cramped corner that passed for a kitchen adjoining a bedroom via an open archway. ‘No,’ said Dominic, definitely.

‘The other one’s in that nice new development, Copse Corner Court on Great Hill Road, but it’s fifty pounds a month above budget,’ warned Stuart. He wore the estate agent uniform of sharp blue suit and neat brown hair as if it was made for someone smarter, shifting his trendy glasses uneasily on and off his nose.

‘Let’s look.’

Bankside – or the new village or Little Dallas – wasn’t large, so the second flat was a two-minute ride away in Stuart’s blue Ford Focus. But even though it was in Copse Corner Court, an attractive two-storey complex of flats nestling under artistically arranged pitched roofs and gables, Dominic could see why the flat at the far end of the development had never found a tenant.

Bad design.

Really bad. To reach the first floor flat involved a staircase so twisted that it almost amounted to a spiral, but with none of the grace. The landing was surprisingly large but there was no window, just a skylight in the sloping roof, which made the landing bright and airy but left the stairwell dim.

Inside, an OK sitting room overlooked the car park and shrubby garden and was divided by a breakfast bar from an equally OK kitchen. The main bedroom, with a view over a few roof tops and a brown-and-green carpet of farmland, was disproportionately large and had a generous en suite, leaving the second bedroom as a long, narrow cell that even a single bed would overcrowd. Its mean little window was high in its narrow wall. When Dominic hooked his elbows on the sill to pull himself up, he saw that this was to accommodate the pitch of another, lower, brown-tiled roof. Beside the second bedroom lurked a cupboard of a shower room.

Kenny would have to manage.

‘Yes,’ Dominic said. ‘If you can get fifty pounds off the rent.’ And, as Stuart began to ease his collar and splutter, ‘You seem to me the kind of guy who can make things happen. Phone the landlord and tell them three months’ money will be in their account this afternoon if they can give me possession by Saturday. But I need an answer in case I have to look again with a different agency.’