Forty Things to Do Before You're Forty (17 page)

Annie's giggling ceased and she heaved a sigh. ‘I don't know about that, but the arrangement has certainly proved a lifesaver for me. When Lance left I couldn't afford to stay in London. It was Portia's idea I move here.'

Jake's jovial tone switched to empathy. ‘It must have been tough for you. When he left.'

She nodded, her eyes fixed to a spot on the table. ‘It was. Although, nothing like what you've been through.'

Jake raised his brows. ‘I don't know about that. I only had myself to think about. You had Sophie too.'

‘And still have thankfully.' Her hand flew to her mouth as her eyes met his. ‘Sorry. I should have worded that better.'

‘It's fine,' he said, smiling. ‘I know what you meant. She was the one good thing to come out of the mess.'

Annie nodded. ‘She certainly was.' She broke off, her gaze back on the spot on the table. ‘Lance has contacted me a couple of times recently, which is most unlike him.'

Jake felt as though someone had just kicked him in the stomach. He raised a questioning eyebrow.

‘He wants to come to Yorkshire to see us.'

‘Is that so unusual?' Jake's earlier nausea had returned with a vengeance.

‘Very. We always have to go down to London to see him.'

‘Maybe he's got something important to tell you.'

‘Hmm.' Annie took a deep breath in, leaned back in her chair and linked her fingers around her mug. ‘But that's enough about me. We're supposed to be talking about you.'

Her tone was bright, but Jake noted the anxiety written all over her lovely face.

‘We have,' he said. ‘And I feel a whole lot better for it.' He stifled a yawn. ‘Jeez, I'm boring myself never mind you.'

Annie smiled sympathetically. ‘You look shattered.'

‘I am.'

‘And I don't suppose you feel like going back the manor tonight.'

At that prospect, Jake shuddered. ‘I'm not. I was going to ring the pub to see if they had a room but it's probably a bit late now. It doesn't matter though. There's a couple of sleeping bags in the car. I'll crash there.'

Annie's eyebrows shot to her hairline. ‘In the car? I can't let you do that. Not when there's a perfectly comfortable sofa here, a downstairs loo, and hot and cold running water. And, you never know, we might even be able to stretch to breakfast.'

Jake's heart skipped a bit. There she was again – caring for him. And it felt just as good as the evening she'd ferried him to the hospital. He smiled at her, noting how the evening sun, streaming through the open door, highlighted the natural golden streaks in her hair. She looked utterly gorgeous. But that was no excuse for him taking advantage of her good nature again. He'd been enough trouble already.

‘It's very kind of you to offer, but I couldn't. I've already ruined your evening chucking all my emotional baggage at your door.'

‘What's a few more cases when my own pile is sky high,' said Annie, grinning. ‘Now, do you want to go through to the lounge while I bring down the bedding?'

‘You sure about this?'

‘I wouldn't have suggested it if I wasn't. Besides, I wouldn't get a wink of sleep worrying about you in the car so you have to stay here.'

‘Is that an attempt at emotional blackmail?'

‘Possibly. Is it working?'

‘Possibly.'

Grinning across the table at one another, their gazes fused and, just as in the shop that morning, Jake felt a strange chemical reaction overtake him. One that made the air crackle with tension, one that obliterated every other thought from his mind, one that made him aware of nothing else, nobody else – other than Annie.

Neither of them moved for several long seconds, until a gaggle of female laughter outside shattered the moment.

Jake gulped and cleared his throat. ‘Well,' he said, trying to act as though nothing in particular had happened. ‘The, um, sofa it is then.' He pushed back his chair, completely forgetting about his crutches. They clattered to the floor.

‘Sorry,' he grimaced. ‘I hope I haven't woken Sophie.'

‘Unlikely. Panda earmuffs are a wonderful invention. You stay there. I'll get the crutches.'

Annie scurried around to his side of the table and retrieved the crutches. As she handed them to him, Jake's hand brushed against hers, causing a bolt of electricity to shoot up his arm. Annie looked equally as startled. She was so close he could smell her strawberry shampoo. As she gazed up at him, her lips parted slightly. That movement caused every one of Jake's senses to rocket into orbit and, before he knew what he was doing, he had thrown down the crutches, pulled her into his arms and crashed his mouth down on hers.

Just as Annie promised, the sofa was extremely comfortable. Not that it made an ounce of difference to Jake. He could have been lying on a pile of six luxury mattresses with satin sheets and eiderdown pillows and he still wouldn't have slept. Gazing up at Annie's lounge ceiling, he replayed the events of the last twelve hours over and over again. As days went, this definitely ranked as one of the weirdest. First, there had been that strange ethereal moment in the shop with Annie, which Tanya's untimely arrival had put an end to. Then, before he'd had time to get his head around either of those things, Jasper and his crowd appeared – with those bloody pills. All of the above, though, had been blasted out of the water by the evening's events – or, to be more precise, the kiss with Annie. The memory of how good she'd smelled, how her body yielded against his, how she'd returned his kiss every bit as eagerly, caused some serious stirring under his thin duvet. And now she was upstairs, mere feet away from him, in her bed. What would happen if he managed to scramble up the stairs and –?

Good god. What was he thinking? He jerked bolt upright on the sofa, causing Pip, lying alongside him, to raise a dubious eyelid. He didn't know what would have happened if the dog hadn't arrived back when he did. Things would either have escalated to the next level, or there would have been a very awkward moment.

‘So, little fella,' he whispered. ‘What now?'

Pip didn't reply. And Jake found himself similarly devoid of answers as a torrent of other questions hailed down on him. What was he going to say to Annie? How could he face Sophie? What was happening to him? Where was all this leading? He had absolutely no idea. The only thing he knew was that he was in way over his head – and sinking at a rate of knots. Great waves of panic began crashing over him. His heart hammered wildly against his ribcage. He suddenly felt as though a hippopotamus was sitting on his chest, he could scarcely breathe. He was on dangerous ground here. Very dangerous. And for both his sake and Annie's he had to leave Buttersley – immediately.

CHAPTER TEN

Following the kiss with Jake, it had taken Annie hours to get to sleep. Her mind had whirred with memories of how wonderful it had felt to be in those strong arms, to press herself against that muscular body, to feel his lips on hers. She couldn't remember when she'd last experienced passion like that – if indeed she ever had. Every one of her senses had been overpowered with the need to feel him, taste him, smell his scent, drink in his very essence. She didn't know what would have happened if Pip hadn't wandered in when he did, but she suspected it might have involved looking at the kitchen table in quite a different light this morning. Just as she was viewing Jake in a different light. She'd guessed there were hidden depths to the man and she'd been right. But quite how deep, she'd had no idea. She couldn't begin to imagine what he must have been through, but it certainly explained the pensive slips of mood she'd noticed in the past. She was glad she'd been able to provide a shoulder for him to cry on. Glad that, after a bumpy start, she could relax in his company, and enjoy it. She sighed contentedly as she stared at the ceiling. It was still early but the sun had already risen and was peeping around the edges of the gingham curtains. Her mind wandered to Jake asleep on the sofa downstairs – probably wearing nothing but his boxers. A frisson of excitement shot down her spine. But it was tempered with anxiety. As much as she would love to get to know him better, Jake's time in Buttersley was limited. He would only be around for a few more weeks. And where would that leave her then?

Jake had never known rain like it. The moment he'd arrived back in Scotland, the heavens had opened. And they'd remained open for the last two weeks, great stair-rods of water pelting down from a metal-grey sky. It felt as though the end of the world had arrived.

His journey back over the border had been equally depressing and had taken twice as long as normal, the pain in his ankle forcing him to make annoyingly frequent stops. He really shouldn't have been driving but he hadn't cared. Everything at the time had paled into insignificance compared to his need to escape Buttersley.

With the benefit of hindsight of course, he realised he should not have accepted Annie's invitation back to the cottage that evening. His head had been all over the place and being in her kitchen had not helped at all. But the real problem had been Annie. When she'd been so close he could smell her strawberry shampoo, he'd completely lost it. Every one of the traits that had made him the most successful fund manager in Europe had evaporated in a puff of smoke. He might be able to hold his nerve when the markets pirouetted around him but put Annie Richards in front of him and every ounce of his implacable resolve turned to mush. So much so that he hadn't been able to resist kissing her. And that had been the biggest mistake of all.

The kiss had detonated a hole the size of the Grand Canyon in the wall around his heart allowing a raft of emotions to float out. Emotions he had neither expected nor wanted to feel again. The exposure had left him utterly terrified – for both him and Annie. Because, when Jake had told her about Nina, he had deliberately missed out a large part of the story …

When Nina told him she was pregnant, Jake had been overjoyed – so overjoyed he arranged a romantic surprise for her. He booked a fairy tale cottage in the Cotswolds for the weekend. He ordered flowers, compiled a CD of her favourite music, and arranged for a top London chef to come down and make a special dinner for them. He wanted everything to be perfect. Because, that weekend, he intended asking Nina to marry him. He was going to go down on one knee and present her with a specially-commissioned dazzling diamond ring. And, if all went according to plan, she would say yes, and they would live happily ever after. Only, as they all knew, things hadn't gone according to plan.

On the way to the cottage, on a quiet Gloucestershire road, Nina – and their unborn child – had been killed. Naturally everyone had blamed the driver of the other vehicle – the spotty youth who had been off his head on Ecstasy. But while it was the youth's car that had ploughed into them, there had been another perpetrator to the crime – a perpetrator who had put Nina in that precise spot at that precise moment; a perpetrator whose implication seemed invisible to everyone but himself; a perpetrator who had unwittingly slipped through the net, eluding the punishment he so richly deserved. And that perpetrator was Jake. He'd known Nina hated driving, particularly on country roads, but still he went ahead with his plans – putting his own selfish wishes before anything else. He might have kidded himself all the preparations were for Nina but, in hindsight – and with hours of contemplation – he had concluded they were more to boost his own ego. Why couldn't he just have proposed to her when the urge had taken him a few weeks before? When it would have been completely spontaneous? But of course he hadn't. He had to pull out all the stops. In an ostentatious way that now made him nauseous. He had all but pushed Nina into that car. Were it not for him and his fanciful romantic notions, she would never have been on that road, would never have been anywhere near the Cotswolds or the spotty drugged-up teenager. She would be alive. And so, too, would their child.

That no one suggested he stand trial, provided Jake with little consolation. While his part in the proceedings might have been overlooked by the outside world, it formed the focus of his own world. And had done since the moment that podgy policeman had stood before him. Jake knew he would never forgive himself.
Could
never forgive himself. For the last five years the guilt had gnawed at his innards like a persistent case of woodworm. But not once had he spoken about it. He was too scared to. Scared that, if he did, the whole world would pile their blame onto his – and lugging around his own was already more than he could handle.

In a strange way, he had grown accustomed to his ‘condition'. Had developed coping strategies, ways to detach himself from the real world, ways to be self-sufficient. His writing proved a godsend. For a short time, it allowed him to escape to another world. But it was just for a short time. Back in the real world, Jake had resigned himself to being alone. There was no way he could even contemplate another relationship. No way he could risk being hurt like that again. No way he could risk hurting someone else like that again – especially someone as special as Annie.

As soon as Annie had mentioned Lance contacting her, Jake had felt sick. If the man had even half a brain, he would have seen sense and be doing everything he could to win back Annie and Sophie. And if there was any way they could be a family again – and Sophie could have her father back in her life – then Jake had no right to jeopardise that chance. His selfishness had ended Nina's life. It did not have to ruin Annie's too.

So, now that he was back in Scotland, he would resume his former calm life. In time, the crevice in his heart would heal and Annie Richards would fade to nothing more than a pleasant distant memory.

Jake had written the note in orange crayon on a piece of scrap paper from Sophie's colouring-in box:

Sorry. Had to dash back to Scotland. Thanks for the chat and the sofa. Much appreciated. Say bye to Sophie for me. J