Hidden Heart (Love Is The Law 1) (12 page)

"Move on?"

She took a deep breath and forced
herself to maintain eye contact. This was it. She had to let him know how she
felt. "Move on, together."

He didn't reply for a long while
as he mulled it over. He kept her hands firmly ensconced in his, almost idly
rubbing his thumbs over the backs of her fingers. Eventually he said, "I
was afraid of this."

"I'm sorry." She pulled
away to go. At least she'd told him. She wasn't going to let herself regret
this. She'd never have to wonder what would have happened.

"No, don't." He held
on, and pulled her back, closer towards him. She wanted to fall against him and
be gathered into his arms.

"Turner-"

"Emily. Stay. You're asking
so much, and there's so much I have to do, to change." He stretched his
mouth wide in a sudden, bright smile. "But fuck me, I do like a
challenge."

He did embrace her, then, and she
went to him willingly and allowed herself to be smothered in his safe, secure,
bear hug. Her belly was swirling with cartwheels but she was grinning, even
though her face was pressed hard against his chest, and she could feel him
tremble with suppressed laughter too.

"Fucking get a room,"
muttered a passer-by, and Emily peeked out to see a surly young teenager
glowered at them, holding his skateboard.

"I think we're in the way
for some skating practise," she muttered.

Turner released her and growled
at the kid, who took a few steps back in alarm, and Emily slapped Turner
lightly across his stomach. "Stop that. Leave him. Come on, let's
go."

This time, as they walked, Turner
wrapped his arm across the top of her shoulders and kept her close to him. He
told her a bit more about college, and the range of courses he could choose. His
dreams seemed as precarious as hers, but they both talked with confidence.

She described pitches that she
had made to magazines as if they were definite acceptances, colouring in the
edges of her workday with certainty.
Fake it till you make it,
she told
herself. She was going to make it true.

They were both going to make it
true.

They walked on a little further,
but Turner stopped by the end of the park. "I'm really sorry, Emily, but
I've promised I'll do some babysitting so my sister can go shopping. I'm going
to have to run."

All her pre-prepared speeches
about why he couldn't come back to her flat were now useless, and she felt
illogically affronted. "Oh, okay. That's cool."

"Look. Tomorrow. Let's meet
up again."

"Sure. What do you want to
do?"

"You're into films. We can't
keep hanging around cafes all the time. I'm getting worryingly metrosexual, you
know."

"You're shedding your bad
boy past, remember?"

"What, rehabilitation
through the power of lattes? There's an article idea for you. Why don't you
have a see what's on, and text me a time. I'm free all day tomorrow."

She could have jumped up and down
with delight, but she kept a mature lid on her excitement. "Excellent.
I'll do that."

He glanced at his watch.
"Shit. Sorry, I am running late… I kinda feel I should walk you
home."

"It's the middle of the day
and I've lived here all my life!"

"I know, but it's the
principle."

"You're late. Go!" She
pushed at him and he retaliated by scooping her back into one final embrace,
finishing with a lingering kiss that should have lasted forever. He broke off
and turned, and she watched him go with such a mixture of sadness and joy that
she thought she could burst from the confusion of emotions.

It proved very difficult for
Emily to choose a film to watch. She browsed all the listings for the local
cinemas, but what genre to go for? She first decided on a typical
action-adventure with meat-headed thugs and an arsenal of weapons, but would
Turner find it too stereotypical? She couldn't face the idea of a fluffy
romance, and she was pretty sure he didn't want to watch a subtitled Indonesian
epic about betrayal in the fifth century.

Eventually she plumped for a
screwy American comedy, and texted him the details. It was just after lunch,
and they met outside under a warm but overcast sky.

Emily had bounced along to the
rendezvous, aiming to pick up on the surge of energy that they had finished on
the previous day. She bounded along the street and, as usual, he was already
there, punctual to a fault.

She was smiling like a loon but
he grabbed her in an enfolding hug and didn't seem to want to let go. He
nuzzled his face into her hair, and she felt his breath sigh across her scalp.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah."

"Turner."

"No. I'm sorry, so much for
the new me and all that." His voice was muffled and he didn't seem to want
to let go. "Someone came around last night. And it annoyed me."

"Who?"

He stepped back but kept hold of
her hands, and his face was drawn, making lines in his forehead. "Oh, just
that arsehole Riggers. Giving it all this."

"Tell him to get lost!"

"I wish it were that easy.
He's still Liam and Kyle's dad, isn't he?" Turner screwed up his face for
a moment in tension, then deliberately smoothed it out, shaking his head.
"Right. Okay, enough of all that. I don't want to even
think
about
it. Let's go and enjoy this film."

They walked into the shiny,
identi-kit foyer and stocked up on exorbitant amounts of popcorn and fizzy
drinks, and entered the muted, plush auditorium.

It was about a third full,
attracting the family crowd and some groups of hipster teenagers. They settled
in to the seats and while the endless advertisements were running, Turner
amused himself by seeing how high he could throw popcorn into the air, and
still catch it in his mouth.

Eventually Emily had to jab him
with her elbow. "You'll get us thrown out! How old are you again?"

He responded by poking her in the
ribs, his playful tickling turning to a caress that crept around her waist. In
the semi-darkness, he sought her lips and kissed away her complaint.

As he pulled back he said,
"There's something about being in a cinema on a date that just makes me
feel childish, sorry."

"Honestly."

"Oh, by the way, if you get
really scared you can snuggle up to me."

"It's a comedy."

"Just saying."

She shook her head and couldn't
help smiling sideways at him, as the curtains drew back fully from the screen
and the lights dipped down. "Hush, now. Watch."

By the time the film had ended,
Emily was feeling more relaxed and happy than she had done in a long time. The
jokes had been corny but there can be a point, with endless puns, that laughter
took over, even if they were individually groan-worthy. They stepped out into
the mid-afternoon light, blinking and quoting meaningless lines from the film
at each other.

"Come on," Turner said,
wrapping his arm around her again, proprietorially. "I need to top up my
trendy, urban style-quota. Café?"

"Go on, then. May as
well."

They ambled along until they came
to a pavement place quite close to Emily's flat. The sun had emerged in a late
August burst of enthusiasm, and they sat outside, talking about the film, and
people-watching, and generally avoiding any serious conversation at all.

God, I've needed this.
Emily
smiled at Turner, as an unexpected wave of simple pleasure surged up through
her.

"You all right?" he
asked, looking up from his coffee.

"Yeah. Just feeling… really,
really happy."

He smiled back. "Me
too."

He stirred his drink and then
said, "Hey, something I've been wondering about. You know those newspapers
that print all sorts of bull shit about, well, everything. The one that is
always saying what's going to make you ill, or which celebrity is doing this,
that and the other. And all that gossip. Do you journalists really believe what
you write?"

"Oh god, if I had a penny
for every time I'd been asked that." She started to tell him about her
training and the code of ethics, but it soon descended into terrible fuck-ups
that she'd heard about, or done herself.

They were laughing about a
mistake she'd once made, as an intern on a newspaper, where she'd spelled a
word wrong in the prize word search. That had gathered more letters of
complaint than any other topic the newspaper contained that week. Suddenly,
Turner stiffened and looked over her shoulder, down the street. Emily
half-turned to see what had caught his attention.

Just the usual window-shoppers
and general public, making the most of the last hour of Sunday shopping. Then a
figure emerged out of the rest, coming straight towards them with a broad grin
on his angular face.

"Turner! My man. How you
doing? Good to see you. And this must be…
Emily.
"

Emily raised her eyebrows in
surprise and shot a glance sideways at Turner, but he wasn't looking her way.
His attention was fixed on the man and he sat forward in his chair, his hands
gripping the armrests.

"Riggers. What do you
want?"

Riggers ignored Turner's
unfriendly tone, and came to a slightly swaying halt in front of Emily. He was
dressed in expensive jogging bottoms, the type that were never used to actually
go running in. It was matched by his pristine white trainers, and a muscle vest
that revealed little in the way of muscles. Emily had met many like him over
the years, and was not inclined to pre-judge. But Turner's reaction to him had
put her on guard.

"Let me just say what a
pleasure it is to meet you at last."

"Thanks."

Turner stood up, and Riggers
moved to directly behind Emily's chair, making her feel uncomfortable, as if
she were a human shield between the two men. She tried to shift her chair but
Riggers was actually holding on to the back of it, and when her shoulder blade
touched his hand, she recoiled and sat forwards.

"Riggers, we're having a
nice lunch out. Is there something in particular that you want?"

"No, no, no. I was just out
for a stroll and when I saw you, I thought I'd say hi." Emily heard him
yawn, then his hands moved and his head came down past her shoulder as he bent
to scratch his ankle. She couldn't help but wonder if he had some kind of
electronic tag, and she averted her eyes out of politeness.

"Call me, yeah?"
Riggers moved away, to her great relief.

Turner sat back down, already
dismissing him. "Yeah, whatever."

"You will call me."

Emily shivered. Riggers' final words
weren't said in his light, street-boy tone. There was a darker meaning to them,
and she watched Turner's face as he kept his eyes fixed firmly on Riggers.

Riggers melted back the way he
had come, and then Turner looked at Emily and met her eyes with his flinty
gaze. "I am so sorry about that little prick interrupting our good time."

"It's okay, it's not your
fault."

Turner was quiet for a moment and
she could tell he was working up to saying something. She was starting to
understand his moods a little more, and she gave him the space to get his
thoughts in order. At last he spoke.

"That was Andy Rigby, and
he's the father of my sister's twin boys."

"Ahh. And he's the man
who…"

"Yeah. Started me off down
this whole sorry business."

"It's all his fault?"

Turner snorted and shook his
head. "No. It's still all my fault. But I blame him anyway, you know.
Look, he's put me in a foul mood and I just need… I dunno. To go work out, or
something. Can I walk you home?"

"Sure." She reached for
her bag but he waved at her, offended. "Hey, this is my treat. Let
me."

They walked slowly, chatting
about nothing in particular. The shop window displays, a passing moped with a
row of round mirrors like a mod-styled hedgehog, a street musician who had
cymbals tied between his knees. Emily didn't want it to end. They got to the
parking area below her building, and stopped.

"Do you want to come up for
coffee? I mean, actually come and have a coffee. I'm not talking
euphemisms."

A flicker of regret crossed his
face and he smiled wanly. "No, I'm sorry. But I am really, really glad we
met up today. I've had fun. I really have. But…"

"But…?"

"But we need to do this
right, don't we?" He looked up and their eyes met, and she didn't ever
want to look away. She could gaze at him forever. "Take it steady, if it
means anything. Especially… well,  an ex-con like me, what use I am? But I want
you to know that I am going straight, Emily, I really am. I'd do anything to …
be able to be with you. But I need you to be proud of me."

"I'm proud of you just for
trying to go straight." She was startled by his sudden change of mood and
tone. Riggers seemed to have a sinister hold over Turner's emotions.

"I need to do more. I will,
I promise you. Are you… okay with that?"

"More than okay. Come here,
you big lump." She reached out her arms and he stepped into them,
embracing her with a fierceness that squeezed the breath out of her.

Eventually she had to fight free,
and he released her. "Go on. I've got to go out of town for a few days,
but I promise you I'll see you again. Don't panic if you can't get hold of
me."

That came out of the blue; he
hadn't mentioned that before. But then she remembered his camping trip, and
nodded. It was easy to understand how he'd need to find his own space again,
after so long in prison. "Of course."

Reluctantly they backed away from
each other, moving by slow degrees, like a teenage couple who'd just discovered
they were the first people to ever fall in love. Emily started to giggle, and
it set Turner off as well, until she was peeping out of the doorway and he was
holding his hands to his chest, acting like a lovesick swain out of an old
melodrama.