Worlds Apart (2 page)

Taylor took in the shabby carpet, grimy mirror and the few dust-covered items of furniture, and sighed. His attention was drawn to the only splash of color, a vase of bright yellow and white flowers that sat on a table at the foot of the flowing staircase. Fake flowers that had somehow avoided dust bunnies.

His phone rang and Taylor pulled it out of his pocket. “ICU Investigations, Taylor Sutton speaking.”

He tucked the phone between his head and shoulder while he carried his boxes and bags into the hall from outside.

“Do you follow people?” asked the male caller.

“Yes,” Taylor said, wishing for a change it was someone looking for buried treasure or some old book on fly fishing.

“I need you to track my wife.”

“What do you want to know about her?”

“If she’s cheating on me.”

How good would it feel, just for once, to be surprised by the answer to that question too? Was the world full of cheating partners? Taylor might have the morals of an alley cat, but he didn’t sleep with two women at the same time. Well, not unless it was actually
at
the same time.

“And what are you going to do with the information once you have it?” Taylor put another box down in the hall.

“If she’s screwing someone, I’ll fucking kill the bitch.”

Taylor went as cold as if he’d stepped into a snowstorm. “I’m not the guy for you.” He ended the call.

Usually husbands
thought
that unattractive sentiment rather than vocalized it, but although Taylor wanted the work, he wouldn’t take the chance of a partner resorting to violence after he’d received the surveillance report. Bad enough that people were hurt emotionally by what Taylor did without him making it worse. He shrugged. Maybe he wasn’t the heartless bastard most thought him to be. He remembered Sophie and the others, and his smile faded. Yes he was. He didn’t know why he behaved so badly with women. There was no way he’d ever get married if he didn’t manage more than a couple of dates with the same one. Whenever he thought he was getting close to someone, and there’d been a couple he’d really liked, he fucked it up.

With all his bags inside and the door closed, Taylor sighed. He walked over to look at the flowers on the hall table and absentmindedly picked up the telephone next to them. He frowned when he heard the dial tone. What the hell were his parents thinking? Hadn’t they cancelled the line rental? And where was that smell coming from?

Taylor put the phone down and stared at the flowers. Then he bent and sniffed them.
Christ, they’re real.

He heard someone pounding down the stairs and turned. A guy who looked the same age as him skidded to a halt at the bottom and held out his hand.

“Taylor.” The man almost exhaled his name.

Taylor stared into unusual green eyes, took in the wide smile and eager expression, and uncharacteristically found himself lost for words. The guy was the same height as him, slim and very good looking. He had untidy dirty-blond hair, sharp cheekbones and smooth skin. His white linen shirt hanging loose over faded jeans matched Taylor’s attire, except Taylor’s shirt was tucked in.

“Your parents did tell you I’m working on the garden?”

His father’s parting words echoed in Taylor’s head. “Yes.”
Oh Christ, and living here.
He searched for the name and found it. “Niall.”

Taylor found his hand being energetically shaken. Niall looked at him expectantly, his face and body tense as though he was waiting for something to happen. Taylor had no idea what.

He employed his usual technique of silence and eventually Niall sagged.

“How long have you been living here?” Taylor asked. He wondered if his parents had even met this guy.

“Six months.”

Which was coincidentally how long Taylor had been back in Yorkshire.

“Want a hand with your things? A drink? Some lunch?” Niall asked.

“The boxes can wait until I’ve had a look around. Lunch would be great. Then you can explain how you come to be living in my parents’ house.”

Niall nodded and headed for the kitchen. Taylor turned the other way and pushed open the door to the drawing room. Everything was the same as when his parents had lived there and yet everything was different. Without them, the couches looked old and lonely and the fireplace unwelcoming. Even so, it didn’t look as though the place had been empty for five years. Maybe Niall had worked on the house as well as the garden.

As Taylor moved from room to room, he forced himself to think about the happy times, when he and his father had set up a racing track that ran down the stairs and around the dining room. They’d persuaded his mother to leave it up for weeks and she’d vacuumed around it. The real Christmas tree smothered with homemade decorations had always stood in the hall, filling the air with the scent of pine, while an artificial one with more refined decorations graced the drawing room. But there had been no tree of either sort after Taylor’s fourteenth birthday.

The orangery, used for formal meals, was not the light, airy room he remembered. It was so full of plants and flowers it was hard to spot the furniture. The foliage had run riot, giant ferns competing for space with a banana plant and citrus trees. How the hell had they survived? Where did they get their water?

Taylor glanced into the breakfast room and was surprised to see a desk and chair in there. His father must have converted it into a study, and Taylor saw it would be perfect for his office. He’d just need another smaller desk for his PA. As soon as he’d sorted the house out, he’d start looking for an office in Leeds. Since he’d moved up from London, it had been easier to run ICU from his apartment, but he needed a break between work and leisure. Taylor ignored the kitchen where he could hear Niall clattering and went upstairs. It felt…wrong having some stranger in the house, as if it were Niall’s house and not Taylor’s.

His parents’ bedroom looked untouched as did his. Everything in the Spanish villa was new. Taylor liked it, liked the idea of a fresh start for them, but he recalled being surprised how little they’d taken to Spain from the UK. It was as though once his parents had decided to move, they wanted all links severed. Taylor closed the door of his room, sat on the bed and took out his phone to call them. No answer.
What a fucking surprise.
Taylor was annoyed he hadn’t registered his father’s comment more clearly. What the hell were his parents thinking letting this guy live here?

With no sign of any other bedroom being occupied, Taylor headed toward the stairs leading to the third floor. Before he stepped onto them, he turned and went back down. He might not want the guy in the house, but he had no right to invade his privacy.

When he walked into the kitchen, Niall turned and smiled. The light in his face made the breath catch in Taylor’s throat. He was a really good-looking guy. Taylor swallowed hard and let his gaze fall to the old wooden table where he’d eaten so many meals. What looked like freshly baked bread sat next to a dish of butter. There was a plate of sliced tomatoes sprinkled with basil leaves and topped with wedges of torn mozzarella, a bowl of crisp, mixed lettuce, a dish of hummus and another dip he didn’t recognize, and a wooden board holding cheddar, Brie and Stilton cheese. It looked delicious and Taylor was unaccountably annoyed. This was
his
house—well, his parents’ house—not the bloody gardener’s.

He slumped at the table and grabbed a plate.

“What would you like to drink?” Niall asked. “I have beer, wine, champ—”

“Water,” Taylor snapped, though he could have murdered a beer. And champagne? What was that about?

Niall filled two glasses and sat opposite.

“I assume my parents told you I was coming,” Taylor said in a gruff voice. “They want me to tidy things up before the house is sold. So I’ll be living here for the foreseeable future.” He was about to add that he could deal with the garden as well as the house and that Niall could leave, but the words died in his throat because firstly, he had zero interest in gardening and secondly, he realized what his parents had done. They knew how hard this would be, coming back here. Having someone else in the house would help dispel the ghosts.

“The lettuce, basil and tomatoes come from the garden,” Niall said. “I can show you—”

“I remember where it is.” Taylor knew he was being rude, but something about this guy made him…uncomfortable, on edge, nervous. “How did you come to be living here?”

“I’m a friend of your parents. I was helping with the garden before they moved to Spain and they asked me to keep an eye on everything. When I had to leave the place where I was living, they let me move in here.”

Taylor swallowed a forkful of tomato and mozzarella and restrained his sigh of pleasure. Proper buffalo mozzarella, not the cheap stuff. And the bread—he could eat the whole loaf. “How come they’ve never mentioned you?”

“I asked them not to tell anyone. I’m…hiding.” Niall dropped his gaze.

Taylor’s fork froze on the way to his mouth.
What the hell?
“From the police? Have you committed a crime?”

“No and no. It’s a family thing.” Niall’s fingers tightened around his fork. “I won’t intrude on your life. I’ll keep myself to myself on the top floor. When I’m not in the garden, I’m reading, so don’t worry that I’ll be playing hard rock in the attic. I’m no Robin Trower.”

The fact that Niall knew of Robin Trower sent him up in Taylor’s estimation and a smile slipped across his lips. “Me neither. Do you play the guitar?”

“I used to.”

“Like riding a bike,” Taylor said and was rewarded with another smile.

By the time they’d analyzed Trower’s talent, discussed his channeling of Hendrix’s bluesy style, and debated which album was his best, Taylor had begun to relax. He liked Niall. His droll sense of humor made him laugh and the fact that Niall had secrets too somehow made Taylor feel more comfortable. They could have their own lives and yet share one together. Taylor hadn’t lived with anyone since he left home, but the more he thought about it, the better it felt to have someone with him in this house.

After Niall helped haul his boxes either into the office or up to Taylor’s room, Taylor felt as though they’d been friends for years. They’d settled into an easy camaraderie.

“Want to come and look at the garden?” Niall asked.

Taylor followed him out of the back door. Sutton Hall sat on about an acre, much of it trees, but beyond the stretch of lawn at the rear was a walled garden. Niall had been cutting the grass, that was clear, the neat lines from the mower pointing to the wall and the door in the middle. Taylor’s heart hammered as they walked over the lawn. Niall was chattering about plants, but Taylor wasn’t listening, he was remembering. He’d loved this enclosed garden. It wasn’t a secret place but he’d always pretended it was. Taylor had thought this was where he’d find his sister, but he hadn’t.

Niall opened the door in the wall and Taylor followed him, wiping his sweaty palms on his pants. It was hard to be here again. Niall was quiet now as Taylor walked around, taking in the walls smothered in trailing ivy and climbing roses, the greenhouse and neat vegetable plot, the little orchard, the beds of flowers—such a riot of color they looked like firework displays, and then the burst of wilderness at the back—and the tree house.
Fuck it. Still here?
He turned to face the hall and gaped.
And what the hell is that?

“A hot tub.” Niall answered his unasked question.

“My parents had a hot tub? Why not put it next to the house?”

“Privacy?”

Taylor winced. He wasn’t going to follow that train of thought. “Does it still work?”

“No. I could probably fix it.”

“Yeah, why not. It’d be a selling point.” Taylor turned in a circle and came to a stop facing Niall. “It looks just the same as it did when I was a child. How did you manage that?”

“It was overgrown, that’s all. Why redesign something that was already perfect?”

Perfect.
Taylor was torn between wishing the walled garden was different and rejoicing it was the same.

“Have you always worked on gardens?” Taylor asked.

“In one way or another. Did you play in here as a boy?”

“Sometimes.” Taylor slammed his shield in place and strode back toward the house.

Too soon. Too fast. Too much.
Niall’s heart wrenched as he watched Taylor storm off. From the moment Niall had failed to see recognition in Taylor’s eyes, disappointment had seeped through him until his spark had almost gone out. He shivered. He’d been so sure Taylor would remember. Now he had to pull back and tread more carefully.

Chapter Two

Don’t look desperate.

Roo tried to arrange her features into something other than desperate and smiled at the middle-aged woman sitting behind the desk. Dorothy’s mouth fell open as her gaze swept over what Roo was wearing.

“I’m perfect for this job,” Roo said in an attempt to distract her. “I could do it with—”

Don’t blurt out your life history.

Roo pressed her lips firmly together.

And stop tapping your bloody foot.

She curled her toes inside her shoes under her padded footwear.