A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(3)

He said, “Oh.”

Then there was nothing more to discuss because she knew that he would stay in New York to keep the appointment he’d fought so hard to get and she would have to fend for herself, another date broken, another wrench thrown in the works of the great Life Plan.

She said, “Well, good luck with your meeting.”

He said, “We’ll talk. All week. All right? You okay with this, China?”

“What choice do I have?” she asked him and said goodbye. She hated herself for ending their conversation like that, but she was hot, miserable, dispirited, depressed...Call it what you wanted to call it. In any event, she had nothing more to give.

She loathed the part of herself that was unsure of the future, and most of the time she could keep that side of her character subdued. When it got away from her and gained dominance in her life like an overconfident guide into chaos, it never led to anything good. It reduced her to adhering to a belief in the importance of the sort of womanhood she had long detested, one defined by having a man at any cost, lassoing him into marriage, and plugging up his life with babies ASAP. She would not go there, she told herself repeatedly. But a fraction of her wanted it anyway. This led her to asking questions, making demands, and turning her attention to an us instead of keeping it focused on a me. When that occurred, what flared up between her and the man in question—who had always been Matt—was a replay of the debate they’d been having for five years now. This was a circular polemic on the subject of marriage that had so far achieved the same result: his obvious reluctance—as if she actually needed to see it and hear it—followed by her furious recriminations, which were then followed by a break-up initiated by whoever felt most exasperated with the differences that cropped up between them.

Those same differences kept bringing them back together, though. For they charged the relationship with an undeniable excitement that so far neither one of them had found with anyone else. He had probably tried. China knew that. But she had not. She didn’t need to. She’d known for years that Matthew Whitecomb was right for her.

China had arrived at this conclusion yet again by the time she reached her bungalow: one thousand square feet of 1920 architecture that had once served as the weekend getaway of an Angeleno. It sat among other similar cottages on a street lined with palm trees, close enough to the beach to reap the benefit of the ocean breeze, far enough from the water to be affordable. It was definitely humble, comprising five small rooms—if you counted the bathroom—and only nine windows, with a wide front porch and a rectangle of lawn in the front and the back. A picket fence fronted the property, shedding flakes of white paint into the flowerbeds and onto the sidewalk, and it was to the gate in this fence that China lumbered with her photography equipment once she ended her conversation with Matt.

The heat beat down, only less marginally intense than it had been on the hillside, but the wind wasn’t as fierce. The palm fronds rattled like old bones in the trees, and where lavender lantana grew against the front fence, it hung listlessly in the bright sunlight, with flowers like purple asterisks, growing out of ground that was thoroughly parched this afternoon, as if it hadn’t been watered this morning. China lifted the lopsided gate and swung it open, her camera cases weighting down her shoulder and her intention to head for the garden hose and drag it over to soak the poor flowers.

But she forgot this intention in the sight that greeted her: A man, naked down to his Skivvies, was lying on his stomach in the middle of her lawn with his head pillowed on what appeared to be the ball of his blue jeans and a faded yellow T-shirt. No shoes were in evidence, and the soles of his feet were black beyond black and so calloused at the heels that the skin was canyoned. If his ankles and elbows were anything to go by, he appeared to be someone who eschewed bathing, too. But not eating or exercising, since he was well built without being fat. And not drinking, since at the moment his right hand clutched a sweating bottle of Pellegrino.

Her Pellegrino by the look of it. The water she’d been looking forward to downing.

He turned over lazily and squinted up at her, resting on his dirty elbows. “Your security sucks the big one, Chine.” He took a long swig from the bottle.

China glanced at the porch where the screen door hung open and the front door gaped wide. “God damn it,” she cried. “Did you break into my house again?”

Her brother sat up and shaded his eyes. “What the hell are you dressed like that for? Ninety frigging degrees and you look like Aspen in January.”

“And you look like an arrest for exposure waiting to happen. Good grief, Cherokee, show some sense. There’re little girls in this neighbourhood. One of them walks by and sees you like that, you’ll have a squad car here in fifteen minutes.” She frowned. “D’you have sunblock on?”

“Didn’t answer my question,” he pointed out. “What’s with the leather? Delayed rebellion?” He grinned. “If Mom got a look at those pants, she’d have a real—”

“I wear them because I like them,” she cut in. “They’re comfortable.”

And I can afford them, she thought. Which was more than half the reason: owning something lush and useless in Southern California because she wanted to own it, after a childhood and adolescence spent trolling the racks in Goodwill for clothes that simultaneously fit, were not completely hideous, and—for the benefit of her mother’s beliefs—had no scrap of animal skin anywhere on them.