Anything but Vanilla(64)

He caught her hand.

‘I want you to know that I don’t do this. Get involved. I tried to walk away yesterday.’

‘I know. We’ve both been caught up in something beyond our control. Don’t analyse the life out of it. Just enjoy the moment.’

Then she laughed.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Nothing... It’s just that my mother used to say that all the time. Enjoy the moment. This must have been how she felt.’

‘And how does that make you feel?’

‘Glad,’ she said. ‘I’m glad that she had moments like this.’ She leaned into him, kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘Thank you.’ Then, because it was suddenly much too intense, ‘I hope you’re not still hungry, because the dogs have taken the rest of the pizza.’

‘No problem.’ He returned her kiss and this time he took his time about it. ‘I’ll cook something later.’

‘Later’. Her new favourite word...

‘What are we going to do now?’ she asked.

‘I’m going to get changed,’ he said, standing up, pulling her with him, ‘and we’re going to take these unruly creatures for a walk.’

‘Changed?’

‘I didn’t leave home like this. My jeans are in the car.’

By the time she’d picked up the chewed remains of the pizza box, thrown a few things into an overnight bag, Alexander was waiting for her in the kitchen. He was wearing worn-soft denims that clung to a taut backside, thighs that she now owned, but his T-shirt was black and holding together at the seams. A matter for regret rather than congratulation.

He took her bag, tossed it in the back of the car and then they set off across the common.

‘Does it make you feel closer to him?’ she asked. ‘Your father’s car.’

‘Nothing would do that.’

‘So why did you keep it?’

‘You have got to be kidding. It’s a classic. It appreciates in value.’

Maybe... ‘It must have cost a fortune to insure for a seventeen-year-old to drive.’

‘I couldn’t get insurance until I was twenty-one,’ he said, ‘but let’s face it, my father expected to be taking it out for the occasional spin himself until I was fifty. He had to make a new will when he remarried and I imagine the legacy was simply a response to a prompt from his solicitor regarding the disposal of his property.’

‘What about the yacht? Did he leave that to you, as well?’ Then, realising that probably wasn’t the most tactful of questions, she added, ‘All his best toys?’

His laughter shattered the intensity of the moment. ‘No. It was too new to have been listed in his will so the widow got that, thank God.’

* * *

They walked the river bank until the bats were skimming the water, sharing confidences, talking about the things that mattered to them.

Sorrel shivered a little as he related some of his hairier adventures, and she came into the circle of his arm for comfort, afraid for him and the unknown dangers he faced. Animals, insects, poisonous plants and the guerrillas who’d held him hostage for nine months in the Darien Gap.

To distract her, he prompted her to tell him the ‘long story’ about Rosie and the Amery sisters’ first adventures in the ice-cream business. Her ambitions, her ideas for Knickerbocker Gloria. The plan she’d wanted Graeme to listen to.

It was one of those perfect evenings that he’d take out and relive on the days when he was up to his neck in some muddy swamp.

It wasn’t about the sex, although that had been a revelation. She had given herself totally, held nothing back, and neither had he. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been that open, that trusting...

He had no illusions. When he came back in six months or a year, or whenever, she wouldn’t be sitting at home waiting for him. He wouldn’t ask her to. He wanted her to have the life she deserved with a man who would be there for her. But for a couple of weeks she was his.

When they arrived back at the house everyone was home. He’d met Basil and Lally and they didn’t seem surprised to see him with her, or that they were going to Wales to look for Ria.

Basil asked him how the Cranbrook Park event had gone. Her grandmother took his hand and smiled. Geli, her younger sister, gave him a very hard look, but since the dogs accepted him she was, apparently, prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.