Chapter Two

Kat led Jake down the school corridor toward the playground. Though it was perfectly reasonable for Jake to ask to see where the frame would be positioned, Kat had been surprised at his request. During the last ten minutes he’d given her the distinct impression he was itching to get away. Surreptitiously she glanced at the man walking by her side. Mary had been right about his looks. Handsome in a very rugged, masculine way. Tall, big shoulders, big hands. Steady grey eyes in a slightly severe-looking face. But Mary hadn’t warned her that he was also stiff, formal, and lacked any sort of warmth. In fact, she thought he was probably much like the planks of wood he worked with. Solid, attractive, but rigid and unyielding.

The playground buzzed with noisy children on their break. At the end, next to the grass field, stood a small, basic climbing frame.

“That’s what we need to replace.” Kat pointed over to the old frame, which, despite the chaos of children surrounding it, wasn’t being used. “The pupils and parents have worked hard all year to raise enough funds to get a new one. I hope you’ll come in within our budget.”

He shrugged those very broad shoulders and kept his eyes on the frame. “We’ll see.”

At that moment a girl with dark curly hair and flashing brown eyes barreled into Kat. “Mum, I got a star in my spellings today. Mrs. Pettinger said I got ten out of ten.” She looked up and gave Jake a shy smile. “Who’s this man?”

“This man, Molly, is Mr. Holroyd. He’s a carpenter, and he’s come to see if he can make us a new climbing frame.”

“Cool.” The girl who assessed Jake had the same twinkling brown eyes as her mother. “Will it have a lookout? And swings and a big slide, obviously.” She paused to take a quick breath. “Oh, and a zip wire. I saw one of those on the telly the other day. It looked really awesome.”

Kat looked over at Jake, and wondered what the austere man made of her babbling daughter. This time the hint of a smile played around his lips, at last giving his face some of the warmth it so desperately lacked. Interesting.

“I think perhaps Molly should be one of the pupils I come back to see,” he replied, addressing both of them. “She clearly has a lot to say on the subject.”

Though she wasn’t sure he intended it that way, his statement made her laugh. “Molly has a lot to say on any subject.” She gave her daughter an affectionate squeeze. “Mr. Holroyd will be coming back soon to talk to some of the children about their ideas for the new climbing frame. Would you like to be included?”

Molly gave her a thumbs-up and a huge smile before skipping off to join her friends.

“I bet she keeps you on your toes,” Jake remarked, his gaze still resting on Molly.

“You’d win the bet. Do you have children, Jake?”

Earlier, when she’d mentioned children, she’d wondered if she’d imagined him stiffen. This time there was no doubting it. He froze.

“No,” he replied bluntly, and turned his head away.

But not before she’d seen a bleakness enter his steel grey eyes. Instinctively the nurturer in her itched to reach out and take his arm, to apologize for asking what was clearly a painful question. To offer comfort. However, she held her tongue, certain that the man before her wasn’t the type who would welcome such sympathy.

“I’ll leave it up to you to contact me with a time that suits,” he said finally.

“Yes, fine.” Clearly he’d had enough of her questions. And her company. “Well, thank you for coming by.” She held out her hand, only now aware of how much taller he was than her. He positively loomed over her. Next time they met, she’d wear high heels.

He hesitated briefly, then shook the hand she’d offered, his warm, calloused palm settling firmly over hers. With a nod, he left.

Sitting in her office a short while later, Kat found her mind wandering back to the carpenter, wondering what to make of him. Physically there was no doubt he was incredibly attractive. By far the most attractive man she’d ever seen, for certain, and as a reasonably pretty, single woman, she’d seen a fair few. The casual polo shirt and black jeans he’d worn had done little to hide the trim, well-muscled body that she imagined lay underneath. True he was striking, rather than pretty boy handsome, but that only made him more appealing. His face spoke of a quiet strength. Topped by dark, almost black hair, he had a square jaw, straight nose and clear grey eyes framed by absurdly long eyelashes. It was his eyes that she’d been drawn back to, time and time again. Though they were unquestionably beautiful, they troubled her. They were the eyes of a man who rarely laughed or smiled. In fact, they seemed flat and lifeless. She would have gone as far as to say cold, but they’d softened when he’d spoken to Molly.

A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. “Come in.”

It was Angela. “Kat, please tell me that Mr. Sex-on-Legs is coming back? And soon?”

Kat couldn’t help but laugh at the office manager’s succinct but fitting description. “He was a bit of a dish, wasn’t he? Shame he lacked the warmth and charm to go with it.”

Angela raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Come on. When you look like that you don’t need to rely on charm to get a woman into bed.”

“Err, Angela, do I have to remind you that you’ve only recently got married?”

“Oops, sorry. Still, there’s no harm in looking. So, is he coming back?”

“The short answer is yes.” Kat was surprised to find she looked forward to his return.

****

Jake had fled the school like a man running for his life. In a way he felt he was, though it was his sanity at risk, not his life. When he’d reached his truck he’d slammed it into gear and sped out of the school gates.

The black wall of grief didn’t descend on him as often as it used to, but when it did, he had one hell of a job trying to contain it. Kathleen’s had been a simple, casual question. One he should have anticipated. Did he have children? Instead of reacting to it in a similar, casual fashion, he’d stood frozen to the spot, his head pounding, his chest tight as if squeezed in a vice. For one horrifying moment he’d even thought he was going to cry. Christ, how would that have looked to the sexy-looking head? Not that he’d wanted to impress her. Or had he? Regardless, breaking down in her playground, in front of her daughter and the rest of the children, would have been the ultimate humiliation. Instead he’d opted for the lesser of two evils route and made a hasty retreat. No doubt she thought him rude, but better that than a total fruitcake.

Now he was back at the place he called home. At least he tried to call it that, though often the words stuck in his throat. Even now, as he sat on his sofa and looked around the barn that he’d painstakingly restored, he couldn’t quite believe how he’d got here. Life took some funny turns that was for sure.

He thought of his life in two parts. Life before the incident, and life after. Life before had been happy. A wife. A child. A home. Life after...well, to be frank, for the first year, he hadn’t actually wanted there to be life at all. The fact he hadn’t taken the easy way out and ended it all had little to do with his personal courage and a lot to do with the doggedness of his family.

With that thought in mind, he propped his legs up on the coffee table, took a slow sip of the beer he’d raided from the fridge, and dialed the number of his parents.

“Jake?” His mother’s voice was always so worried when she first answered the phone to him. “How are you?”

“Good, Mum.” As always, he tried to reassure.

“Good as in really good, or good as in I’m just saying that to make my mum feel better?”

He managed a weak laugh, though he understood her fear. For that first year after the incident, as he now called it, he’d lived in a dark, oppressive, alcohol-induced fog. Lived was probably too strong a word for how he had coped. He’d gone through the motions of living, certainly. He had eaten, occasionally slept, tried to go back to work. Living it hadn’t been. It was no wonder, over two years on, that his mother still couldn’t relax. “Good as in you don’t need to worry about me,” he told her.

“I’m your mother, Jake. Worrying about my son is hardwired into me.”

“I know.” For a moment he closed his eyes, recalling how strong his parents had been, how much they’d supported him, dragging him out of the rock-bottom pit he’d sunk into. Nagging him into making a fresh start. New town, new career. Away from things that were a constant reminder of life before. Which is how he’d ended up in this sleepy village, in this converted barn. Making a living out of carpentry, of all things. “I’ve got a potential job lined up at the local school,” he told her, determined to look forward, not back. “Making a climbing frame.”

“Goodness, really? And can you do that? You know, make one?”

This time the laugh he let out was genuine. “Oh, ye of little faith. What happened to ‘Jake, you’re such a clever boy, you can turn your hand to anything’?”

“I was remembering that shelf you made. The one that fell down, breaking all my lovely figurines.”

“Mum, I was twelve.”

He spoke to her for a few more minutes, and then briefly to his dad. When he’d said his good-byes, he reached for the remote control and scrolled through the television menu to find some sport.

This was his life now, he reflected, and it wasn’t a bad one. He enjoyed being his own boss, deciding his hours, working on his terms. He’d even come to appreciate his own company. If at times he was lonely, well that was largely of his own choosing. Considering the journey he’d taken, this wasn’t a bad place to be right now.

****

In another town, a prisoner collected his personal belongings and walked free again for the first time in nearly three years. There was no one waiting for him. He had no particular place to go. Opening up the zip pocket of his jacket, he took out a dog-eared photo. In it, a beautiful blonde and a smiling little girl stared back at him. Yeah, once he’d had a family, people who’d loved him. Now he had nothing. Raw anger, an emotion that was never far from the surface, burned ferociously in his gut as he thrust the photo back into his jacket. Being locked inside a second time hadn’t managed to extinguish the rage, merely helped it to fester. He’d had time to dwell, to brood, to plot against the man who’d taken everything away from him. Of course he’d already taken his revenge, just before being shoved back into prison, but what he’d done, spectacular as it had been, simply wasn’t enough. He’d only evened the score. Now he wanted to come out on top.

Sitting at the bus stop, Wade cast his mind back three years, recalling the expression on the cop’s face when he’d seen the results of the first stab at revenge. Horror, anguish, agony, torment. They’d all been there on the bastard’s face. Leaning against the graffiti-riddled shelter, Wade slowly let out a twisted smile. Yeah, he couldn’t wait to see that look again.

The bus pulled in, and he heaved his duffel bag onto his shoulder. As he grabbed himself a seat at the back, he made a silent promise to the man who’d ruined his life. Watch out, Jake Holroyd. You thought you’d suffered last time, but you haven’t seen anything yet.