CHAPTER TWELVE

‘JUST jump!’

Luke watched Gaby study the rough pebbly beach, the firm grey edge of the dinghy and the distance in between.

‘I can’t!’

Heather giggled behind him. The jump was only three feet or so. Who would have thought that a woman so fearless when it came to giving and loving could be afraid of a bit of water?

Of course, he could just tell her to sit down and hang on tight while he pulled both dinghy and woman on to the beach, but Plan B was going to be so much more fun.

‘Heather, hang on to the painter!’

He turned to check that Heather had picked up the rope attached to the nose of the boat, then kicked off his deck shoes—no socks, thank goodness—rolled up his trouser legs and waded a few steps into the water. The ground fell away sharply and he was almost up to his knees fairly quickly.

‘Do you think you can manage to jump into my arms, you daft woman?’

Gaby was trying to look mortally offended, but every bit of her was screaming You betcha! at him. She wobbled over to the side of the boat and grabbed him firmly round the neck. She was in his arms in a split-second, as if it were as natural as breathing to be there.

‘See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?’ He deliberately tickled her ears with his breath as he whispered to her and he felt her shudder in his arms.

‘Stop it!’

He did as he was told. They were still a step or two from the shore. ‘You want me to let go? Here? Now?’

‘No!’ she squealed and clung on even harder. He chuckled. Plan B had definitely been the way to go.

‘Okay.’ He started walking again. His bare feet met the beach of flat stones, but he didn’t let go, he just kept on walking.

‘Luke! Heather is watching. Put me down.’

Luke looked round. ‘Erm…I don’t think she is.’ Heather was scrambling up the rocky bank in search of the perfect place for a camp. She’d been raving about it the whole time they had been motoring up here.

‘Luke?’

‘Give it a rest, woman, would you? She’s not watching. I’ll put you down in a—’ He was arrested by Gaby’s insistent prodding on his shoulder.

‘Luke? The boat…’

This time he did let go. And it was just as well Heather was out of earshot as he splashed back into the water to stop the dinghy drifting downstream. The river was wide here, but the currents were swift and it would have been out of reach in a few more seconds.

‘Heather?’ he yelled as he grabbed the rope and made back to shore with the boat. ‘I thought I told you to keep hold of the painter!’

He could only just make out the red of her favourite fleece through the trees and low bushes.

‘That was close!’ Gaby looked concerned as he heaved the inflatable dinghy up the shore and tied it to a fallen tree at the edge of the beach.

‘Sure was.’

‘There’s a towel in one of those other bags. Let’s get your feet dry. I know the sun is out, but that water must be freezing.’

Call him a chauvinist pig, but he loved the way Gaby fussed over him sometimes. It would have taken wild horses to drag the admission out of him before now, but he actually liked giving little part of his life over to someone else, liked the way she cared about him, thought about him. He’d spent too many years being independent and lonely. It was time to relinquish control and think about being a partner with somebody, doing things together.

Partners. He’d never felt that way with Lucy. She didn’t want the responsibility of sharing the decision-making with him. She’d just wend her own merry way, causing chaos sometimes, and he’d have to follow her around, patching things up and always, always holding the reins. And, in return, she’d accused him of being controlling and—what was that phrase she’d used? Oh, yes—unbearably anal.

Well, maybe he had been, but he hadn’t had a choice. Somebody had to think about things like bills and mortgage payments. Even having Heather hadn’t slowed her down that much. In fact, he’d secretly thought she’d resented being tied down to a baby and then a toddler. But then Heather had started school and Lucy had seemed so much happier. Of course, now he knew that had been partly due to the fact she’d not only got a part time job, but a part-time thing going with Alex, her boss, as well.

He looked across at Gaby, pulling a brightly coloured towel from one of the bags she’d packed. She looked nothing like she had at the party. Her face was free of gloop and her hair was in one of its gravity-defying topknot thingies and he thought she’d never looked more beautiful. Fresh and clean and full of life.

She glanced up. ‘Stop staring into space and come over here.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

He sat on the edge of the dinghy and dried his feet.

Heather gave an almighty shriek from the riverbank. ‘Dad! Gaby! I’ve found it!’

He slid his shoes on and followed Gaby up the bank to where Heather was standing. She’d found a little clearing in the trees where rocks poked through the scrubby grass.

‘Look! It’s perfect. That bit in the middle can be where we build the fire and these rocks over this side are like seats.’

She was right. Two low rocks, one longer than the other, flanked a little dip in the ground. Heather plonked herself down on the narrower rock.

‘Come on, you have to try it out!’

She smiled widely as he and Gaby perched on opposite ends of the bigger rock.

‘Sit on it properly, then.’

Talk about bossy! He and Gaby looked at each other and wiggled along until they were squeezed up next to each other. Heather grinned at them. It was her day and it seemed she was going to take full advantage of being in command.

Actually, Heather did quite a good job of organising Luke and Gaby into a work party to collect branches and bracken to make a little lean-to she could call her ‘camp’. She insisted on eating her sandwiches inside and was only tempted out by the promise of roasting marshmallows over a little fire they built.

It was late afternoon by the time they persuaded Heather it was time to return home. The sky was getting greyer by the second and the wind was whipping the river into tiny feathery waves. They’d be lucky if they got back home before it poured down. They hurried back into the little inflatable as fast as they could and set off downstream.

Heather turned to face him, her face pink from the fresh air. ‘Dad? I’ve had the best day!’

He grinned back, his eyes flicking first to Gaby, then resting on his daughter. ‘So have I.’

Luke watched the two women in his life chatting as they sat on the central seat, hair blown in two different directions at once. They looked so happy and comfortable together it warmed his heart.

‘Gaby?’ Heather asked.

‘Yes, sweetheart?’

‘I’m cold. Can I snuggle into you?’

‘Of course you can.’ Gaby smiled at her, real tenderness and affection in her eyes, and lifted her arm as Heather burrowed into her side.

It was that exact moment when he knew it was all going to work out. And he knew he couldn’t wait any longer. He was going to ask Gaby to marry him. Tonight, if he could work up the nerve.

 

There had to be a blank video somewhere in this cabinet! After all, there were hundreds of them, it seemed. And not one of them labelled. She had already tried a handful but they had films recorded off the telly on them.

She thrust her arm deep into the back of the shelf and pulled out a couple more. She sat back on the carpet, cross-legged, and jammed the next contender in the VCR. A natural history documentary. It might be Luke’s; she’d better leave that one alone. She slotted it back in its cardboard sleeve and tried the next one.

It was grainy and the camera work was bad enough to make her feel slightly seasick. A home movie.

She sat back and tried to work out where it had been shot. It didn’t look like the Old Boathouse and there seemed to be some kind of party going on. The camera operator lurched into a hallway and entered another room. Just lots more people she didn’t recognise.

Her finger was on the eject button, but she pulled it back again. That couldn’t be Heather, could it? Oh, my goodness! She looked so sweet. Hardly more than three years old, she guessed. By the looks of it, she was a little minx back then too. A woman was chasing her in an attempt to get her to go to bed. Finally she got hold of the wriggling child, picked her up and turned to face the camera.

Gaby felt all the colour drain from her face.

It was Lucy Armstrong. It had to be.

Heather had the same large eyes and long dark hair. If she took after her mother, which she most certainly did, she was going to be a knockout when she grew up. Luke was going to be beating teenage boys off with a stick! Normally she would have smiled at a thought like that, but suddenly it wasn’t very funny.

She took in the resemblance between mother and daughter again. My word, it was striking. Lucy’s hair was thick and sleek, a proper rich brunette. She touched the ends of her own hair. They felt ratty from the salt air and, while her own hair was brown, it was a mousey not-sure-what-colour-it-wanted-to-be shade.

When she was younger, her mother had complained she looked like a gypsy child, and suddenly she could see exactly what her mother meant. No matter what she did to it, it never stayed tidy like that.

But it wasn’t just the hair that fascinated Gaby, it was the whole package. Lucy was so elegant and vibrant. The cameraman didn’t bother focusing on anyone but her, and who would blame him? She sparkled. All the heads turned as she walked down the hallway, child in arms.

Something was scratching at the back of her mind, wanting to be let in. Lucy reminded her of someone, she just couldn’t work out who. And then it came to her. Lucy reminded her of Cara the Superwoman. They weren’t the same height or colouring, but it was something in the way they carried themselves. Whether it was supreme self-confidence or something harder to pinpoint, she wasn’t sure.

By now Lucy had reached the bottom of the stairs.

‘Wave to Daddy,’ she said, waggling Heather’s arm up and down. Her daughter was having none of it. Her bottom lip was stuck out as far as it would go. Bedtime hadn’t been a favourite thing even then, it seemed.

Then she heard a low rumbling laugh she’d become so familiar with in the last few weeks. Luke had been the cameraman. Her stomach dipped again.

She was seeing Lucy through Luke’s eyes.

And as she watched him follow her every movement up the stairs, she could tell what she’d thought earlier was true. He only had eyes for her, no one else.

Then the camera zoomed in at breakneck speed and only stopped when it framed Lucy’s swaying bottom.

‘Stop that, Luke!’ she heard Lucy say. ‘I know exactly what you’re up to. Grow up!’

She heard Luke laugh again and then it suddenly cut to later on in the party. Gaby jumped slightly as she was jolted out of what had been a very intimate moment between husband and wife. She felt sick and jealous and shaky. And then she felt ashamed that she felt any of those things.

Luke had had a wife, she’d known that all along. It was just that he never talked about her. It was almost as if Lucy had never existed. She understood why he’d banished anything that held memories of her from his house now. It must be too painful to remember.

There was a noise behind her. She dropped the cardboard sleeve she was holding and twisted round swiftly, legs still crossed, to see what it was.

Luke was standing in the doorway, his face blank, but there was pain in his eyes.

She looked back at the screen. It was a wider shot of the party now, but Lucy was still centre screen most of the time and, even when she wasn’t, you couldn’t help watching her.

She looked back at Luke, her mouth slightly open, and struggled for the right words. She picked up one of the discarded tapes and held it up as evidence.

‘I was looking for a tape for that film that’s on tonight…’

He looked at the tape in her hand, then turned his face away as if he couldn’t bear to see what was flickering on the television screen.

‘Turn it off.’ It was a command, plain and simple.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know what it was. I just—’

‘Turn it off, Gaby.’

She put the tape she was holding down and reached for the button on the video recorder. When she turned round again, he was gone.

She ejected Lucy’s tape and placed it carefully back into its sleeve. Then she tucked it away at the back of the cabinet where she had found it. Recording her film seemed unimportant now, anyway.

How long had he been standing there? She winced at the thought.

Well, she’d thought he’d erased every trace of his wife from his life and she’d been wrong. There was still a tiny part of him that couldn’t let go. He hadn’t been able to get rid of everything, and she could see why.

The way the camera had followed her said it all. Luke had been desperately in love with his wife, a woman who just happened to have all the style and grace of a movie star. And the dark shadow in his eyes just now told her everything she needed to know on the subject.

Luke was still in love with his dead wife.

How in heck was she ever going to compete with that?

 

The waitress hovered and Luke waved her away. He checked his watch. Quarter past. Gaby was late. Which was odd, because Gaby was never late.

If he believed in signs, he’d think it was a sign. Just another indication that things weren’t quite what they should be. It was as if, a couple of weeks ago, there had been a subtle shift in the universe while he’d slept. The first sign was when he’d got up in the morning and gone down into the kitchen to find Gaby in a skirt. Gaby never wore skirts. He didn’t even know she owned one.

Then he’d guessed she’d worn it to make an effort for him and something in the back of his brain gave him a sharp poke and told him he’d better say something to show he’d noticed. When had talking to Gaby got this hard?

In the end he’d mumbled, ‘You look nice.’ It was hardly going to win him any awards on the compliment front, but it was the best he could come up with at short notice. In truth, he didn’t care what she wore as long as she still looked at him with that bottomless warmth in her eyes.

Gaby had looked pleased he’d noticed, anyway.

But he wondered if he should have encouraged her at all. Things were gaining momentum. Now it wasn’t just skirts, it was shoes with pointy little toes and lip gloss, for goodness’ sake!

The restaurant door opened and his head jerked up automatically. And then his mouth dropped open automatically too. Gaby was handing her coat to a waiter and it gave him time to clench his jaw shut before she saw him.

‘Sorry I’m late! There was a backlog at the hairdressers.’ She shook her hair, stopping slightly as she took in his puzzled expression, then she smiled. ‘If I hadn’t said anything, you probably wouldn’t have noticed, would you? You men are all the same.’

Of course he’d have noticed!

Gone were the slightly messy, and very sexy, tumbling waves, replaced by shiny, straight hair with all the life ironed out of it.

‘Luke?’

Gaby was staring at him and he remembered he hadn’t even said hello or anything yet.

‘You look nice,’ he mumbled. Then he looked more closely. ‘It’s a different colour!’

Gaby ran a hand through her sleek hair. ‘I decided to go a few shades darker. Nice, isn’t it?’

He nodded, but he was lying—if you could call a head movement a lie. Where were all those lovely golden bits that lit up in the sunshine? Gone. Buried under a shade of brown that was richer and darker, yes, but fake all the same.

He didn’t know what to say. All he knew was that he wanted to reach over the table and ruffle the perfect style with his hand.

‘We’d better order.’ He picked up his menu and stared at the words. He didn’t need to look; he’d already decided what he was having while he was waiting.

He kept looking at her as they ate. Something was different, something more than hair and skirts and pointy little shoes. When she laughed, it seemed a little too loud. No more smiles that started off shyly and blossomed into a huge grin; now she smiled as if she was merely displaying her teeth for a toothpaste advert.

Gaby was pretending.

What she was pretending to be, or why she was doing it, was a complete mystery, but he knew he was right; he’d seen the signs before. And, in his experience, when the woman in your life started pretending, a whole lot of trouble was going to follow. The sinking feeling that had been creeping up on him finally turned itself round three times and settled in his chest.

His fingers strayed to the little velvet ring box in his pocket. They stroked its softness, feeling its shape, the domed top and the flat bottom, and when he’d explored every millimetre he took his empty hand out of his pocket and rested it on his napkin.

Not now. Not today.

 

No stars tonight. Gaby leaned on the railing of the terrace and peered at the sky. All she could see was a murky blackness, the only relief a silvery slit in the felt clouds where the moon poked through.

When they’d got back from London, after Justin’s party, Luke had rapped on the little door that led from her bedroom on to the terrace. She’d opened the door, about to scold him for breaking the ‘no sneaking around’ rule so quickly, when he’d pushed a finger to her lips, taken hold of her hand and led her silently out on to the terrace.

She’d never seen a sky like it. So many stars that she couldn’t even begin to imagine how many there were. She’d snuggled into the space under Luke’s arm and just stared in wonder. They’d kissed and talked and kissed some more until the pinprick stars disappeared one by one and the sky started to turn grey.

He still hadn’t said it right out to her, that three-word phrase she was longing to hear. He’d got close. She’d had a couple of me toos when she’d told him she loved him, and he’d said plenty of things that indicated he cared a great deal for her. She sighed. Luke was a man who found it difficult to say what he felt, she knew that. Patience was what was needed. Patience and hope.

She looked up at the sky again. Even the moon had deserted her. As she turned to make her way back to her room, she took a long hard look at Luke’s door. It looked firmly shut, but it felt bolted. He’d been hidden away in his study all evening. Essential paperwork, he’d said. And then he’d gone to bed early.

She walked into her room and shut the door behind her. Luke was a night-owl. He never went to bed before midnight at the very earliest. Her alarm clock told her it was only just eleven. Something was wrong and she had a good idea she knew what it was.

Lucy’s ghost was haunting them. It sounded a little dramatic, but that was how she felt. It had started with the party video but, even though she’d tucked it away to get dusty again, the images seemed to be swirling in the atmosphere. Even though Lucy had never lived in the Old Boathouse, Gaby felt her presence everywhere.

Everything she said and did seemed to be measured against what Lucy would have done. She found herself guessing how the other woman would have laid the table, or kissed Heather goodnight, and was never sure whether she should do it the same way or go for the opposite approach.

And what was truly awful was that she knew Luke was making the same comparisons too. She saw it in his eyes, the disappointment.

She went into her en suite shower room and began scrubbing off her make-up with some lotion and a cotton wool pad. What did they put in this waterproof mascara? It was practically welded on! She finished one eye and stared at herself in the mirror. She looked all lopsided. And that was kind of how she felt at the moment.

But it was all going to get better. She would just have to try harder, that was all. She could be the kind of woman Luke needed. She could do vivacious and witty and elegant. Their future happiness depended on it.

David had grown bored of his mousey little do-as-she-was-told wife and she wasn’t going down that road again, oh no. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.