LUCIE woke to a feeling of utter contentment. She’d never—never—been loved like that, and she felt whole as she’d never felt whole in her life before.
She opened her eyes, a smile forming on her lips, but Will was gone. She sat up, throwing off the quilt, not heeding her nakedness. ‘Will?’
There was no reply, and the cottage was too quiet. Quiet with the silence of emptiness. She felt ice slide over her and, shivering, she pulled on her dressing-gown and went through to the sitting room. She knew he wasn’t in the bathroom, because the door had been open and there was no sign of him.
Nor was he in the sitting room. She felt the kettle, and it was stone cold. When had he left? Just now, or earlier in the night?
She looked across at his house, but it was daylight and there would be no lights on anyway. She went back into the bedroom and felt the other side of the bed but, like the kettle, it was cold. He must have gone back to let the dog out, she realised, and stayed.
He was bound to be up, though, so she showered quickly, threw on her jeans and an old rugby shirt and some thick socks, and went over to the house. The back door was open, as usual, and she went in and found him sitting at the table, staring broodingly into a mug.
‘Hi,’ she said softly.
Will looked up, and to her surprise his eyes were unreadable. They certainly hadn’t been unreadable last night, but today they were. Distant and remote and expressionless. ‘Hi.’
She faltered, suddenly uncertain of her welcome and not knowing why. ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked with her usual directness, and he shrugged.
‘I don’t do the morning-after thing very well.’
She stared at him. ‘I noticed,’ she said wryly, and went over to the kettle. ‘Mind if I have a cup of tea?’
‘Help yourself. You usually do.’
Oh, lord. All that beautiful intimacy, the tenderness, the whispered endearments—all gone, wiped out with the dawn. She felt sick inside, cold and afraid.
‘Have you had breakfast?’ she asked, striving for normality, and he shook his head.
‘Not yet.’
‘Want some toast?’
‘If you’re making it.’
Well, he wasn’t going to make it easy, that was for sure, but she wasn’t giving up either.
She cut four slices of bread, stuck them in the toaster and sat down opposite him, so he couldn’t avoid looking at her.
He did, though. He stared down into his tea as if his life depended on it, and when she reached out a hand and touched him, he all but recoiled.
‘Have I done something wrong?’ she asked gently.
He looked up then, his eyes piercing and remote. ‘No. Ignore me. I’m always like this.’
‘Might explain why you’re still single at thirty-three, then,’ she said lightly, and went to collect the toast.
They ate in silence, and when he’d finished he scraped his chair back and stood up. ‘I’m taking the dog out.’
‘Mind if I come?’
He shrugged. ‘Please yourself. You usually do, but I’m going down by the river and your trainers will get ruined.’
‘I’ve got boots. Give me a minute.’
She ran over to the cottage, dug out the wellies that hadn’t seen the light of day for years and pulled them on, snagged a jacket off the hook by the door and went back out to find Will standing on the edge of the track, his hands rammed in his pockets, Bruno running in circles round the lawn barking impatiently.
As soon as he saw her, he turned and headed off, not waiting for her to catch up, and feeling sick inside she hurried after him, drawing level just in time to fall behind as the path narrowed.
And he wasn’t hanging around for her or making any concessions, of course. Oh, no. That would be out of character. Whoever had made such beautiful love to her last night had been put firmly back in his place and the Will she knew—and loved?—was back with a vengeance.
She struggled down the path after him over the uneven ground, and finally, when she thought she’d die of exhaustion, they arrived at the river. Thank God, she thought, but that wasn’t the end of it.
He turned sharply left and carried on along the path, striding out so that she almost had to run to catch up. Well, damn him, she wouldn’t run! She slowed down, taking her time to enjoy the walk, looking out over the quiet beauty of the morning light on the water, and she thought she’d never seen anything quite so lovely in her life.
They were near the sea, and gulls were wheeling overhead, their keening cry reminding her of seaside holidays as a child. A wader was standing on one leg, and the water was so still she could see the ripples spreading out in the water around it, perfectly concentric rings interrupted only by the thin stalks of the reeds that broke the surface of the water in places.
It stabbed the mud with its beak, breaking the pattern, and she breathed again and moved on, following Will and wondering how anyone who loved this land as he so obviously did could be so changeable.
Maybe he loved it because it, too, constantly changed, continually affected by external influences.
Or was Will just bad-tempered and grumpy, and was she making too many allowances for him?
Probably, she acknowledged, looking ahead to where he was standing waiting for her, staring out over the river, his body utterly motionless.
Then he turned his head, and she told herself she imagined the pain in his eyes. Over that distance she could hardly make out his features, never mind read an expression!
Lucie hurried towards him, and this time he waited until she reached him.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said softly, and he nodded.
‘I try and come down here every day. It’s harder in the winter because it’s dark so early, but I still try. Sometimes it freezes, and the birds skid about on the ice at the sides and Bruno tries to chase them. He always falls through, though. It never freezes that hard.’
She smiled, imagining it, and looked up at him. His eyes tracked over her face, and she reached up and laid her hand on his cheek. ‘You haven’t kissed me this morning,’ she said, and, going up on tiptoe, she brushed his lips with hers.
‘Lucie,’ he whispered, and then his arms went round her and his mouth found hers again and he kissed with a trembling hesitation that brought tears to her eyes.
Then Will lifted his head and stared out over the river again, and this time she saw the pain quite clearly, for the second it took him to gather his composure around him like a cloak.
‘We shouldn’t have made love last night,’ he said, and his voice sounded rusty, as if he’d left it down by the river at the water’s edge for the tide to wash over it and reclaim it.
Her knees threatened to buckle. Why? she wanted to cry, but she couldn’t speak. Her throat had closed, clogged with tears, and it was as much as she could do to breathe.
She turned away before he could see the tears in her eyes, and headed back up to the house. She was damned if she’d let him see her cry!
She heard the drumming of hoofbeats, and in the distance she could make out Amanda and Henry, flying along the track that ran along the far side of the field beside her.
She felt a pang of envy. To feel the wind in your face and see the trees rushing past and feel so free—it must be wonderful. She brushed aside the tears and turned her attention back to the path, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other.
And then she heard the unearthly scream, and the hideous crash, and, looking up, she saw Henry struggling to his feet, unable to stand properly.
‘Oh, my God,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, Amanda!’
She turned her head to call Will, but he’d seen and heard as well, and he was running up the field towards them, his long legs eating up the ground, Bruno streaking ahead.
She ran after him, her breath tearing in her throat, and adrenaline was surging through her, making her heart pound so hard she thought it would come out of her chest.
Will had reached Amanda now, and he was kneeling down when Lucie ran up, and his face was ashen.
‘I think she’s dead,’ he said, and his voice was hollow and empty.
Lucie dropped to her knees beside him. ‘She can’t be. Let me feel.’
‘She’s not breathing, and I can’t feel a pulse. I think her neck’s broken, but I can’t do anything with this bloody stupid hand…’
Lucie slipped her fingers behind the back of Amanda’s neck, but she could feel nothing displaced. ‘Maybe not. She might just be winded. Run and get my bag, and call an ambulance. You can go faster than me, and I’ve got hands that work. Take the dog with you.’
He was gone before she’d finished speaking, and she quickly ran her fingers down under Amanda’s spine, feeling for any irregularity. If there was one, it was undetectable. So why…?
‘Come on, Amanda, you can’t do this,’ she said. Ripping open her shirt, she laid her head on Amanda’s chest. Yes, there was a faint heartbeat, but she wasn’t breathing. Her airway, Lucie thought, and, supporting the neck by sliding her hand under it, she lifted Amanda’s chin.
Amanda gasped, and as Lucie continued to support her neck, her eyelids fluttered open and she dragged in another breath.
Lucie let hers out in a rush. ‘You’re all right. Just lie still, you’ll be OK.’
‘Hurt,’ she whispered.
‘I know. Lie still, Will’s getting the ambulance. Where do you hurt?’
‘Everywhere. Legs—back—don’t know. Pelvis?’
Lucie nodded. Amanda’s legs were lying at a very strange angle, and it was obvious that she was very seriously injured. The first thing she needed was a neck brace, just to be on the safe side.
‘You’ll be OK,’ she told her without any great faith, and prayed for Will to hurry. She wanted to get a line in, so that the ambulance crew could get some fluids into her as soon as possible to counteract the shock, because Lucie could tell that Amanda’s blood pressure was going down, and goodness knows what internal injuries she might have sustained.
‘Henry,’ Amanda whispered a little breathlessly. ‘Is he…?’
‘He’s over there, behind you. He’s up.’ On three legs, with the fourth dangling at a very strange angle, but Amanda didn’t need to know that. ‘Do you know what happened?’
‘No. He—just seemed to—hit something—in the grass. Don’t know what. Is he all right?’
‘I don’t know anything about horses,’ Lucie said with perfect truth. ‘Just keep very still, sweetheart. Try not to move.’
Amanda’s eyes fluttered shut then, and Lucie had never felt more alone in her life. Come on, Will, she thought, and then he appeared, her medical bag in his left hand, a bundle of towels and sheets under his right arm.
‘Any joy?’
‘She’s breathing. Her airway was obstructed. I think her tongue had been driven back with the force of the fall. She’s just resting.’
He looked down at her, just as Amanda’s eyes opened and she looked up at him. ‘Will? Look after Henry.’
‘I will.’
‘Got insurance. Call the vet. Anything…’
‘OK. Don’t worry about Henry. I’ve called the vet.’
He shot a glance in the horse’s direction, and met Lucie’s eyes. So they agreed on that, at least. Henry was in deep trouble. ‘They’re sending an air ambulance, because of the track. It should be here any minute. It was being scrambled from Wattisham air-base.’
She nodded. ‘Good. The sooner the better.’
‘I’ve just got to put out markers.’ He ran down the field, opening out the sheets and spreading them in a rough H on the emerging crops. Moments later he was back, and knelt down opposite Lucie. ‘Anything I can do? She needs a line in.’
‘I know. Can you take over her neck so I can do it?’
‘Sure.’ His fingers slid around hers, cupping the fragile neck, and she eased her hand away carefully and then busied herself opening her bag and finding what she needed to get an intravenous line in. ‘She needs saline.’
‘They’re bringing plenty of fluids. I told them to expect circulatory collapse.’
‘Let’s hope they get here soon,’ Lucie said, checking Amanda’s pulse and finding it weaker. ‘Her pressure’s dropping. Where the hell are they?’
‘God knows, but the horse is going to be spooked by the helicopter.’
She’d got the line into Amanda’s hand, and she taped the connector down and looked at Henry doubtfully. ‘Can you lead him back to the stable?’
‘Are you all right with her?’
‘I’ll manage. I don’t need a terrified horse galloping over me.’
‘I don’t think he’s galloping anywhere,’ Will said softly, and she slid her fingers back under his and watched him as he went quietly up to Henry, speaking softly to him and holding out a reassuring hand.
The horse was shivering, clearly in shock himself, and Will led him slowly, hobbling on three legs, up the track and over the field towards the house.
He was back in no time, just as the helicopter came into view over the hill.
‘That was quick.’
‘I met up with the vet on the track. He’s taken him on up,’ he yelled, and then his voice was drowned out by the whop-whop-whop of the helicopter, and the grass was flattened all around them and Lucie ducked involuntarily.
Never mind spooking the horse, it didn’t do a lot for her, but she was pleased to see it!
Seconds later the paramedic team was there, taking over from her, checking what had been done, getting fluids up and running, giving Amanda gas and air for pain relief and straightening her legs out to splint them, before putting on the spinal boards and lifting her into the ambulance.
Then they were away, and Will and Lucie stood watching the helicopter fade to a dot in the distance. ‘I need to ring her mother—they’ll have to talk to the vet and make decisions about Henry.’
‘What did he hit? She said they hit something on the track.’
They walked back along it, and there, sticking up in the grass, was the end of a steel frame from a piece of redundant farm machinery. It had probably been there for ages, but this wasn’t Will’s land, and he didn’t walk along this track often, he said.
It was just bad luck that Henry had gone so far over to the side, rather than sticking to the centre of the tracks, and it might have cost them both their lives.
Lucie shuddered. To think she’d just been envying them their headlong flight!
They went back to the house and found the vet in the stable with Henry, running his hands over the trembling horse and murmuring soothingly.
‘How is he?’ Will asked tautly.
‘Shattered the cannon-bone of his off fore. It’s not a clean break. They might be able to save it, but he’ll never work again.’
‘She’s got insurance.’
The vet straightened up and met their eyes. ‘I need to speak to his owners. My instinct is to shoot him now, but sentiment often gets in the way.’
‘I’m sure they’d want him saved if possible,’ Will said, and the vet nodded.
‘I’ll call Newmarket. They’ll have to come and get him. They have special transport with slings. He can’t travel like this, he’ll just fall over.’
He came into the house with them, and after Will had spoken to Amanda’s parents and told them that Amanda was on her way to hospital, they confirmed that they wanted Henry saved if possible, and so the vet made several calls to set up the transport arrangements.
It seemed to be hours before Henry was loaded and away, the lorry picking its way infinitely slowly along the uneven track.
‘I’m going to have to do something about that track,’ Will said heavily, and turned away. ‘I’m going to ring the hospital,’ he said, and went into the house, leaving the door open as if he expected Lucie to follow. She did, sitting impatiently waiting until he finally got through to the right department. After a short exchange he replaced the receiver.
‘She’s in Theatre. She’s got a pelvic fracture, both lower legs and right femur, and a crack in one of her cervical vertebrae, as well as cerebral contusions. Thank God she had her hat on, or she probably would have died of head injuries, but she’ll be in for a long time, I think, judging by the sound of it. Her parents are both there, waiting for her to come round.’
Will glanced at his watch, or where his watch would have been, and swore softly before looking up at the clock. ‘The day’s nearly gone,’ he said, and he sounded exasperated and irritable.
‘I need another watch,’ he went on. ‘I don’t suppose you feel like a trip to town, do you? I haven’t bothered to get one till now because I couldn’t wear it on that wrist, but I think the swelling’s down enough now, especially if I get one with an adjustable strap.’
‘Sure,’ she agreed. She wasn’t sure how far she could walk. Her feet were rubbed raw after her long walk in the badly fitting wellies—not to mention running up the field in them with her socks gathered up round her toes. Still, she’d manage. She wanted to be with him, if only so she could try and get their relationship back on an even keel after last night.
She didn’t know what had happened to change his attitude, but something had, and if nothing else she wanted at least to go back to how they had been, instead of this icy and terrifying remoteness.
Will felt sick. Lucie was so sweet and open, almost as if Fergus was nothing. How could she be so fickle? He couldn’t bear to think about it, so he closed his mind and tried to get back to how things had been, but it was hard.
Too hard.
He withdrew into an emotional safety zone, and then had to endure Lucie’s puzzled looks for the rest of the day. He found a watch, the same as the one that he had smashed in his accident five weeks before, and the saleslady was able to adjust it so it hung loosely on his still tender and swollen wrist.
‘It’s taking a long time to get back to normal,’ Lucie said as they left the shop.
‘I’ve been giving it a hard time,’ he said shortly. ‘I’ve had no choice, unless I resigned myself to total dependence, and I didn’t have anyone to depend on.’
‘You could have depended on me,’ she said softly, and he gave a brief snort.
‘I could. I would rather not.’
‘So you’ve pushed your wrist too hard and probably damaged it more.’
‘It’s my wrist,’ he said flatly, cutting off that line of conversation, and Lucie fell silent. He felt a heel, but he was having enough trouble with his own emotions, without worrying about hers. Damn Fergus, he thought, and had to consciously relax his hands because they were clenched into fists so tight both arms were rebelling.
‘Let’s go home,’ he said, without bothering to ask her if there was anything she wanted to do in town, and then had a pang of guilt. She’d driven him there, after all. ‘Unless you want something?’
She shook her head. ‘No. We can go back.’
The journey was accomplished in silence, and when they got back she said she was going to sort a few things out and disappeared into the cottage. He let himself into the house, patted Bruno absently and checked the answering machine automatically.
Nothing. No distractions, nothing to take his mind off last night and Lucie’s beautiful, willing body under his.
He slammed his fist down on the worktop and gasped with pain. Damn. He really, really had to stop abusing this wrist. He massaged it gingerly with the other hand, and could have cried with frustration.
‘You’re better off than Amanda,’ he told himself, and decided he’d swap places with her in an instant if it gave him a chance with Lucie.
There was nothing, of course, to stop him competing with Fergus—except pride.
Fergus had a car that cost more than he earned in a year, flash clothes that would never have seen the inside of Marks and Spencer, and he’d stake his life that Fergus didn’t live in a tumbledown, half-restored excuse for a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, miles from the nearest habitation and out of range of a mobile phone transmitter!
There was no way he could compete with Fergus for the heart of a city girl, and he didn’t intend to try. He’d just take last night as a one-off, the night that shouldn’t have happened, and cherish the memory for the rest of his life.
He struggled unaided into the long veterinary glove, had a bath and then lit the fire, opened the Scotch and settled down for a night’s indifferent television. Nothing could hold his attention—not drama, not talk shows, certainly not puerile comedy.
He was about to go to bed when the phone rang, and he got up to answer it, to find that it was Fergus.
‘Could I speak to Lucie, please?’ he said in his carefully modulated voice, and Will grunted and dropped the phone on the worktop in the kitchen, going across to the cottage in bare feet and rapping on the door.
Lucie opened it, looking bleary-eyed and sleepy, and he wanted to take her in his arms and rock her back to sleep. Instead, he glared at her. ‘Fergus on the phone,’ he snapped, and, turning on his heel, he strode across the yard, ignoring the sharp stones that stabbed into his feet.
Lucie followed him in and picked up the phone. Will didn’t want to hear her talk to him. A huge lump of something solid was wedged in his chest, and he shut the door into the sitting room with unnecessary force and turned up the television.
‘Fergus?’ Lucie said, looking at the firmly shut door with dismay. ‘What is it?’
‘I miss you.’
‘I know. Fergus, we’ve had this conversation a hundred times now. I can’t do anything about it. We aren’t right for each other.’
‘How’s Will?’
Sexy. Amazing. The most incredible lover, better than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams.
‘He’s all right.’ Actually, she didn’t know how he was. Short-tempered, but that was no surprise, he was usually short-tempered.
Except just recently, and last night.
Last night…
‘Sorry, Fergus, you were saying?’
‘I was asking if there’s any chance for you with Will, or if there’s any point in me coming up to see you tomorrow. I want to see you, Lucie. I want to ask you something.’
Oh, no. But, then again, maybe a little competition might sharpen up Will’s act.
‘Come for lunch,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you at twelve.’
‘OK. I’ll bring something, don’t cook.’
‘OK. See you tomorrow.’
She hung up, contemplated the firmly slammed door and shrugged. Will could find out for himself that she was off the phone. She went back to her cottage, shut the curtains and curled up on the chair and howled.
She’d really thought they were getting somewhere, but this morning he’d been so unapproachable, and then he’d said that they shouldn’t have made love last night!
How could he believe that? It had been the most beautiful experience of her life, and she didn’t think she’d been alone, but there was more going on here than she understood. There had been pain in Will’s eyes, a real pain that hinted at some deep and terrible hurt.
A woman in his past? Had he been terribly hurt by her, and was that why he didn’t do the morning-after thing very well? Was it that he couldn’t bear to confront his feelings, or had he—please, God, no—pretended she’d been the other woman? Had that been why he hadn’t been able to look at her in the morning?
Lucie scrubbed at the tears on her cheeks, and stood up. Whatever, she couldn’t get any closer to understanding him by thrashing it round and round in her head any more, and she might as well go to bed.
Except that the sheets carried the lingering traces of his aftershave.
She sat up in the midst of the crumpled sheets and took her diary on her lap. ‘We made love last night,’ she wrote. ‘At least, I thought we did. Perhaps it was just amazing sex.’
A tear splashed on the page, and she brushed it angrily away. ‘Fergus coming for lunch tomorrow. He wants to ask me something. Hope it isn’t what I think it is. Amanda and Henry came to grief on the track by the river. Very dramatic. Thought we were going to lose them both, but apparently not. Oh, Will, I love you, but you drive me crazy. Why can’t you just open up with me? I thought we had something really special, but it must have been wishful thinking.’
She put the diary down, lay down in the middle of the crumpled bed and cried herself to sleep.
Fergus turned up at twelve. Will saw the car coming down the track from the end window in the house. He was struggling to strip the window, working with the wrong hand, and he paused and watched the car’s slow progress. On second thoughts, maybe he wouldn’t do anything about the track, and maybe Fergus would stop coming down.
He threw the stripping tool to the floor with a disgusted sigh, and shut the window, abandoning his hopeless task. He went down to the kitchen, arriving coincidentally as Fergus drew up, and he watched as Lucie came out to greet him with a kiss on the cheek.
Oh, well, at least it wasn’t a full-flown no-holds-barred kiss of the sort he’d shared with her on Friday night. He should be thankful for small mercies—or perhaps Fergus was just too well bred to do it in public. He opened the boot of his car—a ridiculously small boot—and lifted out a wicker hamper.
If it hadn’t hurt so much, Will would have laughed.
Game, set and match, he thought, and turned his back on them. He’d seen enough.