Page 19 of The Trouble With Love

Joke-moustache looked me up and down. ‘Depends what you are doing,’ he said. His voice was less classy-twit and more gravelly-bastard. ‘We seen you, all of you, sitting up there, chanting.’

‘Oh bollocks. Chanting’s not against the law. We’re a women’s support group,’ I added, keeping one eye on those guns.

The men exchanged a smile. ‘That’s what you’re calling it these days, is it?’ Ginger-hair took a step closer to me and I took an involuntary step back, which made him smile even more. ‘Look. She’s scared.’

‘She should be.’ Joke-moustache raised his gun, clicked it closed and fired into the sky. I’d never been so close to a discharged firearm; the noise was tremendous and I covered my ears, albeit too late. When I managed to unscrew my eyes and lower my hands, the men had gone. Melted away into the woods, leaving only the smell of cordite and a tiny patch of dripped blood staining the brown and yellow leaves of the trackway.

Cerys was at the door. ‘Holly? What’s happened? I heard shooting, are you all right?’

‘Yes.’ To my horror I felt the tears of shock begin to prick my eyes. ‘It was . . .’

‘Oh, Kai’s back.’ The Jeep jounced into view coming down the track towards us. I couldn’t hear the engine of the Land Rover and I could only hope that ginge and his skanky friend weren’t standing behind an oak tree watching his arrival.

‘Hi.’ The long legs unfolded onto the forest floor. ‘Holly? What’s happened?’

I managed to breathe through the desire to throw myself at him and blurt that I’d been scared of the big men with guns — it was a little too romance-heroine for me.

‘Someone fired a gun,’ Cerys supplied.

I could have mistaken the quick look Kai gave me, but I didn’t think so. ‘Was it our auburn-headed friend?’

I nodded. ‘And a thin guy with a moustache that looked like it came out of a cracker.’

‘Fuck.’ Kai turned to go into the Old Lodge, slamming his hand down on the porch rail. ‘Thought I told you to stay clear of him.’

‘No. If you remember, you were staying clear of him, and I said that was all right with me. You’ve warned me off just about everything else, but you never mentioned him.’

‘Well he . . . what do you mean “just about everything else”?’ He turned back to face me, rolling his hand along the rail so that his rings tapped.

‘I’m going for a lie-down. This is all getting way too heavy for me, and being that I weigh roughly the same as Albania, that is going some.’ Cerys hauled herself into the hallway, pausing to give me a quick wink over her shoulder as she went.

‘Holly? What did you mean?’ Kai stayed where he was.

‘Well, the woods and stuff.’ My voice sounded a bit feeble and my eyes still stung.

‘Stuff?’

‘You.’

He dipped his head slowly and looked at me. It was like being stuck in a binary system, those twin-sun eyes. The stubble had renewed itself, but looked artful, as though by a freak of nature his beard had some kind of designer pattern. ‘Get in the Jeep.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

He twitched his head towards the olive-grey vehicle. ‘In.’

‘What, get into a car with a bloke who seems to think ordering women around is the way forward for polite society? I don’t think so.’ The shock was draining from my system, leaving me feeling a weakness I would never show. The anger covered it up nicely.

Kai closed in. Put a hand on my elbow. ‘Look. My daughter is up there.’ Eyes traced a way through the open door and up the stairs, then returned to mine. ‘And if I know Cerys, she’s listening to every word we say. You don’t want to have this conversation thrown back at you any more than I do. So get in the Jeep.’

‘Why? What are you going to say?’

‘Get in the Jeep and find out.’

I finally complied, and he got in after me, starting the engine with a sudden, ferocious amount of throttle. The wheels spun, gained purchase and then hurled us forward, narrowly missing a tree which probably qualified for Ancient status. ‘Where are we going?’ I’d barely managed to get my seat belt done up.

‘What do you want me to do, Holly? Throw you down on the ground and have sex with you?’

‘God. Way to be cold-blooded about it, Kai.’

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