Page 56 of The Trouble With Love

‘Oh. Oh! Right, yep, get it, you go for it girl. And don’t take any of his bullshit, he fancies you something chronic so you get your demands in first.’ Her door opened and her voice became clearer. ‘I’m up to my ears in here in shit and background noise, so you two let loose and get it out of your systems, and then come in and give me a hand. Oh, Zac, no, not again . . .’ and the door closed.

Kai and I closed our mouths, looked at one another and grinned, then realised simultaneously that our hands were still joined, and there was a moment of slightly embarrassed disentwining. ‘Kitchen?’ I asked, trying to pretend that it hadn’t been at all awkward.

‘I think so.’ He led the way and went straight to the kettle. ‘And tea, for some reason.’

I didn’t say anything. I watched him starting to make tea, being domesticated and comforting, even though I now knew he was the kind of guy who kicks in doors. And my inner feminist protested wildly, but it was nice to be able to sit, hands clamped between my knees to stop them from shaking, tears worrying away at the back of my throat, and know I was safe because of this man. The man who’d also driven through near Alaskan blizzards to find my brother, the man who’d been there when I’d needed him. My opinion of Kai Rhys had changed quite a lot since I’d met him.

He filled the kettle and came to sit on the stool beside me. ‘Right. That talk.’

‘What are we talking about?’ I cleared my throat of the lump of shock and tried to ignore the fact that he’d put himself so close that our legs touched under the table.

‘Look.’ He stared at his hands and twisted the ring on his thumb. ‘Those guys.’ A deep breath. ‘Holly, you’re caught up in something . . . Look, what I do, it’s . . .’

‘You’re a journalist.’

‘Yes, but more than that. I’m an in-ves . . . come on, play with me here.’

‘Not right now,’ I said tartly, and he smiled. ‘You’re an investigative journalist. And a bastard.’

‘In a nutshell. But — I’ve got the knack, teasing out the stories, and when I moved in here and found out about . . .’

‘Why pick on here to live?’ I could feel his arm against mine, see the slight prick of silver earring behind his hair. I was too aware of him, that was the problem. ‘It’s the back of beyond.’ I was shaking. Delayed reaction, or just Kai? Didn’t know, couldn’t tell.

A small shrug. ‘Because . . . when I was found, underneath the Daily Mail there was a small scrap of a local paper, the Gazette and Herald. And I always wondered, was it meant as some kind of clue? Was it something she did subconsciously to lead me here? But . . .’ another shrug. ‘It was something. Something I felt I had to follow. Anyway. Even though I didn’t move for work . . . more to get away from it . . . I came here, and there was this bunch.’

The kettle shrilled and he stood up. Carried on talking with his back to me and I wondered if it was deliberate, if he was making himself busy. ‘Oh, they’re nasty. They’ve already kicked a lad so hard he’s still in hospital. Ruptured his kidneys because they caught him and his boyfriend in the woods. The boyfriend legged it, luckily, went and got help but they hadn’t seen anything, just masked shapes coming out of the trees.’

‘So, how do you know . . . ?’

He brought two mugs to the table. ‘People talk, if you know the right people. And I wondered, you know, about these guys, about what it was that they were doing up there in the woods, what was so important that they had to walk around with guns and scare the shit out of anyone who moved off the official footpaths. I had a good idea, but I got it confirmed by some — well, not friends, but people. But, you know, hearsay is no proof, so . . .’ As he passed me my mug he touched the back of my hand with his thumb.

I wrapped both hands around the reassuringly hot china and stared into the downward spiralling of the swirling liquid. My insides felt as though they were spiralling down after it. ‘So what has this got to do with me?’

He sat back beside me again. ‘Holly. I was watching. I’ve got a telescope set up’ — a wave towards the stairs — ‘on the roof. Keeping an eye on Dodman’s Hill. And then I saw you getting grabbed.’ His breathing stuttered and his words broke.

‘You’ve got a telescope on the roof?’ I drank some tea, giving myself time to feel my way around this conversation. ‘Wow. Seriously pervy.’

A sudden sharp grin. ‘Yeah. ’Cause those courting couples are tearing their clothes off and shagging up there in their thousands, what with it being the middle of winter and fifteen degrees below freezing.’ He raised his mug and his hand was shaking almost as much as mine. ‘I came down off that roof so fast that Cerys actually thought I’d fallen down the stairs. You can ask her if you don’t believe me.’

‘And why wouldn’t I — Oh.’

His eyebrows arched. ‘Today you kicked me in the bollocks like you meant it.’

‘I didn’t know that was you! Why didn’t you shout out or something, instead of Bruce Willis-ing it?’

‘Couldn’t be sure it was you in there. It could have been one of the guys, could have been anyone. Why weren’t you shouting?’

‘I did. No one came.’ A ridiculous moment of weakness caused a few tears to attempt a mustering in the corners of my eyes.

‘I was out, hunting through the woods and I couldn’t find you and I . . . and then there was all this smoke, I heard the coughing and reckoned someone was in trouble. What were you trying to do, by the way? You looked like you were trying to kipper yourself.’

‘It was a smoke bomb,’ I wished my voice had been steadier. A sentence like that ought to have carried more conviction.

‘A bomb.’ His mouth twitched.

‘Why is that funny?’

‘Oh, it’s not.’ He reached out as though to touch my hair, but let his hand drop. ‘You are a very remarkable woman, Holly Grey. And I want you to trust me. No, it’s more than that.’ His hand went to his own hair and raked through it with a kind of displaced frustration. ‘I need you to trust me.’

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