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Golden Palace?
Her heart seemed to miss a beat, even though she told herself that it was probably a Chinese restaurant touting for new business. But a Chinese restaurant would hardly title its subject matter: Akhal-Teke and other things.
Would it?
She clicked onto it, and now her heart was pounding with excitement. A sense of relief and delight washed over her as she realised that it was from him. Darian had e-mailed her!
The message read:
Khalim and I have just arrived back from several weeks in the Dahab desert.
So that was why she hadn’t heard from him!
Where he foisted upon me the most spirited Akhal-Teke you could imagine and told me to break her in! I did—after much bruising—and inevitably my new nickname as ‘Fallen Man’ has been confirmed. How’s life in London? Darian.
She read it over. And over. And over again. Her heart was bubbling with a kind of happiness that she was sure was inappropriate. It was only an e-mail, after all. But deep down she knew it was more than that. He had reestablished contact. He was still in her life. She wasn’t sure in just what capacity, but at least he was there.
Should she wait to reply?
Hell, no! She had waited six weeks to hear from him—why punish herself by doing something just to appear ‘cool’ when she didn’t feel in the least bit like that? In fact, her cheeks were flushed with a crazy excitement.
Her fingers were trembling. Keep it short, she told herself. And sweet.
London seems crazy and crowded—
And lonely of course…
But maybe that’s because I’m comparing it with Maraban, which seems a very long way away.
And then, because she couldn’t possibly write what she really wanted, which was When are you coming home?—he might have decided that Maraban was his home now—or, Darian, I love you and I really miss you—because that would be wholly inappropriate and he probably didn’t feel the same way, she signed it, simply. Lara.
‘What’s up?’ asked Jake, when she walked back into the sitting room.
‘He’s written! E-mailed me!’
‘Wild-Man, I take it?’ he questioned wryly.
‘Will you stop calling him that?’
‘That’s his name, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, Jake,’ she sighed. ‘I didn’t know they had e-mail in Maraban.’
‘But they’ve got an army and a navy and an airforce,’ he answered seriously. ‘Why wouldn’t they? What did he say?’
‘Oh, just that he’s spent several weeks in the desert with Khalim, that’s all.’
‘As you do!’ joked Jake.
But Lara felt happy for the first time since she’d arrived back, and she hummed a little tune underneath her breath as she began to prepare a stir-fry for herself and Jake.
She developed a sudden and passionate interest in her e-mail inbox, forcing herself to only check it twice a day—once in the morning and once in the evening—though the temptation to sit there online all day, staring hopefully at the screen in case his name should float up, was almost overwhelming.
She knew that people said an e-mail didn’t carry the same kind of clout as a letter. A letter you had to sit down and think about while an e-mail was fast and instant. Though this was not quite true in her case, because she would sit there dreamily gazing into space while thinking up replies, searching for just the right note to strike, reading and re-reading every one in case the wrong interpretation could be made of an innocent sentence.
She kept it light, told him about her jobs and her life, and sent some amusing anecdotes about a bunch of female fans who had discovered where Jake lived and were laying seige to the house.
A rather stern reply bounced back.
