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‘There is no hope?’ He looked at her for a long moment before nodding his head slowly. ‘I think I knew really, but I had to say it. You forgive me?’
‘Don’t be silly, there’s nothing to forgive.’ She touched his arm gently, moving her hand away as his face tightened. ‘It’s just that I love Blade, John, I have from the moment I met him and I always will. I value you as a friend, my best friend, and if things had been different—but they’re not.’ She didn’t want to say too much, but if John thought Blade was in some way responsible for her leaving she owed it to him to explain a little.
‘It wasn’t Blade’s fault I left but I can’t explain beyond saying you’ll have to trust me in this. He didn’t do anything wrong, just the opposite.’
‘Then why—?’
‘Please, John.’ She shook her head slowly as her face whitened. ‘I can’t explain. If I could talk about this with anyone it would be you, I promise, but I can’t. Not yet anyway.’
‘Amy, if you’re in some kind of trouble?’ He stopped abruptly. ‘I’ll do anything, anything to help, and forget all that I just said. There’d be no strings attached.’
‘Oh, John …’ She was fighting to keep back the tears, desperately touched by the emotion he had revealed and his staunch friendship when he must be hurting too, feeling about her as he did. She should never have come here, upset his life, but she hadn’t known. She had thought he was fond of her on a purely platonic footing; he had never said, never indicated in the tiniest way in the past that he felt anything more than benevolent detached affection. ‘John, I’m so sorry.’
‘No problem.’ He moved firmly away and settled back in his seat, his face suddenly resigned. ‘But I’m here, always, if you want me. Understand?’ He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. ‘And I meant what I said, no strings attached. Now, let’s get you to work before Arthur starts hollering.’
The afternoon and evening were long and difficult, with a host of minor irritations that had her wanting to scream by the time she was due to leave. The little restaurant was hot and sticky, and owing to the non-delivery Arthur had been forced to fetch they were working behind schedule most of the day. And she felt so bad about John. And Blade. And everything …
Suddenly all the doubts and fears that she was doing the right thing returned in a devastatingly bitter flood. She wanted Blade, needed him; she couldn’t handle this any more.
She had a sudden fierce desire to be utterly selfish, to tell him the truth and lay the burden on his broad shoulders and let him deal with it as he would. But almost as soon as it was born the notion died. What would it accomplish? At the best he would view her with a mixture of love, pity, compassion and maybe, threaded through all the other emotions, revulsion. At the worst she would destroy his life from the moment she admitted the truth.
She loaded the dishwasher in the small kitchen, with her jaws clenched so hard it made her teeth ache. This self-pity had to stop. She had made her bed, now she had to lie on it, alone.
‘Amy?’ The night was warm and mild, a bonus from the unusually hot day, and as she stood for a moment on the step of the restaurant sniffing the clean air filled with a hundred summer scents she felt a sharp stab of pleasure that now, at this instant, she was still vitally and strongly alive. The future was wrapped in shadows and a long way off. ‘Now’ was this quiet balmy evening in a little Yorkshire village with the sweet tang of woodsmoke hanging on the still air and the fragrance of green grass and wild flowers drifting in from the moorland and hills beyond.
Blade had carried her off to the Caribbean on her honeymoon, with brief stops in the South of France and Switzerland, but nowhere in the midst of all that spectacular beauty had such intense pleasure and sadness combined to make one moment so piercingly sweet.
‘Amy?’ As Blade spoke her name again it penetrated the trance, bringing her back to reality with painful suddenness. ‘I want a word with you. I’ll give you a lift home.’
He moved out of the shadows to stand looking up at her and she noticed the car, parked some yards away, for the first time. ‘A lift?’ She stared at him almost stupidly as her senses registered that he looked all male and incredibly dangerous in the black cotton trousers and shirt he wore so easily. ‘I think not. And we have nothing at all to talk about, Blade. It’s over.’
‘I’m not disputing that,’ he answered coldly, something gleaming in the dark depths of his eyes she couldn’t quite fathom. ‘But as we both seem to be living in the same small village for the moment we need to get the ground rules sorted, and they don’t include necking with lover-boy in full daylight.’
