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Yes, Beth said. She knew that.
'I mean he's everything a girl could want.' Catherine speared a juicy prawn with her fork and chewed before she added slyly, 'And I bet I was right about the bed thing, wasn't I? He's dynamite, admit it.'
Beth smiled weakly. 'You know I don't kiss and tell.'
'Make an exception. Just this once?'
'Sorry.' Beth filled her mouth with fillet steak.
'I know I was right, anyway.' Catherine grinned at her happily. 'I've seen the way you look at him and he looks at you. You two are hot.'
Beth dug her sister in the ribs and they both laughed, but once the weekend was over and she was alone again Beth brooded on their conversation. Catherine wouldn't have believed her if she'd told her sister she hadn't been in Travis's bed yet. No one would believe her. Everyone thought they were a couple in every sense of the word, that much had been obvious from the surprise which she had sensed when she had gone home to the cottage on the Saturday night after the main party.
Not that anyone had actually said anything, of course. They were far too polite and tactful for that, but she had seen their faces and had known exactly what they were thinking. It had embarrassed her, made her feel gauche and awkward. Not so Travis.
Beth frowned to herself. In fact, he had seemed totally un-bothered by what anyone thought. Typical man. Or should she say typical Travis? Because Travis was definitely, most defi¬nitely, not a typical man. Unique didn't even begin to do him justice. She couldn't think of a word that did.
He was a very tactile individual and powerfully experi¬enced in the art of making love, that was for sure, but he always stopped before things progressed too far. To her dismay, several times she had been on the verge of begging him to finish what he'd begun, his kisses and caresses creating inch a desire that pride had flown out of the window. But something had stopped her. One little word. Trust. Because if he asked her—as she knew he would—she couldn't give him the answer he wanted. She didn't trust him—she didn't mist any man. She never would again. Emotional suicide wasn't an option.
She sighed so heavily that Harvey came and put his Imormous head on her knee, his brown eyes enquiring. They had just finished breakfast and normally she was up and out in the garden or taking him for a walk immediately she'd finished eating. But the weekend had been particularly unsettling, probably because it had emphasised something she had been trying to ignore for a few weeks now. They couldn't go on the way they were. It was ridiculous—the whole thing had grown more ridiculous week by week. But they had reached stalemate.
'Walk?' she suggested to Harvey.
The magic word sent him racing to the front door and despite her thoughts Beth had to smile at his exuberance. How Harvey would settle back into the normal routine of activity when they had to leave this place she didn't know. A drill settled on her for a moment and then she shrugged. She'd deal with leaving here when she had to. She'd deal with leaving Travis when she had to. Day at a time and all that.
Stopping just long enough to fill her small backpack with a couple of bottles of water and a snack for lunch, Beth set cff, determined to walk the blues away. It had always worked before and it would work today. She'd make it.
Only it didn't. The bracken-covered hillsides, the odd cottage tucked between orchards and hedgerows, the shining rivers snaking among the trees and hills of every shape and were just the same as usual. Steep lanes, stone bridges, summits, dark with heather, and quiet fields, they passed them all. But the peace they normally gave her was absent.
The scented warm air, Harvey's enjoyment of his surroundings, even the brightly coloured kingfisher Beth spotted on the way home much later failed to thrill.
What was the matter with her? Twilight was falling and she still had a couple of miles to go before the cottage would be in sights but she sat down on the river bank, Harvey immedi¬ately seizing the opportunity to have a drink from the crystal clear water. Tits were chirping in the tree tops and with the gurgle and splashing of the river it should have been a perfect summer evening. It was perfect except... She was alone. No, not alone. Lonely. That was different. And she was lonely for just one person.
'No.' She said the word out loud as though it would help to deny what she was feeling. She missed Travis. She had only waved him goodbye the night before but already she missed him. And recently the five days between Sunday evening and Friday, when she would see him again, had seemed to get longer and longer. And it wasn't just the thrill of being in his arms she missed. She missed him. His humour, their conver¬sations, their time together, everything. The whole package.
'I don't want this.' Again she spoke out loud but now she could hear the panic in her voice. She didn't want to need him in her life. She had been there once and she couldn't go there again. This was supposed to have been a casual romantic in¬terlude, that was all. She wasn't supposed to have fallen in love. Fallen in Love? Where had that come from?
