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Of course, she found him attractive. He had a powerful, firm body under his clothes—you could tell that just by the way he walked—and his eyes had a naughty twinkle, like a little boy’s. He obviously liked life, and she liked the way he dressed too—casually but with style, in good brown checked tweeds, a cream shirt, no tie, with a bright red silky scarf hanging round his neck inside his open camelhair winter coat. And he had such a charming smile.
But her small-town mind wouldn’t let her take the risk easily. How did she even know that Joe Ingram was really his name, or that he wasn’t married with three point five children? Yet she wanted to go on talking to him; she was enjoying his company and she was reluctant to say goodbye; she couldn’t deny it.
What can he do to you in a coffee-bar? she asked herself impatiently. Don’t be such an idiot.
‘So long as you let me pay for my own coffee,’ she finally said, and he grinned at her in amusement.
‘The independent type! Well, that’s fine by me. I’m certainly not going to argue.’
As they walked across the road she looked sideways at him, measuring his height beside her, a little daunted by it, and wondering if his overcoat was cashmere—nothing else looked that soft and fine, did it? The tweed suit was well-worn and a little shabby, yet it must have cost quite a bit when it was new.
‘Do you actually live in Silverburn?’ she asked him, and he nodded, glancing down at her.
‘I’ve just moved into a flat in Townwall Street.’
She stiffened and gave him another startled look as he held the door of the coffee-bar open for her. ‘Really? That’s where I live—I’ve got a flat on the first floor of the big new apartment block right next to the entrance to the new shopping centre.’
He halted, staring down at her. ‘Snap! My flat is on the top floor—number fourteen. What an amazing coincidence.’ His blue eyes were almost dark in the brighter lights.
Kit felt quite odd about it. She didn’t believe in fate but it was a very big coincidence that they should have run into each other in a cinema like that. Or was it? Had he seen her going in or out of the building? Had he followed her to the cinema tonight? Or recognised her in the cinema and deliberately picked her up like that?
She had thought he looked familiar, she recalled. She must have seen him without really noticing him. It hadn’t just been that fleeting, fugitive resemblance to Clark Gable that had struck her.
If he had told her he lived in the same block of flats she probably wouldn’t have agreed to have coffee with him; she would have suspected his motives. But she couldn’t get out of it now.
They found a small table right in the corner and sat down. The noise was deafening; a jukebox was playing near the bar and the other customers yelled at each other over the deep beat of rock music.
A young waitress chewing gum came over, pad in one hand, pencil in the other, and stared at them indifferently.
‘Yes?’
‘Two coffees, please,’ Joe said, smiling at her.
‘Anything else?’ She didn’t smile back, just chewed her gum.
‘No, thank you.’
The girl walked away. Joe gave Kit a wry grin. ‘Maybe we should have gone to the pub instead. It might not have been so noisy.’
‘Noisier tonight,’ Kit assured him. ‘There’s a darts match on; they’re playing their rival pub; it could get very nasty.’
‘You drink there?’ He looked surprised.
‘I sometimes eat my lunch there on weekdays-they do very good food. Doreen, the landlady, was at school with me.’
The waitress came back and dumped their coffees on the table. ‘Will you pay me now? We’re closing in fifteen minutes and we want to cash up the till.’
Kit began to get out her purse, but Joe had already given the girl a handful of coins. ‘Keep the change,’ he said.
‘Thanks,’ she said, with the first flicker of a smile, and walked away again.
Kit offered him the price of her coffee. He shook his head. ‘You can pay next time.’
‘Who says there’s going to be a next time?’ But she put her purse back into her handbag.
‘I hope there will.’ He looked at her seriously and she looked down, flushing. He was giving her butterflies in her stomach, and it was a very long time since a man had done that to her. She didn’t know how to answer him.
After a pause he asked, ‘Do you have a job?’
‘I work for the local auctioneer, Keble’s.’
‘Doing what?’
‘I help in most departments. I take auctions, I price antiques and paintings, work on the accounts, even help with packing up items for posting if we’re short-handed.’
‘You must be very clever. Have you had years of training?’
‘Not exactly. I did an art degree before I got married, and my father ran an antiques shop, so I picked up quite a bit from him. I worked in the shop with him after I got married, to earn some extra money while my son was small.
‘I kept up my studies in the evenings, while Paul was asleep; I read a good deal and I took evening classes. I managed to get to London quite often to visit museums and art galleries. My husband was an expert in Oriental ceramics; he taught me a great deal too. I inherited my father’s personal collection of English furniture and porcelain when he died, so I suppose in one way or another I’ve been studying antiques all my life.’
Joe leaned his elbows on the table, sipping his coffee while he stared at her, his blue eyes narrowed and thoughtful. She stared back, prickling at the fixed nature of his gaze, and when he still didn’t speak said after a minute, ‘What? What?’
‘What what?’ he repeated, laughing.
‘What are you thinking?’ she asked him crossly.
He put out a finger and flicked it down her cheek, his voice soft. ‘That your hair is like spun silver and when you’re full of enthusiasm your face lights up as you talk.’
She went pink. ‘Oh, stop it! I’m not a teenager to be flattered like that.’ She took a sip of her own coffee; it was lukewarm by now. It couldn’t have been very hot to start with.
‘How long have you been divorced?’
Another of his abrupt, direct questions. ‘Five years,’ she said. ‘What about you?’
‘I can’t even remember. She left me years ago—said she was sick of being married to a man she never saw, and I can’t blame her; I was always out of the country. She thought my job was dangerous, too.’
‘Was it?’
He laughed. ‘In a way—if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but luckily I never was. Oh, I had a few little accidents—broke a leg once, got shot in the shoulder, got blown off my feet and spent a few weeks with concussion and a touch of deafness in one ear—but—’
‘But nothing serious,’ Kit drily concluded for him, and he grinned at her, amusement in his blue eyes.
‘Well, I survived it all, let’s put it like that.’
‘Let’s,’ she agreed. ‘What on earth made you choose Silverburn to move to after this peaceful life of yours? Do you think you’re ready for the heady excitements of our bustling metropolis?’
Quite seriously he said, ‘I was sick of flying around the world, sick of wars and famines, sick of city life, very sick of daily tension. I wanted to get out into the English countryside, and I had an aunt who lived here once, when I was just a kid. I remembered it as a lovely town, full of old buildings and great shops, and close to some gorgeous countryside too—so I came to look it over and decided it would suit me down to the ground.’
The waitress was banging a saucepan on the counter. ‘Closing time!’ she yelled. ‘Go home, all of you!’
Grumbling, the other customers began to get up, put on coats, fasten their buttons, before drifting out into the night.
Joe and Kit followed. They were the last customers; the waitress locked up behind them.
‘Can I give you a lift? My car is parked over behind the cinema,’ Joe offered.
‘I came in my own car,’ Kit said, walking purposefully towards the same cinema car park. The street was almost empty now; the teenagers from the coffee-bar were running to catch a late-night bus, everyone from the cinema had gone home and there was very little traffic at this time of night.
The town was going to sleep, and she was very conscious of being alone with a stranger. It was an experience she had not had since her own teens, which were so long ago that it gave her vertigo to remember that far back.
Joe fell into step with her without haste, his strides longer. ‘How about dinner tomorrow? I’ll book a table in advance so we won’t have a problem. Have you got a favourite restaurant? I haven’t had time to check them all out yet; you’ll have to advise me.’
‘I’m rather busy, I’m afraid. Sorry.’ Kit reached her little red Ford and stooped to unlock the door, not looking at him. ‘Goodnight,’ she said quickly, sliding into the driver’s seat and pulling the door shut.
He bent down and tapped on the window. She touched the button which made the glass slide down and looked warily at him.
‘What changed your mind?’ he asked, his face wry.
She decided to be as blunt in return. ‘I told you, I’m not free; I already have a man in my life.’
‘And it’s serious?’
‘Yes, it’s serious,’ she said, meeting his eyes levelly. ‘Goodnight.’
He had his hand on the glass and had to snatch it back as the window silently closed again. The engine started. Kit put her foot down and drove off, leaving him standing there, staring at her. Something in the way he watched her made the hair prickle on the back of her neck.
There was almost no other traffic about, so she was able to drive quite fast, yet as she drew up at the traffic lights at the end of the high street she saw a sleek black Porsche pull in behind her. Kit looked at it idly in her driving mirror, envying the style and potential speed, then stiffened as she recognised the driver. He raised a hand in greeting.
Kit waved back briefly, but her heartbeat had speeded up and she felt her nerves jumping as she drove on.
Oh, stop it! Of course he’s driving the same way; he’s going to the same block of flats, isn’t he? she told herself impatiently. What’s the matter with you? Does he look dangerous? She flicked another glance into the mirror to watch the Porsche following right on her tail.
Photography obviously paid well. His clothes looked expensive and his car certainly did. He must have earned a good deal if he could afford a Porsche! Was he famous? Should she have heard of him? She knew very little about anything outside her own chosen sphere of interest. Antiques were the only things she knew much about.
In her eagerness to get away from him, to get home, she was driving too fast. As she turned the next corner she almost hit another car coming out of a side road.
Tyres screeched, a horn blared, and Kit got a glimpse of a furious, alarmed face before the other car was lost from sight behind her. She slowed down after that and behind her the black Porsche slowed too.
She shot a look into her mirror and saw his reflection in it; the gleam of amused blue eyes, the cynical mouth. There was something about him—something disturbing; she had sensed it from the minute she’d set eyes on him but hadn’t been sure what it was she saw or felt.
She had thought she recognised him, and perhaps she had seen him before going in or out of the block of flats, or maybe it was just that faint resemblance to Clark Gable she had picked up on, but she suspected that she had also been reacting instinctively to the man himself. He had charm and he was attractive and he was certainly persistent—but there was a sense of threat from him too. He worried her, and she had enough emotional problems in her life already. She didn’t need another one.
The chief thing on her mind at the moment, though, was getting back home before he could beat her to it. She wasn’t going to relax until she was safely in her flat with the door locked.
The block of flats had an underground car park. Kit had always hated parking there at night, walking through the dimly lit vault of the basement to the lift to go up to her flat, and tonight was no exception. She was desperate to get there before the man driving behind her.
She shot down the steep slope, parked in her numbered space without worrying about doing it perfectly, jumped out, hearing the Porsche smoothly reversing into another space nearby, locked her car and ran for the lift as if she were training for the Olympics.
She was lucky. The lift doors opened as soon as she touched the button; she leapt inside and jabbed the button for her floor, silently praying that they would close before Joe Ingram could catch up with her.
The doors closed. Kit breathed a sigh of relief. The lift went up and stopped, the doors opened and she walked out, her keyring swinging from her finger, then she stopped dead in shock.
Joe Ingram was leaning on the wall, waiting for her. ‘What took you so long?’ his voice drawled, and he laughed at her stunned expression.
He must have run up the stairs but he wasn’t out of breath. It was Kit who was having to drag air into her lungs, her heart beating twice as fast as normal.
‘Look, can’t you get the message—?’ she began, but he interrupted.
‘I only wanted to say that if you ever changed your mind and wanted to see me again I’d give you my phone number,’ he drawled, looking amused, his blue eyes teasing, and she felt stupid. She had overreacted, so now she tried to sound calm and reasonable.
‘No, sorry; I won’t change my mind. Goodnight.’ ‘
At least take my card,’ he said, pushing a printed card into her hand.
She was tempted to drop it on the floor, but if she did he would probably only give her another one. Irritably she pushed the card into her coat pocket.
‘Is this a recent affair?’ he asked, his body casually at ease as he leaned on the wall. ‘I mean, how long have you known this guy?’
Very flushed and angry, she bit out, ‘Honestly, you take the biscuit! I’m not telling you all about my private life!’
‘I’m just trying to work it out. You aren’t living with him yet you say it’s serious, and tonight you were on your own—why wasn’t he with you? Does that mean it’s serious for you but not for him?’
She felt a stab of pain because he had hit on the truth and it hurt. ‘Mind your own business!’ She wasn’t answering his questions, however close he came to guessing the truth. She had no intention of telling him anything more about herself; he already knew too much and she didn’t like the way he had chased her up here.
‘Don’t get cross, Kit,’ he said reproachfully.
‘I’m tired. Goodnight,’ she said, sidestepping him, not sure what she would do if he wouldn’t let her walk away. Her nerves jangled as she took her first step.
But he didn’t stop her; he just turned and watched her go, then said softly, ‘Do I need references?’
She ignored him. As she reached her door and put her key into the lock he said, ‘Goodnight, then, Kit. See you again soon!’ And then she heard the door to the stairs banging behind him, the sound of his feet running up the stairs.
Although Kit was tired and went straight to her bedroom, washed and was in bed in about ten minutes, she didn’t get to sleep for another half an hour.
She kept thinking about him, going over everything he had said to her, remembering every look on his face, every glance from those vivid blue eyes.
She had never met a man who had made such a deep impression at first sight and she hoped she would be able to put him out of her mind; she certainly meant to forget him as fast as she could. He wasn’t even her type.
She didn’t like men who played games in the way she sensed he did. How many other women had he chased the way he’d just chased her? What was his success rate?
It worried her that she had immediately been attracted to him without knowing a thing about him. It wasn’t like her; it was completely out of character. She had told him that she was the cautious type and it was true. Kit had always preferred to look before she leapt, even when she’d been young.
She and Hugh had known each other for years before they’d got married. She couldn’t blame the failure of their marriage on too much haste in the beginning. They had been teenagers when they’d met, and had taken six years to get to the altar. They had both been so very sensible. No doubt that was why, at the age of forty-five, Hugh had suddenly lost his head over a girl half his age and run off with her one night without warning.
For the first time in his entire life Hugh had acted on impulse, had let emotion rule him, and once Kit had got over the shock she had come to feel a certain sympathy for him. Their divorce had been entirely amicable and they had stayed friends—at a distance.
Hugh and his bride, Tina, had gone off to live in Germany, near Tina’s family. He now worked for a museum in Bonn, heading its ceramics department. He was brilliant at his job; he had a strong international reputation and could identify an object almost at a glance.
