Faith - Lesley Pearse [249]
He beamed at her enthusiasm. ‘There’s only an outside toilet, full of spiders, the wiring is dangerous, and if I don’t finish the roof this weekend the whole place will be awash when it rains. But I just keep looking at the view and telling myself I wasn’t mad to buy it.’
‘Of course you weren’t,’ she laughed, filling up the kettle and putting it on the camping stove. ‘And don’t let me stop you doing the roof. I could be your labourer and pass things to you.’
He looked astounded. ‘It doesn’t make you want to run back to civilization then?’
‘Not one bit,’ she laughed again. ‘But if I am in your way you can tell me to push off.’
He didn’t say anything for a few minutes, just stood in the doorway watching her as she rinsed out two mugs, found the tea bags and sniffed the milk to check it hadn’t gone off.
‘What?’ she said.
‘I can’t believe you are actually here, making me tea,’ he said. ‘Just a few hours ago I was thinking about you, wishing I hadn’t been so pathetic on the day of the hearing.’
‘Whatever do you mean? You weren’t pathetic!’
‘Well, maybe intimidated then! You see, you looked so beautiful, but so self-contained. Meggie and Ivy were wildly excited about the place in Bromley, and all their plans included you. I thought they were trying to tell me diplomatically that I was to butt out, that you had no need for me any more.’
‘Oh, Stuart,’ she exclaimed, ‘nothing could be further from the truth. If I seemed self-contained it was only because I didn’t want to look needy. And when you told us about the work you’d got up here and buying this place I was sure you felt you’d done your job getting me free, and it was time for you to move on.’
‘So we were at cross-purposes?’
Laura nodded. ‘But not only that, I felt I had no rights. I was the one who screwed things up all those years ago. I became someone you wouldn’t have liked, and I’m ashamed of that. All that stuff I’ve revealed to you weighs heavily on me. I suppose I don’t think I deserve a second chance.’
‘Everyone deserves that.’
‘Maybe, but I’m scared, Stuart. Even now, I can’t be sure my feelings for you are real, or whether they’re just some fantasy brought on by gratitude and good memories.’
He looked a little disappointed at that. ‘Well, I guess we’ll just have to see how it goes,’ he said with a shrug.
The kettle boiled and Laura made the tea and handed him his. She felt she had to explain further, but she wasn’t sure she knew how to. ‘This is a bit like a re-run of that first day in Castle Douglas,’ she said. ‘Only I’m not so reckless any more, and I don’t have a blow-up bed in the boot of my car.’
He smiled, put his tea down on the floor and pulled her into his arms. ‘Maybe another kiss might bring on a little more recklessness,’ he said softly. ‘I want you more now than I did then, but I’m more patient. I’m grubby, sweaty and unshaven and I could wait for a night in a hotel. But a kiss would tide me over while I finish the roof.’
His lips came down on hers and his arms tightened around her. Laura closed her eyes, let her anxieties go and gave herself up to the bliss of being kissed. All those long months in prison she had squashed down all thoughts of lovemaking, for even before she was arrested it had been three or four years since she’d last been with a man. She had believed she was incapable of ever wanting one again.
But as his tongue insinuated its way into her mouth, and his big hands caressed her back, she found this wasn’t so. She was trembling with wanting, long-forgotten feelings rushing to the surface, pushing out all the doubts and fears.
‘Well?’ he said, kissing her eyes, her forehead and her cheeks. ‘Any of the old magic still about?’
‘I do believe there is,’ she said lightly. ‘But you must get back on the roof and finish it. It might rain tomorrow.’
Half an hour later, with Stuart up on the roof again, Laura had a plan. The terrible state of the toilet had given her an idea, and