Her face was an unearthly white now. He needed to sound reassuring not exasperated, because exasperation would only prolong things.
He gently pushed her back flat, and began to fan her with a map he’d grabbed from the back seat, trying to ignore how small and helpless she looked. He winced as he caught sight of a slice of a bright pink bra between buttons, and rammed his spare hand firmly in his pocket. He flapped the map harder.
‘Don’t worry, just lie still, and you’ll be fine again soon. There’s some water here for you to sip when you feel better.’
Jeez, he spent his life avoiding women who were vertical, the last thing he needed was a horizontal one, in the back of his car. She gave a low groan. With any luck, she’d be insulting him again at any moment. He waited, and the silence stretched to what felt like forever. Perhaps conversation would drag her back to consciousness.
‘So did you bring anything out of the skip in the end then?’
‘I left it…’
A mumble, but at least she was conversing. That was a good sign.
‘You’re telling me you didn’t get whatever you went in for?’ He shook his head. All this for nothing. How stupid was that? ‘What was it?’ He leant in towards her to see if she was moving. The scent of tutti-frutti engulfed him again, but there was another, indefinable, delicious overtone, that set his heart on edge. Warm woman. How long was it since he’d smelled that?
‘I was rescuing a cherub.’ She was almost coherent again.
‘Save a whale, adopt a tiger, rescue a cherub…Would you like some water?’
Xander held his breath as she lifted her head, pushed back her hair, and stuck out a hand to grasp the bottle he was holding towards her.
‘Please…’
She lifted the bottle to her lips, and the way the column of her neck moved as she swallowed sent his stomach into spasm. As he waited, he counted broken window panes in the garage, and shut out the knots in his gut. She was sitting up now.
‘Stay there.’ He wasn’t sure that she had any choice about that. ‘I won’t be long.’
One impulsive thought, and he was heading off towards the skip. At least it was an excuse to put distance between himself and the girl, and good thinking on that. What he didn’t understand was the sense that on some deep and hidden level he wanted to please her.
He vaulted over the skip side, found the elusive cherub in the dirt, and twenty seconds later he was putting it into her hand.
‘Thanks for that.’ She examined the cherub, rubbing the dust off it. ‘But why throw it away in the first place?’ One coherent reply he could have done without, and, grateful might have worked better than an insolent pout.
‘I only hope you think it’s worth a cut foot.’ He wasn’t up for a wastefulness lecture.
She shrugged, and her mouth curved into an involuntary smile as she turned the cherub over in her hand. ‘He’s beautiful. I love cherubs. Are you sure you don’t want him?’
As her face lit up, Xander’s pulse raced, and he gave himself a hard mental kick for that. ‘No, rubbish really isn’t my thing. How come cherubs are always male?’
He watched her smile stretch further at this, and when she turned to look up at him, he caught the smoky blue of her eyes, and something about her raw vulnerability shot him through.
Shifting, she tossed him a grin. ‘Not sure, just a fact of angel life.’ She began to scramble out of the back of the car.
Result. Or maybe not.
Because now she was pointing at his thigh and wailing. ‘Oh no, I’ve got blood on your trousers…’
‘It’s nothing.’ He looked down at the splodge next to his fly, not sure he could stand the scrutiny.
‘I’m really sorry.’ Her eyes had locked onto his cock. ‘Can I pay for dry cleaning?’
‘Really, not a problem.’ Except there would be if she didn’t stop staring.
She raised her eyes at last and looked at him. ‘I’d better be going then. Thanks…for the stuff…and for looking after my foot.’
Was she hesitating? Fleetingly Xander wondered where she was going next, what she was about to do, who she was going to be with. Whatever, it definitely had nothing to do with him, and he really didn’t want to know.
‘Wait. Do you need a lift anywhere?’ He heard himself make this polite query, and was appalled by his sudden reluctance to see her leave. Any excuse to prolong the contact?
‘Thanks, but I’ve got my own transport round the corner.’ As she limped away she shot a grin over her shoulder. ‘In any case I’d rather have my finger nails pulled out than travel in a Range Rover.’
Xander watched her uneven progress across the site. Just as she was about to reach the gateway, he raised his hand, and shouted after her. ‘Just don’t let this happen again, okay.’
If a voice inside his head was insisting that he wouldn’t mind one bit if it happened again, he really wasn’t going to listen. Automatically he stooped to pick up the rubbish she’d scattered across the dirt when she’d gone through her pockets earlier. Tidying up was futile, but maybe someone needed to start. There was one tattered card in amongst the sweet papers. Vintage at the Cinema. That faded retro font might have come straight from one of his sister Christina’s colour boards. The address rang a bell, probably from a property alert. Due to his spending power, he was first in the agents’ email firing line when new properties came up. The card was in his pocket before he realised. To pass on to Christina, obviously.
When he looked up again, the girl had reached the tall stone gate post. She turned to give him a last defiant smirk, and then a second later she’d disappeared into the dusk.
Thursday Morning, 5th June
DIDA
On the school run
Lunch bags and swear boxes
‘It’s really important to go as fast as you can, please Lolly.’
There were many times when Dida regretted her decision never to use the word “hurry” in the presence of her children, and this morning was one of them. She just had that idea that if she did include it in her vocabulary she’d over use it to the point where no one would take any notice anyway, and somehow she wanted her kids to have the kind of idyllic life where they didn’t ever feel rushed or pressured. This early in the morning her high ideals were still in place for the day, whereas by six o clock in the evening it was a whole different ball game. She’d barely slept the night before, kept awake by the double adrenalin rush of anger and anxiety about the cinema. Then at six am, just as she was dropping off, a text had come through from Aidie about the cinema sale, that had her wide awake with rage. The derogatory way he talked about Vintage at the Cinema as her “playing at shops” made her want to stamp on his head all over again. The only vaguely positive news was that it didn’t sound as if he actually had a buyer in the pipeline, which at least gave them a bit of breathing space. But however shite she was feeling, she must try not to pass her fatigue and irritability on to the kids. She was failing.
‘Who the hell thought it was a good idea, or even possible, to set off on a school trip at eight in the morning anyway. It’s bloody inhuman.’ Damn. Her swear box account for today was already long open and showing a large and unhealthy deficit. ‘Lunch boxes are your responsibility. If you forget them, I won’t