Chained Reaction (2 page)

Finally he released her and she sank back
into the seat, breathless and on fire. Her body craved his touch
whilst her mind longed for his love. She couldn’t separate the two.
One without the other would never be enough but his touch was all
he was offering her.

“Do you want me to drive?”

Lucy moistened her lips with her tongue and
took a small breath. “Do you want to end up back inside? Where are
we going?”

“The boathouse. It’s still mine, and Mary,
my Uncle’s housekeeper, checks it out once a week so it should be
habitable.”

She didn’t need to ask him for directions
and knew it hadn’t been sold or rented out. In the beginning she
had sat outside in the car nearly every week remembering and
reliving the passion the two of them had brought each other within
those walls. The last couple of years the memories had become too
painful to revisit and she had tried to stay away but it never
lasted more than a month. Now he was real, beside her, and she
could live for the moment.

The rain had stopped and the sun was casting
glistening patterns across the water’s surface. The weeping willows
by the river bank swayed gently in the wind and a pair of ducks
took to the sky as Jamie and she approached the timber structure
built on stilts. The main bedroom actually hung over the water’s
edge with French doors opening out to a wooden veranda, Jamie’s
motorboat still moored directly below. His grandmother had left him
the boathouse and a small inheritance, and she guessed that this
was what he was using to carry on with its upkeep. Stepping onto
the oak wooden flooring, hearing the familiar creaking and
surrounded by the sparse furnishings consisting of the worn leather
sofa and coffee table made out of driftwood, felt like she had
stepped back five years. Only she hadn’t, this was now.
Apprehension, fear that what they once had could never be
recaptured crept up on her.

Walking into the bedroom, she went over to
the French doors, threw them wide open and breathed in the warm
sultry air. She felt him come up behind her. The zip gently came to
rest on the small of her back, his feathery touch proceeding to
slide the silky garment off her shoulders, the dress floating down
to the floor. His warm breath was upon her skin.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he murmured
throatily against the nape of her neck.

Slowly she turned round to face him.
Unclipping her bra, she allowed it to fall and join her dress.
Swiftly she pulled down her panties and stepped out of them. She
watched as he did the same with his clothing and now they stood
silent and naked, their bodies a foot apart. To experience the
feeling without touching was what she sought and found. The heat
from his gaze was like a caress and the desire that emulated from
it made Lucy feel faint with intoxication. She could almost sense
his heart pounding through the rawness of his damp chest, and the
aroma of his maleness filled the air.

Within, she was on fire. She felt angry, mad
that her body could betray her so when nothing had been resolved
between them. Stepping forward, her hand came up and slapped him
hard across the face, her fingers stinging from the force.

He pulled her into his arms crushing her
body hard against his.

“How could you do it to us? I loved you but
you cast aside everything as if I meant nothing to you.” She sobbed
into his shoulder.

His fingers gently stroked her hair. “I had
to. It was the only way I could get through the years apart from
you. If I had seen you, spoken to you, then each separation would
have destroyed me bit by bit. I had to survive as well.”

All afternoon they lay in each other’s arms,
their naked bodies entwined, and each time they came together, the
years apart diminished.

Lucy leant up on one elbow and traced a
pattern down his bronzed muscular chest. Though he had a natural
swarthiness, his skin was darker as a result of recent sun
exposure.

“How come you are so tanned? I didn’t know
sunbathing went on in prison,” she asked, her fingers playfully
teasing him now.

“The past year has been spent in an open
prison. It allows a glimpse of what freedom can be as long as I
stick by the rules. Been taking several horticultural courses to
fill my time and passed a few exams so I was given the
responsibility of maintaining the grounds.”

Lucy jumped up onto her knees and looked
down at him. “That’s great.” She hesitated thinking what his words
implied. “Don’t you get a chance for day releases at an open
prison?”

“Yeah, some do get offered it to see how
they adjust to the outside world after being incarcerated for so
long.” It was as if he could read her mind, his hand coming up
behind her neck whilst his other hand went round her waist and he
gently swung her down so that their bodies were once again
entangled.

“It’s not freedom; I was still a prisoner
with time left to serve. As I said before, it wouldn’t have been
fair. Besides, I had already received word that you were living
with Michael.”

“You haven’t asked me why?” She felt his
hand slipping between her thighs, her body beginning to respond
once again and knew if she didn’t draw back from him now,
conversation would be lost. Disentangling herself and creating
space between them allowed her to sit up once again and search his
face for the truth.

He was hiding something; the light coming
through the open doors tracing dancing patterns across a face that
looked troubled and tired.

“Talk to me, Jamie, you owe me that much at
least. You still act as if nothing you do has any consequences on
others but you’re wrong. What am I to you?”

* * *

That same accusation had been thrown at him
before. He closed his eyes as the memory took hold.

“You want something, you get it and to hell
with the consequences. Have you told Lucy about travelling around
Europe for the next twelve months or were you going to send her a
postcard?”

He had opened the door to a very drunken
Michael who was clutching a half empty bottle of whisky to him and
from the disarray of his clothing looked as if he’d been sleeping
rough for several days. Jamie glanced behind him; there was only
his own car in the driveway so he guessed Michael had arrived on
foot. He stood aside and allowed his cousin to stagger in.

“Lucy has another year of study to do, so I
can’t expect her to drop everything. Besides I need to do this
alone, Lucy will understand, not that it’s any of your business.”
Jamie couldn’t help throwing that last line in seeing it was what
drove Lucy crazy, the fact that Michael wouldn’t move on and get
himself another girlfriend.

“You had your fun, ruined her and made a
fool of me. This place should be mine and so should Lucy. She is…”
Michael started hiccupping and fell back onto the sofa.

“Lucy isn’t ready to settle down with anyone
and neither am I.” Jamie was finding the conversation
uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure what Lucy and he had and tried not to
scrutinise it for fear of finding out the truth.

“She hasn’t told you, has she?

“Told me what? Lucy is a free spirit; she
can do and see who she likes. I made her no promises and she knows
that.”

“Why you…” Michael launched himself out of
the settee with the whiskey bottle in one hand and a fist formed in
the other. Jamie jumped back and watched as Michael stumbled and
fell face down onto the wooden flooring, the whisky bottle smashing
and seeping liquor into the floor grooves.

Jamie helped him up and was met with little
resistance as he half carried him into the spare room and pushed
him up and onto the bed.

“Sleep it off. We’ll talk in the
morning.”

“Go to hell,” Michael hissed back.

He should never have taken his boat out and
left Michael supposedly sleeping it off in the spare room. When he
got back from trying to speak with Lucy, his car was gone and so
was Michael. When the police came knocking at his door, he feared
the worse, that Michael had been injured. Instead they were there
to arrest him, Jamieson O’Sullivan, the registered owner of a car
found abandoned, on suspicion of dangerous driving and fleeing the
scene of an accident. Jamie offered no alibi and no denial. To do
so would point the blame at Michael and he felt he had done enough
to him. He was accepting the consequences of his actions.

Unfortunately the judge was out to make an
example of him seeing this wasn’t the first time he had been
arrested and charged for a criminal act. Back in Northern Ireland,
he’d been well-known by the local constabulary throughout his
turbulent youth. If it hadn’t been for his English grandmother
bringing him over to live in England with her, he would have been
behind bars long before now. He couldn’t pay her back by having
Michael, her other grandson and the one who was expected to help
run the family business once he had graduated, end up being sent to
prison. His cousin’s future would be destroyed because of something
he had in a way initiated by his relationship with Lucy. It was
obvious Michael was still in love with her.

If he had known then that he would be
sentenced to five years and Michael and Lucy would end up living
together, he might have acted differently. It was too late to
change things, Lucy was back with Michael now and if he told her
the truth about that night, it would serve no purpose.

Sure he had been tempted those first couple
of years, locked up in that concrete box, his cell buddies, a
serial burglar, a drug dealer, and a crazy guy who thought he was
God. If he could have got his hands on Michael, he might have
forced the truth out of him rather than have to go on another day
paying for his crime. But now, it would feel more like retaliation
for taking something far more precious than his freedom. He wanted
her back but not by going down the path of bitter
recriminations.

* * *

“Lucy, I’m tired. It’s been a long day and
I’m used to sleeping alone.”

He knew how cold his words sounded and
witnessed the hurt in her eyes as she turned away from him and
stood up.

Moving over to where her dress lay draped
across a wicker chair, she snatched it up and pulled it on over her
head without bothering with her underwear. Grabbing up her knickers
and bra, she shoved them into her handbag and then stood over him,
hands on her hips, her features taut with anger.

“You were right, you haven’t changed. Still
a bastard who is capable of breaking my heart over and over again.
You take but never give.” She spun on her heels and marched
out.

“Lucy, stop, come back.”

He rushed to the door but she carried on to
her car without a backward glance.

The car screeched out of the driveway.

* * *

The following morning, Michael walked into
her bedroom dressed in the same suit she had seen him leave in, on
his way to the airport. She bolted upright and met his tense
unsmiling features.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in New York?” she
said.

“My father rang me as I was stepping down on
American soil and told me the good news. Caught the next available
flight back.” His voice told her it was the opposite of good news
and he already knew where she had been.

Lucy could see by the dark circles under his
eyes that he hadn’t slept on the plane. His short, layered brown
hair was sticking out in tufts and he was unshaven making his
boyish features jaded.

She felt guilty and ashamed, not because of
what she had done but because of what she was continuing to do.
“What news might that be?” She reached over for her robe that
Michael stood holding in his hand.

“That Jamie has been released.” He stepped
back.

“What were you planning, a welcome home
committee?” Her eyes met him levelly.

“You don’t seem surprised by the news.
Perhaps you have already given him his welcome home present. Susie
tells me you went out yesterday afternoon and didn’t return until
late. I tried ringing you before boarding the flight back.”

She wrapped the robe around her
negligee-clad body, feeling the vulnerability of her nakedness
beneath the sheer garment. “Susie should learn to keep to the job
she’s paid for and not report my every move back to you.”

She went to walk past him when his hand shot
out and ensnared her wrist. “You didn’t answer my question. Have
you been with him?”

“What if I have? I’m back here now, in your
house and in your bed where I belong. Isn’t that what you are
always telling me? I met him because he rang and now I’m back. You
were right all along and now if you don’t mind, I need the
bathroom.” She was fighting back the tears, her voice shaky.

“Did you tell him then?” He still held onto
her wrist.

She glared back at him. “What difference
does it make? Now please, let go of me.”

His fingers came away from her wrist and
Lucy turned and fled into the bathroom, slamming the door shut
behind her. She couldn’t carry on like this any longer, lying to
herself and trying to pretend what she was, what she had become was
for the sake of her daughter. She had spent the last three and half
years giving her body to a man she didn’t love whilst all the time
her thoughts were with Jamie, and now it was obvious he didn’t want
her, not permanently.

She could hear Michael moving around in the
bedroom, probably changing out of his crumpled suit. He would see
the red shift dress lying on the bedroom floor screwed up along
with the undergarments taken from her handbag. The same red dress
she had purchased for a friend’s engagement party six months
earlier that she had then changed back out of, ignoring Michael’s
pleas for her to wear it and that he loved her in it.

Opening the bathroom door, she stepped out
at the precise moment that Michael was ripping the red dress apart
with his hands. He threw the two pieces of fabric at her feet.