One Christmas Morning & One Summer's Afternoon (15 page)

‘A neighbour,’ Emma shouted cheerfully back. Half of Brockhurst was probably watching her right now from behind twitching flowery curtains, but Emma couldn’t have cared less.

‘Can you come back later? I’m a little busy right now.’

Ignoring this distinctly unwelcoming response, Emma pushed her thumb down hard on the latch. As she suspected, the door was unlocked. Delighted with her own ingenuity, she stepped into Santiago de la Cruz’s flagstoned hallway and closed the door behind her.

Santiago heard the click of the latch from the kitchen. ‘What the fuck? Unless you’re Tatiana Flint-Hamilton, or someone equally gorgeous, you’d better have a damn good reason for walking in like th—’

The words died on his lips, and the furious scowl furrowing his brow melted into nothing. Standing in front of him was one of the most utterly ravishing girls he had ever seen. Tatiana Flint-Hamilton might be Fittlescombe’s only ‘celebrity’ beauty, but she clearly had some competition on her hands.

Emma grinned. ‘Tatiana? Please. She’s well past her sell-by date. I’m Emma Harwich.’

Santiago looked her up and down, taking in the full wonder of her figure. Emma effected the same appraisal, sizing up Santiago’s physique like a lioness eyeing a particularly juicy gazelle.

Shirtless and barefoot, wearing only a pair of jeans and some sort of religious medallion around his neck, Brockhurst’s newest and most famous resident had an open bottle of beer in one hand and a copy of a magazine that looked distinctly pornographic in the other. In Emma’s eyes, he could not have looked more divine.

Belatedly, Santiago recovered the power of speech. ‘Do I know you from somewhere, Emma Harwich?’

‘Possibly my Burberry campaign,’ Emma pouted arrogantly. ‘I’m a model. Not in the sort of magazines you read, though.’

She nodded towards the
Playboy
in Santiago’s hand. But, if she’d hoped to embarrass him, she was disappointed.

‘I read all sorts of magazines,’ he said smoothly. Putting both the
Playboy
and his beer down on the hall table, he shook Emma’s hand. ‘But that’s not where I know you from.’

‘No?’ Emma’s eyes twinkled.

‘Ah!’ he clicked his fingers as it came back to him. ‘Of course. You’re bikini girl.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You live at Woodside Hall, don’t you? In Fittlescombe?’

‘Yeees,’ Emma said warily. ‘How do you know that?’

‘My bedroom looks directly into your garden. You were sunbathing there yesterday. Topless, as I remember.’

Emma blushed scarlet. ‘You were spying on me?’

‘Hardly,’ Santiago laughed.

‘But … but … our house must be half a mile away.’ Emma sounded outraged. ‘You must have had a bloody telescope!’

‘Binoculars, actually,’ said Santiago. ‘They were a gift from my sponsors.’

‘What the hell for?’

‘For bird-watching. You were a bird. I was watching.’

‘You pervert!’ said Emma.

‘On the contrary,’ said Santiago. ‘I was admiring the view. How was I to know that one of my neighbours was about to provide a free show?’

With difficulty, Emma regained a little of her composure. ‘Yes, well, just remember that the next show won’t be free. You’ll have to earn it.’

‘The next show?’ Santiago raised an eyebrow.

‘That’s right. Don’t pretend you don’t want to see more. Of course, if you prefer cheap thrills, I daresay Tatiana Flint-Hamilton’s giving away front-row seats to her raddled old act. I must say, Mr de la Cruz, I’m surprised to hear you setting your sights so low.’

Santiago smiled. This girl was quite something. On the one hand she was wildly confident, ballsy enough to saunter into his house uninvited and come on to him like a heat-seeking missile. On the other, she was insecure enough to feel the need to badmouth other beautiful women. Tatiana Flint-Hamilton may have had any number of unattractive qualities, but at twenty-three the Swell Valley’s most admired female resident was certainly neither ‘past her sell-by date’ nor raddled.

‘Are you always this … forward?’ Santiago chose his words carefully.

‘Not always.’ Emma’s eyes held his. ‘Only when I want something.’

For what felt like an age, the sexual tension crackled between them. Santiago broke it first. ‘The kitchen’s through there,’ he said, walking towards the staircase. ‘Go and grab yourself a cold drink while I put a shirt on.’

‘Don’t get dressed on my account,’ Emma called after him. Santiago laughed but kept going.

Emma contemplated following him up to the bedroom, but thought better of it. Perhaps there was such a thing as being
too
full on. A few minutes later, the two of them were sitting at the kitchen counter.

Santiago sipped a Diet Coke. He noticed that Emma had poured herself a hefty glass of white wine, despite the early hour, and that she knocked it back like water.

‘So,’ he asked her. ‘As you’re being neighbourly, fill me in. Do you live in the valley all the time?’

Emma rolled her eyes. ‘Me? God, no. I live in London.’

‘A part-time neighbour, then?’

‘If you like,’ said Emma. ‘But I know all there is to know about these villages. I grew up here.’

‘In the pretty house. Woodside Hall.’ He put on what he wrongly believed to be an upper-class British accent.

Emma giggled.

‘Nice place to grow up.’

‘Yes. It was.’

Santiago noticed that her eyes took on a distant expression. She seemed sad suddenly.

‘And your parents still live there?’

‘My mother does.’

Tossing back the last of the wine, Emma set her glass down firmly on the table, as if indicating that the subject was closed. ‘But I didn’t come here to talk about me. I want to hear it from the horse’s mouth.’

‘Hear what, exactly?’

‘What lured you to Brockhurst.’ She pronounced the word
lured
with relish. ‘Beyond the chance to play in a sleepy little village cricket match, of course. I assume you realize you’re quite the talk of the valley.’

Santiago filled her in on the sponsor who’d made him the offer too good to refuse. ‘I can still play for the county, so I ran out of reasons to say no.’

‘Were you looking for reasons?’

He shrugged. ‘Maybe. I thought life might be a bit too quiet here. But perhaps I was wrong about that.’

‘Perhaps you were.’

Hopping down from her own tall kitchen stool, Emma slid in between Santiago’s knees as he remained seated on his. As she stood on the floor, her face was exactly level with his. She brought it so close that their lips were almost touching.

‘Aren’t you going to kiss me?’

The question was whispered, half-mockingly. If she’d been in any doubt that Santiago was attracted to her, a quick glance at his bulging jeans reassured her.

Following her gaze, Santiago stood up and walked to the window. ‘Not right now,’ he mumbled. ‘No.’

He wasn’t sure why he was turning her down. Here was a sexy, single, patently available model, offering herself to him on a plate. And yet something about Emma felt off. Beneath her self-assurance, her veneer of sexual confidence, he sensed a desperate neediness. It reminded him of something in himself, something of which he did not wish to be reminded.

Emma, however, seemed unperturbed by his rejection. ‘Suit yourself.’ She yawned, stretching her arms dramatically, like a cat. ‘Just bear in mind that the clock’s ticking. I’ll be heading back to London on Sunday.’

Walking up behind Santiago, she slipped her arms around his waist, pressing her impossibly lithe, teenage body against his taut, rigid back.

‘If you change your mind before then –
when
you change your mind – you know where to find me,’ she whispered in his ear. ‘I’ll see myself out.’

Santiago waited to exhale until he heard his front door close.

What the hell just happened?

In all his years as a player, both of cricket and of women, he didn’t think he had ever been so forcefully propositioned by a girl. Never mind such a
young
girl, a stranger. And in his own kitchen! In the middle of the day! He ought to have felt elated. And yet …

No. It wasn’t right. As gorgeous as Emma Harwich was, she frightened him. He could well imagine what a tigress she would be in bed. But if he bedded her, then what? Would that be the end? Would she see it through with the chutzpah and dump him mercilessly after a one-night stand? Or would she go to the opposite extreme and stalk him for the rest of his days? Santiago could envisage both scenarios, and neither made him feel comfortable.

Maybe I’m losing my touch?

*****

‘Whoa. Whoa! Take it easy.’

Penny Harwich tried to relax as Sparky, her barrel-chested grey mare, danced and bridled beneath her. Usually the horse was deeply docile and placid – the name had been one of Paul Harwich’s little jokes when he’d bought her as a thirtieth-birthday present for his wife. But today Penny’s own anxieties seemed to be transmitting themselves down through her saddle, and Sparky was behaving as if she had electrodes attached to her knees.

Riding had long been one of Penny’s great pleasures in life. It had been a blow after the divorce when she could no longer afford to keep horses, and had had to sell Sparky back to the local riding stables. Luckily, Mrs Nunn, the stables’ owner, was a kind soul and fellow divorcee, who had readily agreed to let Penny ride her old mare whenever she felt like it. Cantering over the fields and through the bluebell woods at the back of Woodside Hall was usually an enormous stress-reliever. Today, however, Sparky’s antics were doing little to take her mind off Emma.

Emma had set off in search of Santiago de la Cruz at lunch time, in what looked like a deliberate attempt to rile her little brother and to hurt poor, lovesick Will Nutley. That was bad enough. But then she’d returned an hour and a half later with a beaming grin on her face, reeking of alcohol and laughing to herself in a manner that strongly suggested she’d not only found Sussex’s newest cricket star but had already succeeded in her mission to seduce him. Penelope had felt a burning need to escape her house and children and ride her troubles away. Sparky’s tantrum wasn’t helping.

‘Back up.’ Penny spoke firmly, jabbing her left heel into the mare’s side as she reached down and unhooked the gate that led from the fields onto Foxhole Lane, the main Brockhurst-to-Fittlescombe road. Reluctantly, Sparky took a step backwards, expressing her displeasure with a loud fart as the gate swung inwards.

‘Well that’s not very polite, is it?’ chided Penny, as horse and rider emerged onto the lane. Seconds later, leaning forward to pull the gate closed behind them, she let out an almighty scream. A silver Maserati sports car had rounded the corner just at that moment, sending the grey into a frenzy of panic. Sparky reared up, her forelegs pedalling wildly in the air, just millimetres from the metal bars of the gate. It was a miracle that Penny managed to cling onto her mane, rather than plunge headfirst back into the field.

A squealing of brakes prompted a second, wild rear, before at last the horse was calmed. Penny was angry enough before she saw the driver. But when Santiago de la Cruz came sauntering towards her, resplendent and dazzling in full cricket whites, she completely blew a gasket.

‘You bloody idiot! You could have killed me.’ Gingerly vaulting down from the mare’s back, Penny tied her firmly to the gatepost before storming up to Santiago. ‘This isn’t downtown sodding Buenos Aires, you know. What speed were you doing?’

‘About thirty,’ Santiago said, deadpan. ‘If that.’

‘Nonsense!’

He’d been coming over to apologize and check if the rider was all right. But, now that this woman was being so rude and entitled, he felt all his goodwill ebbing away. ‘It is a road, you know. Last time I checked, those were designed for cars as well as horses.’

‘It’s a country lane, not a race track,’ snapped Penny. ‘You were out of control.’

‘On the contrary,’ Santiago bit back. ‘The only thing out of control was your animal. If you don’t know how to ride, you should stick to the riding school. I’ve never seen such a fat horse rear that high,’ he added nastily.

‘How dare you insult Sparky!’ Aware she sounded faintly ridiculous, defending the honour of a badly behaved, clapped-out old mare that was, indeed, fat, Penny found herself getting angrier than ever. ‘It’s bad enough that you turn up here to spoil our traditions and … and … seduce our daughters!’

‘Seduce your … what? I’m not seducing anyone’s daughters.’

‘Ha! Not much,’ said Penny.

Santiago looked the skinny woman in front of him up and down. In tight, threadbare jodhpurs, with a mud-splattered blue shirt coming untucked at the waist, and long, sweat-curled tendrils of hair escaping from beneath her hard hat, he couldn’t quite decide whether she looked wanton or deranged. She had a pretty, angular face, flushed now from anger and exertion, and long arms and legs that she seemed at a loss to know exactly what to do with, like a puppet with tangled strings.

‘Perhaps we should start again,’ said Santiago, extending his hand. ‘I am Santiago de la Cruz.’

‘Oh, I know who you are,’ said Penny crossly, shaking hands as briefly and perfunctorily as possible.

‘This is the part where you tell me
your
name,’ said Santiago patiently.

‘Penelope Harwich. I believe you met my daughter earlier today. Emma. The one you claim not to have seduced?’

Santiago’s eyes widened as the penny dropped. ‘That was your daughter? But you look so young—’

‘Please.’ Penny bristled with hostility. ‘You needn’t bother trying to flatter me, Mr de la Cruz. I’m old enough to see right through the likes of you, believe me. Even if my daughter isn’t.’

Suddenly, Santiago lost his temper. First Emma Harwich turns up on his doorstep uninvited and all but rapes him in his own kitchen. And now her lunatic mother almost kills him on his way to his first Brockhurst training session, and instead of apologizing starts laying into his morals, not to mention his driving.

‘The “
likes of
” me?’ he shouted at her. ‘What the hell does that mean? You know, you might want to take a look at yourself before you start throwing stones at others.’