Pitch Black: A Romantic Thriller (Blackwood Security Book 1) (9 page)

BOOK: Pitch Black: A Romantic Thriller (Blackwood Security Book 1)
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I shut down that wayward thought and looked back at Portia’s brother. He was only wearing a T-shirt and a beaten up leather jacket. Surely he must be freezing? Still, his lack of clothing let me get a good look at him, and I ran through my mental checklist. My rating? Not bad. I’d had better. I worked with better. In the department I ran, every day was Diet Coke Break day.

I looked at the thermometer on the wall. Judging by the flushed faces around me, the temperature seemed to have risen by a couple of degrees, but the mercury remained steady. 

While the rest of the girls gawked, I collected up the buckets and headed off to the feed room. I’d long since learned to see past people’s looks and judge them on what sort of person they were, so although I freely admitted the guy could have his own calendar, I didn’t stop to swoon.

Before I reached my destination my stomach let out an almighty grumble, reminding me I’d skipped breakfast. I decided to nip inside and make myself something to eat before I carried on. I didn’t feel too guilty about it. After all, there were more than enough people on duty in my barn. The horses never got that much attention in the week, and some of them were looking downright confused by it all.

Back in my trailer, I stuck two slices of bread in the toaster, and when they popped out, I covered them in butter and raspberry jam. Toby’s voice prattled on about the amount of saturated fat in the butter and the sugar content of the jam, but I ignored him. At least the bread was wholemeal, and I poured out a glass of orange juice to go with it. Having one of my five-a-day would offset the butter, right? 

Hunger temporarily banished, I walked back towards the feed room. What were the chances of getting Portia’s brother to stop by every day so people would do all my work for me? I could get an extra hour in bed that way.

The feed room was a converted stable, dingy because it didn’t have any windows. I flicked on the light then jumped when I found said brother sitting on a feed bin in the far corner.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Err, checking my emails,” he said, holding up his phone.

“Which requires darkness?”

“Um, no, but…”

I thought back to the fan club hanging around in the barn. “You’re hiding?”

“Yeah.” He gave a sheepish shrug. “Normally no one comes in here.”

“I can’t really blame you.” I’d hide too if I was like the pied bloody piper for wannabe bed-mates.

“So it’s okay if I stay?”

“If you want. I’ll admit I was hoping you’d hang around the barn a bit longer so your groupies would clear the cobwebs and clean out the water drinkers, but I can see why you wouldn’t want to.”

He chuckled. “Thanks. I promise I won’t get in your way.”

The grin he flashed revealed a perfect set of white teeth. Either he had great genes or his dentist was on speed dial. They looked even lighter offset against his tan. How did he get that in winter? Holiday or tanning salon?

“What makes you think you’ll be any safer in here with me?” I asked.

“You didn’t shriek and faint?” He gave a wry laugh, but sadly there was some truth in it.

“I’m not the shrieking kind. Or fainting.”

I got on with making up the feeds, scooping the right amount of conditioning cubes and chaff into each bowl according to the chart on the wall. Then I added the supplements. The horses got so many the shelves looked like a branch of GNC. It seemed to be a competition among the owners as to who could pump the most extras into their beloved steed. Some of them got more vitamins than food.

“Do you need a hand carrying those?” Portia’s brother asked as I picked up a pile of bowls to carry to the barn.

“Nah, you’ll get mobbed. Just stay here.”

He was being a gentleman, but he clearly hadn’t thought his offer through.

“Good point. You won’t tell them where I am?”

“No, your secret’s safe with me.”

An hour later, after Portia had ridden Samara and the group of admirers had dispersed, her brother re-materialised in the barn. As I watched them walk back to his car, I felt sorry for him. Sitting in a cold feed room couldn’t have been his favourite way to spend Saturday morning. Why didn’t he stay at home? Or at the gym or on the sunbed? I suspected they were both places he frequented.

“Do you want to have dinner with us?” Susie asked before she disappeared inside.

“Sounds good, thanks.” Anything was better than my own cooking.

It wasn’t that I’d spent my life trying out recipes that always went wrong. It was more that I’d never needed to cook so I didn’t know where to start. When I was a kid, we rarely had proper food in the house. As I got older, someone else made me food or I ate things that didn’t need cooking. My microwaving skills were legendary, and I knew how to build a campfire, but I didn’t know where to start with ingredients.

Maybe I should buy a recipe book? It would give me something constructive to do with my evenings rather than watching crappy TV re-runs. Not only that, the files on the cloud drive kept taunting me. Part of me wanted to buy a laptop and start looking at them, but at the same time, they scared me. I didn’t want to anger my husband’s killer, and I didn’t want to make my nightmares any worse than they already were.

They were a monster that fed off the black parts of my soul. Each one started with an event from my past then twisted it into a horror that consumed me. I was helpless to stop the visions in my head until I woke.

That wasn’t the worst of it. I remembered every vivid detail of the nightmares, but it was the night terrors and the sleepwalking that terrified me.

Nothing was as bad as finding out you’d done something in the middle of the night you had no memory of. Especially when you woke up to find out you’d hurt somebody you cared about. I’d seen some of the most horrible things imaginable, but what scared me most was my own mind.

Over the years, I’d learned the medical details, and tried every treatment possible. The only thing that worked was talking through the worst of it with my husband, but I no longer had that option.

My only choice was to stick with Carol’s strategy of using time to heal and pray for a miracle.

Chapter 10

ON SUNDAY, I ate a bowl of Coco Pops for breakfast then found my jeans no longer did up. It had only been a matter of time. When Hayley headed into town an hour later, I hitched a lift and bought some workout gear. My mind might have gone soft, but I could at least stop my body from following it by doing some exercise and eating properly again.

I had to remind myself of the old saying—you are what you eat. Since I’d discovered the bakery in the village, I was in danger of turning into a donut. Sweet as they were, I didn’t want to end up looking like one.

The afternoon brought a grey sky and steady drizzle. According to the weather forecast, it was there to stay, so I forced myself to man up and go outside anyway. Nearly a month had passed since I’d been to the gym, and boy did it I feel it. Mucking out was no substitute for a twelve-mile run. I grimly battled up slippery hills and along frozen tracks, returning two hours later splattered with mud and nursing a stitch. Back in my trailer, I did what I could in the way of push-ups, squats, lunges and crunches until I collapsed on the grubby floor, unable to move.

Still, the exhaustion contributed to me getting a reasonable night of sleep so I couldn’t complain. I woke up on Monday morning ready to face the week ahead, a week that passed un-memorably in a blur of nothingness, mindless days of shovelling crap and carting hay around. After work each evening, I ran a lap of the village by the light of the streetlamps, followed by circuits of bodyweight exercises. My strength was slowly coming back, but boy did I ache.

The only break from what now passed as the norm was a trip to a pub in the next village with Susie and Hayley on Thursday evening. The opportunity to avoid cooking seemed too good to pass up, although with hindsight I should have stayed home with a packet of instant noodles.

I’d only eaten half my jacket potato when a man slid into the seat beside me, uninvited. Two of his buddies dragged chairs up to the end of the table and the uglier of the two waved at the barmaid and held up three fingers.

“All right, ladies?” The interloper pressed his leg against mine as he twirled his Range Rover keys around his finger and gave me a leering grin. His boots had clearly never seen mud in their lives, and he was wearing a cravat round his neck. I rolled my eyes at Susie and Hayley—I couldn’t help it. 

I’d only seen one person wear a cravat in real life before, when my husband and I were invited to a charity clay pigeon shoot on Lord something-or-other’s country estate a few years ago. Our esteemed host turned up full cliché, in gaiters, a cravat, and a tweed jacket with matching flat cap. He’d also brought at least two hip flasks, and I’d had to gently confiscate his gun before he did any damage. My husband had a quiet word, and his son shovelled him into the back of a Land Rover and drove him home.

I had a feeling it wouldn’t be as easy to get rid of the newcomers.

“His name’s Henry,” Susie whispered, as the sleaze next to me stared at the barmaid’s tits. “His dad’s a property developer. He’s got stacks of money, and he shags anything that moves.”

Well, he wouldn’t be shagging me.

“Can I get you a drink?” he asked, ignoring Susie and Hayley as he addressed my chest.

“No.”

He seemed taken aback for a second, but he didn’t take the hint. “How about dinner?”

“No.”

“Ah, a woman who plays hard to get. I like a challenge.” He shuffled closer, and I jabbed an elbow in his side, but he only grinned. “Feisty. How about we skip the small talk and head back to my place? I’ve got a Ferrari in the garage we can take for a spin.”

More like a crash, with the amount of beer he’d drunk. I could smell it on his breath as it washed over me. “No.”

“Come on, it’s a 360 Modena.”

Oh, well in that case… “No.” I had an Enzo in my garage. Big fucking deal.

His fingers crept up my arm, and I resisted the urge to break them. I needed to keep a low profile, and getting arrested for assault wouldn’t help matters.

“I need to use the bathroom. Excuse me.” I shuffled out from the bench seat and hurried to the ladies’, followed by a wobbly Hayley.

“I think Henry likes you,” she said, when she arrived a few seconds later.

“I got that.”

“What are you doing?” she asked, looking beyond me to the window I’d just opened.

“Planning my escape.”

“Out the window?”
 

“Doors are so last year.”

“Aw… Me and Susie are going out to a club with the other guys. Susie knows them from school. You sure you don’t want to come? It’ll be fun.”

“I’m sure. I’d rather have an early night.”

“You need the number for a cab?”

“I’ll walk. It’s only a couple of miles, and the moon’s bright tonight.”

She stepped forward and gave me a hug. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

I forced a smile. “Yeah. Have a good time.”

Tomorrow, I decided, I’d stay in.

Saturday came all too soon, and I was scheduled to work again despite being exhausted. I’d barely slept for three nights, and I knew I’d been sleepwalking at least once because I woke up on the bathroom floor, freezing. The lack of rest left me cranky and slow, and mucking out took twice as long as usual. I found myself hoping Portia would bring her brother along again so I could get a hand with the sweeping.

My wish came true half an hour later when his silver Porsche 911 pulled into the car park. He unfolded himself from the seat and followed Portia into the barn, head down and shoulders hunched. I looked at my watch and started a little countdown. It was less than ten minutes before Susie and Hayley emerged, wearing full make-up and freshly laundered jeans. I smirked and held out brooms to them as they passed.

“Might as well make yourselves useful.”

Susie looked blank. “What? Oh…”

Hayley had the good grace to look sheepish as she accepted her broom. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Enjoy.”

Sweeping sorted, I carried on to the feed room, pleased to avoid the bitch-fest undoubtedly taking place in the barn. I was halfway through preparing the feeds when Portia’s brother slunk in.

Seeing me there, he said, “You don’t mind if I just…?”

“Be my guest,” I replied waving over at the bin where he’d perched last week.

“Thanks. It’s worse than usual this morning. They seem to have turned up with reinforcements. One of them’s actually wearing a dress, and I’m pretty sure her eyelashes aren’t real.” He rolled his eyes, but there was weariness in them rather than humour.

“Why do you come, then?” I asked, continuing to scoop snake oil into bowls. “Couldn’t you just drop your sister off and go home?”

“I wish. I promised mother I’d spend time with her, and if you met my mother, you’d know it was easier for me to stay.”

I hadn’t seen my own mother since I was ten years old, so I didn’t really understand the whole family obligation thing, but hey, whatever.

“Well, if you’re set on staying, do you want a cup of tea or coffee? It’s bloody freezing, and I was just going to make some.”

BOOK: Pitch Black: A Romantic Thriller (Blackwood Security Book 1)
9.7Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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