Authors: Jane Lovering
Slightly Foxed (38 page)
finished, she frowned.
"Do you and Luke ever actually, y'know,
talk
, Wills? Or do
you spend all your off-duty time shagging and communicating
in mime?"
"What?"
"You do seem to have an extraordinary number of
misunderstandings
, don't you? For a couple who are supposed
to be so deeply in love that they're planning to get
married
,
there's a lot he doesn't seem to tell you about. And, please
God, if you're going around kissing strange men, the reverse
is also true."
"Cal...it wasn't...it wasn't
that
sort of kiss." I said
indignantly. "And of course Luke and I talk, don't be stupid.
It's just, you know how prone I am to grabbing the wrong
end of the stick and using it to beat myself."
"Yes, but the stick does have to be held out for you to
grasp in the first place." Katie put her hands on my shoulders
and looked me deep in the eyes. "I'm worried about you, Will.
Okay, so Luke might have good reasons for all the
misconstructions that have gone on, but it's more that
they've happened than what they've been about that worries
me."
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"Well, my dear, worry no more." I twirled around on my
chair. "I'm going to suggest to Luke that we move into the
flat next week and start living together properly. It can't be
comfortable for him camped out in the showroom, and we
might as well start getting it all together. How do you feel
about wearing peach for the wedding?"
"Will, if it makes you happy I shall wear a whole fruit
salad," she said solemnly.
"Willow." The door opened and Neil came in. "Bloke for you
in the front."
"Good Lord, it speaks. Evolution in action."
"Shut it, frosty knickers."
"What, Clive not with you? Was the separation a success?"
"And you can shut up an' all." Neil grinned. "Dunno 'oo he
is. Some weirdo. Bit of luck, he's a mad axe murderer."
He wasn't. It was Cal, loitering about in the front office,
looking at the photographs on the walls. (Man Rescues
Tortoise—Pictures Inside.) "Hi."
"Hello." Katie was hanging around by my left shoulder like
a conscience-devil. "How are you?"
"Fine. I came to..." Cal clocked Katie and began to
stammer. "I...I...you, yesterday...quite...upset."
"Everything's sorted now, just another misunderstanding,"
I said smoothly. Well, I could have belched every word and
next to Cal's delivery it would have sounded smooth. "Cal,
Katie."
"Oh, so
this
is the guy with the lip action. Pleased to meet
you, Cal." And Katie turned round to face me and half-
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whispered, "Fuck me, Willow, you didn't tell me he was such a
ride
. I mean, look at him."
"Forgive my friend, Cal, she has a form of Tourette's. We
normally keep her locked up for her own good."
Cal smiled broadly and Katie went "phwooooarrrr" in my
ear. "Chuffin' hell, will you look at the eyes on your man?"
"And she's Irish. Happily married. Quite respectable."
Katie leaned over the desk towards Cal. "But prepared to
be unrespectable, if the offer's right." She pursed her lips and
Cal's smile grew slightly broader.
"Are you any good with goats?"
"Um."
"So, that's a 'no' then." I hustled Katie to one side with my
elbows. "It's fine, Cal. I've spoken to Luke, he's explained. It
was something personal."
"Anyway. The brother in Boston? I've got the phone
number, if you wanted to ring and introduce yourself."
"What a great idea." Katie derailed the nearest elbow and
slotted herself in beside me again.
"Have you got something in your eye?" I asked her
suspiciously.
"No, I'm fluttering my eyelashes, can't you tell?"
"I don't think Cal's impressed by fluttering eyelashes,
Katie."
"No, but I'm mightily impressed by anyone who can move
my goat."
Katie's appraising stare narrowed. "Is that some sort of
code, Willow? Is he chatting you up in code? Because if he is,
that's really unfair. No one chats me up in code, not even
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Dan—not that he chats me up anymore. Doesn't even chat
much, if you want to know the truth. He sort of grunts and
points. I think he learned it off the twins."
Cal and I shared a baffled shrug. "So, do you want to call
him now? You can borrow my mobile."
"Well, not right this second. I mean, I'm at work and
everything and it'll be the middle of the night in Boston, won't
it? Tonight. I'll do it tonight."
"Why are you putting it off?" He tipped his head on one
side. "Are you worried about what he might say?"
"No! I told you, Luke and I have sorted everything out. If I
ring James and he tells Luke that I called, then it looks as if
I've gone behind his back and don't trust him."
"But you
don't
, do you?" The words dropped into a
clanging silence. I stared at Katie who didn't even look
ashamed of herself. "Come on, Willow. If you trusted him, he
wouldn't need to explain himself to you because the situations
would never arise in the first place. I mean"—her voice
became gentler—"you know I love you, Wills, but you can be
a complete and utter zombo where men are concerned."
"Is that a real word?" Cal asked.
"It is on Planet Katie," I answered, a little bitterly. "Kate,
you're warping things again. Luke and I are fine. We...oh, sod
the pair of you. Give me the number, Cal. I'll call after lunch
when it's a civilised time in Boston. Katie can earwig all she
likes to make sure I ask the right questions. There. Are you
both happy now?"
The two of them agreed that, yes, in this instance they
were fairly satisfied with my reply, and Cal left the office,
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Katie watching his every move. When she noticed his limp,
her eyebrows almost twanged.
"Christ Jesus, he even manages to make
that
look sexy.
Aw, do an old married woman a favour. Before you marry
Luke, shag Cal just the once"—a libidinous look—"and tell me
all
about it."
"
Katie!
I will do no such thing. Anyway, Luke's sexy too,
isn't he?"
She stopped boiling over and switched down to simmer.
"Yeah, he's sexy, too. But it's different with Luke. He's macho
sexy, all swagger and cock-first into a room. Your man there,
you can tell he's the kind who'll make you wait, then lick you
till you're screaming."
A pause while we thought about this.
"You really do need to get out more, don't you?"
"Tell me about it," she sighed.
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'Tis the season to get deadly...
Still Waters
(C) 2008 Kate Johnson
It's a week before Christmas. Sophie is out of work, out of
love and out of her depth—literally. Stuck in Cornwall on the
holiday from hell with her ex-boyfriend, her boyfriend's ex,
and two intimidating colleagues. If that's not enough,
Sophie's got her hands full trying to prevent her best friend's
perfect engagement from blowing up in her face.
When a corpse turns up in the local harbor it's the perfect
distraction...at least until someone tries to add Sophie to the
body count.
Tangled love, tangled lives, tangled clues. Now there's a
holiday menu Sophie can't resist.
Warning: This title contains bad language, bad behavior
and bad puns. There are scenes of violence, gore, and
unashamed sentimentality.
Enjoy the following excerpt for
Still Waters:
Here's a piece of advice, direct from me to you: it's never
a good idea to go on holiday with your ex. Especially if you're
behind the wheel, or you have a habit of getting lost easily.
Or he's navigating.
Or all of the above.
The roads were hardly wide enough for a bicycle and so
steep the accelerator was getting decidedly jealous of all the
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attention my foot was paying to the brake. The village
seemed to be spelled differently on every sign we came
across, and we frequently took the wrong turn because "Turn
right towards Polzeath" can mean a lot of things when there
are a million right turns on the road. All signposted Pol-
bloody-zeath.
Eventually I snapped and stopped the car, ramming the
handbrake on so my right foot could have a bit of rest.
"That's it." I turned to the back of the car. "Maria, will you
navigate for me?"
"Maria?" Luke said in tones of disgust. "She's a girl."
"I'd quite forgotten."
Maria was already heading to the back door. "If it's good
enough for the SBS..."
Luke was immovable. "Look, if you'd just do what I tell
you—"
"Since when did she ever do that?" asked the fourth
occupant of the car, a big black man called Macbeth. He was
covered in dog hairs from Norma Jean, the beautiful but
incredibly stupid dog I'd been saddled with for the week.
Norma's father had been a retriever and her mother,
apparently, a ball of cotton wool. She tended to leave a film
of blonde hair over everyone and everything she went near.
Maria was at the passenger door now and she'd opened it.
She tapped her foot on the road and arched a perfect
eyebrow at Luke. If I didn't like her so much, I'd really hate
her. She's stunning to look at—all toned curves and glossy
dark hair and big brown eyes and perfect clear skin. Cow.
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But she is so nice. And she's a good navigator. And Luke,
for want of a better expression, was getting right on my tits.
Not that he'd been near them for months. Maybe that was
the problem.
"Look," Maria said, "either you get in the back or you stand
in the road and make your own way there."
"Or home," I added helpfully.
"Whose bloody idea was this sodding holiday anyway?"
Luke fumed.
"Do you want to be a part of the SO17 team or not?" Maria
asked perkily.
"Sometimes I wonder," Luke replied, his tone dark.
I said nothing.
Luke glared at me and, with a final mutter of "for God's
sake," he stomped out of the car and round to the back,
slamming the door shut behind him.
"Why'd we bring your stupid car anyway?" he asked bad-
temperedly, glaring round the interior.
I patted the steering wheel of my Land Rover Defender to
comfort him. "It's okay, Ted. Ignore him."
In the back, Norma Jean made a muffled noise somewhere
between a bark and a howl.
"You tell him, Norma."
* * * *
would be impossible to modernise completely. Ted, my lovely,
battered old friend, could hardly get down some of the
streets, which were narrow and so steep I really thought we'd
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just plunge straight into the sea if the brakes failed. Which
they never would. Ted might look like he's in bad shape, but
that's just surface scarring. He's a trooper.
"It's down here." Maria pointed, looking almost as excited
as Norma Jean, who was jumping around in the back of the
car while Luke and Macbeth tried to hold onto her.
"How does she know?" Maria asked, twisting round to look
at Norma Jean, all fluffy and blonde and heartbreakingly
pretty.
"Instinct. She always knows when we're getting to the end
of a journey."
"One of those animal things," Macbeth said, catching
Norma's collar and trying to get her to lie down, or at least
sit. "Bitches always know."
"So how far are we, Sophie?" Luke asked, and if the road
hadn't been so tricky, I'd have reached back and hit him.
Eventually we found the cottage, hiding away on a little
alleyway that was, according to the sign, Rose Street.
"That's a street?" I said in disbelief, staring at the gap
between two buildings that were about six feet apart.
"Narrowest in Britain," Maria said with some pride. "The
locals call it Squeeze-ee-belly Alley."
"No kidding."
I parked the car at the entrance to the alley, and we
unloaded as quickly as possible so I could remove Ted to the
harbour just down the road, where he would be less of an
obstruction.
When I came back and walked in through the stable door,
I found a little hallway with a bedroom off to one side, and
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stairs leading straight up. I followed the stairs past a pretty,
white bathroom to a large living room with a small, open
kitchen. Maria was there, opening cupboards, checking the
fridge.
"You're downstairs," she said.