Beneath the Moon and the Stars (34 page)

She scrabbled up quickly, staring at the fire in shock. Reacting on instinct alone she ran into the kitchen, grabbed the emergency fire blanket and ran back to the front door. She yanked the blanket from its case, kicked the rag free from the letterbox and as it hit the floor, she smothered the fireball with the blanket, patting and rolling it to put it out.

Slowly the smoke disappeared, and she was vaguely aware that the ear piercing sound of the fire alarm had finally stopped, but she couldn’t stop clinging to the blanket.

Eventually she sat up, uncurling her fingers from the blanket, and leaned against the wall. She curled her knees up to her chest, put her head into her hands and let the tears that the adrenaline had been keeping at bay finally come.

*

Finn found her like this a few minutes later, sobbing into her hands. He had heard the fire alarm go off again, and assumed it was her dodgy cooking that had set it off. He’d wandered out into the garden just to surreptitiously check she was ok. The fire alarm stopped but there was no sign of her in the kitchen at all. After a few minutes anxiously waiting, and with still no sign of Joy, he’d let himself in to her house and his blood had turned to ice at the sound of her sobbing.

He quickly ran through the house and stood aghast at her curled up and crying. He checked her over, she wasn’t injured at all. Without thinking he knelt next to her, taking her hand.

‘Joy, love, what’s happened?’

There was a smell, an acrid, burnt stench in the air.

She let him take her hand from her face, but she looked at him without seeing him, which made him go cold. She didn’t even know he was there.

‘Joy.’ He stroked her hair and slowly her eyes focused on him. Her tears dried, her face suddenly taking on a determined resolve.

Without a word, she scrabbled up and flew upstairs.

He looked around and spotted the fire blanket on the floor. Kicking it open, he was confused to see what looked like a burnt roll of clothes. But the smell of petrol was unmistakable. The area around the letterbox was burnt too.

He felt his fists clench at his side at the sickening reality of what had happened and quickly ran up the stairs after her.

She was in her bedroom, throwing clothes into a suitcase, she wasn’t even bothering to take them off the hangers, they were going into the suitcase as well.

‘What are you doing?’

She didn’t answer as she ran past him into the bathroom and came back a few seconds later shoving her toothbrush, toothpaste and shampoo into a small bag. She threw that into the suitcase too, then slammed it closed, wrapping the strap around it and doing the buckle up tightly.

She looked around the room, her eyes wide, but not looking at him at all.

‘You’re leaving? You said you’d be here till Tuesday, you can’t leave.’

Finally she looked at him, her eyes cold. ‘Finn they want me dead. I’m just some prey for them to hunt like those poor deer. I’m not sticking around for the next attempt on my life.’

She lifted the suitcase and struggled downstairs with it.

A slick feeling of panic ripped through him. He was going to lose her.

He tore downstairs after her but she was already outside, loading her car.

‘Wait, wait… what about fighting back, not letting them win?’

‘You said it yourself Finn, “Don’t put yourself in harm’s way unnecessarily, don’t tempt fate. If you’re there when some nut job is trying to kill you, run as fast as you can in the opposite direction.” This is me running. Staying here any longer when they want me dead would be phenomenally stupid.’

She moved quickly back towards the house.

‘What… what about us?’

She turned to look at him. ‘There is no us Finn. Is there?’

She stood waiting for an answer but when none was clearly forthcoming she disappeared back inside. A moment later, she reappeared with Darcy hot on her heels, she closed the front door behind her.

‘Car!’ she ordered and Darcy duly obliged, leaping in, her tongue lolling out of her face excitedly.

She closed the back door and opened the driver’s door, stepping up to the footplate so she was closer to him.

She took his face in her hand and kissed him, sending his heart into overdrive.

‘I would have given you everything,’ she whispered.

Then she sat down, closed the door and drove off.

He stared after her, and was still standing there long after she had disappeared from sight. His heart clenched painfully. What had he done? How could it hurt so badly? When Pippa had betrayed him, that had hurt – but this was real, acute pain, so much so he found himself rubbing his chest to try to alleviate it. His throat was raw, his hands were shaking.

He turned away from the road and saw Zach watching him from his doorway. He stormed back towards his house.

‘Finn, wait.’ Zach grabbed his arm.

Angry and hurt and wanting to lash out at someone, he turned and slammed Zach into the wall.

‘If you want to punch me, then go ahead, but you’ll listen to what I have to say first. You know in your heart that I would never have betrayed you had I been sober and properly awake – and you know if it wasn’t with me, Pippa would have cheated on you with someone else. I can’t go back and change what happened between me and Pippa, I wish I could. But I won’t stand by and let you lose the woman you love for the second time in your life. Don’t be an idiot. Don’t throw away a chance of real happiness just because Pippa couldn’t see how fantastic you are, and because your best friend was a complete and utter dickhead. You need to go after her, tell her how you feel. There are no guarantees in life, least of all in love, but when you find someone you love like that, someone who clearly loves you back, then don’t let her slip through your fingers.’

Finn relinquished his hold on Zach and stormed back to his house. It would be a cold day in hell before he took relationship advice from Zach Fallowfield.

*

Joy pulled up outside Alex’s house an hour later. It was just starting to get dark. She parked on the street, and walked up the short narrow drive which curled round tall conifers blocking the house from the road.

As the trees ended and the front door came into view, she stopped because waiting on the doorstep was Casey. He seemed nervous somehow, and suddenly not wanting to be seen, she ducked back a bit so she could peer through the leaves.

Alex opened the door and as soon as he saw Casey, he broke into a huge grin. He took Casey’s face in his hands and leaned forward and kissed him. The kiss was so sweet, so tender, so loving that despite what had happened just an hour before, Joy couldn’t help but match Alex’s huge grin.

Alex drew back, smiling and Casey followed him into the house, and the door closed behind them.

Still with the smile plastered on her face, she walked back down the drive and got back into her car.

Now where? She leaned her head on the steering wheel for a moment, feeling incredibly lonely all of a sudden.

There was only one place she could go now. She started the car again and drove off.

*

Joy was woken in the early hours of the morning by the door to the barn opening, lights were snapped on and she quickly covered her eyes, sitting up, blearily.

She knew who it was, without even seeing him, somehow, blindly her body was already reacting, her gut clenching, her heart racing.

‘You’re trespassing,’ Finn said softly as he walked towards her. Treacherously Darcy scrabbled up and ran to greet him. As she peered through her fingers, willing her eyes to become accustomed to the bright lights, she saw Finn rubbing her great dog’s head affectionately.

‘So call the police,’ she snapped.

‘Not a morning person then, I’ll have to remember that.’

Her heart leapt a fraction. Why would he need to remember that?

‘You should never wake a woman up in the middle of the night, there are rules about that kind of thing,’ she muttered.

‘No exceptions?’ Finn knelt in front of her.

‘No.’

‘Pity.’ He took her hand and pulled her gently to her feet. ‘Come on, we need to talk.’

He started pulling her towards the door but she yanked her hand free of his grasp.

‘No, we don’t. You had plenty of opportunity to talk. It’s too late now.’ She realised inwardly she might as well be stamping her feet and folding her arms petulantly across her chest.

‘Stay there then. I’ve just cooked a full English breakfast. Billy will be delighted if you don’t want it.’

Finn left and she walked to the door, blinking at the early morning light. The sky was tinged with the palest pink, the sun just peeping over the edge of the fields that sloped down to the river. Large black blobs peppered the fields, where the cows were still sleeping. Her stomach rumbled loudly in protest and reluctantly she walked up to the farmhouse and round to the kitchen door where the delicious smell of bacon was drifting through. Darcy followed and Billy greeted her in the yard, nuzzling her gently in the ear. It made her smile to see.

Finn gestured for her to sit down at the breakfast bar opposite him, where a plate was already heaped with appetizing foods and, still scowling at him, Joy did as she was told.

She took a big bite of crusty toast and Finn opened his mouth to speak, clearly waiting for her to eat so she couldn’t answer him back.

‘Joy, I love you. I…’

She swallowed the toast quickly and it lodged in her throat. She spluttered, coughed, heaved, tears spurting to her eyes as she tried desperately to breathe. Her chest convulsed, her lungs screaming at the lack of air.

‘Jesus.’ Finn was at her side instantly, slapping her hard on the back – it did nothing to retrieve the piece of bread. She coughed, clutching at her throat. He yanked her off the stool to stand in front of him. With his hands round her chest he slammed her against him in what she presumed was a perfect Heimlich manoeuvre as the piece of bread shot out of her throat and sailed across the room where Billy leapt in the air to catch it neatly in his mouth.

She gasped in good, clean air, finding it hard to get enough as she leaned against Finn weakly. His hands were on her shoulders, holding her steady whilst she caught her breath.

‘Well, I pictured this conversation many times in my head, played out every scenario, how might be best to tell you how I felt, but nowhere in my wildest imaginings did I foresee it panning out like this.’

She grabbed a glass of orange juice and drank it down quickly, cleansing and soothing her throat. Finally she straightened herself and turned to face Finn, frowning. ‘You love me?’

He nodded.

She stared at him for a moment, the silence lasting seemingly an eternity. Then anger took over. She pushed him away from her and stormed out.

‘Oh no you don’t.’ Finn reached the door before she did and slammed it shut. ‘You’ve been running your whole life, you’re not going to run from this. You’ll damn well listen to what I have to say.’

‘You don’t love me Finn. You like me, at best you care for me – and the sex has been fantastic – but you don’t love me. Love is stupid and crazy and hedonistic. If you were in love you’d jump in without looking, you wouldn’t be standing on the side afraid to get your feet wet. Look how you were with Pippa, you were married just six months after you’d met. That’s how it should be – impetuous, reckless…’

‘You don’t get it do you? I jumped before I looked with her and I got hurt spectacularly. So yes I was cautious about falling in love again.’ He looked around trying to find inspiration. ‘Look, you were attacked walking the streets alone after dark. Although logic says lightning isn’t going to strike twice in the same place, and you are obviously more than capable of looking after yourself if the way you attacked me in your bedroom is anything to go by, you’re not going to be stupid enough to tempt fate and walk the streets alone again are you?’

She reluctantly conceded this. ‘You learn from your mistakes.’

‘Exactly. So when another beautiful redhead moves next door – someone with a zest for life, someone who wanted to see the world, someone with vulnerabilities, someone I wanted to protect and hold – I was scared that it was happening all over again.’

‘I’m not Pippa.’

‘I know.’ He swept a stray hair out of her face. ‘I know. There are so many things that stand you apart from her. Casey adores you, and he’s always been such a good judge of character. You risked your life for him, which I owe you a debt of gratitude for. Your friends, I know circumstance means you don’t see each other that often, but they dropped everything to be with you on your birthday. That says a lot. Your love for Darcy makes me smile… And Lily, a little girl who has nothing to do with you, and you treat her like she’s your own. That fills my heart. I love your honesty. You just say what you feel. With Pippa it was lies and games. I love that you love the fresh air as opposed to air conditioning. I love how you dance. I love your optimism, that you see the good in everything, that nothing seems to keep you down. Your talent, you don’t get how extraordinarily talented you are, that you have a real gift… Look…’

He dragged her towards the end of the kitchen. He tore some brown paper off a huge canvas that she hadn’t noticed before, revealing a huge photo of the original Fairy Prince – her and Finn, in the throes of passion, captured in wood. The light of the lanterns cast over the pale wood of the oak set against a backdrop of black trees and the inky blue sky was breath taking. She had never seen her art in such a way before. Finn was looking at it in awe. To have it so appreciated moved her deeply, in a way she didn’t expect.

He ran his finger lightly over the picture, almost as if he could feel the curves. ‘You know I love you Joy. I might be able to lie to you with my words, but I couldn’t lie to you with my body.’

She looked away. The way he had held her, touched her with such love, such reverence, that had been the thing that made her think that they had a future together. That’s why it had left her so hurt and confused the next day when he hadn’t wanted more, that seemingly it had just been about sex.

‘I was trying to protect myself,’ he said, almost as if he was reading her mind. ‘I know you’re not like Pippa because what I feel for you is so much more than I ever felt for her, so much more than I could ever imagine. And that terrified me – if I loved you more, then I could get hurt more and I knew the pain of losing you would be more than I could bear.’