Midnight in Brussels (10 page)

As she walked from her cottage down the alleyways to the bus stop in the center of Newlyn (she liked taking the bus to Mousehole instead of driving the two miles), she was thinking how happy she’d been in Paris with Shellie and Janet just two years before when Pete had made the last trip to South America. His plane had crashed and he had gone missing for weeks before he and the pilot were found close to death.

Tears came to her eyes as she thought about almost losing her beloved Pete. She was grateful for the time they’d had together over the past couple of years, although their individual business travels often took them to separate destinations. Now they were to be married. She wondered if that would change anything. Probably not. They both still had their work—Pete had the Eden Project, she, her writing—and the travel that came along with it all. There shouldn’t be a problem.

She stopped to smell a rose along the alleyway. Tears pricked her eyes again as her thoughts shifted to Ethan and the tragic way he had died. That was before she and Pete were engaged. She’d known Ethan before she met Pete.

Several years before Pete came into her life, she had come to England to help her friend Ethan with his business. He’d wanted to marry her, but she couldn’t do it. She just didn’t want to have to deal with a man and his demands - any man.

Then when Pete and Rachel had grown apart due to commitment issues, Ethan had stepped back into her life for a moment. Only a moment, for he’d crashed his car near Penzance on the way to see her and hadn’t survived. It took a long time for Rachel to get over the guilt she felt for his death. She wasn’t sure she was over it yet.

A foreboding feeling was increasing as she walked along the street and crossed the bridge by the post office to the bus stop. She shook off the feeling and deliberately began concentrating on the novel she was going to write. Her thoughts were about the novel the rest of the two-mile trip on the bus to Mousehole.

Rachel couldn’t wait to get to Belinda’s studio and tell her the good news about the December wedding. Hopefully Paul would be at the shop, too. She’d tell them both at the same time. She knew it would be difficult for them to go to Paris for the wedding with the two children, but she was going to invite them anyway. Maybe the timing would be right for them to check on their artworks at the gallery in Montmartre. They were her dearest friends, her closest friends, and they’d been through so much together in the past few years. It was as if she was a magnet to drama and tragedy – her own as well as that of her friends. She chuckled at the thought of a
drama magnet
and opened the heavy door leading into the shop.

Paul and Belinda Newland had named the shop
Newland Gallery near Newlyn,
even if it was in Mousehole. Rachel was amused every single time she saw the sign above the door.

“Hello, anybody home?” She glanced next door through the opening they’d cut through the thick wall to join two shops. Dudley wasn’t in his rock shop, either. “Yoohoo, where are you? I’m a thief and can steal everything in sight!”

Paul came bounding down the stairs, laughing. “Well, you can try to, if you want. But you won’t get far.” He reached for Rachel and gave her a big bear hug.

Rachel never ceased to feel a thrill when Paul hugged or kissed her. It would immediately take her back to the first night they met, a kiss between strangers at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve in Trafalgar Square four years before. She would never forget that kiss and how she had felt. She just adored the guy, and she adored Belinda and their two sons.

“Well, I could have been a couple of guys, you know. They could have stolen all the stuff.”

“Nah. I would have heard them. So what brings you out today? You ride the bus?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll take you home when you’re ready,” Paul offered. “No sense in taking the bus back.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I know, but I’m going into town anyway.”

“Where’s Belinda?” Rachel asked.

“Took the boys to the doc for their regular checkup.” Paul reached under the counter and pulled out a ledger.

“They’re okay, right? Nothing wrong?”

“It’s just a routine check, nothing’s wrong. She said she wanted to get a checkup, too, while she’s there. So I guess that’ll take all day by the time she runs errands and goes shopping. You know. And whatever else you girls do when you go to town. I’m meeting them for dinner at the Queen’s Hotel … another artist friend and her family are joining us.”

Rachel nodded and grinned. “Well, I just came by to tell you both that Pete and I are getting married in Paris this Christmas.”

Paul’s eyes widened before his grin did. “Are you kidding me? You’re actually getting married? To Pete?”

“Well, who else would it be, if not to Pete?” Rachel was laughing at his response.

“I mean—I just—I can’t believe it’s finally going to happen. The bugger didn’t tell me.”

“He barely told me before he left.”

“Christmas, huh?”

“Yes. And I would love to have you and Belinda there if you can do it.”

“Of course we’ll come. Yes. You can count on that. Belinda will be thrilled.” He hesitated, then moved to Rachel and reached for her shoulders, gazing into her eyes. “Are you happy, Rachel? Is this what you really want?”

For a second Rachel couldn’t answer the question. Whenever Paul touched her, it always rattled her. Then she blurted out, “Yes, yes, of course I’m happy.” She backed up toward the door.

She wasn’t as convincing to Paul as she thought she was.

“I’ve got to run … starting my next novel, you know … I’m going to Brussels on Friday.”

“Brussels?” Paul leaned back on the desk and sat on its edge.

“Research for my next novel.”

“Sounds heavenly. I miss traveling as much as I used to when I was a single man.” He grinned, his blue eyes sparkling in the reflection of the sun streaming through the windows.

 
“Well, it might be a quick trip this time. Maybe just a month, I don’t know. Or two. Anyway, I’ll be back in time to get everything together for Paris.”

She admired this man standing before her with the faint smell of Calvin Klein’s Obsession for Men, a scent he always wore. He was just the opposite of Pete. Pete was a rugged handsome. Paul was romance novel book-cover handsome. He wore his long, thick blond hair tied back at his neck, had smooth, tanned skin, wasn’t overly muscular, just toned. She’d been attracted to him since the first moment she had laid eyes on him, long before he married Belinda and before she met Pete.

They had first met on a New Year’s Eve when she and Ethan were in London. She first saw Paul after she and Ethan were leaving dinner at the Ritz to get to Trafalgar Square before the midnight festivities. Paul was ushering a group of Japanese clients from the Ritz into a limo next to the taxi she and Ethan were about to enter. At that time Paul was a creative director for an advertising agency.

That night outside the Ritz her eyes had connected with Paul’s and a thrill shot through her. Then at Trafalgar Square in the midst of the New Year’s Eve celebrations, just a few minutes after seeing him at the Ritz, Rachel was thrust into the back of him on the front lines of the crowd at the Trafalgar fountains. Hundreds of people attempted to enter the crowded square. He managed to turn around and they kissed when the countdown hit midnight. She never would forget that kiss and the way he had slipped his hand around her waist and held her close.

Their paths had crossed two more times during that weekend; it was uncanny, it was as if they were destined to be in each other’s lives, but in a configuration she would never have guessed.

A couple months later, after the coincidental (or was it?) meetings on that New Year’s weekend in London, they ran into each other on the south coast of Cornwall and began an actual friendship.

During that year, four years ago, it was Paul who had had to deal with his own demons. It was Paul who had fallen in love with Belinda after a cruel and merciless gang rape she had endured and survived. It was Paul who had saved Rachel in California from a sure death. It was Paul who was the pivotal male in the two women’s lives.

Rachel crossed the room to Paul and gave him a quick goodbye hug. “Tell Belinda to call me when she gets back, will you?”

“I will. So you’re leaving on Friday?”

“Yes, and I’ll give Belinda the hotel number where I’m staying, and of course I’ll have my cell phone with me.”

“Then how about dinner on Thursday night before you go? Belinda would love that. We’ll get a sitter for the boys and drive over to Marazion. I’ll call Margaret and let her know we’re coming.”

“That would be fabulous, Paul. Thank you.”

“We’ll pick you up at 6:30.”

“Okay. Bye then.” She opened the door.

“Wait a minute,” said Paul, “I’m driving you home. I’ll get my keys.”

“No, no, no. Please. It’s still early and I do love that bumpy bus ride back to Newlyn. I want to go into a couple of the shops here before I leave, anyway. Next time, Paul. Thanks. Really.”

She was relieved to be out of Paul’s reach. There was just something that took hold of her when she was around him, when it was just the two of them together.

She shook her head as she ambled down the lane towards the bayfront shops in Mousehole. She felt exhilarated and energized. Not only did the sea air do that to her, Paul did it, too.

She forced thoughts of Pete back into her mind. He was the one she should be thinking of, she told herself, not her best friend’s husband.

Chapter 17

It was Thursday evening and the five-mile drive to Marazion, the oldest chartered town in Cornwall dating all the way back to the 1300s, was quick and full of excited conversation between Rachel and Belinda. They hadn’t seen each other for days and it was catch-up time.

Paul grinned while he listened to the chatter of the two women he adored most in the world. He would turn and look at his lovely, fragile wife periodically, whose animal sculptures were as popular as his gigantic contemporary paintings. When he would approach a new gallery to show their works, the sellers were always as impressed with her metal works of art and their iridescent Ammolite stones used as eyes as they were with his colorful nude interpretations on canvas.

Paul and Belinda Newland were the perfect team, something he realized soon after Belinda quit the international advertising firm where he was creative director and she was a graphic designer. Then when they fell in love, he left the corporate advertising world himself, left London, and both he and Belinda opened the studios in Mousehole. His studio was upstairs, hers at street level next door to their rock shop friend, Dudley.

As they rode past Penzance, Paul was thinking of their first days in Cornwall after they were married, and how their lives had become entwined with Rachel’s.

“So what did the doctor say, Belinda?” Rachel’s question severed Paul’s train of thought.

“What part do you want to hear?” Belinda asked.

Belinda’s frown and quick glance at Paul was obvious as Rachel leaned forward from the back seat. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes, of course. We all have a clean bill of health. No need to worry.” Belinda turned and looked out the passenger window a bit too quickly in Rachel’s estimation.

Rachel felt something not ringing true in Belinda’s behavior and words. She decided not to press it any further for the moment; she’d drill her on the way to the station tomorrow. Belinda was taking Rachel to the train station the next morning.

“So, Rachel, tell us about the book you’re going to write in Brussels,” Paul said as he looked at her in the rearview mirror.

She leaned back against the seat and took a deep breath. The mood had changed in the car. It felt awkward. Something was amiss, she was sure of it. “Well, it’s a murder mystery about a Belgian hat maker who falls for an American spy in Brussels.”

Belinda turned quickly toward Rachel, delighted with the possibility. “So which is the woman, the spy or the hat maker?”

Rachel laughed. “Which do you think she should be?”

“Make her the spy.”

“Good idea. The woman is the spy then.”

“How does she meet the hat maker?” asked Belinda.

“Well—”

Belinda quickly inserted, “I got it … have her meet him in one of those shops on the way to the Grand Place in Brussels. Maybe next to a chocolate shop, or a lace shop, there are so many of them. Maybe she buys chocolates and then stands outside his hat shop window, watching people and gorging. Then she turns and looks at the hats displayed in his window. He sees her, notices how beautiful she is, of course she’s drop-dead gorgeous. Then he comes to the door and invites her in to try on a hat that he thinks will be perfect for her. And maybe he’s a spy, too. A Russian spy.”