Never Too Late (27 page)

*

Adam and Schez had only just sat on the grass to enjoy their cakes among a small stand of silver birches when the rain started.

“Oh no,” Schez wailed. “We’ll be soaked by the time we get to the office.” She started to rise, with innate lithe grace, but Adam caught her hand.

“If we’re going to get wet anyway, why bother going?” he reasoned. “Look,” he pointed to the clouds, “we’re only catching the edge of the storm. It will stop soon, so let’s just enjoy it.”

Schez hesitated then laughed and sat down again. “You’re totally mad, but maybe there is an element of logic in what you say,” she conceded. “And it is a rather warm rain, almost tropical, and rather a relief after the trapped heat in the courtyard.”

She raised her face and closed her eyes. The rain beaded on her surprisingly dark lashes and ran in rivulets down her delicate face. “This really is insane,” she laughed.

It is insane, thought Adam. Chloe had been almost right all along. They would always be friends but he had mistakenly taken a boyhood crush, that he should have grown out of a long time since, for the real thing. What he was feeling right now for Schez he had never experienced in his life before.

This is the love you feel for a woman you want to spend the rest of your life with. This is the love that can drive a man to any lengths to protect his beloved, the love that inspires art in all its forms, the love that can drive you to insanity and despair if it’s not returned. Can Schez possibly save me from despair?

Schez opened her eyes and saw the intensity of his gaze. That fluttery feeling came back and she drew in a quick breath, sure and not sure, hoping and fearing what was to come. Slowly Adam bent down to her lips and their butterfly touch sent tremors through them both. The kiss deepened. The kiss said more than words could and left them both shaken. When finally they drew apart Adam refused to let Schez look away.

“Promise me,” he managed to say, his voice husky with desire for her. “Promise me you’ll not disappear out of my life. Let me come to see you. Often.”

Schez didn’t want this magical afternoon to finish. When they kissed it just felt so right, so connected on a very fundamental level. She trembled, shaken to her core and longing for more. It was also frightening, but she gathered her courage and took a decision that was far outside her normal reaction to any male attention.

“Come home with me,” she suggested shyly. She saw his eyebrow rise. “Oh dear,” she said in embarrassed confusion. “I didn’t mean… I… I…”

“I wouldn’t dream of doing anything you don’t want me too, my darling Schez,” he told her.

He called me his darling - does he mean it? It’s so hard to tell in these days of casual endearments. Oh, please, let him mean it!

“I only have a tiny flat,” she told him, “but it has a tumble dryer so I can dry your clothes out while I reheat the chilli I prepared yesterday.” She took a deep breath. “Then I want to tell you a bit about my past, some things you ought to know before you decide if you want to kiss me like that again.” If this was going to be serious then she didn’t want any hidden secrets. She didn’t want Adam to find out later and reject her because of it. She couldn’t risk getting in too far to recover. A tear slid down her face, whether from the pain of past memory or the fear of pain to come she didn’t know.

Adam gently brushed the tear away with his thumb. “I promise never to make you cry, Schez.” She watched as he raised her fingers to his lips. Then the mischievous twinkle she’d first noticed in his eyes returned. “Not as long as there’s chilli on offer,” he whispered.

Schez’s eyes widened, momentarily startled, then laughed with him.

“Come on,” he got up and offered his hand. “Let’s make a move before we get chilled rather than chilli.”

She was very petite and only came as high as his shoulder. He kissed the top of her head. “With your hair wet and curling round your face you look like one of those very endearing elves from Lord of the Rings, what was her name? Galadriel!” he remembered suddenly. “Yes, you are my Galadriel.”

“Will you be my Celeborn then?” she asked softly. But she put her fingers against his mouth to prevent an answer.

They went to find Chloe and found the paddock clear of cars, not a soul in sight.

“I guess she got fed up waiting,” he commented wryly. He turned on his mobile and got the text warning he had just five minutes’ grace, a text timed nearly twenty minutes ago. As usual, Chloe’s plans were the only ones that counted. “I hope your flat is not too far away as it seems I can’t offer a lift.”

“Only fifteen minutes’ walk from here,” Schez told him as Adam took her hand and they started walking down the drive. “Just as well, as I can’t afford a car, not on the salary I get here. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t need any more and Liz and I want every available penny to be spent on the dogs, not us.”

“You obviously have a lot of respect for Liz,” Adam commented.

“She works all hours God sends for the dogs, totally dedicated to their welfare. Plus she’s been like a mother to me since I was twelve,” Schez told him. “My own mother upped and left with someone else. She was always full of fancy ideas, like calling me Scheherezade, and she decided the world owed her more than a daughter under her feet and a husband who had no qualifications and would never be more than a factory hand. Dad really struggled for a while financially. He did his utmost to avoid it but eventually we took my dog, Betsy, to Liz. We couldn’t afford to feed her and pay the regular vet fees as she had diabetes, not with Mum claiming half the value of the house and the car and everything else she could think of. But instead of taking her in Liz paid for Betsy’s feed and vet bills until Dad could manage again. I’ve been coming to the kennels every day since, at first just to help out to try and repay her for letting me keep my darling girl. I’d had Betsy since I was five, you see, and the thought of losing her had torn me apart. Liz knew that and saved me from going through another loss in my life. Gradually I got more and more involved, though, and when I left school I started working here full time. We operate on a shoestring but manage to muddle along somehow. When things start looking dicey Liz always manages to come up with an idea, like the car boot sale today.” She looked up at him. “I’m so glad you came to help today.”

“So am I,” was Adam’s heartfelt agreement. “All these years living so close and yet not meeting. Something else to thank Deefor for.”

Their chat turned to Deefor, Schez’s dog Betsy, recently buried in the paddock after fifteen very happy years of life, Adam’s dog, Simba, and the dog training classes. They hardly noticed the passing scenery and arrived at Schez’s flat without any sensation of how they got there. Her flat was above a second hand furniture shop on the outskirts of Chetmere.

“It’s not much,” she apologised, “but I get it cheap as I keep an eye on the place for them and do some cleaning – I like furniture to look well polished and cared for.”

They went up the private stairs partitioned off the side of the building and Adam followed her into the kitchen where they stacked the empty cake tins on the bench before going into the lounge. A large window looked over the cluttered back yard of the shop, but beyond were fields and distant woods. Schez had decorated it in ochre and cream and the soft furnishings were all in warm earth colours. Underneath the window there was an old drop leaf table and two chairs, with the deep mellow glow of decades of careful polishing. Two ancient but comfortable looking armchairs with a coffee table between them effectively completed the furnishings. Schez’s tastes were apparent from the stacked bookshelves and the surprisingly good quality stereo and huge collection of CDs. Adam looked forward to checking out the titles later. They would tell him quite a lot about her, he was sure.

They found the warm sunshine on the walk to the flat had nearly dried their clothes. Nonetheless Schez insisted that Adam strip off in the bathroom while she changed in her bedroom. “All the seams are still wet,” she pointed out, and Adam had to agree they were uncomfortable.

“I don’t have anything anywhere near your size,” she assessed, enjoying the sight of his tall, lean stature. “You’ll have to wear my bathrobe until your clothes are dry. It’s hanging on the bathroom door,” she told him and firmly closed her bedroom door.

Adam went into the bathroom and stripped off as ordered. He laughed out loud at the sight of his reflection in the mirror when he put on the kimono he found on a hook on the door.

“Don’t be shy,” Schez called to him. “Let me have a laugh too.”

He slowly opened the door and they both creased up.

“This really isn’t my style,” he complained. “But I’m glad you’re not set up for male visitors – I’d be awfully jealous. It’s bad enough my imagination running away wondering who the second of each of the chairs is for.”

“My father, stupid,” she slapped at him playfully.

“Your father’s stupid?” he asked with mock innocence.

“No! Now give me your clothes to dry before I change my mind. And be careful of that kimono,” she warned as he awkwardly tried to tug it further round his frame. “That was my grandmother’s and it’s real silk. She got it on a trip to Japan when she was still a teenager.”

“Yet you use it every day?” Adam queried, surprised.

Schez stroked it lovingly. “It’s far too beautiful to be hidden away,” she said, unconsciously echoing his earlier words to her. “Just look at how the colours are like a gentle dawn over water. Do you see? From the top here, where we have the soft pinks and light blues, like the high clouds catching the first returning rays of a new day, then it shades down to the deepest, richest blue at the bottom, the deep water that is still in night-time.”

Her hand had descending down the length of his torso as her fingers followed the changing hues. He caught her wrist.

“Please,” he groaned, “stop there or I might not be able to keep my promise to you.”

“Oh!” she gasped, suddenly realising how close her hand had come to dangerous territory. “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I just love to touch beautiful things.”

“As do I,” Adam said softly, cupping her cheek in his hand. Schez turned into it and kissed his palm.

“Go and sit down,” she ordered him. “I’ll get your clothes dry before we get carried away.”

Before she went to the kitchen she used the remote to turn on the stereo. The gentle strains of The Lark Ascending filled the room. Soon the tumble dryer was churning and she closed the kitchen door against the noise. She handed him a glass of white wine and sat in the other chair.

“We’re not ‘on duty’ now so can enjoy this bottle Maggie provided for today – I hid it away in the cooler bag.” She grinned mischievously. “I did pay for it though,” she added, suddenly anxious in case he formed the wrong impression. “It’s not often I indulge but today, with the hot sun, I just couldn’t resist the thought of a cold white wine to relax with afterwards. What I didn’t expect was having someone to share it with,” she added shyly, her lips curving in delight.

Adam started to speak but Schez stopped him. “Before we go any further,” she insisted, “I want to tell you about myself, about what happened a few years ago.”

“I certainly want to know all about you, Schez,” Adam told her.

“Please,” she begged him, “don’t say another thing until I’ve finished or I may lose courage. You are the most amazing man I’ve ever met and the only man I’ve been able to talk openly with for years. I know we’ve only just met, but with you I feel I can be the person I was before what I’m about to tell you of ever happened. However, you may not want to know me at all once I have told you.”

Tears welled in her eyes again and Adam made to go to her, but she held up a hand, forbidding it. “Please, Adam. Don’t say anything and don’t touch me. Just let me speak and then you can decide what happens next.”

She took a few deep, shuddering breaths and looked out of the window. She couldn’t bear to watch his reactions while she spoke, but she had to get this out in the open. The power of the past must not be allowed to poison her future, if, indeed, Adam decided there still was a future for them. She took a deep swallow of wine and started her tale of the events that had changed her life so dramatically.

“When I was seventeen, nearly eighteen, I met someone who I thought was the epitome of everything a girl could want. Callum was handsome, intelligent, dressed impeccably, drove a very smart, sporty car. He could charm anyone and everyone. And for some inexplicable reason he fell in love with me, or so I thought. I was absolutely besotted. Dad wasn’t too sure about him, especially with him being twelve years older than me, but he seemed quite happy about it when we got engaged. His intentions were obviously ‘honourable’ as the phrase has it, even though it was all progressing faster than he would have liked. My girlfriends were so envious of me! They all thought I’d made the catch of the century, and all insisted they were going to be my bridesmaids in case his relatives and friends turned out to be in the same league.

“I was starting to think that it would only be at the wedding itself that I would get to meet his family for the first time, never mind my Dad meeting them, as no matter how many times I suggested it he always had a reason not to. The most common was that he’d had too much time on the road that week, being a Sales Director for the whole of the South East, and just couldn’t face another journey into London. Our time together was precious and he wanted me all to himself. He always had an answer for everything, but he was so charming and witty his excuses always seemed valid. Plus I didn’t trust my own instincts. I was only seventeen and deeply in love. Of course he knew best.

“But then Dad got a visit from his wife. I was out with Callum at the time.”

“His wife? Oh, my poor darling!” Adam burst out.

“Yes, I was the latest in a long line of young girls he’d duped. His wife’s friend had tipped her off when the banns went up. It gets worse, though.” Schez blushed scarlet at the memory of what she was about to relate. “I am so ashamed of what happened next,” she half sobbed. She drained her wine glass to give Dutch courage.