Pitch Imperfect (24 page)

“Rob knows what happened?”

“Aye.”

“Did he say anything?”

“About what?”

Obtuse, or what? “The fire...or me.”

If Rob still loved her he would have asked Ben about her, wouldn’t he? He would be desperate for news, wanting every detail from his brother. Her conscience twanged discordantly. She should want to spare him any worry, yet she found that she wanted Rob’s heart to pound at the thought of losing her. She wanted him to be desperate to talk to her, to hear his deep voice infused with concern. He would tell her he’d take the next flight to Scotland, and then she would swallow her discomfort, brush off her near-death experience and insist he stay in Boston.

What a perverse woman she was.

“He asked if the conservatory was damaged.”

And she was a masochist.

Ben turned around at the door. “I’m glad you’re okay. Whoever started the fire has a lot to answer for.”

So do I, Anjuli thought, staring at her screensaver morosely. And so did the new visitor hovering at her doorway. Well, Mac could either come in and say her piece or leave. The latter, hopefully. How could her nice-as-pie friend have turned into such a bitch? No matter all the times she had defended Mac to Ash and others, it still hurt that Mac blamed her for Craig’s behaviour.

“Come in, Mac, I know you’re there.”

Mac walked in stiffly. She looked wan, face drawn and skin sallow. She obviously wasn’t taking advantage of the freak heat wave that had descended upon the lower half of Scotland. Mac opened her mouth and Anjuli braced herself to hear her gloat about the fire or spew more abuse.

“I set fire to your house.”

Anjuli’s jaw dropped so fast she heard the bones crack. “Why?” she cried.

Mac bowed her head. “I was angry. No, I was infuriated at you for keeping the truth from me. I knew you would never come on to Craig, but I wanted to believe Sarah’s article. I didn’t want to accept that he didn’t love me anymore. The night of the fire Craig phoned and we fought. He said I was boring, unlike you and Ash, or the other women he’d slept with.”

“I never—”

Mac held up her hand. “I know you didn’t, but I was furious anyway, and I got drunk. I knew where you kept the spare key to Castle Manor so I drove over and found it.”

Anjuli stared at Mac, struggling to come to terms with her confession, uneasy at the idea of anyone—never mind her best friend—opening the door as she slept.

“I took a look around, wanting to destroy something of yours the way I thought you and Ash had destroyed my marriage. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but when I saw the wood in the fireplace, it was easy.”

Bloody hell
. “You could have killed me!”

“I didn’t know you were home—I swear! Someone said you stay at Ash’s flat a lot and in my drunken state I assumed that you were there when I didn’t see her car.”

“But why, Mac?” Anjuli cried. “Why try to burn down Castle Manor?”

She swallowed, and for a moment didn’t speak. “I wanted to hurt you like I was hurt, to take something important from you like Craig was taken from me. I didn’t want to kill you, never that. I was halfway back home when what I had done hit me hard. My head cleared and I was horrified.”

Anjuli gasped. “It was
you
who called the emergency services, wasn’t it?”

“But by then it was too late.”

Anjuli stared at Mac as if seeing her for the first time. After losing Chloe, she knew better than most how grief and loss could affect your heart and brain, didn’t she? She’d lost touch with reality and done some pretty bizarre and stupid things, but she hadn’t turned into a raging psycho. Mac hadn’t just become unrecognisable overnight, she’d become a genuine candidate for sectioning.

Emotions travelled across Anjuli like the images on her laptop, slowly gaining focus and then merging into the next. Shock, anger, disgust and, finally, empathy. Surprising, perhaps, given the circumstances, but she couldn’t find it in her heart to hate the woman who had almost killed her.

Memories of a teenaged Mac, laughing as they galloped over the moors, of her sweet face welcoming her back to Heaverlock, forgiving her for hurting Rob competed with the vicious woman she’d become and won hands down.

She couldn’t hate Mac any more than she could hate Rob. Warily, she scrutinised her old friend. She looked lost and tormented, a state she understood only too well.

Mac had gone to stand at the window and was gazing outside, her shoulders slumped. “You don’t know what it’s like to lose the person you love, to suddenly find yourself abandoned with no warning. Alone.”

How I wish that were true
.

“I’ve been a monster to you,” Mac said. “So weighed down by hatred it’s like my body is saturated in poison. What I did at the Common Riding Ball was inexcusably cruel. If it’s any consolation, I hated myself afterwards.”

“But you set fire to my house anyway?”

Mac bowed her head in shame. “Alcohol and bitterness clouded my judgement. I’ve never driven drunk in my life, but I didn’t care about anybody’s safety, least of all my own.”

“Lucky you didn’t kill anyone,” Anjuli couldn’t resist saying.

“All I wanted was to lash out, and I’m so sorry for what I did. I know you’ll never forgive me, and I hope that one day you won’t hate me.”

Anjuli’s throat hurt with the effort not to cry. “I don’t hate you, Mac.”

“But I’ve been so awful to you! I don’t even know who I am anymore, or how the hell to cope day after day. How could I turn into an arsonist over Craig?”

A sombre sigh, and Anjuli looked at Mac and shook her head sadly. “Sometimes we do stupid, terrible things when we’re in pain. I think we never really know who we are until we pass that threshold.”

“I’m going to turn myself in.”

Anjuli jerked up straight. “No!”

Ouch
,
that hurt
. But what hurt more was the thought of Mac going to jail. What would happen to her children if she confessed? And her teaching career? Why should Mac’s life be ruined because of one moment of madness? Granted, she had caused a lot of damage during her raging-bitch hate campaign, but she’d harmed herself most of all. Anjuli’s heart clenched at the thought of Rob’s reaction if he knew what his sister had done. He would be devastated, and she’d be damned to smoky hell if she let that happen.

Mac’s face was full of determination and self-loathing. “I have to pay the price for what I did. I’m guilty and I should be punished. Even then I’ll never be able to make up for burning the manor.”

Guilt. Punishment. Atonement. It could have been
her
standing at the window, insisting on suffering for her mistakes.

“Punishment is overrated.”

“It’s what I deserve.”

Anjuli frowned. “The way I see it you owe me, big time, so I forbid you to turn yourself in. I don’t want Rob and Ben or your children to suffer because of the fire. To make restitution you can pay for redecorating and new furniture, or the repairs if the insurance won’t pay when I tell them it was my fault.”

Astonishment and then relief flashed across Mac’s face, and tears flowed from her eyes. “I don’t understand,” she cried. “Why don’t you want me to own up?”

“Because I forgive you,” Anjuli said gently. “And I’d like to put it behind us. I won’t say a word and you won’t volunteer the information. Ever.”

“You don’t want justice?”

“What I want is for you to stop waging cold war with Ash and blaming me for what she did with Craig,” Anjuli said, a hint of asperity in her voice. “When I found out I felt terrible. That’s why I stopped calling, not because I condoned what had happened. I agree Ash did the wrong thing, but it’s Craig you should be angry at.
He’s
the one who vowed to be faithful to you, not Ash, and he’s the one who deceived you.”

Mac fumbled in her purse, took out her cheque book and tore out a cheque. “It’s signed, all you have to do is fill in the amount.”

Anjuli took the cheque. “Then consider your debt paid.”

Mac stared at the sky, seemingly lost in thought, and Anjuli gazed around the room. Had Rob stayed in a room like this during his cancer treatments? Had he stared at flowery curtains while he wondered how much longer he had to live, and felt weak and dispirited? How had he had the strength to endure? She’d been in the hospital for only two days and she felt as low as a receding tide.

“Rob told me about his cancer,” Anjuli said.

“I used to bring him here,” Mac replied softly. “He never complained, not even during the worst of it. Ben and I worried ourselves into sleeplessness—and him, tiring himself out working long hours. He was building his house in Halton as well as other projects, and one day I found him putting the slates on the roof in the middle of a storm, determined not to let his illness stop him. Can you believe it?”

The two women shared a smile.

“I won’t stand in your way if you truly love him,” Mac said, her eyes solemn. “But if you don’t, please let him find somebody who will. So far you’ve excelled at pushing him away. Don’t pull him back only to break his heart again.”

Anjuli looked into clear grey eyes that made her heart clench. “I do love him, Mac.”

“Then show him.”

Easier said than done if he was moving to America.

“Ash is coming to pick me up,” Anjuli said delicately.

Mac’s face hardened. “I won’t lie to you, I’ll never forgive her, but I hope you and I can somehow repair our friendship.”

“One day at a time works for me.”

Mac straightened her shoulders. “Thank you, Anjuli. You won’t regret what you’ve done for me, I promise.”

* * *

Rob’s boots crushed the sun-parched grass as he and Ben hiked to the top of the Redes Moor. From this distance Heaverlock Castle looked larger than it was up close, the three surviving turrets like giant sentinels, guarding against modern invaders. Rob flicked his gaze to the stone bridge, digging his heels in when he recognised the jeep driving across it.

As tiny as an ant, Damien got out of the car and Anjuli came out of the house. Their bodies got closer, separated and they went inside. Ben didn’t comment, but even if he had Rob wouldn’t have heard. The river was far below but a roaring filled his ears, washing him in anger.

Was Damien kissing Anjuli more deeply now that they were indoors? “Massaging” or undressing her, hoping to finish what he’d started the day he’d walked in on them? Rob had needed distance from Anjuli, time to think about his future before they spoke face to face. He was ready, inasmuch as he ever would be, but talking to her about his offer to buy the manor could wait. Her stilted emails said he could come round anytime, but he’d be damned if he walked in on her and Damien.

Hiking up to Jamie’s favourite spot with Ben was supposed to have taken his mind off Anjuli. An opportunity to discuss selling his house to Ben, buying Castle Manor and to talk about Mac’s state of mind. She was still bitter about Craig, but she had finally accepted the bastard was gone—and good riddance, as far as he and Ben were concerned. In time Mac would get over him and find somebody else, somebody worthy of her. If only he could do the same.

“Let’s go.”

Ben clamped his hand on Rob’s shoulder. “Get down there and inspect the house like you wanted. Anjuli is home and I, for one, could use a cold drink.”

Rob wiped his forehead. High pressure over the Iberian Peninsula had crept over the English Channel and into the British Isles, and the lower half of Scotland was baking in Mediterranean temperatures. Ben’s hair glistened with sweat and Rob’s was plastered to his skull. It was early evening but the sun still blazed and his skin felt like the casing around a furnace. Or maybe it was anger that was burning his skin, inflamed by the thought of Anjuli in Damien’s arms, kissing him back, wrapping her arms around his thighs as they made love.

When Ben had told him about the fire he’d almost flown back to Scotland. Almost. Anjuli was fine, Ben had assured him. A little the worse for wear, but she was being released from hospital after only a few days. Rob had looked at flights anyway and waited for her phone call. If Anjuli cared about him at all, if she understood that his love for her was as solid as the earth under his feet, she would ask him to come back. She would tell him she missed him. Needed him.

Loved him.

Rob stared at the fire-damaged manor. Black, flame-shaped stains ran from the front bay windows to the master bedroom upstairs. His heart skipped a few beats as he thought of Anjuli trapped, burning to death in her bedroom. How frightened she must have been to wake up on top of an inferno.

“It’s no’ as bad as it looks,” Ben said. “The fire brigade were quick off the mark.”

Ben didn’t buy Anjuli’s sudden admission of negligence, but the rest of the police force did and had dropped the investigation. Negligence on her part would be an issue of contention for her insurance company payout, but according to Ben she hadn’t seemed very worried about it when he’d questioned her. Strange, in light of her financial problems. Yet she insisted she’d forgotten she had lit a fire, left it unattended. At two o’clock in the morning. In the middle of a heat wave.

Ben nodded his chin towards the house. “Let’s go down and take a look.”

“I’ve seen enough.”

Ben socked him lightly on the shoulder. “Either shit or get off the toilet, little bro’. I can’t take your foul moods and broodiness anymore. That’s
my
remit, remember? Damien’s just a friend according to Mac.”

“A friend she had dinner with the night of the fire.”

“He left straight after like Anjuli said he did. It wasn’t a slumber party. I checked it out.”

“I’m no’ going down there, no’ when I can’t promise to leave Golden Boy with his balls. Then you’d have to arrest me.”

Ben studied Rob’s profile, then sighed. “She asked for you at the hospital, wanting to know if you still love her.”

“She said that?”

“She didn’t need to.”

Rob stared at Castle Manor. “And what did you say?”

“I didn’t, and I figure you could answer her yourself. Rushing home from America a week early seems indication enough in my book. Why haven’t you told her you’re back?”