The One Man to Heal Her Read online

  ‘And me, I never doubted you,’ Will assured her, before moving on.

  ‘So Caitlin has to be a starting point. She believed you so if we find her, maybe she’d be willing to talk to us about what happened after you left town—or after the court case. She might even know who would have been most upset.’

  ‘Mrs Spencer, I would say to that,’ Alex offered, ‘but I can’t see her even thinking a swear word, let alone spray-painting it on someone’s house. She was very godly and so shadowy she was barely there. And anyway, the Spencers left town.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  Alex had to think, then it came back to her.

  ‘Would you believe one of the nurses at the hospital? Apparently, there were more people than I realised who thought I’d told the truth, and her family was one of them.’

  ‘So, we’ll talk to her as well. Can you remember her name?’

  Alex shook her head.

  ‘I should be able to, but it’s gone. Anyway, she’s in the CCU so I’ll be able to find her. Maybe Robyn.’

  ‘Robyn Alcorn, she’s a wonderful person—I’m sure she’d be happy to talk to us. What time is it?’

  Alex glanced at her watch, surprised to find it was mid-afternoon.

  ‘You’re not going looking for her now, are you?’ she asked.

  ‘The sooner the better,’ Will declared. ‘Although I want you to pack up some clothes. You can stay with me—well, in Mum’s flat—until it’s sorted.’

  Alex shook her head.

  ‘I’m sorry, Will, but I won’t do that. Everything is moving just too fast. I need some time to come to terms not just with the stalking but with…’

  She balked, and Will squeezed her fingers and smiled the smile that made her heart ache.

  ‘With you and me?’

  ‘Especially with you and me, because it isn’t just you and me, is it? It’s you and Charlotte as well, and if I mess this up, and I could, then I wouldn’t want her getting—I don’t know, perhaps confused about the situation.’

  The words hit Will like a slap across the head with a wet fish! What on earth was he thinking—where was his brain?—that he’d completely left Charlotte out of the equation when he’d suggested Alex move in with his mother?

  Then there was the fact that maybe Alex didn’t want a stepdaughter and her talk of messing things up was a way of telling him that…

  She reached out and took his hand.

  ‘It can’t possibly be as bad as whatever you’re thinking,’ she said gently. ‘All I’m saying is that this is very new and we don’t want to rush things.’

  He took a deep breath to allay the panic that had been fluttering in his head and in his heart—and obviously on his face!

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘But as Mum and Charlotte are away until Tuesday, I’ll stay tonight and first thing tomorrow we get a security firm here and have alarms installed—alarms and sensor lights and whatever else the experts recommend.’

  He stood up and pulled her to him, holding her loosely in the cradle of his arms.

  ‘I can understand your need to be here—to let the house become your home again—but I need you to be safe.’

  * * *

  A different warmth flooded Alex now and she kissed this man who’d brought such unexpected pleasure into her life. Not that his next suggestion was all pleasure.

  ‘We have to do it, Alex,’ he said gently, when she protested about sitting down to write a list of all her parents’ friends, her friends, and even neighbours they’d had in the past.

  ‘It’s been twenty years,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Which only makes it worse,’ he said, with a gravity she’d not heard before. ‘Someone who has nurtured such hatred for twenty years is not entirely sane.’

  Alex shivered at the thought, but found a pad and pen and sat down, putting Caitlin at the top of the list.

  ‘I’ll get my tablet from the car,’ Will suggested. ‘We can check if any of the people you remember are still at their old addresses and get phone numbers.’

  ‘Wouldn’t a phone book be just as easy?’ Alex smiled as she said it, and smiled even more widely when he admitted it probably would work well.

  The Kerrs were listed at their old address, which immediately presented a new dilemma.

  ‘Do I ring and ask for a number for Caitlin?’ Alex said, dread at the thought gripping at her stomach.

  ‘Better I do it. Let’s think of a reasonable excuse.’

  But in the end Will didn’t have to use any excuse.

  ‘We no longer speak her name in this house,’ the man who answered the phone said, and hung up.

  ‘Well, that went well!’ Will said. ‘Perhaps we stick to lists and then we track down Robyn and get her to tell us what she can about the people on it.’

  Alex tried, but after jotting down some names of her parents’ friends then girls she’d been close to at school, she pushed the pad away.

  ‘You know,’ she muttered, ‘writing out a list of people who might hate you is not the most cheerful thing to be doing on a Sunday afternoon. Let’s take the bird to the police station then you can show me where you live while you get a few things for the night.’

  She must have sounded even more depressed than she felt for he agreed immediately, once again hauling her out of her chair and holding her in his arms.

  Which, inevitably perhaps, led to other things, and it was much later that she locked a loudly protesting Buddy in his cage and they left the house.

  First stop the hospital, to check on their joint patient, only semi-conscious as yet, but the monitors showed he was doing well.

  * * *

  ‘This wasn’t where you used to live,’ she said, when Will pulled up in front of a modern-looking house that was tucked against the cliff and looked out over the ocean.

  ‘No, Mum moved after Elise and I were married,’ he explained. ‘That’s what made this so convenient. I don’t know if you remember the old house, but it would have been impossible to convert it to two flats. Whereas here we not only had the land, but the beach is right there for Charlotte.’

  Charlotte!

  Definitely the pivotal point in Will’s life!

  And suddenly something about entering his flat—seeing toys and other evidence of Charlotte—held Alex back.

  Failure at relationships with men was one thing, but if she failed in a relationship with a child?

  ‘No, I’ll wait in the car. The view is lovely.’

  Extremely weak, but he didn’t argue so maybe he’d realised it was too early to get too involved.

  ‘I’ll just grab some clean clothes and a toothbrush,’ he said, although he did kiss her swiftly on the cheek before he got out of the car.

  * * *

  She was asleep when Will returned, and he stood and looked at the miracle that had come into his life—the miracle that was Alex.

  He didn’t want to think too far into the future, something about this relationship was too fragile for that, but just seeing her there, relaxed in sleep, filled him with inexplicable joy.

  Could they make this work?

  Could he make it work?

  He’d loved Elise deeply and completely, to the extent that her death had nearly destroyed him. It had been only the little scrap of humanity that was Charlotte that had kept him going—her and surfing, because out there on the ocean he could cry…

  But what he felt for Alex was different—it had an element of physical passion he’d never known before.

  Could such passion last?

  And if it didn’t, wasn’t Alex right about not wanting Charlotte hurt in the fallout?

  And what of hurting Alex?

  If the relationship failed, she’d blame herself!

  He looked through the window at the beautiful woman sleeping in his car, doubts and memories jumbling in his head.

  The one thing he did know was that Alex had been hurt enough in the past and, whatever the future held, there was no way he could h
urt her again.

  Should he walk away now?

  He shook his head as he went to get behind the wheel.

  No way could he walk away now—not when she was still under threat.

  Not when he loved her?

  He frowned at the random question thrown up by his brain.

  Love?

  So quickly?

  No way!

  His love for Elise had grown like a seedling, spindly and unsure at first but strengthening over time as they’d grown to know each other.

  This was different—so different…

  Enough!

  He stood by the car door to phone the hospital, hoping to track down Robyn Alcorn and enlist her help in finding out who might want to harm Alex.

  * * *

  Alex opened her eyes and gazed around her. She was in a car with the sea beyond the windows.

  Outside Will’s house.

  She could hear his voice—muffled, outside the car—talking on the phone?

  She sat up, suddenly very awake and smiling at her memories of the day.

  ‘Robyn’s on days off,’ Will announced, opening the car door and slinging an overnight bag into the back seat. ‘She’ll be on duty on Wednesday, so we’ll stick to making the list and have it ready when we talk to her then.’

  Alex wanted to protest—that making the list was too hard, too hurtful—but she knew he was right.

  ‘Are you always this masterful?’ she asked, smiling at him as he reminded her to fasten her seat belt.

  ‘Always,’ he said firmly, leaning across to give her a kiss. ‘Police station next, then home to your place. Do you need to do any shopping on the way?’

  Not only masterful but domesticated.

  Domesticated by his mother or Elise?

  The reality of his first wife struck her suddenly, and she wondered how much of a factor a dead wife could be in a relationship. She’d been too caught up in thinking about the effect of the relationship on a child—

  If there was a relationship!

  Maybe it was all too complicated, right from the beginning, and now was the time to back away.

  The thoughts were only tiny darts pricking at her senses, but they were still there.

  Except when she looked at Will, saw the little smile hovering on his lips, the gleam in his eyes when he glanced towards her…

  No, she had to find out what lay ahead—be it good or bad.

  She had to give her all to this relationship, if only to prove that she could make one work!

  She reached out and rested her hand on Will’s thigh, and smiled back when he turned to smile at her.

  CHAPTER NINE

  WAKING IN THE morning with a man in her bed felt strange to Alex, strange but wonderful. But Will was obviously a morning person—no doubt because of Charlotte—soon up and about, making cups of tea, bringing them, with the phone, back to bed with him.

  A little lost in the newness of it all—the unfamiliarity—Alex looked out at the river, sipping her tea, doubts about the rightness of the situation still niggling at her. The sex was new and wonderful, but was that casting a rosy glow over everything else?

  Making her think love?

  Making her think it could make a difference in a relationship—maybe make it work?

  ‘Ha, just what we want—a twenty-four seven security service. I’ll phone them now.’

  Will’s small cry of triumph made her forget her doubts and concentrate on the present.

  His phone was by his wallet—the wallet from which he’d extracted a couple of condoms—and within seconds he was arranging for someone to be at the house as soon as possible.

  ‘So, you’ll have to get up and put some clothes on,’ he told Alex, smiling down at her. ‘Not that I don’t like you exactly the way you are.’

  The smile, his cheeriness should have reassured her, but a feeling that things had moved too fast still clung to the edges of her mind. He was out of the room before she could put it into words—although she probably couldn’t anyway. It was nothing more than a slight uneasiness…

  Thoroughly pleased with his efforts so far this morning, Will explored the refrigerator.

  ‘How about an omelette?’ he called up to Alex, needing to keep busy because he was still uneasy about the situation. Nothing he could put his finger on—Alex was wonderful, beautiful and sexy and great company, and he suspected he was already in love with her.

  He who hadn’t wanted love…

  But the suddenness, and Charlotte, and losing Elise the way he had, threw shadows on his happiness.

  ‘So keep busy,’ he told himself, shooing Buddy away from the eggs he was beating. ‘We’ll have breakfast then do the list, whether Alex wants to or not, and later maybe go out on the river again—go further up, explore…’

  Alex—even thinking her name brought a surge of desire.

  Maybe they wouldn’t go up the river later…

  She wandered into the kitchen, wrapped in a purple kimono, hair tousled and face slightly flushed.

  ‘Are you really this domesticated?’ she asked, as he grated cheese then chopped some tomatoes.

  ‘Well trained,’ he said. ‘Four years of bachelorhood, remember, and a child to feed. I had to learn to feed the pair of us, although I’ve always cooked. Elise would have fed us on lamb chops, mashed potato and peas every night of the week—cooking was never her thing.’

  His gut clenched as soon as the words were out. Was mentioning Elise a good or bad thing?

  But she’d existed—she was Charlotte’s birth mother—so surely if she came into the conversation naturally, some of the awkwardness he guessed Alex was feeling might dissipate.

  ‘Well, I’m glad you cook, for whatever reason,’ Alex told him, coming closer to kiss his cheek. ‘Because most Sunday mornings I just laze around and probably don’t eat at all until lunchtime. You’d have been starving by then.’

  She started the coffee-machine while he cooked the omelette, dividing it onto two plates, adding a little of the chilli sauce he’d found in the pantry.

  They ate on the deck, and the strain he’d felt earlier seemed to drift off in the soft spring air, Alex smiling as he fed Buddy a very small piece of his breakfast.

  ‘He’ll drive you mad now, begging at every meal,’ Alex teased, and a certainty that this was right for him—for both of them—banished the rest of his doubts.

  He took Alex’s hand in his.

  ‘I hope there will be many meals for him to drive me mad at,’ he said quietly, and knew she understood when colour rose in her cheeks and she squeezed his fingers in hers.

  ‘I hope so too,’ she whispered. ‘I really do!’

  And she was pretty sure she meant it.

  Loud knocking at the door finished the conversation.

  ‘Security man!’ Will said.

  Alex leapt to her feet, gathering up their plates and mugs.

  ‘I’ll have to put some clothes on. I didn’t think he’d be this quick!’

  She took the dirty dishes to the kitchen and dashed upstairs, leaving Will to open the door.

  Security, she discovered, wasn’t a simple matter of putting in an alarm. Once told of the problems she’d been having, the specialist insisted on CCTV cameras outside the house, one covering both street approaches and one at the side of the house where the power box was.

  ‘We can take that one away later,’ he said, ‘after the perpetrator has been caught. But it will be handy to have it there for now because most people believe if you turn off the power then the alarms won’t work so we would get a close-up of whoever it is who is pestering you. We’ll conceal them as best we can and do as much as we can today when a stalker is less likely to be around.’

  Bemused by all the technological marvels he was suggesting and his obvious knowledge of problem situations, Alex just nodded, going along with what he was suggesting because not taking notice of an expert would be stupid.

  ‘It’ll be costly,’ the man said, and she shook her h
ead.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ she told him at the same time as Will offered to pay. ‘Nonsense, it’s my house and my security, and as I’ll have to have a base in town for nights when I’m working late, it will be good to have the place secure.’

  With a promise that work would begin within an hour, and a substantial deposit, the man departed.

  ‘Back to the list,’ Will said, and something in his voice told her he meant it.

  But the list was impossible! The three couples she’d considered closest to her parents no longer had addresses in the phone book, neither could they be found on Will’s tablet—well, not with any certainty.

  ‘They all had children so I suppose if the children moved away the parents might have followed once grandchildren came along.’

  ‘We’ll put them on the list anyway,’ Will insisted. ‘Robyn might know something about them.’

  So Alex obediently wrote them down.

  ‘Now, schoolfriends other than Caitlin,’ he said, and Alex listed the names of classmates with whom she’d been close—and others she only vaguely remembered.

  ‘Other people at the church—the hierarchy who stood by Spencer at the time?’ Will persisted.

  Alex shook her head.

  ‘It’s all a blur, that time, Will. I don’t know if I’ve deliberately deleted it all from my memory or if I was just so stressed back then that nothing stuck.’

  ‘That’s okay. I’m sure the police can search out the files and see if there was anyone who stood out as particularly hurt by the business.’

  ‘Apart from poor Mrs Spencer,’ Alex muttered.

  Will pushed the list away, took her hand, and said, ‘How about that boat ride?’

  * * *

  As Alex opened the door to the boatshed beneath the house she saw the kayak.

  ‘Better still, let’s try the kayak. Can you paddle one?’

  Kayak!

  Tony Mitchell!

  Will felt a faint uneasiness in his stomach that he was pretty sure wasn’t the omelette.

  ‘I’ve been in one,’ he said carefully, hoping his uneasiness wasn’t jealousy.

  ‘Then show me how,’ Alex demanded, and although he’d have liked to say that surely she wouldn’t still be joining the kayak club, he knew that was nothing more than selfishness. Alex needed to build a life back in her home town—a life for herself, not just a life with him, and that was if the ‘life with him’ thing worked out.