Chapter 13
Would it have altered the course of history if she’d told Alison how hurt she had really felt that night? Or if she had told their mother about Alison’s drunken skinny-dipping instead of keeping quiet? Would Alison have thought more about the consequences of her actions if she’d been punished?
When they’d argued about it afterwards, Alison had finally confessed she’d drunk too much because she felt left out.
‘You were off laughing and chatting with your mates – and getting chatted up by that gorgeous bloke – and I was just sitting on my own, bored.’
SJ didn’t remember it quite like that but she’d given her sister the benefit of the doubt.
Even so, the memory of Jed and ‘what might have been’ was a raw spot on her psyche for several weeks.
For a while she hoped he might contact her – they hadn’t exchanged numbers, but they had mutual friends.
Then she saw him in town with a really pretty girl on his arm.
She’d pretended not to notice them and had walked swiftly in the opposite direction.
And slowly the bittersweet regret had faded away.
Eighteen months later, at Kingston uni, London, where she’d been doing her English degree, she had met Jacob Anderson.
She’d been sitting at a table in the corner of the canteen, immersed in a copy of Hello, and had barely glanced up when he approached and said softly, ‘Is it okay if I sit with you?’
‘Sure.’
‘I’m not a student,’ he added, and now she did look up, a little irritated at this further interruption. Couldn’t he see she was busy?
Her first impression was that he was quite ordinary looking. Brown hair, brown eyes, and not terribly good skin.
‘I’m working undercover for the Drug Squad. You won’t give me away, will you?’
His face was deadly serious and she frowned – she supposed it could have been true.
There was always a drugs problem in universities – well, there was according to the papers.
She hadn’t noticed anyone doing anything untoward, apart from smoking the odd joint, which hardly counted.
All students smoked dope. She did it herself at parties and had the odd dab of speed if she wanted to stay up all night.
‘See that guy over there – the one with the John Lennon glasses and the moustache? Don’t make it obvious you’re looking,’ he warned.
‘I don’t want him to know we’re on to him.
That piece of low life is the main supplier of Ket to this campus.
You wouldn’t believe how many innocent lives he’s destroyed. ’
As far as SJ could tell, the bloke he’d indicated was Jack Watson, editor of the uni magazine and reputed to be in line for a high-flying career in his father’s Fleet Street paper.
‘Pull the other one, it’s got bells on,’ she muttered. ‘Everyone knows he wouldn’t touch drugs with a barge pole.’ Hmm, rather a surplus of clichés for someone studying English, but she’d been too taken aback to think of anything clever.
‘Very good cover, I’ll grant you.’ Jacob looked deep into her eyes in a way that was both off-putting and unnervingly sexy. ‘Do me a favour and walk out of here with me. Just act natural, like we’re talking about an assignment or something. I’d really, really appreciate it.’
‘Do me a favour and bugger off,’ SJ said, sure now she was being wound up and that a group of her friends were skulking nearby to see what she would do next. ‘I’m busy.’ She indicated the magazine. ‘Or hadn’t you noticed?’
‘Please. I can’t tell you how important this is.
We’re at such a delicate stage in operations.
I’ve just taken several pictures of the suspect and I have to get them back to my boss.
’ He revealed a tiny camera in the palm of his hand and SJ looked at it thoughtfully.
She’d never seen one that small. In fact, she’d never seen anything like it.
It was beautifully made, a little masterpiece of engineering.
As she hesitated, Jacob went on softly. ‘If he realises what I’m doing – if he gets the merest hint – I’m dead. So are a lot of other people. All those innocent lives – wasted. You wouldn’t want it on your conscience, believe me.’
That was true. Despite herself, she was starting to get sucked in. And so what if she was being wound up? She wasn’t actually busy at all. She put the magazine down on the table and gave him her full attention.
He smiled. Then he reached across and drew the side of his index finger across her jaw line – very soft, very sure of himself – all the while holding her gaze with his intense brown eyes.
And to SJ’s amazement she found the whole of her body was awakening to his touch.
Never in her life had anyone had such a devastating effect on her.
It was for that reason, and not because she really believed his story, that she got up and the two of them walked side by side out of the canteen.
Just outside the door, Jacob flattened himself against the wall, arms and legs spread-eagled.
‘Oh, shit, there’s another one. Don’t move. Over by that bush – did you see him?’
SJ had seen something by the bush, although she wasn’t sure what: a shadow – maybe a dog or cat, or something bigger, skulking on all fours. A quiver of adrenaline ran down her spine and suddenly she was caught up in the game.
‘We’ll have to go another way. Come on.’ He grabbed her hand and she ran with him down the cinder track that bordered the tennis courts and led towards the nearest accommodation.
This was more interesting than reading Hello anyway, even if it was only because he was still holding her hand.
She half-expected to hear the sound of running footsteps behind them.
But all was still. And when Jacob finally agreed that it should be safe to walk now, they’d obviously shaken them off – she slowed to a breathless halt with him.
He let go of her hand. ‘Thanks for that. You’ve saved my life. You’re Sarah-Jane, aren’t you?’
She nodded, her heart returning to something like normal. ‘You’re not really from the Drug Squad, are you?’
‘No – good craic though, wasn’t it?’ His eyes were full of laughter and then he snorted with mirth and doubled over. SJ was torn between stomping off and joining in. In the end she joined in. It was impossible not to. He had one of the most infectious laughs in the universe.
Soon they were rolling around on the grass verge not far from the main entrance, completely out of control.
Every time one of them stopped laughing, the other started it off again.
Not because it had even been that funny – in the end they were laughing because it just felt so damn good to laugh. Finally SJ begged him to stop.
‘I think I’ve ruptured something,’ she gasped, rolling onto her side before propping her head on her elbow and glancing at him through her lashes. ‘My stomach hurts.’
He mirrored her movements so they were facing each other, lying side by side on the grass.
SJ was vaguely aware of the distant rumble of traffic, and the closer sound of birdsong, and the smell of fish and chip wrappers wafting from a nearby bin.
But most of all she was aware of the frantic beating of her heart, which for some reason was out of control again.
He looked different from this angle. His eyes had little golden flecks in their depths and she could smell the indefinable scent of male skin. He looked very, very attractive.
SJ had never believed in love at first sight, particularly not when the man in question had just spent a good twenty minutes lying through his teeth.
But it had been funny. Actually, it had been bloody funny.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed so uncontrollably and for so long, but she didn’t feel like laughing any more.
She was feeling something quite different now.
Every nerve ending she had tingled in response to the look in his eyes.
For a moment she thought he was going to kiss her, but then he shifted position, moving onto his knees until he was kneeling beside her, the worn fabric of his jeans making indents in the summer grass.
‘A hurt stomach – huh? We can’t have that. I’m going to have to examine you, SJ. You can trust me, I’m a doctor.’
He grinned. His doctor voice was just as convincing as his undercover Drug Squad voice – perfectly modulated with just the right amount of concern and seriousness. ‘Now, perhaps if you could just lift your T-shirt up a tad for me, Miss…?’
‘Carter,’ she supplied.
‘Thank you. Now, Miss Carter. Up with the T-shirt – no need to take it right off – then perhaps you can tell me exactly where it hurts?’
Mesmerised, she rolled onto her back, lifted her T-shirt and sucked in her stomach in case he thought she was fat.
His fingers skimmed the tiny strip of belly she’d exposed and she could hardly breathe. This is madness, you barely know him, squealed the voice of reason in her head.
Who cares? contradicted another voice, a much louder, more authoritative one.
Everywhere he touched he sparked off quivers of lust. If he could do this while touching her stomach, she didn’t dare imagine what he might do given full rein over a proper erogenous zone.
SJ closed her eyes in ecstasy. She could feel the sun on her face and the merest touch of breeze in her hair.
What a pity they weren’t in a meadow instead of a public place.
On second thoughts, what a good job they weren’t in a meadow.
Reality crashed in, and she opened her eyes and saw he was looking down at her through half-closed lids.
‘Would kissing it better help, do you reckon?’
‘Possibly,’ SJ breathed.
She wasn’t at all surprised when he didn’t kiss her abdomen, but her mouth.
Neither was she surprised when the kiss took her briefly off the planet and into orbit.
Later she discovered he could give her orgasms just by kissing her.
No man before or since had managed to do that. No man had ever come close.
It had been the start of SJ’s immense rollercoaster of a love affair with Jacob which had led to their marriage, then divorce and had left her heart in tatters and her family splintered.