Fiona Harper Read online

  He was glad he was here to protect Fern. All his latent caveman tendencies had woken up growling, ready to defend her from any danger. And that was good, because he needed to remember his promise. It was all about keeping Fern safe. How ironic then that he was one of the biggest threats to her happiness at the moment.

  She was such a strong woman underneath that fragile exterior. As he stared into the darkness and remembered their adventures over the last few days, he couldn’t help but feel warmth spreading in his chest. He was so proud of her. She’d been terrified at times, but she hadn’t let it stop her. The young, sweet girl he remembered had flowered into a feisty, clever, warm and resourceful woman and he’d bet more than five thousand pounds that she had no idea how wonderful she really was.

  He couldn’t take that generous heart and crush it. He wouldn’t.

  None of his relationships had survived more than a year—mostly because he was always away. Things tended to start off well but just petered out. No messy emotions. No ugly scenes. And, to be honest, up until now that had never really bothered him.

  He just didn’t have it in him to stay put in one place and commit. And that was why, when every instinct in his mind and body was screaming for him to make a go of it with Fern, he had to back off. She deserved more than six good months, another four of awkward e-mails and then intermittent texts and calls that would cease before a year was up.

  Fern deserved more. Fern deserved forever.

  Unfortunately, he was just not the guy to give it to her.

  Josh’s fleece was soft against her cheek and she could hear his heart beating. A piece of newspaper, yanked this way and that by the wind, rose into the air as it blew past them, then was snatched down the path by another gust.

  He shifted beneath her and she guessed he was reaching for his backpack.

  ‘Would it be okay if I had that last chocolate bar?’ he asked.

  Fern pressed her lips together. Just the thought of chocolate was making her mouth fill with saliva, but for another hour or two there was only one answer she could give him.

  ‘Yes.’

  Funny, at the start of the week she’d found herself in all sorts of difficult situations, grinding that word out between her teeth, wishing she could answer the opposite, but in the last few days she’d hardly noticed it. Yes now just slid from her lips. So, much as she hated to admit it, perhaps Lisette had been right. Perhaps she had needed shaking up.

  She heard foil rip and—oh, goodness—she could smell the chocolate. Her mouth watered so hard she had to lick her lips and swallow.

  ‘Okay,’ Josh said with a mouthful of chocolate, ‘I’m not convinced you don’t want any of this. Do you want half?’

  She grinned. ‘Oh, go on, then. Yes.’

  Her whole life this week had been governed by how people phrased their questions. If Josh had said, Are you sure you don’t want to go on this treasure hunt? instead of asking her, ‘What do you say?’ she’d have been tucked up in her nice warm bed, looking forward to the prospect of one of Lisette’s full English breakfasts in a few hours. Somehow she couldn’t summon up the energy to be disappointed about that.

  She took the slab of crumbly, slightly melted chocolate from him. It was heaven. She savoured every last molecule, even licking her fingers. Josh’s breathing went all funny. She sat up to look at him.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes…no…probably.’

  She laughed.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  She shook her head, tickled by the fact that she wasn’t the only one having problems with answers tonight, but unable to tell him why. He looked so gorgeous with his hair sticking up and a boyish frown wrinkling his features that she just had to kiss him. As she moved closer, her eyelids closed. The soft flesh of her lips met his—and then they were gone again.

  He shuffled backwards into the corner of the bench.

  ‘Josh? What’s wrong?’

  He stared back at her with a strange look on his face. ‘It’s just…I don’t think we should do this.’

  Sixteen-year-old Fern would have said ‘oh’ and backed off. Twenty-eight-year-old Fern needed answers more badly than she needed her dignity. ‘Why?’

  Josh pushed himself to his feet and brushed the blanket away. The evening air was cold on her legs, but it was nothing compared to the icy feeling that ran right through her as he took a few long strides to stand on the path and stare at the traffic rushing along Victoria Embankment and then at the river beyond. A crowd of people in formal dress ambled past, giving them a few curious looks—and a wide berth. She scrambled to stand and join him.

  ‘Why, Josh?’

  She knew he was going to move again even before the words had left her mouth and she laid a restraining hand on his arm. He avoided strong emotions, sticky situations. Even a hint of an argument had sent him scurrying for the top of the old apple tree when he was a boy.

  He’d probably rather be in a snake-infested pit than having this conversation right now. The gathering hurt in his eyes as he looked at her made her heart cramp. She knew what he had to say wasn’t going to be pretty—he’d have kissed her back otherwise—and it was going to kill him to hurt her, but they couldn’t leave things hanging for another twelve years. They both needed to work out what was going on between them so they could either act on it or put it behind them.

  ‘I care a great deal about you, Fern.’

  Oh, brother! She’d heard this speech in various guises before, from various men. Pretty soon he’d be saying, It’s not you; it’s me…

  He stuck his hands in his pockets. ‘I’m not a settle-down-and-get-serious kind of guy; you know that.’

  Tears prickled the backs of her eyes. She did know that. Only, deep down, she’d been hoping that was because he hadn’t found the right woman. He hadn’t found her.

  ‘It wouldn’t last, Fern. And, if we split up, it’s going to be awkward for everyone, not just us, our parents too. I wouldn’t want to be the cause of a rift between them. They’ve been friends for almost forty years. And then there’s…’

  He walked away a few steps, then turned and came back again.

  ‘Go on. Say it.’

  ‘There’s Ryan.’

  Suddenly, the successful, dynamic thirty-two-year-old in front of her reminded her of the ten-year-old Josh, desolate about the death of his pet goldfish, but the moment of vulnerability hardened into something more gruff and familiar.

  Oh, she was angry with him for messing her around, for making her fall for him twice as hard, but the knowledge that he still missed Ryan as much as she did poured a big old bucket of water on her smouldering anger.

  He scuffed the toe of his trainer on a paving slab. ‘I don’t want to ruin our friendship.’

  Fern put her hands on her hips. The clichés just kept on coming. It was as if he was reeling off a list of excuses, finding reasons not to be with her. She breathed in and held it. That was exactly what this was. Why? Why did he feel the need? She was stumped and, because she had more pressing things on her mind, she pushed it to one side.

  ‘You mentioned Ryan…’

  Heaven knew she’d loved her big brother to bits, but he’d had a habit of fouling up her life. Even now, it seemed.

  ‘I promised him—not out loud, but in here—’ he thumped his chest with his palm, his voice strained, and a lump closed her throat ‘—that I would do his job, be his stand-in. And I wouldn’t be much of a brother to you if I stood by and let somebody hurt you. Especially if that somebody was me.’

  Tears flowed over her lashes. The stupid, noble, wonderful man! She itched to touch him, to smooth the lines in his forehead away with kisses. Josh crossed his arms and looked at her fiercely. Now was not the time to make lip contact.

  ‘You understand, don’t you?’ he said.

  She nodded. Yes, yes, she did. It only made her love him more, but it didn’t mean she agreed with his judgement. Knowing Josh, he wasn’t going to be swayed easily. A tin
y glimmer of hope remained, but it was on the verge of flickering out.

  He walked back to the bench and slid into a corner, as if he was barricading himself in. It couldn’t have been clearer if he’d used barbed wire and a ‘keep out’ sign.

  Fern sighed and sank into the opposite corner, pulling the edge of the scratchy blanket over her legs. A loud sniff escaped before she could hold it back. She dragged the back of her hand across her eyes.

  ‘Please don’t cry.’ His voice was thready and hoarse. She looked at him, tears threatening to flood again, and held them back by sheer will-power.

  ‘I don’t want to lose you,’ he said, staring at the twinkling lights skipping on the river.

  She couldn’t say anything without opening the floodgates, so she just concentrated on breathing. This was as raw and open and real as she’d seen the ever-cool Josh.

  ‘Let’s just agree to forget this and let things go back to the way they were. Okay?’

  He waited for her to answer.

  She looked at her watch. Two minutes past eleven. Oh, how she wanted to yell no at him, tell him to stop giving her excuses, tell him to stop expecting the worst, but she couldn’t do it. With one hour to go, she couldn’t deprive the Leukaemia Research Trust of vital funds, not when she’d come this close. Damn her conscience! Why couldn’t it take a hike?

  ‘Fern?’

  ‘Okay. Yes.’ For now.

  In exactly fifty eight minutes, she would be starting a conversation with the words, Actually, no…

  Fern propped her chin on her bent knees and sighed. Josh was a few feet away, tucked into his corner of the bench, his breathing soft and even.

  She wanted to kill him.

  How, with all that had been swirling in the air between them, had he managed to fall asleep? Maybe it was because he was used to bedding down in unusual places—up trees, hanging off ledges. Whatever the reason, he was out like a light.

  Her bottom was going numb and she shifted on the flaky wood. As midnight had approached, she’d been too absorbed in the hands of her watch to notice that Josh had started to doze. If she’d realised, she could have kept him awake by striking up a conversation—about what, she didn’t know. Anything to keep him lucid until she could talk to him with complete freedom.

  He made a soft grunt and his head lolled further on to his chest. There was no point in waking him. She knew from experience that a sleepy Josh was grumpy and stubborn, hardly the best frame of mind for the conversation she’d planned.

  Would she really have had the nerve to let it all out, tell him how she felt? She wouldn’t have chickened out? Even if she knew in her heart he wasn’t going to say yes to her? She nodded to herself. Yes, she would have. Even after all that had been said this evening. Crazy, huh? It was just something she had to do, some instinct she needed to follow.

  She pulled the blanket up to her chin and huddled further into herself. Josh might be able to kip anywhere, but she’d be surprised beyond belief if she nodded off at all tonight. She was cold, uncomfortable and just the circular thoughts bombing round the racetrack of her brain alone were enough to prevent her from sleeping.

  No, she was just going to have to sit it out and wait.

  Her eyes were gritty and sore. She probably looked a complete mess. Know what? She didn’t care. All she wanted at this precise moment was for coins to hit the bottom of the plastic collection tin she had in her hand and then she could be on her way.

  All the teams had been walked up from the park to Charing Cross station and were now rattling collection boxes for London City Radio’s homeless charity. The team that collected the most money in one hour would be given the next clue first. The team in second place would get their clue three minutes later, and so on.

  If she and Josh were going to win this money, they needed to be somewhere near the top of the list. The final round teams were all fired up and hungry for the prize. Any slip-ups could be fatal.

  She checked her watch. Only twenty more minutes before the time was up. Oh, how she hated this. Early-morning commuters bustled past, not even seeing her. They didn’t even look at her. On a much smaller level, she knew what it was like to live with a label the world slapped on you whether you liked it or not.

  Poor Little Fern…Sensible Old Fern…

  The one person she’d always longed to see past the labels was standing right next to her, eyes open, shutters down. But it turned out that, in the end, even he had fallen into the trap.

  We can’t hurt Poor Little Fern, can we? We have to keep her safe, smother her in cotton wool. The thought made her want to scream out loud. She’d played the part for too long. At first, it had been to keep her parents happy, to help them realise that they wouldn’t lose their only remaining child as well. But, somewhere along the line, the act had become a habit. She’d slipped into living that way. It was comfortable, easy. Boring.

  It had taken this week to make her realise that this was not who she was; it was not what she wanted. She glanced across at Josh. Whether she could have what she really wanted was another matter.

  The stony silence between them finally got to her. ‘What you said last night, about hurting our parents, about Ryan…they’re just excuses.’

  He turned sharply towards her. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘Why do you always run, Josh?’

  He stared blankly across the station concourse. ‘I’m not running. I’m freezing my…rear end off shaking a plastic box in Charing Cross station.’

  The look she gave him reflected just how weary she was. ‘You know what I mean.’

  He didn’t answer, just shook his head.

  Perhaps he didn’t know. Perhaps he didn’t realise that every time anyone tried to get close, he took off—literally, sometimes. Travelling round the world at the speed of light tended to help in that respect. But, one day, it would all overtake him. Didn’t he realise that?

  ‘One day, you’ll have to let someone close.’

  He made an angry grunt. ‘I let people close.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘My parents…’

  There was an awkward pause. She filled it. ‘Whom you see once every couple of months.’

  He looked at her crossly. ‘I e-mail.’ The words were tinged with both guilt and defiance.

  She laughed. Had to. ‘Very intimate.’

  Now he was angry. She could feel it coming at her in waves. This was so not how she’d planned this conversation, but she’d been so blooming frustrated with him that she hadn’t been able to resist poking the growling monster with a sharp stick.

  He let it all out in a rush. ‘Look, just because I don’t want to start something with you doesn’t mean I’m emotionally stunted, okay? There’s just not enough mileage in it to warrant us both getting hurt.’

  Ouch.

  He grunted again. ‘I’m fine. I’m as warm and fuzzy and sensitive as the next guy. I even thought about asking Vanessa to marry me. Did Mum ever tell you that?’

  She shook her head, speechless.

  ‘Well, maybe I’m not as much of a wreck as you’d like to think. Maybe it’s just that I don’t feel that way about you. Have you ever considered that?’

  He finished abruptly and scared away a commuter who was about to put coins in his tin by scowling at him. It was eight hours past midnight and, even though there were a million words she could now choose from, only one answer represented the truth.

  ‘Yes.’

  Of course she’d considered that, feared that. And now he was confirming it in no uncertain terms. However, she’d asked for it, had pushed him for a real, honest, true response. It was her own fault if she didn’t like what she heard.

  Maybe it was the lack of sleep, the bone-deep exhaustion of racing round London for days on end, or the sheer knowledge that her teenage dreams were over, just as surely as if they’d been floating down one of the city’s filthy gutters and swirling into the sewers, but she began to cry.

  Silent t
ears streamed down her face as she stared at the blurry shapes in front of her—passing shadows of people and the departure board.

  ‘Oh, don’t do that, love!’

  The voice wasn’t Josh’s. She blinked and a short man in a train driver’s uniform came into focus.

  ‘Here—’ He thrust a ten pound note at her. He gave Josh a withering look. ‘You should be taking care of her, mate, not making her do this.’ He shook his head and moved on. Josh swore under his breath.