Fiona Harper Read online

  ‘Th-thank you,’ she stammered, even though the man was well out of earshot. And then she cried harder. Pathetic. It didn’t matter what she wanted to be, how she wanted to be thought of. All anyone ever saw was Poor Fragile Little Fern. It was never going to change.

  Josh was sure black thunderclouds were gathering over his head. He hadn’t been in a mood this bad since…since…

  This was why he didn’t do complicated, messy, up-close relationships. Something always went wrong. Somebody always got hurt. Somebody always left. He was livid with Fern for poking him in all the sore places of his soul—places he didn’t really want to acknowledge existed. She’d made him do stupid things, say stupid things.

  Why had he brought Vanessa up? She’d been his last serious—if that was a word that could ever be applied to his relationships—girlfriend. Yes, he’d thought about popping the question, but not in the way he’d let Fern believe. He’d been in a panic because all his friends seemed to be getting married and having babies. The idea had lived all of ten seconds.

  He’d seen the look on Fern’s face and felt like an utter amoeba. But she’d kept pushing, wouldn’t accept his reasons for keeping his distance. How else was he going to keep her at bay? It was her fault, really.

  The remaining teams had finished the ‘collecting for charity’ challenge and were now assembled back in the park. An ‘on-the-spot’ reporter from the radio station was doing interviews for the breakfast show, talking to the teams as the organisers provided breakfast and tallied up the money from the challenge.

  Listening, he started to realise that the radio station had been broadcasting features about the treasure hunt all along, keeping the listening public up-to-date with where the teams were and who was in the lead. He and Fern had been completely unaware of it, too focused on competing to think about the publicity angle.

  They’d better not come near him with that microphone. The mood he was in, he was likely to bite the top off.

  He looked at Fern, standing beside him, swaying slightly. They’d better not try and interview her, either. She was practically asleep on her feet. Her eyes were pink and puffy and her hair was falling out of her ponytail. On any other day he’d have put his arm round her and given her a hug, then found her somewhere to sit, but not today. It was too dangerous.

  First place went to Kate and Aidan. Kate had slashed and knotted her T-shirt in strategic places and it didn’t take much to guess why they’d collected so much money. Amazingly, he and Fern came in second. After Fern had started crying—he ignored the twisting in his gut as he thought about that—the money had just flowed in.

  A rumble travelled round his hollow stomach, making her eyes widen. She yawned. ‘Me too. I hope they’re going to feed us soon.’

  Continuing the theme, they were going to be consuming leftover food donated by a local sandwich chain, something the branches did regularly for the city’s homeless. He couldn’t keep his eyes off the two large cardboard boxes guarded by two treasure hunt marshals.

  Just about the time he thought he was going to be eaten alive by his own stomach acid, they opened the flaps and pulled out trays of assorted sandwiches, baguettes and wraps. They were a day past their sell-by date, but nobody cared. He made a beeline for the trays, finding them grouped together by type—vegetarian, chicken, seafood—he nabbed the biggest baguette he could find and just dropped on to the grass to eat it.

  Fern was some distance away, staring absently into space. For the last three days they’d been glued to each other’s sides, eating, sleeping and racing together. It wasn’t the same any more. They were pulling apart, thinking independently of each other again. The thought made him feel hollow, but it had to be that way.

  ‘Want one of these?’ A marshal offered him an avocado and crayfish sandwich from the seafood tray he was carrying.

  ‘If they’re going spare. I think some of the people over there haven’t had any yet.’ The guy nodded and moved off.

  This was better. Keeping his mind on simple things—food, sleep, travel—was much more comfortable.

  Josh hoped the guy came back. He was almost all the way through the baguette and he was still hungry. The crayfish and avocado had looked delicious. And he didn’t have to worry about the shellfish content any more.

  Disappointment flooded through him and he quickly dammed it. He would not be kissing Fern again any time soon. Maybe in five years’ time, when they saw each other at her parents’ Christmas do. She’d probably be married by then, with a smart, sensible-looking husband and her toddler on her hip. He stared at the ground. No point getting all upset about it. That was the way it had to be.

  The treasure hunt marshal walked back past him.

  ‘Hey! Any of those sandwiches left?’

  The guy shook his head. ‘Nope, sorry. Just gave the last one to the blonde over there. She seemed a bit spaced out. Took one, though.’

  Josh nodded. And then he went very still.

  Crayfish.

  He hoped Fern had paid attention to what she was putting in her mouth, but she said she hadn’t had a wink last night and she was so sleep-deprived she might not have…

  His head jerked round just in time to see Fern collapse on to the ground, an open sandwich carton in her hand.

  Fern hit the grass with a thud. ‘Ouch!’ Stupid, stupid trainers. Stupid, stupid lumps in the deceptively flat-looking grass. Her dignity was wounded enough already. She didn’t need total humiliation.

  She stared at the sandwich in her hand. She’d decided to discard the soggy bits of lettuce and wondered if she’d be able to fling them in the bin from here. She really didn’t have the energy to get up at the moment.

  But, before she could say lollo rosso, a huge pair of arms scooped her up and crushed her to a warm, solid chest. She recognised that familiar masculine scent, remembered the feel of this particular body pressed against hers.

  ‘Fern!’ He was checking her all over now, his broad hands feeling her head, her face, roving over her chest.

  ‘Are you breathing okay?’

  Considering where his hand was at present, she was lucky she was breathing at all. She nodded and tried to croak out the words, I’m okay.

  ‘Somebody call an ambulance!’ he yelled over his shoulder, then kissed her fiercely on the forehead. ‘Hang on, Fern. Hang on. I couldn’t cope if…not when I’ve never…’

  He stopped abruptly, probably because she was banging on his chest with the flat of her hand. He brushed the hair out of her eyes and tenderly held her face in his hands, a look of desperation in his eyes. ‘What?’ he whispered.

  ‘You’re squashing me.’

  A look of horror crossed his face, almost comical in its intensity, and he sprang up to stand. ‘Where’s that ambulance?’ he bellowed at no one in particular. Fern hauled herself to stand beside him.

  ‘Josh! Will you stop? I’m fine. I’m breathing fine. I’ve been trying to tell you all along.’

  He stared at her. ‘You mean, you’re not…you’re…but you’ve eaten some of that sandwich.’

  She stooped to pick up the now-flattened carton. ‘Yes. Cheese and sun-dried tomato. I was about to throw the lettuce in the bin when I tripped over my own feet.’

  ‘You…you didn’t eat crayfish?’ At the start of the sentence he was just bemused; by the end he was starting to look furious. He strode off towards the bin and looked inside it. Why, she didn’t know, and she had a pretty good inkling that he didn’t either. He stomped back towards her. He was angry with her about this? Seriously? He had no right. No right at all.

  ‘Just how stupid do you think I am, Josh Adams? Do you really think I’m brainless enough to scoff down a crayfish sandwich only a day after I discover I’ve got a shellfish allergy?’

  The look on his face told her everything she needed to know. Now he wasn’t the only one who was head-thumping angry.

  ‘You know what? I don’t need a big brother. I don’t need protecting. I wish you’d get that into your
thick head,’ she said, tapping the side of her skull with a finger. She needed more than that from him, more of everything from him, but she wasn’t going to get it. It was darkly funny that Josh Adams seemed to have found a rut of his own now that she’d clambered out of hers.

  ‘I’m off to get another sandwich before they run out,’ she yelled and stalked away. ‘And you’d better do something about putting a stop to that ambulance.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  JOSH held the camera steady and took a picture of the Thames looking back towards the city from the top of Tower Bridge.

  ‘All done?’

  He and Fern were speaking—just. Gone was the easy camaraderie, the near-telepathic exchange of ideas. In their place economical phrases and curt directions.

  She was really angry with him, which wasn’t fair at all. She hadn’t been the one to get the shock of her life—for the second time in two days. She hadn’t seen her whole life flash before her eyes and drain away. All she’d suffered was a squashed sandwich and she had no business to be giving him those superior, infuriatingly calm looks. He wasn’t fooled for a second. He knew that underneath the calm façade her emotions were a boiling pot.

  The sound of feet thumping on the walkway between the two towers of the bridge caused them both to whirl round. Pat and Lily, a mother and daughter team, who had been three minutes behind them appeared. Instantly, Fern and Josh started running in the opposite direction. They’d had no sight of the front-runners yet, which was not good news, and they didn’t need the next team catching them up.

  After running down about a million steps—the sign on the wall said three hundred, but he didn’t believe it for a second—they grabbed the next clue from a marshal and stood panting on the pavement to read it.

  ‘Oh, blow! It’s another of those cryptic ones.’ He handed the card to Fern and she read it aloud.

  ‘“Start with citrus fruit and end with the bell of indecision.” Is that it?’ She shook her head. ‘I really don’t have the brain cells for this today. “Start with citrus fruit”? What does that mean?’

  ‘A fruit market?’

  They both frowned.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘We’ve done that already. It has to be something different.’

  Fern started jogging northwards along the bridge, muttering citrus fruit over and over. ‘What kind of citrus fruit?’

  ‘Lemons? Limes? Oranges? Grapefruit?’ he offered.

  She skidded to a halt and he almost crashed into her. ‘Say that again!’

  ‘Grapefruit?’

  ‘No. No…’ She smiled at him, the first he’d seen all day. ‘Before that. Oranges and lemons! It’s like the old children’s rhyme.’

  A spike of excitement shot through him. ‘Oranges and lemons said the bells of St Clements…’

  Now she was jumping up and down. ‘I bet it’s a trail, like the tube stations were. We have to visit each of the churches from the rhyme in turn and take a picture.’

  He held out a hand and she slapped the map into his waiting palm. ‘Now, where the heck is St Clement’s Church?’

  Fern was already leafing through their well-thumbed guidebook. ‘What about the others?’ She mumbled the rhyme out loud. ‘“Oranges and lemons” say the bells of St Clement’s. “You owe me five farthings” say the bells of St Martin’s…Oh, crumbs! I can’t remember the rest.’

  ‘“When will you pay me?”’ he was shouting now. The magic was back, the zinging, idea-bouncing magic was back. ‘Say the bells of…’ He racked his brain. It was on the tip of his tongue.

  ‘Old Bailey,’ she finished. ‘We can work out the rest on the way.’

  Inwardly, he sighed. Perhaps the proverbs were wrong. Perhaps you could go back. Perhaps he could return to a time when he hadn’t lost her friendship for ever.

  Clever, thought Fern, as they stood on the other side of the road from St Mary-le-Bow. The bell of indecision. The last line of the nursery rhyme chimed in her head. Not yes, not no, but somewhere in between. ‘I do not know’ say the great bells of Bow.

  Josh put the camera back in his pocket. ‘What now? Where next?’

  She looked around. ‘There has to be a marshal close, or a clue somewhere. Why don’t we go inside?’

  Just inside the front entrance was a box on a stand with a Secret London logo on it. She reached inside and pulled out an envelope and handed it to Josh. Quickly, mouthing the numbers as she went, she counted off the remaining envelopes.

  Nine. The realisation made her giddy.

  ‘Josh! We’re first here. We could win this, we really could.’

  He showed her the clue. Full circle. Back to the beginning wiser…and possibly richer.

  ‘Trafalgar Square,’ they both said at the same time, just as Kate and Aidan ran into the church entrance, heard what they said and set off running again. Every muscle in her body leapt into action. As one, she and Josh gave chase.

  ‘Nearest tube station?’ she yelled at Josh as she struggled with the map. It was flapping in her face and seriously slowing her down.

  ‘Canon Street?’ he yelled back, a little too loudly. Kate and Aidan, who were breaking away, nodded at each other, pointed at a sign for Canon Street and sprinted off.

  ‘Me and my big mouth,’ Josh muttered and picked up speed.

  She grabbed on to his backpack to stop him and waved the map at him. ‘Don’t sweat it. Canon Street tube is closed on Sundays and Mansion House is closer, anyway. You might have accidentally given us our lead back.’

  The tube was virtually empty—not surprising for a Sunday morning in the financial and business heart of the city. Even though there were seats available, she and Josh stood either side of a set of double doors, their backs pressed against the perspex carriage dividers.

  After the sprint to the station they had a few minutes of enforced stillness before the doors hissed open and the madness began again.

  The bubbling rage that had consumed her at breakfast time had dissipated and her mind was now as clear as a mill pond. Josh had said categorically that he didn’t feel that way about her, but his reaction this morning proved him a liar. The truth was he cared more than he wanted to.

  All her wishes had been used up, or so she’d thought. Maybe she had one last chance in the silence of this tube ride. When the race ended she just knew that Josh would run again and she might never pin him down.

  The doors opened and a handful of people flowed on to the train. She couldn’t tell how many because she was too busy looking at him. As if he sensed her gaze on him, he looked up and their eyes locked. Her heart skipped and stuttered in her chest. There was something there. Something in his eyes. She couldn’t look away.

  The doors closed and the train rumbled away from the station. She took a deep breath and held it. The next stop was theirs. It was now or never and, if there was one thing she’d learned from Josh this week, it was that she should grab chances when they presented themselves.

  Her eyes were full of unspoken words—syllables and sounds he shouldn’t want to hear. With that defiant yet vulnerable look on her face she was so beautiful. Time had stopped and they were here alone in their own separate bubble, hurtling towards an unknown destination. For the first time in his life he wasn’t sure if he was feeling all that adventurous.

  The lights flickered and the train started to slow. If anything, the look in her eyes grew even fiercer. He was pinned by her gaze.

  The train was moving so slowly now it had virtually come to a stop. She raised her chin, opened her mouth and only then did the words that had been flashing in her eyes hit his eardrums as sound waves.

  ‘I love you.’

  And then the doors opened and she was running. It took him a full second to realise that he was supposed to be doing the same.

  He hardly noticed the interior of the tube station as he ran through it, or the busy, narrow street that led up on to the Strand. He dodged taxis and reversing delivery vans on autopilot.

  S
he loved him.

  Inside he was flying—the best rush he’d ever had powered his legs as he chased her up the hill and on to the busy main road. His instincts should really be telling him to sprint in the opposite direction but, somehow, all he could do was run to her.

  A sudden realisation hit him with such force that it stopped him in his tracks.

  He loved her too.

  A horn screamed at him and he jumped back on to the kerb. The noise of the city, the sirens, the crunching gears, church bells and people flooded back into his consciousness. He woke up.

  Fern had just about reached the other side of the road after having sprinted straight across, but the lights had just changed and now the stream of buses, taxis and cars was too busy to negotiate.