Stranger Passing By

Rumour had it that he lived only a few miles from her own home town, so she drove in the general direction of the countryside but, dark as it was, with winding roads and hedges looming each side, and without his wide-awake directions, she felt as bemused as if she were lost in a maze.

Pulling in beside a farm gate, she called his name. He didn’t stir.

‘Mr Akerman!’ louder this time, but she received the same response. Her hand once again found its way to his arm and she repeated his name, panicking just a little now. Her fingers walked down to his wrist, pressing the back of it. His hand turned over and captured hers.

‘No, no!’ she exclaimed, trying to shake free. ‘Just tell me where you live, Mr Akerman. I need directions. Please, Mr Akerman.’

A long sigh issued from his lungs and he lifted her hand to his cheek. Oh, no, she thought, who does he think I am? His lady-love? There just has to be a woman in this man’s life! She tried sliding her hand free, to no avail, so she changed tactics and jerked it away, hoping to wake him up. Her hand was relinquished, but to her dismay he settled into an even deeper sleep.

With a sigh of exasperation she turned the car and made for the town, pulling up at the rear of her little house, thrusting down her foot and braking sharply, but in vain. He stayed profoundly asleep.

CHAPTER THREE

THERE was no doubt about it: Crystal couldn’t let Brent sleep in the car all night, so she took the only course available to her. Opening the door, she placed her hands on his shoulders and pulled. It was a miracle, but it worked: he did not resist. Instead, he moved towards her. Encouraged, she lifted his feet to the ground and managed somehow to manoeuvre him out, leaning him against the car. Diving round to lock it, she raced back, catching him as he began to slide sideways.

Lifting his arm across her shoulders and with her own arms around his waist, she urged him on beside her, he in a kind of waking sleep, she sagging a little under the weight of him. She was afraid that he might trip over the back doorstep, but he seemed to know by instinct that he should lift first one foot, then the other.

The sofa complained noisily as, hands on his hips, she guided him down. It was shabby, its springs almost flattened by years of wear, but its feather-filled cushions gave softly as she pushed them under his head, his shoulders and his calves. His height didn’t help, his feet dangling over the raised arm, but it was the best she could do in the circumstances.

Looking down at him, she hoped he wouldn’t be in too bad a shape when he awoke in the morning.

‘If only,’ she whispered, ‘you’d been able to direct me to your own home, by now you’d be tucked up in your own comfortable bed.’ There was no response, but then, she hadn’t expected any.

It came two hours later in the form of the sound of furniture crashing and an unsmothered curse. The words, ‘Where am I, for God’s sake?’ penetrated the ceiling of the living-room to her bedroom directly above.

Even if she had been sleeping heavily, which she hadn’t, being subconsciously aware all the time of the presence of a stranger—and such a stranger!—in her small, normally quiet world, she would have heard him.

Swinging out of bed and tugging on a wrap, she tiptoed barefoot down the stairs and opened the living-room door, to find Brent standing, jacketless, bewildered and angry, beside the unfortunate table that had taken the brunt of his outflung, light-switch-seeking hand.

Diving to right the table and switch on the table lamp, she straightened to meet the furious grey eyes.

‘What’s this?’ he growled, pulling at his tie as if it choked him. ‘A plot among Ornamental’s redundant employees to kidnap the chief executive with a view to working on him to change his mind and reinstate them?’

His gaze swept around, skimming over the tiny dining area, the spoof antiques, the badly worn carpet, plainly not liking very much what he saw, then tossed his discarded tie on to a bow-legged coffee-table from whose shiny surface it slipped to the floor. ‘Where the hell am I?’ he repeated.

‘In my house, Mr Akerman. And if you’d let me explain—’

‘So you—’ he looked her up and down with as much pleasure in his eyes as when, moments ago, he had inspected his surroundings ‘—you, Crystal Rose, are their self-appointed spokesman, yet again?’ His lips thinned. ‘I might have known, should have guessed. Not only that, but also, because of your qualities of leadership, your persuasiveness—’

In vain, Crystal shook her head. Didn’t he understand that that outcry on behalf of her colleagues had taken even her by surprise? That never in her life before had she sprung to her feet in the course of a meeting and addressed even the back of a person’s head, let alone the platform?

‘—they appointed you,’ he was saying, ‘kidnapper, abductor, hostage-taker in chief?’

This time her madly shaking head, the auburn lights of her mop of hair thrown around by the mock-crystal chandelier of which the cottage’s owner was so proud, brought his accusations to a halt.

‘If you’d just let me explain.’ This time he heeded the appeal in her voice.

Having heard her out, he sank back to rest against the sofa. ‘OK, I believe you,’ was his weary response. ‘This hangover is evidence enough. It was good of you to give me a lift. I see now that you had no alternative but to bring me here.’

‘Jet lag,’ she put in, ‘not hangover.’

His eyes opened slowly, his gaze mocking. ‘So many sides to the beautiful Crystal Rose. Chauffeur, minder, good Samaritan, political agitator—’

‘No!’

‘You mean, you’re not beautiful?’ Deliberately misunderstanding, Brent lifted his arms, resting his head on them. With an eyebrow arched, long legs stretched out, appreciation glinted in the faintly lustful gaze as it sketched her outline, which her thin cotton belted wrap did little to hide.

‘No—I mean, yes. What I mean is—’ An exasperated sigh came from the depths of her. ‘Will you please stop referring to my defence of my colleagues’ jobs this evening as evidence that I’m a revolutionary at heart? All I wanted was to safeguard their means of livelihood—people like Maureen Hilson, who’s got an invalid mother to look after.’

‘Caring as well as compassionate. I must look out your private file and make sure all these attributes are noted down.’

‘What use will that be, Mr Akerman, when in a few weeks, along with all the others, I’ll be an ex-employee of yours?’

‘Mm.’ Those dark eyes sketched a more intimate outline, shading in the curves and inlets like an artist sketching a particularly attractive piece of coastline. ‘Play your cards right, Miss Rose, and—’

‘Goodnight, Mr Akerman.’ She swung to the door. ‘Better luck with sleeping for the time that’s left.’

He was on his feet and grabbing her before she had finished the sentence, and she hit the sofa beside him with a bump.

‘I’m a stranger in a strange land, Miss Rose,’ he declared softly. ‘I’m shy.’ His eyes held as many glints as the chandelier. ‘I need reassurance—yours, as my hostess.’ Laughter lurked as he whispered against her ear, making it tingle unbearably, ‘I need my hand held, Crystal Rose.’

He took hers in a caressing hold, but loosely, so that all her hand needed to do was slip away from his. But it didn’t. Perversely it stayed right there, liking so much the feel of his palm against its back, the strength of the long fingers that pushed their way between its own.

He then proceeded to unfasten his shirt buttons, placing her hand against his chest.

‘Feel the way my heart’s fluttering, Miss Rose,’ he said huskily, ‘it’s jumping with sheer nerves at finding itself in the middle of the night in a stranger’s house.’

There was the roughness of chest hair softening the hard breadth and sinew of him, but no sign of a quivering beat, only the vigorous hammering of the healthy heart of a jungle hunter in hot pursuit of its prey. The intimate contact of her hand against his flesh was electric, making her own heart flutter and dance in the most disconcerting way.

Her eyes collided with his, and to her consternation they could not tear themselves free. Laughter persisted in that grey gaze, mixed in with a predatory gleam, and a hint of very masculine desire. Not a sign of the shyness he professed to feel, but how could she have even begun to believe his outrageous statement?

‘If I really believed you meant what you said about being shy, Mr Akerman,’ she commented, ‘I’d believe anything.’

She had meant it to come out with scorn laced with sarcasm, but she heard the catch in her throat, the quick intake of her own breath. He was having the same mind-blowing effect on her as he’d had from the moment she had set eyes on him.

Holding her gaze, he slid his hands to her shoulders, and before she was aware of his intention he had pulled her round and into his arms. Every particle of her knew she shouldn’t be there, but her cheek had ignored all the warning signals and had taken the liberty of nestling cosily against the wall of his chest.

His arms held her loosely, but Crystal was certain that if she tried to escape they would clamp her to him without mercy.

‘That’s better, Miss Rose,’ he sighed against her hair, ‘much better. You’re doing a great job of reassuring this timid guest of yours that his hostess won’t bite him.’

Crystal laughed, then pulled back her head and searched his face. His mouth twitched and, flushing deeply, she disentangled herself from him. Yes, she had been right about the intended double meaning.

‘That’s not my way, Mr Akerman,’ she declared, winding her wrap more closely around her.

He closed his eyes, legs outstretched, arms folded. Crystal gathered up the scattered cushions and placed them in a pile.

A shiver caught up with her, telling her how cool a night it was. She switched on the imitation coal fire that stood in the grate, then crept out to find a blanket, gently spreading it over him. Crouching down, she eyed his shoes. Dared she unlace them and ease them off? With her hand light as a butterfly on his knee, she scanned his features, and her heart turned over at the intensely unhappy expression on his handsome face.

She wanted to throw her arms round him to comfort him, easing the pain he was undoubtedly feeling. She wanted to offer him sympathy, ease away his sadness, soothe him with her warmth, her love...

Horrified by her thoughts, she made to rise, when a hand rested on hers on his knee. Mortified that he had known all along that her hand was there, she began to snatch hers away, when his hold tightened and he pulled her round and on to the sofa again.

His arm settled around her, and although she knew she should move away not a single nerve or bone in her body tensed to follow her mind’s instructions.

His fingers tipped her chin and the glow from the electric fire lit her features, while his, to her chagrin, remained in shadow.

‘When you looked at me, what were your thoughts?’ he queried huskily.

So he’d seen her looking at him! And she had thought the light was so subdued and his eyes closed so tightly that her scrutiny of his face would have been a total secret.

‘You looked so unhappy, Mr Akerman,’ she answered softly, straining without success to read his expression, ‘that I—’

‘You wanted to apply first aid?’ He shook his head. ‘My emotions, my feelings—they’re beyond repair. Forget them. I follow my male instincts these days; my emotions, where the act of love is concerned, are in cold store, and there they’ll stay.’ Why, Crystal wondered, had her heart just sunk like a stone? ‘And you, Miss Rose,’ his slow kiss was a mere tantalising brush of the lips, ‘look pale and tired and in need of sleep. Put your arm across my shoulders.’

Too weary now to disobey, she did as he had told her. His arm enclosed her and her cheek found itself nestling once more against soft masculine fuzz, while a rhythmic drum beat reassuringly beneath her ear.

As her eyes closed she told herself that OK, so she shouldn’t really be there, that she should remind herself of who he was and draw away, but for once she disregarded her powerful conscience and nestled even closer to the man in whose arms she was drifting into a beautiful sleep.

* * *

She found the note next morning. Sunlight shining in through her bedroom window surprised her awake.

That’s strange, she thought, I must have forgotten to close the curtains last night. Then it all came back. No strong arms held her, no gently breathing chest supported her head. She was back in her own bed.

Since she remembered nothing about climbing the stairs, and she wasn’t given to sleep-walking, there was only one way she could have got there, and that was in the arms of the person who had pulled the cover over her.

Brent Akerman, removing her wrap and—she looked down at herself—seeing far more than her outline beneath the lightweight fabric of her nightdress? She blushed at the thought. But maybe she had dreamed that Brent had held her close in the small hours?

Words, whispered in a beautiful speaking voice that she had heard but hadn’t understood, came hazily back. She strained to make sense out of them, but they were just as mysterious now as they had been in the darkness. And the touch of lips on her forehead, the stroking disturbance of her hair—they, too, just had to be part of her dreams, because they’d never really happened. How could they?

Those murmured words...they still wouldn’t let her alone. The way they had been spoken—hadn’t there been a note of sadness, and yes, even of regret? Yet, if there had been, how could she have known when she had been sleeping so deeply?

The note was propped against a flower vase on a table near the main door. It said,

Crystal, thank you for your thoughtfulness in bringing me here. Thanks also for your hospitality.

And, almost as if in his mind he had whispered it,

Thank you for your warmth.

Brent.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘HAVE you noticed?’ Maureen Hilson commented that afternoon. ‘Customers have been coming in in their droves.’ She smoothed back her greying hair. ‘I’ve hardly had time to breathe, let alone comb these beautiful locks of mine.’

‘I noticed. What’s more,’ Crystal added happily, ‘not only have people come in and looked around, they’ve also actually bought things.’

Maureen smiled, glancing at the rose bowl glinting attractively on a pink-tinted glass stand. ‘I suppose you could say that we didn’t get the prize for the highest sales for nothing.’ She sighed. ‘If only the company wasn’t insisting on closing all the shops down. The chief executive—what did they say his name was?’

Crystal looked up from feather-dustering necklaces and picture frames. Did Maureen really not know? ‘Akerman,’ she informed her. ‘Brent Akerman.’ She rolled the names around her tongue, as they had been rolling around in her head almost every minute of every hour since she had slept in his arms. ‘Brent’, he’d signed himself in that note—and ‘Crystal’, he’d called her. She had put the slip of paper, which he had obviously torn from his notebook, in a drawer among her most treasured possessions.

‘Mr Akerman—that’s right,’ said Maureen, mopping up some spilt liquid from the ‘make up your own perfume’ section. ‘You—er—’ She looked askance at Crystal. ‘You wouldn’t—er—have any influence with that very handsome male, would you, dear?’

Crystal swung around, duster held aloft. ‘What do you mean?’ Had she been seen ushering him, her hand on his elbow, through the rear entrance and helping him into her car? Had there been spies watching her house to note the time Brent had left?

Mentally she shook herself, telling herself not to think such melodramatic thoughts about a completely innocent situation.

‘Well,’ Maureen qualified a little defensively, ‘Roger told us that when he looked for you yesterday evening he found you and Mr Akerman in a cosy twosome in a corner of the hotel garden.’

‘Twosome? Myself and the chief executive of Worldview International?’ Relief made Crystal smile. ‘Roger’s got to be joking!’ She added truthfully, ‘Mr Akerman was telling me how jet lagged he was, that’s all, and how often he—well, commuted on business to other parts of the world.’

Maureen nodded. ‘Ah. I thought Roger was making too much of it. Crystal, dear, I think he’s jealous. I’m sure our Roger fancies you.’

‘Oh, no,’ Crystal returned, dismayed. ‘It’d spoil our business relationship if he does.’ Seeing Maureen’s puzzlement, she explained, ‘He’s a nice bloke, but if he tries to get more than friendly I won’t be able to keep my promise to help him out with his written work.’

‘What’s wrong with him, Crystal? A lot of girls would love to have him around.’

‘Yes, well, I’m not one of them. I’ve had enough of the opposite sex for a long time to come. The man I thought for months was the one for me called me on the day he’d promised to buy me a ring and told me he’d found someone else. It’ll take me a long time to trust another man the way I trusted Mick Temple.’

‘I understand how you feel,’ Maureen sympathised. ‘I met him once, remember, when he called to take you to a meal.’ She shook her head. ‘I could sense that underneath that smooth talk he was a no-gooder.’

After a reflective pause Crystal went on, ‘Anyway, even if I’d had any influence with the chief executive, what good would it have done?’

‘It’s just that I was going to suggest you might ask him to make an exception of our branch of Ornamental You. Especially as our sales figures outdid everyone else’s.’

‘You mean, ask him to allow this branch to continue to trade, but close all the others down?’ Crystal shook her head. ‘I don’t think it would be practicable. And I don’t think for a minute that he’d even consider it. You’d realise what a hard man he really was if you’d heard him talk as he talked to—’ She pulled herself up sharply. ‘Talked to me last night about his private feelings,’ she had been going to say.

‘Of course,’ she amended hurriedly, ‘you did hear him speak, didn’t you? At the meeting yesterday evening. Well, there was no “give” in the man, was there? Only the tired old “this hurts me more than it hurts you” routine.’

‘Ah, well.’ Maureen shrugged disappointedly. ‘It was just a thought. Although how I’m going to provide for my mother as well as myself when I lose this job, I just don’t know. As a semi-invalid, she needs so many little extras to help her. Also, jobs don’t exactly grow on trees these days.’ She sighed. ‘All the same, you’d think it would count, wouldn’t you? After all, you and I—we did—’

‘Achieve the highest sales,’ Crystal took her up sympathetically. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to be able to pay my rent, but, unlike you, I’ve only got myself to worry about.’

A group of young women entered, asking each other’s advice as to what to buy. Then they consulted Crystal and Maureen. As they left with their purchases one of them said, ‘We saw a report in the local paper that all the Ornamental You shops are closing. Is it true? Because if it is it’ll be a real blow.’

‘It’s true, I’m afraid,’ said Crystal sadly.

‘Well, we’re at college, and dozens of us come here to buy birthday and Christmas presents because your prices are so reasonable compared with other stores.’

‘Hey,’ said another, ‘let’s get together, girls, and try and scrape up enough cash to buy this shop.’

Filing through the door, they laughingly agreed it was a good idea, although one commented, ‘Count me out. I’ve hardly got a big enough grant to keep myself in food and textbooks, let alone going into the red through trying to move into big business!’

‘Now that’s an idea,’ declared Maureen when they had gone. ‘If you and I pooled our savings... No?’ as Crystal shook her head. ‘No, I guess not. But the idea’s a good one.’

Other customers drifted in, and by the end of the day Crystal and Maureen were delighted to discover that their takings were higher than ever.

That evening, tucking her aching feet beneath her, Crystal curled up on the sofa she had shared with Brent and for the twentieth time read the note he had left for her.

What if she took his words at face value? It then became a straightforward thank-you note, which she supposed was perfectly reasonable in the circumstances.

On the other hand, if she allowed herself to read not only between the lines, but also between the words, especially that last sentence, the slip of paper acquired a glow, the note itself becoming heavy with hidden meaning, with unspoken declarations of love...

Admonishing herself for her sentimentality, for sheer stupidity in embroidering the facts until they became the stuff of fiction, Crystal put the note aside. Then she took it up again and held it in case it blew away in some errant draught.

Head back, she felt her wayward thoughts conjure up the feel of Brent’s arms around her, the brush of his lips across hers... Her common sense brought her sharply back to the present and she began to wonder...

Would Maureen’s idea of her making a last-minute appeal to Brent Akerman have any effect? Would their more than close encounter last night make him more willing to listen to her and perhaps put him on their side? After all, sleeping in a man’s arms, even though she had only been seated beside him on a sofa, must surely count for something more than if she’d merely been on nodding terms with him?

She seized a cushion from behind her and hugged it close. ‘Mr Akerman,’ she could say, ‘it’s been suggested to me by Maureen Hilson, my colleague—and I thought it was a very good idea—that you might allow...the company might allow...’

Yes, that should be OK, but how to contact him? By post? Or maybe she could fax a letter? The father of one of her friends had a machine in his home for business purposes. No, sending a letter that way would be too risky. If someone saw the faxed copy and discovered what she was trying to persuade Brent Akerman to do—save one shop from extinction, even though all the others were closed down—it might well stir up trouble and also damage her case immeasurably.

Should she ring Head Office and ask for him personally, taking the risk of being snubbed by his secretary? Or should she go and see him?

See Brent Akerman again? Her heart leapt, then dived. The chief executive of Worldview International wouldn’t even consider setting aside two minutes, let alone half an hour of his time to discuss what would be to him such a trivial matter.

Plumping up the cushion, she turned to replace it when her eye caught a glimpse of a piece of patterned material that seemed to have partly hidden itself beneath the sofa.

Crystal extracted it with care, holding it up.

Before her startled eyes the tie Brent had been wearing the evening before unfolded itself. He had, she remembered, removed it in the course of those hours they had spent together, the thought of which even now made her pulse-rate accelerate. After dropping the tie he must have accidentally pushed it under the sofa.

Now she had a reason for seeing him again. So what if it might be simpler to push it into an envelope and post it to him? But that was something she couldn’t do, because she didn’t know where he lived. Nor could she send it by post to his office. She imagined the expression on his secretary’s face as she opened an envelope addressed to her boss, only to find that it contained a folded tie that belonged to him. And that it had come courtesy of one of the firm’s lady employees!

Crystal picked up the phone next morning. ‘Maureen, I’m going to take up your suggestion. About Worldview making an exception of our shop.’ The fact that she would also be returning Brent’s tie was a secret she would keep forever. ‘Yes,’ she went on, ‘I’m going to try to storm the bastion—Head Office—and fight my way through to the boss of bosses—’