Stranger Passing By. Lilian Peake
one,’ he repeated, eyes still closed. ‘I had my fill long ago of the “two hearts that beat as one” myth, of “devotion”, and declarations of life-long love. There’s a heart where a man’s heart usually is, Miss Rose, but mine is ice right through.’
‘It sounds,’ Crystal offered into the taut silence, her own spirits unaccountably having taken a dive, ‘as if you’ve been hurt very badly.’
‘Does it?’ he responded indifferently.
Eyes fluttering open, he pulled himself upright, swaying just a little. Crystal’s hand on his arm steadied him and he looked down at it as if wondering how it had got there.
‘I think, Mr Akerman,’ she offered gently, ‘that you might be just a little bit—intoxicated.’
‘Think again, Miss Rose. The wine bottle was half full when I accepted it at the bar counter. One of the residents said he didn’t want it and kindly offered it to me.’
‘But you drank most of it on an empty stomach.’
‘True. So?’ The faint shrug and the light in his eyes convinced Crystal that most of his faculties were alive and well, if not entirely under his command. Then he swayed again. He swore under his breath and commented, ‘I’m tired, Miss Rose, deadly tired.’
Crystal, hoping to humour him, tried reassurance. ‘Jet lag probably, Mr Akerman.’
‘Plus three late nights—or should I say early mornings?—in a row.’
‘Are you going to drive yourself home?’
‘Nope. I came here by taxi straight from the airport. If you’d call another for me, Miss Rose, I’ll be eternally grateful.’ His head was back against the statue, eyes closed again.
‘Taxi, love?’ the barman said. ‘This time of night they’re almost impossible to get hereabouts.’ He indicated the wall telephone. ‘But you’re welcome to try.’
Someone was using the phone, which would mean a wait. So...she would take him home, in the car she had borrowed for the evening. Returning, she found him as she had left him, leaning, as still as the statue he rested against. Was he asleep on his feet?
‘Mr Akerman,’ her hand resumed its perch on his arm, ‘this is the way outside. Will you come with me?’
With his eyes still closed he said softly, ‘To the end of the rainbow, Miss Rose.’
His eyes opened and he looked straight into hers. It was like a bright light being switched on after intense darkness, and she found herself wanting to shield her own.
His gaze for once held no mockery, no warmth, yet no coldness either, but there was definitely a hint of something that sent tingles racing up and down her spine. Then his glance slanted down again at her hand. Maybe it was a presumptuous gesture, in view of who he was, but she had to get him outside somehow.
She had discovered a rear entrance that led on to the car park. Helping him into the front passenger-seat of the small car, she heard him mumble an address. Let him think it was a taxi driver he was addressing. He was too far gone, anyway, she reflected, pulling out into the road, to care whether his conveyance was a cab or a private car. She had caught enough of the address to let her know in which direction to point the car.
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