That Man Next Door Read online

  It was getting cooler now that September was already more than a week gone and the days seemed less bright and bold and more tranquil, although there was an oc-

  casional sprightly wind off the sea that made it necessary to make frantic grabs at a skirt even slightly full.

  Kim liked the hint of autumn in the air and preferred the soft warmth to the blazing heat that August had brought. She set out on the Sunday morning to walk along the sea wall to the cliffs and back, feeling too energetic to sit in the house and do some sewing jobs that should have been done long since.

  Terry and Lee were in the front garden of the house next door when she started out and they called to her through the high hedge. Walking round to the gate, she found them both standing there with their customary air of pathos, eyes wide and soulful as they looked up at her. "You goin' out?" Lee asked, and Kim nodded.

  "Just for a little walk," she agreed.

  "Out," Terry said, even more soulful than her brother so that Kim felt suddenly and inevitably guilty as the two small faces peered at her through the bars of the gate.

  "Aren't you going out somewhere? It's a lovely day. Where's your uncle? Perhaps he'll take you on to the beach if you ask him."

  "Gone," Terry informed her, with an ever-increasing air of despondency, and Lee enlarged, though vaguely.

  "He's gone in the boat."

  "Oh, I see." She did see, she thought crossly, only too well. He was so intent on winning that wretched boat race that he had no time to take the children to the beach, even on such a lovely day as this. She bent down beside the gate, seeking to comfort them as best she could. "Well, maybe I'll take you for a walk one day soon, hmm? But we must ask your uncle first, so it can't be today, O.K.?"

  The two faces brightened visibly and Lee had a shrewd gleam in his eye that she would not have expected in a four year-old. "Where to ?" he demanded.

  "Oh, I don't know," she demurred, faced with an unanswerable question. "We'll decide that later." She had made the suggestion with only a vague idea of it ever being fact; it was meant to mollify them for the time being, but Lee, at least, seemed to have other ideas on that score.

  She smiled in the face of Lee's unsatisfied frown and waved a hand to them as she went off along the sea wall, still with a feeling of guilt at the back of her mind. Although why she should have felt guilty she could not imagine, for if anyone did it should have been James Fleming, and she hoped those soulful eyes would upset his conscience when at last he decided to come home.

  It was such a lovely day that she had ventured out in a sleeveless dress and she was quite warm enough, although there was a brisk wind blowing in off the water. It was a dress that suited her to perfection and she felt good in it, knowing it complimented her fair hair and also the light tan she had acquired in the weeks she had been there. Her long slim legs were as brown as her face and arms, and the whole made a very attractive picture as she walked, fairly briskly, along the sea wall.

  She would find somewhere on the cliffs, she thought, and sit there for a while, watching the seagulls and the small white clouds drift in some mysterious ballet of their own above the sea. It was a scene she never tired of and thought she never would.

  There were few people about, as was usual, so the sight of someone standing in one of the moored boats at the wooden pier drew her eye and she recognised James Fleming, her lips tightening almost involuntarily. With her condemnation of him as selfish still fresh in her mind she . would like to have avoided him if she could, but she stubbornly refused to change her plans and so she carried on in the same direction.

  He looked up as she approached and half smiled. "Hello, Kim."

  It was very quiet, and the narrowness of the strip of sand between them made conversation quite easy without raising voices. "Good morning " She refused to be inveigled by his undoubted charm and by his persistent use of her first name, so she made no attempt to return the smile, merely pausing on the sea wall, looking down at him, disapproval plain in her face.

  "Something wrong?" he asked, only mildly curious.

  "I've just left Terry and Lee," she informed him. "They looked very forlorn."

  "Oh?" He stood in the gently rocking boat, feet apart, hands on his hips, a slightly quizzical look in his eye as if he suspected her criticism.

  "They wanted to know if I was going out," Kim went on. "I think they wanted to come with me, which was understandable; it's a lovely day."

  "But you didn't bring them," he remarked, nodding his head approvingly. "Well, I don't blame you. They're very good at looking soulful when it pays them to, and I'm glad you were hardhearted enough to resist."

  "I was not hardhearted," Kim denied indignantly, seeing herself on the wrong end of the argument. "It was because I didn't want to take them without your permission, though I might have known you wouldn't have bothered about them since you've left them behind this morning."

  He grinned at her, obviously recognising the reason for her anger and completely unmoved by it. "Oh, I find it very easy to be hardhearted," he told her, apparently seriously. "I'm the original wicked uncle didn't you know?"

  "Do you have to be?" she retorted, rashly uncaring that he could accuse her of not minding her own business. "Couldn't you have brought them with you?"

  He ran disrupting fingers through his hair and looked up at her, silent for a minute, which made her uneasy. "If I fetch them," he said slowly, "are you prepared to stand by to fish them out of the deep end every few minutes?"

  He climbed nimbly out of the boat and covered the intervening strip of sand in a couple of long strides, stopping immediately below her, his head just above the top of the wall. She felt the colour flood slowly into her face and was glad of the dark glasses she wore to hide the expression in her eyes. They gave her a feeling of having something to hide behind, and James Fleming always made her feel so vulnerable, as if she was no more than a child herself and as much a trial to him as the other three. "You could —" she began, but he raised a hand and she stopped, made uneasy by something she saw in his expression.

  "You could be a little more sociable," he told her. "It's a nice day, why don't you try? I'm sure you could be quite a nice girl if you weren't always so prickly."

  "Why, you —" She was too taken aback to be as angry as she should have been and the glare she directed at him was made ineffectual by the dark glasses she wore.

  "I suppose I'd be considered even more of a hardhearted wicked uncle if I offered to take you for a flip in the boat, wouldn't I?" he suggested, ignoring the half-formed protest.

  There was an unmistakable challenge in the light grey eyes and he surveyed her with what she felt amounted to insolence, although it made her pulse race uneasily when she met it. She stared at him, compelled to answer as she did, although she knew she should have dismissed the suggestion without hesitation.

  "Where to?" she asked cautiously.

  His smile told her she had replied as he expected her to and she despised herself for not turning away there and

  then and walking off. "Does it matter?" he countered. Kim still hesitated. "Unless," he added softly, "you're scared, of course."

  "I — I don't know."'

  His brows arched in comment on her indecision. "What are you afraid of?" he asked, his voice still quietly suggestive. "Me or the ocean?"

  "Neither," Kim told him hastily, wishing she did not feel so fluttery and excited at the prospect and that he would stop looking at her the way he was.

  "Then why not come?" he coaxed. He laughed then, a deep, challenging sound that stirred her uneasily because she hated the unspoken things it implied. "You'll be perfectly safe," he promised, "in every way."

  She looked at him as steadily as her racing pulse allowed her to. "I was thinking of the children," she told him, her conscience stirring again briefly when she thought of those soulful little faces at the gate.

  "Well, don't," he advised, adamant as ever. "I never allow them near the boat; it's much too dangerous,
you should realise that, especially since you've appointed yourself their guardian angel."

  "Are you coming?" he asked, cutting her short. The challenge he offered, plus some inexplicable urge to go with him, finally decided her, and she nodded her head. "Right, come on, then."

  He lifted her down from the sea wall and when she stood on the sand in front of him, she realised just how tall he really was. It was the closest she had been to him yet and the smile he gave her did nothing to steady the rapid beat of her heart. For the first time she noticed tiny, fine lines at the corners of his eyes and the fact that, for a man, he had eyelashes that were ridiculously long and thick, making the

  light grey irises more noticeable than ever. The white shirt he wore was open almost to the waist and she could see that his body was as tanned as his face, making him look far more like an outdoor man than a business executive.

  He looked as if he realised she was studying him and it amused him, his smile wide as he extended a hand in invitation. "This way for the Skylark," he told her facetiously, and led the way to the wooden pier where his boat was moored. "Mind how you go." This last warning was issued as she stepped into the boat, hanging on grimly to his hands when it rocked.

  There was no seat but room for two to stand side by side in the covered cockpit, shielded by the glass screen in front and a narrow piece at the side. She smelled the pungent smell of oil and petrol as she stood beside him, holding on to the bar in front of her, horribly nervous, though she would never have admitted it.

  The engine purred into life, making the deck beneath her feet throb with life, then, as they left the pier, it roared like an animal released from restraint, sending the light craft skimming over the water almost without touching it, or so it seemed to Kim. The sensation was exhilarating and she stood with her head back, enjoying the sheer thrill of the speed, unaware at first that she was being watched.

  She became conscious at last that he had turned his head and was looking at her, though she could only guess at the expression in his eyes because of the dark glasses he wore, but the hint of smile that touched his mouth gave her a clue to his satisfaction. Apparently she was reacting as he expected and it pleased him.

  "Paxeter," he said suddenly, pointing to the shore. "Do you know it?"

  "No, I haven't been there yet." She looked across at the ragged grey rocks and almost white sand, much lighter here

  than at Woodsea. "It looks nice."

  "I think so," he informed her with a smile, "it's where I was born."

  "But you didn't open your new offices there?" she asked, and he shook his head. The noise of the engine meant that they had to shout above it, but he seemed not to mind and only occasionally glanced at the dials in front of him, speaking in short, staccato phrases.

  "Not commercial enough. Woodmouth's bigger, more go-ahead, better situated altogether than Paxeter. Better, I mean, for that reason anyway. Paxeter's a sleepy little place really."

  "Not the place for a bustling business tycoon," she suggested, a hint of criticism in her voice which he did not miss.

  He laughed shortly. "Don't you approve of business tycoons, Kim?" he asked.

  Kim shrugged, unwilling to be committed to such a sweeping generalisation. "I've met quite a few since I've been a secretary," she told him cautiously, "and they vary quite a lot. Some very nice, some quite the reverse."

  His grin told her that he was in no doubt into which category she placed him, and she kept her eyes lowered not to meet his amusement head on and flush like a schoolgirl as she inevitably would. He glanced at his watch, suddenly, and slowed the boat down to a more reasonable speed. "Not bad," he opined, "but I could knock off another couple of minutes without the extra weight."

  "Meaning me?" she asked.

  "Meaning you," he agreed, and laughed at her indignation.

  "If you didn't want the extra weight," she retorted, "why were you so insistent on my coming?"

  His only reply was a swift glance and a smile before he

  steered the boat further inshore and headed for what looked like a deserted beach. "Paxeter Cove," he told her as they came quite close inshore. "You should get George to bring you here some time, it's very romantic."

  She flushed at the light-hearted jibe and glared at him reproachfully. "You seem to be labouring under a misapprehension," she informed him.

  He turned the boat again, leaving the shore and heading out to sea again, glancing at his watch. "Am I?" he asked. "You forget, I know George."

  Suddenly and without warning to her, he increased the speed of the boat and sent them hurtling back the way they had come, bouncing and flying over the water, the wind finding its way even round the protective screen and tossing Kim's hair into a tangle of soft curls, whipping a colour into her cheeks.

  They went straight on past Woodsea and Woodmouth, the distance eaten up by the speed, until at last he slowed the engine again, looking at the time it had taken them. "Dimsea," he said, with obvious satisfaction, "and in good time, too." He spared a glance for her tousled head. "You look a bit windblown," he announced.

  "Are you surprised?" She felt herself shy under his scrutiny, as always, and resented it as much as she always did.

  He laughed softly, as if he suspected her feelings. "Not really," he admitted. "I only hope I've blown away some of your antagonism. Or do you still hate the sight of me?"

  "I didn't say any such thing," Kim objected indignantly, "and I've never even suggested it."

  "O.K., O.K., I'm sorry." He ran the boat alongside a wooden pier, very similar to the one they had left from, and cut the engine, jumping up on to the boards with the agilty of long practice.

  It was when he reached down his hands to help her ashore that she hesitated. "I should really get back," she told him. "I'm supposed to have gone for a walk and they might wonder where I've got to if I'm too long."

  "You won't be too long," he assured her confidently. "And nobody 'll start worrying about you yet. Come on," he added persuasively, his hands still reaching down to her, "I promise I'll get you back by lunchtime, Kim."

  She hesitated only briefly, then nodded and put up her hands, hanging on tightly as he helped her out of the swaying boat. She walked with him along the pier and on to the sandy beach, a steadying hand on her arm as they went.

  "Where are we going?" Kim asked, and he looked down at her with a grin, as if he speculated on her reaction.

  "Smugglers' Walk?" he suggested, and laughed when she looked puzzled. "It's a natural gallery," he explained, "up there on the cliff. It's quite a climb, but the view is worth it, if you like that kind of thing."

  "I do," Kim confessed, but nevertheless eyed the cliff that loomed above them with a certain apprehension. "Is it really a smugglers' walk? Were there smugglers here in the old days?"

  "Oh, without doubt," he assured her, eyeing the tall, gaunt greyness of the cliff and the narrow steps that staggered all the way up the side of it to where a shelf of rock jutted away below the overhang above it. From down on the beach it looked breathtakingly narrow and very dangerous, and Kim wondered if he was just trying to frighten her or if he was serious about them going up there.

  "Can you go up there?" she asked, trying not to sound as doubtful as she felt.

  "Indeed you can." He grinned down at her again, his eyes gleaming wickedly, as if he suspected her nervousness all too easily. "The old smugglers are supposed to

  have escaped up there, at one time, during the good old days, and held off the Excise men with a bombardment of rocks and boulders. It must have been very discouraging," he added with a laugh, obviously on the side of the law-breakers.

  "And you no doubt would have cheered for the smugglers," she guessed, at which he nodded eagerly.

  "Of course," he told her. "One of my ancestors, Abel Fleming, was among them, in fact he led them."

  Kim eyed him for a moment meaningly. "Yes," she commented at last, "I can well imagine it, although I'd have expected a family with the name of
Fleming to have originated from north of the border, not from this part of the world."

  "Right again," he applauded, evidently undeterred by her implied criticism. "Angus Fleming, Abel's father, came south after the ' rebellion, to marry a wealthy daughter of some local bigwig. They had four more sons besides Abel and lived happily ever after, by all accounts. The whole tribe had a gift for making money by fair means or foul, and we're still at it, though a bit more fairly than foully these days, I suppose."

  "I see. You've a very — er — interesting history," Kim said, "I didn't realise how long you'd been here. Your family, I mean."

  "No, I don't suppose you did. Most people hear our name, mine especially, and automatically assume we're Scots, when of course we aren't, not any more."

  Kim eyed the towering face of the cliff once more. "Is it really safe to go up there ?" she asked.

  "Quite safe, except for children and old ladies," he replied solemnly, only his eyes showing laughter.

  Kim decided she had no desire to be classed as either, which was obviously what a refusal would mean, in his

  eyes, so she nodded agreement. There was a large notice displayed at the foot of the cliff steps, disclaiming the Council's responsibility for anyone climbing up to the gallery, a warning which set Kim's heart fluttering uneasily as they began the laborious climb upwards, so that she was grateful for the hand that was offered to help her.

  "Take it slow and easy," her guide advised, "and you can -enjoy it without getting short of breath or breaking your neck."

  There was only a flimsy handrail between them and a drop of well over a hundred feet to the sea below as they neared the top, and when James turned round 'to grin at her over one shoulder, she bit her lip anxiously.

  "Be careful," she warned automatically, her grip on his hand tightening unconsciously.

  "They do say," he told her, "that one Squire Murgles dropped his mistress into the sea from up here when she threatened to give him and his fellow villains away to the Excise men."