Anything But Vanilla

‘You mean like Lindisfarne or the Isle of Wight?’

‘Nah, smaller. More like St Michael’s Mount only with fewer tourists. It’s called Liddell Island. It’s less than a mile across.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘It’s just off the coast.’

Well, duh, she’d figured that. Where else was it going to be? She couldn’t see him moving to the Norfolk Broads.

‘Listen, K. I’ve got all the paperwork done. I just need you to pick up the keys for me. You’ll do that, right? You don’t mind.’

Of course she did. She’d rather not get out of bed today. Although, considering how much said bed kept moving, rising might not be such a bad plan. ‘Yes, I’ll do it. Just tell me where.’ She gave a sigh.

‘Thanks, Kara. Look, it needs a bit of work. I figured you could hang out there and fix it up while I’m away.’

She ought to have known there’d be more to this than just collecting some keys. Chris had a talent for layering things. He’d get you to agree to one thing and next thing you knew you were signed up for a month of hell. She was about to turn him down when he uttered the magic words. ‘I’ll pay you.’ That put an entirely different spin on things. Decorating was hardly her favourite pastime, but … ‘It has to be better than hanging out at Karen’s or going back to mum’s, right?’ Exactly, anything, bar being locked in a room with Gavin, was better than occupying a room in the family home. And since she was homeless – having sold her place to live with Gavin – and jobless – plain old economic downturn – this was likely the best offer coming her way.

‘All right. I said I’d do it. Give me some directions and tell me where to get the keys from.’ She jotted down some notes on the edge of the TV guide as Chris went through the details.

‘You’ll need to check the tide timetable before you make the crossing. The causeway floods at high tide for several hours. Once you’re on the island, you pick the keys up from Alaric Liddell at the fort.’

‘Little of Little Island,’ she joked.

‘Liddell,’ Chris corrected.

‘Yeah, I got it.’ Kara grimaced at the phone. ‘The Liddell king of the castle.’

On the other end of the line, Chris huffed. ‘Now you’re just being silly. Besides, it’s a fort, not a castle. Don’t you know the difference? I thought you did history.’

‘Evidently I missed the lesson on forts.’ Just as he’d missed the lesson on humour. ‘Is there anything else I need to know?’

‘Not that I can think of. Listen, I’m coming up to the turnoff for the airport. Skype me about the house and what needs doing and I’ll transfer you the money. Try and get there without flushing the car away. Talk to you later.’

‘Will do. Bye.’

He hung up without muttering a corresponding farewell.

‘Was that Chris?’ Karen wafted in straight from the shower smelling of lime and carrying two mugs of tea. She passed one over to Kara. ‘I had to get up. Mum phoned to nag me about you. She wants you over there later so you can have a talk. She’s still pissed off at you about the wedding.’

‘Yeah, I got that even though Gavin’s the controlling twerp, it’s still all my fault that the wedding is off. I think she actually suggested that I didn’t look after him right. Like if I baked him apple pie every night and did as I was told there wouldn’t be a problem.’

Karen’s face wrinkled in sympathy. Her lips made a tight pout. ‘I know. You don’t have to convince me. I went out with you last night to commiserate, didn’t I? That and I’ve already told you I think you were right to call it off, but you know how mum is. She was all geared up for the big day and now she’s disappointed because she doesn’t get to don her Donna Karan suit and flaunt it in front of your new in-laws. Give her time and let her have her rant. Deep down I’m sure she knows it was the only choice you had.’

It was bleeding typical of her family that everyone was worried over their mother’s disappointment and not the wreckage Gavin had made of her life. Kara scowled into her tea cup. Perhaps Chris had done her more of a favour than she’d initially thought. There was sure to be a downside – where her brother was concerned there always was, like she’d discover his new house was roofless – but anywhere would be an improvement on here.

‘Kara, I’m sorry I can’t offer you a bed here, but you know there’s not space,’ Karen started awkwardly. ‘Andrew will be back in an hour with the kids. You’re going to have to stay at mum’s.’

‘It’s OK. Chris has offered me his place.’

‘Isn’t Richard there?’

Kara shrugged and let Karen think that she was holing up with their brother’s on-off live-in lover at his rented apartment. Doing a disappearing act seemed like a grand plan. Isolating herself on Liddell Island, cut off from the mainland by the tide for hours at a time, suddenly gained magical appeal. No one would know her. She’d be able to wipe the slate clean and begin again. Maybe even have some fun. She’d made that promise to herself last night.

Karen sat hunched in her dressing gown, with her palms curled around her cup. She opened her mouth twice and closed it, before blowing the steam off her tea. ‘Where’d you disappear to last night? You were gone ages.’

‘Was I?’

‘You know you were. Was it that guy you were dancing with?’

Kara shrugged. ‘Dunno what you’re implying. Who was he?’ In God’s honest truth she couldn’t recall his name. Her memories of him were all of raw sensations, but his appearance she could only recall in the loosest sense – broad brushstrokes forming a rudimentary sketch. She probably ought to regret that, since he’d been a damn good lay.

‘Let me have a shower and then I’ll be off,’ she said, leaving her sister to brood over whatever folly she believed Kara had committed. So she’d had a one-night stand. Big deal! Get over it. She was a single girl and as long as her actions didn’t hurt anyone, then what was the problem with her having a little fun? Or even a lot of it.

CHAPTER TWO

The sky had turned indigo and the weather gloomy by the time Kara reached the Devon coastline and saw Liddell Island rising like a Titan’s throne from the ocean. A zing of anticipation jigged beneath her skin as she gazed across at its ridge of rocky spires. Karen had once said that their brother had OD’d on Dracula at too young an age and one glance at Liddell Island only confirmed that. It was a little piece of Transylvania stuck out in the ocean.

After two hundred metres of sea spray that necessitated having the windscreen wipers on full, the causeway broadened on to a shingle bay. Kara pulled up and got out of the car. A quick recce showed that the only building was locked up for the night, so she had no choice but to brave the upward trek to the fort. Orange residue stained the looming cliff face as she climbed along a gravel track. To her left a thick rope supported by iron staves formed the only barrier between her and a sheer drop. The situation worsened at the top, where a rope bridge provided the only means of crossing a vast gorge. ‘Bloody hell!’ She was going to kill Chris the next time she saw him. Kara wobbled across the bridge without looking down, only to be greeted by gargoyles and a nearly sheer flight of steps.

By the time she’d staggered to the top, ducked the portcullis, found the bell pull and rung it with all her might, she was out of breath and ready for a nice sit down. Hopefully, the owner might take pity. Then again, considering the old-fashioned iron-pinned door she was facing, she half expected Igor to answer.

Instead, the barking of dogs chorused the arrival of the human inhabitant.

‘Toby! Horace!’ A male voice boomed over the patter of paws on the floor tiles. Kara blinked into the yellow light that shone out of the open door. ‘Good evening. Are you lost?’ A bare-chested man stood before her.

Kara gave a little croak. OK, Christopher was forgiven. Whatever she’d been expecting – crooked little old man – it wasn’t this.

Long blond hair fanned over the top of his shoulders and rested at the top of his tattooed biceps.

‘The causeway’s crossable now, though I’d recommend a torch,’ he remarked without even looking at her. He released one of the huge dogs, whom he had by the collar, in order to plunge his hand into a box of LED keychain lights. He offered one to Kara which she took automatically while warily fending off the freed hound, who danced about her trying to shove its head up her skirt. ‘Um, sorry.’ He dragged the dog off while the second oversized pooch tried to worm its way between his legs.

‘I’m not lost. I’m looking for Alaric Liddell. I’m supposed to pick up some keys,’ she said as she clicked the little purple light on and off. ‘Do you know where I can find him? I was told the fort.’

The hard lines of his face softened into a tentative smile. He had pale grey-blue eyes, which made a sudden appraising sweep of her body. ‘Mrs North? I was told the buyer was a man.’

‘Oh no, I’m not married,’ Kara hastily explained, not wanting him to think she was off limits, considering the rather pleasant sexual frisson that zapped between them as he took in her windblown appearance. ‘He’s gay. My brother, I mean. I’m here on his behalf because he’s gone abroad. I’m Kara North.’ She stuck out a hand, which he declined in favour of grabbing both dogs by the collars and heaving them inside.

‘I’m Ric Liddell. Come on in and I’ll find you those keys.’ He grinned at her showing a few too many lovely white teeth. ‘I think they’re in the study. Toby. Horace.’ He pushed the dogs out of the way to allow her to enter unhindered, then stepped back so that she could walk ahead of him into the hall.

‘Thanks.’ Kara stepped warily over the threshold. Stranger-danger warnings pushed to the back of her mind in favour of the upswing in her lustometer. Ric Liddell was far too hot to be mouldering away on a fleabitten rock. She prayed he wasn’t gay and that Chris hadn’t sent her to a heterosexual woman’s idea of purgatory.

‘Have you come far?’

‘Not really. Although it’s taken a couple of hours because I had to wait for the tide.’ Kara turned to face him again only to be blessed with a glimpse of his back as he bolted the door. Strong shoulders gave way to a trim waist. His black jeans rode low over his hips, held in place by a studded belt, while a huge tattoo of an ankh, entwined within a coil of roses, decorated the length of his spine and shoulder blades.

‘Wow!’

He turned his head to look at her, his eyebrows raised in question. Now in the light, with fewer shadows to mask his features, she realised he was slightly older than she’d first assumed, perhaps five or six years her senior. Not old, but no spring lamb either. Somehow that added to his appeal.