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Not that people really thought about raising money for an organisation. They thought about the people. People like Ryan. Wasn’t that why she was here today? Why she’d agreed to this stupid challenge of Lisette’s?
Thinking of stupid challenges and raising money, it was high time she made her way over to the registration table and got a signature to confirm she’d done the bungee jump. Then Lisette could go and collect all that cleavage-induced sponsor money. She smiled to herself. She was really looking forward to seeing Lisette’s face when she handed her the form.
Above the general hum of conversation she heard a voice. ‘Fern?’
It must be Simon. She wasn’t surprised he’d come scurrying over as soon as he could. She pushed her hair out of her eyes and turned round, bracing herself for the squelch.
She was most magnificently disappointed as a fully-fledged zap hit her straight between the eyes.
Josh Adams! It had been real after all. Her mouth opened and closed.
As always, he knew just what to do and gathered her up into the most enormous bear-hug. Tears sprang to her eyes as the overwhelming ache of months spent missing him without properly realising it crashed over her. She buried her face in his shoulder, letting his T-shirt absorb the moisture.
A gentle cough somewhere to their right disturbed them.
Fern pulled out of Josh’s arms, although their eyes were locked on each other and they were both grinning like maniacs. ‘Simon, meet my old friend Josh,’ she said, still staring and still doing the maniac thing.
Josh gave her a wink and tore his gaze away to look at Simon and offered him his hand. Fern turned to look at him too. Yep, there was the squelch she’d been expecting. It didn’t even hit her right between the eyes. It just kind of wafted towards her half-heartedly and landed in a blob at her feet.
‘Nice to meet you,’ Josh said as he released Simon’s hand. ‘Are you Fern’s…?’
Simon, who had been looking uncharacteristically tense round the jaw, brightened and opened his mouth to speak.
‘Friend!’ she blurted out, before he had a chance to mouth the first syllable. ‘Simon is a really good friend of mine. He did most of the organisation for the bungee jump.’
Josh clapped him on the shoulder with the flat of his hand and almost sent Simon flying. ‘Good man. In that case, let’s get over there and sign these forms so the money can start rolling in. After that—’he looked at Fern and her tummy did a triple-flip ‘—I’m taking you out for coffee so we can catch up on the last few months.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Try eighteen.’
He frowned. ‘Has it really been that long?’
She nodded and gave him a rueful smile. How could she forget that Christmas at the Adams’s when he’d come home with the awful Amber? The darn woman had hardly been able to leave him alone. It had been embarrassing to watch her grope him over—and probably under—the table while they’d had Christmas lunch. Not that Josh had seemed to mind. Yes, that had been the year Fern had gone home early with a migraine.
He frowned again. ‘In that case, I’d better buy you a really big coffee.’
‘That’s more like it. One with syrup in and whipped cream on top.’
Josh pulled a face, but she was undeterred. She was feeling rather fuzzy and low blood sugar was as good an explanation as any. Truth was she’d have drunk river water if it would give her a chance to spend a little more time with him before he dashed off to the next far-flung place. They’d been close once. Almost like brother and sister. Almost.
They had the kind of bond that didn’t require constant telephone messages or texts, or even letters—and you could forget Christmas cards. She doubted Josh even had a list—but she’d seen too little of him in the last few years. It would be nice to have a chance to talk to someone who remembered Ryan.
Almost two decades had passed since her brother had died and the friends she’d known at the time were somebody else’s friends now. And there was no point taking a trip down memory lane with her parents. They still found the whole subject far too distressing.
‘Come on, then,’ she said, tugging at his arm. ‘There’s a nice little coffee shop down by the river.’
Josh saluted her, then turned to smile at Simon. ‘Don’t you just love it when she gets all bossy like this?’
Simon opened his mouth to speak but no sound came out. In the end, he just nodded. ‘Bye,’ he croaked as they disappeared off the brown field site and joined the jostling city again.
Fern stood behind Josh in the queue at the coffee shop and tried desperately not to slide into a time warp where she was a shy thirteen-year-old harbouring a desperate crush on the boy next door. Unrequited, of course.
You’re a grown woman now, she told herself. Enough.
But all her stern warnings couldn’t banish the giddy feeling in her tummy when he turned round, winked and handed her a cardboard cup with a plastic lid. ‘There you go. One large mocha with whipped cream.’
The giddiness upgraded itself into proper vertigo and she hadn’t even got the sugar rush from the chocolate yet.
‘Thanks.’
She knew what would happen now. She would drop her coffee, dribble it down her front or tip it all over him. Josh had always had this effect on her—at least since she’d had hormones in sufficient numbers for them to short-circuit her coordination. Since then, the warm, safe feeling she’d always got when he’d been around was counterbalanced with a jittery nervousness.
He’d always teased her for being clumsy, but the truth was she was only ever like it around him. And, after fifteen years of beating her hormones into submission, they had decided to stage one last revolt. Little traitors.
‘Let’s walk,’ he said, nodding towards the door. She readily agreed. Morning coffee was blending into early lunch and the tables were packed tightly. Too many elbows and chair legs to avoid.
Once clear of the café, they crossed the road and ambled along the Thames Embankment. She loved the wide stone paths and solid walls, the outrageously ornate Victorian lampposts set at regular intervals. Bulbous-headed black fish gazed at her from the base of the lamps and wound their tails up the posts.
After walking for a few minutes in silence, they naturally gravitated to a quiet stretch of wall and stopped to lean on the smooth granite, their cups of coffee balanced in front of them. Josh nodded towards the crane poking above the skyline.
‘That was quite a rush, wasn’t it?’
Rush? Never had she felt such pure terror as when she’d been hurtling towards the ground, sure the bungee cord would snap or that her ankles would slide loose.
‘Yes,’ she mumbled, glad she had a good excuse to lie. Josh would never understand.
‘I thought for a moment, when I heard you say no, that you were going to chicken out.’
Fern stopped watching the light play on the water as it lapped against the wall below her. ‘I said no?’
Josh nodded. ‘I think so.’
Fern bit her lip. Darn, darn, darn. All that for nothing! She’d shot herself in the foot before she’d even jumped. She felt like giving herself a hefty slap on the forehead, but that would have required an explanation she wasn’t ready to give. Instead she turned round and leaned her bottom against the cool stone and stared at the traffic racing along Victoria Embankment.
‘Come on, Fern. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Everyone is a little nervous on their first jump. It’s only natural.’
She twisted just her head to look at him. ‘Were you?’
He half-coughed, half-laughed. ‘Well, no…but that doesn’t matter, does it?’
Fern could feel the coffee churning inside her and looked down at her stomach. Yesterday, she’d been so sure this challenge of Lisette’s was going to be a piece of cake and now she’d blown it. Stupid, stupid girl! All she’d had to do was say ‘yes’. Such a tiny word. Not that difficult. Lisette was right; she was far too used to saying the opposite and a moment of subconscious muttering had cost the Leukaemia Research Trust nine hundred pounds.
‘What you said up there doesn’t matter,’ he continued. ‘It’s cancelled out by the fact that…Hey, look at me…’
She looked sideways at him, her head still bowed forward. He raised his eyebrows, waiting. There was no point resisting Josh when he got all determined like this. She turned to face him and looked straight into his melting brown eyes.
‘It’s cancelled out by the fact that you did it anyway. You turned the no into a yes by your actions. And actions are what count.’
She blinked. That sounded a bit like wiggling out on a technicality. Could she just gloss over it? Tell Lisette she hadn’t said no all week?
The smallest of smiles started on her lips, barely a curve. Focusing on the small print, Lisette hadn’t exactly said she couldn’t say the word no, had she? She just wasn’t allowed to use it as an answer to a direct question. And she hadn’t been asked a question on top of the crane. She’d been talking to herself.
It truly didn’t count. A sigh of relief escaped her lips and she rested her elbows on the parapet once more. Josh’s left forearm was only six inches away from her right one. Not close enough to suggest the intimacy of a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, but close enough for her to feel the heat of him.
Josh moved the arm closest to her and gave her a gentle prod in the ribs with his elbow. ‘What are you smiling to yourself about?’
‘I really did it, didn’t I?’
He grinned back at her. ‘Yes, you really did. You were really brave.’
The smile waned and the crease reappeared between her brows. ‘Don’t be silly! I’m not brave, not like you. You must have done hundreds of those jumps.’
He sidled up closer so their arms were touching. The breath caught in her throat.
‘You’ve got it the wrong way round. I’m not brave when I do a bungee jump. It doesn’t take anything for me to do it. I love it. But you…’
The way he was looking at her, full of warmth and admiration, made her mouth dry.
‘…I know you’re not mad keen on heights. For you, it was brave.’ One corner of Josh’s mouth lifted in a smile. ‘And that’s why I have a proposition for you.’
CHAPTER THREE
FERN’S eyes widened. Was this it? The moment she had dreamed about as a teenager, lying face up on her bed, listening to power ballads and staring at the posters on the wall? Was this the moment when the scales would fall from Josh’s eyes and he would finally see what had been under his nose all along? He was at least a decade behind schedule.
Her silly heart fluttered against her ribcage like a trapped bird. ‘What…what kind of proposition?’
Josh leaned towards her, a glint in his eye, as if he were making her part of some thrilling conspiracy. He was close enough for her to see the olive-green flecks in his irises and catch a waft of his aftershave.
‘I think we should spend a lot of time together over the next few days.’
‘You do?’ Her voice squeaked the same way it had every time she’d had to talk to him when she’d been a teenager. How embarrassing. All she’d been capable of doing back then was watching his lips move, hoping against hope that he’d stop mid-sentence, lean forward and…
As if he could read her mind, he came closer, near enough for the words he whispered to tickle her hair. ‘How does five grand sound to you?’
Five thousand pounds? He was offering her money to go on a date with him? Didn’t he know she’d do it for free? Heck, there’d been a time when she’d have given the contents of her savings account for such a privilege.
She shook her head. The lack of oxygen in all those high altitude places he’d trekked in must have interfered with his brain.
He suddenly stepped away and jumped up to sit on the edge of the wall overlooking the river. ‘Don’t say no before you’ve heard me out.’
A little laugh tickled at the back of her throat. God bless Lisette and her stupid bet!
‘Come up here.’ He held out one hand and patted the space on the wall beside him with the other. Now, climbing on walls was not something she normally did. They were usually there for a reason. In this case, a twenty foot drop with smelly river water at the bottom. But the look in his eyes told her it was easy—no big deal—and she placed her hand in his and wedged her trainer on the lip at the bottom of the wall. He tugged and for a moment she was airborne and then, somehow, she was sitting on the wall next to him, her feet dangling above the paving stones.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ragged scrap of newspaper. She squinted in the bright sunshine as he began to unfold it.
‘You and me together for four days in London…’ he muttered as he concentrated on flattening the paper out against his thighs.
Four days? This moment had definitely been worth the wait. Her chest seemed to expand, fill with sunshine.
Encouraged by her smile, Josh slapped the scrap of paper with the flat of his hand. ‘I knew you were the right person to ask, the moment I saw you jump off that crane!’
Fern blinked. This conversation was not going anything like it had all those years ago in her daydreams. She’d always imagined that the realisation that she was The One For Him would hit him like a bolt from the blue, rendering him unable to anything but sweep her into his arms and declare his eternal love for her. In reality, it was an awful lot more confusing.
She turned to look at him, leaning forward and resting her weight on her hands as they gripped the edge of the wall. ‘What exactly did you know when you saw me jump off that crane?’ No harm in giving him a prod back in the right direction.
He looked puzzled. She raised her eyebrows and smiled softly in silent encouragement. Typical Josh. His quick brain would race ahead and, between one sentence and the next, his imagination would take so many leaps that he was on a totally different subject when he started to speak again, often so excited by his ideas that he’d forget that he hadn’t said it all out loud and that those listening hadn’t made the jump with him. Thinking outside the box was what he excelled at.
She summarised where they’d got to so far in the conversation, hoping it would jog his memory about what needed to come next. ‘A proposition, remember? Five thousand pounds…you and me for four days in London…’ Her pulse, which had calmed slightly in the last few minutes, started to panic again. ‘What’s this all about?’
He waved the piece of paper in front of her nose. ‘The treasure hunt, of course.’
She snatched the piece of paper from him and held it still. Her heart had obviously banged against her ribcage once too often, because now it seemed to have slowed almost to nothing and she could hear the rush of the river in her ears.
‘…and you want me to be your partner?’
He jumped off the wall and stepped in front of her. For a moment she thought he was going to take her hands, but then he fidgeted and stuffed them in his pockets. ‘Yes.’
‘Why?’ The word came out like a strangled cough. She tried again. ‘Why me?’
He stopped shifting his weight from one foot to the other and looked her straight in the eye. ‘Because I think you’d be the perfect partner.’
Inside her head she was screaming with frustration. How many times as a teenager had she hoped to hear those words? That was the one thing he’d never been able to understand. But what he was asking her now wasn’t what she’d yearned for back then. He had no idea he’d ignited a painful and distant memory.
Four days with Josh. Once upon a time, she’d have thought that was heaven; now she was starting to consider it more as purgatory. Being with Josh would be wonderful. And last week, if someone had told her he was coming home and she would get to spend some quality time with him, she’d have been thrilled. But last week she’d considered herself over that all-consuming teenage crush.
The adrenaline from the jump must have sent her system into overdrive, because now it was back with a vengeance and she was likely to say stupid things, do stupid things and, most dangerously, feel stupid things. For Josh.
It had already started. It was only an hour since they’d met again and she was getting all her signals crossed, imagining there’d be moments and bolts from the blue and—heaven help her poor confused heart rate—kisses.
Four days and she’d be in too deep to laugh it all off and pretend it didn’t matter, as she had done the day after her sixteenth birthday party. Four days would be far too much and never enough. Not when he’d disappear off to Kathmandu or Papua New Guinea in a couple of weeks.
She shivered. Water slapped aggressively against the river wall behind her as the wake of a passing boat met solid resistance. Her fingers gripped tighter on the edge of the wall and she slowly slid herself down until her feet touched solid ground again. She pushed past Josh and folded her arms across her middle.
‘Sorry, Josh. I can’t.’
She was worrying the edge of her T-shirt with the tips of her fingers and Josh knew she wasn’t as clear-cut about this answer as her tone and body language implied.
What was the problem? The treasure hunt was going to be a blast. And he knew Fern would have fun if she would just give it a chance. However, she didn’t look as if she was thinking about how much fun it was going to be, with that faint scowl knitting her brows together. No, knowing Fern, she was worrying about something. Practicalities, probably.
Practical. That word described Fern perfectly. He remembered a time when she’d been six and had skipped up the garden and warned him and Ryan that the shed roof would never take their weight. He should have listened. His leg had been in plaster for six weeks and he still had a scar on his thigh.
So, he’d talk practicalities with her. Maybe then she’d give in to that little voice in her head he knew was just egging her on to say yes.
‘The first prize is five thousand pounds cash and five thousand pounds in UK holiday vouchers.’
A slightly hysterical giggle erupted from deep inside her. ‘Holiday vouchers? Why in heaven do you need holiday vouchers?’ She paused. ‘Come to think of it, you don’t really need the cash either.’
‘So why am I doing it?’ See, this was why he needed her. They knew each other so well he could guess what she was going to say before the words left her mouth. ‘Partly because it’s going to be fun, but partly because Mum and Dad need a break and they won’t let me pay for it. I’ve tried, really I have. But they might accept these vouchers. As you said, it’s not like I have a use for them…’
Now he was frowning too.
‘They’re both so stressed. Dad is frustrated that he can’t be the workaholic he knows how to be and Mum is terrified he’s going to get bored and put himself in danger by doing too much too soon.’
The mini-scowl eased from her face a little. He decided to carry on while there was a thaw. ‘I was planning to send them off to Scotland where they had their honeymoon. Mum’s always said how good for the soul those mountains are.’
She smiled at him. ‘That’s a lovely idea.’
‘And what about you, Fern? I’m sure you could find something sensible to spend the money on. Pay off a bit of your mortgage or something. Didn’t that Simon guy mention something about the Leukaemia Research Trust—’ at this she perked up and he knew he was on the right track ‘—some appeal they’re holding at the moment?’
‘I expect he mentioned something like that,’ she said quietly, the pull of conflicting emotions clouding her pale blue eyes.
He laid a hand on her arm, but stopped short of sliding it around her shoulders and pulling her to him as he had the urge to do. As he’d had the urge to do ever since his fingers had felt the soft curve of her waist before she’d fallen out of his hands. He suddenly felt very careless for letting her go that easily.
‘Come on, Fern. The possibility of five thousand pounds and four days in my scintillating company. What’s not to like?’
She shook her head, but couldn’t help smiling. ‘You always were a bit of a big-head.’
‘And you used to say you didn’t see enough of your honorary big brother.’
She shook her head. ‘Seriously, I can’t just drop everything. I have work to do.’
‘What sort of work?’
‘Well, my job involves site visits so I can assess risk factors. The insurance company then uses my report to decide the premium.’
‘And how many visits have you got planned over the next few days?’
She unfolded and refolded her arms. ‘Well, none actually—’ she held up her hand to stop him interrupting ‘—but I’d really been looking forward to having a chance to clear my desk and catch up with the filing.’
He gave her an incredulous look. ‘Sweetheart, filing can always wait for a few more days.’
She glared back at him. ‘It’s too short notice. I can’t just not show up tomorrow.’
‘Why? Have you used up all your annual leave?’
She opened her mouth and shut it again. Then she looked at the floor. ‘Yes,’ she said with the vague hint of a question in her voice. He knew that routine.
‘Fern?’
She looked up.
‘Are you fibbing?’
She blew out an exasperated puff of air and the slightly guilty look in her eyes made him want to chuckle. ‘Yes.’
Their gazes locked and the urge to chuckle leached away. ‘You could ask your boss, couldn’t you?’
She tutted and mumbled some kind of answer as she pulled a mobile phone out of her neat little brown leather rucksack. He tried not to smile too hard as she pressed a few buttons and walked away from him, holding it to her ear. He also tried not to stare too hard at her bottom as she took slow, steady steps away from him, deep in conversation with someone else.
When had Fern started walking like that? With all that sway and fluid grace? She wiped the smile off his face completely by turning round suddenly and catching him in the act. He tried to look nonchalant. Maybe she hadn’t noticed.
He couldn’t work out how the conversation was going. Fern wasn’t looking pleased, but she was nodding more than she was shaking her head. Finally, she removed the phone from her ear, punched the button and took quick steps towards him.
‘Well? Did he say yes?’
She sighed and nodded just the once. He swore that, as she tucked her phone away back in her bag, he heard her mutter something like, ‘It must be infectious.’ When she had zipped every last zip and popped every last popper she looked up.
‘Come on, Fern. It’ll be fun. What do you say?’
Half of her answer was muffled against his chest as he dragged her into a triumphant hug, ignoring his earlier instinct to keep a bit of distance. So he kept wanting to touch her. So what? What were impulses for, if not for following?
Fern was so used to the rumbles, screeches and hoots of the London traffic that she filtered it all out as she made her way from Embankment tube station up the Strand towards Trafalgar Square. Josh had said to meet him there at eleven-thirty and it was already twenty-five past. She picked up speed.
Gone were the glorious blue skies of yesterday. The weather forecast had said it was going to be overcast and for once it was right. Pearly-white clouds hung high in the air, robbing the light of its golden quality but doing nothing to reduce its brightness. She was squinting already, which meant she would almost certainly have a headache by the end of the day.
On the Internet last night she’d done some research on the event and had found out that it was called the Secret London Treasure Hunt, organised by London City Radio to promote not only their shows, but the famous tourist attractions. It had also said something about discovering interesting nooks and crannies that even many Londoners didn’t know about. She smiled. This was really going to be her kind of thing.
She loved the history of London. Her office was in the square mile of the old city and she spent many of her lunch hours exploring the side streets, little parks and myriad churches. There was always something fascinating to find, some little adventure to go on.