avoided the beach as much as possible. When Imogen was just
The evenings were tricky too, but at least then it was dark. Together, they would sit and watch, mesmerised, while the sky softened and glowed and the sun sank towards the horizon and disappeared at last in an extravaganza of fiery colour. The sudden darkness brought a raucous chorus of insects and the bats, swooping and diving through the hot air.
Tom was always achingly aware of Imogen beside him then. Every evening she showered and changed into a dress, and he could smell the soap and sunshine on her skin, and in the freshly washed hair that tumbled loose to her shoulders.
But he could handle it. It was under control.
‘I don’t like the look of that.’ Imogen stopped in the shallows and pointed at the horizon, which was boiling with dark, dense, billowy clouds.
It was very hot and even the water around her ankles felt warmer than usual. The circuit of the island involved more wading than walking, but it was already familiar. Imogen did a quick calculation. This was the fifth time they had done it, but the first time she had noticed clouds like that. They were a long way away, it was true, but there was something menacing about them, and she watched them uneasily.
‘I hope there’s not going to be a storm.’
Tom eyed the horizon. ‘It’s looking pretty black,’ he agreed. ‘We might well get some rain.’
‘I don’t mind rain. It’s thunder and lightning that make me nervous.’ Imogen hugged her arms together. ‘I know it’s silly, but I hate storms.
‘When I was little, I went on a camping trip with my friend and her family,’ she said. ‘We were staying on a campsite by a river, and there was a terrific storm in the middle of the night. Thunder, lightning, torrential rain, wind…the full works. It was chaos,’ she remembered with a shudder. ‘There were tents blowing away, and people screaming and the river flooded…
‘I was only seven and I was terrified, although it turned out in the end that no one had been badly hurt or anything. But the tents were ruined and everything was such a mess that we went back early. When we got home, my mother had to tell me that my granny had died suddenly while I’d been away.’
The memory still made Imogen sad. ‘She’d been living with us and I absolutely adored her. I was devastated, and I suppose it got all muddled up in my mind. I thought that the storm had somehow killed Granny, and the next time there was thunder and lightning I got absolutely hysterical.’
Tom’s expression was hard to read and she trailed off, feeling foolish. ‘I told you it was silly,’ she apologised.
‘It’s difficult to get things that happen to us as kids into proper perspective,’ he said. ‘Even when we’re grown up and understand what really happened, we still feel it the way we did then. My mother died when I was five,’ he said abruptly. ‘I don’t remember much about her-it’s more of an impression than a specific memory-but I remember exactly the tweedy jacket my father was wearing when he came back from hospital to tell me. It felt rough when he hugged me, and I can still see those leather buttons. Even now I’ll sometimes catch a glimpse of someone wearing a jacket like that and I’ll feel a mixture of confusion and distress, just like I did then.’
He had kept his account deliberately dispassionate, but Imogen felt tears sting her eyes at the thought of the small boy learning that his world had fallen apart.
‘How awful for you.’
‘I was all right.’ She was unsurprised when Tom brushed her sympathy aside and carried on splashing through the shallows.
‘I don’t think I really understood what my father meant,’ he said. ‘They hadn’t told me that she was ill, and I was just aware that nothing was happening as it should any more. I remember not understanding why the house was a mess or why we didn’t have meals at the proper times any more.
‘Of course, I can see now that my father was struggling to cope, and doing the best that he could. Tidying the house wouldn’t have been top of his order of priorities, but it bothered me at the time. That level of disorder still makes me uncomfortable,’ he added in a burst of confidence.
No wonder being in control was so important to him, thought Imogen, wading through the warm water beside him. His mother’s death would have disrupted everything that he took for granted. As a small boy, he must have felt utterly powerless. She could see how building an orderly world that he could control would be a way of coping with the loss of the most important figure in his life.
His distrust of emotions made more sense now. Tom might think that he was being realistic, but inside he was still the boy who had lost the woman he loved the most, and was afraid of feeling that bereft again. It was easy to see how a small child, unable to understand death, would think that he had been abandoned by his mother, would feel at some level that she wouldn’t have left him if he’d been good enough. That would certainly explain his drive to succeed, to prove again and again that he
And now Julia had abandoned him too. Imogen’s heart cracked for him, and she slid a glance under her lashes. She knew better than to say anything, but she felt desperately sorry for him. It wasn’t surprising that he was so wary of love. Falling in love would mean letting go of everything that had made him feel safe since he was a child.
It was a shame, Imogen thought. If only Tom would take the risk, he could make some woman very happy. Behind that brusque exterior was a man who was strong and steady and fiercely intelligent, with an unexpectedly dry sense of humour. The more time she spent with him, the more she found herself liking him.
And the more attractive she found him.
Night after night, she would lie alone in the big bed and think about Tom on the sofa, just round the corner. In the darkness she would remember how he looked when he came out of the water, brushing his wet hair back from his forehead. His legs were long and lean, his chest broad and his shoulders powerful. Imogen’s mouth would dry at the memory.
It was getting harder and harder to remember that she was supposed to be treating him like any other friend. She was reluctant to offer to rub sun cream into his back too often, not because she didn’t want to touch him, but because she wanted it too much. Tom often hesitated before accepting, and Imogen was convinced that he knew how much she loved the sensation of feeling the leashed power of his body beneath her hands, in spite of her best attempts to appear brisk and unconcerned. His skin was warm and sleek and matt and, when she felt his muscles flex at her touch, her stomach tightened and heat roiled through her.
It was all she could do to stop her hands sliding all over him. She longed to explore all that solidity and strength, to touch her lips to the back of his neck and kiss her way down his spine and then turn him over and start all over again. Sometimes Imogen felt quite giddy with it, and snapping the lid back on the bottle and stepping back took such a heroic effort that she had to sit down and close her eyes.
And remind herself of all the reasons why she had to keep her hands firmly to herself.
It would be a huge mistake to forget how incompatible they were. She might understand now why Tom was so resistant to the idea of love, but that didn’t change the facts. She would be mad to even think about falling for a man who was incapable of loving her back. All he could ever offer was a physical relationship, and that wouldn’t be enough for her.
Would it?
‘It’s hot tonight.’
Dropping onto the wicker seat next to Tom’s, Imogen lifted the hair from her neck in a vain attempt to cool it and he got a whiff of shampoo. He couldn’t recognise the scent-limes, perhaps, and something else-but it was clean and fresh and innocently alluring, rather, he realised with something approaching dismay, like Imogen herself.
She was wearing loose silky trousers tonight, but with a strappy top that left her arms and shoulders bare. Tom was sure that she hadn’t set out to look seductive, but all she had to do was sit there in her very ordinary clothes and he was wondering what it would be like to run his hands down those smooth arms, wondering how warm her skin would feel, how easily those tiny strips would slide from her shoulders…
Swallowing, he got up to make her a drink. ‘I think we may be getting that rain soon,’ he said. When in doubt, stick to the weather.
‘Really?’ Imogen looked out at the lagoon with a frown. In the last flush of the sunset, it gleamed like burnished copper, its surface glassy and still.
