‘What happened with the two of you?’
She sighed. ‘We got together in the first semester of university. I was bowled along with his life from there, never stopping to think about what I really wanted. I followed him to London, and then I came home with him because he wanted to pursue a career in politics. We got engaged because it looked better than just shacking up.’ Hannah raised cool eyes to his. ‘Looked better for his career, I mean. I don’t think he ever intended marrying me. I found out the same year that he was sleeping with someone else. I don’t know how many affairs he had had before her. I left him then.’ She paused. ‘He asked me to come back to him. Said we’d figure out an open relationship and – this is the worst part – I actually thought about it! I couldn’t get any lower. I withdrew. Hated myself for being so pathetic for so long. And that was it – until a few weeks ago when he turned up at the shop and wanted me to leave Leliehoek.’
‘Because you were getting up his nose?’
She nodded and Alistair shook his head. ‘What an arrogant prick.’
Hannah smiled, clearly appreciating his summation of Todd. ‘I’m sorry I hurt you, Alistair.’
He shook his head again. ‘When I said the ball was in your court, I thought you had never considered marriage before, and just needed some time to think – and a bit of pressure maybe.’ He gave a small smile. ‘And then I find out you were engaged… that you had wanted to marry someone once. You said yes before. And maybe now the problem was me. That’s why I stayed away. I was waiting for you to come and explain. And you didn’t.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She put her mug down and leant towards him, taking his face in her hands and turning him to her, her mouth meeting his in a soft kiss. Her damp hair swung around his face as his mouth opened, and his hands stroked up her back to pull her hair into one fist as his lips moved down her throat, kissing the spot gently where he had bruised her before.
Alistair tightened his grip around her, and he slid her down onto the couch under him, his body pressing her into the cushions and his breath coming faster. He slid one strap of her vest down her arm, the scent of vanilla strong in his nostrils. His mouth explored hers again, and then travelled across her collarbone, his tongue tasting the freshness of her just-showered skin. Hannah gasped and she adjusted, shifting her legs apart to cradle his body. Then he placed a soft kiss on the top of her breast, and laid his head on her chest, his breath still short, heart drumming against hers.
‘I haven’t changed my mind, Hannah. Unless this is for the long haul, I’m not going to sleep with you, no matter how much I want to. And I do.’
‘Alistair, I don’t know. I’m not—’
‘Then I should probably go home.’ But he stayed where he was.
She struggled to sit up, and he shifted off her.
‘Maybe you should go,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to fight. Not tonight.’
‘I don’t want to leave you here. Come back to the farm. You can stay at my mother’s.’
‘No, Alistair. I have an early start in the shop. I’ll be fine.’
‘Let me stay here.’
‘You really think you’ll stay on the couch?’ She cocked one brow. ‘Look, I don’t mind. In fact, I’d relish you in my bed, but I don’t want you to regret it in the morning.’
‘I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t regret it.’ He smiled at her, rubbing a hand over his face. ‘You’re right. There’s no way I could lie here with you in the next room. Damn my principles!’
She laughed. ‘I really will be fine. I’ll lock up and Joseph will probably come back here tonight anyway. He took the team to that new pub just out of town.’
Alistair went from room to room, checking the windows, and then picked up his keys. She walked him to the kitchen and he waited on the deck while she locked the door behind him.
He hesitated before turning the key in the ignition. Was he really giving up a night with Hannah?
He laid his forehead on the steering wheel. It would be so easy to knock on the door again. She’d let him in, smiling wryly, and he’d be lost. Really lost. Alistair knocked his forehead gently on the wheel and then sat up, turning the key and pushing the gear stick into first, before he could change his mind.
Kathryn ran a drying cloth over the white dinner plate, and slid it onto the wooden rack above her sink. She took a sip from her glass of wine. The house was quiet. She had a few minutes before her favourite home improvement show began. Some over-the-top renovating drama was exactly what she needed at the end of her day. She had pulled the plug and wiped the sink when she heard Matthew’s little voice from the doorway: ‘Mama?’
‘Sweetheart, why are you awake?’ Kathryn turned and saw her son, drowsy in the bright kitchen, his hair tousled and little face confused.
‘Mama? The lady at the door said—’
‘What lady at the door?’ She pushed past Matthew and looked down the passage, but the door was locked, as she had left it. She turned back to Matthew, a frown creasing her brow as she knelt in front of him. ‘Matthew,’ she said, looking into his sleepy face, ‘what lady? Did you have a dream, baby?’
He lifted puzzled eyes to her. ‘She was at the door and she spoke Afrikaans like Ouma. She said, “Tell your mama that Hannah needs help.”’
Kathryn’s hands clenched on his arms. ‘What did she look like, Matthew?’
Her blood ran cold as he answered, ‘Mama, she was at the door. She had a long dress and a white dolly bonnet.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Hannah padded through the dark kitchen and took a glass from the drying rack. Alistair was an enigma to her Todd-trained brain. She’d had sex with Todd a few days after they had met. Her seventeen-year-old-virgin self had been willing enough, and she had always enjoyed sex, but now she wondered if it hadn’t all been part of a pattern driven by what Todd wanted. Always what Todd wanted. Would it ever have occurred to him to deprive himself to wait for Hannah to come to a decision? Her life had been driven by other people. How sad, she thought now, as she filled her glass from the tap. She glanced up, and swallowed a scream. Instead of her own reflection in the black glass, she saw the hollow face of Esme. Esme’s make-up had blurred in dark patches under dead eyes, and her hair, normally so sculpted, was flattened on one side, as if she had awoken from a deep sleep. Hannah’s scalp crawled. Esme’s gaze slid from hers and she moved sideways to the door, trying the door handle slowly. Hannah was rooted in shock. Esme lifted a handgun, large and ugly in her tiny white hand, and smashed a pane of glass in the door. Pushing her left hand through the shards, she slid the bolt open from the inside, her skin shredding into strips.
Hannah dropped down to the floor, her blood thumping in her ears, and crawled behind the kitchen table. Esme stepped through the kitchen door, her stringy arm white and strong in the half-light, raising the gun. The bullet, fired at where Hannah had been standing at the sink, splintered wood and glass. It cracked in Hannah’s eardrums as she hid in the shadow of the table, not wanting to chance the gap into the passage. Another shot reverberated. The bullet struck the table above Hannah’s head, exploding a vase on the tabletop. Water and shredded flowers sprayed across the kitchen. Hannah knew she had to move or die. She scrambled from her cover as Esme fired a third round. Hannah felt the force of the bullet like a baseball bat. Her leg collapsed beneath her as she reached the passage, her brain just registering a weight she had to pull to drag herself from the room. Flattening herself against the passage wall, she crouched down to pick up the heavy iron doorstop. She felt the world slow down. Motion seemed suspended to a slow, flashing flicker. It danced beneath a strobe light. The floorboards in the kitchen shifted and squeaked as Esme crossed the room towards her.