She loved his arm around her. ‘I’m thirty-eight, divorced, and my ex-husband lives not far from here with my two daughters. He’s married again to a very beautiful lady called Sissy. I don’t have any contact with my daughters because...’ She trailed off as Tiger arrived back, exhausted, with the gnarled stick. This time she picked it up and threw it, and he hurtled after it like a greyhound on the track after a mechanical hare. ‘He’ll sleep tonight,’ she said. She wanted Burton’s arm around her again.
‘You were a cop,’ he said, and slipped his arm around her again to draw her closer. ‘I pulled your report sheet.’
‘Yes, you told me,’ she said coldly.
‘I know I did. Do you mind?’
‘Why should I? It’s public knowledge.’
‘Not quite, but I wanted to know about you.’
‘Yes, well, there are some things that don’t make it into reports,’ she snapped.
‘Hey, I’m just being honest. Don’t get all uptight on me.’
‘I’m not uptight, but I’m amazed you still wanted to take a walk with me. Most men would have run a mile.’
‘Yeah, maybe, but everyone has a past — nobody’s perfect.’
She wanted to break away from him, but didn’t. She stopped walking. ‘Maybe, Lieutenant, but not everybody has a past quite as colourful as mine, or as seedy, or as dramatic or as—’
‘Sad?’ he suggested, gently.
She glared at him. ‘What is this? Yeah, I’ve had my problems, and I admit to them, but I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me. What do you want from me?’
‘I don’t want anything, or not the way you think. I wanted you to know that I knew, that’s all.’
‘So?’
‘It doesn’t bother me what the fuck you were, or whatever you did.’
‘Thank you, I’m grateful, but we are just walking my dog. I know what I did, I live with it. I know what I was and I live with that too. So take your pity and screw it.’
He grabbed hold of her. ‘What’s with you? Pity? You think I pity you? Jesus Christ, woman, I don’t pity you. I’m out of practice with these things. All I know is I wanted to see you so badly, from the first moment I set eyes on you. I wanted to be with you, so I pulled your file from records. I’m sorry — all I wanted you to know was that.’
Well, I want you to know that I’m not some charity case, and I’m not so desperate that I’d hide anything I’ve done. I killed a kid when I was drunk on duty. I was a drunk for eight years. Well, I’m sober now and I’m not prepared to be anyone’s lame duck. Thanks for the walk — you can get a cab ride back.’
She marched off down the beach, stopped and yelled for Tiger, but Burton was throwing a stick in the opposite direction. She turned and yelled again for the dog, but he was already galloping away.
Burton turned to face her. ‘Okay, that was your turn. You mind if I have mine now?’
‘What?’ she yelled back at him.
He strolled towards her, and said nothing until he was within a foot of her. ‘I said, it’s my turn now to fill in a few things about me.’
‘You think I want to know? ‘
He tilted his head to one side. ‘I sincerely hope so. Now where was I? Oh, yeah, forty-five, been married and divorced, joined the army at eighteen, educated by them, qualified as a lawyer and... of uniform, couldn’t make it out, so joined the cops. This of any interest at all?’
‘No... should it be?’
He came a fraction closer. ‘You free for dinner?’
‘No.’
‘Tomorrow?’ He reached out and drew her close to him.
‘No.’
‘I suppose a fuck is also out of the question?’
She turned away. ‘Very funny.’
He moved behind her and put his arms around her, pressing her close to him. ‘You sure?’
‘Don’t play games,’ she said quietly.
‘I’m not. I just don’t know what I should say that’ll make whatever I said before you told me to get a cab back okay. It’s a hell of a long way, and my car’s at your place.’
She turned in his arms, tried to break free from him, but he held her tightly. Her body was rigid, her face set, but he wouldn’t release her, and gradually she let her body relax against him.
She rested her head against his shoulder, loved the smell of him mixed with the sea air. He rubbed his chin against her fine, silky blonde hair. ‘You smell so good,’ he said, and she eased her face round, inch by inch until their lips met. His kiss was so sweet. Then he cupped her face in his hands. ‘I’ve wanted to do this...’
He never finished as they kissed passionately, and slowly sank to their knees. He pulled her down beside him, until they lay side by side, Lorraine caught in the crook of his arm, her body pressed against his. He moaned softly, and she nestled against him: there was no need for words, no need to know anything more about each other. Lorraine was filled with rushes of emotion and couldn’t talk.
Tiger bounded up and dropped the stick on Burton’s chest: keeping one arm around Lorraine, he picked it up with the other hand, and held it high for a moment before he threw it towards the sea.
‘You free for dinner, Mrs Page?’ he asked.
‘I guess so.’
He rolled over to lean on his elbow, looking down into her face. ‘Then let’s go eat.’
She traced his face with her hand. ‘Sounds good to me.’
He bent his head, and gave her another sweet kiss. She could feel that he was aroused, and her whole body ached — a fuck was not out of the question, not at all out of the question, but he was one guy she knew not to treat like a one-night stand. This man, Jake Burton, she knew she wanted more from, more than she had believed she would ever want again. She was falling in love, but had so little confidence in herself that she couldn’t accept that he was attracted to her, and just might want commitment from her too. It was too much to hope for, so she made herself play cool. ‘There’s a great Chinese near the apartment,’ she said huskily, not able to be quite as offhand as she would have liked.
‘I could handle that,’ he said, then sprang to his feet and whistled for Tiger, who was further down the beach where he appeared to be digging his way to Australia. Lorraine sat up, shading her eyes against the evening sun, to watch Jake bend forward as Tiger loped towards him and clip on the lead. She liked everything she saw, and it scared her.
Kendall was ready, everything was set. She struck the match and let it drop to her feet. She expected things to happen as she had seen in movies, a thin blue tongue of flame, spreading and building steadily before bursting into an inferno, and began to panic that it wasn’t catching. She didn’t want the smoke alarms to go off before the fire took hold, so she bent down, fanning it with her hands, but still only a single, pale blue flame spluttered weakly. She bent down further, and used the hem of her skirt to create a draught. The flame still seemed about to go out. She leaned even further forward, struck another match to throw towards the spirit-soaked rags she had stuffed into the trash can and padded around it.
‘Burn, you bastard, burn,’ she muttered. She hated Harry Nathan with such venom. She would beat the bastard at his own game by claiming the insurance money — she was going to be all right. Now she was leaning further towards the fire, flapping her skirt furiously, and then the flames suddenly shot upwards so fast that she stumbled backwards and fell on her side. Her skirt was alight, and she was trying frantically to beat out the flames. Next moment she screamed in terror — her hair was on fire, and she could smell it burning. No matter how much she shook her head, or hit it, it kept burning. Her hands were still covered in white spirit — they were burning too, and then she was engulfed in flames as the alarms began to scream their warning. The fire roared forwards, spreading fast now, moving in every direction, and surrounding Kendall. She turned this way and that, screaming in terror as the flames leaped higher and higher, and the thick, dense smoke burned her eyes, blinding her.