'You're not staying here tonight?'
'I am,' she said, flatly and definitely, and then she smiled, taking the sting from her words. 'Today's the first day of the rest of my life. Do you want to come shopping?'
Did he?
'There's-'
'Time,' she said, refusing to be deflected by his dismay. 'There's a great Asian trading centre a couple of miles from here. I reckon I could get all I need there and more.'
He stared at her, stunned. The difference between the Tori of now and the Tori of yesterday was, quite simply, extraordinary. What had happened between them last night had shaken his world, but for Tori it seemed to have marked a turnaround, transforming her from grief-stricken victim to woman about to embark on her new life.
'We should have brought the two cars,' she said, but cheerfully, as if she wasn't very sorry. 'You're welcome to stay here and wait. Or are you happy to watch me shop?'
She smiled and there was determination behind the smile. She might be transformed, he thought, but the grief was still with her. She was moving forwards, with shadows.
And the least he could do was come along for the ride.
'Shopping's my favourite thing,' he lied.
'Really?'
'No, but it's like hard work. I can watch it being done for hours.'
She chuckled, a lovely rich chuckle that had the power to transform this stark little apartment into something else. Tori's home.
Bleak as a great man's house without a fireplace in it …
The words came from … where? He hardly recalled the analogy, so why should they spring to mind now, dredged from literature or a play he'd once seen?
But he knew why they'd come. A house without Tori in it seemed the same. Unthinkable. She had the power to light from within, and that's just what she was doing as she grabbed her bag and jingled her car keys.
'Rusty's due for a nap. I bought him a doggy chew so he'll be happy enough staying here. You want to drive or will I?'
'I will,' he said faintly. 'I kind of like the challenge of driving on the left-and you should save your energy for shopping.'
CHAPTER SEVEN
S O SHOP she did, while he stood back and watched in something akin to awe. She shopped with professional purpose.
Quilts, cushions, rugs, curtains, blankets, jugs, vases, wall hangings … There was little hesitation; she simply saw an item, beamed, picked it up, stuck it in her trolley, and when her trolley was full she used his arms instead.
'You're not leaving much time-or room-for milk and bread,' he managed, muffled under rugs, and she balanced another rug on top and steered him towards the door.
'I can get milk and bread after we've taken Rob and Glenda home.'
'You're definitely leaving the lodge tonight?' he asked, and she started unloading onto the register and tried to locate her purse among pillows.
'Of course,' she said absently. 'That's what this is about. I need to get my own place but I don't want to live with beige. It's only one step better than grey, and I'm not going there ever again.'
'It'd be good if you stayed at the lodge a bit longer,' he said diffidently, but she'd handed over her money, her hands were free and she could respond now with her full attention. She turned and faced him square on, frivolity gone.
'Good for whom?'
'You need to rest.'
'I wouldn't rest if I went back to the lodge. We both know that. Not with you around.'
The cashier, a bored teenager with lavender spiked hair, looked suddenly less bored.
'Well, maybe lack of rest has its advantages,' he ventured, fighting an adolescent urge to blush-but Tori shook her head.
'Any more than one night and I might get the wrong idea. No strings, Jake. You don't seriously want them, do you?'
'I … ' How had they got here, so fast. 'No.' Was there any other possible response?
'There you go, then.' She was piling stuff back into his arms, tucking a pillow under his chin. 'Press down or we'll have pillows all over the car park. Can you manage?'
'Yes, of course.
'Then we're finished,' she said. 'Let's go.'
Conversation finished. She steered the talk onto inanities while they drove back to her new home and unloaded.
He'd never seen colour used to such effect. Within fifteen minutes the drab little relocatable had become home. Outside it was still a shoebox but inside it was the sort of shoebox a man might walk into and smile, because it looked exactly what his vision of Tori's home should be.
Even Rusty approved. He'd been staring dolefully at the door when they arrived, lying on the beige carpet. Now he was snuggled between two crimson and sky-blue cushions, with a purple throw-rug wrapped snugly around his injured lower half. He looked approving, Jake thought.
He approved as well.
'It'll take me a while to organise the curtains,' Tori said, glowering at the beige Venetian blinds. 'These might give us privacy but if anyone thinks I'm looking at them for more than a night they have another think coming. Now … ' She glanced at her watch. 'Half an hour. I need flowers.'
'Flowers?'
'There's a flower farm half a mile from here. You want to come?'
Watch Tori buy flowers or stay here and wait? Of course he wanted to come.
Rusty decided to come this time, so he drove them both to the flower farm and she bought half a dozen daffodils and then two dozen tulips and then about a hundred gerberas in about three minutes, and then she decreed she was finished.
The word sounded too stark. Finished.
She had such courage, he thought, as they loaded the car and set off again. She was amazing. And more and more the thought of her staying in that sterile little relocatable-despite her additions-was almost unbearable.
But her face was set, determined, as though she'd made a decision and nothing was about to deflect her. She felt his glance and met his gaze and smiled, but he knew the smile was an effort.
He was leaving for New York. He couldn't help her. Even if he could, that'd mean getting involved-and he didn't do involved.
Did he?
Lots of things had to be thought through, he mused, fighting confusion. But in the meantime there should be something he could do. There must be some way he could help her.
And suddenly there was. They were driving past a farm gate, and a sign, roughly scrawled on a piece of tin propped against the mailbox, made him take his foot off the accelerator. Then, as the idea took hold, he braked, pulled the car onto the verge and stopped.
'Um, why are we stopping?' she demanded.
'We've forgotten something both you and Rusty need.' He was backing into the driveway and finally she saw the sign.
Golden Retriever Puppies. Ten Weeks Old.
'We don't-' she gasped.
'Yes, you do,' he said, and somehow he knew enough of this woman to realise his gut instinct was right. 'You had four dogs. You and Rusty have had six months by yourselves, and that's long enough. I have colleagues with dogs and I know how big a part of their lives they are. And I've met golden retrievers. They smile. You live in a place where pets are welcome-yes, I saw the sign-so why not?'
Then, as he saw her face, a mixture of distress and despair, he cut the engine, tilted her chin with his finger and said, 'Tori, you need something warm and alive and new, something not scarred by what's gone before. If Rusty hates it … if you hate it, then okay, but I do want you to think about it.'
She still looked distressed. He hesitated, unsure what to say, unsure what his feelings were. Last night this woman had moved him as no one had ever done. If he had longer … If it was possible, maybe she'd even penetrate the armour he'd built up around himself.
But for now, he couldn't leave her like this. Despite the colour and the flowers, he couldn't leave her in her strange little relocatable. Relocatable … Even the name seemed wrong.
This woman needed a home. Home was a strange concept for Jake, who'd always regarded home as where he could crash with least effort, but there was something about Tori that said home was much more.
'Last night changed things,' he said softly. 'They say men can take sex as it comes, and maybe they're right, most of the time, but they're not talking about what we had last night. It's bound me to you in some way I can't begin to figure. It made me feel like part of you is part of me. Whether that's dumb or not, that's the way you make me feel. Our lives don't connect. Not now. Not yet. But I can't walk away and leave you and Rusty without something of me.'
He glanced again at the sign. Maybe this was a cop-out, he thought, but for now it was all he could do. Anything else scared him stupid. 'So can I buy you and Rusty a puppy?' he asked again. 'From me to you.'
'So we get to hug a puppy in the middle of the night instead of you,' she whispered, in a voice that wasn't quite steady.
'Instead of nothing,' he said, and he heard bleakness but he couldn't help it. He hesitated, and then, because it seemed right, he kissed her, gently on the lips, and forced a smile. 'Though you can pretend it's me if you like. I hear golden retrievers make great tongue kissers.'
'Eww!'
He grinned. The distress on her face faded and the tension between them lessened a little. The kiss seemed to have made things better. It had made them seem … friends as well as lovers?