The Annie Carter Series Books 1–4. Jessie Keane

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СКАЧАТЬ Christ alive, but she was a beauty. Her skin was luminously pale, her hair long and dark, her eyes as deeply green as tourmalines.

      ‘Right,’ he said, staring.

      ‘Let’s get on with it,’ said Annie. ‘How do you want me?’

      ‘Right.’ Kieron swallowed hard. ‘On your front then, if you will. Look back at me over that shoulder. Like that, yes. Put that arm down a bit. That left leg up slightly.’

      Think of her as a bowl of fruit, he thought to himself. Or a landscape. Kieron started to sketch Annie’s curvaceous outline on to the canvas. His hand shook slightly.

      ‘How come you don’t have a minder?’ asked Annie while he drew.

      ‘I can’t be doing with all that,’ said Kieron. There was a stunning woman lying in her pelt in front of him. Bowl of fruit. Bowl of fruit.

      ‘Yes, but you’re a Delaney. And there’s a lot of trouble going on at the moment. Wouldn’t you feel safer with a minder?’

      ‘Ah, but you’re forgetting that I don’t get involved with the family business side of things.’

      ‘That’s a naïve attitude,’ said Annie. ‘You may not be “involved”, but you can’t help being a member of the family. I mean, your parents care for you. They wouldn’t want any harm to come to you. And people might not pick and choose. They might just see a Delaney, “involved” or not.’

      By people Kieron knew she meant the Carters. He paused and smiled.

      ‘Ah, but you’re forgetting I have another family connection,’ he said.

      ‘Oh? Which one is that?’

      ‘You. You are my insurance.’

      ‘What?’ Annie thought that sniffing turps had obviously affected his brain.

      ‘You’re Max Carter’s sister-in-law.’

      Annie snorted. ‘Kieron, you fool, I’ve told you the story. I’ve no influence with the Carters.’

      ‘They could have burned your aunt’s place to the ground after that business with their brother,’ he pointed out.

      ‘But they didn’t.’ Although it had crossed her mind. It had obviously crossed Celia’s, too. Celia had been so panicked by it all that she had fled.

      ‘Ah, but they could have. You and your gang of workers could have been dust and ashes.’

      ‘Shut up, Kieron.’ Annie was uncomfortable with this line of conversation. She didn’t like being on some invisible line between the two gangs, but somehow this was where she had ended up. It was an unnerving place to be. All she could do was keep her head down, do her job, and hope for the best.

      ‘And I wonder why they didn’t,’ considered Kieron, busy with the charcoal. ‘Not because you were there, I suppose?’

      ‘Kieron, you’re dreaming,’ sighed Annie.

      ‘Am I though?’ Kieron grinned. ‘You see, what I’m thinking is that you will plead for me.’

       ‘What?’

      ‘If I ever get into trouble, if on one dark moonlit night I get grabbed and people want to do unpleasant things to my poor sweet innocent young body, you’ll be there putting in the glad word with your brother-in-law – won’t you, Annie Bailey? You’ll come to my rescue.’

      ‘What, and stick my own stupid head above the parapet to be shot at?’ She had to smile back. What a nutcase he was.

      Kieron looked at her. ‘Word is that Max Carter might be persuaded by you.’

      ‘By me?’ Annie turned her head away from his gaze. ‘Forget it, Kieron,’ she said glumly. ‘Max isn’t interested in me.’

      But that look, she thought.

      Something electric, something almost visceral in its power, had passed between Max Carter and her on the day of Eddie’s funeral. Something she couldn’t bear to think about.

       22

      Max got the shock of his life when Ruthie said she wanted to go back to her mother’s. He was so used to her being apathetic and accepting, but this was the worm turning in a big way, and it startled him.

      ‘What the fuck for?’ he asked.

      He sat on one of the big couches in the drawing room at his Surrey place. She sat on the other one, her legs pulled up beneath her. They were miles apart, in every way. She’d got thinner still. And she’d done something to her hair, it was no longer mouse but almost blonde. He didn’t like it. Only brunettes had ever done anything in the bedroom department for him. Not that there was a fucking thing happening in their bedroom anyway, he thought bitterly.

      ‘She’s not very well,’ said Ruthie with a shrug, her eyes not meeting his. She took a sip of her brandy.

      ‘She’s pissed as a fart most of the time, if that’s what you mean,’ said Max.

      God, he despised drunks. He watched Ruth drinking the brandy, relishing it almost like a lover’s kiss, and wondered if she was going the same way. He’d done a few discreet checks around the place when it seemed the drinks cabinet was emptying too fast. He’d looked at the empties, sounded out the housekeeper and got Ruthie’s minder to mark a few bottles.

      If Ruthie was a drunk, she was a smart one. He knew she’d spotted the marks and kept the bottles topped up with water so that her real consumption was masked. But he smelt it on her breath sometimes, when he got close enough, which was bloody rare. Sometimes she concealed the alcohol tang with mints. She wasn’t a fool. But she couldn’t hide her bleary eyes or the way she staggered sometimes when she stood up. He looked at her, his wife, his Ruthie, and felt more miserable than he’d ever felt before.

      ‘I just think I should spend some time with her, that’s all,’ said Ruthie mulishly. ‘She isn’t coping very well on her own. Of course, if she could come and stay here with me, I wouldn’t have to go, would I?’

      ‘She isn’t moving into the annexe,’ said Max.

      ‘But Max …’

      Christ, not this again! Ruthie was always banging on and on about the same old thing. Max stood up. He was bored to the fucking back teeth. You could only say sorry so often before you started to feel that sorry ought to be accepted. He had apologized for what had happened with Annie, over and over again. But Ruthie was unforgiving. She used his guilt over the incident to beat him with whenever they argued. And they always argued. Fuck her, he thought. He’d had enough.

      ‘Look, do whatever you want,’ he said, ‘but leave that fucking annexe alone, you got that?’

      Not waiting for her to reply – he didn’t need any more bloody earache – he left the room.

      He СКАЧАТЬ