After Hours.... Christy McKellen

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СКАЧАТЬ blew on his fingers and pretended to polish them on his shirt. ‘I’m a natural. What can I say?’

      Seeing his delight at the achievement, she had a strong desire to get in on the fun. Perhaps it would help distract her from thinking about how alone they were out here on the edge of the lake. ‘Does your natural talent stretch to teaching me how to do that?’

      ‘You’ve never skimmed a stone?’ He looked so over-the-top incredulous she couldn’t help but laugh.

      ‘Never.’

      ‘Didn’t you say your parents live in Cornwall? Surely there’s plenty of opportunities to be near water there.’

      She snorted and took a step backwards, staring down at the muddy grass at their feet. ‘Yeah, if you live near the coast, which they don’t. I never learnt to drive when I was living there and my parents didn’t take me to the beach that much when I was young. My dad’s always suffered with a bad back from the heavy lifting he has to do at work, so he never got involved in anything of a physical nature. And my mum’s a real homebody. She’s suffered with agoraphobia for years.’

      She heard him let out a low exhalation of breath and glanced up to find an expression of real sympathy in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. That must have been hard for you as a kid,’ he said softly.

      Shrugging one shoulder, she gave a nod to acknowledge his concern, remembering the feeling of being trapped inside four small walls when she was living at home, with nowhere to escape to. Going to school every day had actually been a welcome escape from it and as soon as she’d finished her studies she’d hightailed it to London.

      ‘Yeah, it was a bit. My parents are good people, though. They threw all their energy into raising me. And they made sure to let me know how loved I was.’ Which was the absolute truth, she realised with a sting of shame, because she’d distanced herself from them since leaving home in an attempt to leave her stultifying life there behind her. But she’d left them behind, too. They didn’t deserve that. A visit was well overdue and she made a pact with herself to call them and arrange a date to see them as soon as she got back to London.

      Max nodded, seemingly satisfied that she didn’t need any more consoling, and broke eye contact to lean down and pick up another flat pebble.

      She watched him weigh it in his palm, as if checking it was worth the effort of throwing it. Everything he did was measured and thorough like that, which was probably why he was such a successful businessman.

      ‘Here, this looks like a good one. It’s nice and flat with a decent weight to it so it’ll fly and not sink immediately.’ He turned it over in his hand. ‘You need to get it to ride the air for a while before it comes down and maintain enough lift to jump.’

      He held it out to her and she took it and looked at it with a frown. ‘Is there a proper way to hold it?’

      ‘I find the best way is to pinch it between my first finger and thumb. Like this.’ He picked up another stone and demonstrated.

      She copied the positioning in her own hand then gave him a confident nod, drew back her arm and threw it as hard as she could.

      It landed in the lake with a plop and sank immediately.

      ‘Darn it! What did I do wrong?’ she asked, annoyed with herself for failing so badly.

      ‘Don’t worry; it can take a bit of practice to get your technique right. You need to get lower to the ground and swing your arm in a horizontal arc. When it feels like the stone could fly straight forward and parallel with the water, loosen the grip with your thumb and let it roll, snapping your finger forwards hard.’

      ‘Huh. You make it sound so easy.’

      He grinned and raised his eyebrows. ‘Try again.’

      Picking up a good-looking candidate, she positioned the stone between her finger and thumb and was just about to throw it when Max said, ‘Stop!’

      Glancing round at him with a grimace of frustration, she saw he was frowning and shaking his head.

      ‘You need to swing your arm at a lower angle. Like this.’

      Before she could react, he’d moved to stand directly behind her, putting his left hand on her hip and wrapping his right hand around the hand she was holding the stone in. Her heart nearly leapt out of her chest at the firmness of his touch and started hammering away, forcing the blood through her body at a much higher rate than was reasonable for such low-level exercise.

      As he drew their arms backwards the movement made her shoulder press against the hard wall of his chest and she was mightily glad that he couldn’t see her face at that precise moment. She was pretty sure it must look a real picture.

      ‘Okay, on three we’ll throw it together.’ His mouth was so close to her ear she felt his breath tickle the downy little hairs on the outer whorl.

      ‘One...two...three!’

      They moved their linked hands in a sweeping arc, Cara feeling the power of Max’s body push against her as the momentum of the move forced them forwards. She was so distracted by being engulfed in his arms she nearly didn’t see the stone bounce a couple of times before it sank beneath the water.

      ‘Woo-hoo!’ Max shouted, releasing her to take a step back and raise his hand, waiting for her to give him a high five.

      The sudden loss of his touch left her feeling strangely light and disorientated—but now was not the time to go to pieces. Mentally pulling herself together, she swung her hand up to meet his, their palms slapping loudly as they connected, then bent down straight away, pretending to search the ground for another missile.

      ‘Who taught you to skim stones? A brother?’ she asked casually, grimacing at the quaver in her voice, before grabbing another good-looking pebble and righting herself.

      He’d stooped to pick up his own stone and glanced round at her as he straightened up. ‘No. I’m an only child. I think once my mother realised how much hard work it was raising me she was determined not to have any more kids.’ He raised a disparaging eyebrow then turned away to fling the stone across the lake, managing five bounces this time. He nodded with satisfaction. ‘I used to mountain bike over to a nearby reservoir with a friend from boarding school at the weekends and we’d have competitions to see who could get their stone the furthest,’ he said, already searching the ground for another likely skimmer, his movements surprisingly lithe considering the size of his powerful body.

      A sudden need to get this right overwhelmed her.

      She wasn’t usually a superstitious person, but she imagined she could sense the power in this one simple challenge. If she got this stone to bounce by herself, maybe, just maybe, everything would be okay.

      She was throwing this for her pride and the return of her strength. To prove to Max—but mostly to herself—that she was resilient and capable and—dare she even suggest it?—brave enough to try something new, even if there was a good chance she’d fail spectacularly and end up looking foolish again.

      Harnessing the power of positive thought, she drew back her hand, took a second to centre herself, then flung the stone hard across the water, snapping her finger like he’d taught her and holding her breath as she watched it sail through the air.

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