The Anniversary by Hilary Boyd

Author:Hilary Boyd
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781405934862
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2018-06-27T00:00:00+00:00

30

What happened next did not entirely come as a shock to Stella. They drove away from the house in silence – not the tense silence that had accompanied their arrival; this was somehow joyful, alive, almost vibrating with the knowledge of what they had just achieved. There seemed no need to talk.

‘I’ll drop you home,’ he said as the car wound through the lanes.

But Stella couldn’t face Eve yet. She didn’t want to talk about what had just happened, she didn’t yet have the words.

‘Is Lisa at the cottage?’ she asked.

Jack shook his head. ‘She’s working tonight.’

‘Can we go to yours, then?’

‘Of course.’

Stella texted her daughter to tell her she would be another hour. Jack put a pizza in the oven and opened a bottle of red wine. They sat opposite each other across the kitchen table, both overcome. They talked about Jonny. But as the wine went to work on her exhausted body, and the bond created in the rose garden lingered around her like a soothing mist, the conversation – always so easy between them – slowed, as if by mutual consent. And in its place began a gentle, playful flirting. She did not resist. Tonight she was free, crazy and completely reckless. She had done what she thought was impossible. She had done it with Jack.

As the evening wore on, everything seemed to fall away. Everything except Jack: his face across the table, his so-familiar blue eyes, his hands resting so close to hers. There was a strange moment of stillness, as if the world had stopped and left just the two of them alone.

Stella, flustered, got up, suddenly desperate for some water. It was while she was standing by the sink, filling a glass, that Jack came up behind her, took her shoulders in his hands and spun her gently round. Their eyes met. She didn’t think, didn’t hesitate. The feel of his mouth on hers, full and soft and tentative, seemed to her so completely right.

The kiss was followed by another, and another, as they stood in the middle of the kitchen pressed together, unwilling to tear themselves apart.

Then suddenly the fog cleared. ‘Jack!’ She held her hand over his mouth and pushed him away. He looked at her, blinked, his expression dazed, mirroring the shock that she herself was feeling. Neither spoke.

Stella glanced at her watch. ‘No … God, it’s already midnight. Eve will be worried sick.’

Jack rubbed his face with both hands, but didn’t move. ‘Umm … sorry … what just happened, Stella?’

‘Never mind that now,’ she said, sounding like a bossy headmistress as they stood, stunned, in the middle of the kitchen. ‘Will you drive me home?’

Jack shook his head. ‘There’s no way I can drive. I can barely see straight.’

‘I’ll take the car, then,’ she said, impatient at his slowness. ‘I’ll bring it back in the morning.’

This galvanized him. ‘No. You can’t drive either, Stella. You’re as drunk as I am.’

But the shock of Jack’s kisses had cleared Stella’s head. She

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