Free No More Lonely Nights by Charlotte Lamb Page B

and gold flowers down the walls, lavender scenting the air, a sycamore giving shade and a table and chairs placed on a little patio for them to eat under a yellow umbrella.
    ‘How long have you known Danny?’ Sian asked at one point, and Cass shrugged.
    ‘Years now. I was twenty, so was he. He was playing jazz up at Cambridge while I was in college there; he was a student too that year, but he got sent down because he never did a stroke of work. Just made music in the local pubs and clubs. I thought his was a great life for a while. I sat in on some of their sessions in my spare time but, unlike Danny, I did work. My family expected it, and I didn’t have either the courage or the motivation to take Danny’s route. So I stayed and went into business, and Danny dropped out. He did OK. He’s got this place and a lot of friends. He still plays jazz when he feels like it, and we’ve always kept in touch. He’s a nice guy.’
    Sian nodded, agreeing, but as she watched the river flowing under the slanting green willows, she thought that Cass was quite a nice guy, too, and full of surprises. She would never have suspected him of wanting to be a jazz musician.
    ‘Why electronics?’ she asked him idly, and he answered the same way, in between eating the duck which was their second course.
    ‘Who knows why? As Danny says, I got the bug. Computers came along while I was still young enough to get obsessed with them the way Danny was about jazz. I’m one of those lucky people, in fact, whose hobby is their way of earning a living.’ He smiled at her across the table, sunlight turning his grey eyes silver. ‘Like yourself!’
    Her heart gave a funny little sideways kick and she flushed, as if he might be able to tell what his smile had done to her heartbeat. Her eyes fled and hunted across the garden, but she felt Cass watching her—but thinking what?
    ‘You were right, this food is marvellous,’ she said huskily, although she hadn’t really thought about what she was eating and couldn’t quite remember the first course. Had it been a tossed salad with croutons and hot cheese? Or hadn’t it? She hadn’t tasted a thing or looked properly. She had been looking at Cass and watching dappled sunlight playing over his face and hair.
    ‘Isn’t it?’ he drawled, but something in his voice made her doubly self-conscious. She didn’t dare look at him again.
    When they had drunk their excellent coffee, they went for a stroll along the river under the willows. The afternoon was hot, and there were lots of other people out, some walking, others rowing a boat on the water with the ducks scattering around them, squawking and demanding bread.
    They sat down on the grass under a shady tree and talked for a while, but Sian tried not to catch his eye or let the conversation touch on anything personal or intimate. She kept their talk firmly centred on books, films, television, current affairs, and skimmed over the surface even then. She did not want to get too close to him or let him get too close.
    Perhaps she had known on sight, or perhaps the realisation had grown on her gradually—but she was now quite convinced that this man could hurt her, and she wasn’t going to let that happen.
    They went back to the pub and chatted to Danny for a while, then said goodbye and drove back into London. Sian firmly intended to say goodbye to Cass in the car. She did not want him in her flat; partly because that would be like letting him into her life, the really private core of her life. She might see him in the rooms when he wasn’t there, just as when she leaned back in the car and closed her eyes she still saw his dark, lean face glimmering on the inside of her lids.
    He could easily become an obsession. Sian didn’t want that. When they drew up outside the building, she hurriedly began to gabble a thank you, her hand on the door-handle.
    ‘Wonderful meal, lovely place to spend a Sunday, thank you very much and I hope Annette’s father