Free Winter's End by Clarissa Cartharn Page A

didn’t emerge from his room in an hour, she
rose and made her way towards it.
    “Richard,” she
knocked gently on the door. “Can I come in?”
    When he didn’t
answer, she turned the door knob gently. But the room was empty and she was
baffled slightly until she became suddenly aware that the guest shower had just
turned off. She turned to rush out the door as he entered the room with a towel
wrapped at his waist. She realised though, she was late and blushed at being
caught in his room.
    “I…I’m sorry,” she
stammered. “I didn’t know you were in the shower.”
    His hair was damp,
and pearls of water droplets glimmered on his body. She tried desperately to focus
on his eyes as she spoke, however his fresh scent did little to help ease the
rising heat inside her.
    “Did you need something?”
he asked, frowning.
    “No, I..,” she said,
searching for words. “I don’t know what it is but I do know you’re angry. I
don’t know what I may have said…done, but whatever it is, I’m…sorry.”
    His eyes narrowed and
a nerve pulsed at his temples. In a glimpse, he had crossed over to her and
pinned her angrily against the door.
    “Sometimes I think
Emma, if you are really so naive. Otherwise you put on a hell of an act,” he
whispered in a low, dangerous tone.
    She leant frozen
against the door. The only barrier between his naked torso and her breasts were
her arms that folded between them.
    “I don’t understand,”
she said, her eyes welling with tears.
    “Don’t provoke me,
Emma,” he warned. He lowered his left hand, slowly running it down her side
until it touched her slender waist. He drew closer to her so that his lips were
almost touching hers and his eyes peering deeply into hers.
    Emma felt a sensation
run up her spine.
    “You shouldn’t have
come here,” he threatened in that low voice again. He gripped the door knob
that sat close to her waist and turned it.
    “Get out,” he
growled. “Get out before I do something we will both regret.”

 
    *****

 
    Emma pushed the
trolley along to the car park. Three days had passed and she and Richard had
barely exchanged words. Finally not being able to bear the tension between
them, she escaped to Broadford under the pretence of shopping. She bought a
pair of gloves she didn’t need, cans of vegetables when she had already a dozen
in her pantry and two gallons of milk, just in case.
    “Hi there,” she heard
someone call out. “Emma! It’s Lisa.”
    She turned and saw
her neighbour running up to her car, her blonde hair waving in the sea breeze.
    “Hi,” she said, with a
very trying smile. Lisa hadn’t spoken to her ever since she discovered
Emma’s   closeness to Ethel Kinnaird. She
also had an inkling that she had been avoiding her. Lisa had stopped paying her
occasional random visits to her home and rarely looked her in the eye when she
visited the co-op.
    “It’s been a while,
hasn’t it?” Lisa panted. “I have been busy and all, what with work and the
children’s school.”
    “I thought it was
more to do with my friendship with Mrs. Kinnaird,” Emma let out frankly.
    “I was afraid,” Lisa
said.
    “What about? Why is
everyone so afraid of Mrs. Kinnaird?” she demanded.
    “Why don’t we sit and
talk it properly over a cup of coffee?” Lisa said. “Please?”
    Emma looked at her
briefly, contemplating. “Fine,” she said at last.
    And the two women
strolled over to the coffee shop next to the co-op store.
    Seated now at a
window overlooking the Broadford Bay, Emma said, “Listen, if this is all about
trying to convince me to stay away from Mrs. Kinnaird, then forget it. I’m not
in the mood. Save it for another day.”
    “It isn’t,” said
Lisa.
    Emma gave her a
suspicious look.
    “I swear, it isn ‎ ’t,”
Lisa insisted.
    “So why then were you
afraid?”
    “She’s a powerful
woman, particularly in Skye. I don’t want to get on the wrong side of her.
Nobody does. And when I heard that you had