Free Lightning Encounter by Anne Saunders Page A

do?’
    â€˜No, what?’
    â€˜I read my horoscope. Know what my horoscope said this morning?’
    â€˜No, but—’ She suppressed a giggle. ‘My stars! I’m going to!’
    â€˜It said—and I will ignore the flippancy—today you meet your destiny.’
    â€˜It didn’t!’
    He grinned. ‘No, it didn’t. Actually it said “Good phase for exchanging information and pooling ideas with a comparatively new friend.” Well, new friend, to begin. I’m thirty-one, in unsettled employment, and I dislike wearing odd socks. That’s enough information to be going on with. My idea, at the moment, is to know you much better. Now it’s your turn.’
    â€˜My turn?’
    â€˜Dear Dimwit, your turn to exchange information and pool ideas. I never let my horoscope down.’
    â€˜Now you’re being flippant,’ she accused. ‘Are you a disbeliever?’
    â€˜M-m.’ His expression was dead-pan. ‘Let’s put it this way. I never walk under a ladder, or on a crack, if I can help it. And I never, but never whistle in a dressing room. Now, about lunch. What’s it to be. A sit down in a restaurant, or pot luck with traveller’s samples?’
    â€˜Pot luck, please,’ she answered promptly. ‘Are you a traveller?’
    â€˜For my sins, yes,’ he said, his voice unfolding in a bored drawl.
    â€˜Temporarily. Until I discover the crock of gold.’
    â€˜Oh that,’ she pooh-poohed. ‘Everybody’s searching. Nobody finds.’
    â€˜I almost did once.’—Now the drawl conveyed a world of regret. ‘I really thought I’d hit it good.’
    â€˜You know,’ she teased. ‘The streets aren’t paved with gold. That’s only a fallacy. They’re paved with lost chance.’
    He weighed her words, made nothing of them that pleased him, and for reply thrust out his lower lip like a thwarted child. She deduced he bitterly regretted his lost chance, and, on that subject at least, had put up a closed sign. What she had thought was pie in sky, was ambition, and he wasn’t prepared to expose it to humorous banter. She pressed hurriedly for a change of subject, one less hazardous, and happily the mood of zany amiability was restored.
    On the way to the car they stopped to shop for items not to be found in his samples. Bread rolls and butter, and a bag of crisp, sugar-glazed Eccles cakes.
    Approaching the car park, Karen didn’t have to grit her teeth. At first she was staggered, then relieved. Ian had done this for her. By bundling her straight back behind the wheel of a car, he had given her back her nerve. You have to relive an ordeal in order to conquer it. She just hoped there was one ordeal she wouldn’t have to relive, even if she never conquered it.
    Mitch was glancing across at her—doubtless remembering things too—trying to assess her reaction. She wanted to put out her hand and say, “It’s all right”. But it was enough to be all right. Anyway, she was so choked with relief, she doubted she had a voice.
    â€˜Into the yellow peril, with you,’ he instructed. ‘Let’s hope we don’t meet an exile from Europe. Don’t worry,’ he added. And in the mysterious manner of auto-suggestion, she immediately did begin to worry. ‘We shan’t meet up with anybody driving on the wrong side of the road. Lightning never strikes twice.’
    He meant to be kind, but he couldn’t have said anything more shattering. It was as if every syllable was spiked with a point of steel. She closed her eyes, and in memory heard the growl of thunder; yet it wasn’t the thunder she feared, but its dread companion. Thunder might have the loudest voice, but it’s lightning that has the power to sear and pain.
    â€˜Look, sweetie,’ he said, abounding with grave consideration. ‘You don’t have to get in the car.