Dreams in Moonlight

Part 17

She hesitated, then said with a sheepish shrug, "Not her brother, her cousin. He married Tina."

"You turned him down." Greg sounded bemused. She nodded but kept her profile to him. Greg rolled his lips inwards then blurted. "Why?"

She shrugged and murmured, "I didn't love him."

A second of silence greeted that statement, then Greg said, "You've got a bit of a problem then, haven't you?"

She turned, "What do you mean?"

"When you love them you turn them down, when you don't love them you turn them down. So where does that leave you?"

She knew what he was getting at. "I never turned you down."

The laugh was tinged with pain, "Right."

"I asked you to wait for me." She said softly as she remembered that time in her life. "I thought you would."

"Even after you wrote to tell me you'd changed your mind?" He asked.

"I wrote?" She glanced at him, surprise in her voice. "When?"

"The day after you agreed to marry me."

"What?" She got to her feet clumsily, too agitated to sit any longer. "I didn't write to you."

"I didn't imagine it." He told her, also getting to his feet. "I wanted to. I wanted to believe it was one huge joke. But it wasn't."

"I didn't write you a note." She repeated adamantly. "The day after?"

"Yes. You said you had a night to sleep on it. Decided that your dancing in the States would widen the gap between us even more. Me being a labourer, you a talented dancer."

"I didn't write to you." And she'd never have said that.

"If it wasn't you, who was it? How would they know that I had proposed to you sitting here on the sand, watching the sunset? How would they know what I said?"

Mallory closed her eyes. She knew exactly how they would know. She had been so excited when she had returned home. And she had told Tina everything. Re hashing every single moment, word for word. Mallory, opened her eyes, turned and started to walk away, very slowly, her limp hampering her movement in the uneven sand.

"Wait!" He held her arm. He turned her around to face him. "Look me in the eyes and tell me you didn't write that note."

She looked straight at him. "I didn't write you a note."

"Then who did?" He demanded. She looked away. "Mallory, who did?" He demanded again.

"Does it matter?" She shrugged off his hand. "It's history."

It had been more than painful, having boasted about him loving her, she had had to endure days of Tina telling her she must have got it wrong, for Greg had left town. Mallory hadn't believed her cousin and on her way to Greg's home, she had met a couple of his friends. Guys who worked alongside him. They told her he had given in his notice and left that morning. They weren't sure where he'd gone, just that he had gone. So she had gone first to Greg's house, where his parents had told her he had indeed left. She asked for his contact details, and reluctantly they had given them to her. She had gone to see her Uncle to tell him she was going after Greg, that she would not be going to the States after all, but that she was going to find Greg. She knew he was going to Hamilton, to stay with his aunt, and she was going to go find him. But she'd never gone.

Mallory's plans to avoid him were shot to pieces when Mallory was inadvertently drawn into a dangerous situation that had developed for Nic.

It was only as Jane and a rather odd man who Jane had introduced as a compatriot from Nic's home land had left the table, that Mallory turned toward Ben, "What's going on?"

The man, as she knew he would, hedged. "What d'you mean?"

"Ben! You didn't even wish him a good time travelling in New Zealand." She found Ben's reaction to Jane and her companion rather odd. Something was clearly going on.

Ben was pretty sure Mallory would not be pleased to hear about his plan, but he knew having set things in motion that he ought to ensure she stayed safe. The only way he knew to do that while he looked after Nic, was to draft in Greg. And there in lay the problem. Ben ensured Nic stayed safe, and he ensured that Mallory stayed safe, because he arranged for Greg to look out for her. However when Greg learnt of Nic's stalker situation and how Ben had involved Mallory in a hoax, Greg looked far from pleased. Now he understood why Ben wanted him here. And he knew that Mallory was going to be far from accommodating. True to form, Greg listened at Mallory rejected Ben's statement and argument for her to go with Greg rather than go home alone.

Ben ignored Mallory's reaction and simply kept insisting that Greg look after Mallory until Nic's stalker left town. Greg watched Mallory's reaction to Ben's orders. He could see that she was all but venting steam through her ears at the cavalier way in which the two men were acting. But he had no intention of allowing her to ignore the fact she was in danger.