The Yuletide Child Charlotte Lamb (classic literature books .TXT) 📖

thighs... Sensual images made her toss in the bed, hot with desire and frustration.

What was the point in remembering? At this very moment Ross was probably in bed with Suzy, in York, andshe could be sure he wasn’t thinking about her. She couldn’t bear to imagine what he was thinking about, let alone what he and Suzy were doing.

How long had it been going on? Jealousy stabbed inside her. How could Ross do this to her when she was carrying his child? How could he do it to Alan, the man he called his best friend?

Was Suzy behind the change in the way he had been acting these past few months? She had believed he was no longer interested in her because she no longer had the sort of body that had excited him when they were first married.

Sex had been terrific in those early days—was sex all he was interested in? Hadn’t he ever really loved her? Loved her, in every way, the way she loved him—mind, heart and body, every part of him. Had Ross only ever loved having sex with her?

She turned over again, biting her lower lip in anguish. She had to stop thinking about him, thinking about anything—she was so tired; she had to get some sleep.

She had been to meditation classes years ago, when she was dancing. It had been Michael’s idea. He was very into yoga and meditation, he believed a healthy mind meant a healthy body, and she had found the meditation techniques very helpful m preparing her before the curtain went up. You could reach a place of calm where nothing could touch you.

She went through some of those techniques now, emptying her mind, letting her entire body relax, sinking into a state of tranquillity which very gradually became sleep.

Ross made a phone call while Jenny was in the kitchen creating a sandwich for him. ‘Suzy? Look, I’m sorry I had to go. Dylan has got herself lost...’

‘Lost? What on earth...?’ the warm female voice exclaimed at the other end of the line.

‘She set off to visit her sister and never arrived, but we haven’t heard a word from her. There’s probably a perfectly simple explanation, but it’s worrying. Sorry to let you down, though.’

‘Forget it. No problem, darling—of course you had to go; I understand. I hope you find her soon. Be in touch when you can, Ross.’

Hearing Jenny coming, Ross hurriedly said, ‘Yes, I will. Got to go now, Suzy. See you soon.’

Jenny came in, her eyes enquiring, anxious. ‘Any news?’

He shook his head. ‘Work, I’m afraid. I had to ring a colleague.’

Jenny frowned. ‘How can you even think of work at a time like this? Anything could have happened to Dylan...yet you still have work on your mind! Sometimes men make me so angry...’

Placatingly, Ross asked her, ‘Is that my sandwich? Looks great—what’s in it?’

‘Everything,’ Jenny said, distracted, as he had hoped. ‘Ham, tomato, lettuce, hard-boiled egg, cheese, all bound together with mayonnaise—cheese doesn’t keep you awake, does it? Take it out if you’re not happy eating it.’

‘It never bothers me. In any case I doubt if I’ll get much sleep tonight.’

‘No,’ Jenny said, sighing. ‘Oh, where can she be, Ross? I mean, if she did have an accident, why haven’t the police heard about it?’

He finally persuaded Jenny to go to bed at midnight, but he sat up in front of the TV until he fell asleep, shallowly, fitfully, in a cramped position, and dreamt ofmaking love to someone: a silky body in his arms, smooth thighs which parted to allow him into a hot, pulsing heaven.

Shuddering and groaning, he woke up to find it was dawn, a strange, white dawn, the reflected light of snow flickering across Ross’s eyelids. Morning! He looked at his watch and saw it was seven o’clock. Sitting up, body stiff, mouth dry, he remembered the dream with guilty intensity. His body and his mind seemed to exist on different planets. How could he have dreamt like that when he was feeling so bad about Dylan?

On tiptoe, making as little noise as possible so as not to wake the others in the house, he collected his overnight bag from the hall and went into the downstairs cloakroom to freshen up. Ten minutes later, in a clean shirt, faced shaved and washed, hair combed, feeling a little more human, he went into the kitchen to make himself some black coffee and a slice of toast.

By seven-thirty he was creeping out of the house, leaving a note for Jenny telling her he was going to drive up to the M6 motorway exit Dylan would probably have used to see if he could find any trace of her or her car. He couldn’t believe that a vehicle like the flower wagon could vanish without trace. Someone would have seen it.

At first he stayed on main roads, which had been swept by snow ploughs that morning and had a covering of grit; Ross glanced up side roads as he slowly drove by, but reached the motorway exit without any sighting of the flower wagon.

At nine o’clock he stopped to buy a local map in a garage and asked the man behind the desk if he had seen a very pregnant woman driving a car covered in flowers.

He got a very odd look. ‘Covered in flowers? A hearse, you mean?’

Ross laughed curtly. ‘No, I meant a car painted with a lot of flowers, all the colours of the rainbow.’

‘Oh, I get you—no, can’t say I have. Think I’d have noticed if a car like that had come in for petrol.’

A postman had come in to hand a packet of mail over. He turned to stare at Ross with curiosity.

‘I saw a car like that, half an hour ago—abandoned just outside Stonelee. Stolen, was it? Looked to me as if whoever was driving it had crashed.’

Ross felt his heart stop and then start beating again, so fast he was giddy. ‘Crashed?’ he repeated hoarsely.

‘It had been driven