Page 27 of Hearts Colliding
“I shouldn’t have repeated gossip. I really am sorry.”
Coiled tight, Alex’s stillness was unnerving, more lethal than any noisy, violent display of anger.
Picking up his jeans, still warm from the tumble dryer, Ryan made his way into the hallway. Dressing quickly, he collected his raincoat from the stand and shrugged it on. He glanced back towards the drawing room, its door now closed to him.
Opening the front door, the storm whipped him around the face, its flashy anger nothing to the silent, lethal fury of the man he was leaving behind.
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
As soon as the door slammed shut, Alex started to shake. The village knew. They knew all about the life he’d endured within the four walls he wanted so much to obliterate. His mum had protected him, her love the softest, warmest blanket until it had been ripped from him when she’d closed her eyes for good.
And the village knew.
He tugged at the neck of his sweatshirt, suddenly too small, too tight, as he struggled for breath.
Easy, easy, breathe in slow, breathe in deep…
A low whimper wound its way into his consciousness. Henry scrabbled at the sofa, trying to jump up. The tiny dog who accepted him unconditionally and who always sensed his moods stared up at him through big mournful eyes. Alex scooped him up and cradled him in his arms as he pressed his face into the dog’s comforting body, the beat of Henry’s heart helping to steady his own.
Thunder and lightning raged overhead, louder and more violent than ever. Henry wriggled out of Alex’s arms and rushed to the window, barking as though to face down the tempest. Following him, Alex stared out into the night, but all he could see was his reflection staring back at him.
A worm of disquiet slithered in the pit of his stomach. He’d forced Ryan out, into the storm ravaged night, but hadn’t he had every right to? What Ryan had said, it’d made him feel sick. His relationship with his father was nobody’s business but his, let alone a gang of gossiping busybodies who had no damn idea… He bit down hard on his lower lip. Yes, he’d had the right to do what he had, just as Ryan had had the right to leave him stranded on the side of the road, and where he’d still be if Ryan hadn’t stopped.
A crash of thunder, louder than any that had gone before, shook the window in its frame.
“Christ.” Alex whipped around, his decision made before he could talk himself out of it. Ryan was stumbling around in the dark, with no light or phone, and nobody knew but him. He wouldnotlet Ryan lay it at his door if he fell and broke his bloody neck. It took seconds to haul his Barbour on and pull on his boots. Grabbing his phone and keys, and shooing Henry back into the room, Alex rushed into the storm.
“Ryan!” The shouted out name was whipped away from his lips and tossed into the gale. How long had Ryan been gone? Ten minutes? Fifteen? The Land Rover was still on the drive, and a quick glance inside confirmed it was empty.
Alex screwed up his eyes against the rain beating at his face. Which way would he have gone? The public path across the hill which skirted the estate, that had to be the route he’d taken. The man wasn’t foolhardy enough to take a shortcut by going cross country — was he? Ryan knew every inch of the area but if the roads were flooded, wouldn’t the moorland be too? The moors were riddled with holes that filled up quickly in the rain, becoming deep and muddy ponds, ready to catch out anybody who planted a wrong step. A chill that had nothing to do with the weather tumbled down Alex’s spine.
No. The path, it had to be, no way would Ryan risk crossing the moorland. Dipping his head and pushing into the storm, Alex ran for the path, letting the torch on his phone light the way.
Alex shouted for Ryan as he stumbled along, but his voice was snatched away by the battering wind. During the day the way was clearly visible, but in the dark and as the rain beat down, it was faint and indistinct even under the torch’s strong beam. Another thunderclap exploded above him, and his phone, slippery with rain, dropped from his grasp. Tumbling away, its light went out.
“Jesus bloody Christ.” Alex blundered after it. It had only gone a couple or so feet away from the path, that was all, he just needed—
“Urghh!”
The ground under one of his feet gave way to thick, squelching mud up to his mid-calf. He pulled hard but the more he pulled, the more the rain-soaked land fought back. The freezing mud crept towards his knee, and he tugged harder to free himself as the first stirrings of panic bit into his gut.
“Ryan!” Panic and anger consumed him. “Where the fuck are you?” Alex wrenched at his leg, now submerged to just over his knee. Oh, Christ. He needed help. He wouldn’t let the land suck him in. He wouldn’t die out here. He had to get his phone.
Scrabbling around, a brief flame of relief was doused when he found the edge of it, but in his panic he fumbled plucking it up and it slid away out of reach. Alex howled as tears of fear and anger streamed down his sodden face. Everything he’d done, everything he’d achieved, everything he’d become since he’d fled on his eighteenth birthday counted for nothing as the land he’d run from clawed him back.
A low chuckle came out of the darkness.
“Do you make a habit of needing rescuing?”
“Ryan?” Alex stared into the darkness, at the darker shape moving towards him.
“No, the bogeyman of the bog. I heard you yelling and stumbling about. Why did you come out after me?”
“Because I shouldn’t have chucked you out, even though you deserved it. Not in this weather. It’s dangerous.”
“Clearly for you, but not for me.”
The dark shape moved in closer and anchored his arms beneath Alex’s armpits — and pulled hard. Alex gasped. Ryan pulled again, his breathing laboured.
