‘Here. Come here.’
She took his face between her hands and planted a lingering kiss on his lips.
This wasn’t like the chaste pecks she allowed Charlie to give her when they went on dates to the dance halls in town. Nor was it like the kisses she sometimes permitted on the rare occasions they could be alone together, in the cottage when her father wasn’t at home or on the back row of the cinema in Settle. Those were the kisses that nice girls weren’t supposed to allow but were too good not to, once in a while – kisses that were hot, needy and dangerous; delicious, wrong and right all at the same time. But this… this was a kiss where she tried to convey everything she felt and thought and feared. All that she hoped for, all that she dreaded, and every flutter and thump of her heart that somehow went hand in hand with her feelings for Charlie Atherton. Charlie’s eyes closed as he took her in his arms and pressed her tightly against him. For perhaps the first time, Bobby dropped her guard entirely, threw any worries about who might be watching to the wind and gave all of herself to the kiss. It seemed like hours had passed when they eventually separated again.
‘Well that was… new.’ Charlie was flushed and breathless. His creamy brown eyes seemed huge in the moonlight. ‘What brought that on? You never kissed me that way before. I mean, don’t think that I’m complaining.’
‘I just wanted you to know. To understand.’ She held his gaze for a moment. ‘I’m sorry I can’t give you the answer you want. I do love you, Charlie. Just… come back to me, that’s all. Come back to me and somehow, maybe, it’ll all be all right.’
Chapter 3
Charlie walked Bobby the rest of the way home in silence. The unexpected warmth and urgency of their kiss seemed to have rather knocked him for six, and he floated along beside her as if in a dream. It wasn’t long before they descended the dirt track that led to Moorside Farm, which constituted both the offices ofThe Tykemagazine and the home of its editor Reg Atherton, Charlie’s older brother, and his wife Mary.
A large converted barn in the grounds, known to its residents as Cow House Cottage, had been both Charlie’s veterinary practice and his home until the month before, when he’d moved into the main house with his brother and sister-in-law so that Bobby and her dad could make a home there. There was a faint outline of light around one of the blocked-up slits in the wall, which told Bobby that her father hadn’t yet retired for the night.
‘The plaster must be starting to crumble if the light’s showing through,’ she observed to Charlie. ‘I’d better ask Dad to repair it, before I scandalise the neighbourhood by having to fine myself.’
Charlie still seemed to be in a world of his own, however, gazing into the distance.
‘Goodnight then,’ Bobby said, tapping his arm to wake him up. ‘You’d better not linger. I’m sure either Reg or my father are listening out for us.’
‘Hmm?’ Charlie seemed to rouse himself. ‘Oh. Yes. When will I see you again?’
Bobby laughed. ‘You live twenty yards away, Charlie. I’ll see you tomorrow at breakfast, I should think.’
‘I mean, when will I see you alone?’ He smiled, looking a bit more like his usual self. ‘You’re not allowed to kiss a man like that and then start playing hard to get, you know.’
‘Perhaps we ought to wait a few days.’ What Bobby felt she badly needed, after tonight, was a little time out of Charlie’s company so she could think. So she could feel, and work out what she was allowed to feel.
‘We don’t have long. I’ll be leaving in six weeks.’
‘Yes. Yes, I know.’
‘Come to the pictures with me tomorrow.’
She hesitated.
‘Let’s just have these last six weeks, Bobby. Me and you, doing what young people are supposed to do together, and to hell with the bloody war. If you can’t give me a yes just yet, at least give me some memories to take with me.’
His voice was back to its usual teasing tone, but there was an undercurrent of something else. Emotion. Need. It wasn’t like Charlie to swear in the company of women.
Bobby smiled, trying to lighten the mood. ‘I’m not sure I trust you at the pictures after the last time. Mabs Jessop asked me the next day how I liked the film and I was forced to confess I couldn’t remember a thing that happened.’
‘I’ll be good.’ He paused. ‘Fairly good. Will you come?’
‘I can’t. I’m on duty.’ She met his eyes, and as so often happened, quickly found herself giving in to temptation. ‘Saturday, all right?’
He grinned. ‘I knew you couldn’t resist me.’
‘Don’t let it go to your head.’
‘So, is it a pact? Six weeks of no proposals, no war talk – just us?’
‘It’s a pact,’ she said with a smile. ‘Goodnight, Charlie.’
There were definitely curtains twitching over at Moorside Farm now. Bobby turned her back on her suitor and entered the barn-cottage she shared with her father.
There was no illumination in the parlour, but a faint light was coming from under the door of her father’s room.
