The Kiera Hudson Prequels 2 by Tim O'Rourke Page B

climbed from it. The headlights reflected back off a large metal gate that blocked the narrow road ahead. I sat in my car and watched Tom push it open. As he did, large spots of rain started to fall and splatter the windscreen. Shielding his eyes against the rain with one hand, he waved me forward through the now open gate.
     
    Tom
     
    The only place I could think of heading was home. I knew Kiera didn’t want to return to Havensfield yet and neither did I. To go back there would mean we would have to split again – keep apart – as Sergeant Phillips had ordered us to do. I had no money, so booking into another inn or motel was a no-go. Kiera had already forked out for our rooms at the Railroad Inn and I couldn’t expect her to pay again. Not because of chivalry, but because I couldn’t be a ponce. It wasn’t in my nature. I had burnt out my credit cards and had nothing until payday. I could always ask my parents for money – but I wouldn’t do that either. I wanted – needed – to pay my own way from now on. I didn’t want to be mummy’s or daddy’s little boy anymore. I wanted to be able to stand tall and proud and on my own two feet for once. That was important to me. I’d never wanted for anything in my life. My parents had always provided everything for me. Anything I’d ever wanted they had conjured up. And now for the first time there was something I truly did want and I doubted my mother and father would be able to give it to me. I wasn’t talking about money this time around.
    I glanced in my rear-view mirror and saw Kiera trundling behind in her rusty old Mini. I looked away again and concentrated on the road that would lead to my parents’ house. They were away for Halloween, staying in their villa in the South of France. Both had asked if I had wanted to join them, but I said no, telling them that I wanted to spend the time studying for my police exams. I glanced in the mirror back at Kiera, then front again. I hadn’t done much studying; that was for sure. I just couldn’t concentrate and it wasn’t the mysteries we had come across that had scrambled my brains. It was Kiera Hudson who had done that. But I had to get a grip. I had to learn that I couldn’t always get what I wanted in life. You couldn’t buy love – you couldn’t buy a person – and definitely couldn’t buy their heart. And that was kind of strange. The most precious thing that anyone could give you – they gave away for free. True love didn’t come with a price tag or a sell buy date, or instructions. And perhaps that was the thing I was struggling to understand. There was no manual I could go to and read to find out what to do with the feelings I now had racing around inside of me, in my brain and in my heart. For the first time in my life, my mother and father wouldn’t – couldn’t – give me what I wanted wrapped up with a shiny bright bow. I couldn’t put what I wanted together like those construction kits I had been given for Christmas as a boy. There was only one person who could give me what I wanted and show me how to understand the feelings that now prodded at my heart. I glanced back at Kiera’s car, then front again. But I sensed that person didn’t feel the same.
    Over the last few weeks I had solved many mysteries with my newfound friend, but I feared the greatest mystery of them all I wouldn’t be solving with Kiera Hudson.
    Knowing that my mother and father were away and with nowhere else to go, I had decided to lead Kiera back to my home. The place I had grown up. The place where I had everything – but in strange way – it was the one place I had nothing at all. I steered my car up the narrow lane that led to my parents’ country mansion.
     
    Kiera
     
    I waited while Tom swung the gate closed. He climbed back into his car and overtook me on the wide gravel path I now found myself on. Slowly, I followed Tom, the sound of wet gravel crunching under the wheels of my car. Dark rain clouds