John Elliot drove the bus into the depot with a sigh of relief. His muscles ached from being in the driving seat for the last eight hours with only two short breaks. Switching the engine off, he stood and turned to make a quick visual check of the bus.
"Ma'am?" he said in surprise. "This is the last stop."
"I'm sorry," she apologized, getting to her feet. "I thought you made one more trip."
"Only on weeknights," he explained. "On Saturday the last bus finishes an hour early."
The woman picked up her small bag which probably contained all her worldly possessions. She had an elegance and dignity about her although it looked as though she had nowhere to sleep for the night. John's heart when out to her—like it had done every time he had seen a stray dog or cat when he was a boy. His parents had scolded him for bringing in the strays, but had allowed him to rescue as many as he'd wanted. Until he had picked up a cat with Feline Upper Respiratory Infection which had infected all the other cats. He learned a hard lesson and no matter how pitiful a stray looked he had never taken another one home again.
The woman walked to a bench and sat on it, her bag held tightly in her lap.
John went in to the office, turned off the lights and closed up for the night.
Opening the doors of his Ford Mondeo remotely as he approached, he kept his head resolutely forwards.
Yet, he found himself looking through his rear-view mirror at the woman as he started the engine. He prayed that she would be okay.
Feeling terrible for leaving her, prey to anyone with evil intentions, he sped away quickly.
He turned left at the next corner, then left at the next and then left again. Another left and he was back where he had started. Instead of driving into the depot he parked his car outside and observed the woman. She was still sitting on the bench, her back straight, her head held high, proudly.
His wife, Helen, wasn't home; he really shouldn't take a woman to his house. Ordinarily Helen wouldn't mind, but she would be more than a little suspicious if he brought a woman to the house on a night when she wasn't home. Especially a redhead. Why couldn't the woman have been blonde or brunette? If the woman had been older and looked like a downtrodden tramp Helen might have been more understanding, but the woman was beautiful and though he had caught her hot, musky smell as she had passed him on her way off the bus, it was obvious that she had either found somewhere to wash as often as she could or hadn't been on the road for very long.
A burly man walked passed the entrance of the depot, looked in and continued on his way. Fifty metres on, he turned and retraced his steps. John tensed as the man turned into the depot and headed straight for the woman. He sat next to her on the bench, dwarfing her as he leaned close and engaged her in conversation. She kept shaking her head until suddenly he stood up and grasped her arm roughly, pulling her upright and against his much larger body.
John was out of the car and hurrying towards them in an instant.
"Hey!" he shouted as he neared them. "Leave her alone!"
"Who's going to make me?" The man looked dismissively over his shoulder at John's slim built and kept hold of the woman.
"I am," John informed him quietly, bringing the gun in his hand into view. It was only a toy which belonged to his five-year-old son Tim, but the man couldn't know that. "If you don't want a bullet between your eyes, let her go now!"
"Cool it, mate! She's all yours if you want her." The man backed away nervously and John watched him hurry away with contempt. For all his massive size, the man was both a coward and a bully.
"Are you alright?"
"I'm fine. Thank you. He offered to share his bed with me for the night and was a little put out that I refused," she explained.
"It's not safe here. Is there nowhere you can spend the night?"
"Please don't concern yourself. I'll be fine."
"I can't leave you here."
"I'm not your concern."
"Look, it's too deserted here. At least let me take you somewhere the shops are open all night or where they are other people."
She looked at him and then at the gun he still held in his hand. Hastily, he slipped it behind him and into his waistband, out of sight.
"I don't want to go to anywhere noisy. I'm desperately tired—I need somewhere quiet where I can get some sleep."
"If you sleep here you're likely to end up raped or murdered," he told her flatly, finally losing patience. All he wanted was a shower and his bed. But he would toss and turn all night if he left her here. And if anything happened to her he would never forgive himself.
"And how do I know that you're not a rapist or a murder?" she asked.
"You don't." He felt surprised that she could think him capable of harming her. But, he reasoned, most serial killers were persuasive smooth talkers.
"I'm sorry, that was rude of me," she apologized. "It's been an incredibly long day."
"Look, my wife's not home, but I'm sure she wouldn't mind you coming home with me for a bite to eat and a shower," John offered. He wouldn't get a wink of sleep if he had to think of her out here on her own, prey to thieves, rapists or murderers.
"Your wife must really trust you."
"She'll be fine once I've explained the situation to her."
"Thank you, I'd like to accept." She turned and headed towards his parked car. Hurrying forward, he held the door open for her. When he came around the car she leaned over and politely opened the door for him, too.
"Normally, I wouldn't dream of trusting a stranger, but...." she broke off.
"You are perfectly safe with me," he reassured her.
They drove in complete silence. The woman had immediately tipped her head back against the headrest and fallen asleep within a minute of him pulling away from the kerb. She hadn't lied about being exhausted.
He shook her gently when he had parked the car in the garage and switched off the engine. "We're here."
"Are you sure this will be okay?" Revived from her nap she seemed wary of him again.
"Look, do you want me to call my wife and check first?"
"No, don't do that," she begged him hastily. "It's late at night. I don't think she would appreciate being awoken from her sleep. I just don't want to get you into any trouble."
"My wife and I have been happily married for six years. I think she knows me well enough by now."
"Sorry to seem so ungrateful." Clutching her small bag she made to open the door, but he quickly reached around her and opened it.
Once again her hot, musky smell filled his nostrils. It was her perfume, he realized. It wasn't unpleasant, just stronger than his wife's subtle floral scent. But then his wife was a cool blonde, this woman was a fiery redhead—the kind that he'd secretly fantasized about when he had masturbated as a young man.
***
He imagined her in the shower washing that curtain of red hair that fell almost to her waist. He had given her one of his bathrobes to wear afterwards—giving her one of Helen's wouldn't have been right.
He was harder than he had been in ages. His face felt hot, flushed with desire.
God, he hoped she wouldn't notice the state he was in!
Getting up, he fiddled with the place settings. She had been obviously hungry but had insisted on having a bath first, saying that she wouldn't feel right sitting in one of the chairs in the same clothes she had been sitting around in all day.
"I feel human again. Thank you."
He turned and watched her as she walked into the room. She had piled her slightly damp hair carelessly on top of her head. It gave her a sultry look and made him notice the incredible length of her neck for the first time. His bathrobe swamped her and even though she had pulled the sash tightly, it gaped at the front showing a generous amount of cleavage, and he realized as he looked down, almost the entire length of her toned legs as she walked towards him. Her toenails were painted a surprising red and for an insane moment he wanted to beg her to let him rub her high-arched aristocratic feet over the bulge in his trousers.
Oh God, he thought in dismay as he got a full view of her breasts as he pulled out the chair and seated her before going to the other end of the square table. Her breasts were beautiful. Not the firm, slightly hard mounds of a young woman, but the soft, full curves of a mature woman who had perhaps given birth and breastfed a child or two. Her nipples were a deep pink and amazingly distended. If she hadn't breastfed a child or children, he thought, then there must have been a husband, boyfriend or girlfriend who had sucked on the tempting peaks constantly.
"I'm afraid it's only leftover roast chicken," he apologized. "I can't cook, but my wife baked a whole chicken yesterday and there was enough for dinner tonight. She's back tomorrow, thank God!"