‘You didn’t ask me either,’ Miranda pointed out.
‘Because you wouldn’t go! And anyway, I could come back on the weekends,’ Paul said, but even he sounded doubtful. ‘Look, the bottom line is: you won’t leave this island, right? So who else do you think you’re going to find here to marry you? You’ve known everyone who lives here for decades. And it’s not like your musician guy is going to stick around, is he? So we make up, my parents are happy, you’re happy, I can still go work on the mainland and have you to come home to. It’s the best of both worlds.’
She blinked. Gwen must have really done a job on him if he honestly thought that was the best outcome either of them could hope for.
‘Paul, you wanted to move away from this island. Why would you come back every weekend?’
‘Because . . . it’ll make my mother stop crying. Because this is my home, too, and right now people here hate me, especially after I took Becca out that night. Because I’ve never lived away from here since I was twenty-one.’ He looked tired, defeated. ‘And because I love you, of course,’ he added, an obvious afterthought.
‘No you don’t. And honestly? I don’t think I love you either. Not any more. I did, once, but I guess love is one of those things that fades away when you don’t feed it. When you take it for granted, like we did. Because we knew there was no one else on this island for either of us.’
‘And now? You really think your musician is going to give it all up and live on Seashell Island for the love of you?’ Paul asked, sceptically. He didn’t question the love part though, she noticed.
‘Honestly? No. We haven’t even talked about . . . that’s not what we have, or what we’re doing. But being with him . . . it’s made me think about what I want. Who I want to be.’
‘And that person can’t be with me?’ There was a hint of sadness in Paul’s voice for the first time.
Miranda felt a small pang, somewhere in the vicinity of her heart, as she said, ‘No. I don’t think she can.’
LEO
By five o’clock on Friday afternoon, Leo was done. With work, family, good intentions, everything. Just done.
It had all been going so well. He should have known it would fall apart at any moment. Good things didn’t last; just look at his marriage.
He’d managed almost a full week of juggling childcare and work without anyone getting annoyed with him. Mia had only had two epic sulks the whole time, and both of those were unrelated to him and his work and more to do with her little sister – who had been sunshine and delight for days, beaming with happiness at all the fun things they’d been doing. Well, apart from when losing at Monopoly. Without Christabel there to supervise, it turned out they both liked winning after all. But Mia hadn’t been sick again due to too much sugar, and Abby had been happy to go to bed at her assigned bedtime, knowing there was more fun around the corner the next day. They both loved a routine far more than he’d expected, and they were all happier for a decent amount of sleep and some vegetables.
Even Tom had seemed happy with the new arrangement. Leo had checked in with him first thing every morning, gone through the most important stuff of the day, and then left him to get on with it. He’d check in again in the late afternoon, pick up any new stuff that needed working on, then got it done after the kids were in bed – but before Christabel slipped into his office and pushed his laptop closed and everything became a whole lot more fun again.
To be honest, there’d been a lot less that he’d really needed to do for work than he’d anticipated. Mostly because it turned out that Tom was more competent than he’d really given him credit for.
‘You’re doing a great job, Tom,’ he’d informed him, just last night.
Tom had scoffed. ‘Told you so. I’ve been waiting to pick some of this stuff up from you for months. It’s way more interesting than picking up your dry-cleaning and getting your car valeted.’
So it had been working. It had been working well. Leo had even felt relaxed enough to ask Christabel out for dinner that evening, giving up his work time and enjoying a Friday night out while Juliet watched a movie with the girls at the Lighthouse.
Christabel had been firm, the first morning they’d woken up together, that this was Just For Now. No great love affair, no strings, no obligations – just something for them both to enjoy until the end of the summer. And Leo was fine with that; he was still figuring out how to work and be a dad – throwing boyfriend obligations into that mix could only make things more complicated.
Still, they’d spent every night together for the last week – time when he could switch off and just feel, enjoy, be, rather than trying to juggle and balance all the things he had to keep moving. She’d helped him find his path and his balance and she’d made his nights exciting and fun too. The very least he owed her was dinner.
More than that, he wanted to spend some time with her outside bed but without the kids. Miranda had been making too many Mary Poppins comments, and the last thing he wanted was Christabel thinking he just kept her around to help him with the girls. He enjoyed her company, was endlessly fascinated by her unexpected world view, and he thought she was sexy as all hell. It was past time for an actual date. So he’d called the Flying Fish and booked a table, and asked Juliet to watch the kids. Maybe afterwards he and Christabel could even go back to her ambulance for a while. He’d never had sex in an ambulance . . .
Anyway, the point was, he’d had it all perfectly planned. Which should have been the first sign that it was going to be a disaster.
Things had started going to hell just after eleven o’clock that morning, when Juliet handed the girls over after breakfast and chores and went to do whatever it was she did with her days instead. He’d finished up his morning call to Tom, sent a few urgent emails, cast an eye over the final version of the proposal Tom was presenting to an old client that morning and approved it, then shut down his laptop, put his phone in the designated phone bowl by the door and gone to find the girls to find out what they wanted to do that day.
The consensus was a beach picnic. ‘Can Christabel come?’ Abby asked, so Leo had grabbed his phone and fired off a text to ask her to meet them down on the beach, if she was free.
He’d almost made it. Almost put the phone back in the bowl and hurried the kids out of the door with the picnic supplies. But then it rang.
‘Tom?’
By the door, Mia and Abby groaned, and he heard Mia mutter, ‘Should have known it was too good to be true.’
‘Leo, I’m so sorry—’
‘Tom, I’m just on my way to the beach. Can this wait until later?’ He had to say it, had to show he was making an effort. But he knew from Tom’s voice what the answer would be.
‘I’m sorry. It really can’t.’
Of all the things Leo had imagined going wrong while he was away this summer, this wasn’t one of them – his oldest client, a personal friend, suddenly deciding to pull his business and go elsewhere for his marketing strategy and needs. Some new start-up who’d arrived with flashy new suggestions and impossible, budget-stretching moves.
‘What do you mean they cancelled the meeting? They can’t! They’ve been with us from the start. Wait, I’ll call Harry now, straighten all this out.’
He’d left the girls standing at the door, buckets and spades in hand, and climbed back up the stairs to the study to make the call. And then another call. And another, when it turned out that Harry wasn’t the only client this new company had approached.
‘We’re not going to the beach, are we?’ Mia had said, less of a question than a complaint, when she arrived in his doorway, halfway through the third call.
‘Sorry, sweetheart, not right now. Can you guys entertain yourselves for a bit? No Tom, not you. Now, who else can we call?’
When he looked up again, she was gone.
He didn’t know how much later it was when Chr
istabel arrived, but she’d suddenly appeared, sitting on his desk when he hung up his latest call, playing with one of those eighties executive toys he’d bought for Dad one Christmas as a joke.
‘Your daughters are waiting for you downstairs,’ she told him. ‘Much like I was waiting on the beach. For an hour.’
He’d winced. ‘Sorry. Something came up.’ This, from his past experience, was the moment that the yelling started.
‘So I see. It’s important?’ Her voice was too calm. Too dangerous.
‘Very.’ He put as much emphasis on the word as he could, and hoped she wouldn’t respond with Emily’s favourite retort: More important than me? More important than your family?
She didn’t. ‘And are you making a difference?’
That had made him pause. Was he? Really?
So far, nothing had really changed. All they knew was that some new kid on the block had contacted a few clients. Harry was the only one to defect as of yet – and getting him on the phone to explain his decision was still a work in progress, as so far Leo had spoken to almost everyone in his office, down to the janitor, except Harry himself.
‘I have to try,’ he’d said.
Christabel had nodded. ‘OK, then. Just remember what your priorities are here. The path you’ve chosen.’
‘I will.’ He’d picked up the phone again, and hadn’t watched her go.
And now, before he knew it, it was late afternoon. Mia arrived in the doorway again, this time with a plate of sandwiches he recognised from the picnic basket he’d packed that morning.
‘Christabel said I should bring you these.’ She dumped them on the table and walked away again, making it obvious that, left to her own devices, she’d have let him starve.
‘Mia, wait.’ She paused in the doorway, but didn’t turn around. He searched for something, anything to say to make her less angry. ‘Are you and Abby OK down there?’
‘We’re fine. Christabel stayed for lunch and we played in the garden and had a game of Monopoly after, before she had to go. Auntie Juliet went out on the horse and carriage ride with Rory a while ago – Abby saw them – and Auntie Miri went into town with the band this morning and hasn’t come back. So Abby and I are playing weddings.’
‘Good, good.’ That sounded safe, happy. ‘And I’m sure Juliet and Miranda will be back soon too; they’ll watch a movie with you or something.’ A small part of his brain questioned Juliet and Rory’s carriage ride, but he dismissed it. Whatever was going on in his sisters’ love lives, he didn’t have the brain space to think about it right now.
‘Great,’ Mia said, with a complete lack of enthusiasm.
Then the phone rang again, and he took it. ‘Tom? What’s the latest?’
His assistant sounded weary. ‘Still nothing more than we knew at eleven this morning, Leo. I told you, Harry’s email just said it was time for a fresh approach. I don’t think this is the huge coup you seem to believe it is—’
‘Which one of us has a decade’s experience of running this business?’ Leo asked, sharply. ‘And which one of us has been doing it for eighteen months?’
‘I know that, Leo. I get it. I’m new and untested. But I’m the one who is here dealing with the actual work this summer and—’
‘Exactly! And if I was there this wouldn’t have happened!’ he yelled.
Silence on the other end. ‘You don’t know that. Harry said—’
‘I don’t care what Harry said. I know my clients; I know my business. You presented to Harry on Monday and it obviously wasn’t good enough. If I’d been there, it would have been.’
‘You’re being unreasonable, Leo.’ Tom was obviously trying to keep his cool, but there was a frayed edge that Leo couldn’t help but pick at until it felt apart, until someone else felt as bad as he did right now.
‘Am I? Is it unreasonable to expect my employee to do his job right?’
‘We went through that proposal together! I presented it exactly the same way you would have.’
‘Except I’d have got the business!’ He was being unreasonable; he knew he was. But who else did he have to blame? Except himself.
‘Daddy! Stop shouting. We’re having a wedding downstairs and you need to come and give the bride away!’ Abby bounced through the doorway over to his desk, tugging on his arm.
‘Not now, Abby,’ he snapped. ‘This is important.’
‘Lucy’s wedding is important too!’ Abby replied. ‘Come on, Daddy.’
‘Look, why don’t you go deal with that,’ Tom said, down the phone. ‘There’s nothing else we can do here anyway—’
‘Yes there is. There are more people we need to speak to.’
‘Leo, it’s gone five on a Friday. People don’t want to talk to us now, they want to go home. Or to a bar, where they can get very, very drunk.’
‘You mean that’s what you want,’ Leo replied. ‘Real professionals—’
‘Daddy! The wedding!’
‘Not now, Abby! I don’t care about some stupid llama wedding! And I don’t care if you want to skive off and go to the pub, Tom, I want to get this fixed! Now! So let’s start at the beginning again.’
There was a sob from the doorway, then the sound of running feet. On the other end of the phone, Tom sighed.
‘Leo, we’re getting nowhere. Isn’t it better to wait until—’
‘No. Now read me Harry’s email again.’ He couldn’t think about Abby and Mia, or Christabel, or the bloody llama wedding. He had to fix his business first.
That was the thing he was good at. If he couldn’t do that right, he had no chance at the rest of it anyway.
Suddenly, another sound cut through the air – the old dial phone his father kept on his desk, which Leo had assumed was more decorative than functional. ‘Hang on, Tom.’
He picked up the heavy black receiver and held it to his ear. ‘Hello? The Lighthouse B&B?’
‘Mr Waters?’ The voice on the other end was cultured, and just a little bit smarmy. ‘It’s Timothy here from Coastal Properties. I just wanted to let you know that we’ve had some interest from a buyer who’d like to come and view the Lighthouse.’
MESSAGES
Mum (to the Waters Wanderers group): Hey kids! Sorry we’ve been out of touch the last week. Been off exploring a wonderfully remote island network on the boat. Glorious sunshine, fresh seafood for dinner every day, and the best cocktails you’ll ever taste. Juliet – you’d love them! Hope all is OK back on our island. Miss you all. Love, Mum xxx
Dad (to the Waters Wanderers group): As you can probably tell, your mother has been enjoying many of the aforementioned cocktails tonight. Let me know that our B&B is still standing when you get the chance? Here’s a photo of the fish I caught this morning (with your mother for scale).
JULIET
‘Where are we going?’ Juliet held onto the side of the carriage, mostly to avoid grabbing Rory’s hand and giving him the wrong idea. Ohhh, she had a very bad feeling about this.
‘We’re going to all the places that matter,’ Rory replied, enigmatically.
But she knew this island. She knew these paths, these places. And Harriet was leading the carriage right down towards Gull Bay – the place they’d spent the night together one summer evening, right before she walked out on Rory and left Seashell Island for good. At least, so she’d thought.
It was a place loaded with meaning. Like this whole carriage ride.
Oh God. Look at those flowers, those ribbons. This was a romantic horse-drawn carriage ride around the island she’d spent years waiting to escape. He was going to ask her to stay. Again.
Didn’t he remember how badly this had gone last time?
He’d taken her down to Gull Bay, wooed her as best as a teenage boy could – with warm fizzy wine and chocolates – and made love to her on a picnic blanket on the sand. Then, af
terwards, he’d asked her to stay with him. Just until my dad gets better. Then we can leave together, like we planned all along.
But she’d known it wouldn’t happen. She’d seen it with Miranda and Paul, not to mention so many girls in the years above her at school. Everyone talked about leaving, but hardly anyone ever did. If they left now, at eighteen, for university, like she wanted to, then they had a chance. If they put it off for any reason . . . they were still on the island years later, popping out babies or working at the Crab Leg Cafe.
She hadn’t wanted that future. And now it seemed to have found her anyway, just ten years later.
She stared out at the familiar landscape as the horse trotted along, dragging her towards whatever doom Rory had planned for her. What had she been thinking, agreeing to this? Probably, she’d been thinking about how he’d been so conspicuously ‘just friends’ all week, even though every inch of her had been desperate to kiss him. He’d been so hands-off she’d had no clue he might be feeling similarly. In fact, she’d put it all down to her stupid hormones, like so many other things. Or perhaps the fact he’d been so kind, so understanding, that she’d just wanted to let him take care of everything.
But he’d not even hinted at them revisiting the romance, not once.
Clearly it had all been part of a cunning plan, all leading to this moment.
Because as much as she wanted him, liked him, cared about him, and remembered how desperately she’d loved him as a teenager – hell, could probably fall in love with him again in seconds, if she let herself – it just wasn’t as easy as all that. It wasn’t ‘romantic carriage ride equals happily ever after’ simple.
It wasn’t a movie. It was her life.
Harriet brought the carriage to a halt, studiously looking straight ahead and paying them no attention at all as Rory turned to Juliet.
‘Do you remember what happened here?’ he asked.
She nodded, scared to open her mouth and find out what words might come out. She didn’t want to remember that last night they were together.
Summer on Seashell Island: Escape to an island this summer for the perfect heartwarming romance in 2020 (Riley Wolfe 1) Page 24
