by T A Williams
‘The question is whether it ever does. Remember the rain?’
Anna nodded. ‘How could I forget? I’m sure we were just unlucky but, you’re right, this really is gorgeous. It feels almost like being on holiday.’
‘Well, you heard Sir Graham. That’s our cover story and I intend to do my best to act like a holidaymaker.’
‘Me too. The first thing I’m going to do is go for a swim. It’ll make a wonderful change to be in the sea instead of a pool. You coming?’
‘I’d better check in with the missus first, and then I need to look into hiring a boat for us tomorrow. I should be able to do it online but if I need your help with the lingo, I’ll give you a shout.’ On Sir Graham’s orders they were planning to spend the first few days making an initial tour around the coast, studying the topography of the island from the sea before heading inland later in the week. ‘I’ll do my best to come down to the beach a bit later on. If not, I’ll see you at dinner. Shall we say… eight o’clock?’
‘Sounds good to me.’
Anna went back into her room and changed into her bikini, pulling on shorts and a T-shirt over the top. Her body was no doubt going to look pale compared to the Italians on the beach, but hopefully a couple of weeks of sunshine would sort that out. She picked up a towel, walked down the stairs and dropped her key off with the friendly man behind the check-in desk. His name badge read Felice, which meant ‘happy’ in Italian, and he was certainly living up to his name.
‘Going for a swim? I wish I could do the same; it’s certainly warm enough. We aren’t used to it being so hot in September.’ He winked at her. ‘I blame it on the government… mind you, I blame most things on the government.’
‘Well, whoever’s responsible, I’d rather have this weather than the rain we had in England last week.’
He was very easy to talk to and she was delighted to find that she could speak to him in pretty fluent Italian and had no difficulty understanding what he said to her. They chatted some more before she made her way outside into the gardens. The rear wall of the hotel was half-hidden by an old rambling rose whose mass of blooms produced an intoxicating perfume which clearly appealed to the local bee population who were working assiduously among the pink petals. She carried on down past more colourful and fragrant rose beds into the pine trees that ringed the beach where the strong scent of resin took over from the flowers.
Unlike so many Italian beaches, this one was too small to have been swamped with private bagni, those most typical of Italian seaside phenomena: bathing establishments that carpeted the sand with sunbeds and umbrellas for hire, often at exorbitant prices. This little beach looked remarkably untouched, with just a few dozen holidaymakers dotted around on towels, and Anna was able to pick a spot a discreet distance from anybody else. Close up, she found that the sand was very coarse, mixed with fine gravel and pebbles and that, along with the limited size of the beach, probably explained why this place hadn’t been commercialised. It was a very tranquil setting and she breathed deeply, loving the sea air. After laying down her towel by a large rock that served as a natural windbreak and slipping out of her shorts and T-shirt, she took a good look around.
One thing was immediately abundantly clear: if she had come here looking for the bright lights and a buzzing social scene, she would have been severely disappointed. Apart from the hotel, there were no other buildings anywhere in sight. All she could see were the pines, some low scrub and bright yellow broom bushes. Somehow she had a feeling she wasn’t going to be disturbed by noise tonight. Unlike similarly remote places around the world where she and Charlie had lodged over the years, this location was neither threatening nor scary. It promised to be very tranquil and a welcome change.
Turning back towards the sea, she hurried down to the water’s edge over the hot sand. The initial impact of the water was cold, but she soon got used to it. The beach shelved quite steeply and she was out of her depth after a very few metres. She had always loved the water and this brought back memories of sunny holidays as a child. Since then most of her swimming had been done in hotel pools and she relished the chance to be in the sea again. She ducked her head underneath the surface and was delighted to see a shoal of little fish flit past below her. Visibility in the clear water was exceptional and she could see a long way out across the seabed until it took a sharp nosedive and disappeared into the dark blue of deeper waters. After duck-diving a few times and poking around on the bottom, sifting through the coarse sand and picking up a few little shells, she came back to the surface and rolled over onto her back, staring up at the sky as she floated idly about. Whether this was a real holiday or not, it certainly felt like one and she relaxed.
As she watched the seagulls wheeling overhead, she reflected that if all her assignments could be like this she really wouldn’t have any objection to carrying on with her job forever. Of course, she reminded herself, it wasn’t always so good. She remembered the month she and Charlie had spent last autumn in the Atlas Mountains, investigating ancient mines dug almost a thousand years ago and in a scary state of crumbling decrepitude. To make matters worse, she had never ventured out unaccompanied after it was made clear that it might not be safe for her to do so. That certainly hadn’t been an experience she felt like repeating any time soon. Yes, nice as this place was, it was the exception to the rule. Once again she started wondering where her life should go from here.
The other downside to having a career that involved so much foreign travel had been brought home to her ever more forcibly by meeting up with Toby again after all these years. She had loved being with him and was still amazed at how comfortable she had felt in his company right from the start, but could there be a future for them with her jetting off all over the globe like this? She really hoped he would manage to include a visit to Elba in his Mediterranean cruising holiday. Otherwise, who knew when she would next have the chance to see him? And one thing was for sure: she wanted to.
After a while, still no nearer coming to a solution about what to do with her life, she dived down, trying to stay underwater for a full minute, swimming along as close to the seabed as she could, checking the second hand on her watch as she did so. She made it to forty-five seconds before coming up and breathing deeply. After a few big breaths, she dived back down again, determined to crack the minute barrier, and this time managed to swim a fair distance underwater and reach sixty-three seconds before surfacing.
As she did so, all hell broke loose.
‘Porca miseria…!’ The shout was accompanied by a wave that swamped her and the sound of something heavy landing in the water beside her. A second later the sky turned red. Coughing and spluttering underwater, she struggled upwards and, thankfully, the red sky turned out to be the thin material of a sail. She pushed it up with her head until she could take a deep breath of air and then ducked back down and swam out from underneath it into the open and took stock. She was bobbing up and down beside a large triangular sail attached to a mast which, in turn, was attached to an upturned sailboard with a vicious blue fin pointing skywards from the underside. Three or four metres further on towards the shore she spotted a head and saw a man swimming towards her. As he drew nearer she saw he had blood running down the side of his face from a cut near his temple.
‘Stai bene? Ti ho colpita?’ He spoke good, clear Italian with no strong accent and she understood him easily as he asked her if she was all right.
She moved her limbs and ran a hand over her face before answering in Italian. ‘I’m okay, no damage done, but that’s a nasty cut you’ve got there.’ She paddled towards him to take a closer look and discovered that he was a very good-looking man – at least the bits of him she could see. Maybe five or six years older than her, he had a suntanned face, a stubbly chin and longish hair plastered against his scalp. Doing her best to concentrate on the wound rather than his looks, she adopted what she hoped would sound like a businesslike tone. ‘Dip your head in the water to wash the blood off and then let me t
ake a look at the cut. I’m not a doctor but I’ve done a few first aid courses.’
He obeyed and as he emerged again she floated up close to him and was relieved to see that the cut was little more than a nasty scrape. There was bruising already forming around it so it had probably been caused as his head had come into contact with something hard like the mast or the board itself. She gave him a reassuring smile. ‘You’ll live – but I think you might have a headache this evening.’
He grinned back at her and to her annoyance she felt herself blush. ‘Thanks and, look, I’m really sorry. That was all my fault. I didn’t see you until the very last minute and I was going much too fast so close to the shore. When you suddenly appeared in front of me I had no option but to bail out or I would have run into you. Are you sure the board or the mast didn’t hit you, and you’re really okay?’
‘I’m fine, thanks, and I’m probably as much to blame as you were. I should have been looking around as I surfaced. Are you going to be all right getting back to the shore? I could give you a hand to tow your board in if you like.’
‘No, I’ll be fine, thanks. Anyway, apologies once more. I’m really pleased you’re all right.’ With experienced movements he flipped the board back upright, reached for the sail and caught hold of the boom, spinning the rig around until the wind got beneath it and filled it. He gave her a final wave before lying back, hooking a foot into a toe strap and letting the wind lift the sail into the air and him along with it. Gracefully and effortlessly he stepped onto the board and set off again, headed for the beach, this time slowly and carefully.
As Anna slowly made her way back towards the shore, she couldn’t help thinking about him and she was still thinking about him as she stretched out on her towel to dry off in the evening sun. Brief as the encounter had been, she had felt a definite spark of attraction, but unlike the warm, comfortable, familiar feeling she had got from Toby at the weekend, this was something far more visceral and physical. Yes, she thought to herself, if she had to be run down by somebody, this windsurfer was a pretty good choice. Her thoughts were disturbed by the crunch of footsteps in the coarse sand.
‘Hi, it’s me again. I thought I’d just come and double-check that you’re all right.’
She opened her eyes and raised herself onto her elbows and, as she did so, the old familiar timidity threatened to take over. The windsurfer was standing to one side of her, the sun catching him obliquely, but it showed enough of his body for her to like what she saw and she felt a sudden shiver of what could only be lust run through her. This plus her shyness immediately made her face flush and she hoped he would think it was the sun. He was tanned and looked very fit, and there didn’t appear to be an ounce of excess fat on his muscular torso. She was forced to admit that what she was feeling was definitely lust and, equally definitely, he was way out of her league. It was painfully obvious that this was a real hunk who had no business bothering himself with a shy English girl like her. She had to clear her throat before replying.
‘Hi, and yes, I’m really all right. What about that cut? Would you like me to take another look at it?’ She was mildly surprised that she managed to reply in what sounded like fairly normal tones. Maybe it was because she was speaking a foreign language.
She sat upright and reached out her arms towards him as he bent down towards her. Whether her offer to take a closer look at his face had much to do with first aid or was just so she could get a better look at him was up for debate but she avoided any such conjecture as she gently brushed his fair hair out of the way with a finger and studied the wound. As she made contact with his skin she felt another distinct shiver of desire that really surprised her. Up till now she had always thought of herself as a very grounded, rational sort of person and this sort of thing was so unusual as to be almost worrying. Apart from anything else, only minutes earlier her head had been filled with warm cosy thoughts of another man. What was going on?
‘Erm… that’s good, the bleeding’s stopped but you’ve got a lovely Technicolor bruise coming up. Probably best not to go too near any little children for a few days. You don’t want to frighten anybody.’ Yes, there was no doubt about it, she was finding it relatively easy to speak to this unknown man. Maybe she had Toby to thank for this. Thought of Toby sent a little flash of guilt coursing through her. What was she doing having lustful thoughts for another man when she already had Toby? Of course, she reminded herself, she didn’t exactly have Toby. She liked him a lot but nothing had happened yet. To say she was confused was to understate what was going on in her head.
The windsurfer gave her a smile that lit up his face before squatting down beside her and, as he did so, he turned so the sun illuminated his face. Unexpectedly she saw that he had blue eyes to go with his fair hair. He also had strong, muscular thighs and she found her eyes strangely drawn to them, while her insides, starting with her heart and moving rapidly downwards, turned somersaults. Her head wasn’t doing much better.
‘My name’s Marco, by the way.’ He waved a muscular arm vaguely off to the west. ‘I live over in Cala Nera, on the other side of the headland.’
Reluctantly she dragged her eyes off his body and held out her hand. ‘Hi, I’m Anna. I’m staying in the Hotel Panorama.’
‘So you’re on holiday?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, just arrived today.’
‘All on your own?’ She couldn’t miss the interest in his eyes. Over her years of solo travelling around the globe, Anna had developed fairly good radar as far as approaches by random men were concerned. This one appeared nicer than most, definitely better-looking than most, but from the glint in his eyes, she felt sure she wasn’t the first woman he had chatted up on a beach. Still, she told herself, he was behaving himself a lot better than most – at least for now – so she smiled back at him, still surprised that a man like this could be interested in her and that she hadn’t just curled up in embarrassment in his presence.
‘I’m with a friend, but he’s back at the hotel, phoning his wife.’ For some reason she felt she had to clarify the nature of her relationship with Charlie. ‘He’s a work colleague. We’ve got a few days off and the two of us decided to take a break.’
‘What is it you do?’
Anna hesitated, not just out of natural shyness this time. After what Sir Graham had said, she knew it was best not to tell anybody she was a geologist so she just fudged the issue. ‘We work for a big company based in London but with clients all over the world, so we travel a lot.’ Fortunately he didn’t press her for more details and she resolved to sit down with Charlie and sort out a convincing cover story for future use. For now, she decided to move the conversation away from herself. ‘And you live here on the island? That sounds wonderful.’
‘It’s a great place to live – well, most of the year before it gets too crowded. It’s only just starting to quieten down again now after the mayhem of August. Like you, I used to work for a big company but I got out a few years ago and settled here.’ He gave her an appraising look that did little to reduce her internal confusion. ‘Your Italian’s very good. You said you work in London so does that mean you’re British?’
‘I’m British all right, but my mum’s Italian and we used to speak it together at home quite a bit.’
‘And you speak it very well. Good for you.’
At that moment Anna spotted Charlie emerging from the pine trees carrying his towel. He was wearing swimming shorts and his legs were even whiter than hers. She waved him over. While he put down his towel and pulled off his T-shirt and shoes, Marco picked up the conversation with her again.
‘Listen, Anna, I’d better go, but I was wondering if I could buy you dinner one night to say sorry for almost running into you. How would you feel about that?’
His bright blue eyes reached right inside her and she found herself torn. A meal with this good-looking guy was almost too good to be true but at the same time, what was she doing even contemplating going out for dinner with another man when
she had Toby? Did she have Toby? The fact was that she knew how she was beginning to feel about him but he hadn’t actually told her how he felt about her. Realising she had to give Marco an answer, she told herself it was only a dinner invitation, after all. It didn’t need to be anything more than that. Did it? She made a hasty decision.
‘I’d like that, thanks, Marco, although I still don’t think it was all your fault.’
‘Oh, it certainly was. Windsurfing here’s forbidden close to shore and if you’re launching or coming back to the beach, like I was, you’re supposed to do only four knots. That’s a whole lot slower than I was going.’ He grinned at her and she could clearly see a cheeky glint in his eye. ‘You could report me to the police if you want.’
She found herself grinning back. ‘So the dinner invitation’s to stop me getting you locked up?’
‘Something like that. How about tomorrow night?’
‘Tomorrow would be great.’
‘I’ll pick you up from the hotel at, say, six if that suits you and we can go somewhere for a drink first.’ She saw him hesitate. ‘Just one thing… would you mind walking up from the hotel a hundred metres or so until the road gets a bit less rough? I’ve got a very low-slung car and it tends to ground when I go through the potholes.’
‘No problem. See you tomorrow at six.’
He stood up again. ‘See you then.’ And he headed back down the beach towards his board.
As she watched his retreating back, she could feel her head spinning. From the glint in his eyes, she got the feeling that if she wanted, the island of Elba might be able to provide her with more than just rare metals. This man was also a rarity in her experience; tall, attractive and apparently interested in her. But what about Toby, her internal voice was shouting at her? He was also tall and good-looking. What was going on? Charlie’s voice alongside her shook her out of her reflections.
‘Guys like that should come with a warning sign.’
He had been standing watching the scene and, although he hadn’t been able to understand what they had been saying as it had been in Italian, he had already formed his own conclusions and he sounded disapproving.
