It bugged me not knowing what job he did. He’d given me clues, but I’d lucked out on the guesses I gave in return. Fraser was good outdoors. He looked after the land around the lodges, a perfect handyman. I was convinced it was something to do with this, but that guess had been wrong. The odd time an idea struck me, I’d tap him on the shoulder and throw the guess at him, but still, nothing had been right. Fraser pulled the motorcycle into a gravel lot outside an old double-fronted brick house. The sign in the window announced ‘VACANCIES’ and a wooden sign above the door told me we’d arrived at Seal Bay Bed & Breakfast.
“This looks cute.” I pulled the helmet free of my head and ran my fingers through my hair.
“Brace,” he muttered, shortly followed by, “incoming.”
I turned around in time to see the door open and an older woman with gray hair, large square glasses like something from the eighties and a frilly apron over a psychedelic-patterned dress come running out. “As I live and breathe. Is that you, Mac?” The woman had a dish cloth in her hand and looked shocked, like she wasn’t really sure this ‘Mac’ was really here.
“Miss Agatha.” He smiled, pushing his gloves inside his helmet as she raced towards him.
“Agatha? Oh, hush! And less of the Miss nonsense, it’s Aggie.” Like she was expecting it, and definitely going to demand it if he didn’t offer it up, she reached for him and hugged him hard. “You look good, boy.”
“Aye,” he crooned back at her with that hint of the smooth Scottish accent that made my heart melt. “So do you.”
Remembering I was there, she turned to me. “Oh, where are my manners? Now who do we have here?”
“I’m Penny.” I offered her the one hand I had free. The other was balancing my helmet through the open visor slot.
“We don’t shake hands in these parts. We hug.”
I didn’t want her to hug me. No one had hugged me in years, until the night of the fireworks when Fraser hugged me and then consoled me all night long. With little choice, I let her put her arms around me, only to find that it wasn’t as awkward as I was expecting.
“Let’s go. I’ve got your room free.”
Fraser stalled. “Gonna need a room with a couple of beds.”
“Don’t have one. You’ll be ‘right.” Aggie wasn’t taking no for an answer.
Looking nervous, he stopped me before we followed her through the door she’d left open for us. “I never thought to check in ahead. She finds out I’m in town and haven’t stayed here, she’ll skin me alive.” Fraser seemed torn over the situation. “The room she’s about to give us has one big-ass bed in it. We can stick to our sides. But if you’d feel better, I can try to tell her we’re not staying.”
I thought about his offer, but the curiosity of all this got the better of me. Whoever this woman was, she knew him, and maybe I could glean some information from her.
“It’s one night. A temporary cessation of the rules will be acceptable.” The smile I got in return was handsome. He wanted to stay here, and it meant a lot to him that I’d agreed. “But one question, who is Mac?”
“Me. Fraser McPhee. Mac’s my club name.”
Damn.
His name, his nickname, was just as handsome as the rest of him. He had so many layers and they all just kept getting better.
Fraser ushered me into the house and I groaned at the smell of warm pastry cooking.
“That’s tomorrow’s breakfast. Fresh croissants,” Aggie answered, appearing at the side of me. “What brings you here, Mac?”
“Just on a road trip. Penny’s never seen the bay.”
Aggie looked happy, like tourists visiting here mattered a lot. She scuttled off and opened a really old cupboard behind a makeshift reception desk and pulled out a pile of bright yellow fluffy towels, a little pot full of instant coffee sachets and teabags, and some tiny bars of soap. “You’re gonna love it.” She slapped a key on top of the pile too.
“Thank you, Aggie.”
At Fraser’s words, she reached up a hand and stroked his cheek, ignoring the beard even though only her thumb made contact with his skin. “Anything for you.” It was a touching moment and I felt a bit uncomfortable at being there, but the look on Fraser’s face and the smile he gave her back told me that he was right where he wanted to be. “Now, go enjoy. I’ll ring the Captain and get you a table for early dinner.”
She handed Fraser the pile from her arms and scuttled off as he turned and headed for the staircase. At the top, he turned right and walked to the other end of the house until we were at the door at the end of the hallway. “Brace.” He put the key in and turned it.
It was the second time he’d told me to do that. “What f— woah!”
“Welcome to the sunshine room, where joy is only a sleep away.”
“If by joy you really mean crazy headache then can I borrow your sunnies?”
Fraser smiled. “She means well.” He dumped the pile of stuff on the bed, and I put our bags beside it.
“She cares for you.”
He thought for a few moments. “She does.” Whatever it was that he was fighting, it looked like doubt and uncertainty, maybe even disbelief.
I glanced at the bed, slightly nervous. I was going to spend the night in the same bed as a man. My track record on that score hadn’t gone well. So, I did the only thing I could do and pushed it aside.
“Ready to explore?”
“Give me a few mins to change and then I’m good to go.”
We waved goodbye to Aggie as we left, and judging by the flour cloud that followed her as she stuck her head into the hallway, I’d say she was baking up a storm.
Out in the sunshine, we walked in silence until I could bear it no longer. “How do you know her?”
“She’s a friend from the past.”
“A good friend?”
“She got out from a bad life and helped me when I did, too, a lot.”
I didn’t know if he realized that what he’d just said was intriguing, but it felt like the wrong time to get into it. Seagulls squawked as we walked, and just over the top of the roofs, I could see the tips of boat masts protruding.
“Aggie has information and could spill the beans on your job. End the mystery.” My voice held dramatic flare and excitement.
“She’ll never tell. Tough as old boots.”
Along the front we took a turn past what appeared to be an old boat slip sloping out into the sea, and then carried on down the footpath, past the harbor wall.
“It’s beautiful.”
“When the tide is fully out you can walk right across the beach to the trees on the other side.”
“When is that?” I looked at my watch, then at the sun, trying to figure out whether we’d get chance to do that.
Fraser put me out of my misery. “We’re too late, really. It’d be coming back in before we could get back across.”
I didn’t want to feel disappointed, but I’d been fairly lazy so far sitting on the back of the bike and a big walk would sort out the energy buzzing around inside me.
“Don’t worry. It’ll still be worth coming here.”
The harbor wasn’t busy. With the tide being out, a lot of boats were either moored up or already out fishing. We carried on walking and trekked across a parking lot where a few people were getting their dogs in and out of cars. The shale underfoot turned bumpy, gravel mixed with sand, until we were walking up steep dunes and back down the other side. It wasn’t long before we got to the flat sandy expanse of the beach.
I watched the patterns my boots made in the sodden, compact, dense sand, thinking over my feelings for the stuff. I’d hated it with a passion in Afghanistan. Out there it was fine, like salt grains, and it burned your feet while being impossible to walk on. If the wind blew in the wrong direction you ended up blind and then spending hours trying to dig the horrible stuff out of your eyes. This stuff was different, though. It was tough, stood its ground and barely caved under your body weight, I could imagine peop
le jogging on it, kids chasing each other or a kite, and throwing a ball across it. The beach was littered with driftwood and the sea was rampant. Even on a good day it was moody and atmospheric.
“Where does this end up?” I asked.
“You’ll see.”
We walked for another fifteen minutes, the wind well and truly battering us, until Fraser stopped and trudged up a little sand dune. He sat down in the sandy reeds and with nothing else to do, I followed. “Well?” I asked, confused about why we’d stopped.
Fraser didn’t look at me but nodded his head off to the right. When I followed his eyeline, I saw exactly what he was looking at. “Is that…?” I stopped, unsure. “Are they?” I stood up sharply only to be pulled back down quickly.
“They’re sensitive. Don’t scare them.”
Just in front of us, lounging on the beach a couple of hundred feet away were seals. About twenty of them. Some of them were resting, others were bobbing in the water, and there was a steady stream of them coming and going from the beach to the sea. “That’s amazing.”
“Only seen this in two places. Here and on the Pacific Coast Highway, but you don’t get as close there. But here, only the locals know about it and come to say hello. There’s no viewing gallery. It’s just you and them, on the beach, co-existing.”
The wind changed and I heard that distinctive noise they made. It was so loud I wondered how I’d missed it before, but then the wind changed again, and my ears lost it.
Fraser and I sat comfortably for a while until the sea started to come back in.
“Hungry?”
“Famished,” I replied.
We headed back in the same direction, and when we got to the little harbor, he stopped and headed inside a little café, which was attached to a beach shack. It was loaded with clothes on racks, wetsuits and knickknacks like buckets and spades and toys. “Welcome to the Captain’s Table.” I thought back to Aggie’s words and remembered her mentioning about calling the Captain for a table.
“Well, fuck me.” A man came around from behind the counter.
“Cap.” Fraser smiled at a man who was a similar age to himself, but a little softer around the middle. “Cap, this is Penny.”
“‘Bout fucking time,” he growled, his voice hard and raspy, and Fraser ignored him. “Your usual?”
“Aye.” Slotting straight back into blending in with the locals.
Cap disappeared before I got to say hello, and Fraser nudged me in the direction of a table by the window. On it there was a handwritten bit of paper that just said, ‘RESERVED FOR MAC.” I watched as Fraser leaned over, picked it up and shook his head in amusement. With a smile on his face, he screwed it up and put it in his jacket pocket. A young girl appeared with two cans of Coke. “Food won’t be long.”
“Thanks,” I offered, seeing as Fraser was busy staring out of the window, his mind occupied somewhere else.
The scent of food wafted our way, and as Fraser turned his head, Cap approached carrying two plates.
“Smells amazing.” I wasn’t lying either.
“Caught fresh this morning.”
Both plates were loaded with mackerel that had been grilled and served with a tomato and green leaf salad. The girl who delivered the sodas reappeared with an enormous breadbasket loaded with crusty rolls and butter sachets. We both thanked them and tucked in, and just half an hour later our plates were clean. “What are they doing?” I pointed a group of kids sitting on the side of the short pier out front.
“Crabbin’”
“Oh.”
Fraser looked at me. “Wanna go?”
“Uh, well—”
“Cap,” he yelled, not letting me finish. “Can I borrow a bucket and a line?”
His friend yelled back in the affirmative from somewhere in the direction of the kitchen.
When Fraser paid for our lunch, Cap handed over a bucket, a hook, a reel of fishing line and a load of bacon wrapped in paper. “We don’t have to do this; we can just watch the kids,” I said, but he ignored me and headed outside.
He waited until I was beside him and pointed at the ground. “Sit.”
I did as he commanded, dangling my legs over the side and nearly falling down when he sat down beside me. “Are you a fisherman?” I threw another guess at him.
“No.” I wasn’t sure I believed him, though, because it was with superhuman speed that he had the line sorted and baited with the bacon. “Just throw it in and try not to get it caught on the wall beneath us.” I managed it, and within five minutes I felt something tugging on it. “Wind it back up.”
“Gross!” The crab on the end of the line was ugly and snippy, and when he tried to hand it to me, I ended up squealing so loud that the kids sat a way down the pier came to see what the commotion was. “I’m not touching it!”
“Don’t be such a girl.” He laughed.
“You get that thing anywhere near me and you’ll be swimming with his family.”
Now he really laughed, taunting me a little bit, and when I launched for him, we both nearly ended up falling in. “Give me the damn bucket, you wimp.”
That I could do.
The rest of the late afternoon progressed like that. We sat together, enjoying the companionable silence while he pulled up crab after crab and filled the bucket. Occasionally, he tried to scare me with one, but I was ready for him and he knew it. There was no way I was going to touch one. We both giggled a lot, and I really enjoyed it. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had so much fun.
“Okay, I think we’re done.” Fraser stood up and I followed his lead.
“What happens with them?” I pointed at the bucket that was crawling with life.
“We set them free.”
“You can do that. No way am I putting them back in the sea.”
“Who said anything about putting them back?” Quick as a flash, Fraser upturned the bucked around my feet. The ground started to crawl as I squealed. The boys crabbing by us all burst out laughing, and Fraser was nearly bent double as I remained held prisoner by the creatures. I couldn’t jump or I’d kill them, so all I could was stand there and whimper like a five-year-old. It wasn’t long before my path was clear. They’d all gravitated back towards the edge of the pier. The call of the sea had them free falling off the side and back to their home.
As soon as I was completely free, I glared at him and he knew he was in trouble. I ran at him and he took off at pace. “I’m gonna kill you!”
Fraser laughed all the way back to Aggie’s, letting me chase him but never catch him up, and we were both short of breath from laugh and running.
It had been the best afternoon and there was no stopping the smile on my face—that was until we got back to the bedroom and I saw the one bed.
Then my nerves kicked in.
We were going to share a bed, and short of running away there was no way to get out of it. There was no way I wanted to embarrass Fraser by asking Aggie if I could sleep on her couch.
No. I’d have to suck it up, but whether it proved to be torture or pleasure remained to be seen.
I tried to imagine how we must have looked, both of us ramrod straight with a football field of space between us. I wore my panties and his T-shirt, while he was just in his boxers, which was pretty much the cruelest thing ever. He even knew it and apologized. The only thing missing from this whole scene was the long bolster cushion from the early 1900s that would keep us apart and protect me from losing my virtue.
“Were you this nervous the first time you were in a bed with a girl?” I asked, desperate to break the silence and awkwardness.
“Woman,” he corrected.
I huffed. “Whatever. Woman.”
“Nope. Was fourteen and about to fuck my ma’s friend. It was all I could to keep my beans in the can.”
Completely forgetting the acres of space, I turned to my side and leaned up on my elbow. “No way!”
“Yes way.”
“Isn’t that like... wrong?
”
“Very. But enough about me, what about you?”
“I joined the big girls club after too much beer in the back of my neighbor’s pickup. There was no sleeping. Good job really, I puked.”
“In the pickup?”
I snorted. “Sorta. I was playing porn star. I’d snuck a look at some of my dad’s old VHS’s. You know, he used to hide them in the wall by the side of the fireplace.”
“Sneaky,” he agreed.
I was really getting into the conversation; it was fun. The day of connecting just got better and better. “I thought sex was all playboy bunny style and crazy high-pitched noises. You know bouncing on top and fake moaning. Before he could get his swimmers out of the hose, I puked. It was all that bouncing.” I laughed. “The motion did nothing for the spaghetti and tomato sauce I’d eaten.”
“Nice. But that doesn’t answer when you first shared a bed with someone.”
“College,” I replied.
“Lame.”
“I’ve got it—your job. You’re a gigolo.”
Fraser looked at me, his face hard and serious, and I really thought I’d guessed it, until his face cracked with a smile and he sat up, bending double, taking the covers with him. I couldn’t look at his face; I was too busy looking at everything else he gave me a glimpse of. He could barely get his words out. “When you do figure it out, remember this guess.”
“It’s not that funny.” I sounded like such a sore loser.
“It is. Goodnight, Penny.”
Fraser was still chuckling as he turned over and got comfortable.
I fell asleep wondering what I was missing, and thinking had this been another time or place, we could have been together and made a great couple.
Wild Poppy Page 11
