Romancing the Ugly Duckling

by Clare London

  He spent the whole afternoon trying to sort out Greg’s kitchen so he could cook them a supper that was nutritionally balanced, only to give up and substitute almost every nuanced spice he had at home with Greg’s single pot of chili powder. There were plenty of fresh vegetables and pasta in the fridge, but a horrible lack of anything out of the ordinary. Perry had eventually made Moroccan lamb with couscous, but with parsley and chili instead of coriander, and brown rice instead of the couscous. He prided himself on improvisation, but he was sorely tested. The only good result was that Greg ate heartily and very appreciatively, and he fetched a fabulous, fresh loaf of bread from a small cupboard in the utility room to accompany it, followed by some raspberries. Perry had a strong suspicion Greg had baked the bread, judging by its weird shape, but he couldn’t fault the taste. And the raspberries were bigger and sweeter than anything he’d ever seen in the supermarket at home.

  After the meal, they settled in the living room again. Greg poured himself a glass of what he introduced as his homemade wine, but Perry politely declined a glass for himself. He couldn’t recall any decent wine he’d ever drunk being that particular shade of purple. He was definitely making a mental shopping list for when he could find somewhere civilized, and gin and tonic would come several steps above couscous on that.

  Greg picked up a book and started reading. Perry waited awhile—after deciding against asking what they could watch on the miniscule TV in the corner of the living room, with obvious dust settling on the controls—then coughed to get Greg’s attention. “Where do you need me tomorrow?”

  Greg peered at him over the book. “What are you talking about?”

  “Working together, remember? Um. What exactly do you do, apart from painting?”

  Greg’s look was possibly sly, but that could have been due to the waning light outside the cottage.

  “Sometimes I work in the Sea Bird restaurant.”

  Perry thought he remembered seeing a sign to that place on his journey here in Dougie’s car. The building itself had been very small, more like a tea room, with a single light on in the front porch, and it didn’t look very open for business. But he’d go with the flow. “Are you a chef?”

  Greg laughed. He seemed more relaxed tonight. “No, I think you’ve realized my cooking skills aren’t the best. And it’s not really big enough for a chef and full kitchen staff. I mean, it wouldn’t meet your London standards.”

  “That has nothing to do with anything.”

  “What?”

  “My London… standards, experience, whatever you want to call it. I’m in Uist now, and I want to know what you do here.”

  Greg was looking at him oddly. Was he, Perry, coming across as too bossy? God, this man was impossible to gauge properly.

  “It’s more of a large dining room where friends can hang out.” Greg still sounded reasonably relaxed. “It’s owned by a couple of elderly sisters who are marvelous cooks, and we sometimes hire it out for a celebration. We’re not big on dinner parties here, you can imagine. I help out with serving when it’s busy. But mainly I provide the fish dishes, especially scallops.”

  “You’re a fisherman?”

  Greg nodded slowly, his gaze still on Perry. “Yes, you could say that. I’m a diver. I dive for scallops.”

  “Can’t you just… I don’t know.” Buy them in a shop? “Don’t they have official suppliers?”

  Greg frowned. “Hand-collected scallops are better. The sweeter ones are chosen, and the dish is more precious. Haven’t you ever tasted the difference?”

  It pained Perry to admit weakness, but he did. “I’ve never had scallops in my life.”

  Greg’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you lived in the center of the sophisticated city?”

  “We can’t all afford posh restaurants,” Perry snapped back, then blushed at—yet again—having to admit a shortcoming.

  “Oh.” Greg blinked. “Well, you’ll see them in the raw when you come out in the boat tomorrow with me.”

  “When I…? Tomorrow…? Boat?”

  Greg smiled slowly. “Yes. The weather should be fine, so I’m driving west past Lochmaddy to one of my favorite coastal seawater lochs. I’ll pack some provisions so we can eat lunch there. You can help carry the equipment, then collect the scallops into boxes and keep watch for me.”

  “We… I….” Perry was struggling for words. Worse, Greg seemed to realize it and find it highly amusing. “I’ve never been in one.”

  “One what?”

  “Boat. I’ve never been in a boat. Well, until the ferry two days ago.”

  Greg nodded, also slowly. “That’s fine. You can stay here if you want.”

  “No!” Perry’s cry was instinctive. Did this brute of a bloke think he, Perry, was a lightweight? “I will not! We made a deal.”

  “Okay. Well, I hope Bridie brought a selection of decent waterproofs as well as your day clothes, because you’ll need them.”

  “You said the weather should be fine….”

  “Just in case,” Greg said ominously. He concentrated back on his book.

  Perry sat silently for a long moment. In fact, everything was silent, inside the cottage and out, apart from the occasional call from a bird, and Greg turning a page. Perry wasn’t used to such quiet. Nor was he used to living in close quarters with a man who barely tolerated him, and actually wanted him to get lost. There was a small pile of paperbacks on the table beside Greg’s armchair, and Perry picked one up. He also wasn’t used to reading anthologies of horror stories, his preference being for romantic comedies and the occasional biography—but he supposed there was always a first time. Opening it to the first chapter, he bit back a sigh. At least he’d won this stage of the battle with Greg Ventura, and he had more time to convince him about the TV project.

  But thinking about the trip out onto a likely freezing Scottish loch tomorrow, he wasn’t sure whether the price would be too much to pay.

  Chapter Nine

  THE next day dawned bright and clear, though the morning air was cold. Perry knew this, because he was out in it from an early hour—a very early hour. Rory had woken him, his doggy nose sniffling at Perry’s ear until he was rewarded with Perry’s groan and a ruffle of his head. Then a crash in the kitchen downstairs had alerted Perry to the fact Greg was up and getting ready for a day’s work and he, Perry, was expected to join him. A snatched cup of tea, some toast, and then a ride in Greg’s old Jeep out to a deserted stretch of beach. Greg parked in front of a small wooden hut beside a lake and started unpacking his diving equipment. Perry stood helplessly, clapping his hands to keep warm, and wondering where the nearest coffee franchise was.

  The lake was small, and framed on almost all sides by steeper banks, but he could hear the waves from the nearby sea and smell the salty tang. A bird wheeled overhead, swooped, and then was gone. The air was so fresh, it almost hurt to breathe.

  “Don’t stand dawdling!” Greg called from the other side of the Jeep. “Help me with this, if you want to be useful.”

  The following half hour passed in a bit of a blur for Perry. They lifted the boat down from the roof, carried it down a small wooden jetty, and lowered it into the water. Greg added a couple of bags of assorted equipment, nothing of which was recognizable to Perry, then Perry was left to wait, yawning and stamping his booted feet against the cold, while Greg changed into his wet suit inside the ramshackle hut. When he strode back out, Perry found himself admiring the way the rubberized suit clung to every line of Greg’s body, from his broad shoulders to strong, muscular thighs, past a really well-shaped arse—

  “Carry this,” Greg said, landing an air tank in Perry’s arms. He turned away and shimmied down into the boat. It rocked underneath him, then settled. Looking up at Perry on the deck, he held out a hand. “Come on, then!”

  Perry realized very quickly he’d stepped out of a frying pan into a fire—or rather, a watery nightmare. The boat was more like a dinghy—small, cramped, and so light it bumped alarmingly o
ver the waves at speed. Perry clung on with one hand to the side, the other hand on his life jacket, and prayed for his breakfast tea and toast to stay down. He could swim, he’d assured Greg, but in truth he rarely did. Candace was a strong and keen swimmer, visiting the local pool before work several days a week. She regularly asked Perry if he wanted to come along, but Perry always refused. The chlorine made such a mess of his hair.

  But maybe he saw the sense of it now—now, when it was probably too late.

  They came to a halt in the middle of the loch, or as near the middle as Perry could imagine, and Greg dropped the anchor. Rocking the boat again, he pulled on his hood and wriggled the air tank onto his back. When the webbing got stuck on his left shoulder, Perry reached over and helped out. His hand looked very small and very white against the wide expanse of Greg’s back. Nodding thanks, Greg grabbed a long sleeve of netting, shaped like a narrow basket, and attached it to the line and buoy in the bottom of the boat.

  “What’s that?” Perry asked.

  “It’s a net to put the scallops in. I’ll bring it up when it’s full enough, and you can add them to the box we brought.” Greg’s voice was slightly muffled behind his collar. He threw the buoy out into the water, where it disturbed the surface for only a moment, then settled like an odd-shaped olive in a martini glass. Greg turned at the last minute to face Perry. “Okay?”

  Perry nodded dumbly. What else was there to say?

  “If you see any problems on the loch or on shore, just tug the rope three times, and I’ll surface again.” Before Perry could make any response, Greg attached his mouthpiece and rolled backward over the edge of the boat.

  HE’S gone.

  Perry was surprisingly shocked. One minute they’d been together in the boat, and now… he was alone. He didn’t know whether to stand up or stay sitting in the bow. Should he help with the rope? Perry watched for a while as it fed out into the loch. Greg had explained this end of it remained well secured in the boat, and he would use it as a guide when he wanted to resurface. Perry peered over the edge of the boat. You’d never know anyone had dived in at all. His reflection rippled in the surface of the water as the boat bobbed. But otherwise things were still. A few seagulls wailed in the sky, and flocks of birds he didn’t recognize swooped overhead. They were fascinating in the patterns they made against the clouds and the innate way they moved as one. The wind brushed his face and swept on by.

  He sat there for what seemed like a long time. Partly because he didn’t know what else to do, and partly because he was terrified of rocking the boat. How long did it take to dive for scallops? An hour? All day? How many scallops would Greg collect? Ten or a hundred? Perry didn’t even know what they looked like in the wild, if that’s what you called life on the loch bed. Where the water was clear, he could see fish darting past the boat, but in places it was cloudy and he couldn’t see far beneath the surface. Maybe that was where Greg was diving and disturbing the sandy bottom. How did he see where he was going?

  Slowly, Perry felt his muscles relaxing. The smell of the sea was unfamiliar but pleasant, the sound of the waves very soothing. Thank God it wasn’t choppy like his ferry journey had been. The tension eased out of him with the breeze. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d genuinely had nothing to do except sit and wait. At least, not without a head full of worry and anticipation and plans, always looking ahead to the next job, the next bill that had to be paid. Always concerned at who was watching him, who would be judging him, where he might take a misstep. How odd. He’d never realized what stress he was living with, until he stepped outside it. And when did he ever do that? He worked long hours, his best friends worked with him so their conversation was always peppered with office tales, his mother pressed him constantly about his progress on the corporate ladder, and sometimes it felt like Eddy stood at his shoulder waiting for him to fail. He was so rarely alone except for his sleeping hours, and never really alone like here, where no one was within miles of him.

  This is a good place. Perry couldn’t deny it—and suddenly he didn’t want to. Ha! Nobody was there to argue with him. The air was startlingly clean, and now he had the right clothes, he was at a comfortable temperature despite the chill. The smells had been weird to start with, but he was getting used to the lack of smoke and diesel and enjoying the fragrant heather and the tang of the sea instead. The waves lapped at the boat with soft, gentle slaps. Birds continued to wheel overhead, and the seat in the side of the boat wasn’t too uncomfortable under his bum if he stretched out his legs in front of him.

  His eyes felt deliciously heavy. He’d just close them for a moment. He had been woken disgustingly early, after all.

  Chapter Ten

  WHEN Greg’s head appeared suddenly over the side of the boat, Perry jolted up on the seat. “My God!” Had he fallen asleep? How embarrassing!

  As Greg hauled himself over the side, Perry rushed to grab the strap of his tank, helping to pull him in. The net basket thingy was full of shells that Perry recognized. He’d used them at his primary school to mix paint in—empty ones, that was. These were bigger than his palm and muddy with sand, but the smell of sea water on them had its own special flavor.

  Greg landed with a wet slap on the seat beside him. “It’s a good haul.”

  “Yes? Great.”

  Greg glanced at him, his eyes scrunched up behind his mask. “Going back in for another batch.”

  “Sure.” Perry nodded. “I’ll just get the rest of these out, then your net’s ready for round two.” He tipped the shells into a box Greg had lodged under the seat, then handed the net back to him with a flourish. “There we are, ready to go!”

  Greg blinked hard. It looked like he wanted to say something but couldn’t articulate it for a moment. He gave a bemused smile, then put back the mouthpiece and slid over into the loch again.

  The process repeated several times more, and Perry watched Greg as he dove beneath the water each time. For such a large man, he was very graceful. There was no sign of his clumsiness on land. He kicked smoothly, powerfully, as he guided himself deeper and out of Perry’s sight. And when he reappeared, he swung himself back into the boat with ease, steadying himself with strong arms and a firm grip on the side of the craft.

  Finally, Greg told Perry he had enough scallops and didn’t want to disturb the loch bed any more. He peeled off his mask and hood and sat with Perry on the seat, his suit drying off. When he opened a bag with sandwiches and fruit in it, Perry found he was alarmingly hungry. It wasn’t as if he’d done any exercise to merit it, but the fresh air obviously had that effect. They ate the food and drank from water bottles in companionable silence.

  “We’ll set off back to the shore now?” Perry asked. Dammit, had he sounded whiney? He didn’t mean to, but Greg was so bloody touchy….

  Greg nodded, not noticeably irritated by him. “You did well.”

  “Me? I’m not sure I did anything useful at all.” Perry laughed softly. “But you didn’t think I would?”

  Greg smiled ruefully. “No, I didn’t.”

  Despite the implied criticism, Perry found the honesty refreshing. He broke off half a bar of chocolate and handed it to Greg as his share. “What’s next to do?”

  Greg shook his head. “Not much. This is enough for today. The dive went well. I’ll deliver these to Marty Calvin on Harris—” Catching Perry’s eye, he added, “It’s the island north of us. Marty will salt them today for preserving, and they’ll go in for smoking tomorrow.”

  “Smoking?” Perry was beginning to think this was a whole new language.

  Greg laughed and leaned over to pull the anchor back up. “You’ve never tasted a smoked, hand-caught scallop? Wait, I remember. You told me you haven’t.” He sighed, almost theatrically. “It’s magnificent.” Greg’s eyes were shining, and his face glowed from the fresh air and the success of the dive. His smile was wide and genuine, and utterly charming.

  Perry’s heart missed a beat.

  In that insta
nt, he saw exactly what magic Greg had inherited from the Ventura family. It wasn’t the standard, chiseled good looks of his brothers: it was the charisma of a man doing what he loved, in a place he loved, without interference or the restrictions of duty. Greg came alive that day, at least to Perry.

  He was definitely no ugly duckling.

  “Perry?” Greg was staring at him, puzzled. “You look weird.”

  Oh crap, I didn’t say anything aloud, did I? Perry cleared his throat, knowing he’d blushed. “I’m fine. Are you really a diver? As a job, I mean?”

  Greg blinked at the abrupt question, but grinned. “Busted! Aye, I’ve been teasing you, I admit it. Yes, I do dive, and yes, I do help out at the Sea Bird. But that would never pay enough to keep me in bread and whiskey.”

  “So how do you manage?”

  “Well, there’s money from my grandmother’s inheritance. We all had a bequest.”

  “All your brothers?”

  “Aye. As soon as we reached eighteen. I was third in line by age. Gerry likes cars, fast and expensive ones, so that’s where his share went. And Geoff… well, he spent his on a new wardrobe or three. I wonder how much one of his suits costs him nowadays?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “No, you’re right.” Greg shrugged. “I left home not long after that, and I’ve no idea how they handle their money nowadays. I suspect Gareth gambled most of his bequest, but that’s his problem. Even George, as his twin, can’t keep him out of the casinos, and he probably lost his share in loans to Gareth. Anyway, Gran’s money keeps me going when I haven’t sold any paintings.”

  “Wait a minute. Paintings? You’re a professional artist?”

  For the first time, Greg looked embarrassed. “Just a few landscapes. Nothing special.”

  “But you sell them? In galleries?”

  Greg shifted on his seat. “We should get going now. The chill settles deep as the afternoon travels in.”