Summer at the Highland Coral Beach (The Port Willow Bay series Port Willow Bay)

by Kiley Dunbar

  Suddenly, they were swimming together. She was on her back kicking her legs and he had his arm around her body, dragging her in a one-armed breaststroke towards the shore. After what felt like a long while spent between sleep and waking, she became aware of being carried from the water, her body a dead weight. And she was against Atholl’s chest, and she was alive.

  The sharp shards of ancient bleached algae felt like her own plump bed at the inn as he lay her down on the coral beach. She could hear him through her exhaustion asking if she was all right and begging her to say something.

  ‘You keep saving me, Atholl Fergusson,’ she gasped out, as she brought into focus his sea blue eyes. ‘I’m supposed to rescue myself.’

  She saw the relief in his face before he rolled onto his back on the shore, his chest expanding with each breath, his stomach rippling with wry laughter. They both lay back under the hot sun and faced the glare of the sky.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A Blank

  Beatrice was dreaming, delirious. The back of her neck was hot and there was a cool hand on her forehead. Her mum was smiling at her and she had never felt so happy to see her in her life. She knew she was crying but wasn’t sure why.

  ‘Mum, what are you doing here? Are we still at the inn?’

  ‘She’s just tired, I’m sure o’ it. Best call the doctor, though.’ Beatrice knew through the haze that it was Mrs Mair talking.

  ‘She’s been asleep for hours,’ Kitty’s voice was saying, and a man was asking if she’d swallowed any water and talking about something called secondary drowning.

  She didn’t hear anything else for a long time, but eventually she was aware of a voice droning on and on, never stopping. It was someone talking about babies and hospitals and anaesthetics and it sounded a lot like her own voice. ‘Let me sleep,’ she called out, and the voice stopped.

  ‘Exhaustion, that’s what the doctor said, and no’ just from the riptide either. It’s been coming on for months, he thinks.’ Kitty’s sweet accent rang in Beatrice’s ears and she was aware the room was light but she couldn’t force her eyelids open.

  Someone made the mattress compress by her side and she felt a warm hip against her body and a calloused, gentle hand settling over her forehead.

  ‘Rich?’ she murmured, her brow furrowing, her eyes shut.

  ‘Nae temperature?’ a man’s soothing Highland voice was saying, deep and soporific.

  ‘No, no fever. The doctor says she has to sleep as long as she needs to. Go on, you should get away to bed too and let her sleep. Standing watching from the doorway for hours on end isn’t helping her at all,’ Kitty was saying softly.

  She heard footsteps withdrawing and a door closing and she slipped back into a heavy, blank slumber.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Meddling

  ‘You weren’t there when I woke up.’

  ‘Beatrice!’ Atholl dropped the sack of sweet-smelling mulch at the sound of her voice and turned to face her. He straightened his spine with a throaty growl that told Beatrice he’d been hard at work all afternoon. ‘I thought I’d better leave you to sleep and get your strength back.’

  ‘You all let me sleep all of Friday night and almost all of today? For twenty-four hours?’

  ‘Aye. And ye needed it, didn’t ye?’ Turning back to the compost sack, he tipped the last of its contents on top of the newly replanted lavender.

  ‘I did, you’re right. Was it Mrs Mair who came in with the soup and bread?’

  ‘It was Kitty. Was my room all right for you? It must have been strange waking up and not knowing where you were.’

  Beatrice smiled at the memory of his room which had been warm with close summer air and the curtains drawn against the sun. There had been books on the shelves and willow sculptures in various stages of completion on the desk.

  Once Kitty was sure she could stand up on her own and had left her to drink the sweet tea and take a shower, Beatrice had wandered around the room, running her hands over the willow work and over his brown leather belt and the spines of his notebooks – one of which was open on the desk, filled with willow designs and technical-looking drawings explaining how to make certain knots and fastenings and strong foundational structures to support larger sculptures. She had sipped her drink and pored over his pencil marks – delicate, confident, skilled and sensitive.

  She had washed with his shampoo and soap thinking of Atholl the whole time and how this was the way he lived his life. She smelled of him now that she had washed away the salt and sand.

  Now she’d found him, and she wanted to tell him all this, and maybe hold him again, but he wasn’t returning her smile.

  ‘I tried to see you but Kitty said you were dead to the world and nobody was to wake you. Are you all right now?’

  ‘I am. I don’t think I’ve ever slept the way I did, like I really did drown. I think I’ve been tired for months, exhausted I think. I mean the real kind of exhausted. The ill kind. And I feel strangely altered now; wide awake and alive.’ Atholl watched her raise her hands to the afternoon sky and something in the coolness of his demeanour was deadening some of this elation.

  The air was chillier today, but the sun still shone weakly through watery clouds. A change was forecast, Kitty had told her, and this must be it.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asked, concerned.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he replied, but something in the way he was looking at her unsettled her.

  ‘You finished the lavender field then? All by yourself? They look a bit odd half submerged like that, don’t they?’

  Atholl turned without saying anything, walking along the rows gathering up the empty mulch sacks.

  Beatrice followed after him.

  ‘I hope it works; we could do with some rain to settle them in,’ he said, seemingly to himself and looking up at the sky.

  Folding the sacks into a bundle beneath his arm, he marched past Beatrice towards the open door of the But and Ben. She watched him pass, feeling hopeless.

  ‘Atholl? Are you all right?’

  No reply came as he stooped inside the low cottage door and disappeared, so she scurried after him, perplexed. What had changed while she slept? Had she dreamt their kiss? Had they not faced death together and fought to survive? Had he not carried her all the way back to the inn while she dozed against his chest? But now this? She wasn’t expecting him to throw his arms around her and kiss her or anything, although that’s what she’d hoped for, but now the old formality was back?

  ‘Impossible,’ she told herself in a whisper.

  She watched him around the door frame, washing his hands, his back bent over the workshop’s ceramic sink, and the restless, panicked feeling rose in her chest again, a feeling she thought she’d left behind her.

  She only vaguely registered the sight of the gleaming copper vat with its pipes, meters and gauges newly constructed in the corner of the workshop; Lana Fergusson’s lavender oil still. Atholl had obviously kept himself busy while she’d slept away her exhaustion. She couldn’t know that he hadn’t allowed himself to sleep for watching over her and when Kitty had at last sent him away he had toiled in the field, stopping only to nap on the hard workshop bench during the few short hours when it was too dark to work.

  Before she knew what she was doing she had crossed the floor and joined Atholl by the sink, clasping his wet wrist and turning him to face her. Reluctantly, his eyes met hers.

  ‘What’s changed, Atholl? One minute we’re swimming, and kissing… and drowning,’ she attempted a laugh, ‘the next you’re barely talking to me. What happened?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  She felt the tension in his wrist as he tried to pull away from her grasp.

  ‘This doesn’t feel like nothing.’ If she could have disguised the shock in her voice she would but it was hopeless. ‘“You need to learn to let other people help you.” That’s what you said. Well, I have, because of you, and now you’re withdrawing into yourself again?’

&
nbsp; He forced out an exasperated breath, his heavy-lidded eyes still cast down and unmistakably guilty. She’d struck a nerve.

  ‘It’s nothing, Beatrice.’ Her name sounded harsh upon his lips today, so different from the affectionate way he’d called her Beattie only one long sleep ago. ‘Your holiday’s almost over. You’ve got two nights left of your stay. We’ve brought Kitty and Gene together, we’ve resurrected the lavender field, and you’ve given everyone their orders for the ceilidh planning. So why don’t you rest and enjoy what’s left of your holiday?’

  ‘No. That’s not it.’ She screwed up her eyes, peering at his face. ‘You can see that I’m fine. You know I love the work. No, that’s not it, at all.’

  ‘Beatrice, I don’t know what you want me to say.’

  She released his wrist and his hands fell to his sides as he turned to face her. Her mind flitted to the way they’d stood exactly like this in the cool clear water and she’d sunk into his kiss.

  Atholl scrabbled for words, but they sounded hollow when they came and the colloquial Scots he’d slipped deeper into as they’d got to know one another, was gone. ‘You’ve done enough to help us. It’s wrong to ask for more. You’re a guest here, a… holidaymaker. I was wrong to take advantage of you.’

  Her chest heaved and the sting of tears burned her eyes. ‘You took me to Skye. I met your family. I held your sister’s baby, and I told you things I’ve never told anyone. You gave me the little bassinette and helped me begin to say goodbye to my baby and all that sadness, and you rocked me in your arms like you…’ Her words faltered and failed. Like you loved me, she thought, and her eyes conveyed the words.

  She watched as Atholl wet his lips, his eyes widening as he returned her gaze.

  ‘We should get back to the inn. We’ve got a long day tomorrow what with the ceilidh and everything,’ he said, the smallest tremor in his voice.

  She watched him retreat, holding the door open for her and letting the key swing from his finger.

  She joined him outside and he locked the door and hid the key beneath the shell. Nothing could prevent her from reaching out and placing a hand on his back.

  ‘Atholl, talk to me.’

  He stood frozen but didn’t turn to face her. ‘I had a long time to think while you were sleeping,’ he said. ‘You know you didn’t tell me about your husband until we were in the water together, and by then we’d kissed and…’

  ‘And? Didn’t you think there’d be a husband? How do you think I made the baby?’ She was forcing laughter into her voice, wanting to soothe the frustration in Atholl’s tense body.

  He turned slowly. ‘It was only last month you were living together. He might need time out, like you did, to recover himself, then the pair of you can carry on as before.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You were calling for him in your sleep, Beatrice. You miss him; you said as much yourself when we were swimming.’

  ‘I did?’

  ‘I don’t want to be the second fiddle again, Beatrice. So, I think it’s best if you just enjoy the ceilidh tomorrow and we go our separate ways on Monday.’

  ‘Atholl!’

  ‘You have to at least talk to him now you’ve worked through your feelings here, see if you want to patch things up…’ He winced at the words, but let them tail off with a nod. He was resolute, she could tell. She’d heard that tone before, when Rich was set on leaving. She had recovered some of her pride since then; she wasn’t going to beg again.

  ‘I’ll walk you back to the inn,’ he said, indicating her way back to the path alongside the freshly planted lavender.

  At that moment Eugene appeared in a hurry around the side of the cottage.

  ‘Ah, you’re here! Kitty sent me out to look for you. Your sister’s been on the phone, Angela, is it? I said you’d ring her back… Hello Atholl.’ He stopped to place his hands on his knees and get his breath back. ‘I’ll away back to the inn. You must get a phone installed up here, brother!’

  ‘You didn’t open your parcel?’ Atholl had turned to Beatrice.

  ‘My parcel? Oh, the one you gave me. No, it must be in my room. Why?’

  ‘I got you a new phone so you don’t have to use the one by the bar.’

  ‘Oh. That was nice of you.’

  ‘Well, if you pair are done wi’ the scintillating chatter, I’ll be off. Cheerio!’ Gene called out before he paused, suddenly stuck to the spot, his eyes scanning the lavender field. ‘What’s a’ this?’

  ‘You’d better come inside, Gene.’

  Atholl flashed Beatrice a cautious look as he led his incredulous brother away from the field and into the cottage.

  Beatrice watched the lights flickering on inside and saw the gleam from the great copper still through the window. The low rumblings of their talk reached her but the words were indistinct.

  As she approached the door, straining her ears, drops of rain touched her skin. It was cool, not at all the warm, grass-scented, dusty rain of summer. She shivered and peered inside the cottage.

  ‘Dinner with Kitty is one thing, and even starting up the evening seafood service is all right now that I’m used to it, but this, Atholl? This is a step too far for my liking. Meddling with my wife’s land? It was not yours to touch. It was supposed to lie still ’til she came back and…’ His words ended in a gulp when he spotted the still in the corner. ‘Have you built this for Lana? So she can use it on her return? Or have you built it for yourself?’

  Beatrice approached the doorway and looked between the two men, panicked and guilty. ‘I’m sorry, Gene, it was my idea. I wanted to help you and Atholl by setting you back on your path to…’

  Eugene turned on Beatrice with tears in his eyes but determined to make his point. ‘Sort your own life out before you go sticking yur nose where it’s no’ wanted.’

  ‘Eugene!’ Atholl’s voice sounded a warning and a plea, but it was no use. He stalked out of the cottage and away back to the inn.

  ‘That didn’t go as well as I’d hoped.’ Atholl squirmed, rubbing at the ground-in earth on his hands. ‘Wait ’til he hears about the job advert I’ve put in the paper for a cleaner and a sous chef.’

  ‘I’m sorry Atholl.’

  ‘No. No more sorries eh, Beatrice? Let’s just get back to the inn.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Eugene’s Escape

  ‘So you were out at the But n’ Ben last night?’ Kitty said from the top of the stepladder. She’d been biding her time with small talk as they shared the task of decorating the bar room, but by now she was on tenterhooks.

  ‘Sorry if I worried you. When I woke up I went to find Atholl.’

  ‘Gene said as much. You know, Gene’s been pretty quiet since he got back. He left Mrs Mair to do the breakfast service this morning.’

  ‘Ah… that might be my fault… I had another one of my ideas.’

  Beatrice explained the plan to resurrect the lavender field and bring both it, and Eugene, back to life again, all the while standing on the bar and helping Kitty twist long red crepe paper ribbons before securing them in cheerful strands across the ceiling. Kitty took it all in.

  ‘I appreciate you helping him, and me, I really do, but you might just have gone too far this time. His feelings are still very tender where Lana’s concerned.’

  ‘I know that now.’ Beatrice clambered off the bar to hand Kitty the end of a white crepe strip, before starting the task of twisting and pinning it into place again. ‘Does, umm… does that bother you? That he’s still so sore about his wife? I mean, it’s not like he’d take her back if she did come wandering in, is it? Not that it’s any of my business.’

  Kitty’s laughter surprised Beatrice. ‘Look, I know you want to help Atholl by relieving his burden here at the inn, and you want to rehabilitate Gene, but you and I will be leaving again – you far sooner than me – and then where will the Fergusson brothers be?’

  ‘You’re leaving?’

  ‘Of course. Term starts again at the
end of September. I’ll stay here ’til then but I’ll be lecturing at the uni again soon enough. I’ll visit Gene during reading week, if he wants to see me, that is, but I think we both know he needs time to process his feelings for Lana. He’s no use to me while he’s still pining for her, no matter how sweet and romantic he is to me in private.’

  Beatrice pulled her neck back, the surprise showing on her face, as she made a start on the canister of helium and a pile of blue and white balloons.

  ‘What?’ Kitty said. ‘We’re very fond of each other, yes. And he’s soft and kind, as I imagine Atholl is to you.’ At this, Kitty delivered a sly smirk at her friend. Beatrice focused on knotting a fat, squeaking balloon. ‘And I like Gene more than any man I’ve ever met, but he’s had to face up to the end of his marriage in getting closer to me and that’s caused him some pain. Did you no’ think it would when you set us up on our surprise date?’

  Beatrice felt the sting of Kitty’s gentle chastising. ‘I didn’t, no,’ she sighed, annoyed with herself. ‘Though I really should have done. I’m in the very same boat myself.’ She saw Kitty cocking her head, confused, but pressed on. ‘I saw an opportunity and wanted to get you two together as quickly as possible.’

  ‘But, Beatrice, love takes time. As does healing. You can’t rush these things.’

  Beatrice watched Kitty’s face for any sign that she might know the reasons behind her Highland dash, but saw nothing disingenuous in her expression. No, Kitty was still in the dark.

  ‘I might have spoiled things for you and Gene before he’s had a chance to heal, you mean?’

  Kitty shrugged. ‘If he likes me enough, he’ll come around.’

  ‘I hope he does; you two are lovely together.’

  ‘I think so. I’ve been teaching him some Gaelic, and he’s been teaching me how to cook. It’s been a lot of fun, learning new things.’ Kitty was smiling again. ‘I think you’ve picked up some new things too, this holiday?’ She reached for a large honeycomb paper ball decoration and climbed up her ladder again, fixing it in place at the centre of the room, her expression all innocence and wickedness at once.