“She’s certainly touched a chord,” agreed Ben. “I was astonished myself. And when we’ve got something new doing so well, it makes it even more difficult to consider selling. It’s a lot of money, I realize that. But…”
Brian grinned at him. “Neither of you wants to sell, Ben. You’re just going through the motions.”
“I know.” Ben laughed suddenly.
“Then stop pretending and have a drink. And let’s toast the fact that your business is worth a lot of money anyway.”
Brian poured them drinks and they sat in companionable silence for a while.
“How’s the nose, by the way?” asked Brian eventually.
“It took ages before it felt normal,” said Ben ruefully. “And that was with Freya insisting on me rubbing arnica on it every day! You sure can land a punch.”
“Lucky blow,” said Brian. “I thought you were going to kill me.”
“I felt like it,” admitted Ben.
“I’m glad you thumped me,” Brian told him. “You knocked some sense into me. I was devastated about what I’d done to Freya…only I didn’t know what to do instead.”
“Glad to be of help,” said Ben.
“And how about you?” asked Brian. “Any sense knocked into you yet?”
“I’m perfectly sensible,” said Ben. “Despite what you might have heard.”
Brian laughed, then looked thoughtfully at Ben. “Carey went to the Dominican Republic today.”
“Did she?” Ben swirled his whiskey in his glass. “I knew she was going, of course. I didn’t think she’d booked it, though. She said she’d tell me when she did so.”
“I suppose that since she got engaged she wanted to do it all as quickly as possible.”
“Not that it probably makes much difference,” said Ben.
Brian looked at Ben curiously. “D’you mind?” he asked.
“Mind?”
“Her getting engaged.”
“Of course I don’t mind,” said Ben tightly. “Why should I care what she does?”
“No reason.” Brian shrugged.
“We have to get on with our lives,” said Ben. “I’m glad for her that she’s doing that.”
“Do you ever wonder…”
“I’ve got to go.” Ben stood up abruptly. “I’ve things to do.”
“Ben —”
“Thanks for the business meeting.” Ben began punching the number of the taxi company into his phone. “Even if it was probably the shortest one you’ve ever had.”
“Not quite,” said Brian.
“Hi,” Ben spoke to the cab firm. “I’d like to order a taxi.”
“She’s gone for a week,” said Brian when Ben had finished speaking.
“Huh?”
“Carey. She’s gone for a week’s holiday, according to Freya.”
“Freya spends far too much time with Carey’s bloody sister,” snapped Ben.
“They like gossiping,” said Brian, “and Freya normally gossips so little, I encourage her!”
“You’re as bad,” Ben told him. “I suppose the bloke went with her?”
“Nope.” Brian shook his head. “She went on her own, apparently. A whole week without male company. Unless, of course, she finds some guy on the beach.”
“Knowing Carey, that wouldn’t entirely surprise me,” said Ben. “In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me at all.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
DAMIANA
This oil is spicy and sweet and also has both balancing and uplifting effects
Because she was so used to changing her sleeping patterns Carey had no problem in waking the following morning. She blinked a few times in the filtered sunlight, then got out of her bed and opened the slatted wooden blinds. A very tall, thin man was hosing down the area beside the pool while a number of guests wandered round the flower-filled gardens. Carey watched them for a short time and then listened to the rumbling of her stomach, which told her that she was absolutely starving.
Breakfast was served on the verandah downstairs. Mounds of food were laid out so that the guests could help themselves, and Carey heaped her plate with mango, papaya, and melon as well as more breads than she knew she could eat. But it all looked so enticing she was completely unable to resist. She carried her breakfast to a table at the edge of the verandah, which overlooked the glassy sea. A long-legged bird hopped onto the back of the chair opposite her and looked hopefully at her banana bread. She tore off a corner and threw it over the rail. The bird swooped on it, swallowed it in a single gulp, and hopped onto the back of the chair again.
“This is my breakfast,” she told him sternly as she tore off another piece of bread. “I wasn’t planning on sharing it.”
But the bird ate most of the bread while she gorged herself on the sweet fruit and then drank hot milky coffee.
“Hello again.” One of the two middle-aged ladies pulled out the chair and the bird flew away. “Mind if we join you since you’re all on your own?”
Carey shrugged. She hated the way people automatically assumed that a person traveling on her own was gasping for the company of others. It never seemed to occur to them that someone might be alone because they preferred it that way. She’d gone on plenty of holidays by herself in the past and it never bothered her.
“I was just saying to Rita that you’re far too attractive to be by yourself,” said the woman easily. They’d introduced themselves on the plane — Carey remembered that Rita was the older of the two friends. Rita was widowed. The woman sitting opposite her — Carey struggled to remember her name — was married with four grown-up children. She was in her late fifties, Carey guessed.
“Nice spot, Jess.” Rita plonked her tray on the table. “And how are you this morning?” She beamed at Carey.
“I’m fine,” said Carey. “It’s a lovely place, isn’t it?”
“My son was here last year with his wife,” said Jess. “He recommended it.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“So what have you got planned for the day?” Rita began to attack the bacon and eggs in front of her.
“Nothing,” said Carey. “I’m going to lie on the beach.”
“You can’t spend the whole holiday lying on the beach,” protested Jess. “There’s tours, you know. We checked them out this morning. Different ones to different parts of the island. You have to do a tour.”
“I don’t think so.” Carey shook her head. “I’ll just concentrate on my tan. Maybe do a bit of windsurfing.”
“Tomorrow’s tour is to the waterfall. You really should do that.” Jess’s voice was firm. “It’s the one from Jurassic Park.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” said Rita. “And you have to access it by bus. If you don’t do any of the others you should do that.”
“Perhaps,” said Carey non-committally.
“You have to sign up before two o’clock,” said Jess.
“I’ll go after breakfast.” Carey knew when she was defeated. If she didn’t go on the tour she’d be pestered by the women all week. Easier to give in early on and then tell them that she’d had enough. She got up from the table and said she’d see them later. She passed the tour noticeboard on her way back to the room and stuck her name down. What the hell, she thought. One day in a bus mightn’t be too bad.
However, being on the beach was absolute bliss. She lay on her blue and white sunbed and opened her book, but the psychological thriller set in the grey streets of Edinburgh couldn’t compete with the sparkling sea and the multi-colored sails of the windsurfers skimming across its surface. Carey put the book to one side and walked to the edge of the water, where a blond-haired guy was helping the windsurfers get started.
“Want a go?” he asked. “You resident?”
She nodded, trying to place his accent.
“Get a life jacket,” he told her. “Over by the hut.”
She walked to the wooden hut and selected an orange life jacket, which she slid over her swimsuit.
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“Ever done this before?” he asked.
“A few times,” she said. “But not recently.”
“Off you go.” He selected a board for her and led her into waist-high water. She clambered onto the board and struggled to get control of the sail. Almost immediately she toppled off and splashed into the lukewarm sea. She surfaced, spitting water and laughing. The blond-haired man grinned too.
“Try again?” he suggested.
This time she managed to stay on for ten seconds before falling off again. The next time she wobbled for slightly longer.
“You’re nearly there,” he assured her.
And then she got the hang of it, the yellow and pink sail filling with the breeze so that the board shot across the water while she gripped it with her toes and wrestled with the sail to try and keep on an even line.
“Excellent,” he said when she returned. “Did you enjoy it?”
“Oh yes,” she panted. “It was great.”
“You going to do any other watersports here?” he asked. “Scuba, snorkeling?”
“I might snorkel,” said Carey.
“You can get equipment from the hut for that too,” he said. He extended his hand. “My name’s Janni. I run the watersports. I’m from Iceland.”
“Iceland!” She stared at him. “You’re a bit far from home.”
“D’you blame me?” He grinned and his blue eyes sparkled. “There’s a beauty about Iceland for sure, but it’s a lot colder than the Dominican Republic. And it’s not very good for snorkeling.”
Carey laughed.
“I live here,” he explained. “At the hotel.”
“All year round?”
He nodded.
“Great life,” said Carey.
“Absolutely,” said Janni.
“Thanks for the windsurfing,” she told him. “Now I’m going to exercise my sleep muscles.”
“OK,” said Janni. “See you later.”
She walked back to the sunbed and lay down. She was tired from her exertions, but it was a physical tiredness, quite unlike the mental exhaustion she sometimes felt. She closed her eyes and fell asleep.
She woke up to the ice-cold drops of water on her stomach. Her eyes snapped open and she sat up. Janni was standing beside her, a glass of lemon in his hand. It was the condensation from the glass that he had allowed to drip onto her.
“I’m on my break,” he said. “Thought you might like something to drink.”
“Thanks.” She took the glass. “But I was perfectly happy asleep.”
“You looked perfectly happy,” he said. “And I didn’t really mean to wake you.”
She laughed. “You think that ice-cold water wouldn’t wake me?”
He laughed too. “I wasn’t sure. You looked totally flaked out.” He sat on the sand beside her and stared out at the sea. “You should do the snorkeling this afternoon,” he told her. “You don’t have to go far.” He nodded at the wooden jetty. “Right there you see all sorts of fish. Parrot fish. Lovely colors.”
“Maybe,” said Carey.
“If you want to dive you can go with a group,” he said. “I work with a local guy. He takes some people, I take others. We’re both qualified dive masters.”
“I haven’t done scuba before,” said Carey. “If I do anything I’ll stick to the snorkeling.”
“Whatever you like,” said Janni. He smiled at her, then glanced back at his patch on the beach. A group of people were gathered around the boards. “I’d better get back.” He drained the can of Coke he’d been drinking. “See you later.”
“See you,” she said. She watched him as he walked along the beach. Sexy and attractive, she thought. And trying to hit on her too. She smiled to herself. Haven’t lost it. Good to know.
She managed to avoid Rita and Jess at dinner that evening, choosing a table in the corner of the restaurant and propping her book in front of her, but they were waiting for her the next morning when the rather dilapidated tour bus arrived to pick them up.
“It’s a three-hour drive,” wailed Jess as they got on. “I didn’t realize it would take so long.”
“Oh well.” Carey was already drinking more water. “It had better be worth it.”
It almost was, she thought later as she walked along a rope bridge which crossed the canyon near the waterfall, although she was being eaten alive by mosquitoes. She held on to the rope with one hand while the bridge swayed precariously as she slapped at the insects.
“Didn’t you spray yourself?” asked Rita as she strode past.
“Yes,” said Carey. “Even so, mosquitoes always seem to regard me as a kind of mobile buffet. Shit!” She squirmed as she felt another one bite her. “I’m going to look diseased by tomorrow.”
But the waterfall was beautiful and the icy pool beneath was perfect for cooling down. After spending ten minutes in its freezing depths Carey sat on a boulder in the sun while some of the others jumped from the rocks that surrounded it.
“So why are you here on your own?” Jess plonked herself beside Carey and almost tipped her into the pool again.
“Traveling,” said Carey laconically.
“I saw that windsurfer guy with his eye on you yesterday,” said Jess. “You want to watch yourself, young lady.”
“I’m engaged,” said Carey. “He’s wasting his time.”
Jess glanced down at Carey’s left hand.
“My ring’s in the hotel safe,” Carey told her. “I hate wearing jewelry in the heat. But I’ll put it on tonight to prove it to you.”
“And your fiancé doesn’t mind you being here?”
“No,” said Carey.
“It was different in my day,” Jess told her.
The guide interrupted them and told them that it was time to leave. Carey pulled on her shorts and desert boots, tied back her curly hair, and wiped the perspiration from her prescription sunglasses. She wasn’t looking forward to three more hours on the bus — the journey out had been over some of the worst roads she’d ever encountered.
It was nearly ten o’clock in the evening before they got back owing to the bus breaking down halfway through the journey. When they finally made it into the hotel bar, they toasted their survival with huge glasses of rum and very little juice. Jess clucked at the bumps that were appearing on Carey’s arms and legs from the mosquitoes and insisted on giving her a bottle of calamine lotion which she’d brought with her.
“It might be old-fashioned but it does the trick,” she told her.
When Jess had gone, Carey sat on the edge of her bed and dabbed herself with the lotion until she was covered in little white blobs. If Peter could see me now he’d call the whole thing off, she decided as she crawled beneath the cotton sheet. And I wouldn’t blame him at all.
Jess and Rita had signed up for another tour the next day but Carey told them firmly that she was going to the beach and she wasn’t budging. And that she wasn’t fit to be seen in public anyway, given that her body was still covered in bites.
She parked herself on the sunbed and watched as Janni helped another batch of windsurfers to skim across the tiny bay. What a job, she thought. What a life. Nothing more demanding to worry about than getting all the boards back at the end of the day. No juggling with delayed flights or cranky captains or erratic hours — just get up when the sun comes up and go to bed when it sets.
She sighed. It was all very well to dream of a lifestyle like it, but she wasn’t quite sure that she could manage to live it. After all, she told herself sternly, she’d been on the island for two days and she still hadn’t seen a shoe shop yet. How could she live in a place without multiple shoe shops?
She told this to Janni when he came and sat beside her later that morning. He laughed, his tanned face crinkling around his blue eyes.
“Why would you need shoes?” he asked, his voice full of amusement. “You’d spend your life on the beach. You can’t wear high heels on the beach.”
“Good point,” she told him, and help
ed herself to a tequila sunrise from the tray which one of the waiters was carrying.
In the afternoon she went snorkeling. Although Janni had told her how beautiful the fish were, she hadn’t anticipated the vividness of their colors or their activity in the water. She followed a shoal of parrot fish and then a black fish with an electric blue stripe, and she almost swallowed half the Caribbean Sea when she was startled by a huge turtle floating serenely past.
“Utterly wonderful,” she told Janni afterwards as they walked along the beach, masks in their hands. “I never knew there was such a fantastic world down there. I mean, you see it on the TV, but it doesn’t do it justice at all!”
“Glad you liked it.” He grinned at her.
“I did,” she said.
“So have I persuaded you to stay?” he asked.
She laughed. “It’s not me,” she told him. “It’s great, Janni, really great. But it’s not real life.”
“It is for me,” he said simply. “Real life is whatever you want it to be.”
“Perhaps.” She sighed deeply.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
She bit her lip and took off her sunglasses, perching them on top of her twist of curls. “You really want to know?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “We often see girls on their own on the island. But they’re backpackers. You’re not.”
“I’m not a backpacker,” she admitted. “I could never be a backpacker.” She grinned. “I wouldn’t be able to fit the shoes into my rucksack, for starters!”
“Tragic,” agreed Janni.
“When I was a kid I went on a camping holiday with my parents.” She shuddered. “It was awful. I like my comforts.”
“Which is why you’ve come to a safe resort hotel,” said Janni.
“Partly,” she said. “Though safe wasn’t the word I was thinking of yesterday on that damn bus journey. There were moments when my whole life flashed in front of me.”
“So you’re really just here for the sun and the sand?” asked Janni.
“And the divorce,” said Carey.
“Divorce?”
She shrugged. “I married in haste and repented at leisure as the saying goes,” she told him. “Or actually I married in haste and repented almost as quickly. But now we’ve both found other people and we want to get a divorce. So I came here.”
Too Good to Be True Page 47
