Chapter 17
When Toni was jolted awake the following morning, she was so befuddled, she felt as though she’d woken up in someone else’s body. Her blood seemed to pump differently. Her core temperature was somehow higher than usual, as though she’d been sleeping in direct sunlight.
Immediate concerns and long-term worries were miles away – back on the mainland. Ah, she remembered she was on an island in the glistening Tyrrhenian Sea. And someone was shaking her awake rather roughly.
‘Hey!’ She blinked her eyes open to find the face that was strikingly familiar already: blue eyes under a furrowed brow, soft lips that didn’t smile enough. ‘If I’d known this was how you’d wake me up, I wouldn’t have invited you to share the bed.’
She didn’t remember him coming to bed. Had he even joined her?
She’d been wary of the intimacy of sleeping next to each other, especially when the last person who’d shared her bed was her son.
Last night had been only the third time she’d slept all night with a man in over nine years, and she didn’t remember a thing.
Now Gabri was up and dressed and waking her as though she were a lazy teenager.
‘You wanted to go foraging, yes? It will be hot later,’ he said, his tone far too rational.
‘All right, all right,’ she said with a groan, rolling away and stretching slowly, out of contrariness.
The muffled sound that came from behind her made her glance over her shoulder to find Gabri’s head on an angle, his gaze moving avidly up her bare legs. ‘Is that what you were wearing all night?’ His voice was high.
A pleasant flush rippled up her chest. ‘Do you regret getting out of bed now?’
The mattress dipped as he kneeled next to her, slipping a hand up her thigh before propping himself above her – thrilling, but too far away. ‘I regretted getting out of bed the moment I did it,’ he said gravely, his serious expression making Toni smile.
He dropped a light kiss on her lips, then her cheek, sliding to her neck, which sent goosebumps blooming up her arms. Then he forced himself back up with a groan.
‘Your decision, Toni. But I don’t want to see this beautiful skin sunburnt.’
Beautiful skin, she repeated doubtfully in her mind. ‘All right. Let’s go – after a cup of coffee.’
With another quick kiss that was nowhere near enough to feed this new, sensual being inside her, he flashed her a real smile. ‘Of course. Coffee is already on the table.’
‘For next time, that is the way to wake me up.’ She scooted out of bed, heading straight for the door without bothering to change out of her pyjamas – especially not if he was going to admire her legs again.
‘Noted,’ he said in a clipped tone, ‘if a little disappointing.’ Although his expression was as serious as ever, she could tell in his voice he was smiling.
Instead of taking the zippy electric Fiat, Gabri led her to a white moped with scratched paint that looked as though it had seen at least a decent part of the previous century. But Toni was thrilled because it meant she could settle on the cushion behind him and hold on tight.
The wind whipped her hair as the road zigzagged up from Marciana Marina, gaining altitude. She had the sea air at her back and the mountains rising before her, thickly forested, with pines poking their crowns out at the top. Behind her, the vast expanse of air over the sea.
A town loomed above, perched on the steep hillside. Toni craned her neck to take in the squat terraces rendered in a hundred shades, the cracks and faded lettering bearing witness to the years the town had clung to this spot, staring out to sea.
As they buzzed past the town, Toni glimpsed a paved piazza, flowerpots overflowing with petunias, and a handful of restaurants that promised rest and cold drinks.
‘We’ll come back there later,’ Gabri called over his shoulder, as though he’d read her thoughts. She wondered where he’d lived before coming here and what kind of work he’d done, that he’d learned about batteries and renewable energy – and why he’d given it up to become a florist.
Perhaps she’d have the courage to ask him now.
The road climbed farther, the sea on one side, far below. Although they were high up now, the trees were still thick and lush – and Toni guessed Gabri knew all of the different varieties.
He pulled the moped to a stop at one of the sharp turns in the road, by a set of charming buildings tucked into the hillside. He tugged off his helmet and Toni followed suit, watching him expectantly for an explanation.
‘Pit stop,’ he said cryptically, then yanked up her seat cushion to reveal the space beneath that was empty except for a few large plastic water bottles – empty bottles. ‘We just have to collect Napoleon’s water.’
‘Napoleon? Who’s Napoleon?’
That made him crack a smile. Gosh, the impact of those only seemed to grow the more she teased out of him. ‘You haven’t heard of him? Bonaparte? Otherwise known as Napoleon I?’
‘I’ve heard of him, but I didn’t think he needed water at his advanced stage of decomposition. I thought you were talking about a cat or something.’
‘I don’t own a cat.’
‘No cat, no dog. I’ve got it. You’re a “no strings” kind of guy. But you do like to hydrate dead dictators.’
The little grumble from the back of his throat was reward enough for teasing him. She’d used to tease Gabri occasionally online for her earnestness about plants and ecology and the environment. ‘Actually, I was planning to hydrate you.’
She couldn’t quite help where her brain went. ‘Is that what the kids are calling it these days.’
Instead of dignifying her joke with a reply, he gave her a light pinch to the arm followed by a kiss to her forehead.
He led the way to a niche in the crumbling stone facade, off to one side, where there was a tap protruding from the wall, with a marble slab next to it, engraved in Italian.
Toni could nonetheless easily understand the words, Napoleone il Grande.
He filled the water bottles while Toni absently traced other incomprehensible words in the marble.
Before the merger with I Do and her new expertise in destination weddings, the only thing she’d known about Elba was that Napoleon had been exiled there between his forays into taking over Europe.
‘Did Napoleon find this spring or something?’
‘I don’t think so. But he’s still the most famous person with an association here.’
‘So it’s branding?’
‘Exactly,’ he said with a twinkle in his eye, before handing her a bottle and lifting his own. ‘It’s good water; it has health benefits apparently. Cin cin.’ He took a long gulp.
‘I’m not sure what Napoleon would think about being used for marketing, but I am thirsty.’ And having way too much fun teasing him.
But the joke was on her when she took a sip of the sweetest water she’d ever tasted, fresh and cool.
‘Mmm, that is good water. I could almost believe there’s some kind of magic here that makes everything taste better, but it’s probably just that I’m on holiday.’
‘It’s the Elba granite minerals in the water – and the fact that you’re on holiday. It’s a very suggestive place.’
She choked on the water. ‘What’s suggestive about it?’ She glanced around with a cringe, looking for something phallic that she’d missed.
‘You know,’ Gabri continued with a wild gesture, ‘the sea, the views. You feel something. It’s suggestive.’
Eyebrows up, she gave him a wry grin. ‘I think you might be confused about the meaning of “suggestive”. Maybe look it up when you get home.’
‘Suggestivo is not suggestive?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she said, giving him a pat on the arm, even though the island certainly seemed to have given her ideas.
After stowing the bottles, Gabri turned the moped back in the direction they’d come, but turned off the main road almost immediately, the motor puttering desperately up a sloping track that quickly became a dirt path.
When the path grew stonier and the poor moped seemed close to death, he pulled off to the side and cut the engine.
‘Where are we?’ she asked warily as she hopped off.
Gabri rummaged under the seat for a beat-up old rucksack, which he packed the water bottles into, and a stained cotton-mesh bag. Then he took a deep breath and grinned, all traces of his grave, dismayed expressions gone without a trace.
‘We are in the beautiful middle of nowhere,’ he said, stretching out a hand. ‘Come and see how this suggestive island provides for its people.’
No sound reached Toni’s ears aside from the crunch of their feet over the stones as they made their way farther into the forest. They were high above the sea, inland, so even the rush of the waves couldn’t be heard – although she caught glimpses of the distant water, rippling gold.
The quiet was disorienting – or possibly that was the pines, stretching up to the sky. None was straight; they grew leaning precariously, as though performing a choreographed dance and the crowns were the jazz hands. She wondered which of the Elba winds was responsible for that lean.
Toni couldn’t help stopping to collect an impressive pine cone the size of her hand. The zip on her backpack was loud as she tucked it inside.
‘What will you use it for? A bird feeder?’ Gabri asked, his voice still hushed. ‘The fresher, closed ones are better for the scent.’
‘Honestly, no idea,’ she answered, brushing her fingers over the irregular matrix of ridges that formed the thick bark on a nearby trunk. ‘I think I only picked it up because Cillian’s not here to do it. I suppose we humans are wired to collect things.’
His silence was clearly assent as they continued along the path, under the speckled canopy. The sun was already scorching.