Chapter 37
Cilli yawned, only belatedly stifling the sound in his hand when he noticed Gabri’s doubtful look.
‘I’m not tired,’ he insisted.
Toni fidgeted to shake out her stiff body after nearly an hour of waiting for the tardy little creatures. But it was all worth it – if just for the view of Cilli leaning trustingly on Gabri.
Gabri pressed a finger to his lips and gave him a small smile. ‘Don’t worry. If you fall asleep, I’ll wake you,’ he whispered.
The beach was illuminated with the faintest glow of red lighting and only the rustle of the leaves in the bushes revealed the presence of the dozen or so turtle watchers on the spiaggia dell’Innamorata.
Toni’s life would have been simpler if she’d never loved Miro; Cillian’s life would have been richer with his biological father in it.
But then they never would have experienced this moment, sitting under the stars on a warm summer night on a Tuscan island that would always feel a little bit like home, even if she never lived there.
She suspected one day, she would live on the island.
But for now, they were back for an extra week of holiday, lounging in the cove at Ripa Barata and windsurfing at Procchio – with Cillian, this time.
He’d been remarkably silent on the topic of their new romance.
He hadn’t even questioned anything when Toni had bunked down with Gabri while Cillian slept on the sofa in the living room.
She was expecting questions at some stage, but after the awkwardness of all the secrets from her first stay on the island, she thought it was better to just dive into the new normal.
A hushed gasp made her sit up straighter and peer at the small indentation in the sand – the focus of all the nocturnal human activity. A handful of turtles had made it to sea the night before, alerting the turtle conservation groups for a vigil tonight.
‘Look!’ Cillian was wide awake now, up on his feet, gazing at the hints of movement in the sand.
Resembling the wonky shadow of a crab, the first turtle struggled its way up onto the sand, swishing its front flippers wildly. It was soon followed by three more as the next generation of Loggerheads to call Innamorata home made the painstaking journey over the beach and into the rushing water.
‘How many is it?’ Cillian asked, clapping a hand over his mouth when he forgot to be quiet again.
Gabri was up on his knees, a hand clutched in Cilli’s shirt to keep him steady. ‘We won’t know until tomorrow, when we can count the number of shells. But there will be lots more tonight.’
‘And they’ll come back here to lay their own eggs?’
He nodded. ‘They always find their way back to the same beach.’
Toni reached around Cillian to poke Gabri on the shoulder. ‘It’s a nice place to return to,’ she whispered.
‘Mum, shh!’
Toni shared a smile with Gabri and turned her attention back to the natural spectacle on the beach which was all the more special to Toni because she’d thought she’d never see it.
Just as she’d thought she’d never fall in love again. But Gabri knew that damaged plants could thrive again and endangered turtles defied the odds to bring a hundred new babies into the protection of the sea.
Maybe having weddings in her life wouldn’t be so bad after all, now she’d found her own way to look ahead. Life found a way and the future always came, ready or not.