Chapter 13
Louis assured Ruth that Millie was more than welcome to visit. The offer was a genuine one. Millie was lively and funny, and it was clear she loved cats.
But the thought that Hannah might come as part of the package was even better. Hannah was smiling, admittedly mostly at Millie, as she agreed to accompany her at cat mealtimes.
‘Can I see the engine room?’
Louis refocused on the teenage boy, Ruth’s son, who had hovered on the fringes of the cat-fest, and deserved some attention, too.
Louis remembered only too well what being a teenage boy was like.
Even though Louis had experienced more structure within his competition schedule as a teenager than most people probably did, he remembered only too well the undeniable feeling of total confusion.
He remembered having the same kind of gangly limbs as Nathan, not only uncoordinated and uncooperative, but also looking pathetic – when all he’d wanted to do was look attractive to women. And the acne…
Louis shook his head at the memory, luckily consigned to the past for him, and strode over to Nathan, leaving the ladies with the cat.
‘Absolutely. How about I call down to the engine room now and you can see it in action?’
Nathan’s expression brightened. It might have been a simple win for the captain of a cruise ship to offer something so straightforward to the boy, but he remembered that feeling, too.
When you couldn’t work out if anyone meant what they said to you or were just trying to manipulate you into doing what they wanted.
Wondering if they were just trying to keep you under control when everything inside felt like lava.
‘My Officer of the Watch, Maria, could take you down, if you like?’ Louis added.
Maria looked up from her station at the control desk and grinned. ‘What do you think, Nathan? Sounds like a plan to me.’
The uptick in Nathan’s expression was enough to convince Louis he’d made the right call.
A friendly – and very pretty – young female officer tasked with showing the teenager around the ship?
Nathan looked like he’d landed in clover.
Louis would have felt like that, too, back in the day; he was sure of it.
Plus, it was almost time for a bridge shift change, and so Maria wouldn’t need to hurry back.
‘If it’s OK with your mum?’ Louis glanced at Ruth, who was nodding.
‘What an honour, thank you.’ She frowned at Nathan. ‘Behave yourself, Nath – don’t give Maria any grief and we’ll see you later?’
‘Yeah, later, Mum.’
The sloth-like shoulders had returned. Louis remembered that, too. It didn’t matter what any family member said, it was almost obligatory to treat it with disdain. He swallowed. How he wished he hadn’t spent so many precious years treating his own mum like that.
‘We should let you get on,’ Ruth said. ‘Thank you so much for the tour, and for allowing us to meet Portus. He’s glorious.
’ She stuck out her hand for Louis to shake, which he did, then she was chivvying Millie away from the cat.
Louis still wasn’t convinced the woman was allergic – otherwise surely she wouldn’t want her daughter to be covered in cat fur for the rest of the cruise.
‘Our pleasure,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you soon, Millie. And if I’m not here, anyone else on the bridge will be happy to help you, OK?’
Millie was grinning and blushing like she’d won the lottery. ‘This is literally the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me. Thank you, Captain Louis.’
Ruth hurried Millie out of his sight line and for a moment it seemed as though he and Hannah, who was still fussing over the cat, were alone. Which was ridiculous, because the bridge was as bustling as ever.
He cleared his throat, and Hannah gave Portus a final stroke before she turned her attention to him.
‘Thank you – again – for letting me look around, Captain.’
‘Please call me Louis.’
‘Louis. Sorry. This is becoming a habit,’ she said.
‘It’s absolutely not a problem, Hannah.’
It wasn’t what he really wanted to say; he realised it didn’t come close. Louis stared at her, and today she stared right back, she didn’t duck her gaze away or pretend to be interested in something in the middle distance. He tried again.
‘It’s my pleasure, actually.’
She gave him a wry smile. ‘I’ve taken up way too much of your time, Louis. I should go.’
He checked his watch, and she must have thought he was agreeing with her since she smiled again and turned to go.
‘Hannah – can I ask you something?’
‘Of course.’
A glance at the rest of the watch crew reassured Louis that nobody was paying any attention to what he was saying. He leant towards Hannah.
‘Would you like to go for a coffee?’
‘Um, I suppose I could,’ she said.
It wasn’t the rapturous acceptance he’d hoped for, but it wasn’t a ‘no’ either. He swallowed the ball of nerves that had suddenly formed in his throat.
‘I just thought it would be nice to find out a bit more about you…’
Way to go, Captain, he thought. Weak and insipid. It was enough to make him wonder why he was even trying, if that was the best he could come up with.
But he’d come this far.
‘I mean it. I find you… interesting.’
Christ, that was even worse.
Hannah frowned, her intensely fierce eyes cutting him no slack as she continued to hold his gaze. ‘Interesting?’
Louis puffed out his cheeks. ‘There’s probably a reason why I’m single,’ he said with a shrug.
Hannah’s frown dissipated and she grinned.
‘I don’t know about that,’ she said. ‘But yes, we can go get a coffee if you like.’
At the Crow’s Nest, Hannah led the way to some seats in the corner.
Caribbean-inspired Christmas music played gently in the background.
It was surreal to hear strains of Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’ being played on traditional West Indian instruments.
Even more surreal was the fact that she was being trailed to the seats by Louis.
Hannah had noticed heads turning as he passed.
The way gazes travelled past her but rested on him.
Only to be expected, she supposed – and not something she was concerned about in terms of expecting anyone to notice her.
She wasn’t anyone special, after all. But he was.
At least, he was as far as these people were concerned.
Their captain. The person responsible for the Ballygowan.
They were probably wondering what he was doing wasting his time in one of the ship’s many hostelries with some random woman when he should be steering the ship, or studying computers, or solving complex navigational problems. As she took her seat she wondered if, perhaps, they had a point.
‘Have you got time for this?’ she said, covering her awkwardness by picking up the menu card even though she already knew what she would have.
‘I know I said I wasn’t ever really off duty, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have downtime. Even captains need to relax and sleep, after all.’
‘I hope I’m not going to be so boring that you fall asleep here,’ she said.
‘I didn’t mean it like that – far from it. What would you like?’
‘Chai latte please.’
Louis cast around, raising a hand when he caught the eye of one of the servers. She headed over.
‘Two “Comet’s chai lattes” please, Chelsea,’ he said, his frown lifting as he ordered.
‘Coming right up, Captain.’
‘Perk of the job, not having to go to the counter in here,’ he said.
‘That’s nice,’ Hannah said.
‘Goes on my tab, too, so no need to worry about carrying my wallet around. Makes it all much easier.’
‘I’m more than happy to pay my way,’ Hannah said.
Louis smiled. ‘Totally up to you, but I asked you out for coffee, so I think I should do the honours.’
Hannah swallowed. ‘I asked you out’ – he didn’t mean anything by it.
She knew she was being micro-aware of the situation.
She’d been with Ian, one way or another, for long enough to make this feel as unfamiliar to her as something she’d never done.
But there was no reason to think there was more to this than a couple of adults sharing coffee.
The layers of guilt surrounding her being in the company of a man she found so attractive, when she should be sorting things out with Ian, were crippling. Except she didn’t really want to think about Ian right now. Wasn’t sure she was doing herself any favours by doing so.
She should be more ‘Ruth’ about it. After all, Ruth had been through a nightmare but had seized the moment to take her children and embark on an amazing adventure. To make the best out of the difficulties she faced.
Hannah should do the same – and maybe taking this holiday on her own wasn’t bold enough.
There was no doubt Ruth had put her finger on the pulse of the situation in the bar the other evening, when she’d been completely blunt in telling Louis that Hannah was single, having already stated the same was true for the captain.
No one to hurt if they did want more from one another than a casual cup of coffee. Free agents who could enjoy the moment.
The swirling in Hannah’s belly signalled how left of base the idea was for her – and yet it aligned with this whole trip.
She wasn’t Hannah Maynard from Totton, who worked in her father’s deli and whose fiancé had done the dirty on her.
Well, she was, but none of that mattered to anyone else on the Ballygowan.
So, it didn’t need to matter to her, either.
Aware they were sat in silence, awkwardly inhabiting the same space while they waited for their drinks, Hannah flushed with the realisation she was beginning to have thoughts about Louis like those she’d had early on with Ian. Maybe even more intense.
‘I’m glad we’re doing this,’ she said after the lattes had arrived. ‘We didn’t get to finish our conversation the other evening and… Well, I wanted to find out more about you, too.’
‘Nothing much to know,’ he said, lifting his cup to his lips.
‘I find that hard to believe, especially after everything we found out during the captain’s Q&A.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘God, that was painful.’
Hannah grinned. ‘I found myself wondering who had put forward some of those questions.’
Louis leant forward. ‘To be honest, I think most of them were added by Hamish purely to embarrass me.’
‘Like the one about you being single?’ The words were out before she’d filtered them, but he didn’t seem perturbed.
‘I’ve never been very good at talking about personal stuff. My upbringing was pressured – it hasn’t made for the best relationship with my father, but that’s life, I suppose.’
Hannah nodded. ‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’
‘No. Just me. How about you?’
‘An older sister – she’s married and busy with her two boys. And a little brother with an amazing imagination – he likes drawing famous buildings, then adds in prehistoric animals. Pterodactyls, T. Rex – that kind of thing.’
‘Awesome. How old is he?’
‘Nine.’
‘Still a baby, then.’ His gaze, warm and settled on her in a way she would like to have made permanent, if possible, suggested he was considering the age gap between her and her brother – everyone always did, followed rapidly by the conversation about the fact he was adopted – but Louis made no such comment.
Instead, he said, ‘So that’s two artists in your family? ’
Hannah smiled. She’d stopped thinking of herself in those terms. Those dreams had faded alongside the abandonment of her other aspirations when she’d got serious with Ian and settled for a life working in the family deli.
But here, on the Ballygowan, she was Hannah, the artist. Or she could be, if she wanted it.
‘Maybe. Back in the dim and distant past I hoped I might make art central to my life. Work in an art gallery or something.’
‘You changed your mind?’
‘I think life changed it for me. It wasn’t meant to be.’
She shrugged, taking the last mouthful of latte to give her time to build up enough courage to be the bold, impetuous person she wanted to be.
Louis beat her to it. ‘Never give up on your dreams… Isn’t that what they say?’
She smiled. If only it were that simple.
‘So, feel free to ignore me,’ he continued, ‘but I’m just going to come out and ask. Ruth let slip the other evening that you’re not involved with anyone, romantically, I mean. And yet you’re in Ballygowan’s honeymoon suite. Hannah, what happened?’