Chapter 22
Ruth could have done with longer staring out at the horizon, but when Nathan scuffed his way across to her for the third time she caved and said they could head down into the town.
She’d tried to give Hannah and Louis some time to themselves, but within ten minutes of arriving at the summit of Fort Louis, Nathan declared the whole area as being ‘basic AF’ and before he could expand on the meaning of the letters – not that Ruth couldn’t work out their meaning for herself – she had promised him food once they were down in Marigot in exchange for hanging out at the summit a while longer.
‘You should stop meddling in Hannah’s life,’ he’d said, his features set in a deep frown as he trudged away for a few more minutes.
Ruth hadn’t felt as though she was meddling, not really.
She might have tried to impart some wise words about making life choices – or rather, explained via her own sorry tale how not to do it – but she wasn’t forcing the two of them together.
If anyone had manipulated the scenario, it had been Millie, for which Ruth still felt a twist of pride.
There had been no mistaking the vibes between Hannah and Louis when they left the fort.
Only the most unobservant could fail to notice Hannah’s coy smile, or the way Louis had become hyper-aware of Hannah’s every movement, his focus on her and for her alone as they made for the car.
Or the way their hands kept brushing against one another, fingers entwining for a second before separating again.
With a couple of hours still available for them to spend on the island, the consensus was to find a beach. After all, no right-minded person cruised to the islands of the Caribbean and then didn’t take advantage of their most readily available asset, the spectacular coast.
Millie, nose still in the guidebook, suggested they headed for Mullet Bay.
‘It’s got powdery white sand, and the sea is usually calm, it says.’ Millie shuffled the pages of the book, then said, ‘What’s undertow?’
‘It means the currents in the water can be strong,’ Louis said.
Millie frowned. ‘Why does it say it’s usually calm, then? It also says, “Always swim with others nearby, because there aren’t any lifeguards”.’
Ruth was already shaking her head. ‘No. Nope. No swimming then, Mils. Not if it’s dangerous.’
‘So, what’s the point of the beach, then, if I can’t go swimming?’ Millie’s voice spiralled.
‘You chose the beach, you melt,’ Nathan said.
‘It is a beautiful spot,’ Louis said, and with Millie promising not to swim out in search of dolphins, they continued with the short drive to Mullet Bay.
With a variety of sun loungers and umbrellas secured for the duration, Nathan installed himself on a lounger, plugged himself into his phone and ignored everybody while Ruth stripped to a self-conscious bathing costume she’d bought sometime in the last century and accompanied Millie to the shoreline.
There they paddled in the waters, listening for something else Millie had read about in the guidebook, the whispering pebbles.
‘What do you think they’ll be saying?’ Millie asked.
‘Probably asking where all the other pebbles are, seeing as it’s a sandy beach,’ Ruth said. ‘Are you sure that’s on this one?’
‘That’s what it said in the book,’ Millie said. ‘Maybe they’re up the other end, nearer the golf course. Doesn’t matter, though. This place is awesome anyway.’
Ruth took a moment to take in the scenery.
From where she stood, ankle deep in the calm warmth of the water, she could see the azure blue of the shallows stretching out, glistening in the sunlight.
Yachts moored further out bobbed and tilted with million-dollar confidence.
Millie, dissatisfied with paddling, headed further in and threw herself into the waves, lying with her back to the shore as she allowed the water to tug her about.
‘You’ll end up with a costume full of sand,’ Ruth said. Then added, ‘Not too far out, please, Mils.’
Shielding her eyes from the glare of glittering reflections, Ruth turned to check out the rest of the beach.
The end they were on was closest to the car park; it was busy, people had accosted them as soon as their sandals hit sand, asking if they wanted loungers, food, Christmas-themed drinks.
Ruth had felt miserly suggesting they didn’t all need a lounger, justifying her penny-pinching vibes by suggesting Millie would spend more time in the water than lazing around, and therefore wouldn’t be doing much in the way of sitting around.
Louis negotiated a decent price for four loungers, telling Ruth as he stripped to a pair of swim shorts that they could all take it in turns to watch Millie, if she was worried.
Ruth wondered how Hannah had got so lucky as she stared at the Adonis in front of her. Hoped the younger woman would see past her own baggage, be able to push the other stuff aside for long enough to see what she’d found.
Hannah settled onto a lounger, having looked extremely awkward about revealing the bikini she’d changed into in the café in Marigot – which was ridiculous, in Ruth’s opinion, because Hannah had the kind of figure Ruth would have loved.
The bikini was sexy as hell – the kind of thing Ruth would have given her eye teeth to have been able to carry off back in the day, but Hannah was curvy in all the right places, which showed it off to perfection.
Added to which she had the soft, supple skin of youth, which the young didn’t appreciate, at least not until they hit their forties and discovered it didn’t stay that way.
Ruth, in comparison, was as bony and angular now as she had always been – hence the longevity of her swimsuit’s life. And now she was fifty, the bones seemed to have become enhanced by a layer of increasingly saggy skin.
Good job she wasn’t in the market for romance, then, wasn’t it?
But a glance was all it took to tell that Louis was.
With his lounger positioned closely enough to Hannah’s to allow the pair of them to brush hands, their heads tipped towards one another as they chatted, their muted conversation too far away for her to hear.
Not that she wanted to. Some things were private.
Ruth checked on Nathan and had to smile.
Knees up to offer his phone enough shade for whatever was on the screen, and with earbuds forced so far into his ears that he looked like an FBI agent, it was obvious he wasn’t concentrating on his screen.
Hadn’t done so since Hannah had unleashed the full force of her beautiful body into the mix.
Ruth hoped her son was managing to control the obvious issue that could arise – quite literally – from the situation.
He thought his line of sight was hidden behind his sunglasses, but Ruth had been Nathan’s mother his whole life and – well – boys will be boys.
After a while, Louis eased himself from a lounger and held out a hand to Hannah as she shifted, too.
The action had Ruth freeze for a second, a memory surfacing from a trillion years ago when she’d been to the cinema with Teddy, back before her life went to the dogs.
At the end of the film, he’d held out his hand to her in the same way.
Not because she couldn’t stand all on her own, but because it was an excuse for him to touch her.
And it looked as though she wasn’t far wrong where Louis was concerned.
He didn’t relinquish his hold on Hannah’s hand, instead they threaded their fingers together as they wandered down the beach towards her.
‘Take a break, Ruth, if you want. We’ll stay here with Millie,’ Hannah called.
‘I could do with a cool-down in the water,’ Louis said, his words creating a burst of colour in Hannah’s cheeks.
And before Ruth could even say thank you, Millie was gesturing for Louis and Hannah to wade further into the surf, and Hannah was commenting on how she expected the water to feel colder and Louis was leading her past the lapping waves into the deepening sea.
Redundant, Ruth headed for the spare lounger and closed her eyes.
The shallows of the bay went out some way and so it took Hannah time to get far enough out to get waist deep. Louis issued Millie with instructions to remain between him and the beach. Just in case, he added before his focus returned to Hannah.
‘Do you want to swim?’ he asked.
‘Maybe,’ she said, dipping down into the water. She straightened again, water sluicing from her shoulders. ‘It’s far warmer than I was expecting.’
Louis’ gaze followed the path of the water, and Hannah suddenly became acutely aware of her every movement.
Somehow, the self-consciousness she’d felt when she’d bought her bikini, all those months ago, evaporated under Louis’ gaze.
The day she’d purchased it for the honeymoon, her choice had fallen well outside her comfort zone, the bikini far skimpier than anything else she owned, all tied together with narrow strands of fabric she’d worried would undo themselves at an inopportune moment.
She’d felt a twist of self-conscious worry that Ian might disapprove or even laugh at her choice – she remembered that, now.
But Louis wasn’t laughing. Instead, he was focusing on her in a way she’d never experienced before. As though there was nothing else in the world to look at.
‘Let’s swim, then,’ he said, the intensity of his expression evaporating as he ducked completely under the water, emerging like a magnificent sea creature, shaking away the water as he set off with powerful strokes.
And in return, there was no way for her to ignore the expanse of his skin, beautifully tanned and taut across a naturally athletic frame.
No way for her to ignore the frisson of excitement and attraction that simmered beneath their innocent words and actions, as she watched him cut through the water, glancing regularly towards Millie, then turning to float on his back in the deeper water as he shouted encouragement for Hannah to join him.
She swam across to meet him, and he caught her up as soon as she reached him, all innocence evaporating as he pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her.
It seemed the most natural thing in the world and before she had a chance to second-guess herself, Hannah slipped her legs around his waist, and Louis was pulling her closer, his hands straying beneath the surface of the water to encircle her lower back, then her buttocks, encouraging her closer still.
Hannah wanted him to kiss her, wanted his fingers to find their way beneath the material of her bikini to touch skin nobody but Ian had touched before. Instead, he grinned at her, gaze straying past her shoulder.
‘We promised to watch Millie,’ he said, leaning closer so he could breathe some other words into her ear: ‘But while there’s nobody around to hear me, I wanted you to know how much I’m attracted to you. How much I want to—’
‘HELP!’
The shout came from behind her, from Millie. Hannah broke away from Louis, who within seconds was making for Millie, slicing through the water to where she bobbed around in shallower water. Hannah clocked Millie’s expression – pure terror – before she followed in Louis’ wake.
Louis was with Millie in no time. He caught the child up under one arm, reassuring her as he swam awkwardly for shore. Hannah met up with them at the shoreline. Millie was crying and apologising and grabbing at her foot at the same time.
‘I’m sorry, it hurt so much and suddenly I couldn’t move and then I thought I was being dragged out into the ocean and I panicked.’
She spluttered the words out and Louis hugged the girl’s shoulders as Ruth sprinted down the sand to reach them.
‘Don’t worry, everything’s fine,’ he was saying as Ruth skidded to a stop.
‘I had a pain in my foot,’ Millie said. ‘I’ve never felt something so painful before. I thought my foot was folding up the wrong way and then I couldn’t swim properly.’
‘Have you been bitten, or stung or something?’ Ruth fell to her knees, grabbing at Millie’s foot and examining it as Millie whimpered and protested.
‘I think it was a cramp,’ Louis said. ‘There aren’t any jellyfish in the water.’
‘I told you to stay in the shallow water, Millie Herring. You promised…’
Millie began to cry again. ‘I was, Mum. But I thought I was being undertowed away. I thought maybe it grabbed your foot and pulled. I was really scared.’
Ruth let go of Millie’s foot and hugged her daughter, holding her tight.
‘I’m here, Mils, I’m here. I’ll never let anything happen to you. Never.’
Hannah felt tears pricking at her eyes, and then Ruth was reaching out to Louis, clutching his arm and thanking him while chastising Millie, then hugging her tight, a swirl of emotion it was impossible not to be moved by.
And then Ruth was suggesting it might be time to head back to the ship, and they were gathering their belongings and heading for the car.
All too soon they were back on the Ballygowan, the magic of those few moments on the beach lost as a member of the crew called on Louis almost as soon as they’d boarded and he was whisked away, with no future plans in place for what might happen next between them.
Hannah checked her phone as she wandered back to her cabin for a shower. Three missed calls from Ian and a series of texts. She sighed as she pocketed the phone, instead pulling her keycard from her bag to unlock her door.