Chapter 23
Nineteen Years Earlier
Rae was nineteen years old before she knew what it was to fall madly, deeply in love.
And that’s what this was, she was certain of it.
Love at first sight. Marcus Johnson was nothing like Johnno and the other boys she knew on the island.
He was older for one thing. Ten years older, which should have been ick, but oddly, Rae thought that made him even more attractive.
Worldly. He’d worked in Paris, for heaven’s sake.
The nearest Johnno would ever get to Paris was a soggy baguette filled with bacon, egg and cheese from the deli at the local petrol station.
It felt that they were inevitable from the moment they met, as if he saw her, really saw who she was, in a way that no one else ever did; and that was just with a few scattered words on the footpath outside the hotel.
She’d had to force herself to look at him directly.
Eye contact felt like an act of lustful rebellion; but when she did meet his gaze, she knew, there and then, there was a connection.
Next to her, Blythe had continued to talk, blissfully unaware of what was wordlessly passing between them.
Rae hadn’t heard a word, instead she’d been filled up with a sort of buzzing energy that made everything but Marcus Johnson fade into obscurity.
It was later that afternoon, she’d made some excuse to call into the hotel, hoping to bump into him, of course.
She’d changed into a pretty dress, one that Blythe had given her the previous year.
The tags were still on it. It had always been far too flimsy to wear on a motorcycle with Johnno and it didn’t really go with her look then anyway.
But that day, after meeting Marcus Johnson for the first time, she tried it on.
Then she brushed out her hair and pinned it up slightly, with loose tendrils falling to frame her face.
‘Oh, hello, again,’ he said to her when he ran into her in the hotel foyer. In truth, she’d been hanging about for almost half an hour, fiddling with the flower display in the hopes of casually running into him.
‘Marcus?’ she said, trying to be nonchalant, as if it was totally normal for her to mope around the hotel on a day when any normal person would be lying in the garden, watching the clouds drift across the sky.
‘You’re still here?’ she said, as if she didn’t know that he was booked in for another night.
Suddenly she became aware of the silence between them.
She desperately wanted to say something urbane, grown up, sophisticated.
‘Of course, I wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye,’ he said then, holding her eye for a long moment.
‘You are funny,’ because they’d only just met. And yet, it felt as if he was serious.
‘I’m tempted to stay a little longer, but only if you were available to show me the sights?’ he said then, replacing one of the flowers she’d just moved to the front of the display. She studied it a moment. He was right, it belonged at the back.
‘Of course, where would you like to see?’
‘I hear there’s a very nice place to eat over on the mainland, would you fancy going for dinner…?’
‘I’d love to,’ she said a little too quickly, then found herself blushing, ‘of course, it’s quite busy here at the moment.’ The truth was, she had no idea if it was busy or not, she just turned up when Blythe needed her.
‘Maybe they’ll let you have a few hours off this evening?’
‘This evening?’ she blurted. God, there would be so much to do, she’d need to wash her hair, put on a face mask. ‘Let me think…’ She tossed things over in her mind, but there was no question she wouldn’t say yes, not really.
*
Marcus pulled out all the stops. It wasn’t just dinner.
It was dinner at the Blue Door – only the most popular and expensive place for miles around once you arrived on the mainland.
She’d heard Blythe telling Pappy a few weeks earlier that bookings were like hen’s teeth; taken weeks in advance during the holiday season.
‘Ah,’ Marcus said softly when she mentioned this to him. ‘It pays to have connections.’ It was dinner for two, Finbar had taken himself to a nearby bar to meet up with some of his fishing buddies.
‘You know the owner?’
‘Hmm,’ he murmured, and a little shard of doubt crept up in her, maybe he had an ex-girlfriend working here, or maybe even a current girlfriend, who…
Stop it, she told herself. You are here and this is new and wonderful.
Except, she knew nothing about Marcus, beyond his name and the fact that he’d been pally with Blythe in college.
‘So… you were at college with Blythe,’ she said, trying to elicit something from him, because he’d surely know all about her from Blythe.
‘Oh, there’s not much to tell. I’ve always loved the hospitality industry. When things are done right, you feel you’re making a difference.’ He smiled at her and for the thousandth time since she’d met him earlier that day, she felt herself go weak at the knees.
‘That’s how I feel about animals and maybe working with them, one day…’
‘You’d be magnificent,’ he was the first person to make her feel that she could do something worthwhile. ‘Veterinary or rescue or…’
‘I’m not sure, that’ll be down to how the final exams fall,’ she laughed nervously, because she was no Einstein, but she wanted to impress Marcus.
‘I suppose, the world is my oyster.’ She said this, because she knew he had travelled, she managed to squeeze that much out of Blythe on the journey back home after they ran into him that morning.
‘So, you’d leave the island?’ He stiffened.
‘Maybe…’ She desperately wanted to back track. ‘I mean, my home is here, in Still Water House and…’
‘What about the hotel?’
‘Oh, that’s Blythe’s passion… she’s much better at that side of things than I am…’
‘Don’t do yourself down, you would be brilliant at whatever you turn your hand to, I’m sure.’ His eyes suddenly drawn to the menu.
‘Hmm.’ Rae couldn’t think of anything more depressing than being stuck in the hotel for the rest of her days. She sat for a while, staring at the menu, not really seeing it, but instead thinking of what to say next. Something winning, something that would make him like her more.
‘Can I take your order?’ she looked up to see the waitress watching her.
‘You first,’ Rae smiled at Marcus because she quite fancied the pizza, but it was hardly the sophisticated choice, safer to be led by him.
‘Steak,’ he said without hesitation. ‘Medium rare.’
‘Same,’ Rae said then, although the idea of anything rare turned her stomach slightly, it just felt too close to the animal that had so recently been walking about a field somewhere.
‘And wine?’ the waitress asked.
‘The house red looks good,’ Marcus ordered with an authority that made her feel he would always know the right thing to do and say, there was something very sexy about that.
‘Perfect,’ Rae said, although the waitress had already taken their menus and was walking away from their table.
*
Perfect. That’s exactly what it was, and she couldn’t wait to tell Blythe when she got home.
Honestly, even the boat ride back, the moon full and silvery lit up the water like a thousand stars around them, it all felt so surreal.
Marcus was a perfect gentleman – something Johnno could learn from him.
He’d walked her to the front door, held her in his arms and when they kissed, it was long and lingering.
As she watched him walk back down the avenue, she was filled with desire for more of him.
Of course, Blythe was in bed when she got in.
Not asleep. Blythe needed less sleep than anyone Rae knew, but her light was off and that meant she didn’t want to be disturbed.
The following day it was the same, Rae wanted so badly for her sister to grill her on every possible thing about Marcus, she wanted to tell her all about their date, but Blythe hadn’t time to sit for so much as a cup of tea with her.
The week – because that initial extra day or two that Marcus decided to stay on quickly turned into a full, delicious, perfect seven days – was like that.
Full of Marcus. Blythe and Rae might as well be living in different houses.
It was as if Blythe didn’t like him at all.
Although, how could she not? He was everything that Johnno was not, and so it was hardly a stretch to expect her sister to at least approve, even if she didn’t have the energy to be enthusiastic in the days following their mother’s funeral.
Marcus had come to the cemetery with Rae. They’d sat wordlessly, while Rae cried and he’d put his arm around her shoulders, pulled her in close and somehow, she didn’t feel so bereft then.
‘I’ll be back, on my next day off…’ He told her that evening as he reluctantly caught the last ferry. Rae stood on the pier, long after the boat went out of sight, feeling as if all the happiness in the world was sailing away from her.
The following day, he rang the hotel. First thing in the morning.
‘Are you checking up on me?’ She laughed, she was just so happy to hear his voice.
‘Maybe…’ He was joking, of course. ‘I just needed to know that you were there, you know, sort of put my mind at rest that you weren’t a dream or a mirage and…’
‘I’m definitely not.’ She laughed then, and her insides did a somersault when he promised to ring her before she turned in for the night.
The following day, a huge parcel arrived with her name on it. It was delivered to the hotel, although, of course, she only came here when she was needed.
‘Someone’s popular,’ Mrs Daly said when Rae arrived in for her shift.
They had moved the box into the small storage space at the back of the reception desk.
‘Go on, you must open it. Curiosity is killing me, I’ve been dying to know what’s in it since it arrived.
’ She picked up a pair of scissors from the desk outside.
‘I don’t believe it,’ Rae said, and she began to laugh. It was a huge cuddly toy koala bear. ‘It’s from…’
‘Marcus Johnson?’ Mrs Daly shook her head.
‘What?’
‘I don’t know about him at all,’ she said darkly.
‘Why? He’s lovely and look…’ Rae held up the toy, it was the size of a small washing machine, but so soft. ‘This must have cost a fortune,’ she said then.
‘Just, take your time with him,’ Mrs Daly said, and she touched Rae’s arm as she walked back towards the kitchen.
The thing was, it wasn’t just a koala bear.
A few days later, it was flowers, then the daintiest silver earrings.
Every week, some gift or thoughtful card arrived.
He was the most attentive perfect man (because Marcus was definitely a man, compared to Johnno and his bunch of friends).
Rae thought she must be the luckiest girl in the world.