Chapter Twelve
Next morning, Elle got up early and in a bad mood.
Kayleigh was being so unfeasibly reasonable about Elle and Lucas living together on board the Shady Lady that it had made her feel guilty.
She sighed as she gazed into a fridge almost devoid of food. The galley not being over blessed with storage and her not having a car made frequent food shopping a necessity, but she’d been busy with more interesting things lately.
Going hungry wasn’t going to improve her disposition so, swinging the fridge door shut, she started the little coffee machine, grabbed her purse, hopped ashore and, the kiosk not being open for breakfast, ran across to a cafe on the other side of the road. Here, she sat herself at one of the small round tables on the pavement and, succumbing to the mouth-watering smell, ordered a bacon roll.
A battered green pick-up truck racketed onto the garage forecourt nearby, pausing only long enough to disgorge a man from the passenger side before it rejoined the stream of traffic.
Elle started to realise that the man was Lucas, and that he’d spotted her and was waiting for a gap in the traffic so that he could cross towards her. His hair was tangled, he needed to shave, his T-shirt looked as if he’d slept in it, but somehow the overall effect was that he’d just stepped out of an advert for something adventurous.
‘What have you ordered?’ He yawned.
‘Bacon roll.’
‘Mind if I join you? After the night dive I stayed over at Vern’s and I need something to soak up the alcohol.’ He yawned again.
‘I’m taking mine back to the boat.’
‘Good idea.’ He poked his head into the cafe and added two rolls to the order; then he turned back to Elle. ‘Shall I go put the coffee on and you bring these over?’
‘The coffee’s on.’
‘Fantastic. I feel as if I could drink pints of it.’ He smiled lazily, apparently unaffected by the terseness of her responses.
Nettled by him intruding on her bad mood, for an instant she was tempted to change her plans and eat in the gardens. Then she sighed. Under the weight of her gloomy waking thoughts she’d pretty much reached the conclusion that she needed to talk to Lucas about the Kayleigh situation. Might as well be now.
So, ‘You bring the food, I’ll pour the coffee,’ she said.
‘Wonderful.’ His attention was on counting out euros from his pocket.
Elle crossed back to the Shady Lady , white and gorgeous in morning sun already hot enough to make her shoulders tingle. She poured the coffee and carried the mugs up to the dinette in the saloon. Two plates, two sheets of kitchen roll in lieu of napkins, one bottle of tomato ketchup, and the table dressing was done.
In five minutes, Lucas appeared, a white takeaway container in his hands. ‘Breakfast is served.’ He put everything down and stretched tiredly. ‘What’s up? Your smile fallen overboard?’
She chose a roll and squirted ketchup neatly on the side of her plate. ‘Yesterday, Kayleigh hinted that she suspects there’s still something between us.’ Then, honestly, ‘More than hinted. I don’t think she’s happy.’
Lucas put down the roll he’d been holding. His eyes shone black. ‘Why should she be unhappy?’
Elle stared. ‘Seriously?’
He shook his head. ‘I mean . . . I don’t know what I mean. You took me by surprise.’
‘ Seriously ?’ Elle said again. ‘She’s living in the Sea Creek Hotel, and you’re living here on the boat with me, and you’re surprised she’s not happy?’
Frowning, Lucas took a huge bite of his breakfast, gazing out of the window at Fallen Star , one of the vessels lying between them and the bridge.
Elle waited for him to chew and swallow. But when he took another bite without responding, she put her roll down. ‘Maybe she should come and live on the boat with you.’
Lucas swallowed. ‘She doesn’t want to.’
‘Or you go and share with her.’
‘She doesn’t want that, either.’
‘Then,’ Elle took a deep breath, ‘Loz and Davie said I could live on Seadancer . Maybe I’d better do that. While Kayleigh’s visiting, anyway.’
‘So our living arrangements only matter to Kayleigh when she’s around to see them? If you move to Seadancer , logically it should be until one or other of us leaves the island.’ He raised his eyebrows. When he did that, he looked a little like his mother when she felt it necessary to be particularly direct about something, and Elle’s memories of Fiona in that mode were not fond.
‘Then maybe I should,’ she snapped. ‘I’m not comfortable with upsetting Kayleigh.’
His eyes flashed. ‘Bullshit. If you don’t want to share the boat with me, don’t, but at least be honest about it.’
‘You and your honesty!’ Elle found herself suddenly on her feet, banging her thigh on the table, knocking the ketchup bottle noisily on its side. ‘ Honestly , I’m not comfortable with upsetting Kayleigh.’
‘Kayleigh’s not upset—’
‘Hello,’ said an amused voice from the doorway. ‘Sorry to butt in on your early-morning spat.’ And there was Kayleigh, silhouetted against the streaming sunlight, gazing at them both curiously. ‘Why are you arguing about me?’
Slowly, Elle subsided into her seat, face flaming. ‘I think you might prefer it if I move off the Shady Lady. ’
The chords on Lucas’s throat stood out but he said nothing.
Kayleigh sauntered right into the saloon, dropping her bag onto a sofa. ‘Why?’
Embarrassed to the point of inarticulacy, Elle’s words tripped and stumbled. ‘I f-feel you’ve been hinting that you don’t like us sh-sharing the boat.’
‘I haven’t been hinting that.’ Kayleigh sat down beside Lucas, bumping him with her hip so that he moved up and gave her more room. He fixed her with a glower.
Kayleigh’s eyes flicked from Lucas to Elle. ‘You two make me laugh.’
‘ Laugh ?’ Elle began.
What she might have said next was lost when Lucas’s phone began to ring and he scrabbled it from his pocket with a growl. ‘Now’s not a good time,’ he snapped at his caller. Then, ‘ What ?’ He listened for several moments, before exploding: ‘What a typical, half-arsed, lunatic Charlie-type plan.’
Despite her frustration, Elle found herself grinning. Lucas was so often exasperated with his brother, Charlie. And Charlie was so good at winding him up. If Elle had ever wished for a sibling, it would have been for a brother like Charlie. He was so unlike the rest of his family, not just because of his dark red hair and freckles but because of his low-maintenance, accepting, unambitious, larky nature.
Lucas’s voice rose. ‘It doesn’t look as if I have much choice. Does it?’ With a stab of his finger, he ended the call and looked up at his audience. ‘My idiot little brother is nearly here in a taxi from Malta International Airport.’
Elle’s heart gave a glad squeeze. She cried, ‘Charlie’s here?’
At exactly the same time that Kayleigh shouted it even more loudly.
‘Didn’t you know he was coming?’ added Elle, trying not to feel a teeny pinch of jealousy that of course Kayleigh would know Charlie, and was beaming all over her face just at the sound of his name. She’d bet that Kayleigh got on with Fiona and Geoffrey better than Elle had, too.
Not that that would be hard.
Lucas grimaced. ‘Even Charlie didn’t know he was coming. The restaurant where he works had an after-hours kitchen fire and has been closed down for a few weeks, so he promptly went online and booked himself a flight.’
He pushed his fingers through his hair as a taxi approached up the marina access road, nosing its way towards them. ‘Here he is. Bloody nuisance.’
But then he and Kayleigh were both out of their seats and bumping shoulders in the doorway in their haste to be the first with their greeting.
Elle watched through the open doors as Charlie climbed out of the taxi and dropped a big red squashy holdall to the ground while he fished for his wallet to pay the driver. He didn’t look to have changed much since Elle had last seen him, still nearly as tall as Lucas but softer and less grim.
Lucas called some exasperated remark.
Then Kayleigh was bounding into Charlie’s arms and Charlie was swinging her around as if she was the person in the world he most wanted to see.
Suddenly shy of intruding, for several seconds Elle hung back. But then she realised that Charlie would come on board the Shady Lady and it would look strange for Elle to have been sitting in the saloon and ignoring him.
So she followed in the wake of the others, stepping down onto the bathing platform and hesitantly onto the quay.
Charlie halted in mid-hug. ‘Elle?’ he breathed, incredulously.
In the sudden silence, Kayleigh looked from brother to brother, amusement in her eyes.
Lucas looked uncomfortable. ‘Elle’s living on the boat,’ he mumbled.
Charlie’s eyes widened. He stared at Lucas. ‘Aren’t you living on the boat?’
‘Yes. But it’s . . . We’re not—’ Lucas ground to a halt.
‘It was Si-Simon.’ Elle paused to swallow her stutter. ‘He took it into his head to agree to each of us living here for the summer, but didn’t tell the other one what he’d done.’
‘Fuck me,’ marvelled Charlie, eloquently. ‘As a joke?’
‘No, as a matchmaking exercise,’ burst in Kayleigh. And began to laugh.
Suddenly Elle discovered her sense of the ridiculous and let out a giggle. ‘I don’t think he realised that Lucas had a girlfriend.’
Picking up the holdall that he’d dropped, Charlie raised interested eyebrows at his brother. ‘I didn’t know he had, either.’
Elle looked from Lucas to Kayleigh to Charlie. ‘Of course he has,’ she said, blankly. ‘It’s Kayleigh.’
Charlie gave a short laugh. ‘Kayleigh’s not his girlfriend. She’s mine.’ As if to prove it, he dropped his bag and yanked Kayleigh into his arms for an enthusiastic kiss.