movies, and he’d have to put his arms round me in the process.
‘Erm…what is this anyway? A little yacht?’
‘This is a dinghy. Small enough to sail single-handed, but big enough for a few more if needs be. Jake loves them – next year he might even start going out on his own.’
Even a six-year-old was better at water sports than me. Why wasn’t I surprised?
‘Okay, well, good for him. I need a bit of a rest, though. Give me a few minutes to dry out and then maybe I’ll try. And what do we do about the gear?’
‘Don’t worry, they’ll nip out in the speedboat and collect it later. They’ll just be glad you’re back. I’d like to pretend I’m your knight in shining armour, but they’d have fetched you before long. So relax – take your few minutes,’ he said, a gentle smile curving those luscious lips. He went back to doing things with ropes and sticks and sails, and I did as I was told.
I stretched out my legs as far as I could, closed my eyes, and let the sun soak into my skin. It was so quiet out here. Serene, in fact, if all you had to do was act like a cat on a window ledge on a summer’s day.
We were both silent for a few minutes, and I could feel from the stable bobbing of the waves that we were staying put. Perhaps he was taken aback by my beauty and unable to move. More likely I was supposed to do something to help him.
‘One day,’ he said, ‘I’ll take you out on a bigger boat. Then you can bring a blanket and just stretch out in the sun all day like that…’
I opened my eyes sharply and looked at him. That sounded blissful – and dangerously flirtatious.
‘We could always take Jake if you need a chaperone,’ he said, a hint of challenge in his voice. ‘Anyway, come on, help me sail this little yacht back to shore – it’s easy,’ he said, before I had chance to answer.
He pointed at the stick. ‘This,’ he said, ‘controls the tiller. You use this to steer, and turn around. When you’re sailing a dinghy, you use your bodyweight as ballast, which is what stops it from capsizing. That bit there’s called the dagger board. You sat on it earlier. You can see the sails yourself, and they’re attached to the boom at the bottom. Watch out for it, if you don’t pay attention it can whack you on the head.’
Great. Another way to injure myself. I was obviously fated not to get to shore safe and sound.
He did some strange slow-motion action that involved him feeding the stick – sorry, the tiller – behind his back, pulling on the ropes, and moving from one side of the boat to the other. All of which he did with total ease, of course. Bet he was never picked last for the netball team.
He tried to make it simple, but I was distracted by a million and one things: exhaustion, stupidity, and the lazy curl of lust in my tummy as I watched him moving and listened to him speak.
‘Right – your turn,’ he said.
‘No. Sorry, but I’m knackered. I need you to be a knight in shining armour for a bit longer.’
‘Well, when you put it like that,’ he answered, laughing, ‘how could a man resist? I’m going to need you to move around when I tell you to, though, okay?’
As we made our way back, he mentioned that Jake’s mother took him sailing when he stayed with her for holidays. Hmm. That meant he had Jake full time, which wasn’t what I’d assumed…I’d assumed, in all honesty, that he was a weekend dad. Shagging his way through his middle-life crisis Monday to Friday, and going to McDonald’s on Saturday.
It sounded as though I’d been wrong. I hated that. Before I could find out any more, he moved quickly on to another subject.
He asked about Ollie, who he’d met that morning snorkelling, and about Lucy, who he hadn’t met and who I hoped he never would meet, for his sake. He didn’t ask about their father – showing me the same discretion he misguidedly expected himself. Probably, knowing how close these Blue Bay people were, Allie had already filled him in on the situation.
I was pleased if she had. It saved me having the whole conversation again – I was here to try and forget Simon for a while, or at least relieve the pressure of thinking about him twenty-four hours a day. I’d have been happy if she’d issued a press release about it, in fact, if it saved me having to describe my loveless state to anyone else.
Instead, we talked about Jake. About his school life. About Dublin. And, against my better judgement, I realised that I was starting to relax around him. Even enjoy his company. It was a mix of his obvious competence, his drool-inspiring voice, and the fact that he looked like a walking piece of erotica.
But I still knew that – no matter how attractive the packaging – he was a man. I was still an emotional wreck, and jumping into bed with someone really wasn’t going to help at this stage, no matter how well defined their abdominal muscles.
I could still enjoy window-shopping, though, I thought, stretching my arms up into a long, languid stretch and allowing myself a few naughty thoughts. I fear I might have even purred, or at the very least sighed.
‘Shit!’ he shouted, out of the blue.
I snapped to – he was sitting with his head in his hands, blood trickling from between his fingers. The boom was swinging, a matching patch of red shining in the sunlight.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ he said, clearly in pain. The wound was a few inches above his hairline; like most scalp cuts, it was bleeding like crazy. He tried to wipe some of the blood out of his eyes, smearing it over his forearm.
I moved across to take a look.
‘No!’ he said. ‘Stay there or we’ll go over. I’m fine. It’s just a scratch.’
He’d taken quite a bang, but didn’t seem on the verge of passing out or falling overboard. Which was lucky for us both; we’d have been floating adrift for eternity if it had been up to me to captain the ship.
‘I’ll get us back then I can sort this out. Can’t believe I got caught by the bloody boom,’ he said.
‘What happened?’
‘Erm, I got momentarily distracted,’ he said, nodding towards my chest. I looked down, having the awful feeling I knew exactly what I was going to see.
Yep. Two large brown boobs, enjoying the sunshine a lot more than they’d enjoyed Marcia’s bloody bikini.
We splashed back to shore as soon as the boat was safe in the shallows.
‘Come on, up to my room,’ I said, taking his hand, ‘and don’t argue.’
‘Okay…but is this really the time?’ he asked, looking shocked as I led him along.
‘Oh shut up – your virtue’s safe. I’m not planning to seduce you, I just want to get a better look at that cut.’
We made our way up the stairs to my room, stopping to answer
