took care of that, stripping down to her bikini before rummaging through her shoulder bag for some sunscreen. She smoothed it over her shoulders and down her arms, noting with some satisfaction that she’d managed to divert his attention from the cave. She slid her hand behind her hair and lifted it forward, over her shoulder, and handed him the sunscreen before presenting her all but bare back to him. ‘Do you mind?’ she murmured. She wanted his hands on her. She wanted her hands on him. She’d been dreaming of it.
Pete stood back and surveyed the vision splendid in front of him with the appreciative eye of a true connoisseur. So many curves, all of them lethal. And they were his for the coating. Pete tried to remember when life had last been this good.
Nope. Nothing.
Life had never been this good.
‘Nice day for a swim,’ said a voice beside him, and he turned his head to find an elderly Greek woman standing beside him wearing a scary black one-piece swim suit. Sturdy body. Thighs. And a white bathing cap covered in plastic yellow flowers. ‘Marianne Papadopoulos,’ she said briskly. ‘I run the local bakery. We haven’t met.’
Serena tilted her head, one hand still holding the bulk of her hair. ‘Hello Mrs Papadopoulos.’ Serena sounded amused. Resigned. ‘This is Pete Bennett. He’s filling in for Tomas. But you probably already know that.’
‘Of course,’ said Marianne, deftly removing the sunscreen from Pete’s grasp and squirting a generous amount into her palm before sending the bottle of sunscreen over Serena’s shoulder and tapping her none too gently with it.
‘Thanks.’ Serena’s voice was dry, very dry, as she reached up to take it back.
‘You can’t be too careful about sun damage these days,’ said Marianne, rubbing her hands together before slapping them down onto Serena’s back and moving them about with vigour. White streaks began to form; a criss-cross of streaks on a canvas of glorious golden skin. Picasso would have been impressed. Pete wasn’t so much impressed as resigned. They really did need to get off this island and onto another one.
Tahiti sounded nice.
‘Will you be staying overnight?’ asked Marianne.
‘No, ma’am,’ he told her politely. ‘I’m only here for a couple of hours.’
‘Just enough time for a swim and maybe a trip up into the hills before we head back to Sathi,’ said Serena, turning round and squaring up to Marianne Papadopoulos with admirable aplomb.
But Marianne was undeterred. ‘I noticed you only brought one bike,’ she said.
‘Pete’s very fuel-conscious,’ countered Serena. ‘For a pilot.’
‘You should take two bikes next time. Your grandfather would not mind.’ She looked meaningfully towards him and Pete stifled the urge to reach for his clothes and start pulling them on. ‘Your grandfather would prefer it.’
‘I might just … swim,’ he said, seeking escape, finding a likely avenue in the crystal-clear water of the cove.
‘Good idea,’ said Marianne. ‘Swim. Cool off. I’ll come too. It’s not good to swim alone.’ And she headed majestically towards the water.
‘Another one of your grandfather’s pinochle partners?’ he muttered.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Frightening.’
‘You have no idea.’
‘Maybe I’ll just swim on over to the cave and you can swim with Marianne.’ Sharks he could handle. White bathing caps with plastic yellow flowers were way beyond his sphere of experience.
‘Leave me alone with her and you’re a dead man,’ she muttered.
Pete contemplated his options. There was really nothing for it but to take Serena with him. He grabbed her hand and raced towards the water, Serena giggling helplessly as they sped past their latest chaperon, kicking up spray as feet met water, before finally getting far enough into the water to plunge beneath it.
He surfaced a fair way out, with Serena right beside him, and turned back towards Marianne, who clearly preferred a more leisurely entry into the water. ‘We’re just heading over to the cave. We’ll be right back.’
Marianne’s hands went to her hips. Pete grinned and set off for the cave at a fast crawl with Serena matching him all the way, agile as a seal and just as sleek.
‘I’m ruined,’ she said with a reckless smile.
‘But you haven’t done anything,’ he argued. Nor had he. Yet.
‘You’re right.’ She gave Marianne a wave. ‘Maybe I’m only partially ruined. If we stay within her sight and you stay, oh.’ she gestured about a body length’s distance with her hands ‘… about this far away from me, we might even manage discreet.’
Oh, yeah. Discreet. Vaguely platonic. He’d forgotten about that. ‘Do we need to manage discreet?’ he queried. ‘Is it really essential?’
‘This is Sathi,’ she said. ‘It’s a necessity.’
So he played by the rules and they dived for shells in the shallows and stayed within sight of Marianne and finally swum back to her and floated about and made small talk about the various sights to be seen on the island. By the time they left the water and had dried off an hour had passed and there was no time left for sightseeing anyway.
‘I’d better be heading back.’ He slung his towel in his carryall, watched with a sigh as Serena slung a dress over all those glorious curves and twisted her hair back into a pony-tail.
‘You can drive,’ she said, picking up her carry bag and heading across the sand towards the bike.
‘Are you sure?’ he said, deftly catching her bag and slinging it over his own shoulder. He didn’t much like riding shotgun but he’d said he’d do it. Fair was fair.
‘Very sure. Go ahead.’ A tiny smile played about her lips. ‘I insist.’
Three days later, Serena sat on the little beach at the water’s edge, paintbrush in hand as she touched up the name on her grandfather’s prize fishing boat. Not changed it, mind. The name of a fishing boat never changed once it had been bestowed, but touch-ups were allowed, and the free flowing black scrawl was sorely in need of it. The boat was called Plenty, and Serena was trying very hard to convince herself that that was exactly what she had.
Nico had decided that she needed another break from the Vespas and had organised one of his fishing crew to cover for her for the day, so one thing she had was plenty of time. He’d convinced her to come down to the beach beside the fishing-boat docks and repaint the name on the boat while he rolled out the nets and set to repairing holes. Sam had found them not long after they’d beached the boat, Chloe had found them not long after that, but instead of ordering Sam home she’d sat down and started repairing the holes in the net too, with a deftness that spoke of previous experience. Technically, thought Serena, she had plenty of company.
In just under two weeks her stint on the island would be up and she’d
