sister’s anchor.
She’d been a challenge to him and he hadn’t looked any further than winning her over, having her like this, but he found himself wanting to prove she was safe with him. He was not one of the bad guys.
‘I’m going to be the same kind of father to my children,’ he said firmly.
It raised her eyebrows. ‘You see a future with a family in it?’
‘Yes, I do. Don’t you?’
She looked uncertain. ‘I don’t know anymore. I feel a bit adrift at the moment, Harry.’
She had probably dreamed of it with Mickey and that dream was gone. He understood her sense of being adrift. He didn’t know how deep it went until much later in the day.
* * *
Lunch with Lucy and Michael again before they headed back to the mainland. Elizabeth felt no stress about joining them. She wanted to observe how well they were responding to each other, watch for any pricks in their bubble of happiness. It troubled her that Lucy saw her dyslexia as a possible breaking point. She wished she could have given her sister an assurance that it wouldn’t be.
It was a problem, no denying it. She suspected it played a big part in Lucy’s flightiness, why relationships and jobs never lasted long. It wasn’t a happy position—being thought defective. If Michael ever did think it and rejected her sister on that basis, Elizabeth knew she would hate him for it.
As soon as they were all seated in the restaurant and handed menus with the limited list of four starters, four mains and four sweets, Elizabeth mused over all of them out loud so Lucy could make her choice without having to say she’d have the same as someone else. Often in restaurants a waiter listed Specials which made a selection easy, but that wasn’t the case here.
Lucy grinned at her, eyes sparkling gratitude, and it was obvious that nothing had changed between her and Michael. They still looked besotted with each other, and the meal progressed in a very congenial atmosphere.
Until they were sitting over coffee at the end of it.
‘Any prospects for the position of manager here, Harry?’ Michael asked.
He shrugged. ‘A few résumés have come in. I haven’t called for any interviews yet. Elizabeth may want to stay on now that she’s on top of the job.’
‘Elizabeth is mine!’ Michael shot at him with a vexed look.
‘No!’ tripped straight out of her mouth.
The vexed look was instantly transferred to her. ‘Don’t tell me Harry has seduced you into staying here.’
‘No, I won’t be staying here beyond the month he needs to find someone suitable.’
As beautiful as the island was, it was a getaway, too isolated from a normal social life for her to stay on indefinitely, too far away from Lucy, too. Besides, if the affair with Harry ran cold, she’d feel trapped here.
‘So you come back to me,’ Michael insisted.
She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Michael, but I don’t want to do that, either.’
Being his PA wasn’t a straightforward work situation anymore. The personal connections that had started this week—him and Lucy, herself and Harry—made it too emotionally complicated for her to feel comfortable about working closely with him.
‘Why not?’ he persisted.
She was acutely aware of Lucy listening and needed to dissuade her sister from thinking it was because of her. ‘Being here this week made me realise I want a change. Try something different. I’d appreciate it if you’d take this as my notice, Michael.’
He wasn’t happy. He glared at his brother. ‘Goddammit, Harry! If it wasn’t for you...’
‘Hey!’ Harry held up his hands defensively. ‘I’m not getting her, either.’
‘Please...’ Elizabeth quickly broke in, feeling the rise of tension around the table. ‘I don’t want to cause trouble. I just want to take a different direction with my life.’
‘But you’re brilliant as my PA,’ Michael argued, still annoyed at being put out.
‘I’m sorry. You’ll just have to find someone else.’
She wasn’t about to budge from this stance. It felt right to divorce herself from both the Finn men as far as work was concerned. Whatever developed in a personal sense had to be something apart from professional ties, not tangled up with how she earned her income.
‘Why not try out Lucy as your PA?’ Harry suggested to Michael with an airy wave of his hand. ‘She’s probably as brilliant as her sister.’
Lucy looked aghast, panic in her eyes.
‘It’s not her kind of thing,’ Elizabeth said firmly.
Michael frowned and turned to her sister. ‘You do work in administration, Lucy,’ he remarked quizzically.
‘I’m the front person who deals with people, Michael,’ she rushed out. ‘I don’t do the desk work. I’m good at helping people, understanding what they want, helping them to decide...there’s quite a bit of that in cemetery administration. And I like it,’ she added for good measure, pleading for him to drop the issue.
He grimaced, accepting that Lucy was no easy solution to his problem.
She reached out and touched his hand, desperate to restore his good humour with her. ‘I’m sorry I can’t fill Ellie’s place.’
The grimace tilted up into a soothing smile. ‘I shouldn’t have expected it. You are a people person and I like that, Lucy. I wouldn’t want to change it.’
Elizabeth saw relief pouring through the smile beamed back at him. Another hurdle safely jumped, she thought. Yet hiding the dyslexia from Michael couldn’t go on forever and there was one thing she needed from him before the situation could get horribly messed up.
‘I hope you’ll give me a good reference, Michael.’
He sighed and turned a rueful smile to her. ‘It will be in the mail tomorrow. I hate losing you but I wish you well, Elizabeth.’
‘Thank you.’
* * *
Harry didn’t like Elizabeth’s decision any more than Mickey did. She was cutting ties with them, closing doors, and he didn’t know her reasons for it. This morning he could have sworn she was over her emotional fixation on his brother but if that was true, why give up her job with him? It was a top-line position and on the salary front Harry doubted she could better it.
He had offered her an alternative but she wasn’t taking up that option. It was understandable that staying on the island long-term would not suit her. She and her sister lived together and were obviously close—family who really counted as family, like him and Mickey. Apart from that, if she wanted to rejoin the social swing, Cairns was the place to do it.
He
