by Fiona Harper
‘I hear pregnant banana is in this season,’ she said, giving a little twirl. And then she’d stuffed her feet into her trainers and headed for the hatch. ‘Come on, you. There’s a Korai Chicken in this town with my name on it somewhere.’
Damien had no choice but to shrug his coat on and follow. He wanted to reach out and stop her as she bounced along the quay in the direction of the high street. Don’t do that, he wanted to say. Don’t make a joke of yourself and turn that biting, acidic humour inwards.
The clear, damp air hit Damien’s nostrils and he breathed it in deeply as he followed Zoe into the heart of Mevagissey.
That was what she did, didn’t she? Used that rapier humour of hers not only as a weapon but as a shield. A very cunning approach. People were usually too busy licking their wounds after a bout with Zoe to look too hard at their attacker, to notice the wounds that went wider and deeper in her.
Underneath all that brashness, Zoe St James was as defenceless as an urchin without its shell, and she used her quick brain and her creativity brilliantly to make sure nobody ever guessed the truth.
As they trudged the narrow streets looking for a curry house, Damien began to wonder who’d put those wounds there and how long they’d bled.
He realised now that Zoe was at her snappiest, funniest and most irritating in his presence. It had been her default position with him since almost the first day they’d met, and he started to wonder what on earth he could have done to raise her alarm to maximum alert. What was it about him in particular that set her defences mile-high?
* * *
It was as if the weather had decided to apologise for its bad manners the next morning, rewarding them with a day that was as bright and clear as it was warm and breezy. Damien suggested setting out early, trying to round Lizard Point before the day was out, and Zoe didn’t disagree for once, slightly repentant and willing to let him have his plans and stick to them—at least for one day.
Later in the afternoon the wind dropped significantly, but it gave Damien a chance to do something he’d wanted to do but had held off doing with just the two of them on board. A bigger crew was needed to do this when the wind was stronger, but now he could get the spinnaker out.
Zoe followed instructions, helping with the brightly coloured sail on the foredeck, as he dealt with what needed to be done back in the cockpit and winched it up. She was audibly impressed when the wind caught it and took it high above the bow, making it look like a captured parachute. She spent much of the rest of the journey there, sitting with her legs posted through the metal railings at the tip of the boat, dangling towards the water.
Damien stayed in the stern, smiling. He’d known she’d like the rainbow-coloured spinnaker and had actually been glad the wind had dropped enough finally to get it out for her, as a reward for all her hard work the day before, possibly. A week ago he would have expected her to throw a tantrum over the bad weather, but she’d been amazing. She’d followed every instruction he’d given her in the difficult conditions perfectly, and he hadn’t had to repeat anything.
The afternoon passed with them at their opposite ends of the boat but, unlike before, when Damien had felt the resistance, like two magnets pushing each other away, it now felt easy. Peaceful. So peaceful, in fact, that Damien was shocked when he looked at his watch and realised time had been slipping away far too quickly.
It was late in the afternoon and he hadn’t kept a check on their progress. The silent sense of satisfaction that had paused time that afternoon quickly ebbed away. Rounding the Lizard would take more hours than they had before nightfall. He called Zoe back down from the bow and explained the situation.
‘We’re going to have to pull into Falmouth and attempt the Lizard tomorrow,’ he said as she stepped down into the cockpit, looking windswept.
‘That wasn’t the plan. Won’t it put us behind schedule?’
He kept his face expressionless. ‘We’ve got a new plan now. It’s called being flexible. See? I can do it, even without your prompting.’
Why was she laughing? Well, almost laughing. Her eyes were, even if her mouth wasn’t.
She turned away and looked towards the large sprawling estuary where three rivers met and merged before pouring into the sea, a jumble of bays and creeks.
‘Cool,’ she said brightly. ‘It looks pretty here.’
So they took down the spinnaker, furled the sails and motored towards civilisation. Unfortunately, it seemed the rest of Cornwall had decided to converge on Falmouth that weekend—some big regatta was on—and every marina space or mooring was fully booked. They ended up dropping anchor in a sheltered bay on the opposite side of the estuary, just across from the smaller town of St Mawes.
Zoe was ecstatic at their makeshift anchorage for the night. It was a truly beautiful spot. And they’d have missed it, he realised, if they’d powered straight past and headed round the Lizard. Perhaps there was something to be said for detours after all.
The sun was glowing low, just skimming the top of the steep hills, and blistering heat had given way to languid warmth. They were round the tip of the Roseland peninsular, in a sheltered little bay close to a beach. St Mawes, to the north, could be reached easily by the dinghy, and off to the east was a stately home or hotel, its elegant green lawn reaching down to a stone wall at the water’s edge.
‘Can we swim here?’ Zoe asked, practically jumping from foot to foot. ‘I feel like a roast chicken and I’m dying for a dip.’
‘I don’t see why not.’
Zoe squealed and ran below decks, appearing again with all the speed of a quick-change act in a retina-searing multicoloured kaftan thing over the top of her swimming costume.
‘Are you coming in?’ She reached for the hem of her kaftan and headed for the metal ladder at the stern. ‘It’s close enough to swim to the beach.’
They were indeed only a hundred feet away, and it was a very pretty little beach. The sea was the other side of the peninsular, but on this side jagged cliffs gave way to a curved green hill, ending with a strip of woodland near the shore. A lone cottage sat between trees and sand, a low, off-white stone building that must have been there for centuries.
However, despite the picturesque surroundings, the beach was almost empty—probably because the layout of the estuary demanded winding roads, and this would be quite a drive from the nearest town with no bridges to speed things up. Only the most determined of beach-hunters would make it this far, leaving the casual holidaymakers to the spots with toilets and cafés and places where they could buy rubber rings and blow-up crocodiles.
Suddenly the thought of that cool water against his sun-baked and salty skin was almost irresistible. ‘Give me a minute,’ he said, and dived below decks to quickly slip on some swimming shorts.
When he returned, Zoe was nowhere to be seen. He could tell where she was, though, from the series of little shrieks coming from the direction of the ladder.
At the end of the summer the water here would be the warmest it would be all year round, but a heated swimming pool it wasn’t. He peered over the railing at the back of the cockpit, grinning, and found Zoe, up to her waist in water, a look of frozen shock on her face.
‘Still desperate for that dip?’ he asked. ‘It’ll be better once you’re in.’
Zoe just scowled up at him. ‘Clear off and let me do it my own way,’ she said.
Damien decided that was a very good idea, partly because it could be Christmas before she got off that ladder, and partly because his vantage point was giving him a wonderful view of her cleavage, even though it was encased in a modestly cut one-piece. A figure like Zoe’s was impossible to hide. For which he was momentarily very thankful.
But then he remembered all the lectures he’d given himself over the last couple of days. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them to start anything—well, continue what they’d started the night of the wedding—because it just wouldn’t go anywhere. They were too different. He knew what kind of woman he want
ed: a woman like Sara…
Sara. He realised he’d hardly thought of her in days. Which meant Zoe had, in fact, been doing a fabulous job as a temporary distraction, just as he’d planned. It just wasn’t the kind of distraction he’d envisaged. Still, if it was working…
Anyway, since Sara, he’d decided he wasn’t going to waste his time dating for the sake of it. Finding the right woman to share his life with was his focus for the moment, and he couldn’t—shouldn’t—let himself get side-tracked.
In which case, more cold water would definitely help.
He made his way to the side of Dream Weaver nearest the beach, climbed over the guard rail and jumped straight in, welcoming the way the chill drove all thoughts of Zoe from his head as he struggled to catch his breath.
CHAPTER NINE
THEY swam and explored the beach until the sun had almost set. Zoe would have continued to swim there all night if she could have, but Damien suddenly got twitchy, talking about dinner and how busy it would be even in St Mawes, so Zoe reluctantly followed him back to the boat.
He looked so tense by the time they climbed back on board that they just shoved casual clothes on over the top of their swimming things and headed straight off in search of a café or pub in the dinghy.
Just as Zoe had expected, they were fine. They found a pub that served bar snacks and, yes, they had to wait a while for their food and pad the meagre portions out with a couple of packets of crisps, but their tummies were full at the end of the evening, and surely that was what counted?
When she saw Damien scowling at the empty packets, Zoe couldn’t help but make an observation. ‘You really don’t like to veer from the plan, do you?’
Damien shrugged as he drained the last of his beer. ‘I don’t see the crime in that. Plans help you get where you want to go in life.’
She had to give him that. He’d certainly proved that in his professional life.
‘You have plans for your business, don’t you?’ he asked.
Zoe nodded. She had plans, she supposed, although she liked to think of them as dreams. It sounded less suffocating.
‘And once you lay down your plans, you start working towards making them a reality, don’t you?’ Damien added.
Zoe nodded again, although this time she started thinking about her dream of owning her own premises. What exactly had she done to make that happen, aside from wandering round other people’s shops and sighing? Not a lot, actually.
‘But surely there has to be some balance,’ she said. ‘It can’t be work twenty-four hours a day. What about room for fun, the joy that can only come from following a mad impulse?’
Damien’s eyes instantly narrowed and his shoulders tensed. When his next words came out, they seemed to have been squeezed out between his teeth. ‘What about the chaos that can follow? You were the first one to moan when your “impulse” to divert from the course yesterday afternoon didn’t end well.’
‘Okay, I admit that, but you have to step outside the box occasionally, follow your heart sometimes?’
Damien pushed his chair back and stood up, even though he hadn’t finished his drink. ‘That’s the problem with people like you. You jump in and “follow your heart”—’ he almost sneered as he said those words ‘—and don’t even notice the trail of destruction you leave behind you.’
Zoe smiled, but it was a puzzled smile. What was he talking about? What trail of destruction? Yes, she’d knocked him in the water a few days ago, but apart from that she’d done nothing.
‘Nobody said life was perfect. Sometimes it’s unpredictable—’ her smile grew ‘—you said it yourself! It’s like sailing. Dealing with the unexpected challenges life throws at you, navigating those treacherous times… Aren’t those victories the ones that give you the biggest sense of satisfaction in the end?’
Damien shook his head and walked off back towards where the dinghy was moored. ‘You don’t get it.’ There was a hopelessness in his tone that snagged at Zoe’s heart, sidetracking the smart reply that had been ready and waiting on her lips.
She followed him in silence until they were back in the little grey inflatable and heading back out across a moonless, glass-smooth bay. He cut the engine as they neared the stern of the boat, letting them float the last few feet, and Zoe stood up and secured the painter to a cleat. She turned to face him, one foot on the ladder, before climbing up on to the yacht.
‘Who disappointed you, Damien?’ she asked softly. ‘So badly that you don’t even want to have fun any more?’
He snorted. ‘Fun! What good is fun when you’ve got people who love you, that need you? Pursuing fun like that is selfish…’ He seemed to realise he’d said more than he’d meant to and closed his mouth abruptly.
Zoe climbed up the ladder and waited for him in the cockpit, but when Damien climbed on board he walked straight past her, up on to the deck, and sat down on the cabin roof, staring at the oscillating reflections on the water that the vibrations from their outboard motor had caused.
Mad or not, Zoe followed the impulse to go to him. She’d never seen Damien before. And, even though seeing him rattled like this had once been her chief desire, now the moment was here she found it uncomfortable. She climbed out of the cockpit and went and sat next to him. The ridge of the hand rail that ran along the top of the low cabin roof dug into her bottom.
‘Who left you behind in their wake of destruction?’ she asked, then fell silent. She didn’t push, even though she was burning with curiosity.
Night birds that Zoe couldn’t name cooed. Gentle ripples, the memory of a boat passing by somewhere else in the estuary, licked the hull. And those shards of reflection had almost mended themselves together again by the time Damien spoke.
‘It was my father,’ he finally said, his voice strangely scratchy. ‘He followed one of those impulsive urges to have fun when I was fifteen, decided to up and leave my mother and I with hardly any warning. He just sat us down at the kitchen table one day, announced he was bored and unfulfilled, and the next day he was gone, off to do something about it.’ He turned and looked at her. ‘He never came back.’
Zoe laid a hand on Damien’s hunched shoulder. ‘You didn’t ever see him again?’ she asked, her voice husky.
Damien blinked slowly and stared back out at the water. ‘Oh, I saw him again, but he didn’t come home. My mother was heartbroken.’
Zoe swallowed. She didn’t have anything to say—smart, sympathetic or otherwise. Instead, she slid her hand along his back and laid her cheek on his shoulder blade.
‘So forgive me if I’m not overwhelmed at the idea of following a mad impulse,’ Damien added, giving a good impression of Zoe’s most sarcastic tone.
She nodded against his back. ‘Did he ever find what he was looking for, your father?’
Damien laughed. A low, heartbreaking sound. ‘I think he’s still looking. That was the funny thing…’ He turned to look at her and Zoe peeled her face from his warm cotton shirt and looked back at him. Their faces were close now, only inches away.
‘He had a good job, a wife who adored him and ran around after him doing everything she could to make him happy. He had a son who worshipped him. In other words, he had a life many people would kill for. For years I asked myself why it wasn’t enough.’
Zoe was finding it a little hard to speak, not only because she was so close to Damien, but because all sense of superiority she’d ever thought she’d seen in his eyes had been stripped away and behind it she only saw pain and defeat.
‘Did you ever find any answers?’
Damien nodded and heaved in a deep breath. She saw him start to build the layers of protection back around himself and she wanted to yell out, tell him to stop, but this was the urge she managed to curtail. If anyone understood the need for those layers, it was her.
‘My father had unrealistic expectations, for a start. He’d always dreamed of a better life—more money, more social success—and he got to his mid-forties and realised he didn
’t have what he’d expected he’d have, and he blamed us for it.’ He shook his head. ‘The stupid thing was that he couldn’t see that it was his fault, not ours. He should have worked towards those things instead of just daydreaming about them.’
He gave her a ghostly smile, his teeth shining white in the darkness. ‘He should have had a plan.’
Pennies dropped hard and fast inside Zoe’s head now. His father’s failure had been a catalyst to Damien’s success. She understood now why he was so clear about what he wanted, why he pursued those dreams as if demons were on his tail and, to be honest, she couldn’t really blame him for it.
She sighed and joined him in looking out to the little stone cottage on the beach, a fuzzy shape of blue-grey above a strip of silver sand.
‘Plans aren’t everything,’ she said quietly, and heard the same emptiness in her voice that she’d just detected in Damien’s. ‘Even the best laid ones can backfire and blow up in your face.’
Damien turned to her, and even in the semi-dark she saw the deadness in his eyes had turned back into that one settling, penetrating focus. He trained all of it on her.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked, and Zoe began to regret that urge to follow him after all.
She shuffled a little, repositioning her well-padded behind on the wooden grab rail. ‘I mean that you can plan all you like—dream all you like—but that doesn’t mean those things are definitely going to happen.’
Damien’s expression told her he’d never even considered such an outrageous notion. ‘Such as?’
Zoe shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about this. Not with him. Especially now she’d seen under that perfect, polished exterior to the warm, human man beneath. She was already in too much danger; she couldn’t let her barriers down as well.