Olive island

by Kay Thorpe

  OLIVE ISLAND by KAY THORPE

  It was a wonderful job Nicky had got herself — representative for a travel firm on the lovely holiday island of Corfu.In fact everything would have been perfect had it not been for the hotel owner, the lordly Nikos Alexandros, who seemed to think there was something unfeminine about the whole thing and that Nicky would do better to be domesticated and submissive, like his fellow-countrywomen, Really!

  PRINTED IN CANADA

  OTHER Harlequin Romances by KAY THORPE

  1237—THE LAST OF THE MALLORYS 1 272—DEVON INTERLUDE

  1355—RISING STAR 1504—CURTAIN CALL

  1583—SAWDUST SEASON 1609—NOT WANTED ON VOYAGE 1661—OLIVE ISLAND

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  Original hard cover edition published in 1972

  by Mills & Boon Limited, 17 - 19 Foley Street,London W1A 1DR, England.

  © Kay Thorpe 1972

  ISBN 373-01661-1

  Harlequin edition published February 1973

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the

  imagination of the Author, and have no relation whatsoever to

  anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even

  distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the

  Author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

  The Harlequin trade mark, consisting of the word

  HARLEQUIN and the portrayal of a Harlequin, is registered

  in the United States Patent Office and in the Canada Trade

  Marks Office.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THEY came in low over the hills, lining up carefully with the runway jutting far out into the placid blue of the lake. There was the usual prolonged moment of suspense while the concrete flashed by below, then the breath-releasing bump of touchdown followed almost immediately by the ear-shattering roar of reversed jets, and the sense of being pinned back into the cushioned seat by invisible hands.

  Nicky unfastened her seat belt with a small sigh of relief as the plane came finally to a standstill. The flight out from Athens to this off-shore island of Corfu had not taken long, it was true, but it made little difference to her stomach muscles. She detested flying, always had and probably always would. Unfortunately it still happened to be the fastest way of getting from point A to point B, and therefore necessary to her job. She could only hope that she would not be called upon to make any further flights before the end of the season, three whole months away yet.

  The heat rose in waves from the baked concrete as she alighted from the plane and walked with her fellow passengers towards the white airport building. Mid-July, cooler here than on the mainland, certainly, with that breeze coming off the lake, but still sweltering enough to make even the thin cream and tan uniform dress an encumbrance. Over on her right the water sparkled invitingly, conjuring up the memory of her last visit to the beach some five days previously, and the

  delicious coolness of the sea compared with the afternoon air. Easing the collar of her dress, she reflected that at least the hotel at Perata was close by a beach itself, and should provide ample opportunity for indulgement of the one sport she enjoyed above all others. There had been a fine pool at the hotel in Athens, but it was hardly the same when filled to overflowing by throngs of holidaymakers intent on making the most of all the many facilities provided in their package trip to the sun.

  It was cooler inside the terminal building, although more than a little dusty from the work being done on some extensions. Nicky walked over to one of the large windows and looked out on the scene of activity, admired the symmetry of the Greek physique and reflected that the potential suggested by rippling muscle and strong hard back had seemingly little bearing on the amount of effort employed. Siesta was half an hour or more away, yet the languorous movements of the men out there already embraced its threshold. Life had a pace and inevitability all of its own in this corner of the world.

  It would probably be raining in London at this moment, she thought with a mixture of complacency and nostalgia. It always rained on Mondays — or so it had seemed during her brief year there. At home in the little Cumberland market town where she had been born, she had been equally happy whether it rained or shone. She supposed that was what came of living in a farming community where both were of equal importance to the crops.

  She must make a point of writing to her mother tonight, she told herself guiltily. It was over a week

  since she had received the last letter. Time had flown since that blustery day in March when she had answered the call for overseas representatives. There had been two stiff interviews before her eventual acceptance, then a week at head office learning all the basic details of her job along with a group of other newcomers. After this had come a further fortnight in Mallorca, with lectures and practice in airport transfers and procedure, culminating in a stiff written examination before her final allocation to an area.

  Athens had been a wonderful experience. Hard work, yes, but there had always been her two companions to turn to for advice and companionship of a closer kind than one could allow oneself with the guests. Now she would be on her own — or virtually — and was looking forward to these coming months with somewhat mixed feelings. A pity that the Perata rep had had to choose the middle of the season to break a leg, leaving the Company with no alternative but to draw upon the nearest of their hotels with more than one employee on the premises. She would have preferred to finish out this first season in the same place.

  'Nicola Brent?' asked an English voice behind her, and she turned swiftly to look at the young man in tan trousers and cream shirt who hugged a folder to his chest and hid the greater part of his face behind a pair of huge sunglasses.

  Gerry Copeland, the Company's chief representative on the island, was twenty-five, looked three years younger and had that restless, chaffing-at-the-bit appearance of one constantly on his toes. This was his second year in Greece, Nicky had been told, but only

  his first as head rep. With four hotels to keep under surveillance his job could not be all that easy.

  `Glad to have you with us,' he went on, not bothering to wait for confirmation of a purely rhetorical question. He took off the glasses for a brief moment to rub at an unseen smear, replaced them and reappraised this slender girl with the long, corn-coloured hair and vivid blue eyes. 'I hate having to spring this on you, but you're going to have to go out to Perata on your own. Something has cropped up, and it's imperative that I get straight back to town. Do you think you can manage?'

  `That,' she said with a smile which concealed her own trepidation, 'is what it's all about, isn't it? How do I get there?'

  `Taxi. I have one waiting outside. You can drop me off in town and carry right on from there. It's a good hour's drive over the mountains, but Spiros will see you right. By the time everyone surfaces from siesta you'll be settled in and waiting for them. It will be more than a bit of a relief for me, I don't mind admitting. It's been something of a strain travelling out there every other day as well as looking after my own lot.' He glanced round to where a crowd had gathered about the conveyor belt on the far side of the area. 'Your luggage should be up by now. Let's go and find it and get off, shall we? I'll tell you anything else you have to know in the taxi.'

  Nicky followed him a little bemusedly, wondering if he always imparted information at the gallop, or was simply so wound up by the demands of a busy season
that he couldn't run himself down. They found her suitcase without too much difficulty, and Gerry hoisted

  it out through the big swing doors to the dusty forecourt.

  There were several cars parked out there, including a rather battered blue Renault with its engine already running. The driver came bounding across to take the suitcase from Gerry's hands and whirl it into the open boot with a movement which would have done credit to a ballet dancer. He was young, with short, curly hair and a pair of laughingly bold dark eyes.

  `We go,' he said, holding open the door with a flashing smile in Nicky's direction.

  `You'd better go in the back, seeing that I'm getting out first,' said Gerry practically, leaning into the car to fold back the front seat. 'You'll find it cooler, anyway, with the breeze from the window.'

  Settled, if not exactly in the lap of luxury, Nicky waited until they were out on the main road and heading town wards before saying. 'If you're going to tell me something about the Xenia you'd better do it now. I don't want to be left high and dry.'

  `You won't be that,' returned Gerry with assurance. `The manager of the hotel is English, and he knows all the ins and outs. Anything you get stuck on in between seeing me, ask him about. He's well in with the locals, and he speaks the language.'

  Which was more than could be said for herself, reflected Nicky wryly, recalling her efforts to achieve at least a fair ability during her time in Athens. French had never presented too much difficulty, and she could make herself fairly well understood in Spanish, but for some reason the Greek language simply refused to stick, leaving her with a smattering of words and phrases which were not by any means always enough. An

  English manager was going to be a boon indeed.

  'What about the owner?' she asked. 'Is he British, too?'

  'No, he's Greek to his fingertips. He has a villa a little way outside Perata, so you'll probably see more of him than I have. On the other hand, he's pretty aloof when it comes to hobnobbing with foreigners, by all accounts, and doesn't visit the hotel all that often. You'll get on okay with Lee Merril, though.'

  'If he's not too keen on foreigners, why employ an English manager?'

  'It seems that Lee was friendly back home with an old friend of the Alexandros'. Came out here with a letter of introduction. and was immediately offered a job.'

  'At the Xenia?'

  'Not at first. He was at one of the Alexandros' restaurants in town for about a year, until the Company secured the contract for the Xenia last spring. Perata is only a small place, but it's tremendously popular with the locals, so they did really well to get it.' Gerry glanced at his watch and frowned. 'You'd better drop me on the Esplanade, Spiros. I can be over the hill while you're going round.'

  They were running into the town itself now. Nicky gazed through the open window at gently waving palms and blazing flower beds, at the singing blue of sea and sky and barren contrast of the forbidding Albanian mountains towering across the strait. On her left stretched a flat expanse of tree-edged grass, roped off along the perimeter against a wandering public and bearing its own legacy of British colonization in the cricket pitch laid out towards the far end. Beyond rose

  the elegant heights of French-inspired arcades, while to either side the eye was caught and held by architecture purely Renaissance in design. This was Corfu, magic isle of the Ionian Sea, influenced by foreign rule for close on eleven hundred years before her final restoration to Greece.

  I try and get out tomorrow, if at all possible,' said Gerry when he was leaving the car. 'Otherwise I'll see you when you come in on the shopping trip Wednesday. Give my regards to Lee.'

  I will,' she promised, feeling suddenly very much alone. It was one thing to arrive at a new place in a new capacity along with someone who knew all the ropes, quite another to do it all on one's own. She could only hope that this Lee Merril would prove as willing to help her over the hurdle of the first few hours as Gerry seemed to think he would be.

  'You will like Perata,' remarked Spiros cheerfully when they were once more on their way. 'It is a good place.'

  'You know it well?' she asked, and he turned his head to flash his excellent teeth at her with a disconcerting lack of attention to the road ahead and the horse-drawn victoria moving carelessly across his line of progress.

  `My home is in Perata.'

  'It mightn't be for very much longer,' commented Nicky feelingly as they scraped past the rear wheels of the carriage with bare inches to spare. 'Doesn't anyone here look where they're going before they go?'

  Spiros laughed. 'There is room for all. You must visit with my mother when you have found your toes. She will like very much to meet the English girl who comes

  to work at my father's hotel.'

  She stared at him in the driving mirror, thinking of the conversation she had had with Gerry not five minutes ago, and wondering why the latter had not seen fit to acquaint her with their driver's identity. Come to think of it, the exchange had verged rather on the personal where it had touched on the owner of the Xenia. Was it possible that Gerry himself was not aware of the relationship?

  `Your father doesn't mind you driving a taxi for a living?' she asked carefully.

  `Ah!' He lifted supple young shoulders. 'He would like it that I work too in the hotel, but it is not for me. One day I shall have many taxis, while he will still be the garsoni. There is no future in that in Perata.'

  Waiter! Nicky relaxed again. She had taken Spiros far too literally. Far from finding her toes she might find herself treading on a few if she went round making mistakes like that too often.

  `Where did you learn to speak English so well?' she asked.

  `From the English,' he grinned. 'I have many summer friends here in Kerkyra.'

  With a large percentage young and female, Nicky guessed, viewing the shapely black head and splendid profile. How many hearts had this young Adonis already captivated during his brief career?

  The road had meandered out on to the waterfront again, running downhill towards yet another of those broad, tree-shaded squares with which the town abounded. The noonday sun was sweltering, the tables set out beneath the trees an irresistible invitation to the hot and thirsty to sit down and partake of the refresh-

  ments offered by the many small cafés lining the rear side of the square. Nicky touched her tongue to parched lips and thought longingly of a tall, cool glass filled to the brim with iced orange juice. An hour's drive, Gerry had said. She would be gasping by the time she reached her destination.

  Fifteen minutes later, after the car had hits its umpteenth pothole in the winding mountain road, she had forgotten her thirst and wished only that she could get out and walk the rest of the way. The roads in Corfu town had been quite good, and the new highway leading out of it excellent, but this! Not only was the surface practically non-existent, but the road itself progressed up the mountainside by a series of hairpin bends round which Spiros rattled with happy disregard for the possible approach of any downward-bound traffic, at times skimming the very edge of the steep drop down to the tree-tops on their right.

  Nicky closed her eyes as a horn blasted the air up ahead, opened them again when nothing untoward happened, and found herself looking up into the equally startled faces of a coachload of tourists as the car squeezed past without either vehicle in any way reducing speed.

  It was perhaps as well that the roads up here were as they were, she thought dryly. Had the tarmac been good both drivers would probably have been travelling twice as fast when they met.

  By sheer luck they had reached a flat stretch when the tyre blew out with a crack like a gun going off. Wrestling with the wheel, Spiros managed to turn the car away from the huge olive for which it had promptly headed, and brought it to a timely halt on the

  grass three feet away from another.

  'The wheel must be changed,' he announced to Nicky with what seemed to her like almost unbelievable lack of concern. 'It will not take long.'

  It would for her n
erves to settle, she thought, climbing shakily from the cab. She took a look at the young man cheerfully starting work on the wheelnuts, considered the fact that what goes up must eventually come down, shuddered, and wondered wildly if she could suggest meeting him at the bottom.

  At least it was cool up here among the trees. She walked slowly to the next bend in the road, willing herself to remember that Spiros must have done this same journey many times before, and was still here to tell the tale. Then the trees thinned, and her breath caught in her throat once more as the view opened up before her. Lush green valleys, cypress-tipped hills, the soaring heights of Mount Pantokrator; sprinkled peasant cottages, pastel-tinted beneath the hot blue sky. It was worth everything just to see this !

  Spiros was wiping his hands on an oily bit of rag when she got back to the car.

  It is done,' he said proudly, indicating a tyre which looked almost as flat as the one he had replaced. 'A fast job, yes?'

  'Very,' she agreed with a return to trepidation. Spiros was apparently geared to speed in everything he did. suppose we had better get on.'

  Reluctantly she put a hand on the door handle, heard another vehicle coming up the last incline and saw a white Citroen appear round the corner. A moment later it had stopped at their side and the driver was getting out

  He was a few inches taller than the average Greek, his hair as black as Spiros's but with merely a hint of the latter's strong curl. Nicky looked into the angular, arrogant face, met a pair of razor-sharp dark eyes and felt like something wriggling under a microscope.

  'You are having difficulties?' he asked in excellent, only slightly accented English.

  'A burst tyre,' she explained. 'But it's all right now, although it was very good of you to stop.'