by Fiona Harper
She had to share some of Gemma’s DNA, hidden away deep down inside, didn’t she? She hoped so. Because tonight she was going to have to squeeze it out of its hiding place and put it to work.
When she returned to the bar, she found him looking very relaxed as he sat on a tall stool, one foot on the footrest, the other on the floor. He still had his swimming shorts on, but had added a short-sleeved shirt. His hair was still a little damp and she noticed that half the eyes in the place were on him. The female half, of course.
She sat down next to him. ‘Are you really only going to have a beer?’
He nodded. ‘And are you sure that is all your life is worth?’
She knew she ought to joke about showering him in diamonds or pledging him her eternal soul or something but, if you took her kids out of the equation, a beer would pretty much sum up what her life was worth at the moment. What did she contribute to the world really? Some seriously good chutney on occasion, but that was it.
She frowned. It all seemed so blindingly obvious to her now, yet back home she’d always felt that everything she filled her notebook with was so terribly important, and it wasn’t, was it?
Marco leaned closer to catch her attention. ‘You look very serious. Deciding what to have?’
‘Nope. I’ve decided a beer is very appropriate, so I’m going to join you.’
When the bartender had served them up two bottles of the local brew, Marco gestured towards an empty table on one of the terraces. ‘Shall we?’
Juliet shrugged. This whole afternoon was getting increasingly more surreal. ‘Why not?’
He tipped his head to one side and looked at her.
‘What?’ she said, putting a hand up to check her rapidly frizzing hair.
He shook his head and made a very Italian gesture with his hands. ‘You are an intriguing woman, Juliet Taylor.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, because he’d meant it as a compliment—at least, she hoped he had. How was he to know that Gemma was the special one in the family, the one who shone, the one who everybody wanted to be with, and that Juliet was only ever destined to walk in her shadow? She smiled to herself, thinking how different it would have been if Gemma really had been here instead of her. She wouldn’t have been trading pleasantries and trying to think up small talk. She’d probably be ripping his clothes off behind a palm tree somewhere.
But Gemma isn’t here, is she? You are.
She rapped that scary thought on the knuckles and told it to get a grip on itself.
So, small talk it was... She peppered Marco with questions about himself, hardly giving him time to sip his beer before it went warm. She discovered he was the youngest of five siblings, that he lived on the shores of Lake Garda where his family owned a chain of restaurants, that he was a travel writer and liked the fact he was always moving from place to place. He liked watersports—especially windsurfing—and no one could make pasta like his Nonna.
She tried to keep him talking, revealing as few details about her own life as she could. Fessing up to being an anal-retentive suburban housewife didn’t sound nearly so interesting. If only she had Gemma’s tales to tell. It would make her sound so much more interesting...
But then Marco kept asking questions, and it was most difficult to bat them away the longer he went on. Why couldn’t he be like most men and just talk about himself all night, for goodness’ sake?
‘You are a woman of mystery,’ he said, waving at a passing member of staff for a second round. ‘Here I have told you much about my life, and I still know so little about you.’
She forgot about not making that unattractive snorting sound. ‘Hardly!’
He nodded. ‘I thought so the first night I saw you staring from your balcony, looking so...’
‘Jet-lagged?’ she suggested, not really joking, although Marco seemed to take it that way.
‘No. So... I don’t know the right word. Not lonely, but...’ He shrugged. ‘Forgive my English.’
‘Oh, my goodness! Please don’t apologise for your English—it’s excellent. And if you apologise for your English, I am really going to have to apologise for my Italian, which is limited to flavours of ice cream and asking where the toilet is. It’s all I can remember from the CDs I bought when we went to Rome for a weekend once...’
‘We...?’ he asked. ‘Is there a man in your life I should know about?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Not any more.’
‘You are divorced?’
‘Yes.’
He looked intently at her. ‘Maybe that explains the sadness I thought I saw in you that first night.’
Juliet went very still and quickly transferred her gaze to the beer bottle in front of her. How had he seen that? Sometimes, when she let herself, she did feel very sad. Not that she even liked admitting that to herself. It seemed so...ungrateful. Even before her marriage had ended she’d felt that way sometimes, but Greg had never noticed, not even when he’d lived with her day in day out, and this man had touched upon the truth within seconds of first seeing her. How had he read her that well?
And no wonder she’d been sad. She’d known that Greg had been getting more and more distant, but the harder she’d tried to be the kind of wife he wanted, the more he’d slipped away from her. If that kind of frustrating existence didn’t encourage sadness, she didn’t know what did.
‘I’m sorry the marriage is over,’ she finally said, ‘but that’s all. I don’t want him back.’
‘Then what do you want?’
Marco grinned at her, and she found herself smiling too. He was very charming. She thought for a moment. What did she want? She really didn’t know. She’d given up wishing for things a long time ago.
She thought about Gemma, and what she would want from Pelican’s Reach, and she said, ‘To have fun. What else?’
He seemed to like her answer because his smile grew wider. ‘Then let us toast to your ex-husband,’ he said, ‘for he is a very stupid and very generous man.’
Stupid Juliet got. ‘Generous?’ she asked.
Marco waved a hand to encompass the luxurious resort they were in, but Juliet didn’t really want to talk about how she’d ended up here. It would lead to too many difficult questions.
‘I thought Rome was beautiful,’ she said, trying to veer the subject onto something more neutral. She’d gone with Greg on a business conference, but he’d spent most of his time schmoozing important clients while she’d been left on her own. At least she’d got to see lots of the city. ‘I did all the touristy things—the Trevi Fountain, the Sistine Chapel, the Colosseum...’
Marco sat back as a waiter replaced their empty bottles for full ones. Just as well Piton beer didn’t seem to be knock-your-socks off strong. ‘See? Once again we have started to talk about you, and you have changed the subject quite nicely.’
She had, hadn’t she? Not by design. Just because talking about Rome had been much more interesting than talking about Juliet Taylor from Tunbridge Wells. Marco fitted in here. He had the right clothes, the air of entitlement, the easy nonchalance. She knew it was stupid, but she didn’t want to admit to this man how ordinary she was.
‘You have to tell me something about you,’ he said, noticing her hesitation and leaning forward a little. ‘I don’t even know what your profession is. Or maybe you just flit from exotic location to exotic location, driving men insane by avoiding their questions?’
Juliet stared at him for a couple of seconds. ‘Why are you so interested in me?’
He put his bottle down, leaned back in his chair and looked at her carefully. ‘Why is it surprising that someone should be?’
Good question, she thought, with a shiver. And another one she really didn’t want to answer, but she was enjoying having someone to talk to, and she couldn’t keep evading him all evening in this way. T
he truth was going to have to come out some time, and it looked like it had to be now. Pity, because for the first time in years she felt as if someone was actually looking at her, noticing her, and she hadn’t had to bake a cake or sew anything to get them to do it.
Her heart sank as she opened her mouth and said, ‘You wanted to know what I did for a living...?’
He nodded.
Juliet had never believed those cartoons where some poor soul was tormented with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, but she could have sworn she felt a sharp stab on her left deltoid as she opened her mouth to tell him she was a mother of four with a part-time job in a craft shop.
Go on...
Instead of what she planned, she heard herself saying, ‘Actually, I work in film.’
She couldn’t believe she’d said that! Why? Why had she done that? She hadn’t even been thinking of Gemma at that moment, but somehow the lie had slipped out of her mouth as easy as butter off a hot knife.
‘Doing what?’
She swallowed. She should tell him the truth. Now.
‘An assistant director.’ She held her breath for a moment, sure a lightning bolt was going to sizzle its way through the thatched roof of Pelican Joe’s and fry her right in her seat, but nothing happened.
‘You must have some interesting stories to tell.’
Juliet nodded. She had plenty of stories. Problem was they were all Gemma’s.
He drained the last of his beer. ‘Would you care to share a few of them with me while we dine? I’m hungry and we Italians don’t like to eat alone. It’s against our religion.’
Juliet clamped her jaw together to stop her mouth from dropping open. Had Marco actually just asked her to have dinner with him? And what did that mean? Did he just want a little company or did it signal something more? She was so unused to reading signals from the opposite sex that she just didn’t know.
But she also knew she’d do anything not to sit at a table for one yet again and watch everyone else talk and laugh their way through dinner.
He must have noticed her hesitation, because he said, ‘Unless you have other plans...?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
He stood up. ‘Bene. How about the waterside restaurant? I hear the crab is very good there.’
She half-rose, but didn’t go all the way. ‘They always seem to be fully booked.’
Marco smiled. ‘We are only two. I am sure they can find us a little space.’ He said it with such confidence that she started to believe him, even though the girl she’d spoken to earlier had been most adamant.
But then she thought of something else. ‘But don’t you...? I mean, isn’t anyone...um...going to join you?’
He did that unaffected little shrug that she was starting to realise was his trademark. ‘No. I came alone to Pelican’s Reach. My trip here was rather...last minute.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Juliet muttered.
He laughed. ‘I thought we had already established that I have told you enough. It is your turn to talk.’
She sighed. Why had she pretended she was Gemma, for heaven’s sake? Now she was going to have to keep this up all the way through dinner. Maybe even for the next week or so. She wasn’t sure she had that much ‘mystery’ in her!
But at the same time, the idea was intensely appealing. When was the last time anyone had been interested in anything she had to say, other than, ‘Yes, of course I can help...’ or ‘dinner’s ready!’?
Other than Will, of course. God, she’d almost forgotten all about him. Good old Will.
And then she looked up into Marco’s brown eyes and his confident yet expectant expression. He was still waiting for an answer. ‘Okay,’ she said hesitantly. ‘But I can’t spill the beans too much. Confidentiality agreements and what have you...’
And look how the lies kept coming! She had no idea she had a hidden talent for deception. Although, maybe this was one skill she might not choose to cultivate once she got back home. Not if she wanted to keep looking her kids in the eye.
Marco nodded, buying her answer completely. Maybe, just maybe, she could pull this off.
And maybe she was a little more like her sister than she’d ever realised.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING in the cupboard?’
Gemma had been kind of...stuck...looking at Will, and she now whipped her head round to see Violet poking her head through the cupboard door. ‘Looking for the fuse box,’ she replied weakly. For some reason it sounded like an excuse, rather than the truth.
‘You found it?’ Will asked, and he moved, turning so his arm brushed hers. Gemma would have stepped away, but there wasn’t any room and all she’d have done is tangle herself up in the ironing board. ‘Where was it?’
Violet backed out of the cupboard, giving them room to follow. Gemma made sure Will had plenty of space to go first and then squidged herself out past the hoover and the shelf unit.
‘The boys wanted to play Snap, so I went rummaging for the cards in the cupboard next to the chimney breast. And while I was moving the board games around to look for the deck, I spotted a grey metal box with a big red switch, so I flipped it.’
‘You’ve saved the day!’ Gemma said, beaming at Violet, but inside she felt as if she was slowly deflating. Why wasn’t she ecstatic? She hadn’t wanted to stay in the dark, had she?
She glanced across at Will, but he was avoiding eye contact, and she couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Good, probably.
‘How long’s the power been out?’ Will asked, directing the question more at Violet than at her.
Violet just shrugged.
‘Over an hour,’ Gemma said. ‘Why?’
‘You might want to check the freezer, then,’ he suggested. ‘See how the food’s doing.’
Flip. She hadn’t even thought of that. However, she needed to get the turkey out in the morning anyway. This would have just given it a little bit of a head start. She turned off the Thomas torch and left it on the hall table, then made her way back to the kitchen. A quick rummage through the freezer revealed nothing, so she checked the fridge, although she was sure she’d have noticed a giant plucked bird in there before now.
Nada.
She sighed and opened the freezer door again. Was nothing going to be simple today? She started pulling packets and plastic tubs out of the freezer, checking each one as she went, but all she succeeded in doing was numbing her hands. If there was a turkey in there, it was playing hide-and-seek.
‘Problem?’
She jumped at the sound of Will’s voice. How long had he been standing there? She’d assumed he’d gone back home. Bit by bit, she started stuffing icy containers back into the freezer. ‘I can’t seem to find the dratted turkey, but I know it’s here somewhere.’
Will picked up a packet of frozen peas from the kitchen counter and handed it to her. She took it from him and shoved it in a space. Juliet probably had the whole space arranged by ingredient and pot size. She was going to kill Gemma when she got back and saw the frozen mayhem. Will handed her another item, and they worked silently like that until everything was back inside.
When they’d finished, she closed the freezer door and stuck her hands under her armpits in an attempt to warm them up a bit.
‘Vi, does your mum still have that extra little freezer in the garage? I can’t find where she’s put the turkey.’
Violet shook her head. ‘She got rid of it when she and Dad bought the big fridge a few years ago, said she didn’t need it any more.’
‘Are you sure?’ Gemma said, starting to feel a little desperate. It was Christmas Eve tomorrow and not being able to find the turkey was a pretty pressing matter.
‘Totally sure,’ Violet said, nodding. ‘She gave it away
to one of my friends’ mums. And, anyway, Mum wouldn’t put it in the freezer. She always gets one fresh from the butcher.’
Uh-oh. Gemma had a nasty feeling about this.
‘But I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘It’s right there in the notebook...’ She reached into the bread bin and retrieved it, ignoring Will and Violet’s surprised looks, and flipped over to the relevant page. ‘Look! A row of big black ticks on the Christmas food page...’ She trailed off and pressed her fingers lightly over her mouth.
Will stepped forward. ‘What?’
Gemma shook her head. It was all starting to make sense now, but she could hardly let herself believe it. Thick black ticks. She should have noticed before. Juliet’s ticks were neat and small, hardly overshooting the boundaries of the little boxes, and these were heavy and clumsy.
Still clutching the notebook, she jogged to the living room, where Polly was refereeing a game of Snap between Jake and Josh.
‘I’m not going to get cross...’ Gemma said. Not yet, anyway. ‘...but has anyone been messing around with this?’ And she held the book up for them all to see.
Jake and Polly looked up innocently at her and shook their heads. Josh carried on slapping cards down on the pile.
‘Josh?’
He froze, card half-peeled off the top of his pack.
‘Josh?’
He slowly lifted his head.
‘Was it you?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.
He looked at her with those big eyes and nodded, and Gemma felt a shockwave of Juliet-type panic reverberate through her.
‘What did you do?’
Josh swallowed. ‘I was helping,’ he explained in a quiet voice. ‘Mummy ticks something in her book every day, but Mummy wasn’t here, so I decided to do it for her.’
Gemma held her breath and closed her eyes. ‘Violet?’ she asked without opening them. ‘Could you take Polly and the boys upstairs and supervise while they get ready for bed. I’ll be up shortly to do stories.’ And she stood very still while the children stood up and followed their older sister out the door. When it had slammed behind them—Polly only knew one way to close a door—she opened her eyes and looked at Will, who hadn’t moved from where she’d last seen him.