Rosa smiled sweetly at Mari before speaking. ‘This is your time to shine, Mari. And don’t give us excuses about your lack of talent. You were always the better artist at school—and everyone in the family agrees that you are totally brilliant at photography.’
‘Family! Great idea. Why don’t we call the cousins?’ Mari gushed as she felt the ground slipping away from under her feet. ‘Maybe they can take time away from work for a couple of hours? And I’m sure one or two of them can hold a paintbrush!’
Rosa gasped at Mari. ‘If you like black! Aunt Lucy’s twins are into Goth and are both at college at the moment.’ She paused. ‘Of course, both of Aunt Alice’s sons are colourblind, but they would help! There could be a few spare minutes between shifts behind the bar at the club.’ Rosa’s voice faded away as she shrugged towards Mari, who dropped her head to the table and knocked it a couple of times on the cloth.
Mari sat back and looked from her sister to Ethan and back to Rosa again, closed her eyes for a second, then shook her head before sinking back into her chair in resignation. ‘Yes. Okay. I will do it. I will help you decorate your house. But under protest. I don’t like emotional blackmail.’
‘Understood, but thank you, Mari, all the same. In that case, I’ll pick up the supplies we need and be back here in about an hour,’ Ethan replied, leaping up to go before anyone changed their mind, but he could not resist turning back and giving her a warm smile.
‘No time like the present. And who knows—by the end of the day, you might even enjoy it!’
Ethan ducked as a half-eaten muffin came flying towards his head. Only the plan backfired as he caught the cake one-handed, stood back up and took a huge bite. ‘Mmm. Not bad. Not bad at all. Any more for the workers?’ And then he dived out of the door before Mari could find something harder with more bounce potential.
Leaving the two girls looking at one another in silence.
‘What?’ Rosa asked in all innocence. ‘You want to work behind the bar at the yacht club all day? No, I didn’t think so.’
She glanced at her watch. ‘Better get some rest, because it sounds like you’re going to need it, Mari. Put the cake knife down, Mari. I am wounded, remember? Ouch!’
CHAPTER FIVE
THE snow had stopped during the night, leaving a crystal-clear blue sky morning.
Mari stared out of the window of Ethan’s four-wheel drive, peering through the thick pine trees and mixed forest to the inlet before they reached the shore.
The branches of the low fir trees had been painted silver and white by the heavy frost and looked like something from a Christmas card. She should have brought a camera and made some greeting cards for Rosa, like she used to when she was younger. Rosa would love that.
Great. More guilt. Just what she needed.
‘You’ve gone quiet on me again. Is this so terrible? It’s a nice day. The sun’s shining. The snow has stopped. Want to give me a hand unloading the car?’
She looked at him, shook her head. ‘You really hate to take no for an answer, don’t you? And using my own sister to help you decorate! Shame on you.’
‘For what?’ Ethan replied, raising both hands away from the steering wheel for a fraction of a second. ‘I was telling you the truth! I need the help. It’s that simple. And who else am I going to ask? Your mum was a goddess in home decoration and you did more than help. I was there, remember? Lugging cans of paint and wallpaper all over the county in your dad’s old van. You can’t fool me, Mari. I saw you in action too many times. Who knows? It could be fun.’
He glanced over at her just before she turned away to gaze out of the window.
Or maybe not.
‘Did Rosa tell you about the house? We have three bedrooms en suite. Air con. Triple glazing. And the best view this side of the bay with a private jetty.’
‘Didn’t there used to be a cottage down that way?’
Ethan nodded. ‘A derelict fisherman’s shack. The planning authority didn’t want the land used for a hotel on the protected seafront. And it was too far out of town for a restaurant or the like. So when it came on the market, I bought it with permission to rebuild that one house on the shore. Plenty of other people wanted to develop the site and build a private housing complex and offered a whole load of money for the privilege. But I outbid them. This is where my mother wants to retire to, so this is what she gets. And here we are.’
Whatever mental picture Mari had created of a house by the shore, she was totally unprepared for the image she found at the front of the house. They had driven through a single break in the tree cover onto a paved driveway, leading to one of the most stunning buildings she had ever seen in her life.
The house itself was one storey, hugging the shoreline, with an attic floor above, the peak of the tiled roof just low enough so that the pine trees on either side still towered above it.
But that was not the killer. It was the view.
The house was not just near the sea. It was on the shore. From the drive, she could see the long glass panels of a conservatory built on stone pillars extended a few feet over the water. To her right, the drive continued down to what looked like a solid wooden boathouse, the roof heavy with snow. On the left a double door garage below a curving extension, which seemed to fit seamlessly into the forest. The cold air was filled with a wonderful combination of pine needles, sawdust and a tang from the choppy ocean which spread out in front of them to the other side of the bay.
Ignoring the fact that Ethan had started unloading his car, Mari walked towards the boathouse so she could get a clear view across the water to the snow-covered hills. A low line of housing on the other side of the shore and the town of Swanhaven was hidden by the angle of sight.
It was a different world. Magical, private and serene.
And totally stunning.
Ethan came up and stood by her side in silence, his hands stuffed into his jeans’ pockets as the icy sea breeze buffeted their faces.
They stood only inches apart until Mari shivered. She looked at Ethan and said in a calm voice, ‘You win. It’s fabulous. Now I understand why your folks are willing to leave Florida for a few months every year.’
The silence opened a gap between them. Their smiles locked.
And just for a fraction of a second Mari allowed herself to relax and enjoy being with Ethan as an attractive man who had been her first kiss all those years ago, and the feeling shocked her so badly that she was the first to look away.
She covered up her discomfort by rubbing her hands together for warmth. The sooner she got on with the job, the sooner she could be out of here and back in town to take care of Rosa. ‘Okay. Let’s do this. Show me what you need help with.’
‘Come right this way. I have three rooms with bare plaster. Three large rooms. And paint. Lots of paint. Then they need fittings and furnishings. Rugs, curtains, cushions. Everything.’
Mari whistled. ‘I see what you mean. We had better get started then.’
Ethan leant forward very carefully and peered around the corner of the lounge towards Mari to make sure he did not disturb her. Kit’s little sister was wearing an old, navy, extra-large boiler suit and a pair of sailing boot socks to protect the fine wooden floor as she cleaned and polished, and at that moment he thought she looked just fine.
As he spied on her, Mari started to sing along to some tune or other she had in her head like she used to do when she was happy. He had forgotten about that. Forgotten how comforting it was to have Mari around.
Simply being in the same house and the same room.
Of course he would never admit it, but sometimes he missed being part of the Chance family show. Kit had been the eldest child—the gifted and special boy. The apple of his parents’ eyes and a true sportsman, like his dad. But Rosa and Mari were the characters, the deep and interesting people who kept their dreams and their ideas inside and preferred home or study to getting soaked in Swanhaven harbour at every opportunity, like Kit.
They m
ight have had the same parents, but he could not imagine meeting three more different teenagers. And things were never organised or boring in the Chance house.
Rosa was always the soft-hearted charmer who was almost incapable of offending or upsetting anyone. An artist like their mother; like her, she appeared to have no ambition or drive to be anything other than what she was—they were completely happy to live their lives in Swanhaven. He envied Rosa that serenity. She certainly was totally different from Kit, who’d excelled in pushing the boundaries on a daily basis.
As for Mari?
On the surface, the Marigold Chance he was looking at now was very different from the geeky, self-conscious girl who had been the star pupil in high school compared to Kit, who’d adored her just the same. Back then her long hair had been as wild and uncontrollable as her sister Rosa’s. Now the glorious, glossy, curly auburn hair had been tamed into a straight shoulder-length style, so that her fringe just covered the dark curves of her eyebrows.
Last evening at the club she had looked a lot more polished and confident. A lot taller than her five feet eight inches. He had watched her chat with old friends and relatives but, at the same time, he could not help but notice how she still drifted away into a corner unless one of her family was around. Mari may have changed on the outside, but he could still see the girl he had known, who liked to stay in the background, watching other people. Usually on the other side of a camera lens.
Perhaps that was why he had been so shocked at the transformation when Rosa hurt herself and the fear and deep emotion that she was capable of peeked out from her slick outer persona?
That could explain why he had sought out any opportunity to be in physical contact with her the previous evening. Helping her out of the club, into and out of his car, holding her next to him in the hospital waiting room and then hunting out a bed cover so that he could cuddle it around her on the sofa.
He was pathetic! But it had meant that he could really look at Mari close up.
There was a crease in her forehead, which showed her years of work and stress. No doubt the Swanhaven gossip network would update him with each and every achievement and promotion, but to him it was all there, written in that face.
That so very beautiful face. The pale skin. Untouched by sunshine or make-up. Plain. Natural. Cold. She might be living in California, but this girl wasn’t spending her time in the sun.
The pain in his chest, which had winded him at the shock of seeing her again out of the blue, meant that it almost hurt to look at her.
Mari was still a girl living inside her head. Contained. His best friend’s clever sister. The girl who had tried so hard to take over the reins when her brother drowned in a freak sailing accident and their father deserted them. He knew that in her eyes she had failed and her little family had been torn apart in pain and grief.
The ghosts of the past still ruled the closed interior world where Marigold Chance spent her life. Those dark days were still there, acting as a barrier between them.
And there was no getting away from that—they could not go back to the people they had been as teenagers. And maybe he didn’t want to.
His life was in Florida. Not a small coastal town in Dorset. It had been his decision to launch the sailing school in Florida. Now he had to prove that André and the charity could rely on him to stay the course. And that was precisely what he was going to do. The faster he could finish the house and get back to his new life, the better.
Mari and Ethan lay on the floor of the conservatory, with their bodies stretched out in opposite directions. Both of their heads were resting on the same small lounger cushion so that Mari could just feel Ethan’s head move as he looked around. Dusk had fallen over the shore outside the window and the light fittings were still bare wires hanging loosely from the ceiling.
Ethan shuffled his jeans-clad bottom on the thick cream tiles Mari had just spent an hour buffing to a lustrous shine. ‘This truly is the best way to test that the under-floor heating is working properly. Seriously. Temperature sensors are just not the same.’
‘I shall have to take your word for that—but it does sort of make sense. Radiators would look totally out of place in here.’ Mari raised her head towards the ceiling. ‘This is a truly excellent viewing position.’
She dropped her head back so that she could just feel the contact with his short-cropped hair, and looked up to the slanting clear glass roof of the conservatory. Snow had slid from the special glass and most of the clouds had been blown away during the past hour to reveal patches of sky, already twinkling with stars. There was no moon, and the constellations were clear and sharp, as though newly painted.
‘Come here often?’ Mari asked, chewing the inside of her mouth to block the smile in her voice. ‘Or do you bring all of your lady friends here to impress them with the view?’
Ethan chuckled. ‘This is the first chance I’ve had to actually enjoy the place. The wooden floor went down three weeks ago. I only had a weekend to get the job done, then I had to get across to see André and finalise our sailing project plans for the rest of the year. Busy, busy.’
‘Ethan the carpenter. This is going to take some time for me to get used to. Tell me about southern Florida. What made you stay there?’
‘Accident. Serendipity if you like. My first major sponsor ran an upmarket hotel and apartment complex on the coast, and I just loved it down there. Climate. Lifestyle. The whole package. And plenty of work. The world-class yachting fraternity love Miami and the Caribbean. Add in the small fact that my dad has built an amazing architectural firm back in his home town and suddenly Florida ticks all of the right boxes.’
‘Ah. Does that mean you had a lot more to prove?’
Ethan’s answer was a low chuckle that made the floorboards vibrate beneath them. ‘Oh, yes. Still working on that one. Although I think he still hasn’t totally recovered from the shock of me actually offering to stay in one place long enough to teach sailing. How about you? Silicon Valley I can understand, but you could work anywhere. Why stay in California?’
‘I actually went to Los Angeles because of a boy, but California has everything I need. There’s a lot going on at the moment, which is why I’m flying back on Tuesday.’
Ethan swung his legs up and turned around so that he was facing Mari.
‘Whoa. Hold it right there. You. The famous No Chance girl, moved to a city because of a boy? This I have to hear about.’
She shrugged. ‘There you go, jumping to the wrong conclusions. I never said I was there for romance, did I? The boy in question was a placement student at the IT company I worked for in Swanchester who casually mentioned that he had been invited to a recruitment interview with a major Silicon Valley firm, but he was on his way to cancel. He had already accepted another offer closer to home.’
‘What happened?’
‘I sweet-talked my way into taking his place, had a great interview and got the job. Right place, right time. And I’ve been there ever since.’
‘Hmm. Funny how things happen. Great opportunities love to just fall out of the sky. Would I know the name of the firm?’
Mari reached into the back pocket of her trousers with much squirming and passed Ethan a creased and slightly warm business card.
He gave a low whistle. ‘You weren’t kidding. My dad has used this company. Not bad for a girl from Swanhaven. Not bad at all.’
‘Why, thank you, kind sir,’ Mari replied in her best Californian accent. ‘The surfing dudes just love my cute accent on the telephone.’
She fluffed up her hair, and then remembered that the estate agent was supposed to be e-mailing her after 4:00 p.m. to confirm the time for the house auction. ‘Speaking of which, I suppose I should be getting back. I need to check my messages.’
The Boy is Back in Town Page 7