by Annie Seaton
‘Do you think that’s necessary?’ Liv frowned. ‘Would it really make a difference?’ She looked down at the bubbles that were almost to the top of the bath tub. ‘I’m coming over on Monday and I’m not staying after that, so I really won’t have any spare time before I fly out.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Look, I really am sorry. If I could help—’
There was silence at the other end for a moment. ‘I’m sorry, that was a selfish way to frame my request. Let me rephrase that,’ Byron said. ‘We’re having a barbeque tomorrow, and it would be lovely if you would join us. If you could talk to Aunty Tat too, that would be a bonus. Do you have any plans yet?’
‘No. But—’ Liv bit her lip. ‘I really do have a lot of work to prepare before Monday. I’m up here for work, not pleasure.’ As soon as the words left her mouth, she felt like a fraud. He knew she’d been out on a tour today.
‘How about I organise for you to be picked up, come over here for an early lunch, and then we’ll have you back over there in plenty of time to work in the afternoon. Her dementia has been worse these past few days and we’re trying to avoid having to medicate her again. A conversation might convince her that you’re not her sister.’
‘She’s been really upset since she spoke to me?’
‘Yes, very.’ His voice was almost pleading. ‘Sunday lunch is an event at Aunty Tat’s. It’s always busy. I can promise you a lovely meal in a beautiful old house and a fast trip across the Passage. And you’ll be helping our family out.’
‘Why not?’ Liv tried to make amends for her comment about work. ‘I’m only here for a few days, and it will give me a chance to see a bit more of the area.’
‘Thank you so much. I’ll organise for you to be picked up from the foyer at ten-thirty and be taken to the boat. I’ll look forward to it, Liv.’
‘Me too.’
‘Have you chosen anywhere to have dinner tonight on Hamo?’ he asked.
‘I was just going to get room service while I waited for a call.’
‘No way! You can’t do that when you’re visiting the island.’ He quickly gave her directions to a restaurant and she smiled when she heard the name. ‘I’m a part-owner of Fruits de Mer,’ he said. ‘I’ll let them know you’re coming. Enjoy your meal. It’s on the house as a thank you for helping us out.’
‘There’s really no need—’
Before Liv could protest, Byron cut her off. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
It looked like she was going out for a seafood dinner.
Liv shook her head with a smile. Grabbing a glass and a small bottle of wine from the mini bar fridge, she poured the sparkling liquid and set it carefully on the edge of the bath. Flicking the sound system to low, she picked a random mix of music to relax to.
After a long soak and a luxurious shampoo, she blow-dried her hair and left it loose over her shoulders. She pulled out a brightly printed jersey dress patterned with tropical flowers and slipped on a pair of blue sandals. A dab of perfume to her wrists and a final look at her phone for a message—there wasn’t one—and Liv closed the door behind her.
The Fruits de Mer restaurant was on the lower ground floor of the hotel, behind reception. As she crossed to the entry to the restaurant, she glanced over at the tiki torches flickering on the sand. The soft light played on the fine bubbles of foam edging the sand, where tiny waves crept up the sloping beach as the tide came in. She waited in the doorway; there didn’t seem to be any waitstaff free at the moment. The restaurant had an Italian feel, with red-checked tablecloths covering the tables, candles burning in the centre of each one. The music was soft and the low buzz of conversation created a welcoming ambience. Liv took a deep breath, enjoying the unfamiliar relaxed looseness of her muscles. If this is what one day in the islands did for your wellbeing, she vowed to come for a longer holiday as soon as she could.
And it would probably be sooner than later, the way things had gone today.
The door from the kitchen opened and she turned with a smile, expecting to be shown to her table. But her smile froze on her lips as the man crossed the room towards her, flicking a white napkin over his arm.
Captain Jay stood in front of her and his smile was cheeky. ‘Ms Sheridan, welcome to Fruits de Mer.’ This time his accent was perfect as he rolled his tongue around the French name. ‘I noticed you had a booking.’
‘So this is another one of your interests? Or were you just delivering the fish?’ Sarcasm dripped from her words.
‘Just helpin’ out, Liv. A friend owns the place.’
‘Yes, I know. I was talking to Byron earlier.’ Liv frowned and stared at him. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect you were following me.’
‘Now why would you ever think that? Besides, I was here first.’ His eyes were full of laughter and Liv softened a little bit.
‘I’ve been on the island for just over twenty-four hours and wherever I go, there you are.’
‘Turning up like a bad smell. Go on, say it, that’s what you were thinking, wasn’t it?’
‘Well, maybe the first time I saw you.’ Liv was surprised by the chuckle that bubbled up from her chest; that glass of wine must have mellowed her. ‘I heard you were a jack of all trades. Just how many jobs do you have on this island?’
‘You’ll have to hang around for a while longer if you want to find that out.’ He led her over to a table by the window, overlooking the lawn and the beach, pulled out her chair and waited for her to take a seat before he picked up the napkin and spread it on her lap. He handed her the menu and the wine list.
‘I’ll leave you to decide. And’—another grin—‘you’ve probably had enough of my company today.’
Liv looked down at the menu and didn’t disagree.
As she ordered and ate her solitary meal, the restaurant filled up. The whole island seemed to be quite a romantic destination; like on the Lady May today, all of the diners were couples. For the first time since she’d left university, loneliness tugged at her. How nice it would be to be spending the evening with someone who cared about her. A beautiful meal, a bottle of wine shared in the company of someone who was interested in her, not just how much money she could make for a company.
The enjoyment of the day left her as the spectre of Monday’s meeting loomed again. She pushed her plate away, stood and walked across to the counter. As the cashier looked for her bill, Jay emerged from the kitchen.
‘I’ve got this, Kate.’ His smile was wide as Liv held out her visa card. His sour mood on the boat seemed to have completely disappeared.
‘No need. It’s all taken care of. Byron said you’re his guest.’
‘Thank you.’ Liv nodded and headed for the door without looking back. If he thought she was rude, she didn’t care. She could feel his eyes on her as she walked across the restaurant, and a strange shimmy of warmth ran down her back.
As soon as she reached her room, she checked her calls and email, but there was nothing from her father. She tried again but the call went straight to voicemail. Frustration filled her, and she opened her email program and pulled up the details of the two others he’d said were flying up for the community meeting. Maybe one of them could give her a bit more information on the changes. When both of those numbers also went straight to voicemail, Liv hurled the phone onto the bed.
Liv set the alarm early to give herself plenty of time to call her father before she was picked up for the trip to the mainland, but the next morning, the call went to voicemail again. A niggle of worry tugged at her; her father was always available. She opened her laptop and checked her email but nothing had come in overnight.
Her mood was unsettled further by the prospect of the day ahead. A chance five-minute meeting with a stranger surely wouldn’t have caused so many problems for the elderly Aunty Tat and there was really nothing she could do to help.
But she’d promised to help out. Once she’d logged off, Liv dressed casually in a pair of white capri pants, a loose midnight-blue sleeveless silk shirt
and flat shoes. After she’d secured her Mac in the safe, she put her phone and purse into a small bag and slung it over her shoulder.
The bright sunlight shone through the glass doors fronting the water in the reception foyer. It was another cloudless warm day, and there were already quite a few boats in the bay. The water in the middle of the channel parted in a spray of white foam and she stopped, curious to see what had caused it. Liv’s mouth dropped open as the silver surface of a huge whale breached the water and hung in the air for a moment before coming down with a huge splash. Another one rolled on the surface beside it, slapping a fin.
‘Oh, how beautiful.’ Liv couldn’t help smiling as she walked outside to join the crowd gathered on the lawn. For a few minutes, she watched the whales playing, before heading out to the circular drive. This place was magical. It was going to be hard to fly back to the reality of a cold, wet and windy Sydney.
One of the island buggies was parked in the waiting bay and the driver beckoned her over. ‘Ms Sheridan?’ he asked.
‘Yes, that’s me.’
‘Jump in, and I’ll take you across to the marina.’
Liv slipped into the small buggy with a smile. ‘Thank you.’
The trip down the hill and through the small shopping precinct and restaurant area only took a couple of minutes. She pulled out her purse to pay for the ride as he stopped at the building at the front of the marina, but the driver shook his head.
‘All sorted. Fynn took care of it.’
‘Oh, thank you.’ Fynn? She wondered who Fynn was.
‘Serendipity in’—he looked at the clipboard on the seat between them—‘F seventeen. You go down past this main building, stay to the left of the fuel jetty, go almost to the end of the finger wharf and you’ll see number seventeen on your right. Serendipity is a beauty.’
‘Thank you. How long does it take to get over to the mainland?’ Liv was bemused. She had no idea what the beauty was, but she assumed it was going to be some sort of boat.
‘In her? No more than half an hour.’
She climbed out of the buggy and, a few minutes later, was thankful for the flat canvas shoes she’d worn as she traversed her way down a steep ramp to the wharf she’d been directed to. She counted her way along the berths before she realised they were numbered on a small post as well. The luxury cruisers she passed had to be worth mega dollars. It certainly was the playground of the rich.
Coming to number seventeen, she stopped. A sleek white motor cruiser with a fly bridge filled the berth. Serendipity, Airlie Beach was written in elegant letters along the back. She stood on her toes and peered over into the boat. The double glass doors were open but there was no sign of anyone on board. Making sure her bag was firmly over her shoulder, she stepped from the wharf onto the highly polished timber deck at the back of the boat.
‘Hello?’ she called. ‘Is anyone here?’
There was a sound from above and Liv waited as footsteps tapped down the stairway leading from the fly bridge to the saloon.
‘Oh, for God’s sake! You must be joking. You again?’ She rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her chest as she stared at Jay. ‘Really? Yet another job?’
‘Morning, Liv.’ His smile was wide. ‘No. This is a favour. Sunday is my day off. Byron asked me to take you over to the mainland.’
‘And this is the best you could do?’ She kept her face straight.
His brow lowered in a frown. ‘The best I could do what?’
‘A what? Sixty-foot luxury cruiser?’ She gestured to the boat. ‘Um, I was joking. Isn’t this a bit of overkill? A boat this size just to take me across to Airlie Beach?’
‘Well, Byron said you didn’t have a lot of time. He did suggest his helicopter, but it was already booked for a joy flight when I asked at the office.’
This time his expression was serious and it was Liv’s turn to widen her eyes. ‘His helicopter? And you were going to fly it?’
He nodded. ‘What’s wrong with that? We’d have been over there in no time.’
Liv shook her head and muttered under her breath, ‘Why me?’
‘Sorry, I didn’t catch that,’ he said.
‘Don’t worry.’ Being rude was not something she usually did but this guy … she looked up and narrowed her eyes.
‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘Who’s Fynn?’
‘Fynn? That would be me.’
Did the man never stop smiling?
‘I thought your name was Jay?’
He put his hand on his waist and inclined his head. ‘Fynn James at your service, Ms Sheridan. Captain J? Short for Captain James.’
‘Oh. My mistake then.’ Like she was thinking a moment ago, Fynn or Captain Jay or whatever, really made her uncomfortable. For a fleeting moment, she thought about saying she’d changed her mind about going across to the mainland, but he turned to go inside before she could speak.
‘Come on in and drop your bag here. But before you do anything, would you mind taking your shoes off please. Boat rules.’
Liv obliged and followed him in, placing her bag on the coffee table beside a white leather sofa, and her shoes on the timbered floor in the saloon.
‘I’ll get you to give me a hand.’ Fynn gestured for her to follow him back out to the deck and pointed to two white ropes holding the boat to the wharf. ‘Once I start the engine, I’ll call down to you. If you can stand on the wharf and just slip them off the bollards, and throw them to the back deck, and then jump aboard, that would be a great help. Can you do that?’
‘Sounds easy enough,’ Liv said with a nod and went back out to the deck while he ran lightly up to the fly bridge. Moments later, the engines fired quietly and he called down, ‘Rightio, now.’
She jumped across onto the wharf and slipped the ropes off the bollards and threw the ropes onto the boat. She stepped back on board, rolled them up and stowed them in a side compartment before walking up the wooden stairway to the fly bridge.
‘Thanks. Take a seat.’ He glanced at her briefly as he manoeuvred the boat out of the pen and turned left into the main channel adjacent to the marina.
Liv took a seat at the table at the back of the fly bridge and leaned against the cushioned leather seat as they moved smoothly through the wide channel. Fynn’s attention—it was hard to get used to thinking of him as anything apart from Captain Jay—was focused on the water traffic going in and out. It was a busy Sunday morning and the weather was glorious. Liv tipped her head back and let the warm winter sun play on her face. The air was clear, and the water in the Passage sparkled as the light wind whipped it into small waves. Once they were clear, Fynn turned around and called out to Liv. ‘Come and sit up here. I can’t talk to you all the way back there.’
Liv moved slowly—and a bit reluctantly—to the U-shaped seating opposite the seat where he sat perched high in front of the controls. She’d been enjoying her solitude and would have preferred to stay there by herself and not have to make conversation. It was the first time she’d been aware of a man in a long time, and if she wasn’t mistaken, the interest was reciprocated.
He’d exchanged banter with her in the restaurant last night and already this morning, and he’d held her eyes for longer than necessary on the boat yesterday.
Whatever it was, she wasn’t going to do anything about it. Half an hour across to the mainland—no, it would be an hour in his company, because he’d have to bring her back too. Surely it wouldn’t be too hard to make small talk.
‘Lovely day,’ she said, and groaned inwardly.
Great conversation opener, Liv.
‘It is. It’d be a great day for a sail. I hate these things.’ He gestured around, and Liv followed the direction of his hand.
‘What things?’ she asked, frowning.
‘Byron’s playthings. Motor cruisers and their diesel fumes. Give me a sailing boat over a Cummins engine any day.’
‘Oh.’ Great conversationalist, I am. Liv racked her brains for a response but Fynn turned t
o her and his expression was closed.
‘Tell me about what you do at Sheridan Corp.’
Liv thought carefully before she responded. ‘I’m a project manager.’
‘And what are you going to manage? Up here, I mean?’ He stared straight ahead as they sped towards the coast.
‘Public relations.’
‘Ah, I see.’ He was quiet for a while. His comment yesterday had firmly placed him in the opposing camp, but now that she’d seen the beauty of the place, Liv knew it would be difficult to convince her about a coal loader in the vicinity if this was her home too. Dad had said that the community meeting was to assure the community that they were well-informed, but she knew that even though he said it was close, the project still hadn’t been signed off. She’d blithely accepted his words but now that she was up here and had seen the location for herself, she was beginning to wonder whether his certainty that he could get the project through was misplaced. As far as she knew, he hadn’t been up here either. Visiting the location was very different to looking at maps, facts and figures.
‘That’s the Derwent Hunter.’ Liv jumped as Fynn’s voice pulled her from her thoughts. ‘An old tall ship. If you have time, it’s a great day out.’
‘I won’t have time,’ she said quietly, and he turned his attention back to the boat.
The conversation from that point on was only to do with the docking of the boat, and the walk up to Abell Point Marina. Liv looked with interest at the conference centre in the marina complex. Lure was the venue for Monday’s community meeting. She was pleased to see it was quite a small centre, so hopefully the crowd wouldn’t be large.
Hopefully, it hadn’t been publicised much and no one would turn up. But she knew that was a vain hope and an inappropriate wish from a public relations project manager.
Fynn called a taxi and walked her over to the pickup bay at the top of the wharves. ‘I’ll call Byron and tell him to call me when you’re ready to go back,’ he said as he went to close the door of the taxi as she slid into the back seat.
‘You’re not coming?’
‘No, I’ve got some things to do in town.’