Page 26 of The Wedding Proposal

‘Right,’ she returned, woodenly.

Together, they watched Oscar walk up the quayside then turn and disappear from view between the toilet block and the kiosk.

‘Who was that charming man?’ Lucas’s tone was dry.

‘He’s one of the volunteers at the centre. I only met him for the first time today. I didn’t take to him.’ Elle was very aware that Lucas still held her hand. The obvious thing was to free herself, but the feel of his fingers around hers was comforting — if uncomfortably hot. For several unsettling moments she felt as if his pulse became hers.

‘He looked kind of fond of you.’

She nodded, still thinking about their hands. Touching. But neither of them mentioning it.

‘He seems to have taken a shine.’

‘Is he a problem?’

She pulled a face. ‘I hope not. I have to work with him.’

Lucas studied her for a moment and then changed the subject. ‘Loz wandered past, asking for you.’ He turned towards the saloon, which meant that the unlinking of their hands happened naturally, casually.

‘Thanks. I’ll be heading her way in a few minutes.’ Then, because Elle was glad that Lucas had helped her out with Oscar, and because they were stuck with the current living arrangements for the summer, she offered impulsively, ‘I’m planning to eat aboard, this evening. Want to join me?’

He took a moment to turn the idea over. Then, gruffly, ‘Thanks. I’ll supply the drink.’

She showered and changed, reassuring herself that she’d done the right thing, that it would show how over each other they were if they could share a meal together and be civilised. Remembering all the meals they’d eaten together in their old home, at the homes of his parents, her parents, Simon, Charlie, their friends, their colleagues, at restaurants, in bars, on picnics. And trying not to.

* * *

It was almost a relief that when she stepped back aboard much later that afternoon that Lucas was nowhere to be seen. After yet another shower and change, she began washing salad leaves and big beef tomatoes, slicing up crusty Maltese bread and spreading it with butter, rolling up pink glistening slices of ham to place appetisingly on the plates.

Then she felt the slightest dip of the boat and looked along the deck to see Lucas on board, a bag cradled in the crook of his arm.

‘We could eat on the flybridge.’ He raised a questioning eyebrow.

She answered lightly. ‘That would be fun. A curious cross between picnicking and doing things in style.’

At least it seemed stylish to her to be perched up at the little table on top of the boat as evening cast lengthening shadows. The golden sun reaching beneath the bimini felt gorgeous on Elle’s bare arms and legs now that it had lost its earlier scorching intensity, and the flybridge caught the breeze though it was only feet above the blue and glittering sea.

The usual stream of cars grumbled along the road. ‘What’s that way?’ Elle nodded at the road leading in the other direction from Sliema as she uncapped a bottle of cold water.

Lucas held out his glass. ‘Msida’s just around the coast. You can either follow the Ta’ Xbiex seafront road round to it or cut across the promontory. There’s another marina there, and a big residential district. If you carry on, past Pieta and through Floriana, you get to Valletta. The water taxi whizzed us between the two but it takes a lot longer by road.’

They sat down to dinner together at the table. Relaxed evening meals crowded into Elle’s memory: smiling, eating, talking. Kissing. In those days, Lucas might have pulled a face at the leafy salad she’d produced, but now he accepted the meal with polite thanks.

His contribution was wine from the local Marsovin vineyard and, after the main course, a lavish lemon gateau he’d stowed in the flybridge fridge, part of a unit that included a grill and a tiny sink.

Elle laughed. ‘Do the Maltese produce many desserts like this?’

Lucas filled her wine glass and replaced the bottle in its cooler. ‘I don’t think you have to worry about calories. You look thinner than when I last saw you.’

She dropped her eyes. The last time he’d seen her she’d been clearing her stuff out of his house — he’d arrived home unexpectedly and watched her with bleak dark eyes as she’d stumbled and fumbled her way through boxes and bags, stuttering about quite understanding that he wanted out, and it being better this way.

Because it had been; better for him and better for his parents.

The memory diminished her appetite and she left more than half of her portion of gateau. Lucas, who was scraping his fork around his plate, raised his eyebrows and Elle found herself pushing her leftovers to him in an echo of old behaviour. As he industriously set about clearing her plate, she let her head tip so that she could look up past the hoop where a cluster of boxes sat beside two sleek silver horns, all related to the GPS and television and other stuff she didn’t need. The sky had turned a luminous purple ready for nightfall. ‘I may have a bit of a situation with that guy, Oscar. I found a porn stash on one of the computers and he said things that make me think it’s his.’

Lucas paused, fork poised. ‘What sort of things?’

‘That it’s perfectly natural and people are human. I don’t know if I ought to say something to Joseph, the centre manager. I’d assumed it was the kids but Oscar’s a youth leader.’

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