Page 45 of The Wedding Proposal

‘Kayleigh’s not upset—’

‘Hello,’ said an amused voice from the doorway. ‘Sorry to butt in on your early-morning spat.’ And there was Kayleigh, silhouetted against the streaming sunlight, gazing at them both curiously. ‘Why are you arguing about me?’

Slowly, Elle subsided into her seat, face flaming. ‘I think you might prefer it if I move off the Shady Lady.’

The chords on Lucas’s throat stood out but he said nothing.

Kayleigh sauntered right into the saloon, dropping her bag onto a sofa. ‘Why?’

Embarrassed to the point of inarticulacy, Elle’s words tripped and stumbled. ‘I f-feel you’ve been hinting that you don’t like us sh-sharing the boat.’

‘I haven’t been hinting that.’ Kayleigh sat down beside Lucas, bumping him with her hip so that he moved up and gave her more room. He fixed her with a glower.

Kayleigh’s eyes flicked from Lucas to Elle. ‘You two make me laugh.’

‘Laugh?’ Elle began.

What she might have said next was lost when Lucas’s phone began to ring and he scrabbled it from his pocket with a growl. ‘Now’s not a good time,’ he snapped at his caller. Then, ‘What?’ He listened for several moments, before exploding: ‘What a typical, half-arsed, lunatic Charlie-type plan.’

Despite her frustration, Elle found herself grinning. Lucas was so often exasperated with his brother, Charlie. And Charlie was so good at winding him up. If Elle had ever wished for a sibling, it would have been for a brother like Charlie. He was so unlike the rest of his family, not just because of his dark red hair and freckles but because of his low-maintenance, accepting, unambitious, larky nature.

Lucas’s voice rose. ‘It doesn’t look as if I have much choice. Does it?’ With a stab of his finger, he ended the call and looked up at his audience. ‘My idiot little brother is nearly here in a taxi from Malta International Airport.’

Elle’s heart gave a glad squeeze. She cried, ‘Charlie’s here?’

At exactly the same time that Kayleigh shouted it even more loudly.

‘Didn’t you know he was coming?’ added Elle, trying not to feel a teeny pinch of jealousy that of course Kayleigh would know Charlie, and was beaming all over her face just at the sound of his name. She’d bet that Kayleigh got on with Fiona and Geoffrey better than Elle had, too.

Not that that would be hard.

Lucas grimaced. ‘Even Charlie didn’t know he was coming. The restaurant where he works had an after-hours kitchen fire and has been closed down for a few weeks, so he promptly went online and booked himself a flight.’

He pushed his fingers through his hair as a taxi approached up the marina access road, nosing its way towards them. ‘Here he is. Bloody nuisance.’

But then he and Kayleigh were both out of their seats and bumping shoulders in the doorway in their haste to be the first with their greeting.

Elle watched through the open doors as Charlie climbed out of the taxi and dropped a big red squashy holdall to the ground while he fished for his wallet to pay the driver. He didn’t look to have changed much since Elle had last seen him, still nearly as tall as Lucas but softer and less grim.

Lucas called some exasperated remark.

Then Kayleigh was bounding into Charlie’s arms and Charlie was swinging her around as if she was the person in the world he most wanted to see.

Suddenly shy of intruding, for several seconds Elle hung back. But then she realised that Charlie would come on board the Shady Lady and it would look strange for Elle to have been sitting in the saloon and ignoring him.

So she followed in the wake of the others, stepping down onto the bathing platform and hesitantly onto the quay.

Charlie halted in mid-hug. ‘Elle?’ he breathed, incredulously.

In the sudden silence, Kayleigh looked from brother to brother, amusement in her eyes.

Lucas looked uncomfortable. ‘Elle’s living on the boat,’ he mumbled.

Charlie’s eyes widened. He stared at Lucas. ‘Aren’t you living on the boat?’

‘Yes. But it’s . . . We’re not—’ Lucas ground to a halt.

‘It was Si-Simon.’ Elle paused to swallow her stutter. ‘He took it into his head to agree to each of us living here for the summer, but didn’t tell the other one what he’d done.’

---