Page 51 of The Wedding Proposal

He looked surprised. ‘Was I that shallow?’

She smiled at his air of injury. ‘Just pointing out that you’re more developed.’

He began to say something that began ‘Except where—’

But then Joseph came to the door, saying over his shoulder to Carmelo, ‘Let’s ask Lucas to sit outside with you for a moment while I talk to Elle.’

Obligingly, Lucas went outside and began to chat to Carmelo.

Elle looked at Joseph. ‘Is it anything very bad?’

With a sigh as he took a seat on the sofa, Joseph lifted his hands. ‘Tonight his mother and his grandfather were drinking and they had a huge argument, shouting and swearing. Things were thrown. Carmelo was very frightened, so he ran away. It has happened before but I think a hatred for the tension is growing in him.’ Behind his glasses, his eyes were sombre.

‘Poor kid.’ Elle felt a weight inside her for any child who had to live with that kind of daily unhappiness. Her own home had been uncomfortable at times, but the weaponry had been silence rather than screams and missiles.

‘I’m going to take him home, now. I think he wants to go. I expect the adults will be sleeping off the drink and it will soon be forgotten.’ He hesitated. ‘He didn’t want you to take him home because he’s ashamed of where he lives. He sees what other children have and he knows that what he has is not a nice home. But he’s powerless to change it.’

Elle felt tears burn her eyes. ‘Poor kid,’ she said again. ‘What can we do?’

‘I don’t believe I need to involve the social worker. I’ll speak to his priest and I think the priest will speak to Carmelo’s mother. He has done so before and she always improves for a while.’ Joseph brushed back his hair and stifled a yawn. He nodded up the road. ‘Maria’s been waiting in the car. I’ve just texted her and she’s on her way to fetch us.’

In two minutes Maria arrived, driving slowly up the marina access road, waving cheerfully to Elle as Joseph and Carmelo said their goodnights and crossed to meet her. Maria got out to greet tired little Carmelo with a smile.

Once they had packed themselves into the car, turned and cruised slowly away, Elle turned with a sigh to find Lucas leaning against the cabin door frame. ‘I hate this,’ she said, vehemently. ‘I hate all adults who make kids miserable when a few kind words would make them happy.’

‘It certainly makes me appreciate the safety and security of my own upbringing.’ Lucas’s face was sombre.

Suddenly, Elle found herself wiping fiercely at hot eyes. ‘Your parents were great.’

His eyebrows shot up. ‘You thought they were a nightmare.’

Elle sniffed. ‘Only to me, because they didn’t think I was right for you.’ Words flowed out of her, uncensored. ‘That’s how much they love you, that they’d have the guts to tell you that you were making a mistake.’

Lucas closed the space between them, wrapping his arms around her, resting her head on his shoulder and his head on top of hers. ‘All the time we were together you resented my parents and now you’re praising them. You are one weird woman, Elle Jamieson.’

Elle’s sniffles wavered for an instant into laughter. ‘I resented being considered bad for you. Now that that’s no longer an issue, I can see that everything they did was because they wanted the best for you.’

His breath was hot against her hair. ‘I don’t think I ever understood you.’

‘No,’ she agreed, sadly.

Chapter Fifteen

On Sunday, when Lucas had disappeared in the green pick-up to teach tourists how to breathe underwater, and knowing that it was something she’d put off long enough, Elle phoned The Briars, the residential care home where her mother lived.

She lay on her bed, listening as she was put through to her mother’s floor and footsteps fading away as their owner went to find her mother’s key carer.

While she waited, she enjoyed the motion of the boat, making her feel a bit as if she were lying on a hammock or a garden swing. The air con was off and the weather was hot. It was hard to imagine that back in England her mother was living in a room not unlike an upmarket version of student accommodation, containing a bed and a wardrobe with a small bathroom leading off.

Joanna Jamieson did have a big comfy armchair with a table and TV rather than a desk, but her living quarters were a far cry from the gleaming house she’d presided over throughout her marriage. In those days they’d had more spacious, gracious rooms than the three of them had needed, the stylish furnishings including a piano that no one knew how to play.

The house had been sold when Elle’s parents split up. Joanna had rented a place while she decided whether to buy a bungalow with a garden or an apartment overlooking the park. She’d seemed in no hurry to commit. Her husband ‘trading her in for a younger model’ had made her reassess her life. She’d joined friends on a cruise. She’d bought new clothes.

Sadly, Joanna had still been deciding between the bungalow or the apartment when the stroke had seared through her brain. Her capital was now being briskly drained away by the costs of her care, despite Elle’s contributions.

The sound of returning footsteps and the phone being scraped across a surface as it was picked up interrupted Elle’s thoughts. She found herself talking to Nerys, her mother’s key carer, a lovely, calm, sympathetic woman with a ready smile.

‘I rang to see how my mum’s getting on.’

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