Page 70 of The Wedding Proposal

Elle felt incredibly good to be alive, doing something worthwhile with people who would put in a couple of extra hours to give eight kids a treat. Even Oscar, who, in the presence of Lucas, wasn’t hanging around Elle but was paying attention to Polly.

Polly was reacting to his heavy-handed pursuit with smiles, possibly pleased to find a man larger than herself.

Elle turned her attention to Lucas, who looked appealing in dark red swimming trunks. She was glad they’d agreed not to look ahead, for now. Just to value this amazing time, when they’d each left their old lives behind and, by luck, coincidence and the meddling of Simon, found each other again.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Back on board the Shady Lady when the children had been dropped safely off, Elle couldn’t stop yawning as she washed salad in the galley. It was as if her first taste of scuba, albeit in five feet of water, had worn her out. Or it could be that her nights had been pretty busy, recently. Whichever, she felt relaxed and happy just to know that Lucas was somewhere on the boat.

Kayleigh was taking time out from her convention to come over from Qawra for dinner and Charlie had rushed off to wait where her bus would stop on the other side of the gardens. He’d moved onto the Shady Lady on Sunday, content now that he could snatch an occasional few hours with Kayleigh, and knowing they could squeeze in another four or five days in Malta after the convention wound up and before Kayleigh would have to return to the UK and work.

Charlie’s job was looking dicey as insurance problems were making it unclear whether it would be possible for the restaurant to reopen. When he returned home it might be to join the unemployment queue, so he was planning to maximise opportunities for fun in the meantime.

Lucas emerged from the cabin, slotted himself behind Elle and nuzzled her neck.

‘You’ll make dinner late,’ she complained, even while rubbing herself against him.

He gave a hmmmmm deep in his throat and brushed a kiss into the crook of her shoulder. ‘How can salad be late?’

She shivered, trying to concentrate on rinsing glowing red tomatoes. ‘Did Charlie buy the wine?’

‘No idea.’ He dipped a finger into her bowl of cold water and then touched it to her cleavage.

She let her head fall back as the moisture trailed between her breasts. ‘You could check.’ The droplet trickled down into her bra. She closed her eyes at the tiny flare of pleasure. ‘You’re getting me all wet.’

He laughed. ‘Nice thought.’ Reluctantly, he released her with a gentle bite at the spot just below her ear and she went on to washing lettuce as he investigated the drink stocks and began to ferry a selection up to the flybridge.

Charlie and Kayleigh arrived, Charlie more freckled than ever, Kayleigh’s nose pink from the sun, and the four made a leisurely meal in the last of the day’s sunshine, high enough up to catch the breeze. The boat rocked on the swell, a sensation that Elle had finally become inured to, as they polished off goats’ cheese and hobz along with their salad. Red wine and white stood on the table and soon a couple of empty bottles were languishing in the sink of the wet bar.

Lucas’s hand rested warm and familiar on Elle’s thigh as the dusk rolled swiftly into darkness.

To Kayleigh, this was still enough of a novelty to marvel over. ‘Look at you two! It’s kind of weird and dead right, both at the same time.’ She sipped from her glass of red wine and let her cheek rest on Charlie’s shoulder. ‘So tell me about before, how you met and everything.’

Elle was feeling drowsy, now, not only tired but lulled by the boat and relaxed by a respectable quantity of white wine. ‘These guys were having some kind of race. It was a stag do and they were racing from one bar to another.’

‘The last one there had to buy the next round,’ Lucas supplied.

‘We were free running,’ put in Charlie.

Elle laughed. ‘Free running! Isn’t that the thing where you race over balconies and run up walls and roofs? What I saw from Lucas was more falling over rubbish bins.’

‘A big rubbish bin,’ Lucas pointed out.

‘Free-falling more than free running, then.’ Kayleigh patted Charlie’s head.

Charlie looked obstinate. ‘It was free running, wasn’t it Lucas?’

Lucas’s fingers traced idle circles on Elle’s skin. The dress she was wearing wasn’t long and he’d inched the hem further up her leg so that now his fingertips were leaving delicious trails of goosebumps in their wake. ‘I don’t remember leaping over balconies.’

‘Maybe not balconies, but we were doing rail flow on those railings beside the steps in the pedestrian centre.’

Slipping down further in his seat, Lucas laughed. ‘I do remember vaguely that you got into video tutorials about that kind of stuff. I don’t think I even know what rail flow is.’

‘But I remember showing you how to sit and spin.’ Charlie was obviously intent that Lucas should confirm his memory of events. ‘You get your inside hand on the rail, swing with your inside leg, power yourself up and over so that your legs are over the other side for a second. Then you change hands and keep your legs going to complete the circle, and you end up on the side you started.’

‘I think I remember you doing that.’ Lucas sounded as if he was trying to humour his little brother.

‘It was like this,’ said Charlie, leaping up, tripping over himself, making Kayleigh laugh. Undeterred, he grabbed on to the low guardrail that encircled the flybridge, swung back a leg and looped it up and over the rail; the other leg followed on as he scissored it over the drop between the Shady Lady and Fallen Star. A quick change of hand, another scissoring of his legs and Charlie was standing back on the deck of the flybridge.

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