Page 75 of The Wedding Proposal

Elle tried to laugh but it stuck in her throat. ‘No.’ She dropped her chin on her hand. ‘You know you said I could stay on Seadancer if I needed to? I think I probably need to.’

Chapter Twenty-Five

After seeing Kayleigh back to her hotel in Qawra and paying a pretty hefty taxi fare, Lucas arrived at the Shady Lady in the morning at roughly the time he should have been leaving for Dive Meddi. He would have to ring Vern, soon.

He felt as if he’d run a marathon. His legs, his everything, ached. His head buzzed with the spaced-out gritty-eyed feeling that came from lack of sleep. His hair was thick and tangled with dried salt water and his scalp itched under the morning sun.

His heart lifted to see that the Shady Lady’s aft door stood open, meaning Elle hadn’t left to go up to the centre. He thought she’d said yesterday that this morning she was due to run some kind of workshop for the younger kids, but time seemed to have looped a bit in his memory in the stress of Charlie’s accident. Was it only last night? It felt like a week ago.

Yet the memory of fishing Charlie up to the surface and towing him between boats that shifted like enormous spooked horses was fresh enough to make him feel queasy.

In a haze of fatigue, he trudged over the gangplank and into the saloon. He paused by the helmsman’s chair, put down his bag of last night’s wet clothes, listened, and caught the sound of a door closing. Heart lifting, he followed the sound, treading softly down the steps, past the galley, all spick and span. He paused.

Inside the cabin, Elle had a suitcase open on the bed and was folding into it her clothes, which had only recently taken up residence in the stowage areas of his cabin.

‘What the fuck?’ He could hear raw disbelief in his voice.

Elle swung around, dropped the dress she’d been holding and flew across the room to throw her arms around him. She smelled of shower gel and freshly washed hair. ‘Are you all right? How’s Charlie?’

‘He got away with severe concussion and a broken leg. They’re keeping him in. What’s with the suitcase?’ He didn’t lift his arms to hug her back. Just stared at the scene over her shoulder. He’d surprised Elle packing. Again.

‘No spine damage? Fantastic!’ She heaved a huge, theatrical sigh of relief. ‘Come and sit down.’ She tried to take his hand to usher him along. ‘Shall I get you coffee or something? Have you eaten? Or do you want to sleep first?’

He made himself immovable. ‘First,’ he returned, implacably. ‘I want to know why you’re packing.’

She took a deep breath and pushed back her hair. Shadows darkened the skin beneath her eyes but she smiled. ‘Your parents are coming out to Malta. Loz says I can move onto Seadancer; then they won’t have the nightmare of trying to find a hotel room in high season on top of worrying about Charlie, will they? They’ll want to stay here, anyway. It’s your dad’s brother’s boat.’ She wasn’t looking at him properly. He felt as if she were looking at the space between his eyes instead of into them.

He put up both his hands. ‘Whoa. My parents are coming out here? How do you know?’

‘Didn’t they ring the hospital last night?’

He forced his muzzy brain to focus. ‘Why would they? Did you phone them or something?’

Dismay fleeted across her face. ‘Your mum called your phone and I thought I’d better answer. I told her about Charlie because — because it would have been odd not to, wouldn’t it? I think they tried to ring Kayleigh afterwards but she’d left her phone on the flybridge.’ Her pale brows were still drawn down. ‘Have I done the wrong thing? Isn’t Charlie going to be all right? Do you need to prepare them for bad news?’

Relief began to trickle through him, relaxing his limbs, which, he suddenly realised, had tensed almost painfully when he’d seen that suitcase. He reached and pulled her against him, hoping he didn’t smell too much of hospitals. ‘Sorry. I haven’t slept. My brain’s not functioning. I came in here and saw you packing—’ He stroked the silken fall of her hair.

She pulled back to look into his face, properly this time, comprehension in her eyes. ‘Oh. Weird stuff from the past?’

He laughed. ‘Sorry. Yes. How about we start this conversation again? Charlie is going to be OK. He has deep concussion and a broken leg but apart from throwing up and sleeping a lot, he’s returning to his old self. I don’t want to eat, I can’t sleep until I’ve done some things, but coffee would be fantastic. Your turn.’

Her body shifted slightly as she relaxed against him, turning her head so that her cheek fitted comfortably against his collarbone. ‘Your mum rang your phone. I told them what had happened; Loz and Davie had turned up just as the ambulance left and Loz gave your mum the information about the hospital. Your parents are coming straight over so I’m vacating to give them room.’

‘Right.’ He tried to digest the information, aware of the thrust of her breasts against him, that his hands had naturally come to rest on the curve of her buttocks. ‘And you’re not at Nicholas Centre because . . . ?’

‘Because I wanted to wait for you and I’m moving my stuff. I called Joseph and he’s postponed my workshop.’

‘I need to make calls. My parents and Vern.’ He still didn’t move, just holding her against him, enjoying the softness. But he couldn’t hold back a question. ‘How did talking to Mum go?’

Her muscles tensed. ‘OK.’

‘OK?’

‘Yes. OK.’

If he hadn’t been so damn tired he would have tried to encourage more information out of her than that. ‘Don’t go,’ he murmured.

‘I have to. You know how hard it will be for your parents to find a decent hotel at this time of the year. All the last-minute holiday companies will have booked everything up.’

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