Page 8 of The Wedding Proposal

In a world where she’d begun to feel of no real importance to anybody, the decision to volunteer had given her at least the illusion of significance. She didn’t want to give it up before she’d begun. It was a commitment.

Also, Simon had got her a part-time job with some of his friends, David and Loz StJohn, as ‘the help’ on their big motor yacht. She’d hate to let them down.

She stared at the back of the Shady Lady, absently registering a warm velvet breeze on her skin.

She forced her mind to dwell on Lucas’s girlfriend. If ever Elle had lain awake and fantasised that somehow, some day, Lucas would tell her that he was sorry he’d judged her, sorry he’d been so black-and-white about everything, or even that he wasn’t one bit sorry but he’d accept her as she was. Well, now she could stop all that bloody nonsense. It couldn’t be more over.

For a few moments she allowed herself to indulge in regret. In memories of how Lucas had once made her feel. Then, squaring her shoulders, she started towards the Shady Lady, balancing along the plank and onto the bathing platform, stepping up into the cockpit, sliding open the doors and slipping into the saloon.

Lucas was holding an e-reader, lounging in the corner of the seating. When he looked up, his eyes were no longer glittering with anger. ‘I’ve talked to Simon. I’m sorry I was a bit of an arse when you arrived. It was a shock. It seems we both want to stay on the boat so we’d better act like grown-ups.’ He even smiled. ‘You’ve got the prior claim but at the beginning of the tourist season it really would be a mission for me to find a hotel or an apartment I could afford. And it’s not as if we haven’t shared before. So unless you intend to tip me overboard while I’m asleep, I plan to stay.’

A tiny amount of tension unhunched itself from Elle’s shoulders. ‘I can’t leave either. I simply don’t have the money.’

‘Fine, then,’ he said.

‘Yes.’ She made for her own cabin, suddenly overwhelmed with weariness, almost stumbling at the head of the galley steps.

‘I’ve just been wondering, though,’ he called after her, as if musing about something inconsequential, ‘whether Simon’s in love with you.’

Clutching the handrail, slowly, slowly, Elle turned back, fury boiling black and tarry in her heart. ‘If you try and make something strange and scuzzy about my friendship with Simon — the one worthwhile relationship in my life — I’ll not only tip you overboard, I’ll beat you to a bloody pulp and arrange for sharks to be out for their evening swim at the time.’

He blinked. ‘I’m joking.’

She turned away, down the stairs to the lower deck, and sought the sanctuary of her bed. ‘I’m not.’

Chapter Three

The next morning, Elle presented herself at the StJohn motor yacht. Loz had e-mailed her photos of Seadancer and she knew she was looking for a vessel about three times the size of the Shady Lady. Even so, she blinked at the height of the white-and-chrome decks rising majestically above her hull.

Not being practised at boat etiquette and there not being a door to knock on, Elle stood at the bottom of the gangplank and shouted. ‘Hello, Loz? Davie?’ She shaded her eyes. She’d walked only a few hundred yards to Seadancer’s berth but already she was dazzled by the morning sun and felt it like a weight on her shoulders.

A big pair of sunglasses and a curving fringe appeared on the side deck, then Loz’s smile, as big as a slice of watermelon in her shiny round face as she rattled out a stream of exclamations. ‘Elle! You’re early! Come aboard, come aboard, come aboard!’

Cheered by the warmth of her welcome, Elle made her way up the sloping gangplank, its guardrail already burning to the touch. ‘I’ve just come to say hello. I know I don’t start work until tomorrow afternoon.’

Loz treated her to a hot and enthusiastic hug. Her floaty top and cotton shorts were dazzling white in the sun, her flip-flops glittering with silver sequins. ‘Lovely! Davie’s forward, in the shade. Let’s go find him.’

Feeling much higher above the water than when aboard the Shady Lady, Elle filed behind Loz towards the foredeck, where they found Davie slouched in a director’s chair under a blue umbrella, his baseball cap pulled low and his feet propped on a red cool box.

Loz gurgled with laughter. ‘Wake up and say hello to Elle, Davie.’

Davie pushed his cap back on sleek silver hair and blinked. ‘I wasn’t asleep: I was thinking creative thoughts.’ His blue eyes smiled at Elle from a tanned face. In his sixties, now, but still a dude, Davie StJohn was a name that had graced sleeve notes since 1975 as a producer and session musician. Bands everyone had heard of had recorded at his production studio, Saintly John. He was even mentioned on a Pete Frame Rock Family Tree. How cool was that? Nowadays, he spent long periods on board Seadancer while someone else ran things back at the studio.

‘Thinking creative thoughts looks relaxing,’ Elle observed with a grin.

He hauled himself up to kiss her cheek, opened a small locker and pulled out two more chairs to unfold on the shady part of the deck. ‘Sit down and tell Loz your plans.’ He opened the cool box and produced a bottle of mineral water and three tumblers. ‘She’ll get it out of you so you might as well get it over with.’

Loz passed Elle a glass. ‘I’m not that bad. It’s going to be so great to have you here, Elle. I don’t know what to call your role, though. “Steward” sounds very formal.’

Elle widened her eyes. ‘It sounds like someone who has training and experience, too. I’m just domestic help.’

‘You’re an answer to a prayer,’ Loz corrected her kindly. ‘Davie and I are lazy and like being looked after. Why don’t you stay for lunch? We can prepare it together; then you’ll find out where everything in the galley is.’

Elle felt warmed by the spontaneous invitation. ‘Love to. Then I’ll go off this afternoon and find a shop to buy supplies. I have my induction at the Nicholas Centre tomorrow morning.’

‘We’ll show you. Davie can help you carry your bags back to the Shady Lady.’ Loz looked pleased with this disposition of everybody’s time. Davie didn’t object and so Elle didn’t, either. It sounded more fun than finding her own way around.

Kicking off her flip-flops, Loz settled herself comfortably. ‘Tell us about the place where you’re going to volunteer.’

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