Page 49 of Electric Kiss

After an hour, Daisy was wiped. It had been too long since she’d surfed, and she didn’t have working on the rigs for weeks on end to keep her strength up. Daisy signalled for them to head to the shore. Once they were on dry land, they dragged their boards up to the flat near the rocks and retrieved the picnic bag she’d brought.

Daisy and Nate were sitting on a blanket spread out on the flat rocks of the beach. The day was unseasonably warm, and the sun shone down on them, making the sand glisten. All around them were stretches of beach and not much else, giving them a sense of privacy.

Nate reached out to take Daisy’s hand and gently squeezed it. He smiled at her and asked, “So, Daisy, tell me what you used to do on your off weeks from the rigs? What did you do you do for fun?”

Daisy’s brown hair fell in a mess around her face while her eyes stared blankly at the afternoon sky. She fell back onto the blanket with a handful of grapes in her hand, popping one into her mouth while she thought about the question. The grapes were sweet and cold from the refrigerator.

The sun was warm but not warm enough to unzip the top of her wetsuit like Nate had. She turned her head to admire his muscled for a second and caught the sexy smirk he was sending her way.

“Well, as soon as the helicopter dropped the four of us off, we went to the house we lived in up in Scotland. We had one day to decompress, which was usually sleeping and washing clothes. Then we would pack, have dinner with our next-door neighbour, then set off on our trip overseas.”

“You were close to your neighbour?”

“You could say that,” Daisy said and closed her eyes.

Nate moved closer to thread his fingers with hers.

“Tell me?”

“Our neighbour is actually our mother, but my brothers don’t know.”

“Fuck,” Nate bit out. “When they find out, they are not going to react well.”

“No, they’ll probably be very disappointed in me.”

“It’s not on you, Daisy. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be near your mum. Mine is on the mainland, and I only get to see her once a month. I can’t really leave Copper Island for any length of time because it means closing the workshop, and I need every bit of business I can get my hands on. They come across to me. So I know the need to be near your parents, and you only have one.”

“My family is so complex and dark. You really should think twice about starting anything with me, Nate.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I can handle anything you throw at me. My mind has wild ideas about why a mother would leave her four children and husband. It has to be extreme.”

“She didn’t leave my dad. They were still together.”

“How did they manage that?”

“We had a routine. My dad worked on the rigs with us for three weeks, and then we would have three weeks off. None of us wanted to go to Copper Island in our downtime, so we went away overseas for three weeks. Sometimes nearand sometimes far, depending on the time of year and the cost of travel. Our dad said he would hole up at the house for a few days to relax and then head down to Copper Island to do Turner work.”

“He must have been exhausted.”

“We all saw him age faster than his years. We begged him to sign over the inheritance to his sister, Cynthia, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Saying that it was what she wanted and he would never give her what she wanted.”

“So, how were they still together?”

“He stayed for the first three days of every time off to be with Mum. We had flown off somewhere, so they had seclusion for three days.”

“I’m heartbroken for your mum. That must have been hard on the both of them.”

“My mum said she was happy to see him at all after what she went through. She didn’t tell me the finer details, but she did let slip once what Cynthia did to her to make her move off the island.”

Daisy stayed quiet and was glad Nate didn’t ask her what that was because she couldn’t cope with saying it out loud.

“I admire you, Daisy. You’re made of strong stuff.”

“I think that’s probably the problem with these flashbacks. I wish they’d just come to the surface so I don’t have to be scared all the time.”

“It will come out when it’s ready. I’ll be there when it does. The upside of living on a small island,” Nate said and smiled.

Nate leaned closer and kissed her lightly on the lips. Daisy felt her heart flutter as they both smiled, and she leaned in to kiss him back. The sun shone down on them as they kissed, and the water lapped at the shore.

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