Page 27 of Coming Home to Wishington Bay
My confidence, I knew, was not in the best place it could be right at the moment, so the very last thing I had any intention of doing was going to sit opposite the female equivalent of Gabe McKinley and blab about how I’d wasted two years of my life with a man who had actually been engaged to another woman, and was so bad at dealing with anything personal I’d spent a year putting off the task of coming down here to set about getting my grandmother’s house ready for sale. And that I knew, in my heart of hearts, I didn’t actually want to sell it. That I was frightened that once the house had gone, then the memories would be too.
‘She is. She’s very good. I think you’d really benefit from seeing her. Like I said, she owes me a couple of favours—’
I held up my hand. I didn’t really want to know what kind of favours the goddess I’d now created in my mind owed the man in front of me. And I wasn’t one for favours anyway. ‘Those are your favours.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘If I choose to see anyone – which, honestly, isn’t going to happen – then I’ll just go the normal route and pay the normal rate.’
He shrugged and I wasn’t sure if I’d offended him. Although, to be fair, he was the one saying I ought to go see a shrink so I think I was still OK for moral high ground as it stood.
‘So, what’s next?’ he asked, perhaps sensing a change of subject might be the best idea at this juncture.
‘There’s a bit more clearing out to do in the guest bedroom and then I think I’m going to paint it.’
‘I’ll give you a hand to move the furniture out of the way if you like. The size of that stuff, I’m not sure even with your determination it’s going to be moving anywhere.’ He gave me a glance. ‘Actually, I’ll grab Ned and we’ll get it done together.’
‘Hey! I may be small but I’m perfectly capable—’
Gabe held up a hand. ‘I wasn’t insinuating for one moment that you weren’t. Believe me, even in the short time I’ve known you, I’ve already learned that would be a bad idea. But that stuff’s bloody heavy. Ned and I moved some bits for Gigi once before and we were both knackered. Your brother is more my size so it makes things more evenly distributed.’
‘Oh, I see. So what you’re actually worried about is me letting a wardrobe fall on you?’
He shrugged. ‘Yeah. Kind of.’
I gave a huff but to be honest, I was sort of worried about the same thing. Just lifting the drawers out of the dresser had had me panting with exertion. All right, admittedly I hadn’t exactly been hitting the gym much lately. OK, at all. By the time I got home late, the last thing I had the energy for was going out again, even if it was open twenty-four hours. I’d seriously considered trying to go early, before work, and get my day off to a great, and righteous start – but that never happened either. My sleep patterns weren’t great at the best of times so the thought of cutting any opportunity of snooze time really didn’t appeal. I had a brisk walk to the station each side of work so I did at least get in about forty minutes of exercise a day, so that was something but I knew it wasn’t ideal. On the plus side, I’d already increased my walking time a lot since I’d been down here, and my sleep was already showing signs of improving as was my general mood. But then Wishington Bay had always had that effect on me.
Yet whatever I tried to think about myself, the truth was I was about half Gabe’s size and he had a point about the large pieces of solid wood furniture. There was every chance that by the end of the event, one or other – and possibly both of us – could be lying underneath one of the pieces with our legs sticking out like the Wicked Witch of the East inThe Wizard of Oz.
‘Have you finished being offended?’
I looked up at him under my lashes.
‘I’m really not sexist although I can see you might think I am from our encounters so far today. I’m just … a little old-fashioned, I guess, in that if I can do something for a woman that saves her doing it, then I will. Not because I don’t think she can do it, but because I want to. Knowing you’ve already fallen off a ladder once with no one around already worries me.’
‘You’ve fallen off a ladder once too.’
‘That is true.’
‘And there was someone around. You.’
‘After the fact. And I might not have been. You could have really hurt yourself and been lying there for hours. That worries me.’
‘You worry too much. To be honest, I think you’ll be glad when I leave again so that you can stop fretting and get some peace back in your life.’ I smiled.
He gave out a little breath of amusement but didn’t reply, instead glancing at his watch. ‘Oh crikey. Is that the time? Sorry, Hol. I need to run. The guys are picking me up in about ten minutes to catch the tide and go surfing further down the coast.’ He stood, gently tipping Bryan off his lap as he did so. ‘You’re more than welcome to come if you’d like.’
I stood too, gathering the coffee cups. ‘That’s very kind of you, but I’m not really the surfing type.’
‘You don’t have to come in the water. Just sit on the beach if you want. One of the other guy’s girlfriends does that, and keeps an eye on Bryan for me.’ He shifted his weight. ‘I mean, not that you’re my … that we’re …’
I looked up at him, laughing. ‘Will you just go and stop cluttering up my patio?’
Gabe nodded, the shade of embarrassment now gone from his face. ‘I will. Thanks for the coffee.’
‘Thanks for the help with the curtains and laundry. And yes, I promise to use the right tools from here on out.’
‘Thank you. I’m aware I probably sound like a right bore. But if you’d seen some of the things I’ve seen, you’d understand.’
