Follow a Star (13 page)

Three years of running Walton House had taken its toll. She longed for a lie-in, for someone to bring
her
tea in bed, to run
her
a long, luxurious bath and supply her with warm, fluffy towels which
she
could then drop on the floor for someone else to launder. Ahead of her was an infinity of running round after everyone else, unnoticed, invisible and taken totally for granted. When had she last mattered to anyone? Someone who wanted her for herself?

Her thoughts drifted towards some unidentifiable, shadowy, mysterious stranger whispering in her ear. Someone who sounded very much like the mysterious Mr Cavanagh.

‘Fee?’

She gave a guilty start. ‘Oh all right, I’ll let them off – but the next couple who try to flush a nappy down our loo will be for it.’

‘That’s my girl!’ His big, happy grin reappeared, and he leaned in for a kiss. ‘Hey, Fee?’ he whispered. ‘Maybe we should have a baby?’

‘And maybe you might like that nappy in your face?’

He walked away laughing to himself, clearly enjoying his little joke. At least, she hoped it was a joke.

Lifting her face to the sun, May thought how lovely it was to feel golden sand beneath her bare feet and some real warmth on her body again. It had been a bit of a disappointment to discover that sailing was rarely about lolling around on deck whilst the boat made stately progress in light air and benign sunshine. She seemed to have spent a disproportionate amount of time zipped up in her fleece, with her eyes watering as
Lucille
thrashed into a headwind.

Since they’d brought the makings of a picnic lunch with them, there was nothing to do but relax. Leaving Bill, who’d cracked open a tin of beer and was stretched out on the sand reading a political thriller, she went off to paddle and splash in the crystal clear water lapping at the shore. Every so often unwelcome thoughts about what she was going to do next bubbled up like threatening puffs of grey cloud. Much as she tried to bat away one particularly niggling idea, eventually she had to admit that part of her wasn’t looking forward to saying goodbye to Bill. For her to imagine there was anything more to their time together than a joint enterprise successfully accomplished would be madness, yet she would always look back on this interlude in her life and remember Bill fondly. And, she thought with a giggle, remembering his sudden haste to rush up for cold air earlier that morning, be slightly envious of the woman who got the pleasure of discovering just how well built a builder Bill was.

Gathering up a handful of white shells scattered like a broken necklace across the sand to take back with her as a souvenir, she returned to where Bill was lying, next to the cool bag, and popped open a can of Coke.

‘Oops,’ she said, as he started and sat up. ‘I didn’t realise you were asleep.’

He’d changed into shorts too, topped by a black T-shirt, so May had another chance to study his bare, muscular legs, which she was surprised to see weren’t half as pasty as she might have supposed given his colouring.

‘I used to burn,’ he laughed, seeing the direction of her gaze, ‘but as I’ve got older, I seem to be able to take it more.’

As if to prove it, he sat up and pulled off his T-shirt. May blinked as she registered the palest caramel tan, a dusting of gold hair across an amazingly well-constructed chest and, oh, ‘Bill! That bruise!’

He shrugged at the violent purple contusion that wrapped itself round one of his ribs. ‘I thought I’d hit one of the lockers as I fell, but there was so much going on last night, there was no time to take a better look.’

‘Yikes, Bill. Are you sure you haven’t cracked a rib? Let me have a look.’

Worried that he’d hadn’t been asleep but hovering in and out of consciousness while she’d been frolicking in the sea, she edged closer and gently placed her fingers on his smooth skin. Probing the area round the bruise, she made a tentative check for any obvious damage.

‘Is that sore?’ she asked, hearing a muffled gasp.

‘No,’ he grunted, only convincing her more that he was hiding a serious injury. May fanned her hands across the lines of his ribs and felt him exhale in a shuddering breath he was obviously doing his best to steady. Poor Bill, he was being very brave. Working smoothly and rhythmically from his back to his chest, she continued to map the firm lines of his body trying to locate the exact trouble spots.

Bill let out a groan. She searched his face expecting to find him wincing with pain, then looked straight into his eyes. Eyes that reflected the summer blue of the sky above them with pupils that bloomed under her gaze into pools of indigo. May, suddenly feeling light-headed, swallowed hard. She tried to concentrate, but found her gaze dropping to his lips. Hmm, yes, he was breathing. That was a good sign even if her own breath was becoming a bit ragged.

If she was being honest, she had to admit that from the word go she’d noticed that Bill had a very kissable mouth, with lips that promised all sorts of pleasure. May went still, afraid of breaking the spell. Suddenly all she wanted was to satisfy her burning curiosity about how Bill’s mouth would feel against hers. She raised a tentative hand and stroked the lines of his face, running her fingers across the chiselled cheekbones, the straight nose and a jaw that was excitingly rough with gold bristles. And then she ran her fingertip very lightly to trace the outline of his lips, before bending her head and giving her mouth permission to follow her fingers.

Ooh, that felt good! Now she didn’t have to wonder any more, May decided, stopping before Bill turned sensible on her. Oh dear, he was certainly looking very serious, she noted, squinting at him. She hoped he wasn’t about to give her another lecture about the dangers of living in an emotional pressure cooker. And then he gave a sort of strangled growl and his mouth came firmly down on hers.
Dear lord
, she wondered, feeling dizzy as she closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around him, had she
ever
been kissed before? He smelled heavenly; like warm sunshine on a salty breeze. And he felt divine; heady and exciting. The promise of his hot, hard body pressed against hers suggested all sorts of exciting pleasures as she prepared herself to be utterly transported.

‘Damn it, May,’ he ground out, breaking away. ‘I shouldn’t be doing this.’

‘Why not?’ she panted, wondering why the heck he’d applied the brakes.

He thumped the sand, exasperation blazing in his eyes.

‘Because this is not real. I warned you about what could happen when two people are thrown together in an entirely unnatural situation. You’re not yourself, May, and I’d be taking advantage of you.’

She knelt up beside him, placing her hands on his shoulders, determined to damp down this particular objection once and for all. ‘It feels real to me Bill, and natural,’ she insisted softly. ‘No one’s taking advantage of anyone. Don’t we both want this?’

Bill groaned and with a sudden urgency pulled her to him. Reaching up behind her back, he unhooked her bra before sliding each strap over her arms and whipping it away in one swift movement. Gosh, he must have been a demon bra-remover in his teens, May observed, letting him lean her back against the soft sand. She arched up to him as his warm hand slid under her vest to cup her breast and his mouth moved against hers in a slow tantalising kiss that went on and on and—

‘Oh, God, Bill – don’t stop now!’ she begged, as he broke away again.

‘May,’ he said, breathing heavily as he struggled to speak, ‘I’ve only just begun.’

Then, in a movement that took her by surprise, he lifted her effortlessly into his arms – thus proving, thought May, that there was nothing wrong with his ribs – and carried her towards the boat.

But just a few paces along, he pulled up again. Now what? May, who had been swooning into his arms like a Victorian heroine silently praying that he would still have some strength left once he’d lugged her halfway across a beach, opened her eyes.

‘I can’t have been thinking straight,’ said Bill, gently setting her down.

Damn it! How unfair of him to discover he was suffering from delayed concussion, not now, not when she was completely losing her mind.

‘Are you any good at swimming?’ he asked.

May turned to follow the direction of his gaze … blue sky, white foam-tipped waves shimmering in the sunshine. And, in front of them,
Lucille
– bobbing gently up and down on a rapidly incoming tide. Great, she thought, grinding her teeth, not only had she missed the opportunity of riding aboard Bill’s love boat, but unless they were quick about it,
Lucille
would be out of reach too.

Bill pulled up the anchor with a heart that was sinking, but just about intact. Had he and May got any further, he was pretty sure it would have been lost. They’d got back to the boat before it was too late, but Bill was certain he was still in deep water. Wasn’t that why he’d warned May at the start of the voyage about the dangers of getting too involved – to protect himself?

But, oh, she was so beautiful and almost impossible to resist; the satisfying weight of her full breasts in his hands, the delicious, accommodating curves of her stomach and a plump little bottom that was as firm and inviting as a freshly plucked nectarine. And when she’d reached up, laced her arms around his neck and smiled at him, her trusting eyes dark with need, he’d never wanted a woman more in his life.

If only he hadn’t miscalculated the state of the tide, things might have been very different. Bill stared up at the water rushing towards the hull and wished that time and tide
would
wait for him. As it was, he couldn’t help but be afraid that whatever had flared up between them had run its course. He hadn’t felt emotionally so far at sea ever, not even in the early days of his marriage, but what did he really know about the woman standing beside him?

‘It’s probably for the best,’ he tried telling her. ‘You might feel differently when we’re off the boat.’

May pressed her lips against his throat. ‘What? I might realise you’re a red-haired builder, you mean?’ her breasts jiggled as she laughed at her own joke. She didn’t really know much about him at all.

‘And I know how much you care about your uncle, to put everything on hold for him.’

All that he knew about her was that she had a barely-mended heart and was possibly – probably – on the rebound. ‘And I know you ran away to sea,’ he said gently, ‘but what I don’t know is where you’ll go next.’ Seeing that she was struggling to reply, he dropped a last kiss on her head and moved forwards to trim the mainsail. Whatever the answer was, he was about to find out.

Some harmless fantasising about her mysterious guest had certainly helped Fiona deal with the hurried preparations for his arrival that evening. Standing in Cromarty, her best room, she looked across with satisfaction at the sunshine turning the green waves from olive to apple, lifting the mood of the sombre North Sea. The pristine room looked especially inviting in the afternoon light flooding through the sash windows, reminding her of how much she’d enjoyed discovering her previously untapped creative side as she brought the old building back to life.

She’d chosen a wash of sage green for the walls, in this room, picking out the cornicing of the high ceilings and the stripped floorboards in a subtle off-white. In the early days she’d fancied herself a style guru of boutique B&Bs and anticipated a deluge of compliments from her grateful guests about her good taste and comfortable beds. But with barely more than ten per cent of their guests staying more than two nights, very few of them bothered to say anything at all about their surroundings, leaving her with the nauseating reality of soiled sheets and towels and a major clean up every day. To think, she’d given up a stressful but prestigious job in local government just to double her working hours mucking out after other people. When would she and Paul enjoy the so-called quality time they’d hoped to find?

Being confronted with the evidence of strangers having sex under her roof was one of the aspects of running a bed and breakfast that still turned her stomach. She eyed the bed with its crisp bedding possessively, wondering what fate had in store for it next. Mr Cavanagh, of the lovely voice, sounded like a man who liked lots of wild sex, and since he had gone to some lengths to time his booking to be sure of surprising his girlfriend, it seemed he was certain of getting it. It would be just her luck for them to be noisy and messy and for him to shed body hair like a gorilla with alopecia. She stood in the doorway, taking one last sweep of her beautiful room in its immaculate glory before sighing and closing the door.

‘Home alone,’ said Paul, rising from the lovely old Windsor chair at one end of the landing, where he’d clearly been lurking. He moved towards her, his blue eyes dark with intent, and his mouth, which always reminded Fiona of a child’s drawing of a smile, came down on hers before she had time to speak. Frantically trying to banish all thoughts of other people’s couplings, Fiona struggled to get up to speed.

Predictably unpredictable
, a little voice was telling her, since it was only that morning that she’d stopped him rushing out of bed just long enough to tell him how nice it would be if they didn’t always make love at the same time and the same record-breaking pace. Reaching up, he slid the band out of her hair and let it tumble round her shoulders. ‘Fancy catching up?’ he murmured. He looked so shy, for all the talk, that her heart just melted. There was still something of the innocent little boy about her husband that made her feel protective towards him. How could she hurt him by telling him she wasn’t really in the mood? Heck, he deserved a treat.

‘Give me a minute, then come and get me.’ She smiled and raced up the stairs to their private suite on the third floor, giggling to herself as Paul started counting out loud. In the bedroom, she rapidly shed clothes and rummaged through her underwear draw. The first pair her fingers alighted on, big pants from her period week collection, made her pause for a moment. No, not suitable at all, she laughed to herself, dismissing the thought and slipping into black lace and a pair of holdup stockings just as Paul thundered through the door.

‘Wow! Look at you! You look fantastic!’ he said, beaming. ‘Amazing boobs,’ he added, cupping one appreciatively. ‘I swear they’ve grown!’

‘You’re in too much of a hurry to notice, usually,’ she scolded playfully.

‘I’m going to make up for it now, I promise.’ He grinned and was as good as his word.

At the end of what was a very satisfying romp, Fiona reminded herself of her good fortune. She’d thought it such a romantic place to live when she and Paul converted the former servants’ quarters at the top of Walton House into a suite for their private accommodation. Even though the apartment was smaller than their previous flat, it was fine for a couple but completely unsuitable for a family; she shuddered recalling Paul’s jokey suggestion.

The further you climbed up the house, the more spectacular the views. She felt secure tucked under the eaves, listening to the wind blowing straight off the sea at the front of the house. Even from the kitchenette at the rear she could look down on a jumble of rooftops towards the light glinting off the creek in the distance and calculate how quickly they could buy a small boat so they could enjoy the freedom of getting away from the pressure of running the B&B without being too far from home. Sometimes she had to remind herself that while other couples talked about it, they had done it; they were living the dream. One day, she thought, sighing as the bell in reception sounded, they might even get the time to enjoy it.