The Boy is Back in Town (15 page)

‘Come on, you two. The line dancing is just about to start and I’ve saved you a place in the front row. What are you waiting for? Get this show on the road. Let’s rock this joint.’

Mari looked at Ethan. Ethan looked at Mari, then he stood ramrod straight, reached out, seized Mari’s hand and whispered the magical words, ‘I’ll risk it if you will.’

‘T
HIS
has been quite some day!’ Mari managed a faint smile as Ethan opened the passenger door of his car, and then shivered when the freezing-cold air hit her.

Without asking, Ethan slid off his sheepskin coat and wrapped it around her shoulders, before sliding one arm under her legs. ‘Here. This coat suits you better than me. Keep it. And you’ll never make it across the sludge in those magical slippers, Tinkerbell.’

Mari’s arms instinctively wrapped around Ethan’s neck as he swung her out of the seat, pushed the car door closed with his foot and strolled calmly down the path to Rosa’s doorstep as though she weighed nothing and this was something he did every day of the week.

He didn’t speak and she couldn’t form the words. Her personal space expanded to include Ethan and it felt so amazing, so precious,
that somehow words would only ruin the moment.

The movement of his steps ended only too soon, and he stood in the light of the porch. He simply looked down at her and her heart melted.

His arm moved slightly so that her legs slid gently to the sparkling frost of the stone step.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured. ‘For the coat. For last night. And for being there today. I don’t know if I could have got through it without you. And, most of all, thank you for tonight. I had a great time.’

Ethan’s other arm freed itself from around her waist to press against her back as he opened his mouth to speak, then shook his head and lowered it so that his brow was pressed against her forehead. His breathing was hard and fast against her cheek as he opened his mouth to say something, then changed his mind and braved a small smile.

Whatever he wanted to say was probably not going to be good, but she knew she had to hear it before she changed her mind.

‘Look at me,’ she whispered. ‘You can tell me. I may not like it, but after the day I’ve just had, I don’t think anything could surprise me.’ Mari reached out and meshed her fingers
with Ethan’s as her eyes scanned his face. The blue of his eyes was iridescent in the reflection from the snow, from the streetlights and the warm glow from Rosa’s cottage. His tan was a distant memory. His cheeks were burning red, and his lips were tinged with cold.

He looked absolutely gorgeous.

‘Perhaps that gives me some hope that maybe, just maybe, you might let me into your life one of these fine days. And forgive me for surviving that accident when Kit died, because I’m not sure I can do it on my own.’

‘Ethan!’ She had started to speak, desperate to tell him that he was the last person who needed to be forgiven and the past was the past, but he gently pressed one fingertip to her lips.

‘Please let me finish. I need to say this now. Or not say it at all.’

She dropped her hand, but meshed her fingers even tighter into Ethan’s, feeling him give reassuring pressure back.

‘Let me introduce myself. I am Ethan Francis Chandler. The international yachtsman and, more recently, a new up-and-coming sailing instructor and charity worker. My name has been mentioned in magazines and on TV. My parents even have press cuttings,
can you believe that? I can sail just about anything you throw at me from a raft to a super-yacht. I can cook. I can iron my own shirts. I have friends who actually like to go out with me to eat and drink. And enjoy themselves! In my company! And you … you are the most angry, most competitive, most challenging, most guarded and most stubborn woman I have ever met. What the hell is so wrong with you that you won’t accept that I could care about you? And let yourself care about me right back?’

His voice was trembling now, the gaze in his eyes intense.

‘I left Swanhaven to get away from you, and everything you made me feel, Mari Chance. The guilt about Kit and the pain of leaving your family like that has stayed with me every day of these last years. And seeing you here? Like this? Suddenly I’m seventeen again and just as confused and totally mesmerised by you as I was then. But some things are clear. I’ve been a fool, Mari. Ever since I met you at the jetty I knew that this was a second chance for us to finish what we started. We could make a future together. And that comes before anything else.’

Ethan broke eye contact to look around the snow-covered narrow streets that led down
to the harbour and then back to Mari, who was staring intensely at his face, focusing on every word, every syllable coming out of his lips.

His breath was hot, fast. ‘I have a wonderful job sharing my passion with kids like Peter. I have a lovely house and a great future ahead of me. And yet I still have that burning passion to sail away to some distant ocean to get away from my pain and my loss. After last night, and what has happened between us these past few days, I’m starting to realise that maybe, just maybe, I could stop running away and trying to live the life Kit never had. But I can’t do that on my own.’

The pressure of his fingers increased until it was almost painful.

‘But I don’t want to live a life without you in it, Mari. Because I need you and I want to know if you feel the same way …’ He could not speak any more.

His hand came up and cupped her chin, his thumb moving into her hair as his head tilted. Cold lips pressed into her cheek, the cold burning against the hot sweaty tears as she closed her eyes to revel in the sensation. Their fingers disengaged as Ethan’s hand wound around her waist and drew her closer to his body.

His lips moved across one eyelid, gently, gently, then down to her upper lip. The pressure increased only for a second as she swallowed down a shivering breath.

His kiss was everything she had imagined it would be.

Warm and loving, so very loving.

The smell of his skin.

The sensation of his stubble on her face.

The thumping of his heart. Racing now as he drew her closer and moved his hand further into her hair.

‘Come and live with me in Florida. I could help you rebuild your house here in Swanhaven and we could come back any time you like—but this has to be your choice. Your decision.’

His forehead pressed against hers, the hot breath steaming as they both panted open-mouthed in the freezing night air. Alive in the moment. ‘You can work there. Make a career for yourself. Your company even has an office in my city.’

He leant back just enough so that she could focus on his smile.

‘I believe in you. And I believe in your talent. You can do anything you want to in this world. You don’t need to wait to create your own business. You can start it in Florida
and I will be right there, helping you every step of the way.’

His thumb was moving across her chin as he stared into her face.

‘I know you can find a way to make it happen. If you want it badly enough. So what do you say? Will you take the risk? Will you come back to Florida with me? We can do this if we work together.’

It was that final statement which broke the spell he had cast.

Mari inhaled the biting air and stepped back, desperate to regain some distance from this crazy intensity. She had not felt so scared for a long time.

‘Oh, Ethan, I’m so confused. I was actually starting to think about how it would work, but this is too much for me to take in … I never imagined that …’

She looked into his shocked face and knew that it was going to hurt, no matter how much she wanted to prevent his pain.

‘You know more than anyone how hard it was for me when my dad left, and then you left with your family. And it broke my heart. It’s taken me ten years to build up the barriers I need to protect myself from that kind of pain and loss. My life is finally
coming together and I don’t know if I’m ready to take that kind of risk.’

‘What kind of life do you truly have, Mari? Because I know exactly how lonely my existence has become in sunny Florida. What does a great job and a sea view matter without the things that are important? It isn’t enough. Not nearly enough.’

He stroked her cheek and smiled gently, sensing that he had just exposed a nerve.

‘I want to make my home with the girl I’m still crazy about. Come on. You don’t need to live in your old home on your own. I could help you make it a home again. A real home with a future.’

She closed her eyes and steadied herself before looking into Ethan’s face. ‘I’m scared.’

Shaking her head in disbelief at her own words, Mari pushed away from Ethan and started pacing, her hands pushed deep into the coat pockets to thaw out.

‘Maybe the timing is all wrong, but suddenly I feel that my life is in total turmoil. I’m not sure about anything any more.’

Before she could speak another syllable, Ethan stepped forward, grabbed her around the waist with two strong hands and drew her towards him, chest to chest. So close she could smell the tang of his sweat on his shirt,
the faint trace of his aftershave. The Ethan smell. The Ethan presence, which filled the moment to bursting.

‘Chandler and Chance,’ he whispered in a voice designed to send heat to the frozen tips of her ballet shoes. ‘If we could work together we would be unstoppable. But you’re right, this has been a long day. Will you think about what I’ve said? Please. Think about it.’

He held her face between his cupped hands as she nodded, then glanced down and smiled. ‘Your poor feet. Crazy girl. Goodnight, Mari. I’ll drop by to see you in the morning. Sleep well.’

He kissed her forehead once. Barely more than a brush of his lips across her skin. It felt like a branding iron, burning a mark that would never be erased. Then he turned around and walked slowly down the path to his four-wheel drive, one hand thrust into each pocket of his jeans, leaving her standing, stunned, shivering even inside the coat still around her shoulders, just watching him start up the car and drive away.

He didn’t look back.

And she just stood there.

She had to.

Her moist ballet shoes had frozen to the ice on the doorstep.

The wind had picked up during the night and it buffeted Mari as she made her way along the top of the cliff path heading away from the centre of Swanhaven and out towards the headland. And the house where she used to live. The house which was going to become her new home.

She’d been so confident that this time she had a real chance of reconnecting with her old life when she had been so happy, safe and warm in a family who loved her and valued her. A family she could trust to do the right thing for her and never once complain that she was distant or that she had let them down by being ‘emotionally unavailable,’ as her old boyfriend has described her. Inside the warm embrace of her family, she had never felt the need to close down her heart.

It was daylight now but still too early in the morning for anyone else to be on the path. She could see a few dog-walkers playing with their dogs on the beach below and she envied them their carefree moments of fun and laughter. But right now she was grateful for the solitude and the familiar soundtrack of the sea crashing onto the rocks at the point, the call of seabirds and the sound of the wind in the trees on the other side of the fields and the crunch of her own footsteps on the
cold stone chippings and frosty grass as she walked.

It had been a long night which she had got through in snatches of broken sleep and much tossing and turning before finally giving up and heading downstairs to the empty, cold kitchen and a hot drink before facing all that her first day as a homeowner in Swanhaven could bring.

Starting with seeing Ethan again.

His face and his soft voice had echoed through her dreams, filling her with a sense of belonging and warmth and familiar contentment which was so at odds with the turmoil seething though her that she had seized on to it like a life raft in those dark and lonely moments when everything that had happened over the week threatened to overwhelm her.

And that was so wrong. And unfair.
To both of them.

Last night he had offered her his heart and she had been too terrified to accept it.

When had she lost the ability to trust and show her emotions? Was it when Kit died and their father left them? Or when she lashed out at Ethan on her sixteenth birthday? She had only dared to kiss him when the strength of her pent-up frustrations and anguish and grief
had overcome the barriers she had created to protect herself.

Reliving their tender moments together when they kissed in the hospital, it had been her overwhelming sense of relief that he and Peter were safe and well that had broken down the flimsy barricades and allowed her the luxury of being able to show Ethan how she truly felt about him.

More than that, the power of those feelings had given her the freedom to believe that she could be attractive and worthy of being loved by a man like Ethan. If only for a few moments, she had enjoyed that remarkable sensation that she was ready to trust in another person and fall in love with him. And she was worthy of that love.

Spending these past few days with Ethan had made her feel things that she had never felt before. Oh, she had glimpsed what love could be like, but her ex-boyfriend was right that she had never been able to trust him enough to open her heart to love him. It was not an excuse for cheating on her! Far from it. But, the more she thought about it, the more she realised that perhaps she had chosen someone who she knew she would walk away from, in one way or another, before he got too serious.

Why not? When her self-esteem as a woman was so low.

Well, these past few days had opened her eyes about a lot of things.

Ethan had made her realise that she had to find her own way forward. Or face a lifetime of running away. Or, worse, running backwards.

A pair of herring gulls soared up from the edge of the chalk cliff on the wind, calling and squawking as they climbed higher and higher into the sky in front of Mari as she paused to watch them. They seemed to be mocking her and her weakness and lack of self-confidence.

Well, they were right about that, but she had made a start and there was a long way to go.

Head back, she closed her eyes and felt the wind blasting against the left side of her body, bringing with it the salty tang of sea and seaweed and all that she had grown up with and never once forgotten. She had walked this path at least once a day for the first sixteen years of her life and very little had changed.