The Boy is Back in Town (17 page)

Mari looked around the room. And then looked again—only harder and through eyes that seemed to be seeing it for what it truly was, and not through rose-tinted glasses which only showed what it had been like so long ago.

She had never felt lonelier in her life.

What was she doing here? In this cold house that echoed with the footsteps of ghosts instead of real living people?

There was only one place she needed to be at that moment, and it wasn’t here with the ghosts.

She couldn’t build a secure future for herself here. It was time to reconnect with that earlier version of herself that she had just been looking at. The version that Ethan remembered
and the version that somehow, amazingly, he still saw in her.

And that thought dazzled her.

Ethan had offered her a chance to build a home with him.
A real home.
The kind of home she’d dreamt of creating. And she had been too woolly headed to see the genuine love and affection in that offer.

Mari pressed the heel of her hand hard against her forehead a couple of times.

Idiot.
She was the one who did not deserve him. And now she had probably lost him. Which made her the biggest fool in the universe.

All she had to do was run as fast as she could and tell him that she trusted him with her love and her heart and her future. That was all.

M
ARI
wiped her eyes and was just about to push away from the wall when the sound of a car engine echoed around the house.

Oh, no. Someone had come to the house.
Drat!
Mari hurriedly tucked the photo album down inside the coat pocket, wiped her eyes, anxious for a stranger not to see her tears, and strode over to the back door and opened it wide.

‘Hey, darlin’, I’m thinking of moving to California. Do you know if there’s any work for retired sailors down there? Because you know what they say? All the nice girls love a sailor.’

Ethan Chandler stood outside on the stone step; he was smiling, but his body revealed the tension and anxiety he was trying to hide. His eyes flicked across her face, taking in the tears and trauma before he spoke again. ‘Hi. Thought
I
might find you here.’

She couldn’t speak.

He was here. Just when she needed him most. And he was here.
For her.

So she did the most natural thing in the world. A gesture she had wanted to make a thousand times before.

She leant forward and gently, gently pressed her lips onto his in thanks, before wrapping her arms around his neck and hugging him for all she was worth, pressing her body hard against the muscles of his chest so that she could feel his heart against hers. Holding him so tight in the hope that all of his strength and courage and trust in her could seep across the few layers of clothing that separated them and she could finally tell him how much he had come to mean to her.

Words were impossible, and his own response came in a husky whisper.

‘Sorry I missed you at the house. I was too busy trying to come up with some cunning plan to entice you back to Florida with me. My parents have agreed to help me set up a trust fund for a sailing school where we can take the teenagers on longer sea voyages lasting a few months each summer. There will be experts on board to help with their problems. And I can show them what sailing really means.’ He paused for a second, and
then lowered his hands to cup her face before he went on. ‘I want to call it the Kit Chance Sailing Trust. If that’s okay with you.’

She looked into his eyes in shock. ‘You want to teach sailing in memory of Kit? Oh, Ethan. Of course it’s okay.’

Her eyes pricked with the sharp acid of fresh tears as his fingers wiped them away. He scanned her face. ‘And now you’ve gone quiet on me again. What are you thinking?’

The words tumbled out on a breath. ‘I was standing here feeling sorry for myself. Alone. And pathetic. And at the same time you were working on the best possible way I can think of for Kit to be remembered. Oh, Ethan, I have been such a fool. Thank you. Thank you for letting me go through with the biggest mistake of my life.’

She lifted her head and glanced around. ‘I don’t need this house to give me a false sense of security any longer. I’ve decided to take the initiative and accept redundancy from my company so I can make a fresh start. I’m not afraid of being rejected any longer. I can find work and trust myself to see it through. And I know I must sound totally crazy right now, but that’s what I am going to do.’

Ethan eased back and took both of her hands in his, the gentleness and tenderness of
his touch filling her heart with hope that he did not think her a complete idiot.

‘No, it’s not crazy. It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard in my life!’

Ethan pretended to glance around the room; only his thumbs were still stroking the back of her hands and, as he turned back to face her, he lifted her hands to his lips and kissed the knuckles. Kissed them as though they were the most precious things in the world to him, his eyes fixed on hers.

‘Are you sure, Mari? Are you sure about giving up this house?’

All she could manage was a nod. ‘You’ve shown me that it is possible to move on and make your own happiness. And that’s what I want to do. Create my own future from what I want and need. And it’s not this house. Another family can make it their home.’

Their eyes locked. She was hypnotised. Unable to break away.

‘You’re an amazing woman, Mari. I never thought you could surprise me any more, but you have done. Any man would want to have you in his life. Want you in his bed. Make you the last thing he sees at night. The woman he wakes up with every morning.’

She knew he was smiling by the creases in the corners of both eyes.

‘I was a boy who thought that he would never be good enough for someone as beautiful and clever as you. Will you give me a chance to prove that I have become a better man who is finally worthy of you? Because you were right. I have been running from my emotions for far too long. It’s time I faced up to my feelings and told you that the only thing I need is you.’

Mari closed her eyes as his hands moved back to her waist and opened them just as he pressed his forehead onto hers. ‘It broke my heart when you left, Ethan, and I blamed you for everything that had happened, but it wasn’t ever about you. It was about me and how guilty I felt about wanting you to care about me. I was so angry and lonely. Rosa and our mother were relying on me to take care of things when our lives fell apart. I had lost my brother and then my father, and then you were gone. I had to protect myself from being rejected all over again. Do you see? I had to keep my feelings inside, just to get through each and every day.’

‘Then let me show you that I’m back in your life and I am here to stay for as long as you want me to. I’m not just any man. I’m the man who wants to hold you in his arms and have you by my side every day. I want to
spend the rest of my life showing you how much I need you. How much you mean to me. And how very, very beautiful you are. Can you trust me, Mari? Can you open your heart and let me love you?’

He swept both hands down from her forehead, smoothing her hair down, over and over, building the strength to say the words, his eyes focused on hers, his voice broken and ragged with such intensity that it was impossible for her to reply. For once she had to listen.

‘I love you, Marigold Chance. I’ve loved you since I was twelve years old. I walked into your mother’s kitchen—this kitchen we’re standing in now, a lonely boy in a new town who was trying so hard to find a place for himself in the world, and then you turned to me and smiled.’

Tears filled his eyes as he stroked her face.

‘And I knew that everything was going to be okay. Because I had a friend who …’

His voice broke and he could only drop his hands to wrap around her back, pressing his body closer to hers, his head into her neck, where his breath came hot and fast from his heaving chest as he fought back fifteen years of suppressed desires and hopes.

She could feel the pressure of his lips on
her skin, but everything was suddenly a blur. If only the fireworks would stop going off in her head, she might have a chance of making sense of those magical words. Except that rockets seemed to be exploding all around her in a glorious display of brilliant bursts of colour.

Ethan loved her. Ethan Chandler. Loved. Her.

With all of the strength she thought she had lost, Mari slid her hands from his waist up the front of his chest, resisting the temptation to rip his shirt off, and felt this man’s heart thumping wildly under the cloth. His shirt was sweaty, and she could feel the moist hair on his chest under her fingers and, as she moved to his throat, the pulse rang out under her touch.

She forced her head back, away from his body, inches away from this remarkable, precious man who had exposed his deepest dreams to her.

‘I’ve looked everywhere for the missing parts, but nobody was able to mend it,’ she whispered. ‘And how could they, when it was right here all of the time? You were simply holding them safe for me. And … and I knew you were. I was just so scared that you would break my heart all over again. So scared.’

Her hand came up to stroke Ethan’s face as he looked at her in silence, his chest heaving as he forced air into his lungs. ‘Will you come and live with me, Mari? I can build you a house anywhere you like, but only you can make it a home, Mari. Only you. You can work from home, an office, a boat, anywhere you like, as long as we are together.’

His voice was full of excitement and energy, the desire burning in every word.

His eyes flicked across her face, trying to gauge her reaction.

‘Will you be my partner, my lover, and the mother of my children? Can you do that? Can you take a chance at happiness with me?’

She gasped in a breath as the tears streamed down her face, knowing that he was saying the only words she had waited a lifetime to hear.

‘Yes.’

He looked back at her and his mouth dropped open in shock. ‘Yes?’

‘Yes.’ She laughed. ‘Yes, yes, yes. Oh, Ethan, I love you so much.’

She had barely got the words out of her mouth before she was silenced by the pressure of his mouth, which would have knocked her backwards if not for the strong arms that pressed her body to his. Eyes closed, she
revelled in the glorious sensation of his lips, tongue and body. Lights were going on in parts of her body where she had not known switches existed. She felt as if she was floating on air.

Her eyes flicked open to find that she
was
floating on air, as Ethan hoisted her up by the waist, twirling her around and around, two grown-up people hooting with joy, oblivious to the freezing cold, dank and dusty air. A kaleidoscope of happiness, colour and light.

Then she slid back down his body, her extended arms caressed lovingly by strong hands. And she wanted to be alone with this man and show him how she felt about him.

Marigold Chance was going to miss her flight. And take the first step on the greatest adventure of her life.

Mari looked into Ethan’s smiling face, stunned by the joy she had brought to this precious man, and grinned.

‘Don’t you just love families? Let’s go home, Ethan. Wherever you are in the world—that is my home and I don’t want to spend another day away from you. Take me home, Ethan. Take me home.’

M
ARI
C
HANDLER
looked up from the screen of her laptop just as Ethan helped one of his teenagers down from the rigging on the
Swanhaven Princess
and her foolish heart leapt and skipped just at the sight of the man she loved so very much.

Ethan was laughing, head back with such reckless delight at what his young sailor had achieved.

His passion for sailing was so infectious that he seemed to be able to break down any barrier. This boy had been afraid of heights only a few weeks ago when they left Swanhaven and now look at him! Ethan did amazing and wonderful work. She was so proud of what they had achieved.

Mari stretched her arms out above her head and arched her back like a cat to release her shoulders before sighing in sweet contentment. Warmth oozed back at her from the
sun-baked cushion and polished wood and she sat back, eyes half-closed, just happy to enjoy the sensation of the warm light wind on her face as the wooden training ship ripped through the calm waters of the Aegean Sea.

It was hard to believe that a few months ago she had never known what it felt like to dive among corals and exotic striped fish she had only ever seen before in an aquarium. Now she spent her afternoons snorkelling with the teenagers and helping them learn to swim in the crystal-clear, warm shallow waters, safe in the knowledge that by her side was the only guide she could ever want. Ethan.
Her Ethan.

There was a cheer from the cluster of teenagers around the helm and she opened her eyes and smiled for a second before reaching for her camera so she could capture this moment—for the boy who had just climbed to the top rigging, for his family and also for the online weblog which was already starting to create a huge internet following. The Kit Chance Sailing Trust was more than just an idea—it had become an international reality. This was her life and her job now.

And it was all down to the vision and passion of the man she was looking at now. The man who had half turned away from the
group so that he could look at her. Simply look at her. And the love in those blue eyes the colour of the Greek sky was almost too much for her to take in.

Every day, just when she thought that she could not be more proud of Ethan or could love him more, he proved her wrong. He gave her so much. His love, his warmth and his total belief in her ability and talents. Sometimes it seemed like a happy dream, interrupted by the occasional teenage fight, or tantrums where the teenagers needed their mother on the other end of an internet telephone. The usual sort of thing which went on in any extended family.

And she adored it all.

The sun was starting to go down over the horizon in a blaze of incredible colour creating a miraculous sunset of orange flame, with shades of deep apricots over dark duck-egg-blues and greens. It felt as though the sky itself was celebrating the end of a perfect hot, sunny day in the Aegean.

But it was nothing compared to the warmth in Ethan’s smile as he strolled over to the wooden table and sat down next to her, his arm around her bare shoulder. The feeling of his lips pressed against the side of her neck thrilled her with a delicious shiver of love and
excitement, and the connection deep inside her tightened like a piece of taut rigging line, pulling her even closer to the man she had given her heart to.

‘Do we really have to leave? I wish this could go on for ever,’ she whispered and gently swept a loose curl of bleached blond hair back over one ear from his tanned forehead.

‘It could—’ he grinned and tilted his head ‘—but my dad has already booked himself onto the next sailing course around the Caribbean we promised them at the wedding. He can’t wait for us to sail the
Princess
back to Swanhaven ready for the trip back to Florida. I can see a lot of sailing lessons on the horizon crossing the Atlantic. We have a lot of father-and-son time to catch up on.’

‘It was a stroke of genius suggesting to your parents that they should take over the running of the sailing charity. Your mother is the most amazing fund-raiser and they both love working with the teenagers,’ Mari replied with a chuckle. ‘We’re lucky to have them.’

‘It was the best decision they ever made. Swanhaven or Florida. They love it. Speaking of which, have you heard from Rosa? We need T-shirts, sweaters, shorts—everything.

The kids go through clothing faster than I ever thought possible.’

Mari tapped Ethan once on the end of his nose. ‘Relax—she e-mailed me this morning while you were working on the sails. It’s all in hand. Rosa adores her new job, the new sailing-wear line has taken off and I have a feeling that the wedding dress she made me is not going to be her last. Perhaps you were right? Perhaps we might have two lady entrepreneurs in the family.’ Mari stroked Ethan’s face and watched his eyes flutter half-closed in pleasure and languorous delight. ‘And that family includes you now, Mr Chandler.’

‘Does it really, Mrs Chandler? Well, that could be a problem because the only family I want is right here on the deck wearing a very fetching bikini and a cheeky grin.’ He shot a glance back at the teenage boys who were sniggering, winking at him or giving them a thumbs up. ‘Or do you think that is being too selfish, seeing as we have an audience?’

‘Selfish?’ Mari pretended to consider the question before crossing her arms around Ethan’s neck and pulling him closer. ‘No, my love. Wherever you are is my home and my true family. Even if that home is in the galley of a wooden training ship surrounded by two dozen teenagers for a couple of months at a
time. Thank heavens for modern technology and satellite communication systems.’

‘Thank heavens,’ he repeated, his nose nuzzling her throat for a second before getting back to his feet and drawing her up by his side. ‘I did promise the kids that they could choose the music for our last night in the Aegean. And guess what? It looks like we’ll be sailing into harbour to the tune of the latest trance tracks. Do you think the Greek islands are ready for that?’

Ethan moved to pull away but Mari stayed right where she was. ‘Ready? Perhaps not. But this is our family. And families stick together.’

And her loving husband took a firmer grasp of her hand and they turned to face the cheering teenagers, ready for anything that life could throw at them.
Together.