CHAPTER TEN
A SPELL OF hot weather brought tourists flocking to Puffin Island. They spilled off the ferry, a riot of color and smiles, overloaded with bags, children, strollers and equipment for all weather. Some came by car, some as foot passengers, and most of them headed for the beaches close to the harbor. The waterfront was crowded, the restaurants full and the locals talked about how this was the best start to a summer season they could remember in a long time.
The bay was busy, the water dotted with boats of all shapes and sizes, from the majestic schooners that Lizzy called pirate ships to sleek racing boats and small pleasure crafts.
“Can we see the puffins?” Lizzy paused on the harbor, watching as a crowd of people queued to board one of the many trips around the island to Puffin Rock. “Ryan said he’d take us.”
“He’s very busy.” It had been over a week since she’d seen him, and she’d been trying desperately to put him out of her mind. It was hard, just as it was hard to think up excuses to stay away from the water.
Emily looked at the boat bobbing in the waves and felt sick. She was getting a little more confident each day, but was still a long way from taking Lizzy on a boat trip. “Is there anything else you’d like to do?”
“Waffles and chocolate milk?”
Everything Lizzy suggested involved Ryan.
After he’d left that night, Emily had switched on her laptop and done what she should have done right from the start. Typed his name into the search engine.
She’d clicked on article after article, and when she’d finally shut down, hours later, her cheeks had been wet from all the tears she’d shed.
He’d told her he wasn’t afraid of emotion, and that was backed up by everything she’d read. His writing was full of emotion. He didn’t just report the facts, he reported the effect on those who were suffering until the reader ceased to be an outside observer and slid into the story. She’d felt the heat, tasted the dust, cried with the mother who had lost a child to a roadside bomb. And she’d read the reports written by others on the accident that had wounded him and killed his friend. And they were glowing reports. As a journalist he’d been respected both by his own profession and the military.
The explosion had been global news.
Exhausted, she’d taken herself to bed and lain awake for hours, thinking about how hard his recovery must have been. Clues to just how hard had been in everything he hadn’t said.
But he’d built a new life. The life he and his friend had planned together.
And that life didn’t include children. It was a responsibility he’d made it clear he didn’t want.
He’d helped her because he owed Brittany. There was nothing more to it than that, and she wasn’t going to do that horribly needy thing of looking for more. A few steamy kisses didn’t mean anything to a man like him. Even without knowing his background, there was a raw physicality to him that told her that a simple sexual relationship was familiar territory to him. And no doubt none of those relationships had included sex with the lights out.
She needed to move on.
Pushing it out of her mind, she dragged herself back to the present.
“How about ice cream?” Trying to do something that would reduce the likelihood of bumping into Ryan, she made an alternative suggestion. “Let’s go to Summer Scoop.”
Visiting the shop had become a routine, and not just because Lizzy loved the ice cream. Emily was keen to support the struggling business. She liked Lisa and sympathized with her situation.
“Chocolate is still my favorite.” Five minutes later Lizzy was licking her cone, the ice cream sliding down her chin. “Can we live in a place that sells ice cream?”
Lisa handed her a napkin. “It’s not the dream it seems, sugar.”
Because it was Saturday, both the twins were hovering. They alternated between “helping” in the store and reading, playing or watching a DVD in the little cottage attached to the business premises while Lisa supervised through an open door.
Knowing how hard it was to keep Lizzy entertained, Emily wondered how she managed it. “It must be hard work.”
Lisa pushed blueberry ice cream into a crisp waffle cone. “The irony is that I came here because I wanted a better life for the kids. I wanted them to live close to nature. I saw us spending time together as a family. But I spend less time with them now than I did when I was living with my mother in Boston.” She handed the cone to Emily. “I’m working, and they’re doing their own thing through that door in the living room. At weekends they ‘help’ in here, but they get bored with that pretty quickly. They entertain each other, but I can’t afford to close, so that I can have a day out with them.”
“Could you employ someone one day a week?”
“We don’t make enough money to pay anyone. One of the freezers broke last week, and that used the last chunk of my savings. You don’t want to hear about this. It’s boring.” Lisa opened a drawer and put a fresh pile of napkins on the counter.
“It’s not boring to me. I’m just sorry your dream isn’t working out the way you wanted it to.”
“I have no one to blame but myself. I had my head in the clouds. No one before me has been able to make this place work, but I thought I’d be different. I like to call it optimism, but my mother says it’s blind stupidity.” That confession came with a smile, but Emily heard the thickening in her voice.
It was that, together with the hint of weary resignation, that made up her mind.