The Boy is Back in Town Page 10

  Mari sank lower into her chair at the cottage and admitted defeat for the second time that day. Once Rosa was determined to discover something, there was no point in fighting her. She would find out eventually. Half of Swanhaven had been at the auction, out of curiosity if not to bid, and the small-town gossip factory was alive and well in the yacht club. It would be around the whole town in an hour that Marigold Chance had just bought the old Chance house for twenty per cent above the expected value.

  She was going to have to tell Rosa. And soon. All she had to do was pick her moment.

  ‘I spent the morning with Ethan at the property auction in Swanchester and—’ Mari took another sip of tea and considered making up an elaborate tale of love and debauchery but she simply did not have the strength to go along with anything but the truth ‘—Ethan and I had a bit of an argument. But in the end, he helped me out. In fact, you might almost say that he came to my rescue.’

  ‘Ethan Chandler came to your rescue. At a property auction. Right. Well, that makes total sense. One minute you’re all over him and this wonderful house he’s built for his parents, and the next minute you’re crying over your baked beans on toast.’

  Mari hugged her tea close to her chest and stared out of the window.

  Rosa bristled and gestured towards the door. ‘Ethan’s probably down at the harbour giving Peter Morris his sailing lesson. I can march down there in two minutes and find out what happened for myself if you don’t tell me right now.’

  She sighed dramatically and waved a piece of toast in the air. ‘Of course it would make a terrible scene and half the town would be on the dock in a flash, but nobody upsets my sister and gets away with it. You just give the word and …’

  ‘Stop right there. Yes, Ethan didn’t upset me. He just …’ Mari shook her head and bared her teeth ‘… has this amazing talent for doing something totally unexpected and getting me all worked up in the process.’

  ‘Nothing new about that. And did I mention that I wanted details?’

  Mari looked up at Rosa. This was it. This was the wonderful moment she had been looking forward to when she finally, finally, told her baby sister that their dream had come true.

  ‘If you must know—’ she grinned ‘—I asked him to loan me some money so that I could buy a house this morning. In Swanhaven.’

  Rosa collapsed into a chair, mouth open.

  Mari nodded, and took Rosa’s hand between both of hers. ‘Yup. It’s all true. I set my heart on a particular house, I didn’t have enough, so Ethan loaned me the extra I needed to make the winning bid.’

  And that shut her sister up for all of ten seconds before Rosa asked quietly, wide-eyed and incredulous, ‘Are you really telling me that you have bought a house in Swanhaven?’

  Mari nodded and tried not to look elated, but a bubble of happiness was welling up inside her and threatened to burst out in the form of spontaneous laughter. They might even be dancing.

  ‘Not just any house. Our house. The beach house where we grew up and were so happy together as a family. I’ve been planning it for months, Rosa, but I didn’t want to tell you in case I got your hopes up for nothing.’

  Mari was almost bouncing with excitement, her shoulders practically jiggling as all the nervous anticipation and excitement of that morning came flooding out. ‘I came so very close to losing it and if it hadn’t been for Ethan I would have. I made a bit of a fool of myself by doing the one thing I promised myself I wouldn’t do. I bid everything I had. Only it still wasn’t enough. But I did it, Rosa. I finally did it. We have our house back. Isn’t it wonderful?’

  Rosa slipped her hand out from between Mari’s and took in a sharp breath between her teeth. ‘Oh, Mari … what a mess. I was going to tell you tomorrow, but now I’m sorry I waited.’

  Rosa started pacing back and forth across the kitchen, pulling one cookery book out and then putting it back on the shelf before picking up another and all the time carefully avoiding looking at her sister.

  As Mari watched Rosa, a growing sense of concern slowly, slowly, pricked at her bubble of happiness and the longer she watched, the more her sense of happy excitement faded with it. ‘What is it? I thought you would be totally thrilled. This is what we both want. Isn’t it?’

  Rosa stopped pacing, turned back to face Mari and took a firm hold of the back of the dining room chair before speaking but, far from being thrilled, the tone of her voice was sad and filled with regret.

  ‘Do you remember taking all of those photos of my scarf collection last autumn?’ she asked. ‘I talked to each customer who came into the newsagent’s to model a different scarf for me? Well, it was a bit more successful than I had expected.’

  Mari smiled into her sister’s face before replying. ‘Let me guess. You have to knit like crazy for a bulk order for some fancy shop. That’s wonderful. We’re going to have all of the studio space you need at the house.’

  Rosa held up her unstrapped hand. ‘Please let me finish. This is hard to say so I need to get it all out in one go. It’s more than an order, Mari. One of the customers runs a handcraft design centre in an expensive part of London. She got in touch through the website a few weeks ago. There are workshops, design studios, everything. And she asked me to manage the craft shop for her, Mari. Fulltime.’

  Mari looked up into the face of her sister, unable to speak.

  ‘I said yes, Mari. I want this job—it’s so perfect I could have designed it myself. I’m going up to London next week to make sure that it is everything she claims. But if it is? I plan to move to London straight away. And I don’t know when I’ll be coming back.’

  Mari’s mouth fell open in shock.

  ‘What? Rosa! You can’t be serious. I thought you loved Swanhaven.’

  ‘I do—and I probably always will,’ Rosa replied, clutching at Mari. ‘But this is my dream job, Mari. Crafts are my passion and the thought of working with them full-time makes me so excited that I can hardly believe it. I did the research ages ago but there was no way I could afford to take three years out of my life to study textiles in a city like London. It’s way too expensive. This way, I can work, study and have somewhere to live.’

  Rosa’s eyes implored Mari to understand. ‘You were the person who told me that I should grab on to any chance for happiness I could find—and this is it. This is my chance to show people what I am capable of. If I don’t take this job now I’ll regret it for the rest of my life, Mari.’

  ‘But you don’t need to move to London now. You could work at the house, build your business and sell on the internet. It would be fantastic.’

  ‘Yes, I could.’ Rosa nodded, her mouth thin and sad. ‘But I don’t want to. For once in my life I want to do something different. I want to go to London and find out about the craft business. I want to go to college and learn from the best. And I’m not going to do all of that in Swanhaven. I’m so sorry, Mari, but you really should have involved me in your plans.’

  ‘Wow,’ Mari breathed and sat back. ‘You’re serious about this, aren’t you? But what about our dream of moving back to our old house? I thought you wanted that more than anything. Are you going to give up on that so easily?’

  Rosa shrugged. ‘You’re right. I did want to move back when Mum was still with us, but that’s all changed now. Have you been up to our old house recently?’

  Mari shook her head before replying in a low voice. ‘Not for a couple of years. It hurt too much. Oh—I know it needs work. The house details made that quite clear, but we could restore it together. Just the two of us. It would be great.’

  ‘No. It would not be great.’ Rosa shook her head, then lifted her arms and let them fall down. ‘This is a total disaster, Mari! I cannot believe that you didn’t ask me before you bought that old wreck of a house, expecting us to live in it. It’s a shambles, and I certainly don’t want it.’

  ‘How can you say that? That was our home!’

  ‘No, Mari. It’s a house that used to be our home.’ Rosa
looked around and waved her good wrist. ‘This is my home—at least for another few weeks! And then I’m leaving to start a new life and new future. And it is not in Swanhaven.’

  Then her voice softened as she flicked Mari’s hair behind her ear. ‘Oh, sis. What have you done? Was this for me? Yes? Oh, Mari, I love you, you know that, and you are my one and only sister, but I don’t need a baby sitter any more. I’m looking forward, Mari, not back. It hurts me to think that you can’t do the same.’

  ‘What? Have you not been listening? We could make this house work, we could make it like our home used to be …’ Mari started to form the words to tell her all about her wonderful plans for buying their old home back and that Rosa did not have to move to London at all.

  Rosa could stay here. And be with her and live the life … she had imagined for them both.

  And suddenly the selfishness and stupidity of that idea jumped up and bit Mari hard on the ankle. There was no work in Swanhaven. Rosa was right. There was nothing for Rosa here but more of the same things that she had been doing with her life so far. She’d thought that her sister was happy and fulfilled here, and she’d been wrong.

  Staying here would mean that Rosa might never find another way to fulfil her own dreams and potential. And that was just too sad to think about.

  Rosa was able to find happiness living somewhere else. Living her passion.

  Mari swallowed down tears and blinked hard to cover up her distress. ‘Well, it looks like I have to get used to the fact that my baby sister is all grown-up with ideas of her own. It’s come as a bit of a shock.’

  Her reward was a one-armed hug and a kiss on the top of her head. ‘I’ll leave you to work out what you’re going to do with this house you’ve just bought,’ Rosa said, then laughed out loud. ‘Marigold Chance is back in town. That has to be worth celebrating. See you later.’

  Mari managed a small wave in the vague direction of her sister’s back. ‘Later.’

  Perhaps coming back to Swanhaven for the Valentine Day party had not been such a good idea after all. She could hardly wait to find out what more wonderful news the rest of the day would bring.

  The pale winter afternoon sunshine was trying to break through the clouds as Mari strolled down the narrow cobbled street towards the harbour and the yacht club.

  The annual Valentine party had always been a special time in Swanhaven and, judging by the street banners, bunting and displays in the shop windows, this year was going to be no exception.

  It was almost like old times, Mari thought as she turned the corner from the yacht club onto the quay. Then suddenly stopped, mesmerised by what she was looking at.

  An old wooden sailing ship was moored in the harbour. It was a single-masted traditional brig with a lovely wooden hull and decking, which must have docked that morning. She could have looked at the stately and gorgeous ship all day, like many of the locals on the quayside who had gathered around to admire the brig.

  But that was not the only cause of her fascination.

  Mari stared in amazement at the man who was kneeling on the deck of the ship, holding a thick rope in one hand and showing a teenager how to form a special knot with the free end of the rope. The boy was gazing in rapt attention at the complicated knot that Ethan was showing him for a second time, and looked so much like Kit at that age that Mari’s heart contracted.

  But it was not Kit. It was a boy in a bright yellow life jacket who was so intent on twisting the rope into this special knot against a piece of rigging that when he had finished and stood back, it was Ethan who laughed out loud and broke the tension.

  ‘You must have been practising, Peter. My arms are getting tired just holding on! Ready to test it yet?’

  His question was met with enthusiastic nodding from the boy, who stretched out far enough to tug hard on the rope several times to make sure that it was firmly attached. ‘All done, Captain,’ he said with a jaunty salute to Ethan, who sat back on his heels to salute back.

  ‘Well done, first mate. Stand at ease.’

  Ethan was back on his feet in seconds, but not before he had slapped the boy firmly on the back and given him a warm hug across his shoulders.

  But it was Ethan’s face that Mari was focusing on.

  And what she saw on that smiling, happy face hit her squarely on the jaw and sent her spinning. The intense pleasure, the happiness, his own delight in bringing such joy to the child, was reflected in that open-mouthed grin for all to see.

  Ethan would make a wonderful father.

  How had she not seen it before?

  He wanted to show his own children how to tie ropes on a ship and how to sail. And he wanted it so badly it hurt her just to see it on his face and know that he had no idea how open and totally exposed that need was for all to see—or was she the only one to see it?

  Any child with a father like Ethan would be a very lucky child indeed.

  What a shame that he would never have the chance to settle down and be a father with the life he led.

  Well, she would know about that.

  Over the years she had often thought about having children of her own, but she had always kept that dream carefully locked away inside a stout box labeled: Later. When I’m back living in Swanhaven in my old home. That’s when my life will start and I can be happy. That is when I can think about children and a family of my own. And maybe even a husband to go with them.

  And in a flash the true impact of those ideas jumped up and slapped her firmly across the back of the head.

  Wake up! She had done it! She had actually done it! She had bought back her home.

  She had signed the paperwork in a daze and knew that it would be days before the legal documents were ready to be processed and money had to be transferred, but this was it.

  Telling Rosa was one thing. But seeing Ethan working with this young man? The true impact of what she had done—no, what they had done, hit home and hit her hard.

  Suddenly everything was different. She felt as though a huge door to a secret chamber had been opened and all of the dreams and goals she had kept hidden for ten years were suddenly exposed to the light and released from their captivity.

  And a family was one of them.

  She had chosen to put her personal happiness and her dreams of having her own children on hold, and now—now she didn’t have to. She had just bought a huge family house which would be heaven for any child.

  Of course she would be living there on her own, alone on the cliff, trying to create an online business, so meeting men could be a bit of a problem. But she could do it. Couldn’t she?

  Perhaps there was still time for a relationship—she was only twenty-six. She could make an effort if she was ready to change. If she was prepared to take the risk.

  Perhaps that was why she’d always made sure that she was the one who broke up with any man who dated her more than a couple of times, because that way they never had a chance to break up with her. The truth was, she had driven her last long-term boyfriend away because she was not ready to open up her emotions and heart and let him into her life.

  Mari looked up just as a pretty woman in a long woollen coat walked along the jetty to the brig and the boy practically flew off the deck towards her. They looked so much alike that there could be no doubt at all whose son he was, and the woman wrapped her arms around her son’s shoulder before twisting around to face Ethan.

  ‘How is Peter getting on? Almost ready to go out on his own?’

  ‘Mum!’ Mari heard Peter reply, but it was Ethan who smiled reassuringly. ‘Not there yet. We have a couple more sessions before the main season starts. Right?’