Page 79 of The Wedding Proposal
To: Elle.Jamieson
From: Simon.Rose
Subject: I’ll bet alcohol was involved
Elle, wtf was Charlie thinking? Just glad he’s basically OK but it must’ve been a big scare. Good job Lucas reached him before he got into real trouble. Tell Charlie that I’m sorry to hear he’s hurt and not to be such a bloody idiot. Sheesh. I’ll text Lucas.
Re Fiona and Geoffrey :-/ Is that going to be a touch ticklish for you? I hope not. I never understood their stupid attitude. Anyone would think you’d done something wrong.
Re women and bars, have recently found a new bar, full of women. Win–win. ? xx
Elle grinned, wishing Simon weren’t so far away. She could do with someone on her side.
* * *
It was past six when Elle got down to the marina and she headed straight for Seadancer. Lucas hadn’t texted her for a while so she assumed that he was catching up on his sleep or was at the hospital with Charlie. It cost her a pang to make her way through the gardens to Seadancer’s mooring rather than to the familiar shape of the Shady Lady. She hadn’t realised quite how at home she’d grown to feel on board the neat little cabin cruiser.
Seadancer suddenly seemed huge and grand. And it would be hard to keep her working and non-working hours separate. But it was incredibly kind of Loz and Davie to let her live on board for free so if it meant she was called upon to prepare the odd meal or two—
Her heart skipped. Lucas was sitting on a bench in front of her, right opposite Seadancer’s gangplank, hair stirring as the breeze ran through it.
She rounded the bench and dropped down beside him, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. He needed to shave: stubble outlined his jaw. ‘This is a nice surprise.’ She kissed him again, just a peck, because it seemed to her that the Maltese didn’t appreciate public clinches. She wouldn’t want to trample on anybody’s sensitivities like some unthinking tourist. ‘How’s Charlie?’
Lucas’s eyes spoke of fatigue but he still looked glad to see her, taking her hand and stroking her palm with his thumb. ‘Sorry for himself. King-sized headache, blurry vision, nausea, complaining that his leg itches in the plaster. Serves him right for acting like a twat.’
She squeezed his hand. ‘I’m incredibly proud of what you did.’
He kissed the end of her nose. ‘I’ve had the training, luckily for him. I’m just glad that the precautions we took with his spine proved unnecessary. If he’d messed that up—’ He grimaced.
‘Don’t even think about it. Are your mum and dad at the hospital with him?’ She tried not to sound as if she hoped they were safely out of her way. Walking down from the centre she’d caught herself constructing an optimistic scenario where Fiona and Geoffrey, having assured themselves of Charlie’s well-being, would make this a flying visit and be off again first thing in the morning. Then Elle wouldn’t need to even see them.
But Lucas immediately dashed any such hopes.
‘No, they’re on the Shady Lady.’ He looked down at her hand in his for several seconds. When he looked up again she read apprehension in his face.
‘They wanted to talk to me about you. I said I’d feel more comfortable if you were in on the conversation.’
Around them, children called as they played in the park, the traffic rumbled on the road, sailing yachts shifted at their moorings and the clinking of their rigging sounded like cutlery being moved gently in a drawer. ‘Wow,’ she said, slowly. Trepidation washed through her. ‘What was their response?’
‘They said OK, if that’s what I want.’
‘OK.’ She tried to work out what this could mean. It didn’t give her a good feeling that the Roses felt the need to request some kind of summit, despite them being here only because their beloved younger son had been in danger, despite nothing being decided between her and Lucas. It was as if Lucas’s parents were running up a huge red warning flag. Part of her wanted to whine, ‘Why would I want to be in on it? Can’t you talk them round for me?’
Then anger stiffened her spine. Why was she letting them make her feel threatened? All she’d ever done wrong was get married too young to the wrong man, and let Fiona and Geoffrey look down on her for her mistake, blowing it up into some massive flight of irresponsibility and stupidity. No doubt if she’d come from some upper-middle-class family it would all have been overlooked as an indiscretion of youth. But her average, ordinary family hadn’t compared well to Lucas’s comfortable background. She clenched her fists to remember Fiona once asking, ‘Did your ex-husband have money? Divorce can sometimes be worthwhile.’
Of course, Elle had been so outraged and humiliated that her stammer had made an appearance. ‘W-we kept our finances s-separate!’
Fiona had sent her a real courtroom stare.
Well, bollocks. She’d nothing to be ashamed of. Just because Fiona was a lawyer and Geoffrey a magistrate, they couldn’t create some kind of dock and put her in it to be condemned as not matching up to their precious standards.
Fuck them, basically.
‘Right,’ she breezed. ‘Give me fifteen minutes to shower and change.’
It wasn’t relief that flicked across Lucas’s features. It was alarm. He leaped up and grabbed her hand as she turned towards Seadancer, his eyes dark and troubled. ‘Did I call this wrong? I’m not siding against you in some kind of half-arsed witch hunt. I just didn’t want you to think I was talking about you behind your back.’
‘OK,’ she repeated. And tried to feel reassured.
