Page 32 of Dauntless
Iwoke early.I’d been doing it for so many years now that I didn’t need to set an alarm.I carefully disentangled myself from Eddie, dressed, and then went into the kitchen and pulled my boots and my jacket on before letting Hiccup outside for her morning pee.I left the kitchen door propped open for her while I did my check of the lighthouse.
It was a bright, cold day.The sea was smooth, its surface only broken into choppy waves close to the island and to the jagged rocks that ringed it.On days like these, I usually liked to stand on the catwalk for a while, leaning on the rail and taking in the view.But I usually didn’t have someone sleeping in my bed back at the cottage.
The sea didn’t have anything on Eddie Hawthorne.
I headed back down the winding stairs.
Hiccup met me in the yard between the lighthouse and the cottage, her tail swinging lazily.I scratched her head, and she leaned against me.
“Is Eddie awake?”
Her ears twitched as she beamed up at me.
“You like him, huh?”I asked her.“Me too, Hic.Me too.”
I’d always told myself I wasn’t one for summer—or winter—flings with tourists, but that was before Eddie came to Dauntless.Most of our tourists were retirees, and my idea of sexy underwear didn’t really extend to anything in the compression socks range.If our average tourist looked more like Eddie and less like someone who’d last stepped on a Pacific island with Douglas MacArthur, maybe I would have gotten around more.Dauntless Island wasn’t exactly a draw for the young, hot backpacker crowd.It probably never would be, however much Short Clarry dreamed of those tourism dollars.
Last night Eddie had said he liked me, and I’d said I liked him back.I wondered if that was something Eddie would remember this morning, and if he still meant it.I thought we had something more than attraction and convenience, but I didn’t know if that was worth acknowledging when we were both sober, or if it was something we’d be better off ignoring since Eddie would be returning to the mainland soon.
Too bad I only had Hiccup to talk it through with.
Eddie was poking around in the kitchen when Hiccup and I got back to the cottage.He was yawning and blinking, his hair sticking up in odd ways.
“Feeling okay?”I asked.
“Hmm.”Eddie considered that for a moment, and I could almost hear his brain whirring behind his long, slow blinks, like an old computer doing its hardest to restart.“Not great, but considering how drunk I was last night, I should probably be feeling a lot worse than I do.”
“Sarah Hooper’s rum has a hell of a kick.”I moved around him to get to the kettle.I filled it in the sink and set it on the stovetop.
Eddie hugged his chest.“It’s cold this morning.”
Probably because I’d left the door propped open when I’d done my rounds.“Go sit in the living room.I’ll bring you your coffee when it’s done.”
Eddie flashed me a grateful smile and shuffled out of the kitchen.Hiccup followed him.
I expected to find him snoring on the couch by the time the coffee was done, but instead he was inspecting the bookshelves and the framed photographs standing in front of the books.
“She’s beautiful,” he said, sliding his fingers over the glass of a frame.
“My mum.She passed away when I was nine.”I set the mugs on the coffee table.“Cancer.She went to the mainland for treatment, but it didn’t do her any good.”My eyes stung a little at the memory.
“I’m sorry.”He touched the next frame.Two grinning red-headed kids squinted into the sunlight at the camera.“Is this you?”
I nodded.“Me and Amy, on Dad’s boat when we were kids.”
Dauntless was in my blood, in an unbroken line that stretched back two centuries.And it was home.It would always be home.I’d thought about not coming back after Dad died.I’d thought about sending for Amy instead and making room for her in my poky Sydney flat—but it had been nothing more than an idle thought.I’d never really meant it.I couldn’t be the first Josiah Nesmith in two hundred years to abandon the place.
“Would you ever move back?”Eddie asked softly.“To Sydney?”
I had the sinking feeling he was asking about more than Sydney.I felt a pang of regret, but I owed Eddie the truth.“No.Dauntless is where I belong.”
Eddie’s mouth quirked into something that wasn’t quite a smile.“Yeah, of course.I mean, it’s incredible here.Why would you leave?”He bent down to pick up his mug, then winced.“I need a couple of aspirin and at least another few hours’ sleep before I’m human again, I think.”
“Bacon and eggs for breakfast first?”I asked, hating myself for being glad he’d changed the subject.
Eddie’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.“That would be amazing.”
We went back into the kitchen, and Eddie began to rummage through the fridge to find the eggs and bacon.I unhooked my keys from my belt and crossed to the green medical chest to grab some aspirin.I unlocked the padlock, wiggled it free, and lifted the lid.
