‘Oh no.’ She tried not to panic, but the thought of it slipping over the edge of the cliff face was too much for her, remembering how important Lydia had made it sound. ‘Help!’ she cried, to anyone within distance.
A few people looked up, and two teenage boys giggled and nudged each other as she ran past them. Needing to go faster, she kicked off her flip-flops and followed the envelope, but had barely gone a few feet when shetripped on a large stone. Daisy stared after the document as it flew over one of the bunkers and landed on the other side. Had it gone over the edge of the headland? she wondered in a panic. It was too late to worry about it now, she thought, trying her best not to cry as her toe pounded in pain.
‘Is this what you were trying to catch?’ said a familiar voice.
She didn’t have to look up to see Gabriel standing next to her, but did anyway. ‘Yes.’ She winced as her toe smarted.
He crouched down next to her, inhaling sharply between his teeth. ‘That looks painful, and it’s already bruising. Here, let me help you up.’ She nodded. ‘We have a first-aid kit down in the bunker, if you’ll let me take you there.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, squeezing her eyes together as she placed her foot down on the ground. She’d never been inside a bunker before. In fact, this was the closest she’d been to any, but she hoped that access wasn’t going to be difficult. From what she’d seen there weren’t any obvious doors leading into the concrete building. She hopped next to Gabriel with one arm around his waist as he took most of her weight.
‘What brings you here? Is Nan with you?’
She shook her head. ‘No, she’s in a meeting, but she asked me to bring that to you.’ She indicated the envelope he was holding in his free hand.
‘Did she read it?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she answered through clenched teeth. ‘She said it was important and that you’d want to see it as soon as possible.’
‘Oh, OK. Thanks for bringing it.’
‘No problem,’ she said, wincing when her good foot landed on a sharp stone and her ankle almost gave way.
He held her more tightly, stopping her fromfalling over. ‘Let’s take a breather on that bench,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a look and see what you’ve brought me.’
She had to stop herself from groaning in relief as he helped lower her onto the wooden bench, dedicated to someone who obviously loved this place during their lifetime. Gabe sat down next to her, the heat from his bare leg against her own sending electric currents shooting through her thigh. He didn’t seem to notice as he ripped open the top of the self-seal envelope.
Pulling out the document from inside, Gabe narrowed his eyes. She could tell this wasn’t something that made him happy.
‘Is everything all right?’ she asked hesitantly.
He shook his head.
‘Bad news?’ She hoped it wasn’t, but by the troubled expression on his face this document contained information that displeased him greatly.
‘Afraid so,’ he said. He tapped the cover letter with his index finger. ‘Our funding’s been pulled.’
‘No, that’s awful.’ Surely there weren’t many projects for marine explorers to cover. She recalled him telling her stories about his exploits and conservation plans when they were in Vietnam together, so understood how keenly he’d feel this unexpected halt to his plans. ‘Didn’t you have an inkling they would do this?’
He shook his head. ‘Not exactly,’ he said quietly. He stared out across the rolling waves in the channel at the end of the headland. She rested her hand on his knee, only vaguely sensing that it might be construed as being a little forward in the circumstances. She didn’t care. Regardless of their differences, he was someone she cared about and his beliefswere important to him and therefore to her. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘Isn’t there anything you can do?’
‘If you can wait here a moment, I’ll go and tell the guys that I need to get back to the Encore. I’ll take you back in the hotel car and make a few calls, see if there’s anything I can do to change their minds.’
He disappeared down a ladder into a hole that must have been the entrance to the bunker he’d been working on and she was relieved not to have had to follow him inside. He soon came back out of the bunker closely followed by another tall, dark man who had an air of authority about him that was hard to miss. He was very handsome and looked similar to the actor Henry Cavill, who she’d only recently discovered came from Jersey. Surely it couldn’t be him, she thought. Daisy stood up, flinching in pain as the pressure on her foot increased as it touched the grassy soil beneath her.
‘Daisy, this is Sebastian Fielding,’ he said, indicating the man next to him who, she noticed, also had a beautiful smile. She decided that his photos in theGazettehadn’t done him justice. In fact, she thought, he would have been almost too good looking if it hadn’t been for his slightly crooked nose, brought on by someone breaking it at some point in his life, she guessed.
It dawned on her that Gabriel had said his last name was Fielding. She smiled at him. ‘You must be Fi’s older brother. She talks about you a lot,’ she said, smiling and holding out her hand for him to shake.
He took her hand in his and nodded. ‘I am, though I can imagine that more often than not she’s telling you how mean I can be,’ he joked.
‘Not at all,’ she lied. ‘Although I gather you don’t like the thought of her going to Glastonbury by herself, which seems pretty mean to me.’ She laughed, relieved he could tell she wasn’t being serious.
Sebastian shrugged. ‘My sister is very independentand even I wouldn’t have a problem with her going to the festival with a group of friends, but she intended going by herself for a “laugh” and seeing who she met along the way. If I know Fi, that’s a ticket for disaster.’
Gabriel laughed. ‘True, but then again, I know from experience that women are usually more capable of looking after themselves than us blokes when it comes to travelling.’
‘Probably because they’ve got the sense to stay away from anything that seems a little dangerous,’ she said. ‘I understand your concerns, but Fi’s pretty tough.’
