When he turned back, his expression was just as vexed but at least he’d found some words. ‘Were you injured?’
‘No, I’m fine. The doctor ordered me to rest for a few days, and to drink. I was dehydrated.’
‘That’s good,’ he told her, his voice rising hopefully. ‘That you’re resting here, I mean, not that you were dehydrated.’ He seemed to wince once more.
Alex told herself she’d made a mistake dropping by, and yet turning on her heel and leaving wasn’t really an option. English politeness stopped her, not to mention the fact this guy had run to her aid that morning.
Concluding that he’d reached the limits of his conversation skills for now, Alex took a few cautious steps towards the classic literature section. This seemed to startle the bookseller even more. He was looking at her the way a person watches up-close street magic.
Suddenly, with a blink of awakening, he retreated behind the till where he picked up a copy of the little baking book from the counter and read it so closely that it obscured his face.
She saw his shoulders slump as if in defeat. The whole thing was amusing – endearing, even – which made Alex ask herself if she’d been at sea for so long that she was just glad to be in the company of anyone new, even this odd fellow. He was handsome though, she had to admit, somehow concrete in his chest and shoulders, muscular in his arms and legs, a little soft around his middle, and tall like her. She snapped her eyes to the bookshelves.
‘You’re enjoying your holiday?’ she asked at last, while looking at a modern paperback of Robert Louis Stevenson’sTreasure Island.
‘Am I?’ he said in a thoughtful way, as if he wasn’t sure. ‘I arrived last night, I haven’t really seen the place… and I’ve sold only one book so far.’ He stopped to take a breath.
‘Ah, well, let me help with that.’
She could have sworn he took a step backwards as she swept towards the till, book in hand. ‘I’ll take this, please. I didn’t bring anything with me to read on the…’ She almost said ‘on theDagalien’ but quickly swerved for ‘on the boat.’
Taking the paperback from her hand seemed to calm him. ‘Treasure Island? That’s one of my favourites.’
‘I’ve never read it.’
‘Ha!Then you are in for an adventure. Let me know what you think of it when you’re done.’
His sudden enthusiasm threw her. ‘Oh, well, I’m a slow reader, I…’ Alex didn’t know where she was going with this, only that she didn’t want to admit she’d really quite like to stay put in Clove Lore for a while, sitting still on dry land and reading and not having to think about things or explain herself to anyone. The idea struck her as utterly lovely. ‘I’ll be gone before I finish it, probably,’ she heard herself saying.
‘Já, right, of course. So, let me see,’ he peered at the book’s inside cover. ‘That will be… two pounds sterling?Of courseit will.’ He was shaking his head again.
What a strange person, Alex thought, but his grumbling, fumbling way still made her want to smile.
She pulled a pearl-coloured coin purse from the pocket of her great coat and handed over the money, just as the shop door rattled violently on its hinges and the wind roared. Their heads snapped round to look at it.
Magnús made an impressed, ‘Woah!’
‘This storm isn’t calming at all,’ she said.
‘You should drink coffee,’ he told her, as though that somehow followed, and seeing her surprised smile he added, ‘before you walk back to Jowan’s, I mean. For warmth. Also I made cake and nobody’s tasted it.’
‘Well…’
That was the clincher. That and the fact she had nowhere to be and nothing to do. The call to the insurance company could wait until morning. Jowan and Aldous weren’t at the B&B to greet her, though he had given her a key and told her she could stay as long as she needed, which she’d taken to mean a couple of nights max. He couldn’t want her there over Christmas.
Jowan and the little dog had accompanied her as far as the turning for the bookshop and then they’d walked on up to the Big House to visit the mysterious Minty, who Jowan, no matter how devoted he was to his late wife’s memory, kept talking about. A bad case of mentionitis there, she’d thought.
Alex knew all about mentionitis now. Ben had caught it weeks ago. It had beenEve saidthis andEve likesthat. Funny how she hadn’t suspected a thing at the time, but the constant name-dropping now told her that Eve had occupied his thoughts.
Maybe he’d tried to stop himself? Maybe he’d fought the attraction at first? Tried to be loyal? Who knew? None of that mattered since she’d walked in on him and her best friend practically eating each other before springing apart in their shock at being discovered.
She’d been too trusting or – and the thought made her mood sink like an anchor – she’d been only too willing to be fooled, just so long as she had some kind of family to fit into.
‘Cake would be good,’ she conceded, trying not to sound too weary.
For the first time, the Icelander smiled. ‘I’m Magnús Sturluson,’ he said, and the frank way that he held his hand out across the counter weakened her resolve to remain incognito. She confessed her name was Alex. No surname necessary.
The warm clasp of his hand took them both back to the beach that morning, and Alex felt the last remnants of her brave face slipping. He’d seen her at her absolute lowest point, suddenly washed ashore when she’d wanted to hide away from the entire world for at least another few weeks. And she’d squashed him flat on his back on the beach.Ugh!
