‘I don’t suppose that’ll help,’ Leo laughed.
‘I surprised you all when I went into teaching didn’t I?’
Leo gave him a look that suggested he’d asked a pretty stupid question. ‘You could say that. I’m surprised Mum and Dad didn’t try to talk you out of it.’
‘They knew I’d made my mind up.’ He took in a breath of evening air. ‘I think I broke their hearts a little bit when I didn’t go into business with you.’
‘They also know you’ve got your own life to live.’ He paused and then added, ‘I did get to thinking perhaps I’d sell up, move away from here myself.’
Adrian stopped in the middle of the road before Leo frowned and urged him to cross to the other side. ‘Did I just hear you right?’ he asked when they were safely on the pavement.
‘That businessman would offer me enough money to start over somewhere else.’ Over dinner Leo had filled him in on the businessman he’d told to sling his hook when he sniffed around Leo’s cabin and the boathouse a while ago resurfacing and offering a substantial price for the O’Brien cabin. ‘I could build another boathouse.’
Adrian swore loud enough for the man walking his dog to cross over to the other side of the street. ‘Leo, you can’t be serious.’
‘You all left, why don’t I get to do that same?’
‘Leo, we all left … but we all bloody well came back.’
‘All right, enough of the cursing.’ Leo smiled. ‘Changed my mind anyway.’
‘Glad to hear it.’
‘The bay, the sea, the boathouse, it’s all me. I couldn’t change that even if I wanted to. My only complaint aboutmyworkplace,’ said Leo, ‘is that I don’t have my brother there to run the business with me.’
‘Coming down there the other day was weird.’
‘Good weird or bad weird?’
Adrian considered his reply. ‘I thought it would be a bad weird but it wasn’t. The night I came to Nina’s party was worse. That night I went down to the beach first. I bumped into Maeve.’
‘Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. I thought you two looked friendly at the party. As I said, she’s pretty great. Did you talk?’
‘A little, not for long, enough for me to have the balls to walk into the party at least.’
‘Then I owe her a thank you,’ said Leo.
‘You know for a long time I never went near the sea, never set foot on a beach. Which, let me tell you, is pretty difficult with a wife who longs for holidays in the Seychelles or the Maldives.’
Leo began to laugh. ‘You weren’t tempted?’
‘I leapt at the chance for New York when she mentioned it, put it that way.’ They were walking along the main road now and you could hear the sea in the distance as the waves built up and then crashed down once again. ‘Sitting on the beach that day with Maeve I could only see what the sea offered, not what it took. I could see its beauty.’
‘Its beauty orherbeauty.’ He held up both hands. ‘Sorry, I’ll stop winding you up now. I apologise.’
‘I still feel responsible that someone drowned on my watch.’
‘Maybe that’s something every skipper feels if it happens to them, I don’t know.’
‘I’ve realised since I came back here that my avoidance of the sea, the beach, this town I grew up in, hasn’t made it all go away. That sounds stupid. It sounds like I’m an idiot not to have worked that out for myself. But I can only see it now after being away for so long.’
‘I think Nina is having the same experience.’
‘She looked happy at the party. She did,’ Adrian encouraged when Leo looked doubtful. ‘And I saw her looking at you more than once.’
‘We have a history.’
‘And a future?’
