‘I’m fine,’ Nina insisted.
‘Must be the shock,’ said Camille more to Walt than her.
‘I’m fine, Grandad, Camille. Please don’t worry about me.’
Neither of them looked convinced. And much as Nina loved her grandad she wished she could have time to process everything that had happened since yesterday and since she’d been back in the bay. She sank down into the cushions on the sofa, the newly covered furniture thatmade this place the perfect beachside cabin. She had to fight the smile, the knowledge that she’d spent last night in the arms of the man she loved. The love of her life. She thought again of the way she and Leo had murmured to one another in the still of the night, how they’d woken hours after falling asleep with exhaustion and made love all over again. She thought of the way she’d looked into his eyes, they’d told one another they loved each other, he’d said he’d never stopped and she knew she hadn’t either.
‘Nina, let me make you a cup of tea,’ Camille offered.
‘Honestly, there’s no need,’ she insisted. ‘I’m fine.’
Camille and Walt bustled over to the kitchen area, presumably to ignore her claim, and she was about to call out that she really was OK and that they shouldn’t fuss when she saw Leo appear at the bottom of the outside steps.
He bounded inside. ‘You left your earrings beside my bed last night,’ he called out, brandishing said jewellery.
And then he stopped, when in his peripheral vision he noticed they had company. ‘Gran, didn’t see you there.’ He beamed a smile and it met with amusement from Camille and Walt. And then to Nina he said, ‘I suppose that’s what you call being caught red-handed.’ He came over to her and didn’t hesitate to plant a smacker on her lips.
‘This is beyond what we dreamed of,’ they both heard Camille say as they finished their kiss and Leo’s lips still hovered centimetres from Nina’s.
Leo stood upright and turned to face his gran. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Nothing,’ she said and carried on finding mugs for tea all round.
‘No, it’s not nothing,’ Leo persisted, taking Nina’s handand leading them both into the kitchen area. ‘What’s going on? Truth time. Because I know there’s something.’
Walt and Camille exchanged a look before Walt pointed to his accomplice. ‘Her idea,’ he said.
‘He’s right, it was my idea.’
‘What was?’ Nina asked.
And so the story came out. Walt and Camille had been talking for a long time before now. Both of them thought Nina and Leo belonged together but Walt could never get Nina close enough to the bay to realise it.
‘I suggested he dangle the idea that he wanted to sell the cabin,’ Camille confessed. ‘With William in another country we both knew it would be you who came to help Walt do it up and prepare it for sale and that that would mean you’d have to come to the bay, be close to Leo.’
‘We did it for the right reasons,’ said Walt, guilt written all over his face.
‘Grandad, what would you have done if Leo hadn’t been able to offer to buy the cabin? Would you really have gone through with selling it to that man, the one who wants to get his hands on the boathouse too?’
Grandad shook his head. ‘I knew I could keep the pretence going for a while and then pull out if I wanted to. I wasn’t lying when I said I worried about my finances and my future, that was all true and so I’d sell the cabin eventually. But I like to think I’ve got time to think about the options.’ He paused. ‘Are you very annoyed with me, Nina?’
She leaned her head against Leo’s chest. ‘How could I be annoyed? Your plan worked, didn’t it?’ And she felt Leo’s arms wrap around her from behind, his chin rest on top of her head.
‘It could’ve easily backfired, Gran,’ Leo said seriously. ‘It wasn’t easy for either of us you know.’
‘I know, and I’m sorry.’ She did look sorry but Nina sensed that like all of them, deep down, she wasn’t at all. Because look at Nina and Leo now.
Leo
‘Is this what I think it is?’ Adrian walked down the side of the boathouse hand-in-hand with Maeve, Jonah following closely behind, and caught Leo kissing Nina in the October sunshine that hadn’t shown itself for almost a week – a week in which Leo had been glad to have the rain because the more rain that hammered down on the cabins and the boathouse the fewer customers he had and the more he got to cosy up to Nina.
Leo pulled a slightly embarrassed Nina to him. ‘Must be something in the air,’ he said nodding to his brother’s hand still entwined with Maeve’s.
‘Hi Leo, hi Nina!’ Jonah reached them and didn’t bother lingering, he was straight over to the shed below the boathouse ready for the double kayak he’d be taking out on the water today with Adrian.
‘It’s been a while,’ Adrian confided in the adults. ‘What if I don’t remember how to do it?’
‘You will,’ Maeve assured him. ‘You drove your boat that night without even thinking about it.’
