Page 54
Touched that Athene had revealed her bruised and battered soul, Katie rested her mulled wine on a plant pot. ‘I am going to give you a hug. Whether you want it or not.’
Athene smiled bravely. ‘OK, I accept.’
As they embraced, Katie was filled with regret that, all this time, she’d never noticed her friend was unhappy. Seeing the impact of a broken relationship on Athene, however, had only served to reinforce how messy and heartbreaking love could be.
Did she really want to be like Guy and keep a person dangling only to break their heart? Even if Ned had crashed her Christmas party …
She let go of Athene. ‘This is – this is horrible for you and I am so sorry that you must have been going through this while I have been wallowing in my own misery. I’d no idea.’
‘You had to focus on you. We all wanted you to focus on you. So don’t feel bad or I will be cross. And for God’s sake, don’t put my sorry tale in a book,’ Athene said sternly. ‘I’ll notice no matter how much you disguise it. Now, enough of my woes! You have your own decisions to make!’
Katie sighed. ‘I wish I didn’t.’
‘Answer me this. If Ned hadn’t turned up, would you have taken things further with Arlo?’
Katie opened her mouth to deny it, but then pressed her lips together.
Athene narrowed her eyes. ‘Aha! You haven’t said no, so that should make you think …’
Sharp yaps reached them from the greenhouse at the end of the walled garden. Athene rolled her eyes. ‘At least somewhere there’s a pug with a foot fetish waiting for me.’
Katie laughed and spotted the others on the terrace above the garden.
When the group reunited, Wanda and Jess seemed to be infused with Christmas spirit and well laden with more gift bags. They spent the rest of the afternoon looking at the stalls and joining in with some carol singing until it was time to go back to the island.
On the boat over, Athene’s experience had made Katie focus even more on the consequences of her own actions. Perhaps she’d never fully closed the door on her relationship with Ned even if she thought she had, because they’d never had a real discussion about why she needed to move on …
As for Arlo, she didn’t know the answer to Athene’s question. But one thing was sure: until she helped Ned to accept that things were truly over between them, she daren’t allow herself to imagine a future with Arlo in it.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Having dropped the others at the Island House on the way back from Firholme, Arlo returned to the Lodge to collect Pongo. The dog’s tail wagged like a propellor at being out and about again.
Arlo only wished he could feel the same way and hoped he was doing a good enough job of disguising how little he wanted to transport Ned across to the island for Christmas.
Ned met him at the back door of the Lodge and they walked down to the jetty together.
‘I really hope I’m not causing you too much trouble,’ he said with a sincerity that wound Arlo up more. Arlo could still hear him backing Katie into a corner at Dalton’s cave – and her equivocal answer.
‘Not at all,’ Arlo said politely.
‘Did you all have a good time at this Firholme place earlier?’ he asked, climbing aboard the launch.
‘I think everyone enjoyed it,’ he replied, watching Ned stow his overnight bag and a carrier of gifts on the floor of the cabin. It occurred to Arlo that he’d worked fast in buying so many presents if he’d only been invited to the house the day before yesterday.
Arlo turned the engine over and, after a stutter, it chugged into life. He heaved an inner sigh of relief. The last thing he wanted was engine trouble again. The engine was almost forty years old and the starter motor had been playing up again. He really needed to replace the terminal but wasn’t going to be able to get a new one until after Christmas so he’d done a temporary fix.
‘I hope it’s OK with you that I’m spending a couple of nights on the island. Katie and I discussed it and it seemed like the best solution that would cause the least disruption all round.’
‘It’s my job to take care of guests,’ Arlo said, concentrating harder than he usually would on steering the launch away from the jetty as smoothly as possible.
Once safely in deeper water, he glanced over his shoulder and caught sight of Pongo sniffing round Ned’s gift bag. ‘Pongo. Here!’ he called and the dog reluctantly lay by his feet.
‘At least you can go home and relax after you’ve played taxi service to me,’ Ned called above the thrum of the engine. ‘Or will you be spending tomorrow with Greg?’
‘He’s going to his parents in Cockermouth for lunch and he’s busy with the farm for the rest of the day.’
‘Oh. You’ll be off to friends then?’ Ned persisted like an annoying wasp around a jam jar.
