Page 67 of The Island Villa

“Because we were once best friends,” she said, “and because I understand. I’m glad you told me.”

“Yes, well—” he twisted the cap off the bottle of water “—you always were easy to talk to. That’s something that hasn’t changed.” He offered her water, but she shook her head.

“I’m fine, thanks. You always did love the ocean. That’s something else that hasn’t changed. It’s not so surprising that you’re back here.” She remembered him, barefoot and bronzed, plunging into the sea without hesitation. Working on the deck of his father’s boat, or heaving a heavy anchor overboard. “Almost every memory I have of you has the sea in it.”

“I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I came back here. If you’d asked me if I was happy with my life in Canada, I would have said that I was. I had a great apartment, a job that paid well and that I was good at. I commuted to my office, worked, socialized with friends. It was predictable.”

“You don’t like predictable?”

She thought about her own life, and how hard she’d worked to make it exactly that. Predictable was her lifestyle of choice.

“I don’t think I asked myself that question until I lost my father,” he said. “Then I realized that sometimes the way you live your life is more down to habit than choice. You rarely stop and ask yourself if this is really how you want to be spending your time, or if you do, you dismiss it because you’re deep in your career and humans are wired to prefer certainty and why would you give that up for something uncertain?”

Why indeed? She felt her heart beat a little faster.

“But you did.”

“Yes, but only because it was forced on me. If my father hadn’t died, I’ve no doubt I’d still be in Canada sitting at my desk or heading into another meeting. And that’s scary, because I finally feel as if I’m exactly where I want to be. I don’t like the idea that I arrived here by accident.”

She felt a twinge of something that could have been envy.

“No plans to go back?”

“None. I am now the official owner of my father’s business.”

“What does that involve? You take tourists out? You’re the skipper?”

“Sometimes, if that’s what they want.” He screwed the cap back on the bottle. “More often they just want to take the boat on their own and providing they’re prepared to follow my safety rules and don’t seem about to party hard and drown themselves, I let them. I have one yacht and five speedboats for hire. And my own boat, which I use as the rescue boat.” His gaze connected with hers. “Remember when we took my dad’s boat out together?”

She felt a twinge of guilt. “He was so angry!.” It was something she hadn’t thought about in years. “You were grounded for a week, my dad yelled at you and I felt terrible because you’d done it for me.”

“We scared them,” he said. “You were only eight. If I’d been your dad, I would have yelled at me too. But it seemed the right thing to do at the time. All I knew was that life felt better when I was on the water. You were upset, and I thought it might make you feel better too.”

“It did make me feel better.”

She thought back to that afternoon. Her parents had told her they were no longer going to live together. That her mother was marrying someone else. That she was going to have a sibling.

She’d run away, trying to escape from this change to her life. She’d gone straight to Stefanos who had been earning pocket money scrubbing the deck of his father’s boat.

It had been her idea to go out on the water so that she could have some time to think and digest without an adult coming and trying to reason with her. He’d complied without question.

She’d sat shivering in the dinghy while Stefanos had taken the boat around the coast. She remembered the look of concentration on his face and his skinny arms and legs straining with the effort required to keep the boat steady. He’d steered the boat into one of the sheltered coves that peppered the coastline and killed the engine.

Her eyes had stung from crying, and the breeze had been cool against her sore skin. She remembered the way he’d listened to her, and squeezed her hand in wordless comfort. She might have wondered how she could remember something that had happened so long ago, but she knew that great kindness often stayed with a person and Stefanos had shown her great kindness.

He gave her a thoughtful look. “What are you doing for the rest of the morning?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m a better sailor than I was when I was ten years old, but some things haven’t changed. Life still seems better on the water. When I feel the need to scream, I usually take the boat out. A few hours away from things, feeling the sun on your face and the wind in your hair, calms the mind I find.”

Sailing? Right now?

She couldn’t do that. It would feel like running away, and she wasn’t eight years old anymore. “I can’t but thank you.”

“Why not?”

“I need to talk to my mother.” And after the way the conversation had gone with her father, the thought of repeating it with her mother made her stomach churn.

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