Page 60 of Lipstick Kiss

“Penny for them?” Freya asked, coming closer to him as they walked.

He slung his arm around her neck and sighed heavily.

“I don’t know what I’m doing. I feel so lost.”

“Are you finding it hard transitioning?”

“To island life? Yeah maybe. It wasn’t my choice to come home, but I don’t regret it. I just think I need to find my purpose.”

Freya swapped her shoes to her other hand and wrapped her free arm around his waist. “You’ll find your way.”

“Let’s hope. Look, there’s the cove,” Luke said and jogged to the opening.

She dropped her shoes outside and crawled through the narrow tunnel to get into the hidden cave. The waves over the years had battered the rocks and made a hole. She didn’t think there would be any treasure because she assumed it would take more than four hundred years for a channel bigenough for them to crawl through. Once she’d scaled the side of the rock and then crawled the six feet along the tunnel, she poked her head out into the cavernous space with a few inches of water swirling about. They’d never seen more than three inches of water in the cave, which was Luke’s theory’s premise. He reckoned pirates sent kids through the tunnels to stow away the crates of coins.

Where they all went was anyone’s guess.

“There’s not much in here, Luke,” Freya muttered, looking up twenty feet to the knotty gnarly stone in shiny greys. She jumped down a couple of feet, splashing into the water. The floor was smooth as marble.

“Where does that water come from? We’re ten feet up, and yet this cave isn’t dry.”

“Maybe there was a high tide last night or driving rain.”

“It’s neither of those two things. Let’s go in that direction,” Luke said, pointing further into the rock.

They’d been in this cave dozens of times as kids, but nothing ever changed.

“You go on ahead. I’ll wait here and have a look around. Maybe I’ll scale that wall. There looks to be a load of footholds,” Freya said.

“All right, yell if you find anything.”

Luke disappeared through another tunnel, his arse shifting away as he crawled through the space. She knew that tunnel to be a few feet long before it opened into another room. It was like someone had built a house but then never finished it.

Grabbing the hard rock lump, she started climbing carefully, testing out each foothold as she ascended. She was close to the ceiling when she discovered a ledge that wasn’t visible from the ground. Using her upper body strength, she hauled herself up and sat on the edge with her legsdangling. Puzzled at what had made the ledge, she looked across to the other side and saw another ledge, but again nothing other than rock. Growing bored, she fiddled with the engagement ring, and to her surprise, it came off her finger. She slid it back on and then off like her fingers had magically shrunk after climbing. She toyed with the cave having magical powers or the altitude of her climb. Whatever it was, her fingers were small enough to fit the ring easily.

Freya had given up on it ever coming off. So when Luke told her she could keep it, it didn’t matter if it wouldn’t come off. Freya tried it on all her fingers and was so carefree, she dropped it onto the cave floor into the shallow water. The diamond blinked and then was gone. Seemingly washed down a hole like there was a plug hole.

“Shit,” she said, panic setting in.

She’d had a ring that wasn’t hers, and now she’d lost the ring that wasn’t hers.

“Luke,” she called out.

Clambering down from the ledge, quickly jumping the last six feet, she heard a crack. The ground moved beneath her and fractured like she was on a sheet of ice. The marbled stone gave way, and her with it. She shrieked and threw her arms out to grab hold of the remaining cave floor. There was no purchase as it was so smooth. Acting like a lizard, she hoped she had enough strength in her hands to cling on until Luke could get to her.

“Luke,” she cried out.

She was scared she would get sucked down into the water.

Glancing below her body, she saw the ocean with two very old crates dropping the sea bed. The swirling water swayed her legs violently, trying to drag her down.

“What the fuck?” Luke said, then popped his head through the hole in the tunnel.

“It’s a fake floor,” Freya said shakily as tears sprouted and fell.

A swell of water rushed up and almost tossed her on the flat of the rock beneath Luke but then rushed back down like it was sucking everything in its wake.

“Oh, fucking hell. Hang on to something Freya,” Luke yelled, scrambling out of the tunnel and jumping down.

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