Page 31 of An Island in the Sun

‘You really didn’t mind me invading your privacy the other night,’ he said with a hint of a smirk.

‘That’s what you took from all of that! You really are an idiot. Go get your stuff and leave.’ She shook her head and paced across the tiled floor to the open doors. She put her hands on her hips and breathed in the ocean air. She stayed like that until Raff’s footsteps retreated across the living room and up the stairs.

He was an arse, but a mighty fine-looking one. She was mad at herself for her heart trumping all rational thought. Nope, it wasn’t her heart, it was the part of her that had lusted after him the other night, that had gone all funny when her fingers had traced the Smurf tattoo on his abs, that had kissed him and wanted to do a whole lot more.

Her feelings for Raff were the least of her worries as, with increasing anxiety, Tabitha searched the villa for Fudge. She checked every room, looking in cupboards and under beds in case he’d managed to get trapped somewhere, but she couldn’t find him. As sheer panic set in, she felt even sicker than she had the morning before, her fear that he must have escaped out of the gate confirmed.

With her heart racing, she returned to the living room and made sure Bailey was still curled up on the chair before closing the bifold doors. The second Emilio emerged from the bathroom and Raff came downstairs with his rucksack, Tabitha pocketed the house keys and grabbed Fudge’s lead.

‘I am very sorry, Tabitha,’ Emilio said, holding out his hands. ‘Inez is waiting, but I can help clean up?’ He gestured to the sofa.

‘No. You need to go. I have to find Fudge.’

Emilio nodded and clutched Raff’s hand. They thumped each other’s backs in a manly hug.

Clenching her jaw, Tabitha stalked to the front door and held it open for them. A car was waiting on the lane with the engine running. Emilio grimaced as he slipped past Tabitha and walked towards it.

Raff turned to Tabitha. ‘I can finish cleaning up.’

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘You’re leaving now too.’

Raff swung his rucksack on his back and followed her outside. After locking the door, Tabitha stalked across the drive and waited until Raff had come through the gate before closing it. She rushed away along the lane, too angry to even say goodbye. The smorgasbord of emotions he’d evoked in her over the last couple of days was insane, from shock to annoyance, happiness and passion, back to annoyance and now anger.

‘Hey, Tabitha.’ Raff had to jog to catch up with her. ‘Let me come with you. Help you find him.’

She shook her head and kept walking. ‘I don’t need your help.’

‘Come on, please, Tabitha. It’s the least I can do. I know the area and where he gets taken for a walk.’

Tabitha didn’t have the energy to argue. He was infuriating. He was probably used to getting his own way. The only reason she wasn’t going to flat out refuse his help was because finding Fudge was more important than anything. If it meant putting up with Raff for a little longer, then so be it. At least he seemed to care.

She took the same route that she’d walked the dogs on the weekend, the awful churning in her stomach worsening the further she went with no sign of him.

‘Sometimes my parents walk the dogs down to Jardim do Mar – at least they used to,’ Raff said, keeping pace with her. ‘It’s probably the best place to look.’

‘Fine.’ Upset caught in Tabitha’s throat as she motioned for him to go ahead.

He took a lane that led down steps to a viewpoint with tables, the wooded hillside jutting all the way to the ocean. They started down the steep path with stone steps cut into the grass- and bush-covered hillside, lined by prickly pears. Tabitha kept imagining she could see a flash of tan and white, but her hope of seeing Fudge was dashed with every turn of the zigzag path.

Apart from Tabitha calling Fudge’s name every minute or so, they searched in silence. In her rush, she kept slipping on the loose stones and uneven steps but managed to keep her footing. Raff kept up with her, although more than once she heard him skid on the path and swear under his breath.

They reached a sharp turn with an uninterrupted view over the village below with its cream and white walled houses topped with rust-red roofs nestled between the patchwork greens of the hillside, and the foaming white of the waves breaking on the narrow pebbled shore.

‘Tabitha.’ Raff caught up with her and touched her shoulder. ‘He wouldn’t have come down this far, not on his own.’

Tabitha turned her back on the view and looked up at him. Her face was flushed and sweat dribbled into the small of her back from walking so fast, but mostly she was trying not to burst into tears.

‘How can you be so sure?’ she demanded.

‘I just am. You know what he’s like; he sticks with Bailey. If it was the two of them missing, then who knows how far they’d go, but Fudge on his own… I think he would have turned back.’

‘Then how have we managed to miss him?’ As she said the words, the sick-inducing feeling that she’d been trying so hard to bury hit her. ‘What if he went the other way, up onto the main road?’

‘I’m sure he didn’t do that.’

‘Stop saying you’re sure about stuff when you don’t know.’ She brushed past him and started back up the path, the going even tougher slogging up the hill. She should have checked up on the road first. Absolutely anything could have happened with fast cars shooting by and a dog with absolutely no road sense. Cordelia had warned her to not take the dogs off the lead anywhere near a road, but if Fudge was out on his own…

It was an anxious twenty-minute hike back up the hill and Tabitha’s heart was in her mouth as they reached the main road. She hardly dared look.

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