Page 18 of The Island in Bramble Bay
‘The only problem with that is that I really don’t want to wait until then to see you again, so if I say no, you’ll have to stay,’ he teased.
‘That is true and a tempting thought, but I think we’d starve to death. If you let me leave, I can bring supplies.’ Maggie turned down the pan of pasta, stood beside Charlie and wrapped her arms around his neck. ‘Don’t worry, now that I know where you live, I’ll be hard to get rid of.’ She kissed him and it felt amazing, still new and unexpected.
‘I get it, the house has won you over.’
‘I don’t give a shit about the house.’ She smothered anything else he had to say with another kiss. ‘But I do love that you have your own island,’ she said with a grin.
They ate in the kitchen, neither of them having realised how hungry they were. Then Maggie made them steaming hot mugs of tea and they sat on the sofa looking out at the blackness of the island and the sea beyond.
‘So how, Charlie? How is all this yours?’
‘Really? Tonight?’ He felt beaten down by the question. Did he tell her everything or the edited highlights? He didn’t want to tarnish her view of him by telling her about what was basically the worst time of his life, but at the same time he understood that she wanted to know.
‘The curiosity is killing me, to be honest. I mean, an island of your own. It’s crazy.’
It was crazy. When he’d lived in his Silicon Valley bubble as a tech millionaire, it had seemed perfectly normal to buy an island in England as a holiday retreat. After all, many friends of his were doing the same thing in the Caribbean or Dubai but England had always been his spiritual home ever since he’d holidayed at his grandparents as a kid. Everyone he knew had money to spend and just being part of that world had demanded a certain lifestyle. And that had attracted certain kinds of friends, certain types of women who at the time also seemed perfectly normal but if you plonked that world down here, in England, it would instantly seem absolutely insane.
‘I started a company with my friend while we were in college. We developed an app and at the time, social media was just Facebook and the beginnings of Twitter. Our High 5 app revolutionised social media use amongst young people.’
‘You invented High 5? That app where you can only message with five words? Oh my god, that’s insane.’
Charlie laughed; Maggie’s face was a picture of incredulity. ‘Yeah, insane. We were just lucky, it took off and I bought an island.’
‘So why aren’t you doing that now? If it’s your company, are you still involved in between coppicing jobs?’
‘Not really. I left a few years ago and haven’t had much to do with it since.’ That was the truth, the briefest version of it but he couldn’t tell Maggie what had happened, not tonight. He would let her see the glossy topcoat of his previous life to start with and see what happened.
‘But it’s completely different to being a forester. Don’t you miss all of that? I mean, we’re so cut off here, it must be weird after having a high-tech life.’
‘This is better, believe me. I’d rather be here with you than anything else I could be doing back in the Valley.’ He could see Maggie’s eyes sparkling even in the low light. He took her hand. ‘I could do with going back to bed. Want to come?’
Her face lit up momentarily and then she said, ‘I do… but I’m worried I might bump into your arm or something.’
‘It’s a huge bed, Maggie, we could both starfish like crazy and still not touch each other.’ Charlie stood up and pulled at her hand. ‘It’s okay, I’ll take the risk,’ he said gently. Maggie stood up and followed him upstairs.
If his bed hadn’t been so big, Charlie would have worried about inviting Maggie to join him but now he was more worried about the fact that he’d not changed the sheets for a week and that the bed looked so dishevelled from earlier on that he was starting to regret his suggestion. He wasn’t planning on anything other than talking and sleeping as he was still feeling so sore, but it would have been nice to be able to offer Maggie something a little more romantic than a slept-in, slightly unsavoury man’s bed.
‘Okay, it’s a huge bed.’
Charlie stopped himself laughing at Maggie in case it gave her a complex, but he genuinely loved seeing her reaction to everything. She was so open and unconcerned about trying to seem cool about it all and he loved that. He loved being able to share all of it with someone, knowing that it wasn’t the main reason they were there. It was a relief.
They got into bed, Maggie having helped Charlie to undress properly this time, just down to his boxers. She let him get comfortable before she climbed in next to him and lay on her side, facing him. She was wearing white cotton panties and a white stretchy crop top which inexplicably he found far sexier than fancy lingerie. Maggie was slim and toned and although he wanted to caress every single piece of her, explore this part of her he had never seen before, tonight he had to settle for reaching for her hand.
‘I can’t believe you’re here,’ he said. ‘It seems like it’s happened so quickly and at the same time I felt like I had wanted to tell you for so long.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
Because the past had smothered him in a mist of self-doubt and mistrust that had only lifted when he had known that Maggie felt the same way, that was why, but instead he said, ‘It’s complicated.’
‘Complicated is just a polite way of saying you don’t want to talk about it, and that’s okay. Another time.’ She leaned over him, her hair brushing his cheek, the look on her face reassuring him that she didn’t mind. ‘Night Charlie, sleep well.’ She kissed him tenderly and slowly, then snuggled down next to him.
‘Night Maggie.’ I love you.
15
DESPITE HAVING BEEN away from Bramble Island for less than two days, it felt like longer. Maggie had called Megan when she had got to the hospital with Charlie to let her know what was going on with him, but the volunteers were more than capable of holding the fort so she hadn’t worried about work. Charlie had phoned Josh that morning to let him know he could carry on with the coppicing although there was plenty of other work for him if he wanted to wait until Charlie was back.
Maggie had a backlog of emails to go through. The busy season was approaching and the island was flourishing. There was plenty to do anyway but there were lots of requests coming through from the visitor team that needed dealing with, from footpaths that needed overhanging bushes cutting back to questions about where the most reliable red squirrel sightings were.
