Page 24 of The Island in Bramble Bay
I’ve done some research and agree, it’s a good time to exit. I appreciate you keeping everything going while I’ve been gone and let me tell you, I have no intention of coming back. I’ll go along with whatever you want to do and if that means coming over to sign on the dotted line, I can do that for old times’ sake. Whatever our differences might be, you’ve always had good judgement when it came to the business and I guess whatever else changed that didn’t, as it looks to be in better shape than ever.
Let me know when you’re ready for me and I’ll make arrangements.
Charlie.
Charlie’s mouse hovered over the send button. He had already re-written the email countless times, trying to strike the right balance. Most of what he’d deleted had been more personal, about how he felt Jared had let him down and at one point he had even made reference to Jessica. As cathartic as that was, he decided to keep it purely about the business. He certainly didn’t want to come across as not having moved on; even though that had only just happened, Jared didn’t need to know.
He pressed ‘send’ and heaved a sigh of relief, running his hands through his hair as he leaned back in his chair. He could forget about it now, for a while at least.
Maggie had a meeting over on the mainland for something or other so he’d taken her over to Sandbanks in his boat to save her waiting for the ferry and then as it was still early, he’d gone home to sort out the email. It was the first chance he’d had since Maggie had agreed to go with him to the States; up until that point, he still hadn’t completely decided. He didn’t want to go alone and turning it into a vacation with her would make it just that, rather than a solitary business trip. An hour or two out to sign the papers and that would be the end of it.
There was other stuff to sort out too, as he was there. All the stuff from the apartment he’d shared with Jessica, the stuff that was his, she’d sent to his house in Lake Tahoe. He needed to organise moving that over to the UK so that he could rent the place out. It was in a beautiful spot, close to the lake for the summer and near the ski slopes for the winter. He wasn’t going to use it right now but he wanted to keep it because who knew, he might change his mind one day. Besides, he wanted to show it to Maggie so it could be part of their trip. Perhaps he wouldn’t mention the sorting out he had to do, although he had a feeling she wouldn’t mind.
He took the boat over to Bramble Island and went straight to the area of woodland which he and Josh had almost finished coppicing. Josh was leaning on a rake chatting to some official-looking guy in a high vis vest with a clipboard and a case of equipment.
‘Hey, Josh!’ he called.
‘Hi, Charlie. This is Gareth, he’s a surveyor for the Trust. Gareth, this is Charlie, the forester.’
‘Ah, come to count our trees have you?’ said Charlie with a grin.
‘Actually, I’m carrying out a ground survey for the proposed development.’
‘Development?’ Charlie frowned. No way would there be any development on an island like this, it was protected.
‘Yes, the holiday lodge development.’
‘Oh, okay. Yes, the holiday lodges.’ Josh was staring at him as if he was insane but Charlie avoided his eye until Gareth had walked off with his case.
‘Have you heard about that?’ asked Josh incredulously. ‘No way will they be allowed to build on the island. No way.’
‘Nope, no idea but I didn’t want him to know that. I don’t think Maggie can know, she would have said something. I can’t believe they would be doing something like that without involving her and Clare, you know? It’s underhand.’
‘It can’t be true. The Trust is like the protector of the island.’
Maggie was due back after lunch and had planned to catch the ferry back to Bramble Island. Charlie sat and waited on the quay, his legs dangling over the edge as he watched the activity in the harbour. It was about time he took Maggie out on the yacht. He was longing to go out again, perhaps they would sail towards the Isle of Wight on Sunday if the weather was fine. They could anchor off the west side somewhere and have a picnic lunch on the deck.
The ferry was approaching and Charlie could just make out Maggie sat on the top deck just as she had been the very first time he’d seen her, the wind blowing her hair everywhere. He smiled, she was funny and gorgeous and he could barely be apart from her for a couple of hours without looking forward to the next time he would see her.
She waited until everyone had disembarked, chatting to William, making him wait for her, flashing him a teasing smile. Then when she finally made to come onshore, Charlie grabbed her around the waist with his hands and lifted her from the boat onto the quay, pulling her straight into a hug.
‘Missed me?’
‘I should say he has by the looks of him!’ said William. ‘Can’t keep his hands to hi’ self!’
Maggie laughed and waved as Charlie carried her over to the harbour wall and sat her on there so that she was just a little taller than him.
‘Good meeting?’
‘Boring meeting. Much more interesting things going on here.’ She grinned at him, her eyes sparkling.
‘Well, there have been interesting things. There’s a surveyor in the woods reckons he’s looking into a holiday lodge development.’
The colour drained from Maggie’s face.
‘You know about that.’ Charlie spoke quietly. She didn’t need to answer for him to know that she did. ‘Seriously? You know and didn’t say anything?’ He tried to stay calm. This was Maggie, after all. There would be an explanation. He raised his eyebrows to try and extract one but Maggie seemed to have been struck dumb. ‘Okay, you don’t know what to say. So you knew about it and didn’t tell me, despite everything because… well, I don’t even know why. I guess it’s a secret?’
‘It is a secret,’ she began, ‘but that’s not why I didn’t tell you, it’s just that nothing’s been decided yet. It might not even happen. I didn’t know they were sending a surveyor, they said this morning they were preparing for a consultation so I was going to tell you today.’
