Page 37 of Keep in Touch

She’d made an idiot of herself. In the light of day, when the threat of an anxiety attack wasn’t chasing her heels, her reactionseemed bizarre. It had to be weird to him too. Thank goodness Emma had talked her down before they saw their parents.

“Excuse me.”

A familiar-looking grey-haired man stood at their table. His face resembled leather from too many days spent in the sun. His green uniform clung to his body as if he’d already sweated through his clothes. It was the ranger.

“What do you want?” her dad asked. The ranger stiffened. Her dad had once explained to Lucie and Emma that menial staff had those jobs because they were incompetent and stupid and should be treated as such. She hadn’t considered it before. But Lucie’s guilt from her treatment of the ranger the day before climbed when she saw how her dad treated him now. Was she as bad as her dad?

“I wanted to have a word with this girl about her reckless bike riding yesterday. Not only did she ignore a No Entry sign, but she nearly ran me over and continued riding without an apology. I could have been seriously hurt.”

“Lucie,” her mum gasped, making an already uncomfortable situation a million times worse. “Is this true?”

Lucie’s cheeks heated as she shrugged her shoulders. “I didn’t see the sign when I started riding down the hill, and then I couldn’t stop. It doesn’t need to be a drama.”

“Doesn’t need to—”

“But of course, I am sorry,” she added, cutting her dad off. “I’m sorry…”

The ranger offered his name. “Vincent.”

“Vincent, I genuinely am sorry. I was caught up in the moment of doing something thrilling and then realised I was unable to stop. I should have found you afterwards, but as I say, it was a bit of a moment, which is no excuse, but I’m sorry for any distress I may have caused you. You were only doing your job.”

Maybe she’d taken the wind out of his speech because Vincent smiled. “That’s okay. That hill is a bit deceptive, and maybe we should add a sign at the top. You and your young man were having a good time. I, too, remember being young and riding down steep hills without a care in the world.”

“Your young man?” her dad asked angrily.

Vincent wrung his hands. “I hope I haven’t said anything I shouldn’t. I’ll leave you to your day. Please stay away from steep hills.”

Her dad glared at her as Vincent headed out of the pancake house. “Did you recklessly endanger that poor man’s life to impress a boy? Don’t dare tell me it’s the same boy from the bowling alley.”

“I wouldn’t dare, Dad,” Lucie replied with a bit of sass. Emma choked on her juice.

“First, you cut Dad off, and then this,” Emma whispered between gasps of air.

“That had better not be an attitude. Your lack of respect is disgusting, Lucie.”

“Apologise to your dad for your attitude, Lucie,” her mum jumped in. Lucie rolled her eyes.

Why was her mum always on his side when he treated her so appallingly? This weekend had reinforced her belief that her parents didn’t have her best interests at heart. It was as if the blinkers had dropped from her eyes and she was witnessing how clueless they were.

“I’m sorry if you felt my attitude was inappropriate, Father,” Lucie replied. Emma’s mouth dropped.

“You are out of order. I could cancel the rest of your day and send you back to the lodge to study. But I don’t believe this is the real you speaking. That boy is to blame, and I forbid you from seeing him again. You will spend today alone, considering your behaviour. When I see you again this evening, I expect aformal apology and a visible change in your behaviour. Are you listening to me?”

But she wasn’t. Instead, a figure on the beach caught her eye. Even without the detail of his green eyes and dimples, she knew it was Chris. He’d come for her. She’d go to him no matter what her dad said, but she had to hide it from her family.

“Okay, Dad. I shall do all the things you say. We should pay. It’s getting busy,” she said, drawing his attention away from the window. He hated groups of “ordinary people,” as they often led him to act out and stand out from the crowd so as not to appear as regular and middle class as everyone around him.

They all stood. Her dad headed immediately for the till, as he refused to pay the bill at the table. Emma’s brow furrowed as she picked up on Lucie’s sudden change.

Anxiety itched at Lucie’s skin as she sought to keep her parents from seeing Chris.

“What are you girls doing today?” her mum asked as they walked through the pancake house.

“I’m meeting Jess at the swimming pool in ten minutes. We’re going on the flumes twenty times. The wave machine too!” Emma replied. Any other fifteen-year-old would shrug and suggest they were going to be bored. But not Emma. She was proud of her love of flumes and wave machines and all the other things that made ten-year-olds squeal. She didn’t care what people thought or what others her age were doing.

“And how about you, Lucie? Are you going with them?” their dad asked. “You have one more day of freedom before school and the hard work begins. You should spend it with your sister rather than get into trouble.”

Anger dripped through her veins. He thought that by forcing her to be with Emma, she’d behave? Since when had Emma become the good daughter? Lucie fought the temptation to huff or lay into him. And he’d got that comment about school in.That she had no answer irritated her further. She glanced at the window, but Chris was still on the beach, facing the water. She’d never lied about something significant to her parents before.

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