Best of Fiona Harper

Later that evening Ellie wandered on to her veranda alone. She leant on the criss-cross wooden railing and stared in amazement at the confusion of stars jostling for space in the midnight sky. Light from Mark’s cabin, a short distance through the gardens, was casting a faint glow on the waving palms, but there was no sign of him.

It had been a magical night—starting with that kiss.

By the time they’d returned the short distance up the trail from where they’d watched the sunset the sky had been a velvety dark blue, the sun long disappeared. They’d danced to the steel band, eaten sticky barbecue food with their fingers, and hadn’t been able to stop smiling at each other.

Her relationship with Mark had definitely crossed into new territory, but neither of them had brought the subject up, preferring just to live in the moment, rather than spoil it with words and theories.

She wasn’t just a fling to him.

The knowledge was there, deep down in her heart—in the same way she’d known after that first day of primary school that Sam’s life and hers would always be joined somehow.

There was something between them—her and Mark—something real. Only she didn’t have the words to describe it. And for the first time in a very long while the fact she couldn’t find the right word, couldn’t label something instantly, didn’t bother her in the slightest.

The next few days were almost too much for Ellie’s mind to deal with. She’d been so accustomed to guilt and pain and misery, clanging round her ankles like shackles, that the light, airy happiness she was feeling took a bit of getting used to. And the glorious island she was on and the wonderful man she was with just made life seem even more surreal.

But who needed real life, anyway?

She’d rather live this dream, where she spent almost every waking moment with Mark. They’d eaten at the most amazing places, ranging from surfside shacks to exclusive restaurants. They’d been sailing and had walked across countless beaches. Some evenings they’d gone out into the bustle of nearby St John’s; sometimes they’d just found somewhere quiet to watch the sun set. They hadn’t seen the green flash again, but Ellie didn’t worry about that. Once must be enough, surely?

And Mark…

He astounded her. He knew her every mood, anticipated her every need. He knew when to hold her tight and when to give her space without her even having to try and get the jumble of an explanation past her lips.

Marrying up this version of Mark with the grinning playboy she’d seen on the television all those months ago was almost impossible. She’d been so blinkered. But, even so, she was sure the way he was behaving wasn’t something she’d conveniently blocked out. He was different. More free. He was changing too.

And it only meant she loved him more.

As the week wore on, she felt the shadow of the approaching anniversary looming close on her horizon. With that blocking her view of the sun, it was hard to think about where her relationship with Mark might go, what it would become when they flew home on Saturday.

She’d just have to get Friday out of the way first. Then she’d be able to think clearly. Then maybe, when the plane took off and she watched the ground drop away, the houses and cars all become miniature versions of themselves, she’d be able to leave her small life behind her once and for all.

CHAPTER TEN

MARK finally spotted her, walking down near the shoreline, kicking the wavelets with a half-hearted foot. He walked to the edge of his veranda and focused more carefully, just to make sure he was right. He was. It was Ellie, looking very much like a lost soul on the deserted beach.

A storm had passed over the night before, and he’d lain awake in the early hours, listening to the creaking of his wooden cabin as the rain had gusted against it, the rustling of the tall palms in the hotel gardens as they curved and swayed in the wind, wondering if Ellie was awake in her cabin too. This morning it was grey, and slightly overcast, but everything was clean and fresh and new.

Normally that was a good thing.

He watched Ellie as she turned to face the wind and stared out to sea, lifeless as a statue. Yesterday he’d thought all his prayers had been answered. Her smiles across the dinner table had been warm and sweet and just for him.

As they’d headed home the sky had darkened, and by midnight rain had been hurling itself out of the sky with the force that only a tropical storm could manage. He and Ellie had spent their time snuggled up on the sofa in his cabin, watching a bad action movie. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had so much fun.

Yet there had been no glitzy nightclub, no suffocating shirt and tie, no polished mannequin on his arm, laughing on cue at his jokes. Just him and Ellie having a late-night Room Service picnic on the carpet in front of the television. They’d talked about anything and everything, and sometimes nothing at all.

His celebrity-hungry girlfriends would have balked at such an evening. There was no point going out with Mark Wilder unless you were going to be seen out with him—and it had better be somewhere expensive! They would certainly have frowned upon scanning the film credits for the most interesting-sounding bit part. Ellie had won with ‘second tramp in explosion’. It had beaten his ‘teenager with nose-stud’ hands down.

Relaxing on the sofa with Ellie snuggled up under his arm, he’d realised that this was what normal felt like. He liked it. In fact, he could see himself doing it for a long time to come with her, and he hardly remembered why he had been so terrified of it for almost a decade. Now he had tasted it he wasn’t sure he could go back to living without it. It was kind of addictive.

What did that mean?

He tried not to think of the ‘m’ word, but no matter how he diverted his thoughts they kept swerving back to images of Ellie, dressed in white, a serene smile on her face as he slid a delicate gold band on her finger.

The wind ruffled his hair and his daydreams scattered like the bulbous clouds hurrying towards the skyline. Overnight something had happened. This morning she was withdrawn. No smiles. No bubbling laughter. Today, he hardly existed.

He kicked the railing of the veranda hard. Which was a big mistake—he had bare feet.

What was going on with her? Had she finally taken a good look at him and decided there was nothing more than schmooze and show? Hadn’t he criticised himself enough in recent months for the lack of substance in his life?

He raised his foot, ready to take another kick, but thought better of it. Instead he turned and walked through the cabin to his bedroom to get dressed. It was time to find out what was going on, whether the last few days had just been a mirage or not.

Five minutes later he felt the wet sand caving under the weight of his heels as he strode across the almost deserted beach. Ellie was now only a billowing speck in the distance. A remnant of last night’s wind lifted her loose skirt as she wandered along the shoreline.

He lengthened his stride.

She didn’t hear him come up behind her. She was busy drawing in the wet sand with a long stick. He didn’t want to startle her, so he stopped a few feet away and spoke her name so gently it was only just audible above the splash of the waves near their feet.

She stopped tracing a large letter ‘C’ in the damp sand. Mark’s heart pounded like the waves on the distant rocks as he waited for her response. Her head lifted first, but her eyes remained fixed on her sandy scrawlings a few seconds longer before she found the courage to meet his enquiring gaze. The rims of her eyes were pink and moist.

Any words he’d had ready dissolved in the back of his throat. Devoid of anything sensible to say, he held out the single pink rose he’d lifted from the vase in his room. Ellie started to reach for it, then her face crumpled and silent tears overflowed down her cheeks. He dropped the rose and stepped towards her, intent on gathering her up in his arms, but could only watch in horror as she buckled and sat weeping in the sand.

‘Ellie? Ellie, what is it?’

He sank down next to her and pulled her firmly into his arms. She tried to answer him, but her words were swallowed in another round of stomach-wrenching sobs. So he waited. He held her and he waited. Waited until the tide turned and the hot flood of tears became a damp trickle. She pushed away from his chest and stood up, shaking the sand from her skirt.

Her voice wobbled. ‘I’m sorry.’

Mark leapt to his feet and reached for her.

‘Don’t be.’ He pulled her close to his chest and stroked her wind-ruffled hair. ‘Is there something I can do?’

She swept her fingers over her damp eyes and straightened, seeming to have made a decision about something. ‘I need to tell you something…’ She took a deep breath and held it. ‘It’s the anniversary today. Four years since…since Sam and Chloe died.’

Her hand automatically reached for the silver locket she always wore. Mark didn’t need to be told what pictures it held. He’d had an inkling, but now he knew for sure.

He didn’t say anything. What could he say that wouldn’t sound patronising or trite? So he just continued to hold her, love her, and hoped that would be enough.

‘I didn’t mean to shut you out or push you away,’ she said. ‘I just needed some time to think. It’s different this year. So much has happened in the last few months…’

Slowly she unclipped the flat oval face of the locket and showed its contents to him. On one side was a little girl—blonde curls like her mother, as cute as a button. On the other side a sandy-haired man, with an infectious grin and a gleam of love in his eyes for whomever had been taking the photo. It was hard to look at the pictures, because it made him scared that she wasn’t ready to move on, but he appreciated what a big step it had been for her to show him.

Ellie stooped to pick up the discarded rose and peeled the crushed outer petals off to reveal undamaged ones underneath. Mark felt ill. What if she was still in love with her dead husband? And how horrible was he for being jealous of him? He was polluting the pure emotions Ellie had provoked in him by thinking this way.

‘It was the rose that set me off,’ she said, picking up the bud and bringing it to her nose. ‘Pink was Chloe’s favourite colour.’

He almost thought the conversation was going to end there, the gap was so long, but just when he’d decided she’d lapsed back into silence she continued.

‘I didn’t get to go to the funeral—I was only barely conscious, couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk—but my mother showed me the pictures. She thought it would help. Maybe it did.’

She broke off to look out to sea again.

‘Chloe had a tiny white coffin with silver handles, and Mum had chosen a wreath made only of pink roses that covered it completely. I planted a bush in the cemetery for her when I got out of hospital.’

Mark felt moisture threaten his own eyelids. She reached out and touched his cheek, stroking it with the fleshy pad of her thumb. ‘Thank you for coming to find me. Thank you for never telling me how lucky I was to survive. You have no idea how much that means to me.’

How did she do it? How did she think beyond herself so easily? She had every right to spend the day cut off from the world, wallowing as much as she wanted. Ellie had lost part of her life to a fog her brain had created. What must it be like to not have been able to go to the funerals? To never get closure? Part of her must yearn to remember something from those days.

In contrast, he was a coward. He’d chosen to forget Helena, forget about love and commitment. And that hadn’t helped him heal either. If anything it had just made him more shallow, less brave.

He gazed into her beautiful damp eyes. The pale green was even more vivid against their slightly pink tinge, and he caught her face in his palms.

‘You’re amazing, Ellie Bond.’

She lowered her lids. ‘I don’t feel very amazing. I’ve spent the last few years feeling terrified mostly, and recently—’ She looked back at him. The warmth in her weak smile quickened his pulse. ‘Recently I’ve just felt plain old crazy.’

‘How can you say that?’

Her lashes lowered and she gave a derisive laugh. ‘I would have thought our first meeting would have been ample proof!’

He smiled. ‘I think that, despite first impressions, you’re probably the sanest person I know. At least you know what’s real—what’s important. I’d forgotten.’

That made her smile, the thought that someone else might have to wrestle with their memories too, that she wasn’t entirely alone in that predicament. Their lips met briefly, tenderly. He could taste the salt from her tears.

‘How you survived what you went through I’ll never know. Lesser women would have crumbled.’

‘But I did crumble. That is until I met—’ she stopped and swallowed ‘—you.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I’d forgotten how wonderful life could be.’

‘I still think you’re pretty amazing.’ He held her close and his words drifted softly into her ear. ‘You don’t see it in yourself. That’s one of the reasons why I love you.’

She froze in his arms and Mark’s stomach churned. Ellie pulled back slightly and scrutinised his face, analysing his expression. He willed his facial muscles to keep still, however much they wanted to collapse. He hadn’t a clue what she could see in his face. Honesty, he hoped. All he was aware of was the slicing agony as he waited for her to say something. Anything…

A couple more seconds and he was going to scream.

She blinked away a fresh tear. ‘You—you love me?’

Mark recognised that feeling he got in dreams, when he suddenly discovered he’d been walking down the street naked and everybody knew it but him. The familiar urge to bolt was so strong he could taste it. In response, he ground his heels a little deeper into the sand as an anchor.

‘Yes. I do. I love you.’

Just as he thought he was going to suffocate on the tension-thick atmosphere Ellie launched herself into his arms and covered his face with a hundred little kisses. At first he couldn’t move. He hardly dared ask himself what this meant, hardly dared to hope.

What was that sound?

She was laughing. In between kisses, she was laughing! That was all he needed. He hugged her so tight her feet lifted off the floor. Their lips sought each other out and he lost all sense of reality for a while. When they finally pulled themselves apart rays of sunlight were punching holes in the gruff clouds. He looked at her face, alive with joy, such a difference from the mournful expression she’d worn when he’d first found her. Tears still followed the damp tracks down her cheeks, but he hoped for a very different reason.

At that moment he knew he wanted to love her so completely, so thoroughly, that every speck of pain would be soothed, every wound healed. He might not be able to change her past, but he was going to make darn sure her future was filled with all the adoration and happiness he could give her. He felt strangely unafraid at the thought of for ever.

He linked his fingers in between hers and they strolled back along the shoreline. Every now and then he would spot one of Ellie’s random sand doodles. He knew now that the ‘C’ had been for Chloe. The selfish part of him dreaded seeing a letter ‘S’. But he hadn’t—yet. Only some squiggles, her name and a flower.

There was another one up ahead he couldn’t quite discern. He strained his eyes, trying to read it upside down. When he eventually made it out his heart nearly stopped.

It was an ‘M’, encased in a gently curving heart.

The words were out of his mouth before his brain had a chance to intervene.

‘Marry me?’

What had he just said?

There must still be static left in the air from the storm, because she felt tiny electric charges detonate all over her body. Then a sick feeling of disappointment hit her in the pit of her stomach. She’d heard him say something like this before. She yanked her hand out of his. How could he ruin the moment like this?

‘Don’t joke with me, Mark.’ If he was bright, he’d heed the steely warning hidden in her reply. She turned to face him, expecting to see the trademark grin across his big smart mouth, but it wasn’t there.

Another jolt of electricity hit her.

‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

He scooped her into his arms and kissed her until she nearly forgot the subject of this surreal conversation. Nearly.

‘Of course I’m serious!’

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Mark started to kiss her again, but she stepped back, holding him at bay.

‘Hang on a second, Mark. I can’t think straight when you’re that close.’ She’d thought he’d laugh, but he didn’t. She smoothed her wind-blown hair and turned a slow circle in the sand, scanning the horizon for an answer. He came up behind her and hugged her close, his warmth delicious against her cool skin.

‘What’s there to think about? I love you. Don’t you love me?’

‘Mark, it’s not that easy!’

He nuzzled in close to her neck. ‘It could be.’

Could it? Could happiness really be that easy? It was as if someone had told her it was okay to reach out and grab the stars if she wanted to.

For four long years she’d been living in the past. Trying to remember…Trying to forget…Recently she’d actually managed to live in the present, enjoy the moment. But did that mean she was ready to think about the future? That was something she hadn’t done for such a long time, she realised, for all her big talk about ‘breaking free’. She hadn’t really been looking forward when she’d taken the job as Mark’s housekeeper; she’d been looking back over her shoulder, running away from ghosts.

But now, standing here on this beach, she was starting to think that the future might be wonderful instead of scary. Today she’d found some peace. And Mark was a wonderful man, so much more than he gave himself credit for. Maybe it was that easy. Maybe this was one impulse she should follow one hundred percent, because, boy, she really wanted to say yes.

He turned her to face him without breaking contact, keeping her in the protective circle of his arms. ‘Ellie. I love you. I’ve never felt this way about anyone. Ever. I can’t imagine spending another second of my life without you.’ In a solemn gesture he took her hands in his, kissed them and lowered himself onto one knee.

Now she knew she really was dreaming! There was no way this could be happening to her. Still, she hoped the alarm clock wasn’t going to go off any time soon.

The earnest look on his face made her eyes sting again. ‘Ellie Bond, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

She could feel his whole body shaking as she lowered herself to sit on his raised knee and kissed him sweetly, passionately.

‘Is that a yes?’

Her breath warmed his earlobe as she whispered, ‘Yes.’

Mark’s ferocious kiss destroyed their precarious balancing act and they both fell onto the sand, tangled but still joined at the lips. Ellie wasn’t sure how long they stayed there ‘celebrating’. Long enough for the tide to creep in a bit further and take a peek.

‘Mark, my feet are getting wet.’

‘Do you care?’

‘Not really.’

More jubilant celebrations.

By the time the salty water was lapping at the hem of her skirt she surrendered.

‘We can’t stay here all day, you know.’

Mark fell back into the sand and stared at the vivid blue sky. ‘Shame. I was hoping we could just float away to a desert island and never be heard of again.’

That night at dinner they suddenly remembered they needed to think practicalities if they were really serious about getting married.

‘What sort of wedding do you want?’ Mark asked Ellie as she dug into her creamy dessert, desperately hoping it wouldn’t be the three-ring circus Helena had insisted on. Weddings like that felt like bad omens.

Ellie swallowed her mouthful and thought for a moment. ‘Something simple.’ She dug her spoon into the coconut and rum thing again, but it stopped halfway to her mouth and hovered there, threatening to drop its contents back into the bowl while she considered his question further. ‘Something small…private. Just you and me on a sunny day, somewhere beautiful.’

That gave him an idea. ‘Somewhere like here?’

Ellie put her spoon back in the bowl and smiled at him. ‘That would be perfect! You mean come back in a few months?’

That was exactly what he’d been thinking. But then he thought about all the to-ing and fro-ing, all the hideous preparations and tensions in the run-up to a wedding. That would just spoil everything, ruin the atmosphere of perfection that was clinging to them at the moment.

‘How about we get married here? Now. In a few days.’ He looked at her earnestly. ‘As soon as possible.’

She opened and closed her mouth. Then she made that scrunched-up face she always did when she was trying to process something unexpected.

‘We’ll have a big party for friends and family when we get back home,’ he added. Ellie looked horrified, and Mark remembered the last party at Larkford. He took hold of her hand. ‘Real friends only, I promise.’

‘This isn’t another one of what you think are your hilarious jokes, is it?’

He was deadly serious. How did he make her see that?

‘Ellie, I’ve been hiding for too long, waiting for too long.’ He watched as the tension eased from her face and she smiled at him, nodding in agreement. He stopped smiling and looked straight into her eyes. ‘I don’t want to wait any more.’

She let out a happy sigh. ‘Mark, you’re asking the right girl, then—because I have this horrible impulse to go along with anything you say, and I just can’t be bothered to fight it.’

Ellie stared at herself in the bathroom mirror.

‘I’m getting married tomorrow!’ she screamed at the idiot grinning back at her. Then she screamed again, just because it was fun. Oh, get a grip, girl! You can’t just stand here all day smiling at yourself. You’ve got some serious shopping to do today. And a fiancé to corner before he disappeared off to do whatever secret things he’d planned and wouldn’t tell her about.

One more grin in the mirror for luck, and then she ran out of her bathroom and got dressed in the first things she found in the wardrobe.

The last few days had been madness. Her cheeks hurt from smiling so much. She’d thought she would be flying home days ago, but she was still here in paradise with Mark, and things were going to get even more perfect. She couldn’t think about anything else. Her mind just refused to prise itself from that track and she wasn’t inclined to let it.

Of course a voice in the back of her head whispered to her, asking her if this was all too quick, asking whether there was unfinished business she needed to sort out first. But she didn’t want to listen to that voice, so she drowned it out with a slightly off-key rendition of ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Morning’.

Happiness was within her grasp, here and now. She was going to snatch it before the whole dream disappeared in a puff of smoke. No more fear. No more trepidation. Just facing the future with Mark at her side.

But what about the past? the voice said. What are you going to do with that?

Ellie belted out the chorus of the song and ran through the garden. She burst through the unlocked doors of Mark’s cabin like a miniature whirlwind.