Liz Fielding - A Secret, A Safari, A Second Chance

‘Excuse me? Can I get in there?’

The woman waited for her to move and Eve stepped back, forcing a smile as she turned to Martha.

‘There are some really exciting trips on offer. Have you seen anything you like?’ she asked.

‘I was hoping for something a little more relaxing than zip-lining through a rainforest,’ she said, ‘but this one could have been made for you. Your grandmother left you some money and you could do with a break.’

‘That’s rainy-day money and, anyway, Hannah is too young to come with me.’

‘The rule with an inheritance is to give ten per cent, save ten per cent and spend the rest,’ Martha said. ‘Serendipitously, if you were to make a winning bid for the safari, you’d be economising by giving and spending at the same time.’

Eve laughed at her logic but shook her head. ‘Good try, but I couldn’t leave Hannah.’

‘It’s only for ten days. I don’t imagine you took her to lectures with you when she was a baby? Teaching practice?’

‘Well, no. Obviously. She is in a wonderful day nursery, but I’ve never left her at night. She’d miss me.’ And she knew everything there was to know about missing your mother.

‘Mary would love to have her stay and Hannah would have a great time with her cousins.’

‘You’re very free with your daughter’s hospitality.’

But Eve knew her godmother was right.

Mary was one of those women who wrapped you up in a hug and instantly made the world seem a better place. Older, she’d been married and living in New York when Eve’s mother had died, or things might have been very different.

Now she and her husband were back on the island with their three children and a menagerie of pets, and Hannah adored, and was adored by, all of them. Every sentence seemed to begin with Cara and Jason and Lacey...

‘Okay,’ she admitted. ‘I’d miss her .’ Putting an end to the discussion, she turned to a rail journey across the US. ‘This hits the less strenuous requirement,’ she said. ‘Or how about this camel trek across the desert? Camping out under the stars. You might meet a dark-eyed sheikh. Very romantic.’

‘There is nothing in the least bit romantic about camels, Eve. They spit.’

‘Okay... Is there anything here that you do fancy?’

‘I’m rather taken with the idea of sailing down the Adriatic from Venice to the Greek islands in that classic nineteenth-century sailing yacht, and if Kit Merchant happened to be at the helm there would always be something attractive to look at.’

Eve felt her cheeks heat at the mention of his name. ‘Isn’t he estranged from his family?’

‘There was a big row three or four years ago. Christopher didn’t want him to take part in the round-the-world race. He said it was time to stop playing and concentrate on the business.’

‘Sailing is his life.’

‘The resort is his father’s.’

Eve had to clear her throat, stop herself from looking around, although she suddenly felt as if she had a great big sign on her back saying ‘HERE’ before she could manage a bright, ‘Maybe a brush with death will soften his father’s attitude.’

‘Maybe. Ah, now this is the one I’ve been looking for.’ Martha picked up a pen, wrote her name and a substantial bid for a vacation at the Merchant Spa in Phuket. Then she held out the pen. ‘Your turn.’

Eve looked back at the African trip.

‘Just to show my support,’ she said, raising a fairly modest bid that someone had already made.

She had only just put down the pen when a man picked it up and outbid her.

Martha had met someone she knew and, while she was talking, Eve checked by how much she’d been outbid. Five hundred dollars... It was still ridiculously cheap, and she placed another bid.

Just to help push up the price.

She straightened to find Martha, thoughtful, watching and guiltily put down the pen. ‘It’s going to go much higher.’

‘They’re starting to serve dinner,’ she said. ‘We should go back to our table.’

As they moved away someone else stepped up to make another bid. As Eve smothered a squeak of protest, Martha took her arm.

‘Leave it until after dinner when we know what we’re up against.’

‘Yes... No!’ Realising how quickly she’d been sucked in, she said, ‘Wow, that’s dangerous.’

‘The trick is to decide on your top bid and not to get carried away. Well, not too much,’ Martha added, smiling.

‘Oh, no, I’m done,’ Eve declared, but she couldn’t stop herself from looking back, fingers twitching.

THE FOOD WAS EXCELLENT, the company—if more her godmother’s generation than her own—was interesting and the wine flowed freely enough that she was pleasantly relaxed by the time Barbara Merchant returned to the stage.

‘Hi, yes, sorry it’s me again but this is a charity dinner and you all knew you’d have to dig deep, right? Has everyone bought raffle tickets?’ There was a murmur from the room and she said, ‘Well, buy some more! We’ll be drawing some amazing prizes very soon.’ She paused a moment for the laughter to die down, then said, ‘Before you all rush to spend money on a good cause, and to tell you why this fundraiser is so important, I’d like you to welcome my son, Kit, who, after his father’s stroke, has come home to give us all his support.’

Eve was only half listening, her thoughts focussed on the past, and, not sure she’d heard right, she turned to look and there he was, standing beside his mother.

‘Kit?’

The word was little more than a whisper but Martha leaned over and said, ‘Word is that he’s resigned as skipper of the Cup team.’

Before she could take that in, Barbara Merchant said, ‘I’ll leave Kit to introduce his friend and fellow sailor who has come all the way from New Zealand to tell you why this clinic is so desperately needed.’

This couldn’t be happening. She’d checked the team’s blog before she left for Nantucket, just to be sure. There had been a photograph of him, taken less than a month ago, at the helm of the new yacht he and his team were putting through its paces in the Southern Ocean.

Even as her mind was rejecting the possibility that he was not simply in Nantucket but in this very room, Kit Merchant’s low, baritone voice reached out across the space and touched her like a lover’s caress.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, friends...’

For a moment Eve couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move...

And then the reality of his mother’s introduction, Martha’s whispered comment, sank in. This wasn’t a flying visit, Kit was back, if not for good, then for the foreseeable future.

‘My mother has already thanked our generous partners throughout the world who have joined Merchant Resorts to offer thrilling, one-off experiences for this auction, but events such as this do not organise themselves...’

Every cell in her body was warning her to keep absolutely still; she was afraid that any movement would attract his attention, draw his gaze in her direction.

And then what?

From that distance all he would see was a badly dressed woman with mousy hair. The kind of woman who wouldn’t hold his attention for a second.

She’d seen his face on a hundred magazine covers in the years since their encounter on the beach. She knew the exact shade of blue of his eyes, knew each line weathered into his face by sun, saltwater and wind, the shape of the close-trimmed beard that he’d grown. She knew the way his thick, sun-streaked hair stuck up as if he’d just dragged his hand through it. As if she had just dragged her hand through it.

It had been just one night, but she could still feel the soft thickness of it beneath her own fingers, still knew the taste of his lips, the sweet murmur of his voice, the scent of sharp, clean sweat on his skin.