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And she knew exactly what she was going to do, what she needed. Decorating the apartment, hanging those curtains, fixing shelves could wait.
She would spend the rest of her holiday on Blue Rock, among the Windward Islands in the eastern Caribbean Sea. She would leave the bleak English winter behind, forget the man with the harsh grey eyes, lie on powdery white sand and bake in the sun, swim in crystal blue waters, breathe the scent of oleanders, stuff herself with Blossom’s fantastic cooking and rebuild her breached and battered defences.
She was going to the island.
She was going to be all right.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE hot white sand was burning her bottom through her denim shorts. Georgia got to her feet and brushed away the clinging grains. She had been on Blue Rock for three days and had already acquired a light tan.
But nothing else. Certainly not the peace of mind she’d come all the way out here to regain. How could she hope for that when she couldn’t get Jason out of her mind? When he walked through her dreams and edged his way into practically every waking thought she had?
She would have been far better off cancelling her leave and getting back to work, she thought with a stab of annoyance. Since she’d hauled herself together, long months after losing her baby, her work and the steep climb up the ladder of promotion had become the most important things in her life, so by throwing herself back on the treadmill she might have found it easier to shut the past right out of her head again.
From the corner of her eye she saw Elijah take the boat out from the small natural harbour at the other end of the sheltered little bay, caught the dull chug of the diesel engine. She lifted a hand to shade her eyes from the glittering light that bounced off the crystal blue waters and wondered whether he was simply out on one of his regular fishing trips or going over to the market on Blue Rock’s larger sister island, San Antonio.
Georgia wished she was with him. Either activity would have taken her mind off Jason, and the way seeing him again had affected her, bringing back the pain, as raw and savage as it had ever been.
Following the small boat’s progress, she felt the burn of the morning sun on her shoulders and heard Blossom’s voice floating down over the low coral cliffs. ‘You get right back here, Miss Georgie, and get a hat on that head of yours. You hear me?’
The bossy, stentorian tones broke through her mood, had her turning, acknowledging the instruction with a wave and a wide grin.
Little had changed since she’d visited the island with Harold and her mother, eighteen months after their marriage. Blossom still thought it her duty to order everyone around, ‘For their own good’, as she righteously termed it, and Elijah, her long-suffering yet devoted husband, still jumped to obey her smallest command. The only difference Georgia could detect was the way Elijah’s crinkled hair had turned white and Blossom’s ample girth had grown even more ample.
She picked her way back up through the white flowery fronds of frangipani and bougainvillea that hazed the low cliffs, and Blossom said, ‘You want to look like a boiled lobster? Get along inside with you. I have an ice-cold lemon drink waiting in the house.’
‘You are, as ever, perfectly right,’ Georgia conceded. Her face was very straight but her eyes were dancing. If anyone else had spoken to her as if she were a child they would have got the sharp edge of her tongue!
After the snow and ice of England, the Caribbean warmth was fabulous, but in spite of the moderating trade winds the effect of the sun could be fierce. She would slosh on more sunblock and find a shady hat before she went out again.
But Blossom had other ideas.
‘You have time to tidy yourself and make a start on sorting through your poor mother’s things before your guest arrives. This is your place now; you take charge. It’s up to you to do things right. Mr Harold never came back to do these things. Too many bad memories waiting.’
Blossom was already crossing the emerald sward, kept lush and beautiful by Elijah’s daily watering, and Georgia caught up with her, frowning. ‘Run that past me again, Blossom—I’m not expecting a guest.’ The housekeeper must have got her wires crossed somewhere. Either that or she had misheard what had been said.
But there was no mistaking the mild derision in the older woman’s dark eyes, the way she turned, planting her hands on her wide hips, scolding, ‘Course you are, Miss Georgie. What’s got into you, forgetting a thing like that? Mr Jason phoned through from St Vincent a little while ago. The air taxi comes into San Antonio in a coupla hours. Elijah’s gone to fetch him back and bring home some good fish.’ She turned back to the low, sprawling colonial-style bungalow. ‘So, like I just said, you’ve got time to make yourself respectable and start on your poor mother’s room. It isn’t proper to leave it, and you surely can’t do it while you have Mr Jason to entertain.’
Georgia’s blood ran cold, and a frisson of something nameless shot clear through her body. Jason had followed her here, and had obviously led the housekeeper and her caretaker husband to believe he’d been invited. She couldn’t understand it.
He’d seemed no more enamoured of her company than she’d been of his. In fact, mutual loathing had produced a c
rackling tension, practically colouring the air between them while she’d been staying at Lytham.
And she couldn’t hop on a bus and get the hell out of here. Getting to and from Blue Rock was a logistical nightmare. So she’d be stuck with him until she could rearrange her return journey for an earlier date.
Stuck, with no place to hide.
Part-way up the shallow flight of steps that led to the deep, shady veranda that skirted the entire building, Georgia stopped, threw back her shoulders and gritted her teeth.
What the hell was the matter with her? The instinct to run and hide from unpleasantness had been the old way, the way of an insecure, too-eager-to-please teenager.
The new rules were very different. She stood her ground. She could face whatever had to be faced. And that included Jason.
As the De Havilland Twin Otter came in to land Jason looked down into the turquoise-blue waters that surrounded the small island of San Antonio and felt his stomach muscles clench.
Nothing to do with the way the aircraft was banking, the way the tiny airstrip seemed to be leaping towards them. Everything to do with facing Georgia again, facing the past and finally, yes, finally, putting it to rest.
