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A beam creaked and gave a little under her foot and a stomach full of fish and chips flipped over.
A stomach that didn’t right itself until they’d reached the end of the jetty and the handrail she could cling to while she took a few calming breaths.
Franco made small talk with a couple of the locals dangling lines over the side, asking if they’d caught anything and checking out the fish they were proud to show off.
Holly wasn’t interested in the catch of the day. She turned her face into the wind and breathed in the salt-kissed air, knowing that for at least a minute or two she was safe. She closed her eyes and sucked in air and let the calls of the gulls remind her she was still alive while the blustery wind at the end of the jetty buffeted her worried brow.
She could do this.
She was wound up tighter than a fisherman’s reel. He’d put her lack of conversation on the way out here down to her still feeling uncomfortable about the way that last discussion had gone, but right now she looked ill as she clung white knuckled to the handrail.
He put one hand to her shoulder. ‘Are you okay?’ Her shoulder jerked back as her eyes flew open. Turquoise eyes spiked with fear.
‘I’m fine.’
‘Are you?’
A moment’s hesitation. That pink tip of tongue flicking at her lips once more. Before teeth nibbling at her lips gave way to a weak smile. ‘Of course I am.’
‘You don’t look fine.’
Her eyes looked everywhere but at him. ‘Okay. So maybe I’m not a big fan of jetties,’ she confessed. ‘That’s all.’
‘You what?’
‘I don’t like the gaps and how you can see the sea moving underneath and the creaking timbers and the rusting bolts and the feeling that if I drop something it’ll tumble into the ocean and I’ll never see it again.’ She paused, breathless, her turquoise eyes beseeching, begging for his understanding.
‘Can’t you swim? Is that what you’re afraid of?’
‘Of course I can swim! It’s this thing, creaking and shifting. I don’t like it, that’s all.’
‘Do you want to go back?’
Her eyes flared with fear. One hand flew from her handrail long enough to make a stop signal before finding the rail again. ‘No! Not just yet. Just give me a minute or two. I’ll be fine.’
He hunkered down on the railing alongside her, looking out to the breakwater that blocked the worst of the angry sea to protect the fishing fleet. Who would have thought it? His wine-whispering nemesis and the woman who’d defended her precious wines like a pit bull was afraid of something as simple as a jetty.
‘Why did you agree to come out here, if you feel this way? Why didn’t you say something?’
‘I didn’t want you to know.’
‘Why not?’
‘I didn’t want you to think I was pathetic.’
‘I don’t think you’re pathetic.’
‘Yeah, right. Fully grown woman afraid of a little beach infrastructure. Nothing pathetic about that. Nothing funny about that.’
‘I’m not laughing, Holly.’
She looked at him then, almost as if to check, to examine his eyes for a telltale glimmer of humour before she swung her head back out to sea. It was a full minute before she could bring herself to talk. ‘Nan and Pop brought me here once, when I was little. I had my favourite teddy by the hand, swinging it in my hand like Pop was swinging mine. Then there was a sudden gust of wind and the teddy fell free and bounced and skidded over the planks and landed in the sea. And as I watched it float away, I wondered why nobody jumped in to rescue it.’
‘Is that when you started not liking jetties?’
‘No. I don’t think I liked them before. All those gaps between the timbers. All that ocean right there below your feet, sucking at the pilings.’ She shivered. ‘But that day proved I was right to be wary.’
And because he thought a change of subject might be a good idea and because he wondered, he asked, ‘How long have you lived with Gus?’
She shrugged, still looking out to sea. ‘Since I was three. Since Mum and Dad were killed in a car crash.’
There was a moment’s hesitation. ‘I wondered about your parents. I didn’t want to ask.’
‘It’s no secret. And I had Gus and Esme, at least until Esme died. The worst part is not remembering my parents.’ He watched as a frown creased her brow. ‘You know, I see photographs and I see the hospital ruins where my dad worked—the ruins on the crater by the lake where we stopped on the way …’ She watched him, waiting for his nod before she continued. ‘And I know they were my parents, but they’re almost an abstract concept. Does that make sense? And yet a teddy, I remember the grief I felt at watching my teddy drifting away on the sea like it was the most important thing in the world.’
