CHAPTER 18: KERRY
Next morning, I woke to the sound of the sea. I rolled over with a smile of bliss on my face. I lay on my side and listened to the hushing sound of waves on the bank. I could hear another sound, mixed in with it. A louder, more insistent rolling sound.
I opened my eyes. The sunshine was streaming in through the net curtains, which hung a little back, as if tousled by the air’s motion. I rolled over. I was alone in the bed. The sound was, I discovered, coming up the stairs. I stood and walked over to the edge.
“Brett?”
He was just coming out of the kitchen, a towel round his waist.
“Honey,” he smiled. “I was just coming upstairs. Go on, lie down.” He added this last with a teasing look that shot straight through my body, making my heart race.
“Oh?” I said, feeling flushed and quite aroused. “What’s that?” I added, raising a hand to my ear to indicate the noise.
“Just put the kettle on for coffee,” he said.
“Oh!” I flushed warmly. “That is service.”
He grinned. “Well, I do like to be of service to you.”
I blushed and he laughed. I lay down on the bed and he slipped across the covers lithely to join me. I felt his arms grip me from behind and his body pressed against mine as he kissed me.
I sighed and rolled onto my back so he could kiss me properly.
He stroked his hands down my naked body and we made love.
“Shower?” I said after a while. My bones were disjointed with bliss, and I felt like a big boneless mass of pleasure. He smiled.
“I guess I should go finish that coffee,” he recalled.
I laughed. “Oh, heck! I forgot about the coffee.”
“Me too.”
I showered, feeling the warm water and the pleasant-scented steam seep into me. I was relaxed and happy and looking forward to breakfast.
We had coffee at the dining-table, overlooking the sea. I leaned forward and studied it. I was aware of his closeness to me, his foot resting beside mine. I watched the sea spark and heard the gulls and knew I couldn’t be happier.
I also knew that I wouldn’t be content unless we had sorted this mess out. I looked at him sitting there, his beautiful face lit with the sunshine, and knew that I couldn’t live with the thought of him being killed one day. We had to do something, right now.
“Brett?”
“Yes?” he asked softly. I smiled as he turned to face me, the sunshine making those wonderful green eyes a bright blaze of emerald. He was so handsome it made my heart ache sometimes just to look at him.
“We need to do something about this.”
He sighed.
“I know. I wish we could just forget, but…”
“I can’t live with the thought that something might happen to you,” I murmured.
He smiled. “Oh, Kerry,” he said.
I reached across and took his hand. We sat like that silently for a while. I tried to think of what we could do, but so far the plan eluded me.
“Breakfast,” I said.
He chuckled. “I don’t know if we have anything in the cupboards.”
“I’m going to look.”
I managed to find some basic supplies—there was milk in the fridge, and someone had thoughtfully left us some muesli. It hadn’t been opened and I presumed it had been left there for us. I took it to the table.
While we ate, I thought some more. My head cleared a bit with the meal and the coffee and I had an idea.
“You must know where these people are, I mean in Miami?” I asked.
He shook his head. Swallowed his breakfast and dabbed at his lips with a serviette. I tried to focus on what he was saying and not on the warm, delicious memories of the previous night.
“No,” he said. “I mean, I know where I used to get the stuff from, but as to where it came from or who the dealer worked for, I had no idea.”
“Mm,” I said. My idea had been to try and scare them in turn—get the police on them or something.
“What were you thinking?” He asked, looking at me with a frown.
“I was thinking that, if we knew where they were, we could put pressure on them ourselves,” I said.
I supposed it was a bit wild, but it had suddenly occurred to me that they had far more reason to be worried than we did. So far, they were the ones doing the illegal stuff, not us—at least not anymore.
“That’s a good idea,” he said slowly. “If we could do that, maybe they’d stop this.”
I nodded, flushed as he turned admiring eyes on me. “We don’t have enough information, though,” I sighed. “So it won’t work. Unless we can find them or something.”
“Maybe we can,” he said slowly.
I frowned at him. “Brett?” I asked. “What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know yet,” he said, with a frown between his own brows. “When I do, I’ll tell you.”
“As long as this isn’t anything to do with you putting yourself in danger,” I said slowly. “I don’t think I could handle that.” I knew that look. He wasn’t the sort of person who took a lot of care about his own safety. I didn’t like the thought of him out looking for danger.
“I don’t want anything to happen to me either,” he said with a soft smile. “Believe me. Or to you.”
We sat there quietly for a while.
“I think I know what we can do,” he said slowly.
“You do?” I smiled at him.
“Yes.”
We talked. By the time we had finished talking, the sun was higher in the sky and it was almost midday.
When we had a plan we could both agree on, I pushed back my chair wearily and stood.
“Lunchtime,” I declared solemnly.
He laughed.
“I think, my sweet, that is a great plan. Unfortunately, I also think we have eaten all the food in the house just now.”
“Well, then,” I said, “we shall have to find more.”
He grinned at my light, formal tone. “Well, then! Allow me to escort you to the supermarket, milady,” he said, getting into the game.
We were both laughing by the time we went upstairs to get ready.
We had lunch at a sandwich-stall, and I stood there looking out over the sea and feeling like I did when I was a girl on beach holidays. I was so happy. So free.
We looked through the small village supermarket for breakfast for the next two days and enough to keep us going through dinner and tomorrow. Then we went home again.
Brett sighed. “It’s so lovely here with you,” he said.
“It is,” I agreed.
We both looked at each other a little wistfully. Our plans had been laid, though. And it seemed that, after all, we would be taking some time away from our little haven here.
But not for long, we had promised each other. Not for long.
I had to text my mother to explain that I would be fully-engaged until next week Friday. I hoped that it would be as simple as that and would only take a week to get sorted out. I hoped that nothing would go wrong in that time. It was a dangerous plan, and a daring one. But it might just work. And it was the only plan we had.
I just didn’t want anything to happen to him. Or to me. Not now, when we had just found each other after so long.