Always the Best Man

This morning a comment like that would have been a slap in the face, but Damien let it bounce off him. Time for a new plan, remember? And this time he wasn’t going to let himself get derailed.

He would walk over to Sara and her father. He would listen to what she had to say, and then he would say goodbye.

To Sara. And the idea of Sara.

CHAPTER FOUR

NOT many drivers were on the road at one in the morning to witness the sight of a bridesmaid shooting down the motorway in her car, foot to the floor, flowers in her hair. Zoe wouldn’t have noticed them if they had. Her efficient little runabout didn’t go much above seventy, but pressing the pedal all the way down gave her a small sense of satisfaction, something to counteract the growing sense of shame.

She’d never been so humiliated.

The look on his face …

As if he’d just committed some heinous crime. Even the thought of fit, blond Matthew as her own private deckhand for the next two weeks didn’t cheer her up. Maybe she’d send him away and stay moored in the marina for the holiday, hiding out in the cabin and saving the other holidaymakers from her obviously disgusting presence.

But if there was one thing Zoe liked to do it was change her mind, and she did just that when she saw the bleary-eyed Matthew waiting for her in Dream Weaver’s cockpit.

Her wheel-along case had been making a terrible racket on the pontoons and must have woken him up. Along with the rest of the residents in the tiny marina halfway up the River Dart. She checked her watch—four-fifteen! Eek!—then tried to haul her case over the edge of the boat, but it was obvious her lightning-speed packing method—just throw everything she owned in—made that impossible. Matthew very gallantly hopped out of the boat and dealt with her luggage, giving her ample time to admire his fine physique.

‘Sorry,’ she said blithely, skipping on board and showing none of her guilt. ‘I got here as fast as I could, but my car is a bit past it.’

Matthew shrugged and handed her the keys. He even smiled. ‘No problem. Luke said he’d let me take Dream Weaver to France and back later in the summer if I helped you out. So for the next two weeks I’m all yours. Ready to fulfil your every whim.’

For the first time in six hours Zoe smiled. Now that was the kind of response a girl liked to hear.

Matthew looked her up and down and laughed softly. ‘Not sure about your sailing clothes, though.’

Zoe looked down, and then she laughed as well. ‘Well, I suppose satin and trainers aren’t the usual attire, but don’t worry—’ she patted her hundred litre case ‘—I’ve got more appropriate stuff in here.’

Matthew laughed even harder. ‘I’ll bet!’

He ran a hand through his delightfully tousled hair. ‘Do you want to go out tomorrow? Maybe round to a beach?’

Zoe patted her suitcase again. ‘Swimming cozzie is packed,’ she said, and noticed a glitter of interest at that fact in the skipper’s eyes. ‘Why not?’

He checked his watch and frowned. ‘What time do you want to get started?’

She waved a helpless hand. ‘Oh … whenever. I like to go with the flow.’

Matthew nodded and grinned. Zoe grinned back. Kindred spirits. Oh, this holiday might just be what she needed after all. A summer fling, maybe, to restore her confidence in life, love and men in general.

However, thinking of men in general led to thinking of one man in particular. Her ears burned with shame while other places burned with something else entirely.

We’re not thinking about him, she told herself. He’s two hundred miles away, polishing his halo, probably, and the next two weeks is all about forgetting him and that … unfortunate … kiss ever existed.

Matthew handed over the key to Dream Weaver, a small square-ended piece of metal with a squash ball-sized piece of cork on a key ring, and then clambered off the boat and on to the pontoon.

‘See you in the morning,’ he said with a relaxed wave.

‘Not too early, though,’ Zoe added quickly.

Matthew nodded, one night owl to another. See? Kindred spirits.

Once she was alone again Zoe realised she was actually quite tired. She headed below decks. However, she’d forgotten that there weren’t proper stairs leading down into the cabin, but what was more like two wooden boxes stacked on top of each other, with an extra little foot platform bolted onto the top one for those with shorter legs. She managed to manhandle the giant case down into the cabin without smashing it on the floor, then wrestled it past the seating area, past the tiny toilet she’d forgotten how to work, and into the two-man cabin at the front of the boat.

She plopped the case on one side of the V-shaped bunk and took a long hard look at the two narrow berths, separate at the head end, but joined together near the feet. Not a lot of room, and Zoe liked to sprawl. It was also a long way down to the hard wooden floor if she rolled out of bed during the night.

But then she remembered there was an extra section of wood that fitted between the two berths, making them one giant triangle, and a matching wedge of mattress to complete the jigsaw, and she went in search of it.

Once that was sorted, she rummaged through her case for her PJs, leaving her underwear and clothes where they fell, then squeezed herself into the tiny bathroom to get ready for bed. Thankfully, the instructions for the toilet were written on a plaque on the wall—but it still took her three attempts before she got it to work properly.

Within twenty minutes of getting on board, she was climbing into the soft cotton-lined sleeping bag that had been left out for her. Probably by Matthew. She smiled as she closed her eyes and stretched her mouth wide in a silent yawn.

Oh, yes. This holiday was going to be just what she needed.

Dawn was just breaking as Damien hauled his soft sailing bag, compactly filled with everything he would need for the next week or two, down the steep jetty that led to the pontoons of Lower Hadwell’s marina.

After weeks of being cooped up in a city office, or in the dust and noise of a construction site, it was blissful to feel the cold dawn breeze on his face, smell the salt and seaweed in the air. Even better would be the bacon sandwich he planned to make himself on board before setting off. Two weeks on board Luke’s beloved boat, no one to please but himself.

It was the perfect plan. He’d be busy the whole time and he wouldn’t have to talk to a soul if he didn’t want to. And by the time he got back to his office in London he’d have made progress in wiping his best friend’s wife from his mind—at least in any capacity other than ‘family friend’.

He’d also do his best to forget that it had been Sara’s idea to use the boat now it was free. She’d square it with Luke in the morning, she’d said. But he knew his friend wouldn’t mind. He’d taken Dream Weaver out many times before when he’d needed a bit of space and solitude.

The boat was quiet when he arrived but, strangely, unlocked. He found the key on the table in the middle of the seating area in the main cabin and threw his sailing bag down on one of the long benches that doubled as a berth. Probably that flaky Matthew who kept an eye on Weaver when Luke wasn’t around. He’d have to have a word with him about that when he got back.

But for now …

Well, Damien was standing on a boat with the key in his hand and a whole river, then the Devon and Cornwall coast waiting to be explored. Why wait? He could sort out the bacon sandwich later. What he really wanted to taste right now was salt on his tongue. He couldn’t wait for that moment of perfect silence when he got out to sea, winched up the sails and cut the engine.

Not wasting a second, he ran upstairs into the cockpit, turned the engine on and set about casting off.

A distant rumble lulled Zoe as she dozed, and the gentle side-to-side movement of the boat rocked her back into a deep slumber. When she woke the sun was high in the sky, streaming through the glass hatch in the roof, and her face was squashed against the wall of the cabin. She was also pinned beneath her bright pink case.

Huh?

While she’d slept somebody had messed with the earth’s gravity. Instead of everything heading straight down, the world was tilted at forty-five degrees. It was also very bumpy, and every few seconds her cabin would bounce off something and a hollow noise echoed round the boat’s hull.

Was there a storm? The weather forecast had been good. Well, at least she’d imagined it was good because it had been bright and sunny for the last week, and Zoe wasn’t the type to check that kind of thing religiously. If at all.

Large drops of water sprayed onto the hatch as the boat did its biggest lurch yet. Definitely a storm, then. But a strange kind of storm because, apart from those dull echoes from the underside of the boat, it was completely quiet. And why was the sun still shining?

She rubbed her eyes, got out of bed and braced a hand against the wall to stop herself from falling over. Her brain struggled to make sense of the mismatched information being sent to it. She hadn’t drunk much last night, so this couldn’t be the hangover of all hangovers. What the heck was going on?

As she lurched her way through the cabin she glanced out of one of the tiny lozenge-shaped portholes and finally the jigsaw pieces began to come together. There was blue. Lots of it. Above and below the horizon. And cliffs. Last time she’d checked Lower Hadwell had been all about green hills covered in woods and sheep-filled fields. Not a cliff to be seen. Which left only one conclusion to stumble onto.

They were at sea. Almost. Right at the mouth of the estuary.

Matthew must be much more of a morning person than she gave him credit for. How disappointing. And she’d at least have expected him to discuss with her which beach she’d like to go to. Behaviour like this reminded her of someone she’d much rather push to the recesses of her mind and slap the label What were you thinking? on.