The Bed and Breakfast on the Beach: A gorgeous feel-good read from the bestselling author of One Day in December
Kat French
‘Funny and evocative, refreshing as a G and T – this book is as good as a holiday!’ JANE LINFOOT, author of The Little Wedding Shop by the SeaA gorgeous summer read to escape with this summer!A Greek island solves all life’s problems…doesn’t it?Winnie, Stella and Frankie have been best friends forever.When their lives unexpectedly unravel, they spontaneously decide to buy a gorgeous B&B on a remote Greek island. Drenched in hot sun, Villa Valentina is the perfect escape from reality. But when Winnie meets Jesse, their brooding neighbour, she finds that Greece is full of its own complications – not least how attractive he is…Meanwhile, Frankie and Stella are discovering that Villa Valentina has its own secrets – starting with the large supply of gin in the cellar and the arrival of a famous rock band. A band with one very good-looking member who just might distract Frankie from thoughts of her husband…Smart, sassy and sexy, this summer sizzler is perfect for fans of Lucy Diamond and Jane Costello.
Copyright (#ue42192f8-6a9b-5d8e-80f7-f8810caecec0)
AVON
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street,
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Copyright © Kat French 2017
Cover design and lettering: www.emma-rogers.com (http://www.emma-rogers.com) 2017
Kat French asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008236755
Ebook Edition © June 2017 ISBN: 9780008236762
Version: 2018-05-02
Dedication (#ue42192f8-6a9b-5d8e-80f7-f8810caecec0)
This book is informed by and written for my beloved life-long best buddies Debbie and Jane.
This isn’t our story, but it is absolutely inspired by our friendship – there’s a little bit of all of each of us in each of them.
I thank my lucky stars for you both.
Cheers to us, ladies, love you! xxx
Table of Contents
Cover (#u18ef0170-3167-5cec-a115-7c06b4f73404)
Title Page (#u5688492b-862e-54f7-b419-18b16e1512eb)
Copyright (#u72088e40-282e-5581-a81a-2eac37b97b33)
Dedication (#uc6cb8cea-a0a2-5771-b89c-dc24f153de5b)
Prologue (#u779bf669-3a38-5368-8fa5-df4ccd32398c)
Chapter One (#u8fc19d8d-9ac6-516d-b971-d95227eb028f)
Chapter Two (#uc860725c-266c-5bb7-9376-5ad8d880b9ed)
Chapter Three (#ua9f9ae6f-e9f4-5b1e-87d8-778f46d3aa66)
Chapter Four (#u40e07139-d5a6-5ec4-9566-f39f4fbec371)
Chapter Five (#u8d47964b-f820-5a3c-b460-c032ad72142c)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading … (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
By the Same Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE (#ue42192f8-6a9b-5d8e-80f7-f8810caecec0)
Forty-eight hours earlier …
‘It looks like a pink sugar cube.’
Winnie flicked her Havaianas off onto the warm sand and slid her huge sunglasses down her nose to get a better look at Villa Valentina.
‘Well, they weren’t lying when they said it was on the beach,’ Stella murmured, grabbing hold of Winnie’s elbow while she bent double to slip her jewelled flip-flops off the backs of her heels.
Beside them, Frankie dropped her oversized shoulder bag on the sand and lifted the brim of the pink floppy sunhat she’d bought at least a decade ago, inspired by the effortlessly chic Kristin Scott Thomas in Four Weddings.
‘What it looks like to me, ladies, is heaven.’
For a second, all three women stood shoulder to shoulder in contemplative silence. Life had dealt each of them an unexpectedly rough hand over recent months, and this weekend was very much needed to take stock, swear like troopers and sink as much ouzo as Skelidos could supply them with.
‘Do you think it’s too early for a G&T?’
Winnie and Frankie looked at Stella between them in pristine white skinny jeans, her scarlet toe-polish jewel-bright against the pale sand. Her eyes were trained on the faded pink mansion’s deserted terrace beach bar, her hands on her hips as if she meant business.
‘It’s just after nine o’clock in the morning, Stell,’ Winnie said, laughing, the bangles on her wrist jangling as she picked at the frayed hem of her denim shorts.
Stella rolled her eyes. ‘Says the woman who sank a double brandy on the plane four hours ago.’
‘She’s a nervous flyer,’ Frankie soothed, half-hearted in Winnie’s defence.
‘You’re telling me,’ Stella said, flicking her fringe out of her eyes. ‘The poor bugger in the seat the other side of her is probably in A&E now with crushed fingers.’
Winnie wriggled her toes blissfully in the powder-soft sand, wandering forward slowly. ‘Well, if you’d have put your drink down for more than five minutes I’d have been able to hold your hand instead of his. I’m sitting by Frankie on the flight home, she’s more sympathetic.’
Frankie caught Stella’s eye behind Winnie’s back and shook her head frantically. Stella nodded and pointed first at Winnie and then at Frankie: a clear signal that her friend was on her own when it came to keeping Winnie calm on the homebound journey.
Winnie knew what they were up to behind her, of course; she’d known Stella and Frankie for as far back as sentient memory allowed. Born within four weeks of each other a stone’s throw apart on the same street, the three of them had been united by both age and the fact that they were the only girls amongst the rowdy rabble of neighbourhood boys. It was a happy coincidence that they’d turned out to be similar in far more than birthdays; they shared a sharp sense of humour and a strong, abiding loyalty that bound them closer than sisters, albeit all very different in looks and temperament.
‘Is that an actual tattoo, Win?’
Frankie leaned forward to get a closer look at the flowers circling Winnie’s ankle.
Winnie paused and turned back.
‘Temporary. I’m trying it on for size.’
‘Shame you couldn’t have done the same thing with your husband,’ Stella said, throwing in a gentle wink to soften her words. In truth the comment didn’t sting, because, in point of fact, it was pretty darn accurate. Rory, he of the wild dark curls and sparkly eyes, the man who’d pursued her endlessly and showered her with his ardent love, had turned out to be the very same guy who’d abruptly turned the shower off to an icy water-torture trickle once the chase down the aisle in front of all of their friends was over. Winnie was a different woman because of him. She’d spent the first thirty-three years of her life merrily believing the schmaltzy songs on the radio; these days she flicked stations at the opening bars of a slow song, tossing the radio an accusatory look, as if it were personally responsible for Rory’s flimsy heart. She favoured girl-power Little Mix anthems now, belted out at the top of her lungs with the hard-won knowledge that there was no such thing as forever when it comes to love.
‘Let that be the last mention of him this weekend,’ Winnie said, lifting her face to the already warm morning sunshine. ‘As of now, his name is on the banned list, along with Gavin.’ She glanced at Frankie as she mentioned her friend’s soon-to-be-ex-husband. ‘And Jones & Bow, too, for that matter,’ she added for good measure, looking the other way towards Stella. Jones & Bow had been Stella’s employers and pretty much her home for the last decade or more, and they’d recently repaid her loyalty with an out-of-the-blue redundancy notice and a box to put her things in. The fat redundancy cheque hadn’t even been a plaster on the near-fatal wound they’d inflicted on her pride, not to mention that it wouldn’t last for ever given Stella’s love of designer labels, far-flung holidays and the best new restaurants with waiting lists as long as Dudley Dursley’s Christmas list.
‘Deal.’ Frankie nodded, resolute.
‘Come on then.’ Stella linked arms with her friends. ‘Let’s get checked into the sugar cube. We’ve got forty-eight hours of serious drinking and plate-smashing to get through.’
‘I don’t plan on smashing any plates,’ Winnie said with a frown.
‘You’re in Greece. It’s the rules,’ Frankie said. ‘Just don’t do it until you’ve eaten your dinner. They’d consider that the height of bad manners.’
‘I love Greek salad,’ Winnie said, imagining colourful plates laden with fat ruby tomatoes ripened beneath the Greek sun, and huge, creamy chunks of feta.
‘I love Greek men more.’ Stella grinned as on cue a shirtless Adonis emerged from the sugar cube, all oiled chest and mirrored sunglasses.
‘Do you think he’d be offended if I asked him to sing “Careless Whisper” to me?’ Frankie murmured. Her enduring love for George Michael had seen her through many a dark time. There were several times in her life when she wished she’d turned a different corner.
‘Probably.’ Stella rolled her eyes. ‘Think he’d be offended if I asked him to slather me with baby oil?’
A second, equally gorgeous guy in DayGlo neon shorts joined the Adonis and kissed the back of his neck.
‘Fuck,’ Stella sighed. ‘All the best men are gay. Look at Matt Bomer.’
‘And George Michael,’ Frankie added.
‘You really need to get over the George thing. He was always too old for you anyway.’
Frankie looked horrified, as if she’d been asked to get over the loss of a limb or broker world peace.
‘I think he’s staring at us,’ Winnie murmured, as Adonis checked his watch then studied them intently. Throwing a few words over his shoulder towards his lover, he broke into a Baywatch-worthy jog across the sand and came to a halt in front of them.
‘Ladies, welcome,’ he said, his accent only adding to his allure. ‘You must be the three new guests due this morning?’
Winnie glanced at the other two and nodded, pulling her paperwork from the side of her weekend bag and scanning it quickly.
‘Are you … Ajax?’
He nodded with a slight bow. ‘And one of you is Winifred?’
Frankie and Stella both laughed under their breath at the use of Winnie’s much-detested full name. She’d been sentimentally named after a great aunt who’d died a few days before her birth; even her mother had gone off it within a month and everyone had called her Winnie from thereon in.
‘That would be me.’ She stepped forward and held out her hand, smiling uncertainly at Ajax. ‘And this is Frankie and Stella.’ She glanced behind him at the B&B. ‘Are we too early to check in?’
He laughed good-naturedly. ‘I make exception for three beautiful ladies. Come.’
He collected each of their weekend bags from where they’d dropped them in the sand and then turned and strode away towards the villa, leaving the three women to exchange speculative glances and then break into a trot to keep up behind him.
Ajax led them through the little beach bar, all whitewashed chairs and driftwood tables set with jam-jars of fuchsia-pink wildflowers. The bleached, sand-covered crazy-paved terrace lay warm and smooth beneath Winnie’s feet, changing to cool stone flags as they entered Villa Valentina’s shady, deserted reception. There was an air of faded splendour to the old mansion house, as if it might once have been home to Greek glitterati and had fallen on hard times. The peeling paint was sort of shabby chic and sort of just shabby, but the high ceilings and grand proportions kind of made up for it and let the villa get away with it. Just.
Ajax slid behind the wooden desk, reached for a huge red diary and leafed through it to today’s date. He was quick, but not fast enough for Winnie to miss the fact that the pages he flicked past were emptier than you might expect for a bookings diary.
‘OK, so it’s your lucky day!’ he announced. ‘You’ve been allocated the most splendid rooms up on the top floor.’ He tapped his pen against the page. ‘Best views in the house.’
‘Fantastic,’ Frankie said, fanning herself with her pink hat. ‘Are they ready, or do you need us to wait?’
Ajax looked slightly wrong-footed before his expression cleared to sunshine again. ‘No need to wait. Our cleaners come to work very early to make your rooms ready especially for you.’
‘Well, that’s very kind,’ Winnie said, smiling, grateful for their forethought. Already there was something about Villa Valentina that felt magical; the weight on her shoulders was a little lighter, the melancholy in her heart a little less oppressive. Even though the effects would most likely wear off as soon as they touched down back in the UK, she’d be stronger and tougher for a couple of days off from feeling like a fool.
The three women trooped up the grand central staircase behind Ajax, who skipped his way up the winding flights of steps even though he’d insisted on carrying all of their weekend bags slung over one shoulder. On the top landing he made a ceremony of studying each of them in silence for a few contemplative moments before handing out three ornate keys, as if first deciding which of the rooms best suited each of the women.
‘For you, the Seaview Suite,’ he said, pressing a key into Stella’s palm. ‘Because it is grand and has the finest view.’
He moved along the line to Frankie. ‘For you,’ he said, handing her her key. ‘The Cleopatra Rooms, because the bathtub is the deepest. You have the face of a lady who needs to relax.’
Frankie looked almost as if she might burst into tears; it had been a long time since a man had taken the time to notice how worn down she was.
Ajax stepped sideways to look at Winnie. ‘And for you, Winifred, I think the Bohemian Suite.’ He passed her an old, blackened key. ‘Many artists have chosen to stay in here over the years because of the light. I think you will especially like the paintings.’
Winnie took the key, wide-eyed, wondering if Ajax had sneakily researched them all on Google because he seemed to have taken one look at them and seen right into their hearts. He couldn’t have, not really; they’d only booked the break two days ago on a last-minute whim and none of them were prolific enough for Google to provide much in the way of interesting gossip. He must just be one of those rare beasts, a genuinely thoughtful, empathetic man. Winnie recognised that her worldview on men was more than a little off-kilter just now, but she genuinely wasn’t sure if her heart would recover enough to think more charitably about the other half of the human race. For now though, for the sake of sisterhood, she was prepared to give Ajax the benefit of the doubt.
‘Please, call me Winnie. Everyone does.’
He smiled widely, as if truly honoured. ‘Then because we’re friends now, you should come down to the bar when you have settled and I make special cocktails for special ladies. I mix just the right one to make you carefree.’
He gave them one of his little bows and then set off down the stairs two at a time, leaving them all staring at the fancy cast-iron keys in their hands.
‘Does anyone else feel a bit like Alice about to tumble down the rabbit hole?’ Frankie asked, turning the key to the Cleopatra Rooms over in her hand.
‘This is what happens when you book a last-minute break to an island you’ve never heard of,’ Stella said.
Winnie looked at her, surprised. ‘What, you end up in a mystical pink B&B with a guy who seems able to read minds?’
Stella plucked at the bottom of her Breton-stripe vest, flapping it away from her body to cool herself down. ‘You end up on the top floor of a place with no lifts. There better be a decent shower in there, I’m bloody melting.’
‘Well, I might go and take a bubble bath,’ Frankie said with a grin. ‘Seeing as I have the best one and all.’
‘And you should probably go and, er, gaze at the paintings on your walls, Win,’ Stella said, wafting her hand towards Winnie’s door.
Winnie shrugged, undeterred. ‘I love that he thinks I’m bohemian.’
‘Must have been your tattoo,’ Frankie said, slotting her key into her door.
‘Or your plaits.’ Stella pushed her key into place too as Winnie frowned at her ankle tattoo and wound one of her shoulder-length honey-blonde plaits around her finger.
‘What’s wrong with my plaits?’
‘Nothing,’ Stella laughed. ‘If you’re a Swedish milkmaid.’
‘You’re only jealous,’ Winnie sniffed, flicking her plaits over her shoulders. But she enjoyed her friends’ ribbing all the same, because, God, it felt good to relax and laugh about stupid things. Fitting her key into the lock of the Bohemian Suite, she turned, shiny-eyed, to look at the others.
‘Three, two …’ she counted down, and, on one, they all turned their keys.
Bohemian turned out to be Winnie’s idea of perfect. The stripped oak floorboards were warm beneath her feet, and the room seemed vast and airy thanks to the tall, ornate French doors, which had been opened to allow the hint of a cooling breeze to flutter the gauzy white muslin curtains. The walls had been painted deep oxblood, a rich, evocative colour that, coupled with the huge cast-iron bed, certainly conjured up bohemian. An eclectic mix of jewel-coloured cushions topped the crisp white cotton bed linen, and a huge emerald-green velvet chaise longue sat in front of ceiling-high bookcases stuffed with hundreds of books in all sizes and colours. Two glass chandeliers hung overhead, adding opulence to the already dramatic room; it was clearly a space designed for reclining, relaxing and recharging. Winnie had no clue what the other girls’ rooms were like, but she knew instinctively that this was the right one for her. Stripes of sunlight streamed through the doors and windows, and when she stepped out of the French doors, she found herself on a wide balcony set with a tiny table and chairs for two beside a 60s-style wicker hanging-egg chair to take in the glittering view over the Med.
‘Are you feeling all arty-farty yet?’
She turned and found Stella peering at her from her wraparound balcony at the far end of the villa. She’d already changed into a halter-neck polka-dot bikini top and teeny black denim shorts, and pulled her long red-gold waves back into a swishy ponytail.
Winnie laughed, delighted. ‘I think I am! How’s the Seaview Suite?’
‘I’ve really no idea why they call it that.’ Stella shrugged and rolled her eyes, flopping blissfully down onto the padded wooden steamer chair on her balcony. ‘I mean, come on.’ Ajax had been right about the view from Stella’s room; she had an uninterrupted, picture-postcard-perfect vista out over the gorgeous sugar sand and crystal sea.
Between them, Frankie wandered out onto her balcony, cool as a cucumber in a black linen shift and big Jackie O sunglasses perched on top of her bleached pixie cut.
‘Bath’s running,’ she said. ‘It might take a while, it’s practically a swimming pool.’
A peaceful, easy feeling washed over Winnie’s shoulders, warmer even than the Greek summer sunshine. Frankie would be a while yet, and Stella looked set for some serious sun-worshipping.
‘I might just test my bed out for five minutes,’ she said, lifting her hand to wave to her friends. Frankie did a tiny, crazy, happy dance out of pure contentment, and Stella lifted her hand above the balcony balustrade with an indistinct moan of happiness. Wandering back inside, Winnie momentarily paused to wonder how you might climb up onto a mattress higher than your belly button, then taking a bit of a running jump, she threw herself face-down on the bed and spontaneously laughed for the first time in months.
Ajax placed a tray of three tall, fine-stemmed fishbowl glasses on the beach-bar table in front of them an hour or so later.
‘You’ve built our expectations sky-high now, you know that, right?’ Frankie said, lifting her eyebrows at him. ‘If these cocktails don’t make us feel a million dollars we’re going to want our money back.’
‘Your first drink is always on the house anyways,’ Ajax said grandly. ‘Villa Valentina house secret mix, guaranteed to make you happy.’
‘Free drinks always make me happy,’ Stella sighed. ‘People used to give me free drinks all over town. Stella! Come in, have a glass of champagne! And another!’
‘Ah, get over yourself, superstar. This one’s still free and looks amazing.’ Frankie reached for one of the glasses and handed it to Stella.
‘What is it?’ Winnie lifted her sunnies and squinted up at Ajax hovering close by for their verdict.
He shrugged. ‘Gin and tonic.’
It wasn’t like any gin and tonic Winnie had ever seen before. Peering into the glass as she slid it towards her, she could see rich shades of honeyed nectarine red sparkling with ice and slices of rose-pink grapefruit.
‘Is this rosemary?’ Frankie asked, plucking a herb from her glass and sniffing it.
Ajax preened. ‘I grow it myself in the garden at the back of the villa.’
Frankie dunked it back into her cocktail, using it to swirl the ice cubes. All three women looked up as the guy they’d spotted earlier with Ajax wandered over and placed a platter of glistening halved figs scattered with walnuts down on their table.
‘Oh. My. God.’ Winnie groaned. ‘How good does that look? They’re the fattest figs I’ve ever seen in my life.’
‘Best in the world. I grow them myself in the garden behind the villa.’
‘I’m sensing a theme,’ Stella murmured, then took a sip of her drink and gasped. ‘Bloody hell! That’s amazing. You have to tell me how to make this before I leave.’
Ajax ignored the request, choosing instead to make introductions.
‘Ladies, this is my husband, Nikolas.’
Nikolas stuck out his hand. ‘Nik, please.’
‘Well, thank you, Nik, for this. It looks wonderful,’ Winnie said, nodding towards the plate. ‘I’m Winnie.’
The others jumped up in turn and shook his hand, and he just nodded politely and excused himself.
‘He likes actions, not words,’ Ajax sighed, watching his lover wistfully until he’d disappeared back into the villa.
‘My kind of man,’ Stella laughed, making Ajax scowl theatrically.
‘What is it that you English like to say?’ he said. ‘Not on your nelly.’
He winked and blew them a kiss before threading his way through the tables in the direction of his husband.
‘Happy couples make me want to vom right now,’ Winnie said, taking a good gulp of her drink and then almost choking on the rosemary stem.
Stella grabbed for the glass. ‘Christ, Winnie, it’s too good to splutter all over the floor!’
Frankie lifted her drink so that the sunlight shone through the liquid, bouncing pink crystal shimmers all around them.
‘Everything about this place is special,’ she said. ‘The villa, Ajax, the cocktails, that view … it’s all blissful.’
Winnie had recovered sufficiently to raise her glass and toast the others.
‘To forty-eight hours of secret recipe cocktails and uninterrupted bliss.’
Stella clinked her glass against Winnie’s. ‘I’ll drink to that. And to friendship.’
Frankie nodded solemnly and touched her glass to the others. ‘To us.’
Ajax watched the three women carefully from an upstairs window of the villa, observing the way they laughed together, how they toasted each other, that they were relaxed in each other’s company.
Maybe.
With enough of his secret cocktails and a fractured kaleidoscope of sun-gilded images laid out to seduce them, just maybe.
CHAPTER ONE (#ue42192f8-6a9b-5d8e-80f7-f8810caecec0)
‘How the shagging hell did this happen?’
Stella looked from Winnie to Frankie clustered around the breakfast bar in her screamingly cool loft apartment. They’d barely sobered up from landing back in England a few hours ago, and reality was sinking in fast. It wasn’t just their hearts that had come home lighter from Skelidos. Their bank accounts were significantly lighter too.
Winnie’s half of the profits from the sale of her beloved house, the one she’d imagined her babies would grow up in.
Stella’s handsome redundancy from Jones & Bow, a chunk of which she’d already earmarked for a world cruise.
Frankie’s nest egg, bequeathed to her by Marcia, the childless elderly neighbour she’d cared for over the last dozen years.
‘Marcia told me that she wanted me to have an adventure,’ Frankie whispered. ‘The very last time we spoke. I didn’t realise that she was leaving the house to me until the solicitor called me in, after she’d … after she’d gone.’
Her neighbour had been more of a surrogate mum, and she’d been aware of Frankie’s deep-seated unhappiness with Gavin for many years. Her gift had been the catalyst for Frankie to finally find the courage to end the marriage her parents had pressured her into as a frightened, pregnant seventeen-year-old. She and Gavin had rubbed along as best they could and the twins had grown up happy and strong as a result, but they were seventeen themselves now and they didn’t need her to wipe their noses or hold their hands when they crossed the road any more. They’d been the reason she’d stayed, and their leaving home had been the reason she’d finally left, too; the reality of living all alone with Gavin had been too much to bear. The boys had filled the silence and the space with noise and clutter: hockey sticks in the hall, muddy football boots in the porch, music too loud in their rooms. Who knew the silence they left behind would be even more deafening? Marcia’s money had allowed Frankie to rent a tiny place all of her own while she considered her next move, somewhere to lie low and lick her wounds, somewhere to spin the globe with her eyes closed and choose an adventure grand enough to warrant Marcia’s approval.
‘Looks like adventure got tired of waiting and came looking for you,’ Winnie said quietly.
All three of them stared at the large white envelope between them on the breakfast bar, and at the bunch of keys resting on top of it. They’d flown to Skelidos in the expectation of a couple of days’ hedonistic escape, and they’d flown home again with the deeds to Villa Valentina in their weekend bag beside the duty-free.
‘God knows what he put in those cocktails,’ Stella said, frowning. ‘He was more hypnotic than Derren sodding Brown.’
Winnie stared at her. ‘You don’t think he slipped us something illegal, do you?’
‘Yes,‘ Stella huffed. ‘He slipped us pipedreams and bare bronzed chests and sand between our toes. He slipped us sunshine on our shoulders and lazy, idyllic afternoons, and he slipped us long starlit evenings drinking cocktails beneath fairy lights strung between pine trees. He slipped us the idea of a perfect life, and we reached out and grabbed it in our pale English hands because we had stressed, lonely and gullible stamped on our foreheads.’
As she spoke she pointed from herself to Frankie and then finally to Winnie. Stressed, lonely and gullible.
‘Well, that’s lovely,’ Frankie frowned, wrapping her hands around her mug of steaming coffee. ‘Anyone would be lonely going from living with my kids to the silence of an empty flat.’
‘At least you got lonely. I got gullible,’ Winnie muttered, twisting the slender wedding band she still wore even though her marriage was all over bar the decree absolute.
‘Ladies, it wasn’t an insult.’ Stella shook her head. ‘We are where we are. Of course you’re lonely, Frank, you’re recovering from years of being needed by a whole bloody cul-de-sac, and Winnie, the fact that you’re still too trusting after what Knobchops did to you is a good thing, not a bad one. And me? I didn’t even have a relationship to break. I pinned years of hopes onto Jones & Bow, and I’ve been left high, dry and stressed to the eyeballs. The truth is that we’re all lonely, and we’re all stressed, and given that we’ve just gone thirds on a bed and breakfast on a Greek island I can’t even remember the name of, we’re all gullible as hell.’
They perched on Stella’s uncomfortably high designer saddle stools and stared at the keys in silence.
‘Skelidos,’ Winnie said, eventually. ‘It’s called Skelidos.’
‘The villa is pretty gorgeous, in its own elegantly shabby way,’ Frankie said, after a while.
‘And the cocktails were world class,’ Stella acknowledged.
They lapsed into silence again.
‘What else were you planning on doing this summer, anyway?’ Winnie asked, the slow tug of a smile lifting the corners of her mouth. She’d made the horrendous decision to move temporarily back home to her parents after her house sold more speedily than anticipated, and she was already heartily sick of her old curfew being unexpectedly back in place because her father liked to lock up before bed at eleven, and of going to sleep staring into the collective soulful eyes of Westlife because her mother refused to allow her to take her old posters down. She loved her parents dearly, but if she didn’t get out of there soon she’d give up, buy a cat, take up macramé and join her mother’s Catherine Cookson Monday-afternoon reading group.
Frankie looked up from her coffee thoughtfully. ‘I honestly don’t know.’
‘Well, I need a job, a man and a ticket back to normality, asap,’ Stella said.
Winnie nodded slowly. ‘Will a business, a donkey and a ticket back to an island you can’t remember the name of do in the meantime?’
Stella’s expression spoke volumes. ‘A donkey?’
Winnie nodded. ‘It’s in the deeds. Seriously, I’m not even joking. The Fonz comes with the villa.’
‘Don’t tell me. He lives out the back with the rosemary bushes and the fig trees and the fairies at the bottom of the friggin’ garden.’
Frankie pulled her laptop from her bag, her wide, copper-flecked eyes flaring with wary anticipation.
‘I’ll see if I can book us some flights.’
Winnie stared at her old single bed, which at that moment was barely visible beneath summer clothes, swimsuits, bumper-size bottles of factor 30 and beach towels. How do you pack for a one-way trip to Greece? She wasn’t sure if she should pack for a week or throw her entire wardrobe in her suitcase, because she didn’t know if they were heading back to Skelidos for a week to try to wriggle out of the contract or for a lifetime to start a new chapter. Thanks to the lethally large cocktails, she also wasn’t sure whether Ajax was their fairy godfather or had played them like a crack hot conman. He’d kept them fuelled up on his secret recipe gin and lured them in with tales of his bucolic life on the island, and, their tongues loosened by the alcohol, they’d poured out their woes faster than three leaky jugs.
He hadn’t even directly suggested that they buy the villa, at least not at first. He’d talked around it, and let them think it was their idea. It was just damn good fortune that Nikolas happened to be the local property notary and had had the sales paperwork already drawn up in preparation for the planned sale which had just fallen through at the last moment. Convenience, or fate? Either way, he’d had them signing on the dotted line and arranging bank transfers with lightning speed, all buoyed up by Ajax and his constant supply of free drinks and his endless tales of how marvellous life on Skelidos was going to be for the three women. What an adventure they’d have! What a brave and smart move to leave grey old England behind for the idyll of sunny Greece! He’d sealed the deal with big fat tears as they signed, tears of joy tinged with sadness that his wonderful B&B was now in new hands and that he’d forever leave part of his heart there when he and Nikolas moved to Athens in a few days’ time. Nik had accepted a high-profile job over on the mainland, and much as they adored their one-long-honeymoon island life, the bright city lights were calling.
Ajax was in no doubt; fate had conspired to bring Winnie, Stella and Frankie to his island at that precise moment because this place was now their destiny, not his. At heart, Winnie was a believer in fate and superstition; the idea that she’d been guided to the island charmed her all the way to the bank. Frankie, of course, felt more guided by Marcia’s instruction to find adventure; she’d needed little in the way of persuasion to realise that this would certainly be that. Stella had been perhaps the most hesitant of the three, until Frankie and Winnie had decided that they’d find a way to buy it together even if Stella decided it wasn’t for her. The idea of missing out on a potential business opportunity and a life in the sun with her best friends had proved too tempting to pass up, and in the end she’d signed on the understanding that she could always pull out after a year if she wanted to. They each had their own reasons for signing, and for all of them there was an element of running away and an element of looking for a new place to call home.
A text alert vibrated her phone, making it rattle and jump around on the little pine bedside table. Winnie lunged for it before it slid off the edge, momentarily grateful for the distraction until she saw who had sent the message.
Did I really need to hear you’re leaving the country from Stella’s sister-in-law? What am I supposed to do, send the divorce papers by carrier pigeon? I’ve never even heard of the fucking place.
Winnie closed her eyes and took a few measured breaths so she didn’t text back the response hovering on the tip of her fingers.
Did I really need to hear you were screwing the girl from the canteen from your secretary? What was I supposed to do, make your favourite dinner more often and be more adventurous in the bedroom? You’ve no fucking right to question me.
God, it was tempting and Rory completely deserved her animosity. She didn’t write the message though, because she was slowly coming to realise that the person her anger hurt the most was herself. He’d probably check his phone, roll his eyes and delete the conversation before his precious receptionist realised he’d sent a text to his ex-wife. Winnie, on the other hand, would feel the after-effects of their exchange like a hangover without any of the fun first, miserable and heartsick until she could return the whole sorry situation to its box at the back of her head.
The internet works perfectly well in Skelidos. Please send all solicitors’ correspondence via email and I’ll make sure it gets back to England without delay.
Bloody man! He wouldn’t even have known she wasn’t around if Stella’s sister-in-law didn’t work for the same law firm. Oh, well. What did it matter anyway? As long as he didn’t intend on booking a romantic Greek holiday with his lover and wind up at Villa Valentina, then it’d probably be all right. Winnie sat down on the edge of the bed and let herself imagine him booking in unaware, and her inadvertently killing him with a really heavy frying pan then leaving him in the garden for The Fonz to feast on. Were donkeys even carnivores? She doubted it; it’d make seaside donkey rides an insurance nightmare. She’d just have to hire a boat and chuck him overboard with bricks in his pockets instead. Sufficiently bolstered by the fantasy, she pressed send on her polite response and chucked as much in her suitcase as was physically possible without breaking the zips. She wasn’t going to Skelidos for a week; she was going for as long as she could possibly stay.
A few miles away in a small café with insufficient air conditioning, Frankie drew a line down the middle of a blank page of an exercise book and wrote ‘for’ and ‘against’ at the top of the two columns. It wasn’t exactly a spreadsheet, but its practicality was a comfort nonetheless.
Under ‘against’, she noted her only real sticking point; or two points, technically. Joshua and Elliott. Her beloved, boisterous boys, the reasons she’d put the last half of her own life on hold. It was hard to imagine that she’d given birth to them at the same age as they were themselves now; they were still her babies and the thought of them as fathers right now was utterly incomprehensible. Please let them have at least another ten years of freedom first, she murmured. Please let them make a million mistakes that don’t matter rather than one huge one that changes their lives for ever.
Tapping her pen against her teeth, she considered what to write next. There really wasn’t much she could think of to add to the ‘against’ column, and in truth the boys didn’t really need her around at home any more. Josh was living away at a sports academy for the most promising youth footballers in the country, and Elliott had won a hard-fought-for apprenticeship with one of the luxury car brands he coveted and moved into a shared house forty miles away. Fierce pride bloomed bright in her chest at the thought of how well they were doing; if there was one thing she was certain of it was that her sacrifices had been worth it, and that she’d do the same all over again to ensure that her kids were set on the right path.
After a second, she wrote ‘Marcia’ in the ‘for’ column, followed by ‘find an adventure’. Then she added ‘sunshine’, ‘friendship’, ‘new start’, ‘excitement’ and ‘not lonely any more’ to the list in quick succession. Her hand hovered over to the ‘against’ column to add ‘money’, but in fact going thirds on the villa had still left her with a decent chunk in the bank, so it really wouldn’t be accurate to put it down as an against, exactly. That made seven for, and two against. Quite definitive, really, even though the thought of living in a different country from Josh and Elliott made her feel queasy. Perhaps if she framed it in her mind as an exploratory trip, then it would be less of a wrench. Three months or so, and if she missed the boys too much, she could always come home again. She closed her book, laid her pencil neatly on top and unscrewed the lid from her bottle of water.
If the spreadsheet said it was a good idea, then it had to be right.
In a dressing room in the department store in town, Stella stripped off and jiggled herself into the first of the many bikinis she’d picked out. For such tiny garments, they were a minefield to get right. She wanted uplift without her double Ds being under her chin, pants that gave the illusion of maximum leg length because she was five foot four on a good day, and for God’s sake some bum coverage rather than letting it all hang out. Not that it hung out very much; she sweated blood and tears in the gym most mornings to make sure of that.
Stella knew that self-confidence came from feeling good about yourself, and confidence was one of the most important factors in her job. Or else it had been up to now. As marketing and PR manager for Jones & Bow, she’d been the public face of the company, the brand ambassador. Her eyebrows were always immaculately threaded and her designer clothes a perfect fit around her curves; no workout in the world could minimise the fact that she’d inherited the Daniels family boobs. Her mother, her aunts and her grandmother all had the same small-waisted, full-breasted Jessica Rabbit figure and over the years she’d learned to work with it rather than against it. Sexy was no bad thing, in the boardroom or the bedroom.
Turning, she eyed her body critically in the mirror, and then rejected the polka-dot bikini as too kitsch and opted for the sleek red Victoria’s Secret instead.
Working her way through the collection of irritatingly tangled hangers she ended up in a muddle of straps and ties, then lost her cool and threw the whole lot in a heap on the floor and flopped down onto the padded stool. What was she doing? This whole scheme to move to Greece had come as a bolt out of the blue, and her stomach had flipped uncertainly even as she’d signed her name on the contracts. She didn’t do random things. She didn’t do whimsy. Oh, she could be impulsive, but in Stella’s world that meant buying a new leather couch or an unneeded pair of Jimmy Choos just because, not committing her entire life to an ailing business in a foreign country. She couldn’t even speak Greek! None of them could. God, it was going to be a disaster – what had they been thinking?
Prickles of panic broke out on her forehead at the thought of leaving behind everything she’d worked so hard for. So she’d lost her job; it wasn’t the end of the world or an excuse to have a total breakdown and do something as outrageous as flee the country. Another job would turn up soon enough. She was too good to be ignored, too well-known and respected in her field to be left on the career shelf, so why had she just hurled herself off it like Buzz Lightyear flinging himself from the edge of the table? He hadn’t been able to fly, not really. It was just a smoke-and-mirrors illusion.
Stella threw her clothes back on, thrust the knot of bikinis at the shop assistant and marched out of the shop. She didn’t need new bikinis. She had three perfectly good ones already, and it was highly likely that she wouldn’t be staying on Skelidos long enough to need more.
CHAPTER TWO (#ue42192f8-6a9b-5d8e-80f7-f8810caecec0)
Winnie checked her cross-body bag for the millionth time to make sure she had the keys to Villa Valentina zipped safely inside the side pocket.
‘We’ll have to get some more keys cut as soon as we can,’ she said, settling her bag into her lap on the hour-long ferry ride from Skiathos across to Skelidos. Now that they were almost back at the villa, her nerves had kicked in hard. Ajax had emailed to let them know that he and Nikolas had left for Athens a couple of days back and the place was locked up and waiting for them. They’d bought it fully furnished with several upcoming reservations already in the book, so for all intents and purposes they could just turn the key, open the windows and be up and running. It sounded quite easy, put like that, until a worrying thought hit her.
‘Oh, God! I hope someone has been feeding The Fonz since Ajax left!’ She looked from Frankie to Stella sitting on the opposite bench. ‘What if he’s starving, or dehydrated?’
Stella shook her head. ‘Donkeys are like camels, I should think. They retain water.’
Both Frankie and Winnie looked at her, taken aback. ‘Surely he’d need a hump for that?’ Frankie said, doubtful.
Stella shrugged and dropped her Aviators over her eyes; the donkey was the least of her worries. She’d had a job offer a couple of days ago from old business rivals of Jones & Bow; on the one hand it was reassuring to be head-hunted, but on the other they were offering a pitiful package and hadn’t even included a company car. She hated the loss of freedom being without wheels represented, and couldn’t help but feel that the derisory job offer had been designed more to put her in her place rather than to genuinely recruit her. It stung, and it rammed home the fact that she wasn’t as indispensable as she’d always allowed herself the indulgence of believing. She hadn’t replied yet. Her instinct had been to tell them where to shove their pitiful offer, but she was slowly coming around to the horrible realisation that she might not have the luxury of being so hasty. All in all she was thoroughly miserable, and much as the sunshine was welcome, she hated the feeling that she was running away. Stella Daniels didn’t run from anything or anyone. She’d take a week or so to recharge, and then decide what to do about the offer.
Frankie’s phone bleeped in her hand luggage, and she scrabbled for it in case there was anything wrong at home. The boys had both been unflatteringly thrilled at the idea of her moving to a Mediterranean island. She’d expected a wobbly lip or two, a ‘Please don’t go, Mum,’ but what she’d got from Josh was a ‘Go for it, Mum,’ and Elliott was already merrily planning his free holiday to Greece later in the summer. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad being apart from them after all; if they came to stay she’d get some proper time with them for a change. Family holidays had always had been British bucket-and-spade affairs when the twins were little, and in later years they hadn’t been at all enamoured of the idea of being stuck in a hotel with their olds. Maybe it would have been different if she and Gavin had been more in love; there might have been more laughter and good times. As it was they only really talked about things to do with the kids, and once they’d moved out they’d been left crunching toast in noisy silence at the breakfast table.
‘I’ve got a long-lost uncle in Nigeria who wants my bank details so he can wire me ten million pounds,’ she sighed, reading the phishing message on her phone.
‘Bugger. If only he’d texted you yesterday, you could have stayed at home and bought a mansion instead,’ Stella said.
Winnie fidgeted with excitement in her seat. ‘I’d still have come back here today, even if I’d won the lottery. Aren’t you dying to get in the villa and have a good nose around without Ajax and Nik?’
Frankie’s face relaxed into a smile as she tucked her phone away. ‘I’m heading straight for the bath in the Cleopatra Room before I do anything else. I splashed out on Jo Malone bubble bath especially for it.’
Winnie leaned her forehead against the warm window and looked out over the vast, still sea stretching out around them, and then up at the even bluer, cloudless sky overhead. It was the kind of sky that couldn’t help but fill you with optimism and hope; imagine a whole summer, or a whole lifetime, like this. With every extra mile she put between herself and Rory, Winnie sat a little taller and breathed a little easier. She dug in her bag again, pulled out her English/Greek dictionary and flicked through it.
‘What are you looking for?’ Stella asked.
After a pause, Winnie glanced up. ‘Evdaimonia,’ she said, faltering over her pronunciation as she closed the book and clutched it against her chest. ‘It means bliss.’
‘Remind me how to say bliss again?’ Stella huffed half an hour later, pushing her sunnies onto the top of her flat, frazzled hair as they all collapsed like a scuttle of red lobsters onto the shaded terrace of Villa Valentina.
Their taxi driver from the port had been in a tearing hurry and they’d assured him that they’d be fine moving their luggage from the roadside to the villa at the far end of the beach. It wasn’t all that far, but they hadn’t accounted for the fact that it was impossible to drag heavy-wheeled suitcases across deep, fine sand without feeling as if you’re hauling a dead horse up a hill. As a consequence, their return to the villa wasn’t at all the champagne-cork-popping experience Winnie had envisaged; it was more of a someone-get-me-some-water-before-I-die situation.
‘Evdasomething?’ she puffed, tipping her bag out on the top of her suitcase and plucking the keys out from amongst the clutter of sun cream, books, lip balm and hair bobbles.
‘Evian?’ Frankie croaked hopefully, taking off her sunhat and fanning herself with it. Her outfit had survived the journey surprisingly well; her long linen sundress had a certain safari chic to it and her trusty sunhat had done a decent job of keeping the worst of the heat away from her skin. She was one of those gamine girls who could carry off a pixie cut, all long limbs and pale freckled skin. Her mother always liked to claim they had French heritage, and every now and then when he’d had a few drinks Gavin had called her his Audrey Hepburn. It was one of the nicest things he’d ever said.
Winnie hauled herself up and then stretched out her hands to pull the others up.
‘Come on. Let’s all go in together for the first time.’
Stella brushed sand from the bum of her shorts. ‘I’m not carrying either of you over the threshold.’
‘Too right,’ Winnie snorted. ‘I tried that once with Rory and I think it jinxed us from the beginning.’
‘Gavin tried it too. I was seven months pregnant at the time and he put his back out for the first month of our marriage.’
‘You two are enough to put a girl off marriage for life.’ Stella took the keys from Winnie and studied the bewilderingly large collection. ‘Any idea which one it is?’
Winnie shook her head. ‘Not a clue.’ Studying the door, she added, ‘Probably something big and old.’
‘They’re all big and old,’ Stella muttered, sliding one after the other into the lock and giving it a hopeful jiggle. Finally, the last but one key slid into place more easily than the others, and it turned with a satisfying clunk. ‘Looks like we’re in, ladies,’ Stella said, turning the doorknob and pushing the door open.
Even though they knew what lay on the other side of the door, it felt completely different stepping inside Villa Valentina knowing it was their new home instead of their temporary reprieve from the daily grind. Frankie closed the door and they all stood in the centre of the high-ceilinged space, gazing around in silence.
‘Is it a bit eerie?’ Stella said, screwing her nose up at the stale air.
‘Don’t say that!’ Winnie said, frowning. ‘It’s just empty. It’s been waiting for us to arrive.’
‘Don’t go all hippy on us, Win,’ Frankie said, laying her hat down on the reception desk. ‘Let’s get some windows open and air the place through. It’s like a bloody oven in here.’
Frankie’s calm, practical approach got them all moving, flinging open windows and doors, then dragging their luggage inside. Winnie spotted an old radio behind reception and switched it on, instantly transported back to their first stay on the island by the familiar Radio Skelidos jingle. The mix of Greek and international pop music added life and movement to the place, wiping away the stillness that had spooked Stella.
‘I found the kitchen!’ Frankie called, and the others followed her voice down the hallway to the back of the building. Ajax had given them a brief guided tour, but it was a big old place and it was going to take some getting used to before any of them knew it like the back of their hands. Stella and Winnie found Frankie unscrewing a fresh two-litre bottle of water, and she’d magicked up three tall glasses and filled them with ice.
‘Ajax left the electricity turned on and a few things in the fridge for us,’ she said. ‘We have ice, we have water and we have wine. What more could a girl want?’
Winnie’s tummy rumbled. ‘Food?’
Frankie shook her head. ‘We need to go shopping.’
‘I don’t think I can face the walk,’ Stella grumbled, gulping down water. ‘The last one nearly killed me. Can I ride the donkey?’
‘Who do you think you are, the Virgin Mary?’ Frankie grinned, adding slices of lemon to their glasses as Winnie jumped off her stool and crossed to open the wooden shutters covering the windows.
‘We need to check on The Fonz,’ she said, craning her neck to look in the garden. ‘God, it’s a bit of a mess out there. I can’t see him.’ She rattled the back door and found it locked.
‘The key’s there,’ Stella nodded towards a hook on the wall and watched as Winnie grappled with the old lock and then threw the bolts. ‘Watch out for snakes in the long grass,’ she said at the last minute.
Winnie turned back, startled. ‘Really?’
Stella shrugged then shook her head. ‘Pulling your leg.’
Winnie rolled her eyes and stepped gingerly out onto the cracked, crazy-paved patio.
‘Donkey,’ she called, in an inviting, sing song voice. ‘Mr Fonz …’ She moved to check down the side of the building, and then ventured further across the parched grass. The garden looked to stretch back quite a way and be walled around the edge by a low, pale, rough stone wall. ‘I think we’ve got fruit trees out here,’ she called back. ‘But I can’t see any sign of a donkey.’
Perplexed, she picked her way along a path haphazardly tiled into the grass, making her way down the length of the garden to the wall at the bottom. Along the way she passed bright wildflowers that would be great on the tables out front and several different types of fruit tree, but no donkey in sight. God, what if he’d keeled over somewhere? She cautiously scanned the ground beneath the trees and bushes but to no avail. It was perplexing really, because there was no obvious exit for a donkey, and the waist-high wall seemed much too big for The Fonz to scale. Wandering back towards the villa, she made a makeshift apron from the bottom of her T-shirt, filled it with fruit plucked from the trees and pondered the missing animal.
‘Plums, I think,’ she said, giving up the search and unloading her haul onto the big, scrubbed kitchen table where the other girls were sitting. ‘And cherries.’
Frankie picked up one of the plump apple-green plums and sniffed it. ‘Greengages,’ she said, then bit it. ‘Oh my God!’ She rolled her eyes in bliss. ‘So sweet.’
The others helped themselves, and for a few moments they all sat around the table eating fruit from their garden and feeling the welcome rush of sugar in their veins.
‘I feel like Barbara from The Good Life,’ Stella said. ‘Have we got any chickens I can kill?’
Frankie loaded the rest of the fruit into a wide, shallow ceramic bowl on the table. ‘You wouldn’t be Barbara. You’d be the what’s her name, the neighbour. The posh one.’
Stella considered it for a second, and then laughed. ‘You’re right. Winnie can be Barbara and kill the chickens, you can be Nigella and roast it, and I’ll be the snooty one in the kaftan who drinks G&T.’
Frankie held her hand up and high-fived Stella silently.
‘I think I could get into gardening,’ Winnie said, warming to the role of Barbara. ‘And I have some cut-off dungarees. I can pull it off.’
‘Barbara wouldn’t lose her donkey though,’ Frankie said, shaking her head.
They all jumped as someone knocked on the back door.
‘Maybe it’s the donkey,’ Stella whispered, making them all laugh as Winnie crossed the kitchen and pulled the door wide.
It wasn’t the donkey. It was a man, and by the looks of his scowl, an unimpressed one. He looked dressed for farming in breeches, braces and a loose cheesecloth shirt, and if he wasn’t scowling he’d probably be quite attractive.
‘Kalimera,’ Winnie said, hesitantly trying out her rudimentary Greek.
He let forth a torrent of fast, unintelligible Greek. When he’d finished, she frowned and shook her head regretfully.
‘Err … signomi … my Greek is awful.’
He stared at her in irate silence.
‘Signomi …’
Winnie glanced over her shoulder for help from the others, but found them both wide-eyed and tongue-tied by the arrival of the stranger in their midst.
‘Help me out here?’ she muttered.
‘Feliz navidad?’ Stella tried from her seat at the table, and the stranger lifted his eyebrows and sighed heavily.
‘You just wished me Merry Christmas in Spanish. It’s early May, and this is Greece.’
‘You speak English,’ Winnie said, thinking that he might have made that clear right away rather than let her struggle for his own amusement.
‘Better than you speak Greek, evidently,’ he said. ‘I take it you’re the new owners?’
Frankie came to stand beside Winnie. ‘We are. I’m Frankie, and this is Winnie. And you are …?’ Winnie admired her friend’s polite, cool tone.
‘I’m the guy who rescued your bloody donkey. Poor darn thing would have died in this heat without any water.’ There was an unmissable hint of an Australian twang to his pronunciation. ‘He’s in my olive grove with Chachi when you can be arsed to fetch him.’
Oh, right. Winnie felt her fists ball until her fingernails dug into her palms. ‘Look, Mr … I don’t know your name because you didn’t bother to tell us … we only arrived half an hour ago and I’ve already been out to look for the donkey. It isn’t our fault that Ajax didn’t make proper arrangements for him.’
The guy looked bored. ‘Typical women. Blame someone else and it’ll all be all right.’
Winnie drew in a sharp breath. She’d had enough of men pissing her off back home, there was no way some stranger was going to rain on her parade on the first morning of their brand-new life.
‘Typical man, shooting your mouth off without knowing the facts.’ She stuck her chin out at him and crossed her arms across her chest as Stella came to stand on her other side.
He looked at all three of them for a second, and then seemed to lose interest and turned to leave.
‘I won’t charge you for the olives he’s eaten. Consider it a neighbourly welcome-to-the-island gift.’
He didn’t even turn around as he spoke, and Stella said ‘Rude bastard,’ more than loud enough for him to hear as she closed the door with a pointed slam.
‘He’s our new neighbour?’ Frankie said, pulling three wine glasses out of the wall cupboard.
‘Sounds that way.’ Winnie reached to get the chilled bottle of white out of the fridge.
Stella rooted around in the cutlery drawer until she pulled out a corkscrew and waved it in the air in triumph. Flopping back at the kitchen table, she cracked the wine and filled their glasses. After a pause for them all to take a much-needed first sip, she held her glass out between them in a toast.
‘To our first day on Skelidos.’
‘And the fact that our donkey isn’t dead,’ Frankie said, touching her glass to the others.
‘And the fact that we have a grotty ass of an Australian neighbour,’ Winnie added. ‘Bloody man and his generalisations.’
Stella eyed Winnie slyly over her wine glass. ‘He was quite hot though. In a grotty-ass kind of way.’
‘Was he?’ Winnie took a good gulp of wine. ‘I didn’t notice.’
‘You so did,’ Frankie laughed. ‘All that red-faced, stuttery Greek and Lady Diana eye flutters.’
Winnie rolled her eyes. ‘All right, so maybe I thought he was OK until he opened his mouth. Now I just think he’s an arrogant gobshite who’s kidnapped my donkey.’ She shot a look at Stella. ‘At least I didn’t wish him Merry Christmas. In Spanish.’
Stella shrugged. ‘Pity I didn’t know how to say piss off instead.’
‘I’m going to learn before I go and get The Fonz back.’
Frankie started to laugh. ‘His donkey’s name is Chachi. Fonzy and Chachi?’
‘Someone around here was clearly a Happy Days fan.’ Stella grinned. ‘I wonder where Joanie is?’
Winnie reached for the bottle and topped up their glasses. ‘She probably upped and left because she couldn’t stand living with a misogynistic pig.’
Stella and Frankie both looked at her levelly across the table. They didn’t say as much, but Winnie knew from their eyes that they were hoping that she wasn’t going to stay angry for ever.
‘Shall we go and burn our bras in his olive orchard?’ Stella said.
Frankie nodded. ‘Or chain ourselves to his trees until he apologises?’
Winnie shook her head, laughing softly into her wine glass. She might not have much time for men at the moment, but these two crazy, fabulous women restored her faith in the world every damn day.
Pushing her chair back with a satisfying scrape against the stone flags, she stood up and rolled her shoulders.
‘Hold my coat, girls. I’m going to get our donkey.’
CHAPTER THREE (#ue42192f8-6a9b-5d8e-80f7-f8810caecec0)
Winnie marched out of the villa, buoyed up by a mixture of wine, lingering first-day euphoria and indignation. What happened to welcoming new neighbours with a cup of sugar and a smile? What happened to the famed Greek hospitality? But then he wasn’t Greek by the sound of it, and there probably wasn’t any sugar in his cupboards either; he didn’t strike Winnie as a man with an ounce of sweetness about him. From their first meeting she’d already deduced that he had no manners and even less in the way of small talk. His only redeemable feature seemed to be the fact that he was passably attractive, and if she was pushed, she’d acknowledge that he must have a shred of decency because he’d taken The Fonz in when he wasn’t obliged to.
Meandering through the tables out front on the beach-bar terrace, she paused to get her bearings. Where did he live anyway? Right led directly down onto the beach, so she struck out left and followed the sandy path around the villa and into the fields behind. Gosh, it was hot. Winnie made her way along the track, wishing she’d thought to slather on extra sun cream; she could almost feel her skin frying. She was one of those people with a pale and interesting complexion; achieving anything close to a sun-kissed glow required diligent application of factor 30 and short, careful interludes of exposure to the sun. Anything more intensive was likely to turn her into a walking, talking beetroot, and that really wasn’t the look she wanted to achieve before sundown on day one. Nothing marks you out as a tourist quite like a classic dose of sunburn, does it?
Lifting her sunglasses, she paused beneath the shade of an olive tree and looked first one way and then the other. Back home, her house had been a semi-detached in a suburban cul-de-sac, and her closest neighbour had probably been sitting three feet away on the other side of the party wall. Out here her nearest neighbour wasn’t even in sight, which, given the fact that he was so rude, was probably just as well.
Movement flickered in her peripheral vision, and she squinted between the trees. Bingo. Not just one donkey. Two.
‘At bloody last,’ Winnie muttered, shaking her leg to flick the irritating grit out of her flip-flop. A low stone wall ran around the perimeter of his olive grove, so she swung herself over it and started picking her way through the gnarled trees towards The Fonz. As she drew nearer, neither of the animals took the remotest bit of notice of her.
‘Hello, Fonzy,’ she said, in the quiet, polite manner with which she might greet an elderly relative. Nothing. Not so much as the flicker of an ear from either of them.
‘Chachi?’ she said, more uncertain this time as she moved within a few feet of the donkeys. One of them was pure white and considerably bigger than the other, and he lifted his head and gazed briefly in her direction before returning peacefully to grazing.
‘OK,’ she said under her breath, walking closer to the smaller, grey donkey. ‘If he’s Chachi, then I guess that must make you The Fonz.’ She reached out a tentative hand and stroked him between the ears. ‘I’m Winnie, your new owner, and I’ve come to take you home.’
He really did seem very indifferent to her. As a non-rider, she’d vaguely imagined that he’d have a saddle on, or a harness at least, something that she’d be able to lead him by, but he didn’t. He was, for all intents and purposes, naked.
‘How are we going to do this then?’ she asked, walking around him slowly. Running an experimental hand over his flank, she tried giving him a little two-handed push from behind but he didn’t even seem to register it. She tried a second time, this time with a little more effort, and he swished his tail as if a fly might have landed on his backside.
‘Bloody hell, Fonzy,’ she grumbled. ‘You need to go on a diet, buddy. You weigh a bloody ton.’
‘Why are you fondling my donkey?’
Winnie didn’t need to turn around to know who was behind her.
She was quite glad that it wasn’t The Fonz after all. ‘Might have known this one was yours,’ she said to the neighbour. ‘He seems as stubborn and unwelcoming as his owner.’ She moved across to stand behind the larger, white donkey. He really was big, practically a pony, really.
Winnie wiped her sweaty palms on the back of her denim skirt and patted the white donkey on the rump in a way she hoped was friendly enough before attempting the two-handed push on him too. It was hopeless. After a couple of increasingly effortful attempts, she swung around with her hands balled on her hips, first dashing away several beads of sweat running from her hairline into her eyes.
‘Would it kill you to help me out here?’
He looked at her levelly with his arms folded across his chest. ‘You look like a prawn that’s been chucked on the barbie.’
Winnie shook her head and huffed. ‘Could you be any more stereotypically Australian?’
‘I could call you Sheila. Could you be any more passive-aggressively English?’
Yanking her sunglasses off, she stared at him. ‘Trust me, Mr … Mr I don’t know your name because you couldn’t be bothered to introduce yourself, there’s nothing passive about my aggression right now; I’m just about ready to beat you to a pulp with my bare hands.’
He didn’t look even the smallest bit threatened. ‘I’m not surprised the donkey doesn’t want to go with you. You give off a negative vibe. You clearly have anger-management issues.’
‘Anger-management issues?’ she half yelled. ‘I didn’t until I met you, you condescending asshat!’
‘In some countries this passes as foreplay,’ he said, and for the first time Winnie caught the faintest trace of humour behind his tone. ‘My name’s Jesse, seeing as you asked so nicely. Although I quite like “condescending asshat”, so you can stick with that if you prefer. I’m easy.’
‘Jesse as in the outlaw,’ she muttered. ‘Or donkey rustler.’
‘He was also a bank robbber, a gang leader and a murderer.’ He said it tonelessly, leaving Winnie to draw her own conclusions as to whether she was supposed to feel menaced. She didn’t.
‘Nice namesake.’
‘I was named after my father, seeing as you mention it. Wonderful guy, and surprisingly, he’s never robbed a bank in his life.’
Great. Now she felt shitty for insulting his dad. How did that happen?
‘So, Jesse,’ she said, thinking actually he looked like a Jesse, now she’d said it aloud. Jesse suggested bad boys and motorbikes and leather jackets, scowls, cigarettes and bad manners. Not that she’d seen him smoke, but she wouldn’t be surprised if he pulled a box out and lit up. ‘Would you mind telling me how to make my donkey move, please?’
He scrubbed a hand over the dark stubble along his jaw and gave a non-committal ‘huh’. ‘Now there’s a question.’
Here we go again. ‘And does it have an answer?’ she asked, sweet as apple pie.
Jesse shrugged. ‘Not an obvious one, no.’
Winnie could feel the threads of her temper unravelling. ‘So give me the complicated one. It would appear that I have time to listen.’
‘Would you like a drink?’
Whoa. That volte-face was so violent it’d be a miracle if he didn’t give himself whiplash. In truth, Winnie was gasping for a drink; she hadn’t thought to bring any water with her as she’d expected her neighbour to be closer than he was, and the sun overhead was making her feel every inch the barbecued prawn he’d likened her to. Nonetheless, she still considered saying no, because there was every chance he was being sarcastic.
‘I don’t suppose it’d go amiss,’ she said, feigning indifference.
His full mouth turned down as he shrugged. ‘It was just a neighbourly offer. Don’t force yourself.’
Winnie sighed and gave in. ‘Some water would be very nice if you wouldn’t mind.’
He inclined his head, then turned away and started to stride through the trees. ‘This way.’
Was it OK to follow a stranger into his house in a foreign land? It’d seem terribly rude if she didn’t now she’d accepted.
He stopped walking and swung around. ‘Are you coming or not?’
‘You’re not going to kill me, are you?’
‘Fucking hell, woman. I think I might if you carry on like this.’ He rubbed his hand through his dark, slightly too long hair, clearly exasperated. ‘I’ve lived on Skelidos for the last ten years without murdering anyone and I don’t plan on that changing today, but if you’d rather stay out here just in case while I fetch you a glass of water, then be my guest.’
They’d reached a low-slung farmhouse, and he gestured towards a table and chairs set out under the shade of a veranda.
Winnie considered her choices and decided that on balance he was unlikely to bump her off; he knew that she wasn’t here alone and, technically, she’d been trespassing on his land and inadvertently tried to steal his donkey so she wasn’t really in a position to be judgmental. He led the way through a stable door directly into his kitchen. Winnie wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting; something rustic and manly, if she’d been pinned down to take a guess. It wasn’t rustic. It was sleek and minimalist, a complete contrast to the traditional stone exterior of the building. Cool and uncluttered, his air-con was blessedly fridge-cold and his drinking water, when he passed it over, was as cool and clear as if he’d just dipped the glass in an icy mountain spring.
‘Thank you,’ she said, taking a seat when he pulled out a chair at the glass dining table.
‘It’s safe. I’m fresh out of arsenic,’ he said, dropping into the seat opposite hers.
Winnie smirked and took a welcome drink as he watched her.
‘So what’s going on over at the B&B?’ he asked. ‘Are you three doing a Thelma and Louise?’
God, he was annoying. ‘Meaning?’
He lifted one shoulder. ‘Bitter women running off together for an ill-advised adventure?’
‘Way I remember it, Thelma and Louise were badasses who murdered a man because he behaved like a cock and then killed themselves.’
Jesse cupped his glass between his hands on the table. ‘This could be an interesting summer for all of us then.’
‘And we’re not bitter,’ Winnie added, correcting him belatedly. ‘We’re three modern, perfectly happy women who spotted a shrewd business investment and snapped it up.’
Jesse nodded, then lifted his glass and downed the entire contents. Something about the action disturbed Winnie; for a few brief seconds she found herself noticing the physicality of him, as if she were watching a movie. He could pass for Greek; the sun had burnished his skin that deep bronze that could never be attained on a package holiday, and if his hair wasn’t black, it was as near as damn it. He’d changed from the billowy shirt into a faded red T-shirt that had either shrunk in the wash or been given to him by a lover who enjoyed the way it fit him a little too well; either way Winnie couldn’t help but be aware of his long, lean biceps and the generous width of his shoulders. All that fresh air and olive farming clearly agreed with him.
‘Speaking of badasses,’ she said, because getting her mind off the fact that he looked hot was a good idea. ‘How do I get that bad ass out there to walk back to the B&B with me?’
Jesse shook his head. ‘There’s no way you’re going to win him over in five minutes, or five hours even. Five days, possibly, or five weeks, I’d say it’s almost a definite. He has to trust you. To like you, even, before he’s going anywhere with you.’ He paused. ‘Hard work. Bit like a woman, really.’
Winnie curled her lip at him. ‘You just don’t stop, do you?’
He lifted his hands palms up. ‘Just sayin’.’
‘I don’t know about us being bitter women,’ Winnie said. ‘It sounds to me as if you’re the one with the chip on your shoulder.’
He laughed and rubbed the heel of his palm into his eye socket. ‘On the contrary. I love women. You all just drive me fucking crazy with your complications and contradictions.’
‘That is so incredibly rude and ignorant,’ Winnie said, bridling. ‘So what, you hide out on your farm drinking beers with your donkey?’
‘I’m not a monk. I fuck sometimes. I even make breakfast afterwards. I’m one of the good guys; I don’t promise the moon on a string, because strings strangle relationships.’ He made a yanking gesture that clearly indicated a noose being tightened around his neck.
Winnie stared at him. ‘Well, say it like it is, why don’t you?’ she said, taken aback by his frankness.
‘What do you want me to say?’ He looked thoroughly unapologetic. ‘I like a simple life. I don’t do hearts and flowers.’
‘So what do you do?’ Winnie asked, trying to steer the conversation around to life on Skelidos because they’d got really quite deep into relationship talk, and that was weird given that this was their first real conversation.
‘With women? I do talking.’ He gestured between them to demonstrate man and woman. ‘And I do kissing. I do kissing really well.’ He laughed, as if that was sort of a given for a cool guy like him. ‘And I do sex, naturally. I’m pretty darn good at that too.’
Winnie wasn’t sure if she wanted to tip her cold water all over her own head or chuck it at him. It was definitely an inappropriate thing for him to say, and yet he said it so flippantly that it came over as cheeky rather than sleazy. He was a rogue; but at least he was upfront about it, and that was actually something of a relief after all of the underhand behaviour that had ended her marriage.
‘I wasn’t asking about your sexual technique,’ she said, drily. ‘I was asking what you do here on the island.’
‘Ah. My mistake.’ The glint in his eye told her that it wasn’t necessarily a mistake at all. ‘Well, as you so astutely observed, I farm olives and drink beer,’ he said. ‘And I sculpt.’
Now he’d surprised her. ‘You do? Sculpt as in …’ She made vague pottery movements in the air with her hands. ‘Pots and things?’
Jesse nodded. ‘I have a wheel for smaller stuff, but I mostly do bigger commission pieces. Animals, people, that sort of thing.’
‘Wow.’ Winnie was genuinely thrown. He seemed too much of a jock to be an artist, although she was self-aware enough to realise that her sweeping generalisation was small-minded. ‘Can I see?’
He huffed under his breath, as if she’d asked a stupid question. ‘No.’
She’d expected as much. Back home in the UK, Winnie had been forging a career for herself as a self-taught jewellery designer, and she’d never been keen on showing any of her pieces to people before they were finished. She’d worked alone from her tiny garden workshop, happy with just the radio and next door’s cat for company. Her silver and copper wire work didn’t cost the earth, but she’d been making a name for herself as a designer with flair and an eye for pretty gemstones. The last couple of summers had been especially busy with bridal commissions, but this year she’d barely touched her tools. Rory had stolen far more than her happiness; he’d tucked her creativity into his holdall alongside the aftershave she loved the smell of on his skin and the cufflinks she’d made for him as a first-anniversary gift.
‘One day maybe,’ Jesse relented, and Winnie realised that he’d probably misread her silence as having taken offence at his refusal to show her his studio.
‘No, it’s OK, really.’ Casting her eye around the kitchen, she wondered if he actually cooked in here. It didn’t look used. She was about to ask when something brushed against her legs, making her jump and glance under the table.
‘You have a cat,’ she said, laughing as the big black and white moggy bumped her hand when she reached down to fuss it.
‘Bandit,’ Jesse said, and the animal jumped up on his knees. ‘He isn’t mine, exactly. He lives a couple of farms across officially, but he spends most his time here.’ The cat scrubbed his head against Jesse’s five o’clock shadow, purring like a small generator. ‘He’s no looker, is he?’
Winnie considered the cat; he was missing a chunk of one of his ears and his fur in places seemed to have worn a little threadbare. He looked like he lived up to his name.
‘He’s characterful,’ she said in the end.
Jesse set the cat down. ‘I don’t mind him. He’s thorny and can be cantankerous, but he’s a hunter so he gets to stay.’
Winnie didn’t ask what Bandit hunted in case she didn’t like the answer.
‘It sounds to me as if you make a habit of collecting your neighbours’ animals.’
‘Come on now.’ He frowned. ‘I literally saved your ass. I can see that you’re struggling to say thank you.’ He sat back and folded his arms across his chest. ‘Take your time.’
In truth, Winnie could see that he had sort of saved their donkey, but she still hadn’t completely forgiven him for his earlier rudeness. ‘Who calls a donkey The Fonz, anyhow?’
‘Ah, now that’s a story.’
‘Another one?’
He looked at her. ‘For a different day maybe. You better come back again tomorrow and try to woo him.’
‘Do you think he’ll come around to the idea?’
Jesse shrugged. ‘I imagine he’ll come to tolerate you in short bursts.’
Winnie curled her lip, unsure if they were even still talking about the donkey. She pushed herself up onto her feet and dusted her hands down her skirt to smooth it.
‘I should go, before they send out a search party.’ She slid her hairband out and gripped it between her teeth while she finger-combed her ponytail back into place. ‘You didn’t make the best first impression.’
‘Can’t think why,’ he said, standing up and putting their empty glasses into the sink.
Winnie headed to the door. ‘Is there anything I can bring to encourage him to like me more?’
‘I think he likes bikinis and girls who can cook a good steak.’
Winnie shot him a sarcastic look over her shoulder, and he just shrugged and half laughed.
Pausing by the donkeys to give them both a quick fuss of the ears, she looked back towards the house. He hadn’t followed her out; she’d have been more surprised if he had.
One way or another, Jesse was going to be trouble.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ue42192f8-6a9b-5d8e-80f7-f8810caecec0)
‘What, no donkey?’
Stella and Frankie looked up from behind the reception desk when Winnie walked back into the B&B and flopped down onto an armchair by a low coffee table cluttered with excursion leaflets.
‘He needs to be wooed, apparently.’
‘The donkey, or his irritable owner?’ Stella asked.
‘Jesse.’
Frankie lifted her eyebrows towards Stella. ‘It’s Jesse now,’ she said knowingly.
‘You’re planning to woo Jesse?’ Stella grinned. ‘You go, girl. I thought I sensed a spark.’
‘Behave, both of you. You know full well I mean the donkey.’ Winnie puffed stray hairs out of her eyes. ‘He’s stubborn.’
‘Who knew?’ Frankie murmured, earning herself a sarcastic smirk.
‘I’ll go back tomorrow and try again.’
Stella nodded. ‘You should definitely do that.’
‘Take him a sugar lump?’ Frankie suggested.
‘Or a beer,’ Stella added, nudging Frankie in the ribs.
Winnie scowled. ‘I know what you’re doing and it’s not going to work.’
The other two looked as innocent as schoolgirls. ‘No idea what you mean,’ Frankie said, shaking her head as Stella shrugged helplessly.
‘Me either.’
Winnie stood up, changing the subject. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and check ourselves into our rooms.’
‘This place badly needs a lift,’ Stella said, as they practically collapsed on the top-floor landing after hauling their suitcases up three floors. Winnie had fresh appreciation for the way Ajax had sprinted up and down the B&B stairs like a mountain goat; it had all seemed much easier with someone else to carry their bags.
‘Maybe we should employ a bellboy?’ she said, dragging her case to the door of the Bohemian Suite. They’d instinctively picked up the keys to the same rooms they’d occupied on their previous visit, subconsciously needing something familiar when everything else around them was alien, perhaps.
‘Can he be eighteen with a fit bum?’ Stella slid her key into the Seaview Suite. ‘I’ll do the interviews.’
Frankie was the least ruffled by the climb; her twice-weekly yoga classes at the local centre for the last few years had obviously paid off. Back home, those few hours a week had been a necessary respite from the grind of daily life; they were the only time Frankie could find relief from the crushing weight of being the one who held everything together for everyone else’s life to run smoothly. On the mat she was free and totally present in the moment; more than just the responsible adult whom everyone depended on to ensure that there was loo roll in the bathroom and dinner on the table and clean socks in the drawer. Much as she loved her boys, being finally freed from the routines that had shaped her entire adult life felt as if someone had opened the door of her cage and liberated her from captivity.
‘I might do some yoga on the beach in the morning,’ she said as she opened her door and pushed her case in ahead of her.
‘Really?’ Winnie glanced across from her own threshold.
Frankie nodded, suddenly determined. Back in England yoga had been her escape; here it was one of the few overhangs from her old life that she was happy to bring with her. There wasn’t much else on the keeper list; her mobile to stay in touch with Joshua and Elliott, the small photograph album at the bottom of her suitcase holding a dozen or so of her favourite pictures, and the letter Marcia had left with her solicitor. Her fingers absently touched her wedding ring, suspended on a gold trace chain around her neck. Much as the decision to end their marriage had ultimately been hers, untangling herself mentally from Gav was still a work in progress. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t fond of him; unlike Winnie’s husband he’d never have dreamt of having a torrid affair or intentionally hurting her. It was more that the passing of the years had turned them into friends rather than lovers, and it hurt her romantic heart to not be held at night or made love to as if she was the most beautiful woman in the world. The divorce had hurt them both deeply, and she wasn’t quite ready yet to let go of her ring completely. It had seemed wrong to keep it on her finger afterwards, so moving it to around her neck was sort of an interim step. Maybe she’d go all dramatic and throw it into the depths of the sea like that woman in Titanic. More likely she’d take it off because it reacted with some sun cream or else snap the chain whilst changing one of the beds, but for now she was content to keep it close by.
‘I’m going to go for a swim in my bathtub for half an hour,’ she said. ‘See you downstairs in a while?’
The others nodded.
‘I’m just about ready for my afternoon siesta,’ Stella said. ‘Cocktails on the terrace at sundown?’
Laughing, they stepped inside their rooms, clicked their doors shut softly and returned the villa to its peaceful afternoon slumber.
‘We really need to buy some food.’
Frankie stood staring into the empty fridge.
‘I think there’s some shops on the other side of the beach,’ Winnie said. They’d barely ventured further than the beach on their last flying visit to Skelidos, but from what she could remember the few shops and restaurants strung out on the far side of the sand counted as the centre of the small resort. The island in general was very low-key; it wasn’t on the hen-party radar or likely to appeal to the thrill-seeking crowd. It was left field of the beaten track, and Winnie for one was perfectly happy for it to stay that way.
‘That means that whatever we buy needs to be lugged all the way back across the beach,’ Stella groaned. ‘We’re going to have bigger muscles than Olympic shot-putters after a summer here.’
‘You know what we need?’ Frankie closed the fridge and picked up her purse. ‘A donkey.’
Winnie considered it. ‘God, yes! How charming would it be for our guests if The Fonz brings their luggage across the beach for them! Not to mention that we can use him to carry our shopping.’
‘Can’t we just get a car?’ Stella frowned.
‘Well, we could,’ Frankie said. ‘But where’s the fun in that?’
‘I’m worried people might mistake me for the Virgin Mary if I start riding a donkey around town.’ Stella made the sign of the cross on her chest. ‘They might all fall on their knees and worship me.’
‘I reckon you’re safe.’ Winnie eyed Stella’s legs. ‘I don’t think Mary wore hotpants.’
‘I’ll have you know that these hotpants were bloody expensive. They deserve a little bit more reverence, thank you very much.’ She flicked Winnie a sly look. ‘You can borrow them when you go back to woo the donkey, if you like.’
Choosing to rise above Stella’s obvious grin, Winnie looked around the big, airy kitchen, taking in the facilities.
‘We need food. Milk, sugar and coffee. And water, lots of water.’
‘Eggs. Breakfast pastries,’ Frankie added to the list. ‘And jam.’
‘And a big strapping man to carry it all back for us,’ Stella said, picking up the keys. ‘Come on, ladies. Let’s go and introduce ourselves to the locals.’
‘Two shops, a bar and one restaurant,’ Frankie said. They sat in a line on the low stone wall separating the sand from the beach. ‘It’s not going to rival Kavos any time soon, is it?’
‘Thank God,’ Winnie said, although privately even she had to admit that the resort was several steps beyond quiet.
‘I’m not surprised Ajax needed out,’ Stella said. ‘The bright lights of Athens must have been like beacons out there, attracting all the tourists.’
‘So. This store?’ Winnie looked up at the cherry-red canopies over the tiny local shop. ‘Or that one?’ She nodded a little way along the road to a similarly small place with yellow and white awnings. Each of them seemed to be a catch-all shop; convenience food, beach lilos and cheap sunglasses on stands outside, fridges full of cold drinks. Great for a day on the beach, not so fabulous to stock up your fridge.
‘We really need to find a supermarket,’ Stella said. ‘What I wouldn’t give for my car.’
They all looked up as a guy wondered out of the solitary bar and raised his hand in greeting.
‘Ladies, welcome to Skelidos!’ he said. ‘Gin and tonic?’
‘You’re so speaking our language,’ Stella laughed, jumping to her feet.
‘I’m Stella –’ she stuck her hand out as the guy drew nearer ‘– and this is Frankie, and Winnie. We just bought the B&B over on the other side of the beach. The pink one?’
‘The only one in the town,’ he said, his grin a slash of white teeth against his deeply tanned skin. ‘I’m Panos. We wondered when you’d come.’
‘Well, we’re here now,’ Frankie said and smiled.
He looked from one to the other of them. ‘Come in, come in. I’ll gather people up to come say hi to our newest locals.’
‘Now there’s that Greek charm and neighbourly hospitality we’d hoped for,’ Stella said, laughing and linking her arms through Frankie and Winnie’s as they followed Panos between the Coca-Cola sunbrellas shading the empty tables outside his bar.
‘Island gin?’ he asked, holding up a bottle of nectarine blush liquid as they each took a stool at the pine-topped bar.
They watched as he made theatre of pouring them each a long drink over ice, the tonic fizzing over the ice cubes to create the same rose-pink G&T cocktail they’d drunk so many of with Ajax a few weeks back.
‘Gin’s clear where I come from,’ Stella said, holding her drink up curiously.
Panos nodded. ‘Ah, but this one is special. Ajax used to make it for us.’
‘He did?’
‘He didn’t tell you?’ Panos frowned as they all looked nonplussed. ‘This is very bad.’ Turning to look over his shoulder, he called out for his mama.
They watched in silence as a small, slight woman dressed in black appeared. Panos let forth a stream of fast Greek smattered with their names, gesticulating across towards Villa Valentina in the distance.
Panos’s mother fired back something equally breakneck fast, speaking with her hands as much as her voice. Panos paused for a moment while he decided how to translate what she’d said.
‘She say that it’s always been brewed at the villa ever since she was a child. If you live in the villa now, you have to do it. It’s the law.’
‘The law?’ Winnie said, alarmed. ‘Are you sure?’
Panos’s mother nodded vigorously, speaking again, and they all waited for Panos to translate.
‘Island law,’ Panos shrugged. ‘The plants only grow in the garden at the villa. You make it, I sell it.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t have a clue,’ Stella said, deciding that she much preferred drinking the gin to making it.
‘Is there even a recipe to follow?’ Frankie asked, unsure if they were being wound up, some kind of odd welcome-to-the-island ritual, sort of similar to how she’d been sent to buy a bubble for a spirit level when she was a fifteen-year-old Saturday girl at the jewellers in the local shopping precinct.
Panos asked his mother Frankie’s question, but it was clear from her facial expressions and shrugging shoulders that they weren’t going to get a clean-cut answer.
Winnie sipped her drink and closed her eyes. God, it was good stuff. ‘It isn’t right that the world should run out of this,’ she said. ‘It’s possibly the best drink ever.’
It was difficult to say what it was about the gin that made it so delicious. It was rhubarb-pink in colour but not in flavour, and aromatic from the stem of rosemary Panos had pushed through the ice cubes exactly as Ajax had.
‘We could try to find out from Ajax?’ she offered, although she wasn’t entirely certain that they even had his details.
‘You must, you must,’ Panos urged, opening a wall cupboard behind the bar. ‘This is all I have left and I’ve never run out yet.’
There looked to be a dozen or more bottles in Panos’s stash, all bearing a handwritten and illustrated label. They looked like magic potions.
‘Well, we’ll look into it,’ Stella said. ‘Maybe we should have another taste just so to be clear.’
Panos looked at her through narrowed eyes, and then started to laugh. ‘You will be the troublesome one. I see these things.’
Frankie and Winnie nodded as Panos obligingly topped up their glasses.
‘So you’re … sisters?’ He gestured between them.
‘No,’ Winnie said. ‘We’re great friends.’
‘And you will all stay here? You won’t just come for a few weeks and then run back home?’
Winnie nodded, Frankie smiled diplomatically and Stella sighed into her glass without comment.
Panos didn’t miss any of their reactions. ‘You will stay. Skelidos does that to people.’
‘Like Jesse?’ Winnie said suddenly, faltering when Panos’s eyebrows lifted. ‘We met him already. He … he looked after our donkey for a while.’
‘Jesse came for a summer too.’ Panos poured himself a beer. ‘But for him it was different. He was …’ Breaking off, Panos’s face relaxed into a wide smile as a woman came into the bar with a clatter of high heels and a cloud of dark curls bouncing on her shoulders.
‘So this is the new blood everyone is telling me about!’
‘Corinna,’ Panos said warmly. ‘Word travels fast as usual, I see.’
Winnie thought she detected the hint of an American accent behind the woman’s tone. Older than they were, forties at a guess, Corinna was one of the most naturally glamorous women Winnie had ever met. She could pass as Sophia Loren’s daughter, all dark eyes, lush lips and legs that went all the way up to her backside. It would have been easy to be intimidated were it not for her warm smile and the way she made a beeline to gather each of them in turn into an excitable, expensively perfumed hug.
‘Tell me, what are three gorgeous young women like you girls doing on a sleepy island like this? Are you criminals hiding from the mob?’ Her eyes glittered with humour. ‘Please say you are!’
As she spoke Panos poured her a drink and slid it over the bar to her.
‘Nothing quite that glamorous, I’m afraid,’ Frankie said. ‘It was just a good time for a change for all of us, for different reasons.’
Good-natured curiosity filled Corinna’s eyes. ‘Would it be too rude to ask what they were?’ she asked, and Panos immediately jumped in.
‘Absolutely, yes, it would indeed be very rude,’ he chided, shaking his head at them to let them off the hook.
‘I left my husband because we didn’t love each other any more,’ Frankie said suddenly, then took a huge gulp of her drink. ‘I’ve come here for an adventure.’
Some people might have felt uncomfortable at such a candid revelation from a stranger, but not Corinna. She clapped her hands, her gold bracelets jangling on her wrists. ‘Bravo for you, my darling! A marriage without love is a dead dodo!’
Stella nodded, a little morose. ‘And I got fired from my job. I came here because I don’t know what else to do.’
‘Ah, now that is interesting,’ Corinna said, looking intently at Stella. ‘Because you look to me like a woman who always knows what she should do. I think you’re here because you know that this is exactly where you need to be.’
In front of Winnie’s eyes, Stella’s shoulders straightened a little, as if Corinna had applied soothing balm to her injured pride. Winnie decided that she really quite liked Corinna. Emboldened, she threw her hat into the ring.
‘My husband was having an affair with the girl in the work canteen, even though we were trying for a baby and he claimed to be perfectly happy.’
The words left her in a rush, because they stung less if she said them quickly. Left to linger in her mouth they grew thorns and cut into her, leaving her raw and sore for days. Hence the fact that she hadn’t told anyone new her sorry story – not until now, anyhow. Surprisingly though, this time she found herself unscathed, and on closer reflection she might even feel slightly liberated from the long shadow Rory’s infidelity had cast over her.
Behind her, Panos clicked his tongue in disgust and poured an extra shot of gin into her glass.
‘Now, that is an unfortunate situation.’ Corinna shook her head. ‘But my darling, how much worse would it have been if you’d had a child before you realised that he was a feckless fool?’
Winnie nodded, downhearted. She’d thought the same herself, although she sometimes wondered if she’d pressured him too much about getting pregnant and that had been the reason for his affair. But what would that say about him if so? If the effort of supporting her was too much hard work to bother?
‘Pah. I expect he was a man with a little …’ Corinna crooked her little finger and winked, making them all laugh despite the gravity of Winnie’s marital woes. ‘And so now you’re all three footloose, fancy-free and ready for adventure. How delicious!’ Corinna rubbed her hands together and then turned to Panos, sparkly-eyed with mischief. ‘Panos here is one of our most eligible bachelors,’ she said. ‘He has the best bar on the island, and who wouldn’t fall in love with that face?’
Right now, that face had turned puce with embarrassment.
‘Corinna,’ he muttered, slamming clean glasses away onto the shelf above his head.
‘And there I was thinking I was the most eligible bachelor on the island,’ someone else said, and they all turned to see Jesse had strolled into the bar. Dressed in faded, frayed denim shorts and a lived-in T-shirt, he looked every inch the relaxed holidaymaker rather than the fiery, ill-tempered farmer who’d banged on their door earlier.
If possible, Corinna lit up even more, shimmying her way through the tables to pull Jesse into a hug. If there was one thing this woman did freely, it was hug, Winnie thought. Jesse seemed to take it well, and Frankie and Stella couldn’t have looked more surprised if Santa Claus had walked in and ordered a beer. They’d only met Jesse the grouch, and this was a completely different man.
‘Ladies,’ Corinna said, linking arms with Jesse to lead him across to them. ‘This is Jesse Anderson, Skelidos’s secret celebrity!’
Jesse rolled his eyes. ‘Hardly.’
‘Celebrity?’ Stella asked.
Corinna nodded, drawing Panos into the conversation. ‘Sculptor to the stars, am I not right, Panos?’ Placing her perfectly manicured hands on Stella and Frankie’s knees, she elaborated on several of Jesse’s better-known clients and what he’d been asked to make for them.
‘How long had you been there?’ Winnie asked quietly as Jesse came to stand beside her stool.
‘Long enough to hear that you left your husband because he had a needledick.’ Jesse took off his sunglasses and hooked them into the neck of his T-shirt.
Any attempt Winnie might have made to correct Jesse’s interpretation of her marital discord was cut short by Corinna.
‘Jesse, wasn’t it Jennifer Aniston you sculpted in the nude?’
‘You know perfectly well that it wasn’t,’ Jesse said, nodding when Panos offered him a beer. ‘And you also know perfectly well that most of my work is private, and usually of very little interest to anyone but the person who has commissioned it.’
Corinna pouted prettily, as if he’d spoiled her game.
‘He’s always been secretive,’ she sighed. ‘Although I’m sure I spotted a bust of Barack Obama in his workshop once.’
Jesse just shook his head, and Winnie found herself wondering how close he was with Corinna to have allowed her access to his studio.
‘Winnie’s an artist,’ Stella said out of the blue, making Winnie’s cheeks burn as everyone turned to look her way.
‘I’m not, not really …’ She pulled her drink towards her and took a good glug, then struggled not to splutter because the extra gin Panos had added had made it strong enough to strip paint.
‘She makes the most beautiful jewellery,’ Frankie said, holding her wrist out to show off the bracelet Winnie had given her for her birthday a couple of years ago. Strands of twisted silver and gold wound around pale-green tourmalines and milky-blue moonstones: it was one of Frankie’s most prized possessions.
‘Oh, my goodness!’ Corinna pounced and held Frankie’s hand to examine the bracelet. ‘You made this?’
Winnie nodded, still feeling foolish because Jesse was clearly an internationally established artist and she’d worked from her garden shed. ‘It was more of a hobby, really,’ she murmured, although she’d burned with indignation whenever Rory had referred to it as such when they were married. He’d never taken her as seriously as she’d wished, even though her order book had been consistently full and she’d started to make a name for herself.
‘Come on, Win,’ Stella said. ‘Don’t do yourself down, it wasn’t a hobby. You’re bloody good at it.’
Winnie was aware of Jesse watching her reactions closely.
‘I haven’t done it for a while,’ she said eventually.
‘But you will do it again now you’re here, yes?’ Corinna said. ‘Because I’d love to see more of what you can do. This kind of line would be perfect for the gallery shop.’
Winnie frowned, not quite following.
‘Corinna owns the gallery in Skelidos town,’ Panos offered by way of explanation.
‘There’s a town?’ Stella looked hopeful. ‘Is there a supermarket there?’
‘Two,’ Jesse said. ‘I need to go into town for a couple of hours tomorrow. I can run one of you in if you like.’
‘Winnie,’ Frankie and Stella said at the same time.
They both shrugged when she shot them daggers.
‘I’m menu planning in the morning,’ Frankie said. She was the stand-out cook of the three of them and was dying to put her stamp on the menu revamp at the B&B. She was itching to test out new recipes and make the most of local produce to really ring the changes.
‘And I’m ready to make a start on the media package,’ Stella said, sliding into business talk because it came as second nature to her. They’d all readily agreed that she was perfectly placed to give the B&B’s tired and very basic website a much-needed makeover. She knew all the right people to take their social media profile from non-existent to boutique, to really try to get their name out there. If there was one thing that Stella understood it was marketing and PR, and she was planning to use all of those hard-earned skills that no one else back home seemed to value any more to put their new business on the discerning holidaymaker’s map.
Winnie, it had been agreed, was to be their front of house, the face of Villa Valentina, the warm welcome and the winning smile that would have people booking up season on season. But front of house needed guests, so for now, at least, she had some time on her hands.
Time to go into town with Jesse, or so it seemed.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_bf9a738b-2810-59fa-9b7b-c15b5dbd6905)
Jesse stood at his kitchen window and watched Winnie as she swung her legs over the low wall around his olive grove and made her way over to the donkeys. She seemed a little more sure of herself this morning, less as if she feared The Fonz might bite her hand off when she reached out to fuss his ears. Or had her skittishness yesterday been more about the fact that he’d been so rude to her on their first encounter? He knew he’d been unnecessarily brusque, but her passing similarity to Erin when she’d opened the door at the villa had been a red rag to a bull. On closer inspection she was quite different, but there was something familiar in the curve of her hip and the slender, lithe length of her limbs, in the natural fairness of the waves that fell around her shoulders and the fullness of her mouth. An echo, a reminder to him of a time in his life that he’d closed the door on. Without even realising it, Winnie had managed to disappoint him simply by not being someone else.
It was a disservice, of course; he was big enough and ugly enough to know that, but just watching her again today stirred that same complicated cocktail of emotions again.
He threw a whole glass of cold water down his throat, then lifted his hand in greeting when she turned and caught him looking her way.
‘Get a fucking grip,’ he muttered. ‘She’s not even that much like her.’
It had all been such a long time ago, really; a decade almost, more than long enough for him to make his peace with what had happened. And he had, for the most part anyway. He’d have given himself a fairly clean bill of emotional health up to yesterday, when all it had taken was a swish of blonde hair and a flick of a hip to send him off the deep end.
He didn’t do blondes any more. He’d nurtured a taste for brunettes with dark eyes and bad attitudes, girls your mama wouldn’t approve of, girls who knew what they wanted and who knew the score. The score, in Jesse’s case, was open access to his body and absolutely no entry into his heart or his head. Over the years he’d grown to enjoy being so sexually upfront; it was pretty liberating, freeing really. He couldn’t actually see why people bothered bending themselves over backwards to be something they weren’t in order to accommodate someone else’s needs. It wasn’t healthy.
‘Am I too early?’
Winnie leaned in through the half-open stable door, cutting off his train of thought. Pink skinny-rib T-shirt. White denim mini. Canvas sneakers. Her face looked free of makeup and she’d tied her hair back in a ponytail; Jesus, if she told him she was eighteen he’d believe her, which pretty much made him a dirty old man at thirty-nine. Brilliant. Another negative emotion to attach to her; she really was pushing all of his buttons without even trying.
Shoving his sunglasses on and sweeping his keys up out of the bowl on the dining table, he shook his head.
‘Nope. Right on time. Let’s go.’
Jesse’s dusty black VW Golf was nothing like Rory’s beloved sports car back home, and Winnie decided she much preferred its simple unpretentiousness. The air-con was icebox cool, and that was a much more valuable prize out here than hand-stitched leather bucket seats or tinted glass. The low-slung red Alfa would have been an entirely unsuitable car for a baby; Winnie sometimes wondered if the idea of losing it had been one of the contributory factors to Rory’s infidelity.
‘I have a couple of errands to run, so I’ll drop you at Carrefour and come back in an hour or so,’ Jesse said, turning left out of the lane onto the main road.
Winnie nodded, taking in the scenery as it whipped past her window. Olive groves, mellow fields and always the still, glittering Mediterranean in view too.
‘This is the island’s only main road,’ Jesse said. ‘It follows the coast all the way around, and the lanes that lead off it all run in towards Skelidos town at the centre. It’s a blessedly simple layout, unlike the crazy one-way systems you’re no doubt used to back home.’
‘Sounds straightforward,’ Winnie murmured.
‘You’ll find that much about Skelidos is like that. Uncomplicated.’ Jesse indicated to turn off the main road, leaving the sparkling sea behind them. ‘It’s one of the big things that I love about the place.’
‘Can I ask how you came to live here?’ she asked, curious and unguarded.
He flicked his dark eyes towards her over his sunglasses. ‘You can ask, but I’ll lie about the answer.’
Winnie held his gaze for a second before he looked back towards the quiet lane, and she saw there that although his answer had been delivered in an off-the-cuff tone, he wasn’t joking. God, he was a prickly fish.
‘Just don’t answer at all then,’ she said. ‘Lies are one thing I’ve had more than my fill of.’
This time when he glanced her way he didn’t look flippant. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
They lapsed into silence for the rest of the ride, Jesse concentrating on the bumpy, dusty lane and Winnie taking the chance to see the more agricultural heart of the island away from the coast.
‘Is it mostly olive farms on the island?’
Jesse nodded. ‘Olives. Cattle for dairy produce, and vegetables in season of course. I wasn’t exaggerating about the simple pace of life here. Farmland has stayed in the same families for generations and property rarely comes up for sale. You guys are about the only new people here in as long as I can recall.’
‘Wow,’ she said, taken aback. No wonder Corinna had been so eager to get a look at them. Life in England had been so entirely different; neighbours came and went and people did any number of things to make their living. Here there was an actual community, a sense of family and of history. Even in the short time she’d spent on Skelidos so far, Winnie was already starting to feel that it suited her bones more than the complicated, fractured society back home in the UK.
Home. It was a word that didn’t seem to apply to anywhere for Winnie right now. Her parents’ house would always be her childhood home, but living there again for even a short time had proved glaringly that it was no longer her home these days. Her home had been the house she’d bought with her husband and built into their love nest, but also the place where she’d discovered his infidelity, and so it was no longer somewhere that she held any keys or affection for.
It was too soon to confidently refer to Skelidos as home either though. She hoped that one day it would be in her blood and her heart, but at the moment it felt more like they were visiting the island than emigrating to it. Perhaps it was because the others, Stella in particular, seemed to view this as an experiment, a short-term stopgap to get them all out of crisis points at home. They’d all been in need of something and Villa Valentina had practically fallen into their laps.
They hadn’t realised at the time how rare it was for property to become available on the island; they certainly hadn’t counted on being the only newcomers in the last decade.
‘Is tourism fairly new here?’ Winnie asked.
Jesse nodded. ‘Very much so. None of the tour operators come here, thankfully. We’re happy to leave the crowds over on Skiathos, and on Skopelos too now thanks to Mamma Mia!’
‘They filmed it there?’
‘Sure did, and their tourism shot off the scale as a result. I’m just glad they didn’t glance our way instead.’
Winnie had seen the movie several times over. Her mother had even mentioned it when she’d broken the news about the B&B, in order to fret that life wasn’t like the movies and they were asking for trouble buying a slice of some unknown island. Winnie’s parents valued routine and order; the concept of their daughter upping sticks across the globe to somewhere they’d never even heard of had filled them with unease.
Skelidos did share some of its bigger sisters’ beautiful traits, though. Lush green pine-forest-clad hills surrounded by sleepy agricultural lands, all fringed with pale, sugar-soft sands sliding seamlessly into the gleaming turquoise sea. Given the ever-present overhead sun, it was a surprisingly verdant place, with creamy wildflowers awash through the hedgerows and the familiar, abundant ramble of bright cerise bougainvillea in evidence everywhere. For a small island, it certainly packed a visual punch; it was picture-postcard Greece without the crowds or the neon bars, an off-the-beaten-track paradise that few people seemed to have discovered as yet.
‘This is you,’ Jesse said, turning into the car park of a more sizeable Carrefour than Winnie had expected. ‘What?’ He slid his glasses off and turned to look at her when she didn’t move.
‘Nothing,’ Winnie said. ‘It’s just bigger than I thought.’
‘Just because we’re quiet it doesn’t mean we’re uncivilised. You’re perfectly safe,’ he said. ‘We like our exorbitantly priced English teabags and imported bacon just as much as the bigger islands.’
Winnie rolled her eyes. ‘You think we won’t cut it here, don’t you?’
‘It’s not for everyone,’ he said. ‘You might find it too quiet.’
‘Maybe. I don’t think so though, somehow. And anyway, quiet is good right now.’
He tapped his fingers on the wheel. ‘And what about when you’re all done hiding? What will you do then?’
Winnie frowned. ‘We’re not hiding,’ she said. ‘Just because you overheard snapshots of our lives in the bar yesterday, it doesn’t mean you get to make judgments on our staying power.’
He looked unabashed. ‘I’m just sayin’ it the way I see it, Legs.’
‘Legs? Did you just call me Legs?’
‘You’ve got them.’ He nodded down towards her knees.
‘Everyone does.’
‘Yeah, but yours go all the way up to your ass.’
‘Yes, but …’ She trailed off, blushing a litle. There really wasn’t much she could say to that.
‘I’ll be back in half an hour or so. I’ll come and find you.’
Winnie nodded and scarpered out of his car, muttering thanks as she slammed the door, pulling her skirt down her thighs as she went.
Winding his window down, he shot her a grin. ‘I can still see them.’
‘So stop looking then.’
Winnie turned and walked away, turning at the supermarket to find him still blatantly watching her.
‘You’re so predictable, caveman,’ she half shouted, making a woman pushing a trolley past her turn to look at her in alarm.
‘Signomi! Sorry!’ Jesse called, raising his hand in greeting as he used both Greek and English for clarity. ‘She’s new around here.’
It seemed to do the trick, for the woman at least, who shrugged and moved on. It had a far less relaxing effect on Winnie, who felt more like throwing tomatoes from the display outside the store at Jesse’s smug grin as he tapped his watch face and threw his arm across the back of the passenger seat to reverse out of the car park.
‘Legs,’ she muttered, watching him pull away in a cloud of dust before heading inside the thankfully cool supermarket.
‘Get everything you need?’
Winnie turned away from the baffling display of cleaning products at the sound of Jesse’s voice behind her.
‘Has it been that long already?’ She frowned down into her half-filled trolley. Her shopping so far had been hit and miss from the list they’d all cobbled together around the breakfast table that morning. There were ingredients for dishes Frankie wanted to test out, and vague things like ‘buy dinner’ and then a few requests for tastes of home if they were available.
‘I’m looking for bathroom cleaner. For the loos and things.’
He scanned the shelves, plucked a spray bottle down and briefly read the back before handing it to her.
‘This one. It actually specifies that it’s best for delicate-stomached tourists who insist on a full English breakfast washed down with builder’s tea.’
‘Ha ha.’ Winnie grabbed it from him and put it as far away from the bacon and eggs in her trolley as possible.
‘What else do you need?’
Surveying the list, Winnie said, ‘Dinner.’
‘Eat at Panos’s place.’
‘We live here, Jesse. We want to cook for ourselves.’
‘I live here, and Panos cooks my dinner more than I do.’
‘You’re a man.’
‘Now who’s being stereotypical?’
She pulled a face at his back as he wandered away towards the deli counter. Following him, she listened as he chatted easily with the girl behind the display, speaking in fast, fluent Greek that she couldn’t follow. He made the girl laugh though, so evidently he was more charming in his second language than his native tongue.
‘Not vegetarians, no?’
‘Frankie is.’ Winnie didn’t miss the pained look on Jesse’s face as he turned back and ordered more things from the counter.
‘Olives,’ he said when he turned back around with his hands full. ‘And feta.’
Winnie watched him lay the clear containers of gleaming green olives and big creamy chunks of cheese alongside the salad ingredients already in her trolley.
‘Spanakopita. It’s spinach pie.’
Frankie would approve of that.
‘Keftethes. Meatballs. Tell your vegetarian to steer clear.’
‘I think she could work that much out for herself,’ Winnie said. The balls were huge and clearly strictly for carnivores.
Jesse added a tub of tzatziki and slices of locally cured ham, before moving over to the bakery to order a bag of fresh triangles of pita straight from the ovens.
‘Dinner,’ he said, waving his hand grandly over the trolley as if he’d been out and hunted the meat himself.
‘Thank you.’
They wandered back towards the tills, and once there he automatically unloaded and packed her shopping into brown paper carriers without her needing to ask as she carefully counted out the unfamiliar money. It was a moment of simple harmony, and she had the grace to thank him as they left the store and filled the boot of his Golf with her shopping bags.
‘Do you need to go straight back?’ he asked as she slipped into the passenger seat.
She looked at him for a long moment, wondering what he had in mind. ‘I don’t think it matters too much. Why?’
He winked at her before sliding his glasses over his eyes and gunning the engine.
‘In that case I’ll show you something special.’
He threw his arm across the back of her seat to glance over his shoulder and reverse in that sexy way that only men on movies ever truly do, and Winnie tried not to notice the inadvertent graze of his fingertips against the back of her neck as they left the supermarket behind them in the distance and drove up into the hills.
Reaching across Winnie’s knees to grab a bottle of chilled water from the glove box, Jesse tried not to notice the fact that she smelled like fresh flowers or that her skin was so double-cream pale against his own sun-weathered arm.
‘Come on, it’s up on foot from here.’
‘What is?’
Winnie slammed her door and gazed around the deserted hillside.
He didn’t explain, just headed towards a dusty track leading up through the pine trees. ‘This way. It’s not far.’
Following the familiar route, he turned back after a few minutes. ‘Watch your footing here, the grit can be a bit loose underfoot.’
On cue, Winnie’s foot slid sideways, and he held out his hand to steady her.
‘OK?’ he said, holding on to her fingers.
‘Think so.’ She half laughed, gripping him.
‘We’re nearly at the top,’ he said, keeping hold of her hand to help her take the last few steepest strides. He resolutely ignored the warmth of her fingers, and the way the exertion made her breasts rise and fall beneath her pink T-shirt. Jesus, did they not make it in her size? It looked as if it had been designed for a twelve-year-old and inadvertently found itself wrapped around the curves and hollows of a fully formed woman.
They reached the summit with a final tug, and he gave her a few seconds to get her breath back and appreciate why the hike was worth the effort.
‘Wow,’ she murmured, her hands on her hips as she looked down.
‘This is the highest point of the island,’ he explained, leading her across to a bench that had been placed there to take advantage of the stunning views. They’d crested the hill into a clearing, and from there there was a direct, panoramic view down across the island and the Mediterranean. Skelidos lay before them, a patchwork of fields and forests snaked through with twisting roads, a smattering of houses closer to the coast, jewel-green vegetation against impossibly periwinkle skies and vivid turquoise waters.
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