‘We were docked at a pretty English port. Isabelle’s parents own the world’s most ostentatious cruiser and they were docked nearby. Isabelle was taking flying lessons and they were keeping her happy. Everyone seemed settled; we were even talking about enrolling Bailey in kindergarten. So I flew across to South Africa. But Isabelle was never settled for long. She got bored with her flying lessons and persuaded her parents to bring their boat out to surprise me.’
‘To Africa?’
‘In a boat that screamed money.’ There was no mistaking the bitterness in his voice now. The pain. ‘To one of the poorest places on the planet. When I found out they were on their way I was appalled. I knew the risks. I had security people give them advice. I sent people out to meet them, only they were hit before they arrived.’
‘Hit?’
He shrugged. ‘What do you expect? Poverty everywhere, then along comes a boat with a swimming pool, crew in uniform, dollar signs practically painted on the sides. But they’d had good advice. If you’re robbed, once you’re boarded, just hand over everything. Isabelle’s father carried so much cash it’d make your head swim. He thought he could buy himself out of any trouble. Maybe he could, but Isabelle…she decided to defend,’ he said savagely.
Misty knew she didn’t exist for him right now. There was no disguising the loathing in his voice and it was directed only at himself. ‘I knew she owned a gun before we were married, but she told me she’d got rid of it. And I believed her. Of all the stupid…’ He shook his head as if trying to clear a nightmare but there was no way he could clear what he was going through. ‘So, as her father tried to negotiate, she came up from below deck, firing. At men who made their living from piracy. Two shots-that’s all it took. Two shots and she was dead and Bailey was close to it.’
She closed her eyes, appalled. ‘So that’s why you’re here,’ she whispered.
‘That’s why we’re here. Bailey’s spent a year in and out of hospital while I’ve researched the safest place in the world to be. I can design boats from here. Most of my designs are built internationally. I’ve hired an off-sider who can do the travelling for me. I can be a stay-at-home dad. I can keep Bailey safe.’
‘You’ll wrap him in cotton wool?’ She felt suddenly, dreadfully anxious. ‘Small risks can be exciting,’ she ventured. ‘I can make my bike stand on its front wheel. That’s meant the odd bruise and graze. There’s risks and risks.’
‘I will not take risks with my son’s life.’
The pain behind that statement… It was almost overwhelming.
What to do?
Nothing.
‘No one’s asking you to,’ she said, deciding brisk and practical was the way to go. ‘You have a house to organise, a child to care for and boats to design. Our vet, Fred, has plans for your painting, and I might even persuade you to get a dog. You can settle down and live happily ever after. But if you’d never had those adventures…’
What was she talking about? Don’t go there, she told herself, confused at where her mind was taking her. If he’d never had those adventures…like she hadn’t?
This was not about her.
She made herself step down from the veranda. This man’s life, his past, was nothing to do with her. She needed to return to the nursing home to make sure Gran was settled for the night. She needed to go home.
Home… The home she’d never left.
Nick didn’t stop her. He’d withdrawn again, into his isolation, where risks weren’t allowed. He seemed as if he was hardly seeing her. ‘Thank you for listening,’ he said formally.
‘You’re welcome,’ she said, just as formally, and she turned and left before she could ask him-totally inappropriately-to tell her about Africa.
What was he about, telling a total stranger the story of his life? It was so out of character he felt he’d shed a skin-and not in a good way. He felt stupid and naive and exposed.
He’d never done personal. Even with Isabelle… He’d hardly talked to her about his closeted childhood.
So why let it all out tonight? To his son’s schoolteacher?
Maybe it was because that was all she was, he decided. Bailey’s teacher. Someone whose focus was purely on his son. Someone prepared to listen when he needed to let it all out.
Why let it out tonight?
Justification?
He stared around at the shabby house, the empty walls, the lack of anything as basic as a storybook, and he thought that was where it had come from. A need to justify himself in the eyes of Misty Lawrence.
Why did he need to justify himself?
He didn’t want her to judge him.
That was stupid, all by itself. She was a country hick schoolteacher. Her opinion didn’t matter at all.
If it did… If it did, then it’d come under the category of taking risks, and Nicholas Holt no longer took risks.
Ever.
She went home, to her big house, where there was only herself and the sound of the sea.
Africa.
She’d just got herself a dog.
Africa.
Nick’s story should have appalled her. It did.
But Africa…
Since Gran’s stroke, she’d started keeping her scrapbooks in the kitchen where recipes were supposed to be. Dreams instead of recipes? It worked for her. She tugged the books down now and set them on the kitchen table.
She had almost half a book on Africa. Pictures of safaris. Lying at dawn in a hide, watching a pride of lions. The markets of Marrakesh.
Africa was number eight on her list.
She had a new dog. How long would Ketchup live?
She picked up a second scrapbook and it fell open at the Scottish Highlands. She’d pasted in a picture of a girl in a floaty white dress lying in a field of purple heather. Behind her was a mass of purple mountains.
She’d pasted this page when she was twelve. She’d put a bagpiper in the background, and a castle. Later, she’d moved to finer details. Somewhere she’d seen a documentary on snow buntings and they had her entranced-small birds with their snow-white chests and rippling whistle. Tiny travellers. Exquisite.
Birds who travelled where she never could. She had pictures of snow buntings now, superimposed on her castle.
She flicked on, through her childhood dreams. Another scrapbook. The Greek islands. Whitewashed houses clinging to cliff faces, sapphire seas, caiques, fishermen at dawn…
These scrapbooks represented a lifetime of dreaming. The older she was, the more organised she’d become, going through and through, figuring what she might be able to afford, what was feasible.
She’d divided the books, the cuttings, into months. She now had a list of twelve.
Exploring the north of England, the Yorkshire Dales, a train journey up through Scotland, Skara Brae, the Orkneys… Bagpipers in the mist. Snow buntings. Number ten.
Greece. Number two.
Africa.
Risks.
Bailey.
She closed the book with a snap. Nicholas was right. You didn’t take risks. You stayed safe.
She’d just agreed to keep another dog. She had no choice.
Her computer was on the bench. On impulse, she typed in Nicholas Holt, Marine Architect and waited for it to load.
And then gasped.
The man had his own Online Encyclopaedia entry. His website was amazing. There were boats and boats, each more wonderful than the last. Each designed by Nicholas Holt.
This man was seriously famous.
And seriously rich? You didn’t get to design boats like these without having money.
That a man like this could decide Banksia Bay was the right place to be…a safe place to be…
‘It makes sense,’ she told herself, and she flicked off the Internet before she could do what she wanted to do-which was to research a little more about Africa.
‘I have a dog now,’ she told herself. ‘Black runs are probably cold and wet. Doesn’t Scotland have fog and midges? Who knows what risks are out there? So gird your loins, accept that dreams belong in childhood and do what Nick Holt has done. Decide Banksia Bay is the best place in the world.’