‘You’re kidding.’
She smiled. ‘You’re right. I’m kidding. But if it’s something I need to do for a smooth transition…’
She’d do whatever it took to build a solid financial future, he thought. Wise woman.
‘Go back to your wheeling and dealing,’ he told her. ‘Babysitting’s not an occupation I plan on doing any more in my life, but you’re right. By doing it now I’m making things smoother for Susie.’
‘Not for you?’
‘Only in that…’ He paused. Only in that it made Susie happier? Only in that it let Susie have one of her last swims in this place? He couldn’t think how to finish his sentence.
‘Go do it, Nanny Douglas,’ Marcia told him, deciding to be amused. ‘And be careful when you stand up. I don’t want sand in my keypad.’
Then it was his turn to sit in the shallows and entertain Rose while Taffy barked and Susie swam. Not that Rose needed to be entertained. She’d happily kick waves for the rest of her life, he thought.
Were there waves where she was going?
He didn’t know.
He couldn’t care.
Susie disappeared as soon as they got back from the beach, retreating to the bedroom with a couple of vast suitcases she’d retrieved from the box room and a carton of garbage bags. They hardly saw her for the rest of the day.
‘I’m so pleased she’s being sensible,’ Marcia told him. ‘There was hardly any need for me to come. I don’t think she’s the least bit interested in you.’
‘No.’
‘You know, it really is the most beautiful place,’ she said. They’d finished a fairly strained dinner-fish and chips that Hamish had gone into Dolphin Bay to fetch, and a bowl of steamed vegetables for Marcia-and now they were sitting on the balcony, looking out at the bay in the fading light. ‘It seems a shame to sell it straight away.’
‘What else would I do with it?’ Hamish said shortly. He’d thought this through. Sure, this was a financial windfall, and realistically he didn’t need the interest that he’d get from its sale. He’d thought that maybe he could leave Susie here as indefinite caretaker but he’d known instinctively that she’d refuse such an offer. It was a dumb idea anyway. It’d leave her in limbo, his indefinite pensioner. She needed to move on. ‘You surely aren’t suggesting we live here?’
‘No, but I’ve been thinking that doing some capital improvements before we put it on the market might get us a better price,’ Marcia told him. ‘I’ll need to talk to the assessor tomorrow but… Come and see what I mean.’
‘What-?’
‘Just come and see. Why no one’s thought of this before this is beyond me.’
She led the way downstairs out to Susie’s vegetable garden, with Hamish following feeling bemused. Marcia had only been here for twenty-four hours, yet she already seemed proprietorial. She was leading him though his very own castle.
He shouldn’t mind. He didn’t. It was just…
It was just that this was Susie’s place, he thought, but that was dumb. But when he emerged to the twilight and saw Susie’s garden he stopped thinking his idea was dumb and decided that it was right. It certainly seemed Susie’s place. Her garden was fabulous.
He had no illusions as to who’d done the work here. For the last twelve months, as Angus’s health had slowly deteriorated, Susie must have thrown her heart and soul into caring for this place. Her vegetable garden could feed a small army. If this was turned into a hotel the chef would never have to go near a greengrocer.
But Marcia wasn’t interested in the garden. She was striding purposefully toward the conservatory. She pushed open the doors and flicked the light, then swore as the light didn’t work. It was dusk and the place was still lovely- smelling of ripening oranges and overripe cumquats and the rich loam that Susie had been using to pot seedlings. The lack of light made it seem more beautiful.
‘This is what I brought you to see,’ Marcia said, in the same voice she used when she produced a contract that was hugely advantageous to the firm-and to her. ‘It’s fabulous.’
‘It is,’ Hamish said, walking forward and touching the same branch of hanging cumquats Susie had touched the first day he’d met her. Was it his imagination or could he sense her here? This place seemed almost an extension of her.
‘We need to take the end wall out so we can get machinery in,’ Marcia was saying, and he blinked.
‘Pardon?’
‘It’s great. Can’t you see it?’
‘See what?’
‘The view from the end wall is right down to the sea. The tourists this place will attract will spend most of their time right here.’
‘Why?’
‘A swimming pool,’ she said with exaggerated impatience. ‘I thought about it this morning while I was at the beach. The beach is lovely but most tourists don’t want to spend much time there.’
‘Why not?’
‘The sand gets into your Blackberry, for one thing,’ she said, getting even more exasperated. ‘Hamish, when we went to Bermuda last year, did we spend any time at the beach?’
‘We were there at a conference.’
‘Exactly. We had things to do. There was a beach but did we use it?’
There had been a beach, Hamish remembered. He thought back to an intense four days of business dealings. He remembered watching the sun rise from his hotel room, watching the view, watching people stroll on the beach…and then fitting in a fast fifteen minutes in the hotel pool before breakfast.
‘We’re the clientele we’ll attract,’ Marcia said. ‘People who appreciate what luxury really is. Anyway, I’m thinking we need to heave out every bit of kitsch before we put this place on the market. And I’m also thinking that we should dig a pool into this building. Honestly, Hamish, buyers have no imagination. Did you see the potential of this place as a swimming pool?’
‘No.’
‘There you go, then,’ she said triumphantly. ‘I’ll talk it through with the assessor tomorrow but I think you should hold selling off a little longer while we transform this place.’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t suppose we could persuade the widow to stay as a transitional caretaker.’
‘I suspect we don’t have a hope.’
She shrugged. ‘Well, there’s others. Maybe we need someone a bit more level-headed anyway.’ There was a beep from her belt and she lifted her Blackberry and peered at the lit screen. ‘Charles,’ she said in satisfaction. ‘He has some figures I need. If you’ll excuse me, darling… Walk through to the end and see if I’m right. A swimming pool and a bar with a view to die for. Our tourists wouldn’t have to move. I suspect the pool could double our price.’
And she was off, leaving him to his thoughts.
His thoughts…
He didn’t have any thoughts, he decided. He was a blank. He fingered his cumquat some more and thought it was a great smell. It was a great place.
A luxury swimming pool? Maybe they’d have a few of these orange trees in tubs round the side…
‘You’d really chop down all Angus’s orange trees?’
Susie’s muted voice was so unexpected that his heart forgot to take a beat. He stilled, trying to think what to say, and she came out of the shadows and stood right before him. Still in the plain faded shorts and T-shirt he was starting to get to know. Still with bare feet. Her hair was tousled and there was a smudge of dirt on her forehead.
‘I didn’t know you were here,’ he managed, when he got his breath back.
‘I’ve been planting out seedlings into bigger pots. I was intending to plant them straight into the vegetable garden but now I’m leaving I’ll need to find other homes for them. Am I supposed to apologise?’
He was still discomfited. ‘You could have told us you were here.’
‘I could have come out of the dark and said I heard every word? That’s what I’m doing now. I didn’t mean to
