giraffe! It’s either Evangeline or the nappies.’
Susie closed her eyes, defeated by choice. Blank.
She should be crying, Hamish thought, feeling desperate. She should be sobbing. But her face was closed and shuttered. Dead.
‘Please, Susie…’ he started, and her eyes flew open again.
‘Leave me be,’ she snapped, anger breaking through the misery. ‘Hamish Douglas, butt out of what doesn’t concern you.’
If there’d been another casserole to hand he could have been hit twice over. And maybe he would have welcomed it.
He butted out.
Marcia was packing as well. He went out to the courtyard and found her loading her gear into the back of Lachlan’s BMW.
‘As fast as that?’ he asked, and she gave him a vicious glare. Lachlan, looking nervous, stayed back.
‘You don’t want me here. I’ll be back to you about financial details.’
‘Financial details?’
‘This has cost me,’ she muttered, throwing a holdall into the trunk with vicious intensity. ‘I’ve wasted three years of my life organising our future and you mess it up with one stupid widow. If you think you’ll get out of that without a lawsuit, you have another think coming.’
‘You did go to the sand dunes,’ he said mildly. He looked across at Lachlan, who decided to comb his hair in the car’s rear-view mirror.
‘I hate you,’ Marcia told him.
‘You don’t do emotion.’
‘I so do!’ She rallied then, whirling to face him head on, and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. Tears of fury, frustration and bitterness.
‘You see?’ she snarled, her voice almost breaking. ‘I do “do” emotion. It’s just that I don’t want to. It stuffs up your life. You can’t control people. And I don’t want it, any more than I want you.’ She flung herself into the passenger seat and slammed the door. Unfortunately the window was open and without the engine on she couldn’t close it.
‘Get in,’ she snapped at Lachlan. ‘Let’s get moving.’
‘Sure,’ Lachlan said, and grinned at Hamish. ‘That’s quite a lady you’re losing.’
‘Rich, too,’ Hamish offered.
‘You think I don’t already know that?’
I’m sure you do, he thought as he watched the BMW disappear from view.
Two unemotional people?
No. There were emotions there all right. Maybe they were in the wrong place but they were still there.
As were his. He just had to figure out where to put them.
He still hadn’t figured it out thirty minutes later as he watched Susie climb into Jake’s car. Still with no tears. Still with that dreadful wooden face he was starting to know-and to fear.
‘Goodbye, Hamish,’ she said, but she didn’t kiss him goodbye.
Her body language said it all. He had no choice.
He stood back and let her go.
The castle emptied, just like that. One minute there’d been a crowd waving Susie off, a confusion of packing and tears and hugs and waving handkerchiefs as the car disappeared down the road.
Then nothing. The inhabitants of Dolphin Bay simply turned and left, went back to their village, went back to their lives. Which didn’t include him.
Hamish went back into the kitchen, expecting a mess, but the Dolphin Bay ladies had been there
There was a note on the table from Kirsty.
Susie’s organised professional cleaners to go through the place tomorrow. Leave a list of what you want kept. They’ll dispose of the rest. Mrs Jacobsen says one casserole dish will be fine, thank you, but it had better be a good one.
Great.
He walked back out to the hall where Ernst and Eric were looking morose. Guard duty with nothing to guard.
They’d look dumb back in Manhattan, he thought. Could he write a clause into the hotel sale, saying the new owners had to keep these two?
Ridiculous.
The word hung.
Why had Susie thought his proposal ridiculous? It had been a very good offer, he thought. He’d told her he loved her. He’d look after her, keep her safe, make sure she wanted for nothing.
Ernst and Eric gazed at him morosely.
Ridiculous.
‘The whole thing’s ridiculous,’ he snapped. ‘Not me. What does she want me to do?’
Whatever it was, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t.
His phone buzzed and he looked at the screen. Jodie. Another lecture.
He flicked it off. Out of communication.
That meant the office couldn’t communicate either.
Good. He needed to not communicate.
‘You are sure you’re doing the right thing?’
‘Of course I am.’ They were outside the vast metal gates at the airport-gates you could only go through as you passed passport control. The days of waving planes off were long gone. Now the gates slammed on you two or three hours before the plane left and that was that.
Susie and Kirsty were in a huddle. Jake was standing back, holding Rose, giving his wife and her sister space to say goodbye.
‘But you’re in love with Hamish.’
‘He doesn’t have a clue what love is. Leave it, Kirsty. It’s over.’
‘You will come back when our baby’s due?’
‘I promise.’
‘Oh, Susie, I don’t see how I can bear it.’
‘If I can bear it you can,’ Susie said resolutely. She’d expected to be a sobbing mess by now, but the tears were nowhere. She didn’t feel like tears. She felt dead.
‘I can bear it,’ she told her sister. ‘You’ve been the best sister in the world but we’re separate. Twins but separate. You have your life and I have mine.’
Yes, thought Kirsty as she stood and watched the gates slide shut, irrevocably cutting Susie off from return. I have my life. My husband, my kids, my dog, my life. Oh, Susie, I wish you had the same.
What the hell was a man to do?
Hamish paced the castle in indecision. He went back into Angus’s room and looked at the papers scattered over the floor. Yes, they needed to be gone through. There were all sorts of important deeds that couldn’t be left. They represented a couple days’ work.
He’d stay for two more days, and then he’d leave.
He rang the airline and booked his return flight for two days hence. Right. That was the start of organisational mode.
Now sort the papers.
It didn’t happen. His head wasn’t in the right space. The papers blurred.
