He’d made this for her. It must have taken him an age to cut the fruit. Perhaps this was his way of apologizing for last night. She wondered where he was. Had he eaten already? Maybe she should look for him, smooth things over. She had to consider that he obviously hadn’t been brought up the same way she had.
‘Hello there! You must be Miss Autumn. Well, what you waiting for, child? Dig in!’
Autumn dropped the ladle she had picked up and it fell back into the fruit bowl. Bustling from the hallway into the kitchen was a buxom, forty-something black woman. She was dressed in a blue denim pinafore dress, wore heavy military-style ankle boots, and her long hair was fashioned into dreadlocks and bunched up on top of her head.
Autumn’s mouth dropped open as she looked at the woman. She looked like Whoopi Goldberg dressed for combat. And then Nathan’s words came to mind and she tensed.
Autumn picked up the pot of coffee and held it out like a weapon. ‘Who are you? Don’t come near me!’
‘What you going to do with that? Drown me in coffee beans? Put it down, child. I’m friend, not foe.’ She held out her hand. ‘I’m Tawanda.’
‘I don’t know you. You weren’t expected. Where’s Nathan?’ Autumn was still holding out the coffee pot and trying to stop her hand from shaking.
‘Ah! That’s what he’s calling himself this time, is it?’ She let out a hearty chuckle of amusement. ‘He’s on the beach, just out there. Told me to get you to eat more than a bird’s portion of brunch.’ She held her hand out to introduce the food.
Autumn tipped the pot in her hands. ‘No one’s supposed to know I’m here. I want to see Nathan.’
‘Come now, child. Put the pot down and take a seat before those pastries get cold.’ Before Autumn could do anything about it, the woman had taken the pot and pulled out a chair for her.
‘Who are you? How did you get here?’ Autumn slumped down into the chair as Tawanda began serving up the food.
‘I am an old friend of your Mr Nathan. He ask me to come, I come.’
‘He didn’t mention it to me. He should have said something. He told me not to trust anyone. He might have said if he was going to invite someone to stay.’ She tapped out five beats on the table with her fingers. ‘Are you staying, because you haven’t said.’ She had picked up a croissant and eaten half of it without even realizing.
‘Would you like some fruit juice?’ Tawanda asked. ‘Or a smoothie? I could mix you up some guava and banana.’
‘Where would you get guava and banana? Where did you even get these strawberries and grapes? We’re on a remote island!’ She grabbed another croissant and stuffed it into her mouth before ladling fruit into a bowl.
‘I’ll make some herbal tea,’ Tawanda decided, heading toward the kettle.
Autumn had syrup drizzling down her chin when Nathan entered the house from the deck. She didn’t care. She was going to eat the entire table’s worth of food then go and throw it all up again.
She counted out five strawberries and five grapes and put them to one side. She wasn’t going to speak to him. He’d embarrassed her last night and had somehow seen fit to invite this larger-than-life lady into the house without mentioning it to her.
‘I hear it’s Mr Nathan now,’ Tawanda greeted as Nathan took a seat opposite Autumn.
‘That’s right,’ he replied.
Autumn raised an eye and watched him use one hand to load a plate with pastries and the other to fill a glass with orange juice.
‘I surprised Miss Autumn, and she tried to attack me with the coffee pot,’ Tawanda remarked with a boom of a laugh that shook her whole body.
‘I’ve been telling her anything can be used as a weapon. I thought she hadn’t been listening,’ Nathan remarked.
‘Hadn’t been listening?’ Autumn screamed. ‘That’s all you’ve made me do since I got here! Now it’s your turn to listen to me. I’ve gone along with this hare-brained party idea because you told me to trust you, but how can I trust you when you invite people to stay then don’t tell me about it? I actually know where you keep that arsenal of weapons you brought, so she’s lucky she didn’t get the end of a gun in her face.’
She wheezed like an asthmatic and grabbed hold of Nathan’s glass of juice and guzzled from it.
‘I’d be surprised if you got the right end,’ Nathan retorted.
‘It’s happening all over again! Why can’t you listen to me? I want to know what she’s doing here and why you didn’t tell me!’
‘Because it was my decision,’ Nathan banged his fist on the table, ‘and I won’t run every decision past you—no matter who you think you are!’
A croissant bounced off the plate and landed on the floor, and the fruit salad reacted like a wave machine had been turned on in the bowl.
‘I want to get out of here! You can’t keep me here!’ Autumn screamed, rising to her feet.
Nathan stood up. ‘Fine! Let’s go.’
Shocked at his response, she didn’t move. In a couple of strides, he was around her side of the table, grabbing hold of her wrist and pulling her toward the outside.
‘Mr Nathan—’ Tawanda started.
Autumn screamed and tried to release her arm from his grip. When tugging didn’t loosen his grasp, she pinched
