He looked at her again. ‘Because she was protesting too much. I know Tara. I know when she says she’s happy to have steak, but really she wants aglio olio. She’s never been a good liar. She doesn’t hate him. She just wants to.’ He gave a bark of mocking laughter. ‘Alex even said that to her. He knows it, too . . . She still loves him.’ He looked away sharply. ‘Which is why she doesn’t love me.’
‘Rory, stop!’ Holly was on her knees now. She was going to beg him to believe her.
He stopped her with an honest gaze. ‘Hols, we both know it’s true. What I thought was . . . reserve, that feeling of distance she has about her . . . it’s not distance. It’s absence. She’s there, but also not.’
Holly stared at him. Her mouth felt dry, her heart rackety in her ribs – but could she really deny it?
She looked at him guiltily, then away again. Now that she was on her knees, her back to the sea, she had a full view over the beach, towards Jed’s beach bar, those evil trees at the edge of the sand that had made Dev’s skin blister when he tried picking one of the apples.
‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ she groaned, seeing the bar hatch had been opened and a man was standing behind the bar, talking to a customer. ‘What’s he playing at? It’s far too early for him to be up and about again.’ She tutted as she looked back at Rory. ‘It’s Jed. He’s turned up to work tonight. It’s like he wants a bleed on the brain!’
‘Mmm,’ he said distractedly. ‘That is too early.’
‘Look, I’m going to go over and tell him to go straight back home. Just stay right here. Don’t move. But I’ll get us some drinks while I’m there and we’ll talk about this, okay? Things are not what you think.’
She got up to standing, doing a quick visual check on her boys before she went. She turned back. ‘Right. Won’t be a jiffy,’ she said, patting the sand off her bottom and watching as the customer Jed had been talking to began running over the sand. Straight towards them.
‘Oh, fucking hell!’ she cried, looking down in panic at Rory.
He scowled. ‘What’s wrong?’
She couldn’t find the words to tell him. Instead her arm stretched out, pointing towards the man approaching them. ‘It’s Alex. He’s coming over.’
‘What?’ He was on his feet in a flash, staring in disbelief as Alex stumbled over the sand towards them. He was wearing a khaki uniform that was ripped and stained and completely filthy. ‘The fucking nerve!’
Within moments Alex was right there, panting in front of them. He seemed exactly as he had the last time Holly had seen him. Time had skipped lightly, fairy-like, over him, his hair just longer perhaps, the tan more weathered, some softening of the skin around those pale celery-green eyes. He was still far more attractive than was decent.
The two men stared at one another in silence for a few seconds, then Rory pulled his right fist back and punched Alex square on the jaw.
Alex didn’t even try to duck. He lay sprawled on the sand, his nose bleeding, stunned for several moments, before looking back at them defiantly. No one spoke for several moments. Holly could feel the tension between the two men. Not a word had been said but they each knew what the other represented. ‘I need to speak to her.’
What?
Alex began pulling his legs back in, getting up again. He had looked exhausted and battered even before the punch. He stood again, right in front of Rory. ‘I’m sorry, man,’ he said, staring his rival straight in the eye. ‘I am. But I’m not going till I speak to her.’
Rory’s hands were no longer bunched into fists. Holly watched as though everything was happening in slow motion. She felt the sand draining away from under her feet, as if it was being washed down a plughole.
Alex looked between the two of them, his own confusion growing. ‘. . . What? What’s wrong?’
Holly swallowed, hardly daring to even ask the question as she saw now the desperation in his eyes. ‘Alex, are you telling us – Tara’s not with you?’
Chapter Twenty-Four
‘This can’t be right.’
But William was too far ahead of her to hear.
‘William!’ she called.
He stopped and turned, waiting patiently, his carved walking stick pressing down on the head of leaves that otherwise obscured the faint animal tracks. She dropped her hands onto her thighs and let her head hang. She was pouring with sweat, blisters – real blisters – oozing into her socks as her feet were rubbed raw. This was their second day of walking and the light was fading again. Surely they should be there by now? Perhaps it had been over-optimistic to think they could manage it in a single day, but after two full days of non-stop hiking . . .?
Of course, they didn’t have the microlight that had made such a difference on the way out, but that had merely recouped the time lost following Jed’s attack anyway. And after their pre-dawn start yesterday, it was reasonable to expect to be back in time for nightfall tonight. Every summit they crested, she looked out hopefully across the interlocking canopies, scanning for some landmark or something she recognized from the outbound leg. But it was just trees, trees, more trees. The sea was now visible, though, and she gave an exhausted nod as he pointed towards it. That way. They had to keep going.
Her feet began moving on autopilot again. They had been going for several hours yesterday, the sun still climbing into the sky, before she had even remembered about the black star leaves, and the realization she had left them behind had stopped her in her tracks. Such had been her desperation to get away from Alex, the entire reason for being there had slipped from her mind and her failure to deliver what she’d promised felt all the more acute because of it.
