Romantic Escapes

‘Well there you go, you daft woman,’ his Scottish accent deepened. ‘You should’ve had your porridge.’

Now she did smile at him. ‘Porridge, of course. So that’s where I went wrong.’

‘And you probably need a break from this place. Have you had a proper day off since you’ve been here?’

She shrugged.

‘And when’s your next day off.’

‘Supposedly … today,’ she muttered, dropping her gaze.

With two fingers he lifted her chin as he lifted one arched eyebrow. ‘It just so happens it’s my day off too, today, and I’m off to see a waterfall which I’ve been assured by Hekla is one of “the” things to see. Gullfoss.’

Lucy smiled, he sounded rather proud that he could pronounce it ‘Excellent Icelandic accent,’ she teased.

‘To be honest, it is the only place that I can pronounce. Might as well start somewhere.’ His face sobered and then he asked. ‘So, why don’t you come with me?’

A car pulled up in front of her, a tiny white Toyota Aygo and Alex waved from the driver’s seat as the passenger window slid down.

‘Hop in.’

‘Sadly no porridge, but …’ she held up two foil packages, ‘I did blag some bacon butties for the journey,’ she said, climbing in and fastening her seatbelt.

‘Excellent and don’t tell anyone but I don’t miss porridge that much,’ said Alex, with a crooked grin, ‘not when bacon butties are on offer.’

‘I’m not convinced the 3G en route is going to be that great. How’s your navigation?’ he asked with a cheery smile handing her a map.

‘So, so.’ She unfurled the map to peer at it. ‘But it’s not as if there are a lot of roads here. It looks pretty straightforward. I had a quick look on Google.’

‘I should have known. You are a planner. Don’t worry, we stay on the main coast road for most of the way and then we take a right, by which time it should be light. Hekla says it’s well signposted. You can probably stand down as a navigator.’

‘I wonder if it’s going to snow again,’ said Lucy looking up at the sky, which was the clearest it had been for a few days. The previous dump of snow had melted fast leaving the roads completely clear and it was a couple of degrees warmer. ‘The forecast for today is quite good. Allegedly there will be sunshine.’ She wasn’t convinced but Brynja had insisted on checking three different weather pages once she’d heard where Lucy was going.

‘Yeah, it’s supposed to brighten up later. You have dressed for every eventuality, haven’t you? The weather is very changeable.’

He slid the car into gear and swung out of the car park onto the road.

‘So Hekla and Brynja keep telling me.’ Lucy laughed and leaned back in her chair adjusting the seat back. It felt good to be out of the hotel. ‘Hekla’s been fussing around me like a mother hen. Three layers. You need three layers. You can take layers off. Put layers on.’ She attempted to mimic Hekla’s accent. ‘And no jeans, they take too long to dry. Hence these rather attractive khaki numbers she forced Brynja to lend me.’ Despite the fact that Brynja was several inches shorter and a size bigger. However thick long woolly socks filled the missing inches above Lucy’s walking boots and she’d pushed them around her ankles leg warmer style so that she didn’t look completely ridiculous.

‘She said the same to me,’ said Alex, focusing on the road. ‘And my fleece was given her personal seal of approval.’

‘Well done, my waterproof wasn’t. It was snatched out of my hands with a spiel of heavy-duty Icelandic disapproval before she went rifling through the lost property box in the office to find this.’ Lucy held out the zipped edge of the sturdy navy Berghaus coat before wriggling out of it and stowing it at her feet. ‘She gives the same lecture to the guests at least once a day. I think she might be an undercover operator for Mountain Warehouse.’ Lucy looked down at her drab, sensible but practical clothing and remembered the recruitment consultant in her red suit. Home was a very long way away.

‘Neat theory, although it could be she wants to make sure everyone enjoys their time here. I’ve noticed she’s very passionate about her own country. There’s nothing worse than being cold and miserable.’

Outside the car the heavy cloud cover made it difficult to believe the promised sunshine would materialise, it was still quite dark despite the sunrise at quarter to nine. The car’s headlights carved a strong beam tracking along the ribbon of mostly single-track road.

‘Tell me about it. It took me four years to get used to the weather in Manchester.’

‘You’d be fine in Edinburgh then.’

‘I’ve been a couple of times on business. I loved it. The company I wo… I went to a couple of conferences up there. The city is so dramatic, especially with the castle perched up high above the town.’

‘And wet and cold in the winter,’ said Alex. ‘So where do you come from originally?’

‘Portsmouth, although I can’t imagine ever going back there. I like living in the north.’

‘This far north?’

‘Hmm not sure that I could live here forever.’ Her spirits drooped. ‘My plan was to stick it out here for a least a year, before I knew the place is up for sale. Unfortunately,’ she held up a hand before he could comment on her stupidity, ‘I’m on a temporary contract.’ There was a silence when she thought he might have commented, so she carried on, ‘I thought it was a probationary precaution, now I realise it paves the way for any new owners to bring in their own team of people. And yes, feel free to tell me that was a dumb thing to do.’

Alex didn’t say anything, he seemed to be focusing hard on the road.

In the quiet of the car, with the engine humming, she brooded about the future. Reluctant to disturb Alex’s concentration, she stared out of the window at the endless black tarmac road lit up by the golden beam of the headlights.

She could see the grey ribbon of road stretching ahead for miles, weaving its way through the virtually uninhabited landscape. As they drove along, houses were few and far between, although the sheep were plentiful and quite a few strayed dangerously close to the road. As they followed the signs towards Reykjavik, Lucy reflected that it seemed a long time since she’d first driven this way, her heart sinking at how far the lodge was from any town of any size.

‘I can’t believe I’ve been here nearly two weeks already.’

‘Time flies when you’re enjoying yourself,’ teased Alex.

‘Or working double shifts,’ she retorted. ‘I’m glad that the staff are all more settled and there’s been no more talk about flipping elves. Although I’m still wondering where the dead mice came from and what stopped them.’

‘You mean it wasn’t the magic unicorn?’ he asked with a quick raise of his eyebrows.

‘I never thanked you for that. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the “steals their magic”. It was inspired,’ she laughed.

Alex smirked. ‘Not as inspired as the unicorn idea to start with.’ His face softened and he turned to her. ‘I owe you an apology actually. You handled it well. I’d have told them to stop with the nonsense if they wanted to be paid. I realise now that some people do take this elf stuff seriously.’

‘Mm,’ said Lucy, remembering his stern expression that morning and the disapproval he’d radiated. ‘I think you’ll find it was less inspiration and more desperation. My first day and I panicked. God knows what I’d have done if all the staff had walked out. Funny there hasn’t been a repeat of the anything like the “mices”. You haven’t heard of anything?’

Alex shook his head. ‘No, it’s a bit of a mystery.’

‘Mystery? That’s a kind way of putting it. Pretty mean trick. Someone playing a joke that really wasn’t very funny. Let’s hope with the arrival of the film crew, they’ll keep their tricks to themselves.’

They lapsed into thoughtful silence.

‘Do you want any music on?’ asked Alex, his hand straying to the radio.

‘Hmm, not sure. Apart from Björk, I don’t know any Icelandic music.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ve got a playlist on my phone.’

‘Could be interesting,’ said Lucy. ‘What sort of playlist is it?’

Alex looked worried. ‘It’s just a playlist.’

‘Not a driving playlist, then.’

‘No,’ he said warily. ‘A playlist of tracks I like.’

She pulled out her phone. ‘I have playlists for running, driving, cleaning.’

‘Cleaning? You have a cleaning playlist.’

‘Yes,’ said Lucy. ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

‘Clearly not,’ said Alex. ‘Although it’s not something I think about that much. I do the bare minimum when I absolutely have to.’

‘Typical man.’

‘I prefer to call it an efficient time and motion approach. So, what’s on your driving playlist? Is it fit for human consumption?’

‘Of course. Don’t you trust me?’

‘No, you might be a closet Metallica fan.’

Lucy pretended to think for a moment.

‘I might be.’

‘Are you?’

Lucy giggled and stopped. She was rusty in that department. It was a long time since she’d felt like giggling. ‘I couldn’t name a single one of their tracks.’

‘No, you look more of a Take That type.’

‘And what does that look like?’ She lifted one dangerous eyebrow daring him to comment.

‘Er … you know … normal.’

‘I’ll take normal. To be honest I’m not really that into music. I never had that much time to listen.’

‘Give us your worst, put on your playlist.’

Luckily Alex didn’t seem to mind her music and even commented a couple of times that he liked a track. He made her skip one but then she wasn’t a huge Justin Bieber fan either.

‘Look, the sun’s coming out.’ They’d been driving for forty minutes and the earlier thick black clouds had started to thin, like a ragged net, their edges tinged with pale pink and gold, and within the breaks Lucy could see pale blue sky.

‘I think Hekla might have got the weather right, it is going to be a nice day.’

‘Ah look, I think this is our turning. And yes, there’s a sign post.’ They followed the signs which were excellent, but then Lucy figured, you wouldn’t want people getting lost out here, the landscape was pretty inhospitable and even quite eerie in some places, like an alien planet. On some stretches of road, there hadn’t a been a single sign of human habitation for miles. She was glad that Alex was driving.

The road began to climb and before long they were pulling into the car park at Gullfoss.

‘Oh goodness, you can hear it,’ said Lucy, listening to the boom of water as they started walking up the footpath, passing early risers going the other way, drenched in their sodden waterproofs although managing cheery grins.

They stopped on the path as they caught their first glimpse of the torrent of water crashing down the craggy rocks. Fine sprays of water drifted through the air, rising up from the deep river bed billowing across the chasm like gossamer curtains floating on the breeze.

‘Wow,’ said Lucy, staring down at the roiling, foaming flow racing over the edge of the dark rocks like an unstoppable force.

‘It’s quite something.’ For a moment the pair of them marvelled at the view.

‘Do you want to go up there, out on the ledge?’ asked Alex, pointing to the rocky ledge protruding almost into the heart of the waterfall. There were already a few people up there, standing like tiny ants against the backdrop of the white foam of the water. It frothed, boiling with movement before racing down in perpetual columns through the rocks to the edge where the wide river simply dropped away into a deep channel.

‘Or up there?’ he turned and pointed to the much safer vantage point on the hill above the waterfall.

Lucy lifted her face welcoming the cold bite of the fine mist against her skin and looked at the wooden fenced enclosure on the top of the hill and then back at the ledge around which the water churned and foamed like furious white horses. Down there the sound would be deafening, the air laden with water droplets and the proximity to the edge terrifying.

‘The ledge,’ she said feeling a punch of adrenaline, turning and grinning at Alex, the hair escaping from her hat already plastered to her face.

‘OK,’ said Alex grinning back, taking her hand as he picked up the pace and headed forwards with a purposeful stride. ‘Let’s do this.’

By the time they reached the rocky plateau, they were both slightly breathless, their faces covered in a fine sheen of water, with rivulets running from chins and noses. Alex stepped out first, gingerly side-stepping puddles and sharp rocks, and then waited, holding out his hand again to guide her through. She hesitated, a mix of fear and excitement scrambling her thoughts and then saw him nodding at her, encouragement shining in those warm brown eyes. With a tremulous smile she took his hand and followed him out onto the shelf of rock.

When they reached the centre of the ledge, surrounded on two sides by water, her hand gripping his, they stopped. The roar of the water thudded through her body sending her pulse racing in tandem with the elemental thrill of the raw power of nature. She stood absorbing the sensation of sheer power and the feeling of being a hairsbreadth away from annihilation.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.