A Secret, A Safari, A Second Chance

The man who, at the fierce banging on his beach cabin door, the call that he was needed, had rolled out of bed, pulling on his jeans and grabbing his sweatshirt. All he’d said was, ‘Stay out of sight...’ on his way out.

She had waited until the first pink edge of dawn appeared on the horizon and then she had run back to her grandmother’s house and thrown her things into a bag. Nana had been asleep, so she’d left a note, caught the first ferry back to the mainland and been back in London twenty-four hours later.

Had he waited, holding his breath, waiting for the call from one of the less glossy gossip mags asking for a comment on the story they were about to run?

My Night of Sex... Sex in the Sand... Abandoned After a Night of Sex...

There had been stories in the past and, even if some of them were pure fiction and others heavily embellished to make better headlines, he had clearly made the most of his youthful fame. There were still photographs of him with beautiful women, but these days no one was talking, and neither would she. Not even when, weeks later, after her finals were over, she’d had time to realise what was happening to her body and two pink lines had changed her life for ever.

She hadn’t talked and she couldn’t call Kit.

The news had been full of the start of the single-handed round-the-world yacht race, or maybe that was all she had been noticing because Kit was the skipper that every camera had been watching, the man already making the headlines after rumours that his entry had caused a rift with his family.

Calling him on the satellite link would have been a very public way to inform him that he was about to become a father. While the headlines would have cheered a newspaper man’s heart and set Twitter alight, the trolls would have been out in force. She would have been mobbed by the press, her poor grandmother would have been under siege, and she would have had to go into hiding.

It had given her plenty of time to think. Time for her heart to stop when, two months into the race, his radio had gone silent after a storm. She’d hugged her belly protectively during the ten long days before he’d been spotted by search aircraft.

The photographs had shown that his damaged mast had been lashed back into place and the pundits had speculated with sickening detail how he must have climbed in heavy seas to repair it.

Worse, he’d signalled that his communication equipment had been smashed in the storm that hit his mast, but he was okay and was continuing with the race.

He’d finally limped home after more than four months in third place. A great feat of sailing, according to the yachting community.

Eve hadn’t cared about the sailing or the press, she’d just been furious that he would recklessly endanger himself for a piece of silverware to stick on the mantelpiece.

Had he no feelings for his family and what they must have gone through?

She knew all about recklessness. Her mother had taken risks and died; she would protect the precious little girl growing inside her from that kind of pain.

* * *

‘Kit? Where are you?’

‘Sorry, sis. The ferry was late but we should be with you in about thirty minutes.’

‘We could delay the start—’

‘No, dinner won’t wait so go ahead with the presentations. Lucy can speak after dinner before the serious bidding. How was Dad this evening?’

‘Furious. Frustrated at not being able to remember stuff. To walk properly. To say what he’s thinking.’

‘That’s probably a blessing.’

Laura laughed. ‘Undoubtedly, but he’s improving every day, even if the words aren’t in any dictionary, so stand back to have your ears blasted.’

* * *

‘Your grandmother and I used to come here all the time when we were growing up,’ Martha said. ‘Christmas parties, birthday treats, sailing. I missed her so much when she went off on her travels after college.’

‘I didn’t know Nana travelled. Where did she go?’

‘Spain, France, Italy, Ireland. There are photographs. You’ll find them as you sort through the cottage. Bring them over and I’ll tell you who everyone is.’ She sighed. ‘The itchy-feet gene runs deep in your family. Your mother was away to Africa on some research trip the moment the ink was dry on her degree, met your father and never really came home again.’

‘Nana wasn’t...’

‘Welcoming? Easy to live with?’ Martha finished for her. ‘She was such fun as a girl, but she was never the same after your grandfather died. We tried to involve her, but we didn’t understand so much about depression back then and we were all so busy with our own families.’ She shook her head. ‘But that’s not what kept your mother on the move. That’s who she was. I’ve never been further than Boston, which is why she asked me to be your godmother. She wanted someone grounded in your life.’

Eve struggled for something to say but Martha rescued her.

‘I thought you were going to follow in your parents’ footsteps, Eve. I seem to recall that you were studying zoology?’

‘I was.’ She had dreamed of returning to Africa, to the scent of hot earth when the rains came, the thunder of hoofbeats as a million wildebeest migrated across the plains, velvet-black skies filled with stars. ‘When I discovered I was pregnant I realised that fieldwork wasn’t going to be an option, at least not for me, so I forgot about my Masters and I took a teaching diploma.’

‘Pregnancy didn’t slow your mother down.’

‘She wasn’t alone, not until Dad left her, but I’d never send Hannah to boarding school.’

Martha reached out and took her hand. ‘Her death was such a tragedy. I hope your little girl gives you some comfort.’

‘She is a gift, Martha. My joy.’

‘Well, let’s hope this visit will be as blessed,’ Martha said, innocently.

Eve realised that she’d underestimated her godmother’s capacity for mental arithmetic, but she’d been away on a fishing trip when Eve had met Kit that summer. Martha might have put her swift departure together with Hannah’s birthday and come up with a theory about where and when, but that was all it was. There was no way she could be certain that Hannah had been conceived on the island.

‘People are beginning to sit down,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘Shall we go and find our table?’

Martha knew everyone at their table, mostly couples of her own generation who greeted her warmly before quietening to listen to Barbara Merchant welcome them and introduce the auction.

She had the same colouring as Kit, Eve thought; the same sun-streaked hair, the same vivid blue eyes. Lost in memories of that night, she heard little of her introduction to the cause for which the auction was being held.

‘Let’s go and check out the trips,’ Martha said, when she was done.

Monitors showed film of the trips on offer at Merchant resorts and some of their partners, in fabulous locations.

There was whale watching off the west coast, trips to Europe—vineyards in France, culture in Italy, golfing and fishing in Scotland—but it was the last one, the wildlife safari, that brought a gasp to Eve’s lips.

The Nymba Safari Lodge had been built high amongst the trees with viewing platforms where you could watch animals in a landscape that was painfully familiar. There was a glimpse of a giraffe at sunset, forelegs spreadeagled as it drank at the oxbow lake. There was the dusty green bark of fever trees, a family of warthogs snuffling through the grass.

‘Eve?’

‘Nymba... It was our home,’ she said. ‘It’s where we lived...’

The cover of the brochure for the safari trip had a photograph of a mama elephant, trunk curled protectively around her calf, and Eve picked it up, instinctively hugging it to her.

Nymba...

It was what her mother had called their boma. The word meant home and for just a moment she could hear her mother’s voice as she’d given her a hug before putting a small grey velvet elephant in her arms and sending her off to school.

‘This little elephant’s trunk is my arm, Evie. Hold onto it when you’re lost...put it around you when you need a hug...’

She wished she could wind the clock back to those last few weeks with her.

‘Excuse me? Can I get in there?’

The woman waited for her to move and Eve stepped back, forcing a smile as she turned to Martha.

‘There are some really exciting trips on offer. Have you seen anything you like?’ she asked.

‘I was hoping for something a little more relaxing than zip-lining through a rainforest,’ she said, ‘but this one could have been made for you. Your grandmother left you some money and you could do with a break.’

‘That’s rainy-day money and, anyway, Hannah is too young to come with me.’

‘The rule with an inheritance is to give ten per cent, save ten per cent and spend the rest,’ Martha said. ‘Serendipitously, if you were to make a winning bid for the safari, you’d be economising by giving and spending at the same time.’

Eve laughed at her logic but shook her head. ‘Good try, but I couldn’t leave Hannah.’

‘It’s only for ten days. I don’t imagine you took her to lectures with you when she was a baby? Teaching practice?’

‘Well, no. Obviously. She is in a wonderful day nursery, but I’ve never left her at night. She’d miss me.’ And she knew everything there was to know about missing your mother.

‘Mary would love to have her stay and Hannah would have a great time with her cousins.’

‘You’re very free with your daughter’s hospitality.’

But Eve knew her godmother was right.

Mary was one of those women who wrapped you up in a hug and instantly made the world seem a better place. Older, she’d been married and living in New York when Eve’s mother had died, or things might have been very different.

Now she and her husband were back on the island with their three children and a menagerie of pets, and Hannah adored, and was adored by, all of them. Every sentence seemed to begin with Cara and Jason and Lacey...

‘Okay,’ she admitted. ‘I’d miss her.’ Putting an end to the discussion, she turned to a rail journey across the US. ‘This hits the less strenuous requirement,’ she said. ‘Or how about this camel trek across the desert? Camping out under the stars. You might meet a dark-eyed sheikh. Very romantic.’

‘There is nothing in the least bit romantic about camels, Eve. They spit.’

‘Okay... Is there anything here that you do fancy?’

‘I’m rather taken with the idea of sailing down the Adriatic from Venice to the Greek islands in that classic nineteenth-century sailing yacht, and if Kit Merchant happened to be at the helm there would always be something attractive to look at.’

Eve felt her cheeks heat at the mention of his name. ‘Isn’t he estranged from his family?’

‘There was a big row three or four years ago. Christopher didn’t want him to take part in the round-the-world race. He said it was time to stop playing and concentrate on the business.’

‘Sailing is his life.’

‘The resort is his father’s.’

Eve had to clear her throat, stop herself from looking around, although she suddenly felt as if she had a great big sign on her back saying ‘HERE’ before she could manage a bright, ‘Maybe a brush with death will soften his father’s attitude.’

‘Maybe. Ah, now this is the one I’ve been looking for.’ Martha picked up a pen, wrote her name and a substantial bid for a vacation at the Merchant Spa in Phuket. Then she held out the pen. ‘Your turn.’

Eve looked back at the African trip.

‘Just to show my support,’ she said, raising a fairly modest bid that someone had already made.

She had only just put down the pen when a man picked it up and outbid her.

Martha had met someone she knew and, while she was talking, Eve checked by how much she’d been outbid. Five hundred dollars... It was still ridiculously cheap, and she placed another bid.

Just to help push up the price.

She straightened to find Martha, thoughtful, watching and guiltily put down the pen. ‘It’s going to go much higher.’

‘They’re starting to serve dinner,’ she said. ‘We should go back to our table.’

As they moved away someone else stepped up to make another bid. As Eve smothered a squeak of protest, Martha took her arm.

‘Leave it until after dinner when we know what we’re up against.’

‘Yes... No!’ Realising how quickly she’d been sucked in, she said, ‘Wow, that’s dangerous.’

‘The trick is to decide on your top bid and not to get carried away. Well, not too much,’ Martha added, smiling.

‘Oh, no, I’m done,’ Eve declared, but she couldn’t stop herself from looking back, fingers twitching.

CHAPTER TWO

THE FOOD WAS EXCELLENT, the company—if more her godmother’s generation than her own—was interesting and the wine flowed freely enough that she was pleasantly relaxed by the time Barbara Merchant returned to the stage.

‘Hi, yes, sorry it’s me again but this is a charity dinner and you all knew you’d have to dig deep, right? Has everyone bought raffle tickets?’ There was a murmur from the room and she said, ‘Well, buy some more! We’ll be drawing some amazing prizes very soon.’ She paused a moment for the laughter to die down, then said, ‘Before you all rush to spend money on a good cause, and to tell you why this fundraiser is so important, I’d like you to welcome my son, Kit, who, after his father’s stroke, has come home to give us all his support.’

Eve was only half listening, her thoughts focussed on the past, and, not sure she’d heard right, she turned to look and there he was, standing beside his mother.

‘Kit?’

The word was little more than a whisper but Martha leaned over and said, ‘Word is that he’s resigned as skipper of the Cup team.’

Before she could take that in, Barbara Merchant said, ‘I’ll leave Kit to introduce his friend and fellow sailor who has come all the way from New Zealand to tell you why this clinic is so desperately needed.’

This couldn’t be happening. She’d checked the team’s blog before she left for Nantucket, just to be sure. There had been a photograph of him, taken less than a month ago, at the helm of the new yacht he and his team were putting through its paces in the Southern Ocean.

Even as her mind was rejecting the possibility that he was not simply in Nantucket but in this very room, Kit Merchant’s low, baritone voice reached out across the space and touched her like a lover’s caress.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, friends...’

For a moment Eve couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move...

And then the reality of his mother’s introduction, Martha’s whispered comment, sank in. This wasn’t a flying visit, Kit was back, if not for good, then for the foreseeable future.

‘My mother has already thanked our generous partners throughout the world who have joined Merchant Resorts to offer thrilling, one-off experiences for this auction, but events such as this do not organise themselves...’

Every cell in her body was warning her to keep absolutely still; she was afraid that any movement would attract his attention, draw his gaze in her direction.

And then what?

From that distance all he would see was a badly dressed woman with mousy hair. The kind of woman who wouldn’t hold his attention for a second.

She’d seen his face on a hundred magazine covers in the years since their encounter on the beach. She knew the exact shade of blue of his eyes, knew each line weathered into his face by sun, saltwater and wind, the shape of the close-trimmed beard that he’d grown. She knew the way his thick, sun-streaked hair stuck up as if he’d just dragged his hand through it. As if she had just dragged her hand through it.

It had been just one night, but she could still feel the soft thickness of it beneath her own fingers, still knew the taste of his lips, the sweet murmur of his voice, the scent of sharp, clean sweat on his skin.

‘...thank those of you who have given your time to help my mother and sister organise this amazing auction.’

She wanted to slide from her chair, curl up and hide beneath the table but she was frozen, unable to look away as, oblivious to her presence, he was turning to the lovely young woman standing beside him.

‘Before you all rush to top up your bids,’ he said, ‘I want to introduce Lucy Grainger. Along with her brother Matt, she was a member of my crew. Matt was my first mate, my best mate, a friend, a brother from a different mother, who died last year. This auction is because of his death...’

As he stepped back Kit’s eyes swept the room and for a moment, one brief shocking moment, they came to rest on her.

It was as if he could see through the brown dye to the red curls desperately trying to burst out of the clamped-down chignon. As if he could see through the boring dress to the body that she had once, desperately, thrown at him and which he had caught so deftly.

Relief came as he stepped back to leave Lucy in the spotlight and, as if released from some unseen force field, her breath could finally escape, allowing her body to sag as the tension left her.

‘Eve? Are you okay?’ Martha whispered.

‘I’m a bit warm. The wine...’ She shook her head when Martha suggested some fresh air, not wanting to draw attention to herself. She could slip away as soon as everyone made a move. ‘I’ll be fine.’

She sipped a glass of water as the young woman told the audience about her brother, Matt, a gifted international yachtsman like Kit, who’d hidden an injury so that he could continue competing and, as a result, had become addicted to painkillers. First prescription and then later, when they stopped working, to stronger and stronger drugs bought on the Internet and finally from the streets.

She was young, beautiful, there were tears in her eyes as she spoke of his kindness, his talent, and when she’d finished speaking Kit put his arms around her and held her, giving her a moment to recover before leading her from the stage.

She’d seen photographs of him with a dozen beautiful women, but this was different. There was a tenderness here that had been lacking in those posed shots. This girl was different.

It shouldn’t matter.

He’d been her comfort in a bleak moment, in the wrong place at the wrong time. It wasn’t just his recklessness, a complete disregard for his life, that had stopped her from calling him.

It had been a magical evening, a precious moment in a dark time, and she hadn’t wanted to destroy that memory. It wasn’t as if he was going to say, my bad, our child needs a father, marry me. No one did that any more and she’d read about too many cases in which the rich and famous had defended paternity suits through the courts, with every sordid detail aired for the world to salivate over.

She hadn’t needed his money.

She’d had the London flat and divorce settlement, left to her in her mother’s will. She’d had a career—science teachers were in short supply and she would never be short of a job. She and Hannah would be fine.

She’d thought it would be easy. She’d thought she would never see him again.

But there he was.

And it did matter.

‘Give me a hand up, Eve,’ Martha said. ‘I’ve sat too long and seized up, but I’m determined not to be outbid.’

Grabbing the chance to escape, she said, ‘Would you like me to bid for you?’

‘And miss all the fun? Come on. Let’s see how we’re doing.’

There were more people around the bidding forms now, checking to see if they were in with a chance, making last-minute bids. Martha pulled a face and went higher.

‘Is that your limit?’ Eve asked, hoping to get away.

‘My limit and more,’ she admitted. ‘Come on. It’s your turn.’

There were half a dozen bids after hers and while she was looking up at the display someone took it up another two hundred and fifty dollars.

Nymba...

Home.

As she hesitated, torn between longing and reality, there was a movement at the far end of the table as Kit and Lucy arrived to chat to the bidders. There was a crush behind her and, boxed in, unable to escape, she took the pen that Martha was offering her and bent over the form, keeping her head down as she slowly wrote a fresh bid.

Behind her someone began to complain that she was taking too long, dragging it out to stop anyone else bidding. As if...

She surrendered the pen, but her apology was brushed aside as the man pushed past her. Taking a swift step back, she caught her heel in her hem and, stumbling, flung out an arm, groping for something to grab onto and stop herself from falling. There was nothing, she was going down, but then, out of nowhere, a hand grasped hers, catching her, steadying her.

She didn’t have to look to see who had saved her. It was a hand she knew. A callused hand that had scraped over sensitive skin, waking up hitherto unexperienced heights of pleasure and, for a few brief hours, blocking all pain.

For a heartbeat that hand was all that was holding her up, but then a bell was rung for the end of the auction, jolting her back to reality and, as a cheer went up, she recovered her balance.

Keeping her head down, she muttered a hoarse, ‘Thank you...’

No one heard. Kit had been enveloped in hugs, Martha was with friends and, finally, she was able to slip away.

* * *

Kit felt the woman’s hand slip from his grasp in the crush but before he could go after her, make sure she was all right, he was being hugged by someone overjoyed at having made the winning bid for a trip.

He caught sight of her as she hurried away, presumably one of the unlucky ones who’d missed out at the last minute. Relieved that she was okay, he surrendered to the moment, congratulating the winners, all the while unable to shake the feeling that he’d seen something this evening, heard something. Missed something.

‘Kit. It’s good to see you, although not in these circumstances. How is your father?’

Martha Adams was one of his grandmother’s oldest friends and he kissed her cheeks, introducing her to Lucy before answering her question.

‘Frustrated. He’s desperately trying to issue orders, but the words are eluding him.’

‘The speech will come back, but it takes time. I imagine your mother has her hands full.’

‘She’s more than a match for him.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. And how about you? How are you coping?’

‘Brad is doing a great job and Laura is home, helping out. I’m trying to help but if I’m honest I’m just getting in everyone’s way.’ Getting in his brother’s way. While he’d been chasing trophies, Brad had stepped into his shoes, buckling down to learn the business. Now his brother was convinced that Kit had returned to grab back his rightful place. ‘Did you bid on anything tonight, ma’am?’

‘I did,’ she said. ‘I’m going to your spa in Phuket and I couldn’t be more excited. Have you been there?’

‘I stopped over a couple of years ago when I was racing in that part of the world. It’s beautiful and the staff are amazing. You’ll have a wonderful time.’

* * *

Eve was sitting in the shadows on the terrace when Martha carefully lowered herself into the chair beside her with a contented sigh.

‘I’m sorry to run out on you at the last moment, Martha,’ she apologised. ‘Did you win?’

‘I did, thank you, but I saw that man push you out of the way. So rude. Are you all right?’

‘The only harm was the hem of my dress and I’m sure you’d say that was a win. I just needed some fresh air.’

‘Then you’d better take a big breath.’ Martha handed her the folder she was holding. ‘We’re both going on a dream trip. You’re going on safari.’

‘What?’ Eve’s head was still reeling from the impact of the encounter with Kit. How close she’d come to being face-to-face with him and uncertain which would have been worse: the shock of recognition or the polite expression of a man who was being kind to a total stranger. ‘No...’ She was holding the glossy brochure, looking down at a photograph of the elephant and her baby. ‘This can’t be right. There was another bid. Right at the last moment...’