‘ARE YOU COLD, RED?’
Eve was shivering, but the Nantucket evening was balmy; the cold was coming from inside.
She’d been cajoled into joining this beach party by the older women in her family, who were worried about her and thought she needed to get out, assuring her kindly that some young company would ‘cheer her up’.
Her cousins, given no choice in the matter, had done their best to include her, but these teenagers had known one another all their lives. She was twenty-one, in her last year at university; they all seemed so young, and her novelty value as ‘the English cousin’ was outweighed by the awkwardness of the fact that her mother had just died.
Bit of a downer, that.
She’d taken pity on them, pleading a headache to move away from the music and the bonfire to sit in the quiet shadow of the dunes, welcoming the chance to be on her own for a while, without having family fussing around her. Counting down the time until her grandmother would be in bed and she could slip back into the house, so that she wouldn’t have to pretend to have had a good time.
So that her grandmother wouldn’t have to pretend to care.
The last thing she needed was for someone to hit on her.
‘If I lend you my sweater can I join your escape party?’ She managed to stuff the little soft elephant she’d been cradling for comfort out of sight in her bag but, before she could tell the guy to get lost, he had draped a soft cashmere sweater across her shoulders and flopped down beside her on the sand. The sweater smelled not of woodsmoke but of the sea and, as her body relaxed into its soft warmth, she didn’t shake it off but pulled it around her.
‘Hi,’ he said, offering a large, square hand. ‘I’m Kit.’ Years at an English boarding school had drummed in the automatic ‘politeness’ response but as she reached up to take it, her own name died in her throat.
She might only be an occasional summer visitor to her mother’s birthplace, but everyone knew Kit Merchant. An island legend, he’d been a teenager when he’d brought home sailing gold from London and had been collecting trophies ever since.
Now in his mid-twenties, he was too old, and a lot too glamorous, to be hanging out at a teenage beach party.
‘This isn’t a party,’ she said, but curiosity beat her irritation that he’d called her Red. Her hair, a gift from her mother’s Scottish ancestors, had been an unending source of nicknames ever since she’d gone to school and it had got old. ‘What are you escaping from?’
Without taking his eyes off her, or letting go of her hand, he waved in the general direction of the fun on the beach. ‘It’s my kid sister’s birthday and I’ve been appointed the responsible adult.’
‘Oh, bad luck.’
‘Not that bad if I can sit it out with you?’
He had to be kidding but the guy was not only a legend, he was over-the-top gorgeous from his tousled hair to his long, bare feet. Suddenly, being on her own felt overrated.
‘Is that what a responsible adult would do?’ she asked.
‘I’ve given them the “no booze, no sex” talk and, since they were polite enough not to laugh, I thought I’d retreat to a safe distance so that they can enjoy themselves.’
The flames of the bonfire were reflected in his eyes, dancing off his cheeks, adding golden highlights to his sun-silvered hair and she felt warmed, not just by his sweater, but his smile.
‘In other words, no.’
‘My responsibility extends to all my sister’s guests, especially the ones sitting on their own looking sad. So, who are you? And why are you hiding out over here when you could be having fun drinking soda and toasting marshmallows?’
Despite the smile, there was an edge to ‘having fun’ that suggested he was having a bad evening, too. That neither of them wanted to be here.
‘I hate soda,’ she said, ‘and my marshmallows always fall into the fire.’
Her name she kept to herself. Her mother’s memorial service had been all over the local papers and if she told him that she was Genevieve Bliss, the flirtatious mood would shatter.
It felt like a lifetime since she’d smiled, since she’d been treated with anything other than kid gloves, let alone flirted with and, choosing not to be that ‘poor girl’ whose mother had died of a fever in a Central American jungle, she took her cue from him.
‘Red is good enough and, like you, I’m too old for this party.’
He looked at her for a moment then with what might have been a shrug said, ‘In that case, Red, can I tempt you to a decent bottle of wine and I’m sure to have something a little more substantial than marshmallows in the fridge?’
‘You have a fridge?’ She lifted a disbelieving brow and he laughed.
‘I not only have a fridge,’ he said, ‘I have a cabin just down the beach.’
‘What about the party?’
He looked across at the young people sitting around in groups, chatting, drinking soda. One or two were dancing to music that reached them as little more than a bass beat. He hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘If they need me, they know where to find me.’
Could this be real? She was being invited by a world-famous yachtsman, a man whose face and ripped body had appeared on countless magazine covers, to have supper with him in a cabin on the beach?
Sensing her own hesitation, he said, ‘I’m not hitting on you, Scout’s honour.’
He sounded serious, but his eyes were telling a different story, his mouth was temptingly close and she was overwhelmed by a reckless need to be held, to be warm again.
‘How disappointing,’ she said, and his sweater