Extract
ANNA GRAY CLASPED her coffee cup in both hands, stepped gingerly out onto the creaking veranda and stared around in dismay. The island resort had looked charmingly ramshackle in the purple of twilight when she’d first arrived last night, but daylight revealed a very different picture. The low, white bungalows dotted around, each in its own private grove, should have made a beautiful scene, but even the mellow sun of an early May morning couldn’t paint La Isla Marina in flattering colours.
From her vantage point Anna could see all around right to the very tip of the island. The administrative buildings, including her mother’s living quarters, were here at the palatial villa that marked the island’s centre point, the swimming pools, tennis courts and relaxation areas all interspersed amongst the bungalows. If she stood on her tiptoes, Anna could just see the deep blue of the sea and the friendly waving of the palms that marked the beach boundaries. It was all so very nearly idyllic.
Very nearly... Until she looked a little closer and saw the reality behind the charm; the paint peeling off the whitewashed bungalows, the green shutters battered and hanging at odd angles. La Isla Marina was known for its lush greenery and profusion of flowers, but right now it resembled a jungle, not an upmarket resort. What had happened? True, everything had been a little faded when she was last here for her abuelo’s funeral three years ago, but the hotel had still been recognisable as the idyllic magical place where she had run free every childhood summer.
The old familiar guilt prickled through her. She knew how disorganised her mother was, she should have foreseen this, not needed a tearful phone call begging her to come and help out.
The guilt intensified. It wasn’t the unusual panic in her mother’s voice that had persuaded her, it was Anna’s own need for an escape, for time to think. If she hadn’t been nearing crisis point would she have stayed in Oxford and allowed her mother to struggle on alone? She knew the answer to that. Every time they spoke her mother asked when she’d have time to come and visit, and Anna always found an excuse to put her off. Visiting La Isla Marina knowing neither grandparent would be there to greet her had been too hard to contemplate—and it wasn’t as if she and Sancia were close. Nor, she knew, did Sancia have any intention of making an effort to come and visit Anna.
No, she’d responded to her mother’s pleas for her own selfish reasons, thinking a few weeks of relaxing in the sun, away from the pressures of Oxford, were just what she needed. Her heart sank as she looked around at the wild and untamed bushes. Relaxing was the last thing she was going to be able to do.
‘Good morning, querida, how did you sleep?’
Anna turned at the sound of her mother’s voice. ‘Great, thanks. I was tired after my journey.’ She eyed her mother critically, noting the extra grey threading through Sancia Garcia’s thick dark mane, the lines around her mother’s eyes, lines which hadn’t been there three years before. ‘How are you?’
‘Everything is wonderful.’ Anna stiffened as her mother flung her arms around her, pulling her in close. ‘I’m glad you’re here, querida. It’s been too long.’
‘Yes, well...’ Stepping back, Anna attempted to extract both herself and her miraculously unspilt coffee. ‘I’ve been busy, you know. With the book and teaching... What’s happened, Mama?’
‘Happened?’
Anna bit down on her irritation as her mother looked vaguely around the resort. This was how Sancia Garcia operated, floating through the world in a time and space of her own. She’d never seen why her daughters needed to be at school on time, or even why they needed to attend school if the sun was shining, why dinner should be planned and at a set time, the point of timetables. Anna hadn’t yet turned ten when she realised that if they were to be like other families she needed to take charge, to be responsible for both herself and her sister, Rosa. Her chest tightened. Nothing had changed; she was a fool to hope it ever would.
Sancia had even managed to separate from her husband in such a slow, dreamy way it almost seemed unintentional. And she never panicked, which was why her call for help was so out of character. Why Anna had booked the next flight over, leaving her father, her responsibilities, her teaching behind in Oxford. Not that Sancia seemed even slightly stressed now. Anna’s grip tightened even more, the heat from the cup almost scalding her; no doubt as soon as Anna had shown up Sancia had thankfully abdicated all responsibility to her once again. ‘To the hotel, Mama. It doesn’t look like there’s been any upkeep at all for goodness knows how long. How did it get to this stage?’
Sancia shrugged. ‘You know Pedro retired when your abuelo died, then Bonita retired also and they both ran this place like clockwork. It’s been hard to get staff to replace them, people who care, who stay. And everything happens at once, querida, one light breaks then another, then a toilet then the swimming pool filters and I just can’t keep on top of it all.’
‘No wonder bookings are down.’ The real wonder was that anyone had booked to stay here at all. ‘Why didn’t you ask for help before?’
‘You’re so busy, you have your own life, Anna, as does your sister. I didn’t want to worry you. I knew something would turn up and it has. This wedding will fix everything.’ Her mother clasped her hands. ‘The money, the publicity! The glamour! We can restore La Isla Marina to the way it was when I was young, when your grandparents first built the resort.’
The wedding. The magical ingredient on which her mother was banking all her hopes. The wedding she had agreed to host in exactly one month’s time despite the island not being anywhere near ready. It would be bad enough, Anna thought, if this were any normal wedding. Only her mother would blithely take on the exclusive wedding of a supermodel and her millionaire fiancé. These people looked down on five-star luxury, and right now the island would barely scrape two stars.
‘We have a lot of work to do before then. No one is going to want to have their dream wedding here, especially not some Internet sensation who posts every detail of their life online.’ Anna looked behind her, peering through the half-opened door that led into the office. A career spent researching in libraries, a life of compiling footnotes and organising sources meant Anna had some pretty kickass admin skills. Her mother most likely needed budgets, accounting, marketing and day-to-day working rotas as soon as possible and Anna was just the girl to sort that out for her.
Of course there was the little question of fifty-two bungalows needing a lick of paint, a damn good clean and some DIY. Hopefully there was no need for Anna to get her hands dirty; DIY was not her forte. Luckily her sister was handy with a toolkit. ‘When is Rosa getting here?’ Anna’s stomach clenched apprehensively as she waited for her mother to reply. She hadn’t seen her sister in several years either, only in her case there weren’t any weekly phone calls, not even the odd tag on social media. If Sancia had mentioned earlier that she had also begged Rosa to come and help, would Anna have agreed to come too? The truth was she had no idea. Three years was a long time, but she hadn’t forgotten a single one of the bitter words she and her sister had exchanged back then. She wasn’t eager for a repeat performance.
‘As soon as she can. She’s on an important assignment, you know. She said she wouldn’t be able to get here in the next two weeks but she’ll do her best to get here as soon as possible after that.’
Anna compressed her lips. Of course, whatever Rosa chose to do was important as far as their mother was concerned. She was always far more impressed by Rosa’s unconventional approach to life than by Anna’s achievements and qualifications. At twenty-eight she should be too old to be hurt by her mother’s lack of interest in all Anna had worked so hard for. But Anna hadn’t been able to help noticing