The Cafe by the Sea Read online

  “I think it’s all going well,” said Flora. “I would propose carrying on with the pop-up—I mean the Café by the Sea. I think the girls can handle things there pretty well. Fintan can help out too.”

  “Can he?” said Colton, smirking a little.

  “You have to spend the rest of the summer just being visible, out and about, reasonable. Talk to the locals. Use local facilities. Enjoy the island. I think you’ll find everyone much more amenable by September. This is really working out well.”

  Colton nodded.

  “Actually,” he said, “I’ve already asked Fintan to come work with me full-time. Didn’t he mention it?”

  Flora blinked. What?

  “No,” she said. “He didn’t say anything to me.”

  “Makes sense,” said Colton. “He could run the Rock’s catering for me. He’s got the skills; he’s got the feel. You saw what he did last night. He knows all the local suppliers.”

  Flora shook her head.

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “He can’t. He can’t leave the farm. He’s needed.”

  Colton shrugged.

  “That’s not really . . . I mean, I’ve already asked him.”

  “Oh my God,” she said. “But my dad. If he doesn’t have anyone to work the upper field, he’ll have to sell it. We can’t afford to hire anyone new. Everything will go to pieces . . .”

  She fell silent, thinking about how happy Fintan had been last night. How much he wanted—needed—to do this. And she knew too that she had absolutely no right to ask him to stay. Not after everything she’d done to the family. There would be no point in talking about loyalty now.

  “What’ll happen to your farm?”

  Flora frowned.

  “Well. These things . . . I mean, there have been MacKenzies farming there for God knows how long. But times change, I suppose. Dad’s getting too old for it now. Innes is distracted half the time with Agot, and Hamish, well. Not so hot on the management side of things. Might eat all the stock.”

  Colton looked out across the water. You could see the farmhouse quite clearly, its pale gray walls glinting in the early-morning sunlight.

  He leaned forward.

  “How much cheese does Fintan make again?”

  “Not enough for mass production,” gabbled Flora. “Apart from the cheese, there’s seaweed if you wanted it . . . dairy, obviously, some sheep . . . I mean, it’s just a farm.”

  Colton nodded thoughtfully.

  “It could,” he said, “I mean, it would solve a lot of my import problems and get me in with the community even more . . .”

  Flora looked at him, not sure what he was saying.

  Joel understood, though.

  “You’re not going to turn this into a conveyancing case.”

  Colton smiled.

  “Is that beneath my fancy London lawyer?”

  “Yes!” said Joel.

  Colton smiled even more.

  “Well, that makes it totally worth my while to do it.”

  “What do you mean?” said Flora.

  “Isn’t it obvious? I buy the farm. Your father can live there, no problem. Fintan works with me, those other boys help him with the cheese and butter and so on, and everything I need that can come from you comes from you. And this place”—he indicated the room they were sitting in with an expansive wave of his arm—“will become world famous!”

  Flora sat back.

  “Are you going to employ everyone on the island just to get the wind farm scheme abandoned?”

  “No, Flora,” said Colton crossly. “I want to employ you lot because you’re good.”

  Flora let out a long breath.

  “What? It’s clearly a win-win.”

  “Yes, well, you’re not the one who’d have to convince my father to sell his farm.”

  “He doesn’t have to move! He doesn’t have to go anywhere!”

  “It’s not about that.”

  Colton blinked.

  “I’ll offer a good price.”

  “It’s not about that either.” Flora strove to keep the annoyance out of her voice.

  “It’s certainly one solution, Colton,” said Joel. “Let’s talk it over. Right. I need to get back to London. Flora, you have to stay here until it’s settled.”

  Flora wanted to argue but didn’t dare. Instead she glanced out of the window.

  “Um, Joel . . . I don’t think you’ll be going back today.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Outside, the waves were up to the seawall, and the clouds were scudding ever faster.

  “They don’t land planes in this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “No ferries, nothing. The weather’s on.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Joel. “In Chicago they land in nine feet of snow.”

  “Yes,” said Flora. “Nice, fallen, calm snow. This isn’t like that. And they’re small planes too. I don’t think you’re getting home today.”

  “Of course I am,” said Joel.

  Just as he said this, there was a ripple and a short crackle, and the power went out.

  “What the hell?” said Joel.

  “It’s just a power cut,” said Flora carefully. “Happens all the time.”

  Joel glanced at his phone.

  “Which means the Wi-Fi has gone.”

  “Yup, the Wi-Fi’s gone.”

  Joel swore at some considerable length.

  “But there’s the Foulkes deposition. The case is coming up. I was literally meant to be here for one night. And the Arnold convention. I absolutely don’t have time for this.”

  “I was surprised you came,” said Colton.

  Joel grimaced. Not as surprised as he’d been.

  “Yes, but now I have to go.”

  Flora and Colton looked at each other.

  “Well, I don’t know what to do about that,” Colton said.

  “Oh God,” said Flora. “And the boys have gone. They’ve got cattle on a plane, they’ve headed to the mainland. They’ll be having a terrible time of it.”

  There was another huge crack of thunder.

  “I’m stuck here?” said Joel.

  “Can we take one of your cars?” said Flora to Colton. “Drive back to the village?”

  “Ah,” said Colton. “Actually, they’ve all been put in the underground storage unit for safekeeping.”

  “The what?”

  Colton looked embarrassed.

  “Well, salt spray is bad for the paintwork.”

  “You must have kept out a Range Rover . . . something, surely?”

  “The thing is, it’s an Overfinch?”

  Flora didn’t know what that was but she recognized the tone of voice that indicated he wasn’t remotely interested in putting a vehicle at their service.

  “COLTON!” said Flora. “Seriously, have you ever lived here in the winter?”

  Colton looked embarrassed.

  “If you want to be one of us, if you want to truly belong . . .” Flora stood up, her eyes flashing. “If you want us to give up our livelihoods, work for you, cook for you, stand with you, you have to commit. You have to be with us. You can’t just cherry-pick the pretty days. We have to be together, or we have nothing.”

  She realized belatedly that she was trembling, and that both men were staring at her. She swallowed. This was not the kind of thing she’d ever done in her professional life before.

  “Uh,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  Colton shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “I see. I think I do.”

  Joel was still just looking at her.

  There came a shout from outside. It was Bertie Cooper, warning them that if they wanted to get back over, they had to do it now. He was having enormous trouble keeping the boat steady, even just in the narrow channel they had to cross.

  “We’d better go,” said Flora. “I know it doesn’t look far, but we lose boats out here all the time. You can wreck-dive to your heart’s c
ontent down there. Everyone in full view of the shore, and no way to save them. Never has been.”

  “COME ON!” came Bertie’s voice. “I’m leaving! I’m leaving now!”

  The triple-glazed windows of the Rock had kept out the howl of the crashing summer storm, but once they were outside, they felt it. You couldn’t speak, couldn’t hear anything at all: the pounding of the waves and the huge shriek of the wind were all-encompassing. Colton marched on ahead—he refused to let them go alone—and Flora followed in his slipstream. On the jetty, she slipped suddenly, losing her footing. Before she knew it, Joel was there, grabbing her, holding her up, and she lost her breath and tried to thank him. He kept hold of her, kept hold of her elbow as he steered her toward the boat, and she felt his strong grip on her arm and was comforted.

  The short crossing was awful. The boat pushed up and down, fighting them every step of the way. The motor kept giving out and Bertie nodded at them to bail in the back. Joel’s clothes were completely soaked. Their eyes were stinging, and Flora’s hair was flying round her head like a wild thing. Joel turned his head to her, midcrossing, as she stopped bailing for a moment and craned her neck to see how far they had to go to reach the land, and suddenly, with the water pouring in and the spray hanging in the air all around them, she looked like something from the depths: a nymph or a naiad.

  She caught him looking at her and guessed he was worried.

  “It’s okay,” she lied. “I’ve been in worse than this.” And he shook his head and took off his glasses, which he could no longer see through, and Flora looked at his beautiful dark brown eyes, then forced herself to turn back to watch the shore, as Bertie cursed and flushed the water out once more from the drenched engine. Finally, as the boat started to list alarmingly, and even Colton was looking concerned, and several people had come to their doorways to watch them, finally, soaked through and teeth chattering, they struggled to shore.

  They were very relieved when Andy the barman came out of the Harbor’s Rest with blankets for them all. Flora took one gratefully, as well as one of the hot toddies he appeared with next. He ushered them into the bar.

  There was a huge commotion suddenly and an enormous woofing was heard. Flora glanced around in consternation as a wet, hairy Bramble threw himself up against her, desperately pleased to see her, panting and wuffing with excitement. Flora was happy to kneel down and bury her head in the dog’s damp shoulder. She’d been much more frightened out on the sea than she’d let on. Joel and Colton, she suspected, hadn’t realized how much danger they were in—after all, it didn’t look terribly far. But every Mure child knew. She glanced at Bertie, who had gulped his hot toddy and was lifting up his second with trembling fingers, and he nodded back at her.

  “Nobody else is out there today, are they?” she said.

  Bertie shook his head.

  “Nope, that’s it. No ferries, nothing.”

  Joel looked down.

  “Christ,” he said. “I don’t have more dry clothes.”

  He had stared at the bag of outdoor gear Margo had bought him for the longest time before concluding, regretfully, that it wasn’t for him, that he wasn’t going to pretend he belonged up here when he knew, deep down, that he didn’t belong anywhere.

  He’d been about to throw it out, then had wondered what Flora would have thought about that and instead asked Inge-Britt if she knew of anywhere to donate it. Inge-Britt had promptly handed it over to Charlie and Jan.

  He regretted this now.

  “I thought I was going home this afternoon.”

  “Nae ferries nor planes noo,” said Bertie, and Joel got enough of his drift to nod. He glanced down. His expensive trousers were wringing wet.

  “Ah,” he said.

  “I’ve got clothes you can borrow,” said Colton. “But we’d have to get back there. Also, if the power’s off, my electronic closet isn’t going to work.”

  “Colton!” said Flora, shaking her head and starting to giggle, mostly from relief.

  As if in answer, the rain battered hard against the windowpanes of the pub. Some of it was rain, right enough, and some of it was seawater from the waves coming clear across the harbor wall and hitting the glass.

  “Maybe in a little while,” Colton said.

  “I’ve got something,” said the barman, going into the back of the building and bringing out a huge boiler suit. Colton and Joel looked at each other.

  “Of course you have to take it,” said Joel. “You’re the client.”

  “What are you going to do?” said Colton.

  “I have to head back,” said Flora, who didn’t really like the idea of leaving the cozy bar—it was growing more and more crowded, with folk caught in the storm looking for shelter and deciding they might as well have a snifter if they were passing, and the windows were starting to steam up. “I’ll bring you back something of the boys’ if you like. Though not a kilt,” she added.

  Joel glanced around the bar, torn. Then he looked into her face. Her hair was coiled around her neck, her eyes like passing clouds.

  “Okay,” he said.

  Bramble headed cheerfully for the door. Flora opened it and the gale howled in at what felt like a hundred miles an hour. Bramble cowered back.

  “No, come on, pup,” she said, bowing her face against the wind. “We can do it.”

  “Are you sure?” said Colton. “You’ll catch your death.”

  She turned round and shook her head.

  “It’s fine,” she said. “This is my home.”

  And she vanished with the wind, out into the whiteness of the churning sky and spray, as if she were a part of it.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Joel stood there looking at the closed door. Colton stared at him.

  “I’d follow her,” he said simply. “That’s not a professional opinion, by the way. Those damn MacKenzies.”

  Joel didn’t even hear him.

  Every instinct told him to stay put, to fold himself up, to do things as he’d always done them. The wind banged the door. Outside was a white maelstrom, a mystery, a pure and perfect storm.

  He hesitated. Colton had turned away. Nobody else was looking at him. The bar was crowded with villagers, but no one was paying him any attention.

  He was thirty-five years old. He thought about his instinct to run after her on the beach, to pull her out of the crowd at the dance. He thought of everything he had to lose, the complications of life.

  Even though, up here, things felt so much simpler.

  He wanted . . . What did he want?

  He wanted to go home. He didn’t know where that was. He glanced once more around the bar. Then he crashed out of the door.

  “Wait!” he shouted. “Wait, Flora, I’m coming. Wait for me!”

  The shock of the air took his breath away. It was almost impossible to believe he was in temperate, damp, muggy Britain. It was like being slapped in the face.

  “FLORA!”

  The wind whipped his words away. He glanced around through the rain and could just about see Bramble’s tail, still wagging, as it disappeared up the track at the far end of the harbor.

  “Wait!”

  He tore after her, cold and weather forgotten as his expensive shoes splashed through deep muddy puddles, as his glasses became completely useless once more and he had to take them off and stick them in his pocket, rendering the world even fuzzier and less defined than before, a world where sea and sky had completely merged—had possibly always been merged—with nothing but the thinnest line on the horizon to separate them or tell them apart. In this great white watery world, he finally made himself heard, finally saw her turn around, that light hair, that startled look on her face as he caught up with her; and as she saw him looking such a mess, so unlike his normal composed, organized, in-control self, his hair plastered down on his head, and water pouring down his neck, and his shirt completely see-through, Flora couldn’t help it: she burst out laughing.

  And Joel looked at the sky
and thought of all the work he had to do and everything that was late and how many billable hours he wasn’t putting in and what kind of ridiculous set of circumstances had led him to this, and wondered whether he had the faintest idea about what he was getting into, and whether he gave a rat’s ass about that anyway, and decided that he didn’t. And he found he was laughing too; and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that, and thought maybe he never had.

  And Flora ran on, through the rain and the wind, the laughter punching the breath from her lungs as he pursued her, and Bramble barked joyously and jumped in and out of puddles on purpose, and they finally scrambled up and through the gate, Flora more soaked than she’d ever been in her entire life, and the farmyard was empty; there was nobody there but them, and the cows and the chickens, with everyone else on the mainland.

  Flora collapsed against the heavy old wooden farmhouse door, underneath the ancient lintel, panting and utterly out of breath from the exertion, the storm, and the laughter, closely followed by Joel, running up behind her, and she knew, immediately, instinctively, what was going to happen; regardless of Inge-Britt—and all the other Inge-Britts—despite Charlie, despite everything her friends had said. Even as she was still giggling helplessly about how sodden and ridiculous they were, how absurd everything was; even as she was still laughing, he had fallen on her lips and was kissing her furiously, frenziedly hard, and she was kissing him back the same, and neither of them could breathe, until there was no breath left in them, and the tiny door Charlie had unlocked unleashed a torrent.

  Chapter Forty

  Joel felt like he was kissing a mermaid, something from the sea. Her long, damp body pressed up against him felt absolutely astonishing, but they were both starting to shiver, from cold, and from excitement too. Flora opened the latch on the door behind her and they fell into the cozy, scented kitchen, the Aga warm, the fire still glowing in the range. Bramble shot in behind them and dumped himself in the prime spot right in front of the stove, shaking himself out madly, but Flora and Joel were oblivious.

  Flora immediately started undoing the buttons on Joel’s shirt, pulling him over to the warmth of the fire. She thought about stopping herself, in her crazed hysteria, but then he drew her closer to him, his own fingers fumbling, and she knew that he wanted her just as much as she wanted him, and was overwhelmed.