Fiona Harper - Best of Fiona Harper

It was almost a shame that everything was over and they’d be flying back tomorrow. At least she assumed it was tomorrow. If Mark had told her the time of the flight, she’d already lost that bit of information in the maze of her brain.

Looking down the steep hill and out to sea, she asked, ‘What time do we need to get to the airport tomorrow?’

Mark didn’t answer right away, and eventually she stopped looking at the stupendous view and turned to face him.

‘Mark?’

He looked away, studying the scenery through the windscreen. ‘Actually, I’d planned to take a break—stay on for a few more days.’

Oh.

That meant she’d be going home alone. Suddenly all the hours of flying she’d be doing seemed a lot emptier. She nodded, following Mark’s lead and looking straight ahead.

Mark cleared his throat. ‘And I wondered if maybe you wanted to stay on too? Have a holiday?’

Ellie found her voice was hoarse when it finally obliged and came out of her mouth. ‘With you? On our own?’

‘Yes.’

There was a long pause, and all the air that had been whipping past their faces, ruffling their hair, went still.

‘I’m not ready to go home yet,’ he added.

She glanced across at him, and her heart began to thud so hard she felt a little breathless. He didn’t look like the normal, cocky Mark Wilder she knew at all. He looked serious and honest and just a little lost.

She had to look away. Scared that she might be imagining all the things she could see in his eyes. Scared this was just another impulse or trick her brain was playing on her.

‘Neither am I,’ she said softly.

And then the air began to move around them again. They both breathed out at the same time. After a few moments something tickled Ellie’s hand. She didn’t look, not wanting to spoil anything. And as Mark’s fingers wound themselves round hers she felt something hard inside her melt.

The Jeep climbed higher and higher, the road twisting and turning, and the lush banana trees and palms gave way to scrub and cacti. Now she could see down into the harbour, dotted with the white triangles of hundreds of yachts, and somewhere in the distance she could hear the unmistakable sound of a steel band.

Moments later the Jeep swung round a corner and was parked not far from a few old military buildings, obviously left over from the days of British rule. Reluctantly she let Mark’s hand slide from hers as he jumped out of the Jeep and then came round to her side to help her out. They left the Jeep behind and walked towards a huddled group of buildings on the edge of a steep hill.

Unlike the other ruins they’d seen on this part of the island, these had been restored. A crowd was milling around in an open-air courtyard, bouncing along to the calypso music played by a band under a roofed shelter. Mark handed Ellie a plastic cup of bright red liquid. One sniff told her it was rather toxic rum punch, and she sipped it slowly as she swayed to the rounded notes of the steel drums.

Oh, this was better than fancy-pants cooking and business talk. This was just what she’d needed. She looked at Mark, who was sipping his own punch and smiling at her. How had he known?

‘Come on,’ he said, putting his cup down on a low wall and holding out his hand.

Ellie shook her head. ‘I’m a terrible dancer—really clumsy.’ Especially these days, when remembering her left from her right was a monumental effort.

‘Nobody cares,’ Mark said, nodding towards the more exuberant members of the crowd, who’d obviously been enjoying the punch and were flinging their arms and legs around with abandon. ‘You can’t look any worse than they do.’

She put her cup down too, laughing. ‘I can’t argue with that,’ she said, and he led her to the uneven dusty ground that served as a dance floor.

Ellie discovered that she loved dancing like this. There were no rules, no steps to remember; she just moved her body any way that felt right. And, unsurprisingly, that involved being in close contact with Mark. He hadn’t let go of her hand since he’d led her to the dance floor, and she gripped it firmly, determined not to let it slip from between her fingers again.

As they danced, Mark manoeuvred them further away from the main buildings and towards a low wall. After a rather nifty spin Ellie stopped in her tracks, causing Mark to bump softly into her.

‘Wow!’

‘Told you it was the best place on the island,’ Mark said, as Ellie just stared at the scene in front of her.

The view was stupendous. The sun was low on the horizon, and the undulating hills and coastline were drenched in soft, warm colours. Ellie recognised this view as the one they always stuck on the tourist brochures for Antigua. It had to be the most beautiful place in the whole world. She moved forward to rest her hands on the wall, unaware for a moment that Mark hadn’t moved away and that her back was being heated by his chest.

‘Will you take a photo of us?’

Ellie looked round to see a sweet young redhead with an English accent holding a camera hopefully towards her. She was standing with a lanky guy in long shorts and rather loud, touristy shirt.

She shrugged and smiled back. ‘Okay. Sure.’

The girl beamed at her, handed the camera over, then snuggled up to the violent shirt. ‘It’s our honeymoon,’ she explained, glancing adoringly at him.

‘Congratulations,’ Mark said from behind her, and Ellie became aware of a slow heat building where their bodies were still in contact.

‘You’ve had the same idea as us, I see,’ the girl babbled. ‘Get here early to get a good view of the sunset. It’s our last night and we’ve watched every one. We’re hoping we’ll get to see the green flash before we go home.’

Ellie held the camera up and snapped a picture of them grinning toothily at her.

‘Green flash?’ she said as she handed the camera back to the redhead.

‘It’s a rare sight,’ the woman said as she checked the photo on the screen and smiled. ‘Sometimes, when the last part of the sun dips into the sea, you can see a flash of green light as it disappears.’

Loud Shirt Guy nodded. ‘Atmospheric conditions have to be just right. It’s all to do with astronomical refraction and—’

His wife laid a hand on his arm and he stopped talking. ‘Don’t bore them with all that, darling,’ she said, laughing. Then she whispered behind her hand at Ellie, ‘Honestly, he’s a scientist, and sometimes he just doesn’t know when to stop.’

Ellie could feel Mark smiling behind her. Although how you could tell someone was smiling only by being in contact with their chest she wasn’t sure.

‘Anyway, we’re not watching it for the physics, are we, Anton?’

Anton shook his head, and got a misty look in his eyes. ‘Island folklore has it that couples who see it together are guaranteed true love.’

A pang of incredible sadness hit Ellie right from out of nowhere. This couple were so sweet. She remembered being that besotted with someone, sure she was going to have a long and happy future with him. She almost wanted to go and give them both a great big hug, to whisper in their ears never to take the time they had together for granted, never to waste even a second. Instead she smiled at them, feeling her eyes fill a little.

‘Well, I hope you see it—and congratulations again.’

They nodded their thanks and turned to watch the sun, now dipping dangerously close to the clean line of the ocean. More people were wandering over to watch the sunset and Mark tugged Ellie’s arm, leading her down a path, away from the crowd. The view wasn’t quite so breathtaking here, but it was framed by trees and she relished not being hemmed in by lots of people, free to feel all the emotions washing over her without being watched. Her fingers crept up to the locket round her neck and she stroked it as she watched the sun go down.

Somehow Mark had hold of her hand again, and he stood beside her, warming her with his mere presence.

Slowly the air grew thick and silence fell as everyone further up the path concentrated on the wavering orange disc that was now dipping itself into the horizon. Ellie didn’t move. She hardly dared breathe as she watched the sun inch its way down.

She hadn’t thought it possible, just a few short months ago, that she could love again. But here she was, watching the most mesmerising sunset she’d ever seen, with a man who had turned all her rigid expectations on their heads. But did he feel the same way? Was it even possible this was more than a passing attraction for him? She wanted to believe that the look she’d seen on his face in the car was the truth, but she just didn’t trust her instincts any more.

A wayward curl blew across her face and she brushed it away so she could stare harder at the setting sun. He was here with her now, and that was what mattered. Who said love lasted for ever, anyway? She knew better than most that you had to grab the moment while you could. Maybe it was time just to ‘go with the flow’, as Sam had always encouraged her—as she had been doing when she’d danced to the hypnotic calypso music. Maybe it was time to let life feel something other than small again, no matter what that meant. No matter if for ever wasn’t part of the package.

Mark leaned forward and whispered in her ear. ‘Look.’

The sun was almost gone now, the very last traces only just visible, and she’d been so busy daydreaming she’d almost missed it. Why was it so difficult to live in the moment and not get distracted by wounds of the past or fears for the future? She concentrated hard on the sun, knowing that capturing this moment for her memory banks was important somehow.

And then it happened.

Just as the orange lip of the sun disappeared there was a sizzle of emerald on the horizon. Ellie froze. It lasted only a second or two and then faded away. Mark was standing slightly to the side and behind her. She could hear his breathing, soft and shallow, in her right ear.

Then he began to move, and she moved too, turning to face him.

He looked at her for a long time, a solemn, almost sad expression on his face, and then, just as her mind started to go wild with questions, he leaned in close and kissed her, silencing them all.

Later that evening Ellie wandered on to her veranda alone. She leant on the criss-cross wooden railing and stared in amazement at the confusion of stars jostling for space in the midnight sky. Light from Mark’s cabin, a short distance through the gardens, was casting a faint glow on the waving palms, but there was no sign of him.

It had been a magical night—starting with that kiss.

By the time they’d returned the short distance up the trail from where they’d watched the sunset the sky had been a velvety dark blue, the sun long disappeared. They’d danced to the steel band, eaten sticky barbecue food with their fingers, and hadn’t been able to stop smiling at each other.

Her relationship with Mark had definitely crossed into new territory, but neither of them had brought the subject up, preferring just to live in the moment, rather than spoil it with words and theories.

She wasn’t just a fling to him.

The knowledge was there, deep down in her heart—in the same way she’d known after that first day of primary school that Sam’s life and hers would always be joined somehow.

There was something between them—her and Mark—something real. Only she didn’t have the words to describe it. And for the first time in a very long while the fact she couldn’t find the right word, couldn’t label something instantly, didn’t bother her in the slightest.