White Lies

‘Grackles.’

Mandy laughed—a gurgling chuckle that welled up from her great happiness. But, instead of smiling back at her as people usually did, Pascal remained neutral, as though he found her joy a little childish. She didn’t care. If she was unsophisticated, so be it. Right at this moment she could have hugged everyone in sight.

‘I’m going to buy some biscuits to feed the birds,’ she said contentedly. ‘They’re amazingly tame. I think I’ll spend quite a bit of my time on my deck. The view is stunning. I look across that valley to the hill,’ she said, waving expansively at the jungle. ‘I can see the ocean and the two mountains—Herbert, the minibus driver, said they were volcanic cones or something—’

‘The Pitons,’ provided Pascal lazily, his eyes as sharp as glinting knives.

‘Yes,’ she said, in a voice tinged with awe. ‘Aren’t they something? Two triangles—just like the mountains that kids draw! Herbert lives near them—can you imagine having that view every morning? We had a long chat. He showed me his family photos,’ she added softly, her eyes glowing at the memory of the man’s friendliness.

‘Herbert got chatty with you?’ he asked in a tone of mild surprise. ‘Herbert?’

‘Yes. Do you know him? I love talking to people, don’t you?’

Pascal lifted a hand and rubbed the nape of his neck thoughtfully, his brows angling to meet in a frown over his nose. ‘He’s wary of strangers.’

Mandy laughed again. ‘But you can’t sit next to someone for an hour and a half and remain strangers! I’m going to visit his family some time. Won’t that be lovely?’

‘Lovely,’ Pascal said faintly.

‘Oh,’ she said, remembering, ‘if that fits in with your father’s schedule, that is,’ she amended.

‘Do what you like.’ He paused, his mouth set in lines of barely concealed triumph. ‘Your time’s your own. He’s ill.’

‘Ill!’ The news brought her up sharp. ‘Oh, dear. Poor man.’

Pascal’s sky-blue eyes seemed to cloud briefly and then his expression became sunny again. Sunny...with clouds imminent, she thought apprehensively, because there was a reserve about the man’s manner which she couldn’t quite understand. And why the triumph?

‘He’s quite sick,’ he drawled with a mystifying relish.

‘I see,’ she said slowly. ‘What a shame! I was so looking forward to meeting him today.’ She put a hand to her head because it was still buzzing from the effects of the journey and she couldn’t think clearly. ‘I’m awfully sorry,’ she said sympathetically.

‘How kind. I’ll tell him. You look a little tired. You’d better sit down,’ Pascal said soothingly, taking her arm. ‘Come right under here, next to me. You’ll burn that tender skin if you don’t take proper cover. You don’t want to go home red-raw, do you?’

‘Er...no.’ Uncertainly she allowed herself to be drawn down to the soft, warm sand.

‘Drink?’ he asked politely, shifting into the full glare of the sun so that she could take all the shade.

‘Thanks. I’d love one. Something fruity and cold, please.’

‘Certainly. Simon will be along in a while, I expect.’

The worries were crowding back into her mind. ‘How ill?’ she asked anxiously, slipping off her shoes and wriggling her bare pink toes.

He gave the scuffed, much repaired condition of her shoes a detailed scrutiny and then looked sideways to meet her troubled gaze. ‘Too ill for you,’ he said softly.

She frowned. Either her imagination was running riot or he’d just been rude. ‘I am very sorry to hear that,’ she said sincerely, ignoring his lapse. ‘Anything serious?’

‘There’s always hope,’ Pascal said with a grave expression.

‘That ill?’ Mandy soberly sifted sand through her toes. ‘It sounds as if he won’t be able to see me for a while,’ she said a little tremulously.

‘If at all,’ agreed Pascal placidly.

‘No!’ Her hand fluttered to her mouth, his words throwing her into total confusion. And then she put aside her own needs and thought of the poor man, fighting some dreadful illness. ‘That’s terrible!’ she exclaimed in sympathy.

‘Isn’t it?’ Pascal’s eyes filled with silvery lights. ‘Father will be deeply touched by your concern.’

She bristled at the slicing edge of sarcasm. ‘I meant what I said,’ she said huffily. ‘You think I’m mouthing platitudes, but of course I’m sorry! I feel sympathy for anyone who’s ill.’

Pascal’s gold-tipped lashes swept down to veil his eyes. ‘How nice. Life has made my cynical.’

‘That’s a shame.’ But suddenly she wasn’t thinking about Pascal at all—or even his father. Her own troubles were looming too large. ‘It’s left me with a bit of a problem,’ she said slowly. ‘My air ticket has to be used by the eighteenth of February. That’s less than two weeks away. And your father only paid for my accommodation at Anse La Verdure till that date. What shall I do? I can’t possibly afford to stay any longer—’

‘Shame,’ he echoed insincerely.

Mandy stiffened and flushed at his mocking tone. He wasn’t exactly being helpful. Quite at a loss, she stared at the sand between them, watching a tiny crab laboriously hauling itself out of a hole and dumping a clawful of sand onto a small heap at the entrance. She sighed, identifying with the crab’s efforts. She’d been fighting her way out of holes for years. She looked closer. Or was the crab digging that hole for itself to shelter from the burning sun?

She lifted appealing eyes to Pascal’s amused face. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she confided.

‘Have that drink,’ he suggested, either unaware of her distress or completely indifferent to it. A brief lift of his hand in the air seemed sufficient to bring Simon running, the young man’s bare feet kicking up small flurries of sand as he hurried over.

There was an exchange of friendly conversation in the strange local patois she’d heard several times already, before Simon went off convulsed with laughter at some teasing remark. For a moment Pascal looked rather nice—the sort of man she could confide in, who’d share a laugh and be jolly when life became tough—and she was glad that he wasn’t too cynical to be nice to Simon.

Emboldened, she reached out and touched his arm. ‘You will help me, won’t you?’ she said persuasively.

‘Of course,’ he said smoothly, giving the lie to the message in his frosty blue eyes. ‘I’ll give you the best advice I can,’ he assured her.

‘Please do!’ she said fervently. ‘I’ve no idea how to proceed.’

The lips smiled, the eyes didn’t. ‘I think,’ he said, with a regretful sigh, ‘that all you can do under the circumstances is to enjoy your holiday here at my father’s expense, go home on the eighteenth, and hope that he’ll arrange for you to come over again some time in the future.’ He creaked the smile a little further but the dimples didn’t appear.

Her pulses hammered like small drums. He wanted to get rid of her, she felt sure. But why? Trying to be generous, she decided that she might be posing a problem under the circumstances. It was more than likely that his father had left a backlog of work at his office. She knew from her days as an office worker that difficulties arose when a key member of staff was ill.

Maybe Pascal was involved in trying to lighten the load for his father’s firm—and she was just another problem that they wanted to shelve for the time being. There might be more pressing cases to deal with...like defending those clients charged with crimes, she thought vaguely. But her case was important too! No one knew how desperately she needed Pascal’s father. It was only fair to make that clear.

‘You’re right. What you suggest would be the sensible thing to do,’ she agreed reasonably, startled by the genuine and delighted grin that lit Pascal’s face. She smiled back ruefully, knowing that she’d blow his hopes of clearing her file from the in-tray. ‘However...and I can guess that this won’t be what you want...’ she said sympathetically, ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t possibly do what you suggest. I have to stay, somehow.’

He gave her a sharp look. ‘Why?’ he asked tightly.

She smiled gently at his determination to protect his father from extra worry. ‘I’m too close to my dream. To walk away from it, to risk losing the chance I’ve been given, fills me with horror. I can’t give up on this.’

‘You’d be wasting your time,’ said Pascal coldly.

She noticed that the tiny pile of sand between them was much larger now. The crab had laboriously excavated a home for itself, grain by grain. It seemed like an omen and she gave a sigh of satisfaction.

‘I don’t think so. Your father may be my saviour,’ she said huskily. ‘When I knew what he might be offering, I was over the moon. It’s everything I’ve always wanted. To be honest, I’d have surfed across the Atlantic to come here, knowing what might transpire! I appreciate that you won’t understand what this means to me—’

‘On the contrary, I do.’ Pascal impatiently swept a hand through the mass of silky gold hair that haloed his head. ‘In my time I’ve seen plenty of women like you passing my father’s way,’ he said shortly. ‘Bright-eyed, hungry, hoping their lives will be radically changed.’