Here Come the Girls by Johnson Milly

Author:Johnson, Milly [Johnson, Milly]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781849832069
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Published: 2011-04-27T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 42

That evening, as they took their places at the dinner-table, Ven asked if anyone else would like a turn at sitting next to Captain Nigel, but everyone seemed quite happy with the present seating arrangements. So Ven sat quietly next to the vacant seat, waiting for their guest to arrive and hoping she could get through the next two hours without making a total twerp of herself.

‘Have you seen those blokes who helped us through the crowd in Dubrovnik yet?’ Roz asked Frankie. ‘We owe them a drink or twelve.’

‘Nope,’ came the reply. It wasn’t for the want of trying though. Frankie had walked all round the ship a few times since they set sail trying to find Vaughan to say thank you for rescuing them. But she hadn’t seen anything of him or his party at all. It seemed that she only bumped into him when she wasn’t actively trying. She would meet up with him sooner rather than later, she hoped.

Royston was wearing a white shirt with frills down the centre. He looked like the offspring of the Queen’s private bingo-caller and Shirley Bassey. Roz reckoned that shirt must have cost a fortune too.

Ven spotted Nigel coming in from the other side of the restaurant and her leg went immediately into a nervous spasm. He really was totally gorgeous. She reached out for her glass of water, knocked over the wine which Angel had just poured out for her and caused havoc yet again.

Oh dear noises came from Irene, even louder ones from Eric. Buzz ran over with a serviette to mop up the worst of it and Ven wanted to die. Captain Nigel arrived just in time to witness the chaos.

‘Good evening, everyone,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I’m late.’ He looked at the red-wine stain spoiling the perfect table.

‘My fault again, hey ho,’ said Ven. ‘Can’t blame any medication this time, though.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ said Nigel.

Elvis whispered something to the Captain, probably about changing the cloth but Nigel waved him away with a, ‘No, it’s fine, Elvis. Really. There are worse things at sea.’ He smiled and little crinkles appeared around his grey, grey eyes. Ven felt her heart boom against her ribcage.

‘Have we all had a nice day?’ Nigel addressed the table collectively.

A merry chorus of chirruping yeses came in response.

‘I heard it was a bit of a crush getting in and out of the Pile Gate.’

‘It was really scary,’ said Olive. ‘We were all caught up in it.’

‘I tried to berth another day, because there were too many ships in, but it was impossible,’ said Nigel.

‘We didn’t bother going into the city,’ said Royston. ‘We got a taxi to a lovely little beach, didn’t we, boss?’ He turned to his wife for confirmation. Stella had obviously collected quite a few more rays today – she was making Dom Donaldson and Tangerina look like Frosty the Snowman.

‘Nice when we got through into the city though,’ said Olive. ‘Beautiful.’

‘We walked around the city walls,’ said Eric proudly.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.