Plain Jane Wanted by Rose Amberly

Author:Rose Amberly [Amberly, Rose]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Equinox
Published: 2020-04-16T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

Blue Sage Bay, 8pm

The heavens opened. With a roar and a crash, heavy rain beat down on the island. It pelted the surface of the roiling, frothing sea.

George closed the distance between them and grabbed her arm above the elbow. “Come on!” he shouted in her ear.

Millie hunched over, hugging her bag to her chest as they raced for the only cover—the cottage on the jetty.

Rain pounded the hillside and slicked the path into a muddy swamp by the time they made the boardwalk. Their feet clattered on the wooden platform and skidded to a stop at the faded blue-green door.

She tried the handle. Locked. George looked around, under an empty clay pot, behind a broken wall lantern, nothing. Water streamed off his face and down his neck under his collar.

He reached above the lintel and found a key, but the rusty lock wouldn’t budge. Finally he gave the stiff door a shove with his shoulder, and they fell through.

“Well, we needn’t have bothered with the door.” She looked around; at least two of the windows were broken and, judging by the dried autumn leaves on the floor, they’d broken years ago. Cold air blew in, and water dripped from a dozen holes in the ceiling to puddle on the floor.

“Don’t step on anything,” George said, dashing rain from his face with the back of his hand. “There’s glass everywhere. Let me sweep it with something.” He searched around the big empty room.

The cottage must have been a shop once upon a time. There was a kitchen in the corner of the large front room, but a cupboard with doors hanging loose was all that remained. An arched door led to a back room, and Millie, stepping carefully around scattered glass, went to look.

That must’ve been the living quarters. It was gorgeous. Not the dusty windswept emptiness. Her eyes swept over the cosy space. There was an arched alcove near a fireplace. She imagined it cleaned, painted a cerulean blue, sun streaming through the clear windows. The room needed seagrass rugs, wicker chairs and cushions, plants, maybe hand-painted pottery. Her earlier nerves disappeared as her imagination took over. The place was fabulous. It just needed a little TLC, maybe a warm fire in the alcove.

She poked into the empty fireplace and found not only a sealed hessian bag of chopped wood but a fire starter kit. Whoever had owned this cottage long ago had cared for it.

“George?” she called, to be heard above the rain pelting the roof. “Can you do something masculine?”

“What?” He came through carrying a large metal can full of glass shards.

“Light a fire?”

She left him to wrestle with the wood and went into the small bathroom at the back.

Her clothes were dripping, but the shorts and vest in her tote were perfectly dry and still smelled of sun and salt. She stripped off everything, including her underwear, and squeezed as much water as she could into the bathroom sink.

The taps gurgled and coughed, then produced clean running water.

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