“Dangerous?” Winnie asked.
“The tide can come in quicker than you think,” he explained. “You could get trapped. That cave fills up pretty good with water and you could drown.” Then changing the subject, he said, “Let’s take our shoes off or they’ll get wet.”
They took off their socks and trainers, and snatching them up with the basket, Thaddeus placed them out of the reach of the waves and on the grassy bank. Winnie watched as he pulled the black turtleneck top he was wearing from over his head and threw it down next to their shoes. Then rolling up the bottoms of his jeans, he ran into the sea.
“C’mon, Winnie!” he called out to her, splashing water with his hands.
“It’s cold,” she yelped, as the waves crashed over her toes.
“Aww, don’t be such a baby!” he laughed.
So pulling the sweater from over her head to reveal a little black vest, and rolling up her jeans, she tiptoed into the water. “It’s freezing!” she cried, wading towards him, arms wrapped around herself to keep warm.
“It’s not cold,” he grinned, spraying her with water.
“Thaddeus!” she shrieked, the water covering her. “Right! So that’s how you want to play it!”
With her hands trailing in the sea, she splashed him with a wave of water. It covered him completely and he stood looking at her with water running through his hair, down his face, and over his naked chest.
“Look what you’ve done!” he laughed, running his long fingers through his hair. “I’m soaked. Right – now you’re in for it!”
“No!” Winnie squealed as she waded away from him as fast as she could, back towards the shore. She wasn’t quick enough, and she felt icy cold droplets of water soak her back. Winnie reached the shore, and with the sand seeping through her toes, she snatched up her sweater and ran towards the grass.
Thaddeus was right behind her, his hands cupped together, brimming with seawater. She turned, and doing so, she tripped over the wicker basket and fell into the grass. Rolling onto her back, she looked up to find Thaddeus towering over her, seawater dripping from between his fingers.
“Don’t you dare!” she warned him, a smile on her lips.
“You should never dare me,” he laughed, and splashed her with the water.
Winnie waved her hands out in an attempt to bat away as much of the freezing cold water as possible, but just as Thaddeus had intended, she got soaked. Sitting up in the grass, with her vest clinging to her and her hair wet and bedraggled-looking, Winnie stared up at Thaddeus and said, “Are you happy now? I’m freezing cold and wet.”
“Come here,” he said, dropping to his knees. “I’ll warm you up.”
“No, it’s okay,” she smiled, putting on her sweater. “I’m fine.”
“I just don’t want you to catch a cold. After all, it was me who covered you in water,” Thaddeus said.
“Thanks, but I know how to look after myself,” she smiled.
“You don’t have to be so defensive,” Thaddeus said. “I wasn’t trying to get it on with you or anything like that.”
“I’m not being defensive,” she said. “It’s just the way I am.”
“Which is defensive,” he smiled.
“I just don’t want to get too close to anyone.” And she looked away.
Sitting down beside her in the sand, Thaddeus said, “Is being friends too close for you?”
“No, friendship is just fine,” she said, turning to face him again.
A length of her hair blew across her face, and Thaddeus reached out with his hand to brush it away, then stopped himself.
“It’s okay,” she smiled, as if giving him permission.
Slowly, Thaddeus brushed the length of hair from her eyes.
“Thank you,” she whispered, gingerly taking his hand in hers.
Thaddeus looked down at her hand, which was now holding his. He then looked back at her and said, “Friends?”
“I think we both need a friend,” she smiled. In her heart, she knew she had to stop being so defensive. Winnie knew that in a different time or place, she would have perhaps wanted more than just friendship from Thaddeus.
“Being friends seems like a good place to start,” he said, looking at her. Like Winnie, he knew if given a different set of circumstances, he would have wanted more than just friendship from her, too.
Slowly, letting his hand slide from hers, Thaddeus unpacked the picnic basket. Together they ate breakfast as they sat and watched the waves crash against the shore.
As Winnie helped Thaddeus pack the flask and their empty plates into the wicker basket, she said, “What shall we do together this afternoon?”
With a look of regret on his face, Thaddeus said, “I’m sorry, Winnie, but I need to go home and pack.”
“Pack?” Winnie asked, standing up. “Are you going somewhere?”
“My publisher called this morning,” he explained, without turning to look at her. “They need me to go back to London and sign a contract.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“Just tonight,” Thaddeus said. “I’ll be back tomorrow evening.”
Winnie looked at him as he wedged his feet into his trainers. “Can I come with you?” she asked him.
Then, picking up the wicker basket, he looked at her and said, “Sorry, Winnie, but I need to go alone; perhaps next time.”
“Okay,” Winnie said with a shrug of her shoulders, as if it didn’t matter to her either way.
Thaddeus walked up the beach towards the path, and Winnie followed. They walked in silence, both lost to their own thoughts. As they reached the house, Thaddeus paused at the front door and looked at Winnie. “Can you do just one thing for me tonight when I’m gone?” he asked her.
“What’s that?”
“Come out here and stand in the moonlight,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because it will be a full moon tonight,” he half-smiled. “And you will look so beautiful in its light.”
Not saying another word, Thaddeus stepped inside the house, where he packed for London.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Alone in the giant house, Winnie stood at the dirty window and watched Thaddeus make his way through the crop of trees and disappear from view. She turned away and moved from the lounge, to the kitchen, to the dining room, and back to the lounge again. She had taken Thaddeus’s iPod from the dock in the kitchen, and trying to drown out the feelings of loneliness she now felt being in the giant house all alone, she listened to The One That Got Away by Katy Perry, over and over again.
Winnie thought back to the beach that morning, and she knew in her heart she had enjoyed being with Thaddeus. As she now wandered aimlessly about his huge home, there was a small part of her that wished he hadn’t had to go to London. She would have really liked them to have spent the rest of the day together. Winnie wondered if Thaddeus had felt the same. The little voice inside her was telling her yes – Thaddeus had felt the same but only because Winnie reminded him of Frances. So Winnie turned up the volume on the iPod to drown that little voice out.
Perhaps Thaddeus was telling the truth when he said he just wanted to be friends? But would he ever want more than that? Maybe if she dropped her guard a little, she might find out. Feeling like she wanted to scream, and knowing she had to stop thinking about him or go insane, Winnie went to the kitchen. From the cupboard beneath the sink, she took a bucket and cloth, and filled it with warm, soapy water and went outside. It was late afternoon and the temperature had dropped. Placing the bucket on the ground, she went back into the house and took the coat with the grey hood from the hook. With it buttoned up the front and the hood on, she went back outside. She went around the side of the house to the kitchen window. Here she scrubbed away the dirt and the grime which was smeared over the windows. How had they gotten so dirty? Trying desperately not to think of Thaddeus, she scrubbed until the water was a muddy brown in colour and was cold. With her hands looking like two lumps of raw meat, she went back into the kitchen where she refilled the bucket.
Outside again, she noticed that the sunlight had almost faded away for the day, and it had grown almost dark. Not wanting to go back into the house and listen to those voices of doubt inside her head, she went to the window where she had sat the night before, wearing Frances’s clothes, and reading the book that Thaddeus had left out for her. She would rather carry on working in the dark; she had all night to listen to her own self-doubts. She would rather keep busy.
With the light fading fast, she placed the bucket on the ground and took the cloth from the water. It was then that Winnie noticed something she thought to be strange. With the sodden cloth turning cold in her hands, she knelt down and inspected the flowerbed beneath the window. The heads of the flowers looked as if they had been trampled flat. Winnie brushed some of them aside, and frowned at the footprints she could clearly see in the earth. Who would have been standing in the flowerbed, and why? What could be the reason? Then, looking down at the footprints again, then back at the window, her skin turned cold. Somebody had been standing in the flowerbed so they could spy through the window and into the room. The window was so filthy that whoever had been spying through it would have had to stand in the flowerbeds to get a half-decent view of what lay on the other side. Winnie stepped into the footprints and looked through the window. Peering through the dirt smeared across it, she could just make out the chair where she had sat reading the night before, dressed as Frances.
With her heart starting to pound in her chest, she remembered how Thaddeus had been talking, and she had caught him glancing up at the window. Had he seen someone there? Her heart sped up.
“The kitchen window,” she whispered aloud, remembering how she had thought Thaddeus had been looking at someone or something the night before. Picking up the bucket of water, she stepped away from the window, her heart and mind racing. Then, with gooseflesh crawling up her back, she remembered how in the Light House Restaurant, Thaddeus had insisted that she sat with her back to the window. There, too, she had caught him glancing over her shoulder and out of the window, as if someone had been there. Had someone been watching Thaddeus? Had someone been watching her, she suddenly thought, and dropped the bucket.