Page 26 of All Mine (The All Mine #1)

Isabella

The following weekend, half of the population of Honeybridge made the most of a sunny day in September and turned out at the fire service fundraiser.

The fire station was bedecked with bunting, and the fire engines were parked on the forecourt, teeming with kids.

Loudspeakers played music and heralded announcements.

There was to be a static bike challenge, a cash prize hoopla, a car wash service and the secondary school jazz band were performing.

All proceeds went to help those people in need after they’d been affected by fire, like the Malones that Isabella had met before.

Rosie had told her the fundraiser was Walker’s brainchild and had become an annual event.

Isabella turned up as the children from the primary school took their places for a street dancing competition.

Amber dragged her to the side to watch, pointing out Jayden in the back row.

She signed him a good luck message and Jayden signed back, hand to chin, with a thank you.

He was rocking a T-shirt tied in a knot in front and had his hair in an Afro Mohican with double tramlines down each side and electric blue hearing aids.

He was the coolest ten-year-old boy Isabella had ever seen.

Her impression was reinforced three minutes later, after he’d torn up the makeshift stage, breakdancing at the speed of light.

The crowd roared. Amber waved her hands in applause instead of clapping and Isabella copied her, seeing several of the other mums that knew Jayden do the same.

He bowed and waved and bowed again, then circled the stage with a collection bucket which was heavy by the time he handed it over to the firefighter standing nearby.

He was still grinning as he ran over to his mum.

Amber squeezed him tight; he allowed it for a split second before shrugging her off and dashing into the crowd to find his friends.

‘God, I love him,’ Amber said with a shake of her head. ‘I’m grabbing every single minute with him this year because this is his last year at primary and he’s going to grow up so fast.’

‘He’s so good at dancing!’ Isabella said, amazed.

‘My boy’s got rhythm,’ Amber said proudly. ‘Even if he can’t hear the music, he can feel the vibration and count the beat. He loves it.’

Rosie and Wren appeared with Riley swinging happily from their hands between them. When she saw Amber, Riley lunged towards her.

‘Is Jayden here?’ she cried, tugging on Amber’s hand.

‘Told you!’ said Rosie apologetically.

‘Big crush. . .’ said Wren with a shrug.

‘He’s gone to watch the rowing race,’ Amber answered and then to the women, ‘Shall we all go?’

The fire station backed onto the river and was next door to the rowing club.

The banks were lined with picnickers and Amber pulled a blanket from her massive shoulder bag, spreading it on the ground for the women to sit.

Riley refused to sit and jigged from leg to leg as she searched the crowd for Jayden.

When she spotted him a few feet away with the River Rats, she promised her mums she’d be ‘right there’ and darted over.

Rosie opened her backpack and pulled out a bottle of wine and four plastic glasses.

‘I feel somewhat unprepared,’ Isabella said, taking the glass on offer with a thanks.

‘Don’t worry, we came with double,’ said Wren, opening her rucksack to show another bottle nestled there.

A firefighter with a microphone announced the Brave Bluetits would be passing in the next few minutes and Isabella shaded her eyes to look at the skies.

‘Not up there!’ Rosie laughed.

‘In there,’ Wren said, pointing at the river as the first of the all-woman wild swimming group came into view.

Wearing woolly hats and goggles, some in wetsuits, others swimsuits with gloves and booties, a steady procession of more than twenty women swam past, treading water in front of the rowing club to wave and be cheered in return.

The Bluetits adjusted their goggles and swam further upriver to climb out at the jetty.

They shook their bodies like dogs drying in the weak sun and then donned dry robes to keep out the chill that would inevitably set in.

The first swimmer, who must have been eighty, took the collection bucket and shook it along the bank, grinning and chatting.

‘What a woman,’ Rosie said.

‘Respect,’ said Amber.

Millie Malone appeared out of the crowd with a couple of other young girls.

‘ Ciao , Millie,’ Isabella called and the girl grabbed her two friends by the elbows and steered them over.

‘ Ciao ,’ she replied shyly, flashing a look at the other women.

‘ Come stai? ’ Isabella asked, keen to see if their sessions were paying off and Millie would be more confident in her next reply.

They’d been painting side by side for a week now; the main restaurant walls were finished, and they were now onto the more time-consuming woodwork, the gloss.

Millie had turned up quiet and shy the first day, listening more than she spoke.

But by the end of the week, when Millie was back in her own home, she turned up with brighter eyes, keen to answer any question Isabella threw her way.

Always, at the end of the hour, Isabella asked whether she would like a drink of lemonade and Millie would grin and say, ‘ Sì, grazie. ’

‘ Sto bene, grazie. ’ Millie grinned now. It was a good answer. I’m fine, thank you , instead of just ‘good’ or ‘fine’. Isabella grinned back.

‘Next week it’s getting harder,’ she warned but she knew that Millie would be up for it.

‘I don’t know if it’s okay to ask, because you’re being so kind already,’ Millie said, biting her lip, ‘but this is Ava and Bex and they wondered if they could come along to our Italian sessions?’

‘We can paint too?’ said the girl on the left, twiddling her nose ring.

‘Or help with something else?’ the other girl added, from somewhere underneath a sweeping black fringe.

Isabella thought about it for a second.

‘Sure,’ she said, nodding. ‘See you Monday.’

Millie replied with an immediate ‘ Grazie ,’ and the two new recruits shyly added their thanks before heading off up the bank.

‘Told you she was cool,’ the women heard Millie say and Isabella felt a rush of pleasure. Amber clinked plastic glasses with her.

‘As if you haven’t got enough on your plate. . .’ Rosie mused.

‘They’ll be a help,’ said Isabella, thinking of the toilets that needed painting and the windowsills, and the wine cellar, and, and, and.

. . The list went on. ‘In fact, while we’ve been talking Italian, Millie’s been a godsend.

So with another couple of helping hands, we’ll get the painting done in no time. ’

The firefighter on the microphone cleared his throat.

‘Next, we have the men’s rowing race. They started two kilometres upriver at Kettles Bridge. They should be here within the next few minutes.’

‘Walker’s in this,’ said Rosie, kneeling up to get a better view of the river. ‘He’s in a four with Fox and Etienne.’

Isabella felt her face flush at his name.

‘But that’s only three,’ she said.

‘Fourth man is Walker’s watch commander, Dean Appleby.’

Isabella stretched back on the blanket, secretly pleased she’d changed out of her decorating gear beforehand.

Glad that she’d washed her hair and slicked her lips with a natural-looking gloss.

The thought of seeing Etienne set up an ache of excitement low in her belly.

She’d avoided The Bistro at all costs this week, not trusting herself to go anywhere near him and his sexy eyes.

Although the photo on her phone was practically her screensaver at this point and she thought he might have ruined vibrators for ever for her.

She felt like she was getting closer and closer to breaking her rules every time she got near to him.

Like a moth to a flame. But surely she was safe at a public picnic to just enjoy the view?

Shouting sounded further upriver and spectators on the bank jumped up and down. Rosie kneeled taller and Isabella sat forward, shading her eyes to look upstream where the trees along the banks were starting to turn orange and red.

Two boats appeared on the water, neck and neck. Other boats followed behind, maybe four or five, in a straggly procession.

‘That’s them!’ Rosie shouted, pointing at the nearside boat.

Isabella recognised Walker’s sandy quiff and Etienne’s brown waves.

A third rower had strikingly silver hair and must be the well-named Fox.

The watch commander was wearing his helmet.

Their strokes were in perfect time, their bodies moving backwards and forwards as one.

They called as they pulled, keeping their progress straight and steady; their focus was spellbinding.

Isabella realised she was even finding rowing sexy and breathed out slowly. Another six weeks to go.

Their boat pulled forward an inch. The other boat pulled alongside.

They edged ahead again, but this time they held the position.

Everyone on the bank was standing now, the River Rats running along the front of the bank to keep up with the boats, screaming their encouragement.

Jayden had Riley on his back, and she looked overjoyed.

With the next stroke Walker’s boat gained again, one inch became two and they crossed the finish line with a three-inch lead.

‘See,’ Amber said quietly to Isabella so that Riley and the other children nearby couldn’t hear, ‘every inch counts.’ Isabella groaned softly.

The commentator announced Walker’s boat as the champions and the four men in the boat collapsed, panting against each other.

Dean took his helmet off and waved it at the bank.

Isabella couldn’t take her eyes off Etienne.

He lay back, resting against Walker’s chest, eyes shut but smiling, his own chest heaving through his T-shirt.

‘Winners’ dip!’ someone shouted from the bank and soon everyone was joining in.

‘Winners’ dip! Winners’ dip!’

‘What’s going on?’ Isabella asked, but Amber didn’t have time to reply as Fox stood up on the boat, causing it to wobble perilously from side to side.

He put his hands in the air in a sign of victory and then jumped over the side.

Quickly followed by Walker, Etienne and Dean, who managed to both keep hold of the rope and his helmet above water as he jumped in.

They swam to the bank, towing the boat between them as the uniformed fire crew moved into position, collection buckets at the ready.

As the four men climbed out on to the riverbank, their T-shirts and shorts clung to their bodies, highlighting the definition of every muscle, the strength of their shoulders, and the crowd erupted into whistles and cheers.

‘Come on, boys,’ the commentator said over the microphone, ‘it is for charity!’

Walker went first, peeling his T-shirt over his head, river water running between his pecs.

Etienne went second, taking hold of his T-shirt at the bottom hem and lifting slowly until it was all the way off.

Fox and the watch commander must have gone third and fourth, but Isabella was stuck staring at Etienne’s torso.

His chest was smooth enough to eat her dinner from, the only hair a trail from his navel to the top of his shorts which almost had Isabella weak in her own knees.

They stood in a line and took a bow. The crowd started throwing their money into the buckets.

Isabella thought she might have to go home for a cold shower.

‘Worth every penny, every year,’ one woman said as she opened her purse and waved a note in the air. Hordes of women surrounded the men, some handing towels, others going so far as to offer to pat the men down. Isabella noticed the biggest crowd of admirers seemed to be around Etienne.

‘Your mouth’s open,’ said Amber as Etienne wrung his T-shirt out on the bank.

‘Your nipples are out,’ said Wren.

Etienne scanned the crowd. When he saw her standing there on the bank, he shook his head briskly, sending droplets of water from his waves in all directions. He pushed his hand through his hair to hold it back from his face and then grinned at her. Isabella knew she was grinning back. Damn him.