Page 7 of Vine (Island Love #3)

CHAPTER 6

CASPIAN

Something felt wrong, but for the life of me, I couldn’t work out what. Only that I didn’t greatly care for it and endeavoured to express as much.

A voice sounded in response, so crackly and thundery it could have ascended from the bowels of the earth. A part of the earth situated deep under France, seeing as it spoke in French. “You’re safe,” it thundered. “Go back to sleep.”

So I did, because it was also the kind of voice that scared me a little.

The next time I woke felt like a more normal wakeup; my blocked nose reminded me I was still full of cold, and a fire had been lit inside my throat. Confusingly, through a sliver of patent nostril, I detected the distinctive aroma of chocolate, but mixed with rubber. At about the same time, I also realised that my head hurt, my arm hurt, my face and especially my lip hurt, and that I was naked and supine in a bed not my own. So not normal, after all.

But more than that, I struggled to take deep breaths. When I cracked open one eye—the other eyelid refused to budge for some reason—I was greeted by a huge black dog lolling on my chest. Panting gently, it pinned me to the bed, its nose inches from mine. Wherever I was, it wasn’t a hospital, although possibly I needed one.

At the dog’s single crisp bark, the thin stream of fear trickling through my head widened into a river. Now cruelly alert, my anxiety rode the rapids, the loudest, shrillest voice in the room as usual. A directionless fear, rendering me paralysed as nameless, shapeless thoughts flew through my brain, faster than I could make sense of them. Someone had rescued me. I was dying. I was safe. I was being eaten by a dog. Or a snake. Or a monster from the deep. A muscular band tightened around my rib cage, shrinking my heart and lungs. Long, wet tongue lolling obscenely, the dog grinned at me, as if I was about to be a huge bloody meal.

While my mind’s chaos threatened to sweep me away, a rumbly voice sliced through it. “ Drink, ” it boomed. Like it reached down from the sky, an enormous paw, a human one, slid around my shoulders, hauled me to a sitting position and thrust a mug of steaming chocolate under my nose. A swirl of squirty cream and mini marshmallows floated on the top.

My life had taken a bloody strange swerve. Was this a kidnapping or a sleepover? Had I wound up in heaven? Or hell? While still making up my mind, the dog vanished, sliding off my chest and out of view with a thump, allowing me to suck in a much-needed breath. “I’m… what… I…”

“Shh. Breathe. Drink.”

Seeing as the heavy arm around my shoulders gripped me like a clamp, and the mug bumped against my lips, I had very little choice.

Halfway down the drink, I paused to take stock. My companion/captor/saviour/nurse/poisoner/monster-from-the-deep/hallucination took the opportunity to put the mug down, affording me a look at him. Or rather, at the wall of blue rubber topped by a vaguely familiar shaggy chestnut beard and mop of wild hair. Separating them was a great wedge of a nose and two intense brown eyes, watchful and wary, their gaze directed anywhere but on my face.

“Oh! It’s you!”

The colossal fingers gripping my shoulder tensed. The guy wore a utility belt, of the sort tradesmen favoured. A sharp chisel and a menacing, sheathed knife dangled from it. My breath quickened again as overarching panic came swirling back. Eviscerate me, Daddy. Fuck, I hadn’t meant it literally.

“Drink,” he repeated. “You’re with me. You’re safe.”

In retrospect, mild concussion was proving a bonus. As was a fever, because although naked under the duvet, I sweltered. While the overthinking, irrational part of me screamed I’d found myself in a very strange and quite perturbing situation from which I might never emerge, a not-insignificant, dazed part, chose not to fight it.

Actually, more than that. It chose to embrace it. Maybe it was the solid, unfussy strength in the thick arm holding me upright, or the reassuring steady beat of a human heart through the layer of rubber squashed against my left ear, syncopating with the contented thump of the dog’s tail. Or perhaps the way the man growled the word safe as if it brooked no discussion, and how I clung to it, wanting to believe. How, with one word, he sent my mind’s irrational ridiculousness scarpering for the hills.

Or perhaps the fear that a wrong move might result in my unfortunate disembowelment.

But, as I obediently drank down the sickly chocolate, an indefinable something about this peculiar person’s calm quietude brought with it a rare stillness of my own. My breaths slowed and deepened to an even in-out, in-out, like a set of mechanical bellows. Each sip of chocolatey sweetness infused a sense of peace through my veins. External sounds, smells, sensations, emotions faded to insignificance, as if the bed, the three-legged dog, my saviour and me floated in an airtight cocoon made only for three. Like this strange man in his blue rubber suit was sweeping me far away from the rough swirling seas and torn sails of the last few years. Anchoring me to him. Shielding me in the eye of the storm.

Or perhaps all that was nothing more than fanciful, wishful thinking and a consequence of a head injury and high temperature. That really, I’d been abducted by a crazed knife-wielding murderer, that the hot chocolate was laced with poison, and I really should have made a will and put my affairs in order like my pragmatic mother frequently suggested.

Regardless, it was weird as fuck.

“There was a snake,” I said, my voice raspy and shaky. “In the cupboard. He’s huge; I mean, so big that no one should ever go in there; he owns that house now. That’s why I fell.”

“Kaa,” the man answered solemnly.

“What?”

“Kaa.”

Car? Fuck knew what that meant.

“A snake,” I repeated in a daze. “A big one.”

“Kaa,” he agreed. Not a French word. Maybe we weren’t in France after all.

The mug of hot chocolate wasn’t bottomless. When I reached the bitty dregs, the man pulled it away from me, exchanging it for two white tablets which he tipped into my palm along with a glass containing an inch of water. “Now this. Dolipranes.”

Paracetamol. I eyed them dubiously while my throat screamed to swallow them. They looked like paracetamol, just as I assumed the clear liquid to be water. I sensed two brown eyes staring at me. “Dolipranes,” he repeated. “1000 mg. For fever. And injuries.”

Fuck it. I swallowed them, wincing at the intense bitterness. Yep. Paracetamol, not poison. I guzzled my cold-water chaser, a balm against my poor throat.

“Good boy,” his voice rumbled. Boy ? Fuck, was he addressing me or the dog? Because, ahem , while I couldn’t deny I had an attraction to, you know, big hulking giants with laps I could get lost in, the whole daddy thing was a step way too far.

A meaty hand landed on my forehead. “Very hot. More chocolate.”

God, no. I’d have diabetes before the morning was out. Was it still morning? I levered myself up. “Thanks,” I croaked, “but I should be going.”

The hand moved from my forehead to my chest, pushing me down again like I weighed nothing at all. “Too ill.” The big head shook. “Need more chocolate and rest.”

My sleepover was see-sawing towards a kidnapping. “I need to use the bathroom,” I blurted. Perhaps once I was out of bed, I could locate my clothes and the front door. And all that hot chocolate had to go somewhere. “Please?” I added hopefully.

He passed me a towel, and I awkwardly shuffled around in the bed, covering my nakedness with it. When I stood, two things became overt. One: smacking my head against hard surfaces—not once, but twice—did not agree with me. And second, my legs had turned to sponge. If my strange rubbery friend hadn’t caught me, I’d be banging my noggin for a third time. Using the facilities while he hovered outside the open door, then crawling back into bed, exhausted every ounce of energy I had left.

“Soup, not chocolate,” he decided, based on nothing but the sway of my legs and the alabaster tinge to my skin, as far as I could tell. Who was I to disagree? I’d hardly be pampered back at the ranch: Emma had plans to spend a day visiting a winery on the mainland. My own modest plans had been to scout out the bird sanctuary over at Les Portes, while Leigh and Jonas could go fuck themselves. Again.

Anyhow, despite numerous suitable sharp tools at his fingertips, so far, my kidnapper seemed in no hurry to bump me off. Indeed, from the steaming bowl of tomato soup delivered on a tray to my sickbed, he had designs on fattening me up first.

Except for my slurps, I ate in silence under the watchful gaze of my captor. “Nice,” I croaked, although I could hardly taste it, what with my blocked nose. Halfway through, I broke out in a sweat, like the hot soup was leaking through my pores, and he took the bowl from me.

“Sleep again now.”

If I’d been in my right mind, I would have protested. But I wasn’t, so I didn’t, and snuggled down again. Deep inside, a dazed part of me acknowledged it had been a long time since I’d felt so cared for. A feeling magnified much later as I drowsily, feverishly tossed and turned. My saviour placed a cold compress on my brow and stroked my ordinary-sized soft hand between his massive coarse mitts.

Like a good bottle of wine, a whole afternoon slipped by. When I woke, briefly unsure of my whereabouts, the man was hovering over me. He held out a bundle of clothing I recognised as my pyjamas and jacket, now dry and neatly folded.

“Dress. Now. You have to go.”

His change in demeanour felt like whiplash to my poor battered head. As he issued his commands, he nodded rapidly, his fingers twitching as if playing air guitar. For a moment, I found myself in the unusual situation of being the least anxious person in the room. Until his eyes flicked down to where my bare arms rested on the duvet and then away just as quickly, like he couldn’t bear to look. Hot embarrassment skittered over me. My latest razor wound was covered in a fresh dressing I didn’t recognise. Muddled, unhappy teenagers cut themselves; affluent, successful thirty-somethings didn’t.

“Dress,” he repeated. “Need to go to work.”

The situation would have been comical if it hadn’t been so odd. My new friend made a deliberate pantomime of steadfastly studying the wall and not, you know, my pale naked dangly bits. I sat on the edge of the bed and eased my aching body back into clothes. Glancing around for the first time since I’d arrived, I realised where we were from the shape and dimensions of the room, although the similarity between the two gatehouses stopped there. This one made me feel like a goldfish in an aquarium, looking out. Blue walls, blue furniture, blue kitchen. All covered with colourful stuff—ropes, cloth, sticks and stones, sea glass. If he hadn’t been in such a hurry to get rid of me, I’d have absorbed my surroundings more.

As soon as I got to my feet, much steadier than earlier, the man marched to the door and flung it wide, the blast of cold air in stark contrast to the snug colourful den. A big hand, gentle but firm, almost pushed me through it. At least the rain had called a temporary ceasefire.

“Bye then, and, um… thank you,” I said inadequately.

I think I heard a muttered ‘bye’ as the door slammed shut behind me? Although it might have been the wind.

By my calculations, it was early evening, though ripped pyjama bottoms, snot, and a bloodstained coat were never a good look at any time of day. No one else had noticed my absence, or especially cared if they had. Over one corner of the vineyard, a small marquee had been erected, ready for a new day of filming tomorrow. A couple of guys were half-heartedly setting up boom lighting under the shelter.

Staggering into the kitchen, I collapsed into the nearest chair. “Okay, so I now need to grow my hair, change my name by deed poll, and emigrate to Cuba. Like, today. Although Cuba might not be far enough. Perhaps I’ll join a space mission. How far away does one need to travel to outrun utter mortification? Asking for a friend.”

“Caspian!” Sending a plate splashing back into the sink, Emma hurried over. “My God, are you alright?”

Dabbing at my puffy lips, my finger came away with crumbs of dried blood. The taste of tomato soup still lingered. I hadn’t yet been blessed with a mirror, but the skin around my right eye had a tight, tingling feel, as though it would be happier with the lid closed. “Been better, since you asked.”

She hovered over me. “What the hell has happened?”

I swallowed, painfully; I still had a sore throat. Outside, rain diligently fell from a gloomy grey sky; the temporary respite was over. “If I told you I’d been abducted by aliens, it would be no less believable than the truth.”

“My God, your pyjamas are all torn! I assumed you were still at the bird sanctuary. Or driven into the village afterwards or something.”

“Hah! If only.”

Succinctly, in between nose blowing and painful swallowing, I outlined my night-time and subsequent adventures, trying not to give in to the swell of panic. By now, the snake had reached mythical proportions, deadly enough to kill with a stare alone. My near-death encounter had been more of a repulsive sensory one than a clear visual threat, but that was irrelevant.

Emma scrunched up her nose, unimpressed, as I came to the end of my dastardly tale. “Really? As fat as a drainpipe? I doubt it was that big. Or as venomous. I mean, do they even have venomous snakes in France?”

Lesbians always refused to pander to men’s egos. “Your concern for my welfare is so touching. I’m telling you, Emma, this thing was a killer!”

“Mmm.” Another nose scrunch. “Even if it was venomous, they’re cold and sleepy at this time of year. They don’t tend to bother people, do they? Not unless you poke a stick at one.”

An involuntary shudder rippled through me. “Trust, sweetie, that doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“It’s true though. They’re more scared of you than you are of them.”

“Says the woman who didn’t lovingly stroke her hand across its scales and tickle its belly.” My own belly performed a queasy tomato-flavoured somersault. “Honestly, Em, I’m never going to open a bloody kitchen cupboard again. Or look our hunky neighbour in the face.”

She plonked a coffee in front of me and scrutinized my swollen eye. “Should you get that seen to? And your head checked out by a doctor?”

My head had been checked out by plenty of doctors over the years; they’d diagnosed me as beyond saving. “I don’t think so. It looks worse than it is. I don’t actually think I banged it very hard. I’m wondering if it was more of a faint, really. An elegant swallow dive to the ground. One second, I was screaming my head off and backing away from a massive snake. The next, I woke up naked in another man’s bed. Typical Friday night in Soho, to be honest.”

She didn’t laugh; it was a weak joke. Instead, she delved into the freezer to retrieve a bag of peas. After wrapping them inside a tea towel, she offered them out. “At least we know who rents the other gatehouse. Old rubber legs himself.”

I’d underplayed the man’s strangeness. His actions had been gruff, his words even gruffer. His eyes had been kind, though. The press of that heavy arm across my shoulders and my hand enveloped inside both of his affected me in a way I wasn’t ready to explain, although that could have been shock. And if he hadn’t turned up, God knows what might have happened to me. Hypothermia, probably.

The frozen peas against my bruised, fevered skin felt heavenly. “I’ll hunt him down over the next day or so, when I’m feeling more together,” I declared, more to myself than to Emma. “And thank him. He kicked me out before I even got his name. He suddenly seemed in a desperate hurry to get to work.”

Footsteps sounded at the kitchen door, voices too. “More venomous snakes,” she murmured, throwing me a wink. “Evening, Jonas, evening, Leigh. The kettle’s just boiled.”

After the sexual marathon responsible for my current woes, neither of them had a right to look so rested. “Christ, Caspy!” Leigh crowded around me. “The techs told me you’d smashed your face up, but bloody hell! We’re filming a reality TV show, not The Walking Dead .”

“Deary, deary me.” Jonas grinned with delight. “Not the cute pretty one now, are you?”

“Seems Mr Darcy’s entered the group chat.” I eyed him coldly, removing the peas in an attempt to look more dignified.

Leigh sniggered. “You obviously haven’t banged your head that hard.”

“Leigh?” Jonas continued. “Tomorrow’s first piece to camera was going to be you interviewing that guy from the library about the religious origins of wine-making on the island, but I think Caspian’s recap of his nightly wanderings will be much better telly. Bloody hilarious, in fact.”

Twat. Emma was right. Some snakes cowered in kitchen cupboards; others hid behind a fa?ade of slick manners, designer spectacles, and green wellies that hadn’t seen mud until two days ago. I threw him a disdainful look, tricky when only one eye opened and my bottom lip didn’t quite move as it should. Before I had a chance to knock it from his hand, he whipped out his phone and took a snap.

“Hey! Stop that! I’ve got a stinking cold, Jonas, and I feel and look like shit. No way am I going to let you film me tomorrow.”

“What, and deprive the audience of a chance to see you soldiering on despite all that?”

“Hardly soldiering, is it? Weeding a bloody vineyard.”

“Hence a need to spice it up. Leigh could do a piece to camera, saying how worried he is about you.”

Oh, fuck off. My fragile state wasn’t up to more verbal sparring. Scraping back my chair, I stifled a wince as my stiff body complained at the sudden movement. “I need a shower. There had better be some hot water left. Grounds for divorce otherwise.”

Avoiding the sore bits, I slapped my hand to my face. “Oops. Silly me. Already had one of those.”

Two more paracetamol, peas, and a tepid shower did nothing for my chronic grumbling dysphoria but wonders for my aches and pains. Ripping off the new dressing, I savoured the stinging bite of water over my latest cut. I almost felt like a new man as I wandered back into my room, dressed in a towel. My ex-husband perching on my bed diminished that somewhat.

“Wrong room, mate. Yours is next door, the one with the rattly headboard and squeaky mattress. Smells of spunk.”

At least he could have the decency to pretend to be mildly embarrassed. Turning my back, I opened a drawer, pulling out underwear.

He cleared his throat. “Sorry. I was rude earlier. About your face. What I should have done is ask if you’re okay.”

“Fine, thanks. It could have been worse; we could have signed up for the cage fighting.”

On his own, which rarely happened, Leigh could be quite reasonable, occasionally reminding me why I fell for him in the first place. If life were fair, he might still be mine, but life, as usual, wasn’t, and his periodic kindness only underlined that fact. No amount of pleasantness would ever be enough.

I bet Jonas didn’t know he was up here.

He pointed to my arms. “Why on earth have you started doing that again?”

“Um… let me think. Husband and best friend fucking each other under my nose? An acrimonious divorce? Having to be civil to both?”

“Oh, for God’s sake. Jonas is right. You really need to try to move on, Casp.”

I reached for a clean, long-sleeved T-shirt. “Gosh, what an excellent idea. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“What were you doing wandering about outside anyhow? In the middle of the night?”

I rubbed my neck. “Couldn’t sleep with this bloody sore throat. Decided to get some fresh air and tripped on the gravel in the dark.” Dropping the towel, I took my time pulling on a pair of boxers. I wasn't hiding anything he hadn’t already dined on. He used to love my thin, supple body, even with the scars. No harm showing him what he could no longer have.

“Yes, but…” He sounded distracted. Good.

Bending at the waist, deliberately sticking my little arse out, I rummaged around in the drawers again for a pair of socks.

“The bed,” I said shortly. “It’s lumpy. And I’m dripping with snot. Either I’ve caught a shitty cold, or something annoying in this house is setting off my allergies.” You and Jonas, for instance.

I snivelled loudly to back up the story. No way would Jonas get the satisfaction of hearing the truth. He’d set an alarm for sex at three and five a.m. just to fucking spite me.

“Oh. I’m sorry. I’ve probably got a packet of antihistamines somewhere.”

As I turned to face him, hauling on a pair of jeans, Leigh studied his feet. “You could always sleep in the empty gatehouse. A chap was moving stuff in and out of it as I drove into the village earlier. One of the techs who spoke to him said a snake had been hibernating in there.”

“A snake? Really?” A memory of dry scales crawled over my skin, and my stomach curdled. “That’s creepy.”

“Fuck, yeah. Only a tiny thing, apparently. Under the sink, but they move about once they’re inside. Imagine finding it curled up in the toilet cistern! Mind you, it would sort my bowels out. Totally jammed since we left England. It’s because I can’t stop scoffing this bloody delicious bread.”

Way too much information. “Um… you know we’re not married anymore? So feel free to keep those details to yourself?”

“I’m trying to be helpful, here, Casp!” He gave me his annoyed face, which was not too dissimilar to his constipated face. “Anyhow, this afternoon, it looked like the guy was giving the place a clean, turning the electrics on, that sort of thing. So if you want to use it as a crash pad, I don’t think anyone has bagged it yet.”

Assuming he was right about the snake extraction, that sounded like a very happy coincidence. In spite of my throat and injuries, my mood fractionally brightened. “Okay. Um… thanks for letting me know. I’ll check it out.”

He stood to leave. “Oh, and Libby phoned. She’s got a couple of proposals. Some solid work for the two of us for when this thing’s all tied up.”

The two of us? I pulled a face. “Over my dead body.”

“Don’t be like that. It wouldn’t be Jonas producing. He’s not involved.”

Resurrect my dead body. My flat in Chelsea came with a hefty mortgage. London shoeboxes didn’t come cheap, and I had no other obvious career options. Perhaps by the time this job finished in the autumn, I might be in a better state mentally. And pigs might learn to fly . “I’m happy to hear what she has to say, I suppose. Just you I’d have to look at every day, yeah?”

“You’ve seen worse.”

I tried to envisage working on a TV set without Jonas. My nerves could possibly handle Leigh on his own. “Did you know Emma didn’t sign a non-disclaimer? I’m not worried about her— she’s golden—but it’s a bit of a slip, isn’t it? Bearing in mind we’re trying to keep our personal mess quiet until it’s over.”

Considering it, Leigh tilted his head to one side. “No, I didn’t know. But I agree. She’s not one to tittle-tattle. So does it matter?”

“Do you know if the rest of the crew have?” I wasn’t too keen on being fresh meat for the hyenas working for the Mail Online.

Leigh shrugged, already half out the door. “Nah, Jonas manages all that shit. Chill. I’m sure he’s got it under control.”