The Storm Sister Read online

  ‘Thanks. Now, let’s get back and grab some sleep. I have a hard day planned for us all tomorrow.’

  Again that night, I was restless as I replayed our conversation in my mind. Me, who usually slept like a log, especially when I was training or competing.

  And rather than Theo’s advice helping me, over the next couple of days I made numerous silly mistakes, making me feel more like a rookie than the professional I was. I castigated myself harshly; but ironically, even though my crewmates teased me good-naturedly, never once was there a word of criticism from Theo.

  On our fifth night, feeling horribly embarrassed and confused by my uncharacteristically sloppy performance level, I didn’t even join the rest of the crew for dinner. Instead, I sat on the small terrace of the pension eating bread, feta cheese and olives provided by the kind owner. I drowned my sorrows in the rough red wine she poured me, and after a number of glasses, began to feel decidedly queasy and sorry for myself. I was just lurching unsteadily from the table, headed for bed, when Theo arrived on the terrace.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, sliding his glasses up his nose to see me properly. I squinted back at him, but his outline had become inexplicably blurry.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied thickly, sitting back down hurriedly as everything I tried to focus on started to sway.

  ‘Everyone was worried about you when you didn’t turn up tonight. You’re not sick, are you?’

  ‘No.’ I felt the burning sensation of bile rising in my throat. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You know, you can tell me if you are sick and I swear I won’t count it against you. Can I sit down?’

  I didn’t answer. In fact, I found I couldn’t as I struggled to control my nausea. He sat down in the plastic chair across the table from me anyway.

  ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I managed.

  ‘Ally, you’re an awful colour. Are you sure you’re not ill?’

  ‘I . . . Excuse me.’

  With that, I staggered up and just made it to the edge of the terrace before I vomited over it onto the pavement below.

  ‘Poor you.’ I felt a pair of hands clasp me firmly around my waist. ‘You’re obviously not well at all. I’m going to help you to your room. What number is it?’

  ‘I am . . . perfectly well,’ I muttered stupidly, horrified beyond measure at what had just happened. And all in front of Theo Falys-Kings, who, for some reason, I was desperate to impress. All things considered, it could not have been worse.

  ‘Come on.’ He hoisted my limp arm over his shoulder and half-carried me past the disgusted gaze of the other guests.

  Once in my room, I was sick a few more times, but at least it was into the toilet. Each time I emerged, Theo was waiting for me, ready to help me back to the bed.

  ‘Really,’ I groaned, ‘I’ll be fine in the morning, I promise.’

  ‘You’ve been saying that in between rounds of vomit for the past two hours,’ he said pragmatically, wiping the sticky sweat from my forehead with a cool, damp towel.

  ‘Go to bed, Theo,’ I murmured groggily. ‘Really, I’m fine now. Just need to sleep.’

  ‘In a while, I will.’

  ‘Thanks for looking after me,’ I whispered as my eyes began to shut.

  ‘That’s okay, Ally.’

  And then, as I drifted in the half here, half there world of the few seconds before sleep, I smiled. ‘I think I love you,’ I heard myself say before I descended into oblivion.

  I woke the next morning feeling shaky but better. As I climbed out of bed, I tripped over Theo, who had used a spare pillow and was curled up on the floor fast asleep. Shutting the bathroom door, I sank onto the edge of the bath and remembered the words I’d thought – or Christ, had I actually spoken them? – last night.

  I think I love you.

  Where on earth had that come from? Or had I dreamt I’d said it? After all, I’d been very unwell and might have been hallucinating. God, I hope so, I groaned to myself, my head in my hands. But . . . if I hadn’t actually said it, why could I remember those words so vividly? They were ridiculously inaccurate, of course, but now Theo might think that I actually meant them. Which of course I didn’t, surely?

  Eventually, I emerged sheepishly from the bathroom and saw that Theo was about to leave. I couldn’t meet his eye as he told me he was going to his own room to take a shower, and would come back to collect me in ten minutes to take me down for breakfast.

  ‘Really, you go on your own, Theo. I don’t want to risk it.’

  ‘Ally, you have to eat something. If you can’t keep food down for an hour afterwards, I’m afraid you’re banned from the boat until you can. You know the rules.’

  ‘Okay,’ I agreed miserably. As he left, I wished with all my heart that I could simply become invisible. Never in my life had I wanted to be somewhere else as much as I did at that moment.

  Fifteen minutes later, we walked onto the terrace together. The other crew members looked up at us from the table with knowing smirks on their faces. I wanted to punch each and every one of them.

  ‘Ally has a stomach bug,’ Theo announced as we sat down. ‘But by the looks of it, Rob, you missed out on some beauty sleep too.’ The assembled crew members chuckled at Rob, who shrugged in embarrassment as Theo proceeded to talk calmly about the practice session he had planned.

  I sat silently, appreciating that he’d moved the conversation on, but I knew what the others were all thinking. And the irony was, they were so, so wrong. I’d made a vow never to sleep with a crewmate, knowing how quickly women could get a reputation in the close-knit world of sailing. And now, it seemed I’d acquired one by default.

  At least I was able to keep my breakfast down and was allowed aboard. From that moment on, I went out of my way to make it clear to everyone – especially to him – that I was not the slightest bit interested in Theo Falys-Kings. During the practices, I kept as far away from him as was possible on a small craft, and answered him in monosyllables. And in the evenings, after we finished dinner, I gritted my teeth and stayed on with the crew as he rose to leave and return to the pension.

  Because, I told myself, I did not love him. And I did not wish for anyone else to think I did either. However, as I set about convincing everyone around me, I realised there was no real conviction in my own mind. I found myself staring at him when I didn’t think he was looking. I admired the calm, measured way he dealt with the crew and the perceptive comments he made that pulled us together and made us work better as a team. And how, despite his comparatively small stature, his body was firm and muscled beneath his clothes. I watched him as he proved himself time and again to be the fittest and strongest of all of us.

  Every time my treacherous mind wandered in that direction, I did my best to reel it firmly back in. But I’d suddenly started noticing just how often Theo walked around without a shirt on. Granted, it was extremely hot during the day, but did he really have to be topless to look at the race maps . . . ?

  ‘Do you need anything, Ally?’ he asked me once, as he turned around to find me staring at him.

  I don’t even remember what I mumbled as I turned away, my face bright red with shame.

  I was only relieved that he never mentioned what I may have said to him on the night I was so ill, and began to convince myself that I really must have dreamt it. But still, I knew something irrevocable had happened to me. Something that, for the first time in my life, I seemed to have no control over. As well as my usual clockwork sleeping pattern deserting me, my healthy appetite had disappeared too. When I did manage to doze off, I had vivid dreams about him, the kind that made me blush when I awoke and made my behaviour towards him even more awkward. As a teenager, I’d read love stories and dismissed them, preferring meaty thrillers. Yet, as I mentally listed my current symptoms, sadly, they all seemed to fit the same bill: I’d somehow managed to develop a massive crush on Theo Falys-Kings.

  On the last night of training, Theo rose from the tabl
e after supper and told us we’d all done a spectacular job and that he had high hopes for winning the forthcoming regatta. After the toast, I was just about to depart for the pension when Theo’s gaze fell on me.

  ‘Ally, there’s something I wanted to discuss with you. The regulations say we have to have a member of the crew who’s in charge of first aid. It means nothing, just red tape and a case of signing a few forms. Would you mind?’ He indicated a plastic file, then nodded to an empty table.

  ‘I know absolutely nothing about first aid. And just because I’m a woman,’ I added defiantly as we sat down at the table away from the others, ‘doesn’t mean I can nurse anyone better than the men. Why not ask Tim or one of the others to do it?’

  ‘Ally, please shut up. It was just an excuse. Look.’ Theo showed me the two sheets of blank paper he’d just taken out of his file. ‘Right,’ he said, handing me a pen, ‘for the sake of form, particularly yours, we will now conduct a discussion about your responsibilities as the appointed crew member in charge of first aid. And at the same time, we will discuss the fact that on the night you were so ill, you told me that you thought you loved me. And the fact is, Ally, I think I might feel the same about you too.’

  He paused and I looked at him in total disbelief to see if he was teasing me, but he was busy pretending to check the pages.

  ‘What I’d like to suggest is that we find out what this means for both of us,’ he continued. ‘As from tomorrow, I’m taking my boat and disappearing for a long weekend. I’d like you to come with me.’ Finally, he looked up at me. ‘Will you?’

  My mouth was opening and closing, probably in a very good impression of a goldfish, but I simply didn’t know how to answer him.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Ally, just say yes. Forgive the feeble analogy, but we’re both in the same boat. We both know that there’s something between us and has been ever since we first met a year ago. To be frank, from what I’d heard about you, I’d been expecting some muscly “he-she”. And then you turned up, all blue eyes and gorgeous Titian hair, and completely disarmed me.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, totally lost for words.

  ‘So.’ Theo cleared his throat and I realised that he was equally nervous. ‘Let’s go and do what we both love best: spend some time mucking about on the water and give whatever this “thing” is a chance to develop. If nothing else, you’ll like the boat. It’s very comfortable. And fast.’

  ‘Will there . . . be anyone else on-board?’ I asked him, eventually finding my voice.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So, you’ll be skipper and I’ll be your only crew?’

  ‘Yes, but I promise I won’t make you climb the rigging and sit in the crow’s nest all night.’ He smiled at me then, and his green eyes were full of warmth. ‘Ally, just say you’ll come.’

  ‘Okay,’ I agreed.

  ‘Good. Now, perhaps you can sign on the dotted line to . . . er, seal the deal.’ His finger indicated a spot on the blank sheet of paper.

  I glanced at him and saw that he was still smiling at me. And finally, I offered him a smile back. I signed my name and passed the sheet of paper over to him. He studied it in a show of seriousness, then returned it to the plastic file. ‘So, that’s all sorted,’ he said, raising his voice for the benefit of our fellow crew members, whose ears were no doubt on elastic. ‘And I’ll see you down at the harbour at noon to brief you on your duties.’

  He gave me a wink and we walked sedately back to join the others, my measured pace belying the wonderful bubble of excitement I felt inside me.

  2

  It was fair to say that neither Theo nor I were sure what to expect as we set sail from Naxos on his Sunseeker, the Neptune, a sleek and powerful motor yacht that was a good twenty feet longer than the Hanse we were sailing in the race. I’d become used to sharing cramped quarters on boats with many others, and now that it was just the two of us, the amount of space between us felt conspicuous. The master cabin was a luxurious suite with a polished teak interior and when I saw the large double bed, I cringed as I remembered the circumstances of the last time we had slept in the same room.

  ‘I picked her up very cheaply a couple of years ago when the owner went bankrupt,’ he explained as he steered the craft out of Naxos harbour. ‘At least it’s put a roof over my head since then.’

  ‘You actually live on this boat?’ I said in surprise.

  ‘I stay with my mum at her house in London during the longer breaks, but in the last year, I’ve been living on this in the rare moments I’m not sailing a boat to a race or competing. Although I’ve finally got to the stage of wanting a home of my own on dry land. In fact, I’ve just bought a place, although it needs an awful lot of work and God knows when I’ll have the time to renovate it.’

  I was already accustomed to the Titan, my father’s oceangoing super yacht with its sophisticated computerised navigation, so the two of us shared the ‘driving’, as Theo liked to call it. But that first morning, I found it difficult to slip out of the usual protocol of being aboard with him. When Theo asked me to do something, I had to stop myself answering, ‘Yes, skipper!’

  There was a palpable air of tension between us – neither of us was sure how to cross over from the working relationship we’d had so far to a more intimate footing. Conversation was stilted, with me second-guessing everything I was saying in this strange situation and mostly resorting to idle small talk. Theo remained virtually silent and by the time we dropped anchor for lunch, I was starting to feel that the whole idea was a complete disaster.

  I was grateful when he produced a bottle of chilled Provençal rosé to accompany our salad. I’d never been a big drinker, certainly not on the water, but somehow we managed to swiftly down the bottle between us. In order to prod Theo out of his awkward silence, I decided to talk to him about sailing. We went over our strategy for the Cyclades and discussed how different the racing would be in the upcoming Beijing Olympics. My final trials for a place in the Swiss squad were to take place at the end of the summer and Theo told me he’d be sailing for America.

  ‘So you’re American by birth? You sound British.’

  ‘American father, English mother. I was at boarding school in Hampshire, then went to Oxford, then to Yale,’ he clarified. ‘I always was a bit of a swot.’

  ‘What did you study?’

  ‘Classics at Oxford, then a masters in psychology at Yale. I was lucky enough to be selected for the varsity sailing team and ended up captaining it. All very ivory-tower-type stuff. You?’

  ‘I went to the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève and studied the flute. But that explains it.’ I eyed him with a grin.

  ‘What explains “what”?’

  ‘The fact that you’re so keen on analysing people. And half the reason you’re such a successful skipper is because you’re so good with your crew. Especially me,’ I added, the alcohol making me brave. ‘Your comments helped me, really, even if I didn’t particularly like hearing them at the time.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He ducked his head shyly at the compliment. ‘At Yale, they gave me free rein to combine my love of sailing with psychology and I developed a style of command that some might find unusual, but it works for me.’

  ‘Were your parents supportive of your sailing?’

  ‘My mother, yes, but my father . . . well, they split when I was eleven and an acrimonious divorce followed a couple of years later. Dad went back to live in the States after that. I’d stay with him there during the holidays when I was younger, but he was always at work or travelling and he employed nannies to look after me. He visited me when I was at Yale a few times to watch me compete, but I can’t say I really know him very well. Only through what he did to my mum, and I accept that her antipathy towards him clouded my judgement. Anyway, I’d love to hear you play the flute, by the way,’ he said, suddenly changing the subject and meeting my gaze properly, green eyes on blue. But the moment passed and he looked away again, shifting in his seat.

  Frustrate
d that my attempts to draw him out seemed to be failing, I lapsed into an irritated silence too. After we’d carried the dirty plates down to the galley, I dived off the side of the boat and swam hard and fast to clear my wine-infused brain.

  ‘Shall we go up onto the top deck and get some sun before we move on?’ he asked me as I appeared back on-board.

  ‘Okay,’ I agreed, even though I could feel my pale freckled skin had already had more than enough sun. Normally when I was on the water, I covered myself in heavy-duty total sunblock, but as it was practically akin to painting myself white, it wasn’t the most seductive look. I’d deliberately used a lighter sunscreen that morning, although I was beginning to think that the sunburn wouldn’t be worth it.

  Theo took two bottles of water from the ice box and we made our way to the comfortable sun deck on the prow of the yacht. We settled ourselves next to each other on the luxuriously padded cushioning and I glanced at him surreptitiously, my heart pounding uncontrollably at his half-naked nearness. I decided that if he didn’t make a move soon, I’d have to do something very unladylike and simply pounce on him. I turned my head away from him to prevent further salacious thoughts from running through my mind.

  ‘So, tell me about your sisters and this house that you live in on Lake Geneva. It sounds idyllic,’ he said.

  ‘It is . . . I . . .’

  Given my brain was scrambled with desire and alcohol, the last thing I wanted to do was commence a long spiel about my complex family scenario. ‘I’m feeling sleepy, can I tell you later?’ I said, turning onto my front.

  ‘Of course you can. Ally?’

  I felt the light touch of his fingers on my back. ‘Yes?’ I turned back over and looked up at him, my throat tightening with breathless expectation.

  ‘You’re burning on your shoulders.’

  ‘Oh. Right,’ I snapped. ‘Well, I’ll go and sit downstairs in the shade, then.’

  ‘Shall I come with you?’

  I didn’t answer, just shrugged as I stood up and clambered along the narrow part of the deck that led aft. Then his hand grabbed mine.