I Trust You (2 page)

Chapter 2

T
he clouds had long since rolled inland and blotted out the warmth of the sun. It was even starting to rain.

              Marisa was at least thankful the rocks hadn’t got wet and slippery whilst Eliot was still making his way up them.

Her husband had been right. The climb took him less than twenty minutes. Only at one nerve-jangling moment did his foot dislodge a chunk of rock and gravel which cascaded down into the water below, giving a gut-wrenching demonstration of what would happen to the man himself if he happened to fall. Eliot paused only for a brief moment and then carried on.

              Before she knew it, he’d disappeared over the summit. Marisa was left all alone in the watery cavern, with the sky rapidly darkening above her. The panic had already subsided, as it usually did given time. Now she was shivery and exhausted, the damp linen of her summer dress providing little or no protection against the change in the weather.

              The boat was gradually rising with the incoming tide. To her horror, she noticed that the rock to which Eliot had tethered them was now very nearly submerged. In a few moments, the rope would be floating freely on top of the water and the boat no longer secure.

              She took a deep breath. Keeping low, Marisa edged towards the port side. The rope was already so loose that the smallest of waves would have been sure to dislodge it. She looked about frantically for another object she could tie up to. There was nothing around her now except for the almost sheer face of the cliff.

              Marisa tried to think clearly. It must only be a matter of minutes before the rescue boat arrived. But untethered, and at the mercy of the powerful tide, the little vessel could have drifted for miles by the time they got there. She was sure as hell not just going to sit around waiting to get washed out to sea.

              The first thing that crossed her mind was to go back to the engine. It was a similar type to the one on her dad’s ride-on mower. She’d watched her father fix his in the past - if she could just resurrect that memory, see that image in her mind’s eye, it might have worked now.

              As it turned out, Marisa didn’t have to. Crouching low, as the boat began to tilt dangerously in the strengthening current, she pulled hard at the cord. The engine immediately spluttered into life.

              The resultant surge of power was so unexpected that Marisa fell hard onto her backside. But there was no time to be pathetic. She clambered to her feet and firmly took the wheel of the speedboat. Finding it a heavy task to fight against the incoming tide, she managed to manoeuvre the vessel out of the cove and into the calmer waters of the bay.

              As soon as the boat was free of the whirlpool created by the tiny inlet scooped out of the rocks, it was relatively easy to direct it back towards the pier at White Bay.

Thoughts were bombarding Marisa as she coasted through the water to safety. Why had the engine started so easily, when Eliot had been wrestling with it for ages? More importantly, where was the rescue boat? Because Marisa had a very clear view of the launch jetty from this position. Her husband, and the help he had so solemnly promised, were absolutely nowhere to be seen. 

*

One of Eliot’s salesmen helped Marisa to bring the speedboat into its mooring. Her husband was the owner of a luxury yacht and speedboat business that he’d taken over from his father five years earlier. Coleman’s marina was an important landmark in White Bay and had been providing jobs in the area for over thirty years.

              Sam Carter offered her his hand as she clambered down onto the pontoon. Marisa noticed the man’s eyes surreptitiously take in her dishevelled appearance. Her dress was crumpled and still damp, her hair and makeup dislodged.

              ‘Have you seen Mr Coleman?’ She stammered. ‘I was expecting him to meet me here?’

              Carter narrowed his eyes. ‘No, not since you both set off.’

              ‘Oh, okay, not to worry.’ She didn’t quite know why, but Marisa was reluctant to explain her predicament to Sam. He was immaculately groomed and smooth-talking. For some reason, she didn’t want him to know that Eliot may have abandoned her – humiliated her. Or even worse.

              ‘I can call him on the work mobile, if it helps?’ Sam flicked on the screen of the phone in his hand.

              ‘No, don’t do that,’ she replied, a little too loudly. ‘I’ll see him back at the house later.’

              Marisa walked out of the marina gates and onto the seafront. The sun was out again and the glare made her squint. She put a hand up to shield her eyes and scanned the road that led up to the cliffs for a sign of her husband. There was none. For a split second she wondered if maybe he’d had an accident. Eliot might have fallen further along the cliff from where he’d climbed.

              She increased her pace, the fierceness of the late afternoon sun causing sweat to trickle down her back. The beach was still heaving with holiday-makers. Families spilled out onto the esplanade, carrying ice-creams and cans of drink. Some of the men were holding pints of beer in plastic glasses, bought from one of the pubs in the town.

              Not for the first time, Marisa noted how she would have been perfectly happy with that. An afternoon on the beach with an ice cream cone, maybe fish and chips from the van later on, when the heat had finally receded. She’d never really wanted speedboat trips and a glass fronted house with access to their own, private shore beneath the cliffs.

Well, not
happy
exactly. Marisa couldn’t be that until she’d carried a child of her own, was part of a
real
family. The tears were threatening to make a reappearance. Marisa breathed in hard and blinked furiously.

Suddenly, she realised she was standing in the centre of the pavement. The people walking past were giving her odd looks. One lady, who was plump but cheerful-looking in a wide, strappy dress stopped and touched her arm. ‘Are you alright, lovey?’

              Marisa turned her head and smiled. ‘I’m fine. It’s just that my husband was meant to meet me a while ago and he’s still not here.’

              The lady nodded wisely. ‘He’ll have stopped for a pint in the pub, lovey. That’s what men do on a day like this.’ She crinkled her sunburnt brow. ‘You don’t look very well. Are you local? My Keith could give you a lift home?’

              ‘Actually, I’d really appreciate that.’

              Marisa allowed the couple to lead her to their messy, overly-packed estate car in the seafront carpark and take her home.  

Chapter 3

K
eith and Wendy had been very impressed when they reached the house. The Colemans’ place was half-way up the hillside, along the road that wound its way out of White Bay towards Dorchester.              

The house had been designed and built by Eliot’s father. It was angular in structure and any part of the building that wasn’t glazed had been rendered a startling white. You could see it from quite far out into the bay, especially when the sun was shining.

              ‘Do you and your husband live
here
Marisa? We see it every time we drive into the town. I thought it might be owned by someone famous – an old rock star, you know?’

              ‘It’s just us, I’m afraid. Eliot is a local businessman.’

              ‘I’m pleased to hear that,’ Keith replied gruffly. ‘I can’t be doing with the moneyed types from London who keep buying up these huge places just to use once a year. It’s a disgrace. Those kinds of people are all over this coastline.
Out of towners
, I mean.’

              ‘Well, we live here all the time.’

              ‘What a wonderful place for a child to grow up in.’ Wendy was admiring the extensive gardens as they pulled up outside the front door.

              ‘Yes, it certainly would be.’

              Wendy continued her idle chatter as the couple accompanied Marisa inside before finally saying their goodbyes and driving away. She wasn’t really listening, too preoccupied with the fact that Eliot’s car was not in the driveway.

              Marisa took a hot shower and pulled on some light linen trousers and a t-shirt. She lay down on the bed, feeling the waves of utter exhaustion break over her. It must have been over an hour later when a noise downstairs woke her up. It was still very light, but the sun was starting to set.

              The noise came again. Several pairs of feet were pounding through the ground floor of the house.

              ‘Marisa! Are you here?’

              It was Eliot. She jumped to her feet and tore down the stairs into the hallway. There he was, with two of the burly engineers from the boat yard.

              Eliot moved towards her and swept his wife into his arms. ‘Christ! Where the hell have you been? We’ve been searching half of south Dorset for you. I was about to ring the sodding police!’

              ‘I could say the same to you! The tide was rising, the boat was about to come untethered. I knew I was going to end up adrift, so I tried the engine.’

              Eliot’s body stiffened slightly. ‘I didn’t realise you knew how to.’

              ‘I’ve watched my dad do it loads of times. Anyway, it started immediately. So I motored back to shore.’ Marisa pulled back from his embrace and looked intently into his dark brown eyes. ‘But you weren’t there. You hadn’t sent anyone to come and get me. What if I hadn’t got the engine to work? What would have happened to me?’

              Eliot turned towards the two men loitering uselessly in the entrance to the lounge. ‘You guys can go home now, okay? Panic over.’

              ‘Sure, boss,’ one of them added lightly.

              Eliot waited until the front door was firmly closed behind them. He clasped Marisa’s hands and led her into the kitchen, which had views across the bay and down to the cliffs. ‘To be honest, sweetheart, I didn’t think you’d have the resourcefulness to get the boat back to the marina. After I’d made it up the cliff, I called my mate, Gav. The one who climbs? He told me that the tide was rising fast. Before long, the speedboat would be high enough in the water for us to pull you to safety.’

              ‘But the rope was coming loose from the rock you secured the boat to. I would have drifted away before you could’ve reached me.’

              Eliot shook his head of thick, sandy hair. ‘Gav reassured me the currents in that cove would have meant the boat had no chance of drifting out to sea.’ He placed his hands on her shoulders. ‘It must have been hard work to power out of the inlet, am I right?’

              Marisa was compelled to nod her agreement.

              ‘That’s because the prevailing currents were keeping you in there. You were quite safe. Gav arrived thirty minutes after I reached the top. He’d brought some of his equipment with him, to help lift you out. I’d gone to the road end to meet him. By the time we got back to the cliff and looked over, you were nowhere to be seen. I was frantic.’

              ‘If that was your plan, why didn’t you call down and tell me? Before you went off to meet Gav? Then I would have known what was going on.’

              Eliot sighed heavily. ‘You had a panic attack when I told you that I was climbing up those cliffs. I didn’t want to distress you further by telling you ahead of time that you’d have to do the same. I thought that by the time Gav and I got there, the tide would have raised the water level to a point where the idea of climbing out wouldn’t have been nearly so daunting.’

              Marisa burst into tears, burying her face into his shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry! When I saw the rope loosening I just panicked again. I thought you must have forgotten about the tide! I’ve been such an idiot.’

              He smoothed her hair gently. ‘Not at all, you’ve been a brave, clever girl. You got yourself to safety. I never needed to save you at all.’

              Marisa managed to gulp back a sob and laugh. ‘I did, didn’t I?’ Then her face darkened. ‘But what about the engine? How come it started again so easily? You’d tried several times to fire it up, but to no avail.’

              Eliot’s expression was relaxed. ‘Those outboard motors are notoriously unpredictable. They stop and start whenever they feel like it. I’ll get one of the guys to take a good look at it tomorrow – replace the thing if necessary.’

              Marisa gripped the top of his arms tightly. ‘Whatever you think is best, it really doesn’t matter. I’m just so relieved it was all a stupid mix-up. I walked along the seafront looking for you, I tried to spot if you were coming down the cliff path and into the town. You were nowhere to be seen. Then a kind couple offered to take me home. I must have looked like a lunatic!’

              ‘Did they come here?’ Eliot asked lightly.

              ‘They dropped me off at the driveway. No, hang on, they did come inside for a moment, but that was all. I was so tired that I barely noticed.’

              ‘That’s okay my lovely.’ He cupped her face and placed a tender kiss on her lips. ‘You must have had a terrible fright in that boat all on your own. I can’t bear to think you were left all that time believing I’d abandoned you.’

              Marisa kissed him back, urgently. ‘I knew it couldn’t be true really. It’s just that these situations start to mess with your brain.’

              Eliot scooped her up and carried her towards the stairs. ‘Back to bed with you. Today was supposed to be fun.’ He nuzzled her neck. ‘I’m still thinking about what we did on the boat, though. I don’t think I’ve ever found you so sexy.’

              She giggled. ‘Well, I suggest we find another way to spice up our sex life in future. It wasn’t worth risking life and limb for.’

              ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Eliot’s expression became more serious, he placed his hand on her lightly curved stomach. ‘You’re right though. No more risky adventures. Especially if we’ve got a new little member of the Coleman clan growing in there.’