Love Revealed: A BWWM Sweet Romance Novel (2 page)

The hollow noises of rain splattering on the tin roof awoke him the next morning. After making his way downstairs and getting cleaned up, he looked out the kitchen window. It wasn't coming down too heavy or anything, just a little drizzle that was it. After June, it didn't rain all that much out here anyway, so he could put up with it for now. A thought crossed his mind, his reasons for coming out here. He was supposed to be working. He had decided his writers block was due to the suburban noise around him, even though he didn't live in suburbia, he lived off a beaten track in a forest where the nearest house was at least 1.5k.m away. But he convinced himself that this would be the place to go to get the creative spark flowing and get to writing again. He had been given a new publishing deal in January for two books, the only rules being the first book had to be another crime novel, like his first, after that he could write whatever he liked for the second, the publishers were that convinced he would sell. Only problem was, he couldn't write. He had gotten half the book done and then deleted it all, he had thought it was rubbish. His editor had not been too happy with that, but Guy convinced them that he had moved onto another great idea, much better than the first and that he just needed to relocate to get the spirit of the new novel. The advance he had received from the deal was enough that he didn't have to do any other work in the meantime, so he upped sticks and came to the island. He is already there two days and he hasn't even set up a work area. After lunch he thought to himself. He carried his coffee and toast out to the porch to check on the pup.
 

Guy was pretty surprised to see the pup asleep next to the ice box on the porch itself! The pup had crawled up the two, admittedly low steps to be near the food. He felt kind of bad for leaving it there, but hadn't expected to find the pup sleeping beside it. He put his breakfast on the small table next to the chair swing and took out a fish. Immediately the pup became alert and made a couple of squeaks gobbling down three fish before Guy could go in wash his hands and eat his own, now, cold toast.
 

Guy knew that the rescue centre was sending somebody out at some point later in the day, so he decided straight after breakfast to get all the garden work finished. He cleared up the last of the winter rubbish and set about mowing what grass was there and tending to anything that was damaged. Just before lunch he got out the ladder and climbed up to check the roof out. Everything looked secure, but of course in good weather it was difficult to tell what would later leak or blow away at the first big gust. But nothing looked like it had become dislodged over the winter season.
 

He washed up and made himself some lunch, giving the pup four fish again. There was only two fish left, so he decided to go out and fish after lunch. The seal was still sitting, or lying on the porch, but had placed itself over at the top of the steps and had been observing Guy as he did his work around the garden. Now that he was taking out the fishing gear and taking more ice from the freezer to put in the ice box, the seal was very interested by his movements. Guy thought that maybe the seal was going to try to follow him out to sea, but the seal was asleep the last time he looked back before taking off down towards the boat. He sailed out to roughly where he had fished the day before and was there almost two hours. He had brought some sandwiches with him this time and a flask of coffee, so he didn't mind the wait. He got seven or eight fish this time and sped back. As he was slowing down to come into the dock of his island, he heard an engine off in the distance, it must be the rescue worker, he thought to himself.
 

He gave the seal three fish and the pup squeaked at him and rested back in his spot. As Guy was putting the fishing gear back in the shed, he heard the other boat pull into the dock and tie up their boat. He turned and walked down towards them, getting out of the boat was a person in a pair of grey overalls and a black knit hat, as they stood up from tying the boat to the dock, he realised it was a woman. She put her hand out as Guy approached her and shook his as he offered it.
 

"Darla,from the Rescue Centre, nice to meet you. I believe you have an orphaned seal pup?"

Guy took a second, "Suure, yes, I have a seal. I mean, I found a seal pup. Its mother was over there by the water, but she was already dead when I got to her, nothing I couldv’e done, sadly." He said in a run on sort of way. He felt like his heart had skipped a beat and he had no air left in his lungs.
 

"I need to get some water, sorry" He ran back towards the cabin and chugged back a couple glasses of water. What is wrong with me, he thought to himself.
 

Darla, was about 5' 8", black, slightly chubby, but it looked good on her. She was wearing work overalls and they made her figure stand out, she wore it well. Guy himself, white, 6ft, typically a strong build, was vearing lately into the beer belly look himself. He did not do any exercise once he got into book mode, which was something he was always meaning to work on and living alone he tended to cook very little good meals for himself, relying on ramen and take out a lot.

He walked back outside to her and said, "Sorry about that, think I swallowed a fly."

"Thats okay, hope you are feeling better. I didn't catch your name?"

"Oh, I'm Guy. Guy Murtagh."

"Nice to meet ya Guy, like I said, I'm Darla. So hows about we see this seal pup you've got?"

Guy walked her over to the porch. He looked back at her as they were walking and she was taking in the surroundings of the island. She had a beautiful profile he thought to himself.
 

"Here s/he is."

"Okay, well on first look it doesn't look malnourished, so poor old mom was able to feed it well enough until the accident. Did you hear any boats around at the time Guy?"

"No, I didn’t. How far do you think she could have swam with the pup like that? There are a couple of islands close enough that are leased out in the summer, so I wouldn't know any of those people."

"It depends really, but she could have come from ten or more kilometres away before she found this place. Did you drag mama's body out?"

"Yeh, I dragged it out pretty far yesterday evening. I saw it sink to the bottom."

"Okay. Well, this little guy will have to come with me. He is a newborn from the looks of it, probably two months old, at the most. We will take him back and hand rear him, then when he is old enough, release him back into the wild."

"Okay. Would you like to have some coffee and a snack before you go? It's a long trip back again so soon."

"Sure, coffee would be great."

Guy whipped up some coffee and took some bread and some peanut butter along with some oreos. They sat out on the porch next to the seal.

"Oh, thank you, I love peanut butter."

"Sorry it's nothing fancy."

"Oh," she laughed, she had a wonderful laugh he thought. "Thats fine, it's nice to get a look out here at these islands. I have sailed past of course a dozen times, of various ones, but I've never stopped on one before. I looked up the houses that are for rent and the prices are astronomical!"

"Yeh, you sell this and you could make a killing on it. We have no intentions of selling though."

"Oh, you and your wife?"

"NO, no, my siblings and I. We were left it by our parents. It was in the family since my grandfather. My siblings haven't been out in many years, but I will definitely use it even if they don't"

"So, you just on a small vacation?"

"No, I'm a writer. I decided I would get more work done out here in the peace and quiet."

"How's that working out for you?"

"I haven't even taken out my notebook yet. There is so much to do when you first get here, clear up after the winter, tidy the garden, tidy the cabin, dust everything. Even with dust cloths, there is still dust on the floors and other things."

"Sounds like a lot for just you. Would you not hire a cleaner or gardener or something, just to get it done faster?"

"Nah, I should be able to get writing day after tomorrow. Hey, would you like to come in and have a look around."

"Of course,” she answered with a smile.

Guy showed Darla the cabin, telling her, that it originally had just been the first floor and when his parents had taken it over, they had built the upper floor with the two bedrooms for the kids. The cabin was done in typical rustic cabin style, inside was all wood, walls, floors, ceilings. Some very retro '70's furniture, with a mix of antique objects from his ancestors. Some nice paintings, in particular a large painting of the cabin when it was first built that hung over the fireplace. There is no name inscribed that can be seen, so over the years many different relatives have all claimed to be the painter. Darla is clearly impressed by the place and when she sees how cute and snug the bedrooms are, with the cute windows, with perfect little window seats in she says, "My daughter would love this place."
 

"Oh, how old is she?"

"She just turned nine. We live with my sister and her two girls, so my daughter shares a room. She would love a house like this, with the perfect little window seats. She is a total book worm and loves nothing more than finding a quiet place to read a book. She is currently reading my old Roal Dahl books and thinks they are the best."

"Her father not in your life then? Sorry if that's too forward a question."

"No, thats fine. We were not together after she was born, but he has since passed, he was in Iraq. He died in a IED explosion. My daughter, her name is Adeen, she was heart broken. They had kept in touch via video chat and messages when they could. It was a huge loss for us. He had been a great dad, we weren't meant to be, but he was around for Adeen."

"I'm so sorry to hear that." Guy felt like an idiot for asking now. Doh, way to ruin the casual moment Guy.

"What was that?" Darla asked as she walked to the window. "Damn, the sky has gone super dark and the wind has picked up, what time is it?"

"It's 17:30," Guy walked over to her, " woah, you're right, that is one stormy looking sky out there. Lets check the radio maybe there's a sudden storm warning or something?"

They went downstairs and turned on the radio.
 

"Storm alert at sea and around Washington's Islands tonight, heading into tomorrow. All boats should stay in the harbour, no travelling around coastal roads, storm surge warning," the radio warned them.
 

They looked at each other. "Okay, well looks like I will be stranded here tonight, let me just radio in and let them get in contact with my daughter."

"This is Seal One for Rescue One, Over."

Darla repeated this a couple of times and gave up.
 

"Looks like the storm is already starting, radios out."

Guy was picking up all the candles, matches, lighters and torches. "Well, we have a back up generator, let me check if there's much oil out there. If not, we have plenty of candles!"

Guy came back in and told Darla that there was enough oil for a couple of hours at most. He had completely forgotten to bring more and nobody had been out to the island in a couple of years for longer than to check on it.
 

"We do have a gas stove so that should be fine, I brought refills," he smiled at her. "Are you worried about your daughter not hearing from you?"

"A little, I mean my sis will call Brenda at work and Brenda will just let her know I got here fine, they will guess I heard the warnings and decided to stay here for the night, hopefully. Either way, my sis has a great poker face, so no matter how worried she is, Adeen won't know."

"That's good. Well, I'll go make up a bed for you, get out some towels and that. You don't mind sleeping in the room next to mine?"

“That’s fine. I'll go check on our buddy outside. We should probably try to coax him in. Actually we don't know if it's a him do we? Well, we need to take it indoors if there's gonna be that bad of a storm."

Guy was making up the bed, the linens were all stored in moth proof bags his mom had used for decades. He made up the bed all the while thinking this storm was a bit of good luck. He had instantly liked Darla and the more they spoke the more he liked her. It's not as if they had told each other their life stories, but she just had this air of calm about her, that appealed to him. She was not shook up about the fact she was going to be stuck on an island in a potentially devastating storm with a stranger, or that her daughter would worry about her. He didn't take that as cold, just that she was level headed and logical and that was something he could admire in a person, let alone a woman he was finding increasingly attractive. Of course he hoped they wouldn't be stuck for very long as the oil was bound to run out after probably two evenings worth of uses, but if they got tonight and tomorrow they could get to know each other a little better and maybe she could be his summer visitor. He told himself he was getting way ahead and to calm down.
 

He walked downstairs and Darla suggested they grab the ice box and start to coax the pup inside. As they opened the door the wind pushed the door into them, hitting Guy on the head. Darla grabbed for the door and slammed it shut.
 

"Oh, wow, are you okay?" she asked.

"..."

Guy felt so dizzy and was sure he was seeing actual stars floating around.
 

"I'm okay, just a little stunned. Wow that hurt!"

"I'd say so, took us both unawares."
 

"Okay I’ll hold on tight to the door and you take the ice box out." Guy said.

Guy grabbed the door handle and as he opened it, grabbed onto the edge of the door. The gusts weren't as strong this time, but he was still battling the wind a bit. Darla leant towards the pup and gave it a fish, it gobbled it down and then she held another fish to its mouth but pulled it away towards Guy standing in the door frame. She crawled in on her knees with the fish in her hand dangling it behind her. The pup slowly made its way in, squeaking all the way. Guy then shut the door and watched as Darla led the pup over to the rug in front of the fire. He ate up the fish and then settled down.