Stranded by Amberly Woodruff Read Free Book Online

restrain herself from going after him, touching him, sliding
her palms up those muscular arms, running her hands along his jawline and
caressing his cheek.
    Jed turned towards her and his eyes sought hers again, but
she could see him shrug off the magnetism between them and force himself to be
more superficial.
    ‘Lunch?’ he asked, voice deliberately light - or so she
felt.
    But when they were seated at the foot of the tumulus, backs
against the stones that formed its sealed entrance, she relaxed, letting the
sun caress her skin, filled with well being and contentment. She didn’t even
react when Jed’s hand brushed hers as he handed her the food. And he in his
turn opened up to her, chatting easily about the work he was doing here,
smiling and waving his hands in emphasis, tucking into one large sandwich after
another.
    ‘Any more headaches?’ he said at last, when they were
licking their fingers and bundling up the leftovers.
    ‘No, absolutely none, I feel totally fine.’ She dusted her
hands off and got to her feet. ‘In fact, I feel better than I’ve felt in
years.’
    He nodded. ‘The island does that to you. I always feel
fighting fit within days of coming back here. I suppose it must be the lack of
pollution, but I feel ridiculously energised.’
    Then they were heading back to the Land Rover, chucking the
remains of their lunch inside, driving off down the track that led to the
Hermitage.
    But later that afternoon, when Jed had left her listening
to music on the laptop, telling her he had to do some quite dangerous cliff climbing
so wouldn’t take her with him, Tamsin had space to
think at last.
    She took herself outside and settled against a small boulder, head tilted back, legs stretched out to absorb the
sun’s rays. She could hear the gulls from here, harsh cries faint but piercing
and, nearer, the comfortable clucking of the hens as they rooted for worms in
the dust; and beyond all that, the ever-present song of the ocean. Tranquillity
claimed her, her mind stilled and she felt a clarity that had been eluding her
for days.
      It hit her that
she might not love Damien, that what was between them might simply be sexual
attraction ; obsession, even. Something in her felt
oddly outraged that he was so controlling. Being here, on the island, had given
her a perspective she didn’t think she could have achieved otherwise - well,
certainly not with Damien breathing down her neck all the time, taking over her
life, not giving her space to work things out. She thought about how she had
all but lost contact with family and friends because of him. It had happened
subtly and gradually. She would decide to see someone and Damien would somehow
have another arrangement for them, or would be unwell and need her, or he would
make a remark about the other person that seemed, on the surface, perfectly
reasonable, but that would undermine her opinion of them. If she did manage to
make an arrangement, he would insist on being part of it and then would be just
slightly hostile, so that the event was uncomfortable. Bit by bit her friends saw less and less of her and then began to make
excuses not to see her at all. Family was a different matter, but she would
find herself torn between them and Damien, feeling it her duty to be loyal and
defend him when her parents or her sisters told her they didn’t feel right
about him.
    And yet she knew he was painfully vulnerable, knew a
dysfunctional childhood had wounded him, leaving scars that went deep, even
though he denied them. Shouldn’t she see it through, weather the difficulties
and help him to grow past the pain? Wouldn’t her love and patience pay off in
the end, healing him, making him the whole, caring person she wanted to believe
he could be? If she refused to marry him and go to the States, wouldn’t she be
denying him all that? Wasn’t she selfish to even think of abandoning him?
    She smiled ruefully to herself. So much for clarity: she
seemed to be going round