SIRENS AND SAILORS # 3 IS DUE FOR RELEASE
13TH MARCH
Story Excerpt
“How did you get on?” Ligia was excited, though surprised, at the
sudden change in her friend.
Kalliope opened her mouth to
answer, then looked over at Rechavia, who sat opposite her on the ground. How had
she got on? He hadn’t said whether he
approved or not.
“She did a great job.” Rechavia grinned, nodding to her. Kalliope flushed again and sighed with
relief. She looked down, unable to keep
her hold on his gorgeous stare. He
chuckled. She loved that sound, deep in
his throat.
“That’s good.” Ligia chirped on, a little taken aback at the
exchange between the couple, but very glad that they seemed to have worked
things out. “I’ll show you how to cook
later, if you like.”
Kalliope never thought she would be
so grateful, but she was. “That would be
wonderful.” She found herself looking up
at Rechavia for—what—approval? Maybe.
She was pleased when he nodded anyway.
“What did Eban say?” Aitan turned to Rechavia as Ligia poured the
green tea.
“Some asshole has applied to the
People’s Government of Eastland to buy this island.” Rechavia’s good mood seemed to dwindle as he
recalled their conversation.
“Can they do that?” Aitan asked, astounded.
“Eban’s Dad’s looking into it for
us. Apparently it made front page news,
even on Westland.”
“So the press already know about
it? How the Hell did that happen?” Aitan’s eyes widened.
“I’ve no idea. There were photographs all over the paper,
and an article about the changes we’ve been making to the island.”
“They’re recent photographs
then? Not the ones they took last time?”
Rechavia hadn’t realized that. “Yep, someone’s taken some very recent
pictures, including the fields, the whole landscape and the flowers. They’ve been very thorough.”
Ligia and Kalliope exchanged a look
of horror.
“D-do they know who put the
application in?” Kalliope asked timidly.
“Eban’s going to find out, we
hope.” Rechavia sounded calm but
angry. “The paper just said it was some
rich businessman with enterprising new ideas for the place. Eban reckons if someone’s buying up the whole
island it will be to make money on, not to live on. We’ll all be out of a home soon.”
“That won’t happen,” Aitan assured
them, seeing the girls’ looks of dismay.
He shot a look to Rechavia. Scaremonger!
“You’re right there, bro’,”
Rechavia concurred, “we’ll fight this tooth and nail.”
Kalliope wasn’t quite sure what
that meant, but it sure didn’t sound good.
A feeling of dread was already building up in her stomach. It didn’t take a genius to guess who was taking
photographs of the island recently, and the wealthy businessman could only be
one person. Rechavia would go mad when
he found out!
Ligia got up to clear away the
breakfast things, and Kalliope was suddenly aware of Rechavia’s eyes burning
into her. She looked over. He looked expectantly at her. What?
He looked at Ligia then back at
her. Oh!
“Let me help,” she got to her feet
and took the rest of the dishes from the table.
Ligia looked at her, amazed, and then grinned. “Thanks,” she said, and showed her where to
put the pots.
Kalliope glanced over at Rechavia
and got a nod of approval. Yes!
“Will you show me how to make
flatbread?” Kalliope asked Ligia, loud
enough for the others to hear.
Maybe if I keep him happy he won’t be too mad when he finds out who’s
behind the takeover!
While the girls were washing the
dishes and clearing up, the men set off to work.
“We’ll be in the woodland for a
couple of hours, darlin’” Aitan announced, giving Ligia a big hug. “We’ll come back for lunch.”
“OK.” Ligia promised with a smile,
“I’ll have it ready.”
Rechavia kissed Kalliope and gave
her a big squeeze before gathering up some tools and marching off towards the
woods.
“Oh my God!” Ligia exclaimed as soon as the men were out
of earshot. “Benat must have taken those
pictures. He asked all sorts of questions
about the island. I never thought, I
just told him everything!”
Kalliope, who had automatically
felt responsible for the fiasco, suddenly realized that perhaps she wasn’t
solely to blame.
“What did he ask you?”
“He was mainly interested in the
flowers. He asked how much they were
worth. I told him I didn’t know exactly,
but I knew it was a lot. Do you think
that’s what they want it for? The
flowers? He did say it was a shame we’d
planted so much fruit and vegetables—I don’t know what they expect us to eat!”
“That makes sense if they don’t
want us living here. If they just want
to grow the flowers and sell them they could make a lot more room by tearing
down our huts. And if no-one lived here
they wouldn’t need to grow food, so they could go back to growing nothing but
the flowers here.” Kalliope’s mind was
in a whirl.
“Is Zigor rich?” Ligia asked.
Kalliope thought for a moment. She knew damn well he was loaded. His smart clothes, quality beer, lovely
food—just the fact that he had managed to take the journey to the island and
back two days in a row suggested that he was rich enough to own his own
ship. And what about the things he had
told her? He had a big house. He was willing to take care of her if she
wanted to join him on the mainland…
“Kally?” Ligia’s voice pulled her from her thoughts.
“Umm, I dunno. We never really discussed it.” She lied.
“Well what did you discuss? He seems to
know enough about the island to want to buy it.”
“We…er…didn’t really spend much
time talking, if you know what I mean.”
Sometimes it was handy that
everyone knew you were a slut!
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