Beech - Legend of the Dryads, Book 2

Chapter 3

Jayne wrapped her coat tighter around her body, the hostile sea air biting at her exposed skin. With the winter had come the icy chill that surfed across the surface of sea, attacking the otherwise blissful coastline. She hated the cold.

Her brown boots sinking into the brittle sand, Jayne peered out across the ocean, wild and full of turmoil in the battering winds. How deep. How expansive. The best keeper of secrets.

Jayne felt his presence before she felt his warm breath in her hair.

"It's the perfect metaphor, isn't it?" Fabien whispered, his smooth voice a calming juxtaposition to the irate waves. There would have been a glorious sunset, had the sky not been overcast with foreboding grey clouds.

"How so?" murmured Jayne.

His palm cupped Jayne's shoulder. "That no matter how much the surface is pummelled, the weather cannot harm what lies beneath."

Jayne guiltily leaned into his touch, chuckling. "That's very insightful of you for a Sunday evening," she said, sweeping away a bundle of blonde hair the relentless wind had swept into her face.

"It's true, though." Jayne turned her head to see Fabien smiling his gaze stretching out far beyond the distant horizon. "I think we could all take a tip or two from the sea."

"If you're suggesting I start eating fish, then I'm telling you you'd better think again, mate!" she couldn't help but laugh. From somewhere off in the distance, a seagull cried.

"You're not taking me very seriously today, are you?" Fabien mocked offence. "Here I am, trying to be all deep and philosophical, and you ridicule me!" Jayne simply smiled, turning her attention back to the energised body of water, and a gentle silence wafted around them. "Have you enjoyed your birthday?" asked Fabien after a few moments of quiet contemplation. It occurred to Jayne that he still had yet to move his hand.

"It's been great," she said softly. "Couldn't have been better." She didn't add that standing here with him was what made it even greater.

"What did you think of my little gift?" he asked, Jayne was confused. What gift?

Then she remembered. The little box that Fabien had handed her earlier that day. She'd tucked it into her pocket, and then after the party had placed it on her desk, with the intention of opening it after Tara had left. She must have forgotten.

"Hey, no worries," said Fabien when she apologised. "Just let me know when you get round to it. I want to hear your reaction." Jayne promised him that she would ring him the moment she opened the present.

It was then that the first, fat raindrop landed on her forehead. Jayne remembered how she used to be able to tell whether it was going to rain or not, thanks to the plethora of gifts that had seemed to come with the whole package of being a Willow. She kinda missed that one.

Cold, icy raindrops poured down from the dreary sky above. The scene reminded Jayne too much of when the two of them had shared their first kiss...minus the bitter coldness.

Jayne felt slightly disheartened when Fabien finally moved his warm hand away from her shoulder, but he then went to replace it just above her hip. Her breathing caught slightly in her throat as she wandered whether Fabien was recalling the same memory.

"Jayne, I need to talk to you," he told her. Then he grasped her hand and, turning, headed her away from the beach. She followed without question when he pulled her beneath a shelter that overlooked the stormy sea. Jayne pushed her dampened locks off her forehead, shivering as she tucked herself even tighter into her coat. They'd been just in time, as the rain now plummeted in sheets from the overhead clouds, obscuring any view of the sand or the ocean beyond.