CHAPTER NINEWhen Colin surfaced the next morning, she was gone.
He was lying in his berth, his dreamy half-sleep infused with the scent of cut grass, and the cabin washed with the unspoilt sunshine of early morning, when he opened his eyes, saw her empty bed, sat upright in a panic and cracked his head on the roof.
Holy God! He scrambled into his shorts, rubbing his forehead with one frantic palm, buttoning his flies, scootching on his sandals, remembering to tug on a T-shirt and realising too late that it was inside out. The hatch was already open and he lurched onto the deck, scanning the leafy port.
“Delphine?” he yelled, with none of the inhibitions of the previous day. He couldn’t see her anywhere. He leapt up onto the mooring, leaving the startled Dragonfly to right itself, the wo
