Read Watching the Wind Blow (The Greek Village Collection Book 9) for Free Online Page A

fruit Angelos had thrown on the floor.
    ‘So if you had to do a few hours in the shop, that would be alright?’
    ‘Yes of course. Why? Is it too much?’ Suddenly he was alert, protective.
    ‘I just thought a little change might suit us all. You could take over the shop in the morning, which would give me time to do the little job I have got myself in Saros.’
    Marina’s silence was audible. She came from a generation of women who did not talk back to their husbands nor do anything without their permission. Certainly she would never have gone out and got a job without her husband’s consent when he was alive.
    ‘You got a job?’ Petta asked. ‘Why?’ and so she told them, presenting both the problem and then the solution. The money she would earn would slowly pay off the loan, leaving the income from the shop and the orchard for food and clothes. They would be fine now. Petta listened intently, with a slight frown, but then he looked at her with loving eyes and told Marina what a marvel he had married.
     
    A seagull calls high overhead.
    Irini rubs her hands together to try to get rid of the oil.
    ‘Casablanca.’ The pirate finally answers her question in a monotone voice.
    Irini thinks he is joking and smiles to prove she is friendly, to collude with him.
    ‘Why are you laughing?’ His knuckles holding the wheel go white, all except his little finger, where the skins flops loosely as the wheel moves with the waves.
    ‘Oh no, sorry. I didn’t realise you were serious.’ She scans his face, reading for signs of how much she has offended him. He has a generous mouth with curved creases in the corners. Lines from grimacing? Or maybe, at some time, he has smiled a lot.
    ‘Why would I not be serious?’ There is no smile there now.
    ‘Well yachts are slow and Casablanca is on the coast of Morocco, right?’
    ‘How long will it take?’ He is very serious but perhaps he is offering her a chance to show she can be useful to him. It would give her some value in his eyes, which can only be a good thing.
    ‘Here to Orino Island, which is the first island we will pass, will take eight hours just with the motor.’ She looks him over as he concentrates on the sea, which is flat calm this early in the morning, with no wind for sailing. His jeans have seen better days but his dark grey t-shirt is new. Printed on it in black is a jumble of English words. She can make out a capital letter S and the acronym a.m. over which a pattern has been stitched in red cotton. It tells her nothing about him, but the colour choice seems to endorse his aggressive stance. His boots look like army boots, and they are scuffed and unpolished.
    ‘When they bring the new boats from France, it takes about a week. But Morocco is further, so two weeks maybe?’ she offers, recalling Yorgos telling stories of his younger days when he would deliver yachts to far-flung destinations.
    ‘Two weeks!’ He looks left and right at the land and then back to the way they are going.
    It never occurred to Irini as she sat learning English at school all those years ago, or more recently improving it by watching American films on television, that she would need her second language for this. There is irony in there somewhere but she cannot put her finger on it. She shakes herself out of the safety of her musing. Right now, she must think, be even more alert than the pirate is, use this English to keep herself safe.
    ‘Well, with good wind, maybe less. Although…’ She is not sure whether to say any more. She wants to stay helpful, useful, but not negative.
    ‘What? Say it.’ Presumably realising that standing stiff-legged at the helm is not necessary, he sits, one hand still on the wheel and his back still straight. He has wide shoulders, narrow hips. The physique of someone who has done a lot of swimming, perhaps. A gull flies above them, its feathers ruffling gently. It is a young gull whose chest is still mottled. The boat moves off course slightly