Sarah Morgan - Brides of Penhally Bay - Vol 1

He lifted his head and cocked an eyebrow towards the food. ‘Looks like we’re on,’ he said, and she fell into step beside him, dragging her mind back to the present.

‘Thank goodness for that. I’m going to fade away in a minute! That piece of toast was much too long ago.’

They joined the queue, many of them known to her, either as patients or old friends of her family, and several of the villagers recognised Ben from their trips to the A and E department, so as the queue moved steadily towards the food they were kept busy chatting.

She picked up two plates and handed one to Ben, and then they were there in front of the massive oildrum barbeque, and her heart sank. She’d hoped her father might have moved on to do something else, but he was still there beside Kate, turning sausages and piling up steaks and burgers, and he lifted his head and paused, a sausage speared on a long fork hovering in mid-air.

Ben met his eyes and inclined his head the merest fraction in acknowledgement.

‘Dr Tremayne, Mrs Althorp,’ he said, and Lucy felt her pulse shift up a notch. It was inevitable that they’d end up running into each other, but now, watching as they eyed each other in silence like stags at bay, she conceded that maybe Ben had been right about not being here.

For an awful, breathless moment she thought her father was going to make a scene, but then he handed the fork to Kate, muttered something to her and walked off.

‘He’s just remembered something he had to do,’ Kate said apologetically, but she couldn’t look them in the eye and Ben shook his head and turned to Lucy with a strained smile and handed her the plate.

‘I’m sorry, I appear to have lost my appetite. Enjoy the rest of the party.’

And he turned on his heel and strode away through the crowd, heading for the gate that led out of the car park. Lucy turned back to Kate, her eyes wide with distress.

‘Why is Dad like this? Why can’t he just get over it?’ she said helplessly.

‘I don’t know. I’m sorry, Lucy. Can I get you anything?’

She looked across the crowded car park. Ben had turned the corner, gone through the gate into Harbour Road, but she could still catch him…

‘No. Sorry, got to go!’ she said, turning back for a moment to dump the plates back on the pile. Ignoring the damage to her high heels, she sprinted across the car park and through the gate into the road and followed him. He was just reversing his sleek BMW convertible out of a space, and she ran over to the car and wrenched open the passenger door.

‘Ben, wait!’

‘What for?’ he asked, his eyes bleak. ‘I shouldn’t have come, Lucy, it was stupid of me. I’m out of here.’

‘Me, too,’ she pointed out, sliding in beside him and shutting the door. ‘After all, we have to eat, and we’re all dressed up with nowhere to go. It seems a bit of a waste.’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think I’ll be very good company.’

‘I’ll risk it,’ she said, holding her breath. ‘We could always get fish and chips.’

For a moment he just sat there, the engine idling, and then he gave a ragged laugh and cut the engine. ‘Go on, then. Go and buy them. Here—take this. I’ll wait here.’ He handed her a twenty-pound note, and she ran over the road to the chippy. It was deserted, because everyone was at the barbeque, so she was served quickly. She put the change into the Penhally Bay Independent Lifeboat Association collecting tin on the counter and ran back to Ben.

He was staring sightlessly out to sea, his eyes fixed on the horizon, and she slid into the seat beside him and gave him a smile. ‘I gave your change to the PBILA,’ she told him, and he gave a crooked smile.

‘How appropriate. Right, where to?’

‘Somewhere quiet?’

He grinned. ‘I know just the place.’ Starting the engine again, he nosed out into the crowd, drove slowly down Harbour Road and then, as they left the crowds behind, he dropped the clutch and shot up out of the village along the coast road with a glorious, throaty roar. The sun was low over the sea, but it was behind them and once past the caravan park he hit the accelerator, the car hugging the curves and dips of the road as if it were on rails.

She gathered her long, tumbled curls in one hand and turned to him, raising her voice to be heard over the roar of the engine and the rush of air. ‘So where are we going?’ she yelled.

‘There’s a viewpoint along here, and we can catch the sunset. It’s my favourite place,’ he said, his eyes fixed on the road, and she nodded.

‘Good.’

And at least no one from Penhally Bay would be there. They were all safely at the barbeque. She settled back in the seat, and waited for the sick feeling in her stomach to settle.

‘That was fabulous.’

He crumpled up the paper and wiped his hands on it. ‘It was—and probably no more unhealthy than a barbeque, even if it was the most expensive fish and chips I’ve ever had,’ he added pointedly.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said feeling a flicker of guilt, but he just grinned.

‘Don’t be. Fancy a stroll?’

‘In these shoes?’ She laughed.

‘You’d be all right in bare feet on the sand.’

‘But I have to get there, and I won’t get down those steps in these heels.’

‘I’ll carry you,’ he said.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she told him, but she took her shoes off anyway and started to pick her way over the stones to the edge of the car park, wincing and yelping under her breath.

‘Idiot,’ he said mildly, and, scooping her into his arms and trying not to think too much about the feel of her warm, firm body against his chest, he carried her down the steps and set her on her feet on the sand. ‘There,’ he said, and he heeled off his shoes, stripped off his socks and rolled his trouser legs up to the knee. ‘Last one in the water’s a sissy,’ he said, and sprinted towards the sea.

She couldn’t resist it. He’d known she wouldn’t be able to, and he let her catch him, grabbing her hand at the last moment and running with her into the surf.

Just ankle deep, and so early in the year that was enough, but it brought colour to her cheeks and laughter to her brown eyes, and then the laughter faded and she lifted her hand and rested it against his cheek.

‘Ben, I’m so sorry about my father…’

He turned his head and kissed her palm gently. ‘Don’t be. It’s my fault. I suspected he’d be there and I should have stayed away.’

‘But he was so rude to you.’

‘I can cope with it. It’s my own fault, but I hoped you’d be there, and you were, so let’s forget about your father and just enjoy being together. Come on, let’s walk for a bit.’

It was like something out of a film set. They were strolling beside the water, their hands still linked, and it was wonderful—romantic, peaceful, with the sun’s last rays gilding the rippling surface of the sea. But he was unsettled, churned up inside by his encounter with Nick Tremayne and going over it all again and again, as if it would change the past.

Stupid. It was over—finished. He put it out of his mind and turned to Lucy. The sun was about to slip below the horizon, a pale gold orb hovering just above the surface of the sea, the sky shot through with pink and gold, and he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her, easing her against him so her back was warm against his chest, and he held her there motionless as together they watched it flare, then sink into the sea and disappear.

‘I never get tired of watching it set,’ she said softly. ‘I can see it from my sitting-room window at this time of year, and I love it. I can quite see why people worship the sun.’

She turned slowly and lifted her head, her eyes gazing up at him. They were beautiful, the softest brown, warm and generous. Windows on her soul. Such a cliché, but so, so true, and for the first time that day Ben felt she was really letting him in. He felt his pulse pick up, felt the slow, heavy beat of his heart against his ribs, the first stirrings of need.