Just Say Yes (20 page)

“What about Luke?”

“He chose his own way. He was already growing out of me by then and ready to move into the big league. He got into trouble a few more times, ended up inside, and then he disappeared to London. I haven’t seen him since.”

“So he didn’t know about Marnie dying?”

“He might, but if he does, he didn’t bother showing for the funeral. And yes, I’ve tried to find him, God knows. The police, the Salvation Army, Missing People. I’ve been up to London a dozen times over the years. I don’t even know if he’s alive or dead.”

“If he were still alive,” she said gently, “wouldn’t he want his share of the cottages if nothing else?”

“Marnie left them to me, she didn’t trust him even though she said she loved him, but I want to help him out. He’s my brother. What can you do? I often wonder if I should have tried harder to stop him but what could I have done? Sometimes you just have to walk away from people. You have to cut the ties or they’ll drag your whole life away sure as a riptide.” He said it with such passion but without bitterness. Lucy stared over the water at a distant light that blinked then faded on and off.

“I walked away from someone too.”

“Who?”

Her heart thudded and she wished it unsaid immediately. She scribbled frantically in the sand.

“Lucy? Who did you walk away from?”

It was hard to look at Josh and lie, so she pushed herself to her feet and picked up her shoes. High above a firework burst apart, leaving a screaming trail across the sky above the clubhouse.

“Forget I said anything. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

The week after the party whizzed by and it was almost time to go home. Fiona had got writer’s block and decided to cure herself by interviewing the lifeguards at Perranporth beach for “research” into near-death experiences.

Lucy decided to make one last farewell trip to look at the sailing club. “Look at” being the key words; she wasn’t going inside, not even to accidentally on purpose bump into Josh. In fact, she’d done her best to avoid him after their conversation on the beach. She felt she’d opened up far too much for comfort.

Spotting the flags flying, she found a sheltered spot in the dunes and stretched out, staring up at the clouds scudding across the sky. She’d phoned Charlie and her mum weekly since she’d “run away” to Cornwall; a couple of reporters had hung about for the first week or so but no one had bothered her mum again. Even Nick was out of the papers now, so it seemed safe to go home.

Funny how safe didn’t sound as appealing as it once had.

“Yuk!” Lucy’s eyes flew open. Someone was licking her toe. “Hello, Tally.” The dog circled round her, making snuffling noises. “Your boyfriend’s not here, I’m afraid. I had to leave him behind today.”

Tally stared up at her out of soulful eyes, as if Lucy held all the power in the world to make her happy. She reached out a hand and stroked her muzzle. “I’m sure Fiona will bring him to see you when she’s down here again.”

A few seconds later, Josh emerged from dunes, doing a double take to find her there. Lucy did a double take too. He was barefoot, bare chested, and wearing dark blue board shorts that showed his six-pack off to perfection.

“Hi there.”

“Hello. Tally gave me a fright. I think I’d dozed off and she woke me up by licking my toe.”

“I know, she’s a real tart. She does it to me too.”

Tally started nuzzling Josh’s bare leg and panting with excitement and Lucy didn’t blame her.

“Hengist not here?”

“No. Fiona had to take him to the vet’s in Porthstow. Well, dragged him is more accurate. He has a sixth sense about medical matters. It took two of us and a bowl of tripe to load him into the Land Rover.”

“The vet’s? Is he OK?”

“Oh, he’s absolutely fine and that’s the trouble. She wanted to get something to calm him down on the way home. He gets a bit agitated and it’s liable to be a long, hot journey.”

“Probably a good idea. It’s getting toward high season. This weather will bring out a lot of weekenders and the roads will be hell on earth.” Bending down, he tugged a piece of driftwood from the sand. As he raised it above his head, Tally skittered to her feet, pink tongue lolling in excitement.

“When are you planning on leaving?” he said, hurling the stick high into the air which was Tally’s cue to shoot off over the sand like a furry black cannonball.

“Tomorrow. We thought we’d get up at dawn and try and get a head start.”

Tally hurtled back, stick in mouth, bounding up the short slope to the dune, sand spraying behind her. Crouching down, Josh patted his thighs and she stopped, the stick clamped between her teeth. Her eyes flickered from Josh to Lucy and back again. She edged forward and raised a paw, seemingly about to drop the stick at Lucy’s feet. Just as she was about to relinquish the driftwood, she changed her mind, trotted over to Josh and deposited her prize at his feet.

“There, you see. You are special,” said Lucy, smiling.

His eyes crinkled in a smile. “I’m afraid it’s just cupboard love, not my magnetic personality.”

Pushing herself to her feet, Lucy brushed sand off her legs. “I’d better be going,” she said, tearing her eyes away from Josh’s hand caressing Tally’s silky head. “I’m having a bugger of a job, getting all my stuff back in the same suitcase. No idea how it all fitted before and I was in a hell of a hurry. Now I have all the time in the world and it won’t go back inside.”

“Why the big rush?”

“Oh! I don’t know. I guess I just needed to get away as fast as possible at the time. The pressure and all that.”

His face was puzzled. “No, I meant why the hurry
now
?”

Her heart did a fair imitation of Tally’s tail. “Sorry? Oh, none, I suppose. You know how it is when it’s time to leave; you get twitchy to be home. Come in, Lucy Gibson, your time is up and all that.”

He looked at her strangely. “Gibson?”

“I meant Hyde. Gibson is… someone else’s name.”

He folded his arms. “Who else’s? For some reason, simple Cornish bloke that I am, I don’t think I’m getting the full story here.”

“You’re not really Cornish; you’re a Londoner,” replied Lucy, floundering.

“True, but I’m sure I’ve heard Gibson somewhere before recently. Maybe Fiona’s mentioned it. Or was it Sara?” He frowned.

“Maybe you’re going senile…” said Lucy lightly, her heart rate rocketing.

Josh laughed gently. “There’s always that possibility but it’s going to bug me all day now until I remember. I’ll ask Sara, she’s got a memory like an elephant.”

“Good job she doesn’t look like one!” laughed Lucy.

She was struggling even more now, almost ready to hit the rocks. “However, back to the original question. In answer to me not being ready to plunge back into the rat race, name me the person who wants to go back home after a vacation?” she tried.

“I don’t know. I’ve seen plenty of people who can’t wait to see the back of Tresco Creek after a wet fortnight with the kids,” he said wryly. “But that won’t work, I’m afraid. I still don’t think you’re being straight with me.”

He had her wriggling like a worm on a hook and he wasn’t the kind of man who’d let go easily.

“OK, Josh. I
am
going to be straight with you,” she said in what she hoped was best assertive executive mode. “I’ve had a great time here. Staying at Tresco has meant a lot to me,” she felt a catch in her voice. She wasn’t pretending. “An awful lot, but now, I have to go back.”

“Give me three good reasons why?”

“I could give you a hundred. My job, my flat, commitments…”

“That’s two and a half. Who are you committed to? Those, excuse me, those bastards you work for? No job that’s driven you to run away down here is worth suffering like that. I don’t think anyone should have you in their power like that, no matter how much money they’re paying you.”

Lucy felt almost weak with guilt. Letitia’s requests for carrot cake hardly represented the heights of corporate bullying. “I wouldn’t say that I’m in their power, not
as
such
. The people aren’t that bad and the money isn’t, um… as significant a factor as you might think.”

Josh’s eyes were making her feel as transparent as the sea off the cove. “So if it’s not the money and they’re not that bad, what made you race off down here?” he said. “Because, call me suspicious, but you know what it looks like from here?”

No, but I’ve a feeling you’re going to tell me, she thought.

“It looks like a man.”

“Why should it have to be anything to do with a guy?” she said lightly.

“Because there has to be a very good reason for a woman in your position, with your capabilities, to just run away and, I have to be honest with you, I’ve never completely bought the stressed-out executive story. I’ve seen ruthless and you just don’t seem the ruthless type.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

He shook his head. “I’m only being honest. I generally know when someone’s being economical with the truth, mainly because I’ve done it myself in the past.”

Her silence told him everything and he went on. “I thought so. Well, you can tell me to mind my own business, but if it was me, if somebody fucked me up like that, hurt me so much I felt like quitting, you know what I’d do? I’d cut them out.” She flinched as he smacked his hands together hard. “No one messes me around, I don’t give second chances, and I never waste tears over people who aren’t worth it. I save them for the people who are,” he said, his expression hardening.

No
tears. Ever
. Apart from Marnie and, perhaps, his brother Luke, she wondered who else had ever made the grown-up Josh cry. Perhaps no one. She was careful when she replied, feeling she was treading on eggshells. “No second chances? That’s one hell of a high standard to live up to, Josh. I’m not sure many people could live with it.”

“Maybe, but I told myself a long time ago that I wouldn’t take any shit off anyone. But that’s just me. What you do is none of my business, but I can see how he’s messed you up and I can see you don’t want to go back even now, do you?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Are you denying that some bloke’s the cause of you being here? What you said the other night about running away from someone, was it him?”

If only his version of the truth wasn’t so tempting, she thought. Being crossed in love by some two-timing git was so much nobler than having humiliated the nation’s favorite bagel maker on live TV.

“OK. You’re right. I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to go back to London or to work but I can’t stay here. What about my job, for a start? I’d have to throw that in. Who’d pay the mortgage if I stayed? I’d have to find tenants, sublet the flat, and find somewhere to live down here.”

“There’s always Creekside Cottage.”

“That would be asking a lot of Fiona’s generosity.”

“True, but she strikes me as a generous woman.”

“She’s a good friend, but I couldn’t impose on her to that extent. Then there’s my mum…” And Charlie, she thought, picturing both of them on the beach, drinking Twinings herbal tea and eyeing up surfers in wetsuits. “Although I suppose she could visit. It’s only a couple of hundred miles and Mum could have a break.”

She let her eyes rest on the sea, where the water glittered seductively. “What have you got me saying? People are always running off to start a new life in the country on TV, but you can’t actually give up everything and do it, can you? This isn’t actually
real
.”

“Ah, that’s the problem, is it? I don’t actually exist. I’m a figment of the tourist board’s imagination. You know, it always amazes me that people from cities think that their world is the ‘real’ one. As if we vanish after their two weeks of sun and sand. This is
real
, Lucy, to me it’s the only real there is.”

“I didn’t mean to be patronizing. I know this is your home,” she said softly.

“And I shouldn’t be so narrow-minded,” he replied with a sigh. “I know I shouldn’t stick my nose in, but I have to say this, just in case. Mrs. Sennen, our housekeeper, has finally decided she’s had enough. This means I’m going to need someone to do the preparation and changeovers on the cottages. It’s time I concentrated on the maintenance and marketing the place properly before I end up re-mortgaging again.”

“Josh…”

Lucy could see he was even more awkward now. “I know it’s menial work, nothing like you’re used to and the money won’t keep you, but it would be a start.”

“Josh, are you actually offering me a job as your cleaner?”

He stared at her. “Well, yes. Yes, I am.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “It’s a kind offer.”

“I just thought if you wanted to stay, I could help. A bit but, oh bollocks. Ignore me. I’ve had too much sun.”

“No, I’m touched. Really, I am.”

“I was just trying to make you see that it’s possible to change your life if you really want to, but I can see I’m way off the mark. If you do change your mind, come round to the farmhouse after supper. I’ll be in until seven-ish. If you want the job, it’s yours,” he said gruffly.