What Happens at the Beach... (33 page)

Natalie rested her chin on his shoulder and looked around. The steep rocky walls of this magical bay reached up towards the deep blue of the sky. Further in, she could see the light gold of the beach, a little black shape sitting expectantly at the water's edge. Behind the beach, the dusty browns and greens of the hillside led her eyes up to her grandmother's house and the beautiful chateau beyond. Somehow, she knew that, wherever she went, whatever she did, she would always think of this wonderful place as home. Her eyes misted for a moment and tears welled, but now, for the first time this summer, they were tears of happiness. She reached up and pulled his face towards her, kissing him with real, lasting passion. Finally, she broke away from his grip and let herself float free. She caught his eye and smiled.

‘I said there were two things I wanted to do when we got home.' She turned for the shore and set off, swimming as hard as she could.

Epilogue

The bells woke her at nine o'clock and she stretched, warm and cosy under the duvet in spite of the thin layer of snow on the window ledge outside. She loved Sunday mornings for all sorts of reasons and one of them, she realised as her nose picked up the smell of grilling bacon, was because he often brought her breakfast in bed. She opened her eyes and glanced across at the pillow beside her, the impression made by his head still clear to see, and smiled to herself. Her life, which had seemed so dark and uncertain only a few months before, was back on track. She had a job she loved and a man she loved even more.

The door opened.

‘A mug of tea and a bacon sandwich for Madame.' Mark appeared with a tray. Unsurprisingly, the tray was closely followed by the Labrador's nose. Mark put the tray on the bedside cabinet and looked down at him sternly. ‘Barney, remember you're not getting on the bed. We went through all this last week. Are we clear about that? Now just lie down.' The dog lay down as instructed, but his eyes and nose remained trained on the bacon sandwich.

Mark sat on the side of the bed and looked on as Natalie raised herself to a sitting position. She felt his eyes on her body and she grinned at him. ‘My, my, this really is what I call room service.'

‘If Madame requires anything else, the management will be only too pleased to oblige.'

Natalie knew exactly what she wanted from the management and she made a lunge for him. It was quite some considerable time later that she was roused by Mark's voice. ‘Oh, God, we've got a drooling Labrador on the floor beside us and your bacon sandwich is stone-cold.'

‘You know something, Mark? I really don't mind one bit. What more could a girl ask for than that sort of room service and a cold bacon sandwich?'

‘Well, while you're eating that, I'll go and make some fresh tea.' She sat up once more and watched him leave. Picking up the sandwich, she tore off a piece of bacon and handed it down to the dog. It disappeared immediately and without trace.

She was still eating her breakfast when Mark returned with two mugs of tea. He climbed back into bed and put his free arm round her while he sipped his tea. ‘So, what's on the programme for this morning?'

She glanced out of the window of the lovely old house he had bought right in the historic centre of town. Outside it had stopped snowing, but it looked very cold. ‘Staying warm for a start. I've got to do some lesson preparation and then I'd like to take another shot at trying to work out whether Simon de Montfort really was the terrible butcher that history would have us believe.' She smiled across at him. ‘I have my doubts. And you? Starting on chapter seventeen? What happens in this one?'

‘Chapter eighteen, actually. Chapter seventeen finished with a rather raunchy sex scene, and now it's the morning after.' He leant down and kissed her neck. ‘I rather enjoyed writing that.'

‘Well, you know you can always come to me for help with your book.' She finished the last of the sandwich and licked her fingers. ‘Anyway, we're supposed to be meeting Amy's new boyfriend at lunchtime.'

Mark smiled. ‘I like Amy. Let's hope the new man's a keeper.'

Natalie smiled back. ‘She'll get herself sorted out, I'm sure. After all, I found myself a keeper.'

He gave her shoulders a tender squeeze. ‘So, where are we meeting for lunch?'

‘The Duke of York, of course.'

‘Excellent choice. It's dog-friendly and, let's face it, one of the reasons for living in England is so as to be able to go to the pub on a Sunday lunchtime.'

‘Definitely. I'll say this for Cambridge. There are some really good pubs around.' Natalie's decision to take the Cambridge job had been easy. A job in a prestigious Cambridge college was what she had been dreaming about for years and was definitely the best for her career, even though both of the other jobs had had their attractions. Mark had waited until she had sent her reply to Cambridge before telling her of his decision to sell his flat in London and buy somewhere out of town. Cambridge, he had said innocently, was as good a choice as any other. The London flat had been snapped up by a foreign investor within days of coming on the market and the house he had bought in Cambridge was within easy cycling distance of the college. It was five hundred years old, amazingly beautiful and had a big garden for the dog. In its own way, it was as lovely as the chateau, and they now divided their time between the two places.

‘Oh, yes, and there's just one more thing.' She knew him so well now that she could tell he was trying hard to sound nonchalant. And failing. She glanced across, wondering what was to follow. Mark removed his arm from her shoulder and set his mug down on the bedside table. He reached into the drawer and then rolled back towards her again. ‘Here, hold out your hand.' She did as instructed and he passed over a little black box.

Natalie looked down, initially puzzled. ‘What's this?'

‘I would go down on one knee, but the floor's covered in Labrador drool.'

She set down her tea, opened the box and looked down at the ring. Then she glanced up again, her eyes suddenly stinging. She was smiling, but the tears were only just being held in check.

She could hear the emotion in his voice as he spoke. ‘Doctor Natalie Dryden, will you marry me? You know, to have and to hold, till death do us part and all that stuff.'

‘You mean, you and me against the world?' A tear rolled down her cheek, but she ignored it as she reached across and took his face in her hands.

He nodded. ‘It's not just you on your own any more, Natalie. You've got me now, if you want me.'

Natalie looked deep into his eyes. Her gran had been right. It had really happened. At last she had what she had always wanted: the job of her dreams and the man of her dreams. She made no attempt to stem the flow of tears as she gave him his answer.

‘The answer's yes, Mark. I want to have you and hold you and never let you go. And remember, neither of us is alone now. We've got each other.'

If you loved
What Happens at the Beach…
turn the page for an exclusive extract from
What Happens in the Alps…
, another sparklingly funny romance from T. A. Williams!

Chapter 1

‘Don't look down.'

The cable car had been running smoothly along, only a few metres above the gently sloping fields. Now, as they reached the massive red and white pylon at the cliff edge, there was a rumble of pulley wheels and they swept out into the void.

Ignoring Karen's advice, Annie tightened her grip on the handrail, braced herself, and glanced out of the window and down. The valley floor was stomach-churningly far below them, the cars in the car park like models on a playroom floor. She took a deep breath and hastily turned her eyes back to her sister, doing her best to summon a weak smile.

‘I'm okay, Karen. Thanks for the warning.' She swallowed hard and tried to sound unworried. ‘It's an amazing view from up here, isn't it?' And it was. In the clear, late autumn air, the whole range of the Alps was visible on the northern horizon, with the Mont Blanc massif standing out crisply against a pale blue sky. Over to the left of them, coming in from France, cloud was beginning to build as the predicted snow approached, but for now, the Italian Alps were magnificent.

Annie decided to keep her eyes on her sister, rather than on the abyss beneath her feet. Karen, unworried, was still reflecting on the amazing lunch they had just had.

‘I'm surprised you haven't been up here more often, seeing as you live here now. That restaurant was fabulous; great food, nice people and the best view I've ever seen.'

‘I'm so glad you liked it. I haven't had much time for sightseeing. Don't forget I only got to Santorso a few months ago and there's been loads to do. Besides, you know…' Her voice tailed off.

Karen knew all too well. ‘Three or four more minutes and we'll be down.' Her tone was supportive. Karen knew that Annie's fear of heights wasn't the only reason she was finding this hard.

A few minutes later, sensing the cable car begin to slow, Annie took a cautious look out of the window and felt an overwhelming feeling of relief as the roof of the bottom station appeared ahead of them, less than a hundred metres away. The trees around the car park looked close enough to touch. For the first time she had a chance to appreciate the sheer breathtaking beauty of the place with its lush pastures dotted with cows, squat timber chalets with logs piled against the walls in readiness for winter, and a stone church that had probably been standing there for the last five hundred years. Directly below them now was a mountain stream that snaked down from the high Alps at the head of the valley. The water was so clear, Annie could even see the shadows of trout passing over the gravel riverbed. She felt her heart rate begin to slow.

There was a gentle bump and the doors of the car slid open. Annie wasted no time in getting out, but didn't reckon with the door handle. As she pushed past it in her haste to get onto solid ground once more, the strap of her bag got caught and she was stopped dead and spun round. Her right foot tripped over her left foot and she ended up sprawled on the ground. Luckily all that was hurt was her pride.

As Karen hurried across to help her up, she saw the red glow of embarrassment on her sister's face. ‘Oh, Annie, how can you be so clumsy? Here, grab hold of my hand.' She pulled Annie to her feet and they waited until the other passengers had left, before following them down the steps into the open. Annie, her cheeks a bit less red now, looked across at her sister.

‘Thanks, Karen. I don't know why these things always happen to me.'

‘It's just you, Annie. You've been like it all your life. Remember your wedding dress?'

Annie nodded. Some memories are impossible to forget. On the day she and Steve had got married, as she and her father had arrived outside the little country church and made their way up the path to the entrance, she had managed to slip, landing on her knees on the grass at the side of the path. The wedding photos clearly showed two brown marks at knee-height on the white silk of the dress. ‘I know. And it's not as if I don't try to avoid that sort of thing happening.'

‘I know, Annie. I know.'

Outside, once more in command of her faculties, Annie glanced across at the café and made a suggestion. ‘Time for a coffee before we head off? I promise I'll try not to overturn the table.'

‘You drink too much coffee, you know, sis?' Karen sighed. ‘Mind you, so would I if I lived here. It's just so good.'

Annie smiled and they crossed the car park to the café. Even now in late November, the sun was still warm enough for people to be sitting outside. As her eyes ranged over the crowded terrace for an empty table, Annie suddenly stopped and did a double take. A man was waving at them.

‘Matt?' She took a better look. It really was him. ‘Is that you, Matt?' He jumped to his feet and waved them over.

‘Annie, how wonderful. I thought it was you.' He held out his hand, hesitated and then caught her by the shoulders and kissed her cheeks, before turning his attention to Karen. ‘And I believe this delightful creature is your baby sister?'

Annie grinned. She hadn't seen Matt for a good while, but he had been Steve's very best friend back in the old days. Before she and Steve got married, Matt had been ever-present in their lives, and even afterwards, right up to the time he had moved away from Turin to go and live in Tuscany. Annie had got to know him so very well and had always had a very soft spot for him, even if he could be a bad influence on Steve.

Both of them were climbing junkies; the higher the better, the more difficult, the more exciting. She could remember numerous occasions of Matt arriving with Steve at midnight after driving all the way to Switzerland and back in a day to climb some insane cliff, oblivious to the fact that she had spent the whole day waiting for a phone call to say something terrible had happened. And then, of course, one day it had.

Luckily, the one big difference between the two men had always been that while Matt had always been a womaniser with a list of conquests the length of the Magna Carta, Steve had always been hers, and hers alone. Annie smiled as she heard Matt putting on the charm and saw the embarrassment on her sister's face. She made the introductions.

‘Karen, you remember Matt, don't you? He and Steve were best friends. And you know full well she's my big sister, Matt.' Karen was four years older than her; just turned forty, but the expression on her face at the moment was like a teenager.

‘Erm, hello, Matt. Of course I remember you from the wedding.'

Karen held out her hand and looked overwhelmed when Matt took it and shook it. Annie once again repressed a smile. Matt relinquished Karen's hand and turned to his companion at the table. She was a very beautiful blonde girl, probably in her mid-twenties, at least ten years younger than Matt or Annie, but that, too, was par for the course with Matt, as Annie well remembered. He switched to accentless Italian. ‘Luisa, this is Annie and her sister, Karen. I haven't seen Annie for a couple of years.' The girl shook hands with them and gave a smile that exposed a set of sparkling bleached white teeth.