Page 38 of Just the Beginning

She turned her gaze away from the window to watch his profile. ‘I thought you’d be much in demand on the Halfmoon Quay dating scene.’

He barked a laugh, his eyes flicking briefly across to meet hers before he looked back at the road. ‘The dating scene, such as it is, and I are pretty much strangers these days, I have to admit.’

Curious, she shifted a little in her seat so she could turn more towards him. ‘Why’s that?’

The nearest shoulder to her raised in a shrug, once again drawing her attention to the tightness of his short sleeve aroundthe thick muscle of his arms. ‘I got bored, I guess. Going out on a date when my gut instinct told me it’s not going to ultimately lead anywhere began to feel like a waste of time. When I was younger, sure, but a holiday fling with someone who’s only going to be around for a week or two at most? That doesn’t appeal at all any more.’

‘I can understand that.’ She recalled her unpleasant encounter with Shelly Dean and what Chloe had said about her being sweet on Rick. ‘There was no one from the village you were interested in?’

They reached a junction and, although there was no traffic in sight, Rick stopped the car and looked at her. ‘No, the only person I was interested in didn’t live in Halfmoon Quay.’

Oh. While she struggled to drag up a half sensible response from her scrambled brain, Rick calmly put the car back into gear and continued driving. ‘You never said anything,’ she managed to squeak out eventually.

He laughed, not an entirely happy sound. ‘I was going to. I’d geared myself up for it, even made sure I was over at Ryan and Helen’s on the day I knew you and your mum were due to arrive. I can picture you now, pretty enough to take my breath away in a pink sundress with tiny straps. You’d cut your hair shorter since the last time I saw you, and it had these blonde streaks in it.’

She raised a hand to her fringe in remembrance. ‘That was the summer I turned seventeen. Mum finally agreed to let me dye my hair.’ It was hard to get the words out because she knew now why he’d never told her how he felt. She wanted to tell him to stop talking, but the lump in her throat was growing bigger and bigger.

‘You looked so different, glamorous and so grown up compared to Chloe even though you were the same age.’ Rickhad to stop at another junction, but this time he didn’t turn and look at her as the words kept tumbling from his lips. ‘My heart was beating so fast I was sure everyone would be able to hear it, and I was terrified at the thought of speaking to you, and yet deep down I knew this was it, that you’d notice me standing there. That our eyes would meet like in some romcom. And then the other passenger door opened…’

‘And Drew got out of the car. Oh, Rick, I had no idea…’ She closed her eyes, her heart breaking for the anxious, excited boy she’d heard an echo of in his voice, and perhaps a little bit for herself too. How different things could’ve been if she hadn’t met Drew that day he came in to the department store where she’d had a Saturday job. She and her coworker had even played rock-paper-scissors to see who would get to serve him. Anya had won, or so she’d thought at the time.

A soft hand covered hers and when she opened her eyes, she realised Rick had pulled the car over into one of the viewing point car parks that were scattered along the coastal road. ‘Hey, I didn’t mean to upset you.’

She turned her hand over so they were palm to palm the way he had when they’d been in the café the other day and threaded their fingers together. ‘I had no idea. If I had…’

Reaching out with his free hand, he briefly touched a finger to her lips. ‘No. We can’t change the past, and if you hadn’t met Drew you wouldn’t have Freya.’

Anya nodded. ‘She’s the only thing that kept me hanging on, you know, in the darkest of days. I’m worried already if I should even be here. I can’t risk things not working out between us, but I don’t know how we can make a go of it without her being involved. It seems crazy to be even thinking so far ahead when we’ve barely started our first date, but I have to consider Freya in all of this. If she becomes tooattached to you and then we split up I don’t know what it would do to her.’

Rick squeezed her hand. ‘Like I said before, I’m not interested in a casual fling. I’ve waited more than ten years for the chance to be with you, Anya, I’ll do whatever you need me to do to make this work. We can take things as slow as you like and I’ll stay away from the summer house if you prefer. Not getting to see each other as often as we might like is a small price to pay if it means protecting Freya. She has to be your priority.’

His gentle reassurance calmed the butterflies in her stomach. ‘Thank you. It’s not my intention to mess you around or make you feel like I don’t want to be seen with you…’

‘But you’d rather not be the centre of attention again,’ he finished, echoing what she’d said to him in the café.

She shuddered. ‘Not if I can help it.’

He reached out with his free hand to cup her cheek. ‘May I kiss you?’

She nodded, unable to speak, her heart suddenly hammering so fast. He leaned towards her, stopped suddenly with a laugh as his seat belt jammed, and just like that the tension of the moment melted away. They both fumbled with the release mechanism and leaned in, almost bumping noses in their sudden haste. His lips were soft and there was still a hint of mint from his toothpaste. He slanted his mouth over hers, first left and then right as though seeking the perfect angle, and then his hands were in her hair, and hers rose to press against the smooth cotton of his shirt, the impossible hardness of his chest beneath the material, and she couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything other than respond to the pressure of his lips as the kiss shifted from a question to something closer to a demand.

‘Well,’ Anya gasped when they finally broke apart. ‘Thatputs aside any worries I had about whether or not we had sufficient chemistry.’

Rick sank back against his seat with a strangled laugh. ‘We might have to wait here a few minutes before we drive on to the restaurant.’

She didn’t catch his meaning until he shifted as though trying to adjust his trousers. She made the mistake of glancing down at his lap and quickly turned her hot face towards the window. Oh! Well, that put aside another one of her worries.

She decided to keep that observation to herself.

19

Rick pulled into the large car park near the seafront and stopped the car. ‘We’ve got a bit of time,’ he said to Anya. ‘We can take a walk along the prom if you like.’ She glanced up at him through her lashes and he had to swallow hard before he could speak again. ‘I… uh, I could do with a bit of fresh air.’

‘That might be a good idea.’ A soft pink glow highlighted her cheekbones as her tongue stole out to dampen her lips. It was all he could do not to drag her into his arms and risk them getting arrested for public indecency.

‘I’ll just go and see if we need a ticket.’ He shoved his door open and climbed out before temptation got the better of him and strode over to the large sign above the machine. He’d been here often enough to know that parking was free after 6p.m., but it was as good an excuse as any to put a little bit of breathing space between them. He counted to thirty in his head, all the while telling himself he needed to get a grip. He was a grown man not an awkward, fumbling teenager and he’d been on plenty of first dates.Never one that mattered this much though.

‘Do you need some change?’ Anya’s question made himjump and he glanced down to see her staring up at him with those shining eyes that made him want to fall into them.

---