Page 103 of Kate and Clara's Curious Cornish Craft Shop
‘If you must know, Julian tried it on – with me, I mean. He didn’t try on my vest.’ I grimace at my awful joke, but Jack is silent. ‘So, yes, you were right, apparently he does have some feelings for me and he chose that afternoon to make them abundantly clear.’
A smug expression appears on Jack’s face.
‘You can take that look off your face! You’re the one still in the wrong here not me.’
‘So nothing happened then at the cottage?’
‘How many more times? No, of course nothing happened. Jack, it’s you I like – can’t you see that? Goodness knows why when you behave like you do sometimes, but for all our differences there’s something between us. Something special, I hope.’
To my enormous relief Jack smiles up at me. He takes hold of my hand and pulls it towards him so he can kiss the back of it. Then he tugs on it again so I have no choice but to follow my hand with my body.
Suddenly I find my lips on Jack’s, and we share the softest of kisses. Nothing like what I’d imagined Jack’s kisses might feel like. When I’d kissed him before it had very much been me kissing him, now it was his turn.
‘Sit on my lap?’ he asks.
Without saying anything I do as he requests, tentatively sitting as gently as I can on him, but Jack is having none of that. Before I know what he’s doing he scoops my legs up and turns me sideways so my legs are now dangling over the side of his chair and my head is nestling into his broad chest. As he wraps his strong arms around my body to hold me close to him I feel completely at home, enveloped in his warm embrace.
I tilt my head up towards him so our faces are millimetres apart.
Jack looks into my eyes, ‘Now I can kiss you properly.’
‘Why don’t you?’ I ask, eager for the touch of his lips on mine. His upper body feels taut and firm against me. Close contact with Jack is very pleasurable indeed.
‘Because I don’t want you to miss this,’ he says, and he looks past me out over the sea.
I follow his gaze and I’m amazed to see the most beautiful blood-red sunset in front of us.
‘It’s just like the painting,’ I whisper softly as I turn to Jack. ‘Arty and Clara’s painting.’
‘I know,’ he whispers back, before he kisses me again. ‘Like history is repeating itself … but this time it’s just for us.’
Thirty-one
‘Morning, Kate!’ Anita says, as she arrives at the shop the next morning. ‘How are you today, dear?’
‘Great, thank you, Anita,’ I reply happily. ‘Really well.’
‘Good, I’m glad to hear it.’ Anita adds while she hangs up her cardigan and handbag in the back of the shop: ‘Only I heard you had a bit of bother last night.’
‘Bother? No I don’t think so. Who told you that?’
I’d decided not to say anything to Anita about Joel’s visit. I didn’t want to fall out with her any more than I wanted to fall out with Jack or Julian.
‘Rita from The Merry Mermaid told Janice at the chemist, so when I called for my prescription this morning Janice asked me if you were all right?’
I shake my head. The speed at which gossip travels around here is unbelievable!
‘Something about you storming out of the pub and Jack chasing after you?’ Anita says as she comes back into the shop. ‘But obviously she was mistaken?’
I sigh. ‘All right, so we did have a small disagreement, but it’s all sorted now.’ I can’t help smiling to myself as I remember last night up on the hill.
Jack and I had sat for ages watching the sunset and each other, just the two of us snuggled together getting to know each other even better. The incredible sunset had eventually turned into a star-filled sky, and we’d watched that with the same wonderment and togetherness, until eventually it had become too cold to sit there any longer, and we’d sadly had to head back into town.
There had been a brief discussion about the possibility of spending the night together, but we’d both agreed that it might be a bit of a worry for our respective children to find either one of us not in our own bed the next morning. Or it would have been even more of a shock if either one of them had found an unexpected visitor in their parent’s bedroom.
Regretfully, we’d parted, promising to be in touch the next day.
‘By the expression on your face,’ Anita says, smiling at me, ‘I’d say it had been more than justsorted.’
