Page 32 of Escape to Starshine Cove
“This was nice,” I say, leaning back in my chair and smiling at him. “Though I’m so full you might have to carry me back to the car.”
“Damn,” he replies, “I was just about to ask you to do the same for me…but yes. It has been nice. Ready to head back, or do you want to go somewhere else for a drink?”
I think it over, and shake my head. He is driving, so it’d just be me drinking, and that’s never a good look. I might end up asking for a kebab on the way home, or forget that this isn’t a date at all and behave inappropriately.
“No, I don’t think so,” I reply firmly. “It’s getting late.”
“It’s half past nine,” he says, grinning.
“It might only be half past nine, but on countryside time, that’s practically midnight, and I might turn into a pumpkin if I don’t get back before the chimes strike twelve.”
“I think you might have that story mixed up, Cinders…but okay, come on, then. We can walk along the river back to the car and try and shift some of this pudding.”
He pats his utterly flat stomach, and we pay the bill. There is a small scuffle over it, which I win, and after a short and picturesque stroll along a bank-side path, we are safely tucked away in Jake’s Audi.
He puts music on – something soulful and warm that I don’t recognise – and we drive home in that comfortable silence that I have started to treasure. Connie has asked me a million questions since I arrived here and Jake has asked very few, yet he still knows me better than anyone else in Starshine Cove. Strange but true.
By the time we arrive back at the inn, I am in a kind of trance – the comfort of the car, the companionship of the man, possibly the wine. I don’t even want to get out.
He switches the engine off, but neither of us moves. We turn to look at each other, and we both smile, and a moment of pure magic passes between us. He reaches out, and takes my hand in his, and kisses my fingers gently before letting go. The briefest of touches, but enough to make me my heart beat faster.
“So,” he says, quietly, “you’re leaving on Sunday.”
“I am,” I reply, my voice sounding a lot steadier than I feel. “Yes.”
“I don’t usually say this to hotel guests, but I think I’ll miss you.”
“I don’t usually say this to people who run hotels, but I think I’ll miss you, too…”
“So maybe,” he continues, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, “we should make the most of the time we have left together. Maybe you’d like that last drink up on the roof terrace?”
I look into his eyes, and know that the answer should be no. That I am not ready. That I am just out of one relationship, that I am still a mess, that I need a friend more than I need a lover. That for me, there is no such thing as no-strings-attached – if I spend the night with this man, it will complicate things. It will make everything so much harder. It will result in nothing but emotional chaos that I am ill-prepared to handle right now. It would simply be wrong, and I definitely shouldn’t do it.
But, as a wise man recently told me, the key to life is always trying to find the fun in it – and I’m sick of being sensible.
“Yes,” I finally reply. “I think I’d like that very much.”
ChapterSixteen
It is almost dark, the light hazy and warm, hovering between the end of a hot summer’s day and the start of a balmy summer night as though it can’t quite make up its mind which one to choose. Jake takes my hand as we get out of the car, walking slowly towards the inn, every step seeming to heighten the sense of excitement. I am about to do something reckless, something crazy, something purely spontaneous, and every fibre of my being is utterly thrilled about it.
I am not this person. I am not usually reckless. I do not have holiday romances with handsome strangers; I am not the kind of woman who allows herself to be swept away in the moment.
Except, I know, as soon as I left London and my career and my life behind, I started to change. And now, here, in this tiny place at the end of the world, I am changing even more. I am evolving, and everything from the touch of Jake’s skin against mine, the sensation of his fingertips tracing my palm, the promise in his gaze, tells me that it is a change I shouldn’t fight. It is a change I don’t want to fight.
We pause before we reach the door, standing beneath both the light of the sun as it lingers, and the moon as it rises. I look up, touch his face, smiling as my fingertips run lightly across skin, his stubble, the shape of his jaw. He skims his hands down the bare flesh of my arms, pulls me close, holding me tight as our bodies press together. It is delicious, and divine, and it has only just begun.
“Are you sure?” he asks, his eyes shining.
“No,” I reply, letting my fingers briefly tangle into his hair, “but I’m definitely having fun.”
He laughs, and says: “Fair enough. Game face on before we go in, unless you want Connie to hear about this and pop round with her spy glasses.”
I reluctantly disentangle myself from his arms, consoled only by the thought that I will soon be back there, and we walk through the door and into the inn.
It is just after 10pm, and it is usually fairly quiet by this stage – but tonight, there seems to be some kind of party going on. The place is absolutely rammed, every seat taken, every corner filled, every nook and cranny overflowing. I spot Trevor, and the Betties, and so many other people. It’s as though every single inhabitant of the village has come to the pub at once.
As we enter, Connie emerges from the centre of the hubbub, and shouts: “She’s here, everyone! Strip off your clothes and start singing!”
