Page 8 of Love from Pretty Beach
‘You’ve said.’
Rolling her eyes, Darby grabbed her car keys. Jangling the keys, she nodded. 'I'll move it now.'
'Thank you.’
As they walked towards the front door, Darby caught sight of herself in the hall mirror and recoiled. She had floureverywhere. Meanwhile, man in patch pocket work pants looked like he'd stepped out of a construction company's promotional material. Whatever, he was about five years younger than her and wouldn’t look twice at her anyway. Outside, her car sat exactly where she'd left it the night before, parked in her usual spot on the narrow lane. She could see his point about the access issue - there was a gate she'd never paid much attention to, and with her car where it was, getting a large van through would be challenging.
Getting into her car and praying that it would start, a few minutes later, she was standing by his car. 'I’ll just leave it down there parked on the road. How long are you here for?'
'A few months, at least. So, yeah, my guys will be coming and going. It would be good if you could keep your car out of the way.’ He touched his right hand to his annoyingly perfect hair. 'Sorry, I need to get going and get my lads set up.'
Darby couldn’t resist a bit of sarcasm. 'Not a problem. I wouldn't want to interfere with important contractor business. Thanks for the help with the alarm.'
He opened his mouth as if to say something else, then seemed to think better of it. Nodding, he got into his van and drove through the now-accessible gate without another word.
Darby stood in the lane for a moment, watching the van disappear. Trying to process what had just happened, shechuckled to herself. In the space of twenty minutes, she'd had a domestic disaster, been rescued by an exceedingly attractive stranger, discovered said stranger had himself a bit of a superior attitude, and had managed to make herself sound petty and defensive in the process. She’d conducted the whole episode while being doused in flour, too. Fabulous.
Walking back to her cottage, she caught sight of her reflection in the front window and groaned. What a shambles. Her channel debut had been derailed by smoke and she was fairly sure she'd just made a complete fool of herself in front of the most attractive man she'd encountered since moving to Pretty Beach.
Back in the kitchen, Darby addressed Lola. 'Well, Lola, that went about as well as everything else in my life recently.'
As Darby began the process of cleaning flour off every surface in the kitchen, she thought about the man. Annoyed with him for annoyingher, she couldn't stop thinking about him. Mostly, she was wondering who he was. Her brain may have unwittingly started to concoct elaborate scenarios where she might bump into him again. In these scenarios, she would be calm, organised and not plastered in flour. Tutting as she started to clear up, she rolled her eyes. She was a forty-one-year-old woman, for crying out loud. Far too old to be having crush-like feelings. As she cleaned, Darby felt a glimmer of something; she had no idea what.
9
It was a beautiful day in Pretty Beach, cold, yes, but with a bright blue sky and matching sunshine. Not a bad way to start the day. For sure, it was a morning when Darby was very pleased with her decision to move to the coast. Sometimes, she’d wondered what she’d been thinking in moving to a small town where she hadn’t known a soul, but mostly it had been one of her better decisions in life. Walking along with the wind in her hair and Lola stopping to sniff just about everything, she stood on the coastal path looking over the town and smiled. With its lines of pretty pastel houses and lighthouse in the distance, she’d lived in worse places, that she knew for free.
Making her way back down, she stopped to chat with one of the girls from work who was also walking her dog. Then, ambling past the wharf, she strolled down the laneway, dawdling as she went past the bakery and fish and chip shop. It was a nice day to stroll around doing not much but mooch. Stopping to look in the window of the bookshop, the woman who owned the bookshop, Daisy, opened the door with a chalkboard in her hands, propped it up by the doormat and smiled. Darby had been one of the early adopters of a couple of wingback chairsin the bookshop and had followed Daisy’s rise in popularity on Instagram.
‘Oh, hey. What a beautiful morning. Hello, Lola.’ Daisy bobbed down to pat Lola and smiled up at Darby.
‘I know. I’ve just been up on the coastal path. It was a lovely breath of fresh air up there.’
‘Lucky you. Ahh, I bet it was nice up there on a day like this. I’ve just had the joys of the school run, which I cannot describe as pleasant.’
Darby flicked her eyes upwards. ‘Thankfully, my days of that particular delight are over for now. I don’t ever want to go back, thank you very much. Although, actually thinking about it, the school run in Pretty Beach can’t be too bad, can it?’
Daisy laughed. ‘I try to tell myself that when one or both of the twins is having a meltdown.’
Darby shuddered. ‘I know that feeling only too well.’
‘Are you coming in for a cup of tea? I’ve got cinnamon buns.’
Darby looked at her watch. ‘Actually, I need to get back. I have a video call with Molly.’
‘Right. How’s she getting on?’
‘Great, really well. She’s loving it.’
‘That’s nice.’
Just as they were chatting, a car pulled up and a man got out. Not any old man. The man who had asked her to move her car. That one. Darby held her gaze on him for a long second just as he raised his hand to wave. Darby felt extremely pleased by that. It didn’t last long as she realised that he’d waved to Daisy and not her at all. Thankfully, Darby hadn’t waved her hand and made herself look stupid.
The man called out. ‘Hey, Daise! How are you?’
‘Hiya. Good, thanks, Archie.’
Darby smiled. The plot thickened. So, Daisy knew the man who had awakened something in her. Archie, mmm mmm, wehave a name. Darby wanted to yell a million questions at Daisy all at once in a nice, long hurl of information gathering. She, however, was no fool. One question and the whole of Pretty Beach would know that she’d inquired as to who he was. She was surprised she’d never seen him before. Then again, she didn’t get out much. Forcing herself not to turn around and stalk him up the laneway, she tuned back to Daisy and fired off a question that had nothing to do with the man or blood currently zooming around her body. ‘How are you getting on with the shop? I love this week’s window display. You’re so good at it. I don’t know how you come up with so many lovely ideas, I really don’t. You’re so creative.’
