Page 106 of The Cornish Cream Tea Holiday
Ben grinned. ‘He wasn’t OK.’
Finn tutted. ‘He’ll get over it. He’ll have to, because before this afternoon even kicked off, he’d asked Ben to come back, to make it a more regular thing.’
‘I’m not sure that offer’s going to stand, now,’ Ben said.
‘I bet it will,’ Meredith chipped in. ‘Marcus’s bark is worse than his bite. Adrian says he’s a decent guy, and I’m sure he’ll give you another chance.’
‘He won’t want to pass up on your talent,’ Thea agreed, letting Ben take both her hands in his, feeling a delicious thrum in her veins at being so close to him, knowing that the hard, jagged edges that had been between them had been, if not fully smoothed out, then at least shaved down, paving the way for more softening to come. ‘But what about your house renovations?’
Ben scowled, but it wasn’t a serious scowl: it couldn’t put a dent in his obvious happiness. ‘I’ll get there eventually.’
‘I could always help with the tiling, next time I’m down.’
‘Now that,’ Ben said, ‘is an offer I can’t refuse.’ He walked around the van and held the door open. Thea climbed into the passenger seat, Finn and Meredith not seeming to mind that they’d been relegated to the back. ‘Except I’m hoping that the next time you’re here, I will have made a lot of progress.’ He opened the driver’s door and Scooter jumped up, settling himself in the middle as Ben climbed in behind him.
‘Oh?’ Thea said. ‘Why’s that?’
Ben shrugged, started the engine and then turned to her, his hazel eyes so full of hope and desire that Thea felt asif she was in an unstable building once more, her whole body trembling. ‘I’d really like to impress my girlfriend when she visits,’ he explained. ‘I can’t have her coming to stay in a building site, can I? Not when you’ll already have this one to deal with.’ He gestured to the Old Post House.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Thea said. ‘I seem to remember you telling me you had a bed, and maybe that’s all you’ll need?’
‘Maybe it is,’ he agreed.
Their gazes held, and a silent promise, a charge, passed between them, before Finn interrupted from the back of the van.
‘I’ve changed my mind. Can you let me and Meredith out here? We want no part of these shenanigans, Benjamin Senhouse. Where’s the repressed, untalkative guy I’ve come to know and love?’
Ben drove down the hill, Port Karadow a picture postcard of Cornish summer below them, all sun-warmed buildings and blue, inviting sea. ‘I don’t know,’ he said mildly, reaching past Scooter to put his hand on Thea’s knee, his touch both soft and sizzling. ‘Maybe he’s finally happy again?’
There was silence after that, but it was a shared, contented silence, and Thea put her hand over Ben’s, looked out of the windscreen at her new home, and decided she was quite pleased that she’d decided to take the plunge and, despite all her misgivings, have a solo holiday in Port Karadow after all.
