Page 21 of The Cornish Cream Tea Holiday
‘Of course I did,’ Thea said. ‘The other way has a sign that says:Caution! Sudden drop.’
‘Come on, then.’
‘Not a chance.’
‘It’s fine, I promise.’
Thea wondered if she could secure her walking boots to the ground, tie the laces to the surrounding undergrowth in undoable knots so she was stuck where she was. She shook her head.
Ben tapped the peak of her baseball cap. It was actuallyhiscap, because he’d lent it to her, spending an inordinate amount of time fiddling with the adjustment so it fitted her better. It was dusky blue, hadLakes for Lifeembroidered in white across the front – she should have guessed where he’d moved from – and was so soft and comfortable that she never wanted to give it back. Him tapping it felt like an oddly intimate gesture.
‘You need to trust me, Thea.’
‘I do?’
‘On this. I promise you, it’ll be worth it.’
She nodded, her words getting stuck in her throat. She spent a few happy seconds imagining she was back in the fiction section of the library, replacing the returned Christina Lauren and Sophie Cousens books on the romance shelves, their bright spines always so pleasing, then brought herself back to the present. ‘OK then,’ she said. ‘Let’s do it.’
Scooter led the way, then Ben, with Thea going last, because almost as soon as they took the path it got even narrower.Soon they were walking along a craggy, stone-littered track that dipped downwards, skirting along the very edge of the cliff, with only a couple of feet of unruly grass between them and the edge of the world. There was a makeshift wooden barrier, but it didn’t look like it would take Scooter’s weight, let alone hers or Ben’s if one of them stumbled.
With every second that passed, Thea’s throat felt tighter, while her legs seemed to get weaker. They came to a series of steps cut into the rock, and she gripped the back of Ben’s T-shirt. As she did, her fingers brushed against the hot skin at the back of his neck, and for a moment her terror was replaced by the fizz of that contact.
‘OK, Thea?’ he said, half turning his head.
‘Sort of,’ she replied.
‘Nearly there.’ His tone was soothing, but she didn’t feel soothed, because the fear was back, crowding her senses.
As they walked, she kept her focus on her feet, on making sure they were landing safely, and on the anchor that was her hand in Ben’s T-shirt. When he came to a stop and said, quietly, ‘There we go,’ she almost bumped into him.
He stepped sideways, so he was under the shelter of the cliff face above them, and as he did, Thea gasped.
In front of them was a cutaway in the cliff, the sandy stone littered with crevices and crags, most of them full of seabirds. A lot looked like gulls, but there were some darker birds too, and the noise, now she was coming out of her fear fog, was loud: there was alotof squawking and chirping going on. From their position – no longer on top of the cliff, but about a third of the way down – she could see the waves crashing against the rocks, the sea turned into a churning, frothing mass, with no hint of sand or pebbles.It was like some kind of otherworld, something ancient and forgotten, with prehistoric creatures and a whirlpool beneath them, deadly and loud and inescapable. It waspreternatural, she thought. Breathtaking.
‘The tide’s in, so it’s at its most dramatic,’ Ben said.
‘It’s … what are they?’
‘Razorbills and guillemots, some different types of gull that I’m not clued up on yet. There might be some puffins, but without binoculars we’ll be hard pressed to see them.’
‘Puffins?’ She almost squealed in delight. ‘I’d love to see a puffin in real life.’
‘We might have more luck on a boat trip.’
‘A boat?’
‘There are some rocky outcrops a bit further up the coast, which we could get closer to. You can’t get a boat in here.’ He gestured to the water, crashing and swirling in a way that was close to hypnotic, and wholly, indisputably terrifying.
‘No,’ Thea said faintly. ‘I bet you can’t.’
‘If you’re not a fan of boats—’
‘Oh no, I love boats,’ she said. ‘I was just … you don’t have to be tour guide for my entire holiday.’
He flushed: she could see his pink cheeks under his baseball cap. ‘Of course not.’
‘No, I didn’t mean—’Shit. ‘I just meant that you’ve got so much to do. I don’t want to hog all your time, because as much as these distractions are nice, nobody else is going to do your renovation for you. I assume not, anyway.’
