Page 10 of The Beach Cottage
“Don’t make a big deal of it. Okay?”
“Fine, but I have to say something so he knows that I know. Otherwise, he’ll just keep pretending everything’s okay.”
As Bradford walked out onto the deck, Bea watched him go with her heart racing. What if there was something really wrong with Dad? She’d missed spending time with him in recent years. Missed so much. And now that they’d finally reconciled and were able to see each other as often as they liked, what if he was sick and that time would be cut short? She couldn’t lose him yet. It was far too soon.
She shook her head and turned her attention back to dinner preparation. She was being overly dramatic. There might be a completely innocent explanation for what was going on with him. She didn’t know what was wrong or what it would mean for any of them. But even so, her anxiety levels spiked as she worked.
She would talk to him about it, but not tonight. Tonight, they could enjoy a nice meal together as a family, just the three of them. She only wished she’d done that more often instead of being so focused on her life in the city for the past two decades. But there was no going back; she could only move forward and do things differently from now on. Beating herself up over the past wouldn’t achieve anything. She glanced at her father’s sleeping form in the armchair, and a wave of emotion washed over her.
Five
The drive to the Blue Shoal Inn was best avoided. Instead, Penny climbed into the boat that was moored at the dock outside her beach house and drove it around the island. As she pulled away from the dock, she looked back at her house where it squatted amongst a thicket of she-oaks and semi-tropical rainforest. A large verandah along the back of the beach house was hung with climbing roses. She adored the beach house, it was her happy place.
Her parents had given it to her when they’d moved into a small unit in Cairns, and she’d spent the past few years doing it up a little bit at a time. She loved the peacefulness of the place, the way the beach behind the house was a private oasis that tourists rarely stumbled across. She loved that it was hers and that the rambling internal structure had been like a cubby with plenty of hiding spots when she was a kid. She’d loved exploring every room, nook and crevice with a stuffed toy under one arm admits the echoes of her mother playing the piano.
The boat pushed through the small waves that chortled to shore. The surf was always light, since the island was sheltered by the Great Barrier Reef. The boat surged over a low wave and then settled into the choppy ocean beyond. A southeasterly wind had picked up early that morning and still buffeted the shoreline.
Penny raised a hand to hold her hat in place as she drove one-handed around the island. It really was a beautiful sight, Coral Island with the midday sun glistening on azure waters and steep cliffs of red and brown clay intermingled with black rocks rising from the depths to her left.
She slowed her pace to pull the boat into the marina at Blue Shoal, letting her hand drop back to her side, her hat safe. The boat idled through the marina, and she stopped in an empty space then tethered the boat in place.
“Penny St James? Seeing you twice in the space of a week can’t be a coincidence.” Rowan’s deep voice startled her and had her heart racing before she’d even turned to face him.
Her cheeks flushed with warmth at the sight of him standing beside a boat on the timber dock, shirtless and wearing a cap, his sweaty torso glistening beneath the sun’s warm rays. He held a rope in one hand. His abdominal muscles were tight and toned.
“Hello again,” she said awkwardly.
“What are you doing in my hometown?”
“You live in Blue Shoal?”
“Temporarily, of course.”
“I thought you lived in New York or something.”
“I did.” He shrugged. “I’m taking some time to rethink my career direction.”
“Is that code for being unemployed?” She shuddered at her own words. Why was she always so rude to him? He brought out the worst in her, and she couldn’t understand why.
“I suppose you could say that.” He laughed. “Unemployed and trying to figure out my next move.”
“Don’t you enjoy journalism anymore?”
He picked up a large rope and coiled it around his elbow and hand carefully. “Not as much as I did. There was a certain level of excitement to traveling and staying in hotels, chasing down leads and finding the story. But I’m older now, and I’d like to settle somewhere. Journalism doesn’t really allow for that. Although since I’m not qualified to do anything else, I suppose I’ll have to stick with it until I figure out what to do.”
“I never thought I’d see the day that Rowan Clements would settle down.” She shook her head. Next, he’d be saying he wanted to get married. And even though Penny had never taken the plunge herself, she’d always wanted to.
It’d been a source of immense frustration and disappointment over the years whenever long-term relationships had fizzled out or ended suddenly and without warning. Years that she’d dedicated to building connections, hoping it might end in a family of her own only to watch it all fall apart. She’d given up hoping and instead chose to be content with her animals and friendships these days.
He grinned. “I suppose stranger things have happened.”
“That’s true.”
“So, you didn’t answer my question. What are you doing in Blue Shoal?”
“I’m having lunch with some friends — Evie, Taya and Beatrice.”
“The whole crew back together again,” he said. “That must be nice.”
