by Fiona Harper
She’d forgotten what she’d been missing.
They didn’t round the Lizard that day. Instead Damien took them upstream beyond Falmouth and St Mawes and they tacked up the River Fal, zigzagging from one bank to the other. After the rougher weather a couple of days earlier it was easy to work alongside each other. Comfortable. They were a good team.
When they dropped the sails and used the motor to explore one of the tidal creeks they discovered a gorgeous little medieval church on the bank, set incongruously in a garden of palm trees and tropical ferns. They dropped anchor close by and went ashore to explore the parish of St Just-in-Roseland.
Sitting on the grass in the church garden, looking out over the estuary bathed in bright golden light, Zoe turned to Damien.
‘What are we doing?’
He lay back on the spiky grass and smiled at the sky. ‘I think it’s called relaxing, but I’m new to it. I’ll let you know when I’ve got a handle on it.’
She poked him in the ribs, then lay down beside him. ‘You know what I mean.’
He rolled over on to one side and looked at her. Zoe stared defiantly at the sky, watched a little turtle-shaped cloud chase a bigger, wispier one.
‘What do you want it to be?’ he asked softly, and the low rumble behind his words made it sound slightly naughty. She twisted her head round and gave him a penetrating look.
‘Not games,’ she said. ‘Not pretending it’s something it’s not. Let’s be honest about it.’
‘Agreed.’ He nodded, a serious look creeping into his eyes. ‘But does it need a label?’
She breathed out noisily. ‘Maybe not. But I think it needs a time limit.’
He thought about that for a moment, chewed one side of his lip. She wasn’t sure he’d liked what she’d said, but he saw the sense in it. ‘Okay,’ he said.
‘We both know there’s an obvious cut-off point.’
There. She’d saved him the trouble of saying it should end with the holiday.
He blinked and shrugged the shoulder that wasn’t supporting him. ‘That doesn’t mean it doesn’t mean anything,’ he said gravely, those blue eyes boring into hers.
Thank you, she whispered inwardly. For being honest. For being brave. For not making me feel disposable.
‘It means it’s a summer fl—’
He pressed a finger to her lips. ‘No labels, remember? Let’s just enjoy this for what it is, see where it leads us.’
She assumed a look of mock-seriousness and laid the back of her hand to his forehead. ‘I’m sorry, but this is you—Damien Stone—saying these things. Are you sure you haven’t got a temperature?’
He gently peeled her hand away from his head, turned her palm towards his mouth and did something amazing with his tongue that made Zoe’s toes actually, truly curl up and her eyes slide closed. Whatever fever it was, it was catching.
She pushed hard against his chest with her free hand, sent him toppling backwards and, while he was still grunting in surprise, she swung one leg over and sat on top of him. Then she kissed him slowly, sensuously. Hello, the kiss said, to whatever new thing this is. It felt as if they’d crossed some invisible barrier into new territory and it needed to be marked somehow.
Damien didn’t reach up for her or pull her to him. Instead he lay spreadeagled on the grass, a slight smile curving his lips as he kissed her back. ‘To answer your first question,’ he muttered between kisses, ‘I don’t know what this is.’
Zoe ran her hands up inside his T-shirt and let her fingers explore.
‘But whatever it is,’ he added hoarsely, ‘it’s certainly working for me.’
* * *
Zoe felt like a goddess. There was something intoxicating about being slap-bang in the centre of Damien Stone’s attention. And while part of her panicked every time she noticed a similarity between Damien and her ex, another part told it to just calm down please and take a breath.
She wasn’t marrying this one, was she? It was safe. And they’d both been honest and upfront about their expectations. He wasn’t going to leave her unexpectedly; they were going to leave each other at the end of the week. Mutual decision.
Six more days with Damien, with a man who made her heart skip because he enjoyed being with her. Six days when he’d look at her and she’d see fire ignite in his eyes. Six days to feel the comfort of his arms around her when she just needed to be close to someone.
It had been a long time since she’d let anyone close.
In fact, it had been a long time since she’d had that kind of physical contact with anyone—hugs that lasted more than a few seconds, a hand to hold, a warm body to mould herself against. The play-wrestling her brothers still attempted at family get-togethers didn’t count. Really, it didn’t.
With Damien it counted. And, while she knew this couldn’t last, she would be forever grateful to him for that. He was healing something inside her. Something she hadn’t even known had been broken.
It was a blustery, sunny day and, rather than heading round Lizard Point and making progress to the Scillies, Damien had suggested sailing up the neighbouring Helford River to have lunch. Nothing fancy, just sandwiches and salad and a bottle of crisp white wine that had been chilling on the end of a rope over the side of the boat. She was sitting in the cockpit with Damien when he picked up the sketchbook she’d been doodling in before lunch.
‘You’re going to make these up when you get back,’ he said, but there was no inflection at the end of the sentence. It wasn’t really a question. He was like that. Driven, focused, specific. Things she’d previously despised about him that now made her shiver in anticipation. There was something to be said for a man who knew how to apply that attention to detail when it came to women. Oh, yes.
Zoe shrugged and took a sip of her wine. ‘Probably.’
It was difficult. Those designs had somehow become caught up in her head with the idea of having a shop, and she didn’t know if she could make one real without the other. She’d have to wait, work on something else when she got back.
But Damien was learning to read her too well. ‘Why not?’ he asked.
Zoe gave him the kind of look that she knew used to make his red blood cells sizzle and pop, but nowadays it just caused him to do things like he did just then—carefully prise the wine glass from her fingers, place it on the bench, pull her on to his lap and kiss her.
She was so dizzy when he’d finished with her that she told him about her dream for a workshop, for getting clients who would commission one-of-a-kind pieces with her unique twist to them. A chance to really let her imagination fly.
‘So…look for properties when you get back,’ he said. ‘Start small, build up.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m not ready for that yet. I’m not at that stage. It’s still early days.’
‘What do you need to get it to that stage, then?’
Zoe picked up her wine glass again and pressed it to her chest, the fingers of both hands wrapped around the stem. ‘I need to visit the bank manager, make some kind of projections, I suppose…’ Get some guts.
Damien used a finger to tip her chin up and make her look at him.
‘You can do this,’ he said seriously. ‘You’ve got spark, you’ve got flair. You can make this happen, even if you’re not so good with the organising side of things. Doesn’t matter. Get an assistant who is.’
Zoe stuttered, although she wasn’t sure which word was stalling on her tongue.
‘It’d be a shame to never see these designs made up,’ he said. ‘So do it.’
‘I…I can’t.’
Where had that come from? She hadn’t been planning on saying that at all.
Damien, as always, zeroed in on the root of the problem, but there was such a tenderness in his eyes that she found herself saying more things she hadn’t planned.
‘I’m scared.’
His thumb stroked her chin. ‘Of what?’
Zoe didn’t know. She was just scared. Scared of trying and fa
iling, maybe. Of investing in something with all her heart only to see it wither and die.
She pulled her chin away from his hand and looked down. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand this, but not everybody’s dreams come true. Not everyone can do what you do.’
Much to her surprise, Damien began to laugh. But the warm, rich sound she was used to was now dark and self-mocking. ‘You think I get everything I want out of life?’ He ran a hand through his hair and looked away momentarily. ‘Believe me, I don’t.’
She clutched the stem of her glass even harder. ‘What dreams are still eluding you? I can’t believe you’ve got much left on your to-do list! You’re successful and confident and clever.’
His eyes flashed with sudden warmth and she knew he was grateful for the compliments, which struck her as odd because surely he knew all these things about himself.
‘What am I known for, Zoe? What do people joke about me?’
Well, she knew what she used to say about him, but now was really not a good time to re-hash that, so she thought harder. ‘That you’re always the best man, I suppose. But even that’s not fair. A man just looks better and better the more times he gets asked to do that. Me, I’ve only been a bridesmaid once and I’ve already got my mother telling me I’d better not make a habit of it, especially since I’ve got one false start under my belt.’
He squeezed her hand and his expression became more sombre. ‘I understand, because I feel the same way. Don’t you think I’d like to be the groom instead of the best man some day?’
Now it was Zoe’s turn to laugh. ‘Well, I don’t think you’re going to have any trouble on that score. I mean, look at you! They must be queuing up around the block.’
Damien didn’t join her. There wasn’t one glint of amusement in those hard blue eyes. Zoe exhaled and looked deep into her wine glass. ‘If you want it so much, why haven’t you got married before now?’
She felt him go still underneath her. This conversation had got too serious to be sitting on his lap, but she didn’t know how to get off without making it seem like a judgement of some kind. And she of all people knew just how much it hurt to be judged when you were down.
‘Haven’t found the right girl?’ she asked softly, trying to inject a bit of levity into this rapidly sinking conversation.
When he didn’t reply she looked up at him.
‘Something like that,’ he said wearily.
And then a sudden knowledge hit Zoe. Where it had come from she didn’t know, but she realised she and Damien had more in common than she’d thought. ‘You liked someone and they didn’t like you back the same way.’
Like her and Aiden. She’d worshipped him, but she suspected she’d just been an amusing diversion for him. Some mad impulse he’d thought better of eventually.
Damien’s hands came around her waist and he lifted her off him and stood up. The non-slip bench was rough and cold against her legs. He sighed and walked over to the back of the boat, staring out at the water below. ‘Pretty much. She was in love with someone else.’
Zoe put her wine glass down again and went to him, curled her arms around his body and pressed herself against his back.
‘It’ll happen for you,’ she said. ‘I know it.’
‘How do you know?’ he replied, and his tone held a tinge of bleakness.
She tugged on his T-shirt, pulled him round to face her and looked up into his face. He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked searchingly into her eyes, as if he was trying to read what she was going to say before her lips moved.
‘Because you’re a leading man,’ she said. ‘You’re that type that good things happen to.’
Confusion clouded his features. ‘What?’
He hadn’t been expecting her to say that, had he? Now she needed to explain.
‘It’s like in the movies,’ she began, and Damien’s expression became sceptical. She slapped him on the chest. ‘Hear me out, at least.’
One corner of his mouth twitched, so Zoe continued.
‘I have a theory that there are two types of people in this world—the romantic leads and the backup characters. Romantic leads are the sort of people we’d all like to be, or be with, like—’ she stopped herself saying you, thinking he’d scoff and stop listening ‘—like Sara.’
There was a flicker of something on his face. ‘Go on.’
Zoe shrugged and smiled. ‘I have to tell you that it’s hard work being best friends with a girl like her. She’s pretty, clever, sweet… Good things come her way naturally. She hardly has to even try. Look at her now, off in Paradise with the man of her dreams. I mean, you can’t get any jammier than that, can you?’
Damien pursed his lips. He was listening to her intently now.
‘And what about the other sort?’
‘Oh, the sidekicks? They get their happy endings too…sometimes. It’s just that it’s not always as shiny and perfect. Some of them have to compromise, settle a little.’
‘The two don’t mix?’
She shook her head emphatically. ‘Well, not long-term. The honourable best friend might date the girl for a bit, and we all think he’s adorable, but you know she’s going to end up with the leading man.’
Damien frowned. ‘Is that what you’re trying to tell me? That I need to set my sights lower?’
Zoe’s mouth dropped open. He really thought that was what she meant? She gave him a shove with the flat of her hand, then, before he lost balance, she clutched on to the front of his T-shirt and pulled him down towards her for a kiss.
‘No, you daft man,’ she whispered. ‘I’m saying you’re the other sort. Look at your life, all you’ve accomplished. The rest will come too. Just don’t lose hope.’
Damien slid his hands down to her waist and pulled her even closer, began to kiss the soft patch of skin between jaw and ear. ‘So, if I’m a leading man, who are you?’
Zoe let her head drop back to give him better access. She blocked out the pang of sorrow that spiked through her at his words. Not the same, she whispered silently to herself. But she had other words to say out loud.
‘I’m the girl who’s making the most of having him wrapped around her, that’s who.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DOWN a cobbled street in Falmouth was a second-hand bookshop stuffed to the brim with both yellowing volumes with a few decades’ worth of dust on them and dog-eared bestsellers from last Christmas. Damien discovered it had quite a good sailing section, not surprising, he supposed, for a shop in a town like this, where white sails decorated the waterfront on almost every day of the year.
He’d moored here plenty of times before when he’d been with Luke, but he’d never been to this curious little shop, never mind this street, always in too much of a hurry to re-stock and sail on.
There’d been plenty of other places on the large and sprawling estuary that he’d never visited either, but Zoe seemed to have a talent for sniffing these things out, and he was rather enjoying staying put, using Falmouth as a base and discovering the things that he’d never noticed before. Reaching the Scillies was now looking less and less probable, but somehow he didn’t mind.
Zoe squealed. ‘I don’t believe it!’
She came running through labyrinthine bookshelves towards him, clutching a large coffee-table book, and almost sent half a display flying in her enthusiasm to reach him. He smiled. Once he’d thought her ‘too much’, but now he found her verve a little bewitching. Things were certainly never dull when Zoe was around.
‘Look!’ she said, almost yelling, and shoved the book so close to his face he couldn’t focus on it.
He took hold of it and moved it to a distance where he wasn’t required to go cross-eyed. ‘Beautiful Beaches of Britain.’
She tugged it away from his grasp and started to leaf through it, cooing and making all sorts of exclamatory noises. That was Zoe. She couldn’t just say Oh!; she had a whole rainbow of responses.
She had a whole rainbow of responses to him
too. Sometimes she was bold and bossy, sometimes she was soft and almost shy. He never knew what he was going to get from one moment to the next. It was a bit like a roller coaster, with all of the thrills and adrenalin. Perhaps it was just as well this wasn’t going to be a long-term thing. He’d like to enjoy his time with Zoe, not reach a point where he was numb and slightly nauseous and wanted nothing more than to leave it behind.
She smiled up at him. ‘My aunt had this book. I used to flick through it every time we visited. I dreamed of visiting each and every one of these beaches, especially the dramatic cliff-backed ones in Devon and Cornwall. Look at that—!’
She thrust the book at him. He had to admit, it was a very fine picture of Kynace Cove, with its dramatic rocky shore and island reached by a bar of sand at low tide, not too far away from where they were now.
‘So which ones do you still have to cross off your list?’
Zoe stopped smiling and her mouth hung slightly open. ‘Um…’
He waited for her to remember the names, or at least point to a picture in the book. It was at least a minute before he realised that answer would never come.
‘You haven’t been to any of them yet, have you?’
She shook her head.
Damien chuckled in bemusement. ‘Why not? You’re all grown up now. You’ve got a car and a free weekend every now and then. What’s stopped you?’
Zoe closed the book softly and tucked it under her arm. ‘Nothing, I suppose. But I…’
Damien tipped his head to one side, a lopsided smile on his face. Zoe moved the book to her front and crossed her arms over it. She looked a little confused.
‘I just liked looking at the pictures…’ She trailed off, obviously reliving some long-archived memory. ‘These beaches seemed like dreams, not real places I could actually go to one day.’ She frowned. ‘That’s stupid, isn’t it?’
‘What would be stupid would be not taking the opportunity to visit some of them when we’re so close.’