The Runaway Year

by Shani Struthers

  Joseph ignored her, said goodbye to Jim, then disappeared with Clare into the darkness, back toward the steep path that would lead them home. Mick had separated himself from Layla and moved toward Jim, who sat there, a determined smile etched on his face. Curtis and Ryan were still softly strumming away, lost in the music, but a few others started drifting, perhaps driven away by the awkward atmosphere or simply wanting to swap the campfire for a more private part of the cove.

  “Hannah, come on. Come with me. Let’s go for a walk.”

  Layla needed to get Hannah away from here and fast, find out what was making her behave so out of character. She would never have thought her capable of such rude behavior, never in a million years. She seemed to dislike Clare, but why? Had they known each other previously and had some kind of falling out? Clare gave no indication of knowing anyone other than Joseph, hadn’t even spoken to anyone else as far as Layla knew. In fact, she’d barely looked at anyone else. If only Layla could entice Hannah somewhere quiet, somewhere where it was just the two of them, she could try to get to the bottom of it.

  Hannah hesitated before replying, but then said, “Yeah, yeah, okay, I’ll come for a walk.”

  As they linked arms, Hannah pointed at the route Joseph and Clare had taken and said angrily, “Not that way, though. Let’s go this way. We don’t want to bump into any courting couples, do we?”

  Jim looked up at this, and Layla caught his eye. Despite his fixed smile, his eyes were sad.

  Gently she asked, “Is that okay, Jim? I think us girls could do with some fresh air.”

  “Yeah, sure, Layla…look after her, though, won’t you?”

  “I will,” promised Layla, touched by his enduring sweetness. And with that she steered Hannah along the water’s edge and into the distance.

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE TIDE WAS FAR OUT NOW, and the moon shone brightly in the sky, lighting their path perfectly. Hannah broke free of Layla and started running along the water’s edge, faster and faster as though her very life depended on it, trying to leave the past and everything in it as far behind as possible.

  Layla caught up with her after a while and grabbed her arm, the movement causing Hannah to stumble and in stumbling bring them both down. As they toppled to the ground, the water lapped against her bare legs, causing an involuntary intake of breath, it was so cold. It also brought her to her senses.

  Quickly backing away from the tide before she got any wetter, Hannah pointed to a collection of rocks some meters away. They made their way toward them and flopped down, fighting hard to catch their breath.

  It was Layla who spoke first. “So, come on,” she said, her chest still heaving, “what was all that about?”

  Layla, of course, didn’t know a thing. Was it better to keep it that way? Fairer on everyone concerned? Or should she confide in her? She so wanted to confide in her.

  “Hannah.” Layla was clearly becoming impatient. “I’m your friend, hopefully your best friend. Something’s upset you, and I want to help.”

  Help? That would be nice. But she couldn’t help, no one could help. Still, there may be some relief in sharing.

  Unable to hold back any longer, she said, “Have you ever loved someone who didn’t love you?”

  Layla looked stunned. Whatever she’d expected Hannah to say, it clearly wasn’t that. She rallied quickly, though, replying, “I thought Alex didn’t love me. When he ran off to Florida, I mean. Turns out he does, or at least he says he does, but for a while I didn’t think so. So, yeah, I suppose I qualify, in a way.”

  “Oh, Layla,” said Hannah on a sob. “I wish I could control my feelings. I wish I didn’t feel the way I do. I wish I could be happy with what I’ve got.”

  “That’s one heck of a lot of wishes, Hannah,” replied Layla, her voice spilling over with concern.

  “Tell me about it,” sighed Hannah.

  Layla ran her hand through her hair. “I suppose we’ve all got a tendency to think the grass is greener on the other side. But I don’t think it is usually.”

  “But what if you know it is?” beseeched Hannah. “What if you had everything you ever wanted, only to find out it didn’t want you?”

  “Hannah, I don’t understand. I thought you were happy with Jim.”

  “I am. I am happy with Jim,” Hannah insisted. “Who wouldn’t be? He’s funny, kind, and generous to a fault. He’s also bloody good in bed.” She laughed but despairingly so.

  “What is it, then? What’s the problem? He worships you.”

  Fighting back the tears, Hannah said, “I know, and I love that he does. But there’s something else or rather someone else. Someone else I’ve loved more than Jim, and although I’ve tried to, I can’t seem to forget it.”

  “Anyone I know?” prompted Layla, her brows furrowed in confusion.

  “Oh, yeah, you know him well.” She wondered how long it would take for Layla to guess. Not too long as it turned out, realization widening her eyes after just a few moments.

  “Joseph?” she said at last.

  “Joseph,” Hannah confirmed.

  “Crikey.”

  Crikey, indeed.

  It was a few moments more before Layla spoke again, and then it was one long string of questions. What? When? Where? How?

  “Slow down,” Hannah urged. “I’ll tell you if you’ll let me.”

  Immediately, Layla fell silent.

  “You had no way of knowing,” Hannah began. “We’d lost touch at the time, but Joe and I, well, we were a couple for quite a while before Jim. For nearly eight months, in fact.”

  “A couple?” Layla gasped. “You and Joseph? When?”

  “About three years ago. I’d already met Jim when he moved to Trecastle. He had the hots for me straight away. Jim, I mean, I could tell.” She smiled. “But I wasn’t sure. Just when I decided I liked him too, Joe turns up—fresh from London and sexy as hell—to crash on Jim’s sofa. And that was it, I was lost. Jim quickly realized and took a back seat.” The memory pricked tears of guilt and caused her to pause for a moment.

  “Go on,” said Layla gently.

  “Joe took a bit of persuasion at first, said he still missed his ex, but finally we got it together, and it was magical, honestly. The best summer I’d ever had in my life. I didn’t realize it was possible to be so happy. You know that saying ‘walking on air’? Well, I was. I truly was. As time went by, though, I began to realize he wasn’t quite as in love with me as I was with him.”

  As Hannah’s tears started flowing freely, Layla leaned across and reached for her hand, squeezing it tight.

  “We started going out in March of that year, and he ended it in November. He was worried I was getting too serious. He wanted to nip it in the bud before I got hurt. Too late, though. It was too late from the moment I set eyes on him, to be honest. I was devastated.”

  “Oh, Hannah, I’m so sorry,” said Layla, welling up.

  “Yeah, me too,” she whispered.

  “What about Jim? Does he know how you feel?”

  “Of course, he does. Jim knows everything. He picked up the pieces, and in his own way, tried to fix me. He’s been trying to fix me ever since, and most of the time he does a pretty good job.” She took a deep breath and then continued. “Jim’s always been there for me. He knows I still have feelings for Joe. He said he’d rather have a part of me than nothing at all. We don’t talk about it much, and usually everything’s okay. It’s just sometimes it gets to me, you know? It’s hard seeing him around all the time and knowing I can’t have him.”

  “It all makes sense now,” said Layla after Hannah had finished. “A couple of times I’ve noticed a kind of sadness about you, but I couldn’t figure out why. I thought I was imagining it. You couldn’t be unhappy. You had it all. Now I know I wasn’t imagining anything.”

  “Now you know,” agreed Hannah forlornly.

  For a while the two girls sat on the rocks, Layla’s head resting on Hannah’s shoulder, each of them staring b
lindly into space.

  “I know it’s over between me and Joe,” said Hannah eventually. “We’re history, well and truly, but I’m worried about Jim. I’m worried if I can’t find a way to switch off these feelings, he’ll tire of me. Tire of being second best. Everyone’s got their breaking point.”

  “Not Jim,” Layla disagreed. “He loves you. I’ve never seen a guy so in love. Not even Richard with Penny, and that’s saying something.”

  This made Hannah cry harder, but after a minute she stopped, sniffling slightly. “How do you get on with Joe? You two seemed close at one point. There was a definite spark between you. I thought something might happen; you might get it together.”

  “He’s just a friend, that’s all,” Layla replied quickly. “I don’t see him much. He’s either at his workshop or with Clare, as we’ve just found out.”

  “So,” Hannah persisted, “nothing’s ever happened between you?”

  “Good God, no. Nothing at all. Why?”

  “I just wondered, that’s all, about the spark.”

  “There’s no spark. None at all. Barely even a friendship between us at the moment.”

  Was that a slight crack in her voice? Hannah wondered. Turning to face her, Hannah said, “I’ve confided in you. You’d do the same, wouldn’t you? Confide in me if you needed to? Don’t let what I’ve said stop you. Joe and me, we’ll never be together again. I know that. You and him, well, you’d make a pretty hot couple, actually.”

  “I’m with Alex, remember?” said Layla, her voice barely audible. “And Joseph’s got Clare.”

  “For now,” replied Hannah, briefly touching Layla’s cheek.

  Although Layla had denied it, Hannah had been serious about the spark between her best friend and Joseph. She had seen it strike into life the very first night they had met. Lately, though, things had been different. The atmosphere awkward when they were together, even cringe-worthy on occasions, the reasons why, she didn’t know. Layla wasn’t ready to say. Not yet. And maybe that was okay. There’d been enough revelations for one night. Another time she’d probe deeper. Right now, her priority was Jim. She needed to apologize to him for her behavior. If he was still waiting for her, that is. If he hadn’t reached breaking point.

  Panicked at the thought, she rose from the rocks, pulling Layla to her feet too.

  Before turning to go, however, she said, “Thanks for listening, Layla. You’re a good friend.”

  “So are you. The best.” Layla smiled and hugged her tightly. “Life, love, and all its problems, huh?”

  “You know what they say: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” replied Hannah, not sure whether she really believed in the old saying.

  “Come on. Let’s go.”

  As they walked arm in arm toward the campfire, Hannah whispered, “You won’t say anything about what I told you, will you, to Joe or Jim?”

  “Of course not. I won’t say a word.”

  “It’s just that I don’t think it would help matters.”

  “I know. I’m not daft. I realize that.”

  Trusting her friend implicitly, Hannah started running again, her laughter matching Layla’s as they raced toward the campfire. Jim was there, still waiting for her.

  “So what have you been up to?” he asked clearly relieved to see Hannah in better spirits and kissing her hair as she snuggled into him.

  “Girl talk,” said Hannah, winking at Layla before turning to kiss Jim on the cheek.

  Playful now, they fell back onto the sand, Jim tickling her into submission as she pretended to fight him off. Finally, when she stopped wriggling, he leaned over and kissed her on the lips, stroking her hair all the while, wrapping her in his particular brand of love. And it was a good brand of love, she had to admit, obliterating all other brands of love at times, or rather, one particular brand. Sometimes that seemed possible, at other times impossible. Happily, this was one of those possible times.

  Standing beside them, Layla declared loudly that Mick could walk her home. Hannah would have to say sorry to Mick too, tell him she didn’t mean to accuse him of pestering Layla. She had meant no such thing. But right now, it was Jim she needed to make amends with, and considering the way he was looking at her right now, she had a feeling it was going to be fun.

  Chapter Twenty

  THAT NIGHT, LAYLA LAY AWAKE IN BED, completely unable to believe what Hannah had told her. She and Joseph had been a couple? Really? She had been in love with him—still was—and more so than with Jim? It was hard to get her head around. Hannah had never so much as hinted at any of this prior to tonight, and certainly Joseph had never mentioned anything, back in the days when they had spent time together, that was. He had talked about Tara a few times but never Hannah, and perhaps she could understand why. Jim was his best friend, she was Hannah’s; it was an awkward situation all round.

  And then Hannah had asked about her and Joseph, insisted she confide in her if she needed to. How could she possibly confide in her? What she had to say would hurt her; she knew it would, despite Hannah protesting otherwise. Besides, telling Hannah would breathe new life into that whole “sleeping with Joseph” issue, undo all the hard work she’d done to date trying to repress it. It was best not talked about, not thought about, best completely and utterly forgotten about. It had destroyed her friendship with Joseph; she couldn’t bear losing Hannah over it too.

  That spark, or whatever it was that had flared into life between them, was long gone. He had Clare now, the winsome hippy redhead, sleeping with him in his bed, just a few feet away from her, divided by nothing but bricks and mortar; another thought worth repressing.

  Finally sleep claimed her. In what could only have been an hour or so later, the alarm clock startled her awake. Resisting the urge to pick it up and throw it across the room, she forced her legs out of bed.

  She was cross with herself. She’d wanted to be on the ball for her meeting with Jack. Instead, she felt as though stringing two sensible words together would be akin to climbing Mount Everest. The things I do for you, Alex Kline, she thought wearily, standing under the shower, the water deliberately tepid to blast her awake.

  After several cups of tea and a rather heavy-handed makeup session, making particular use of her Touche Éclat, she eased herself into the Mazda and made her way to Launceston.

  Jack had said to meet her at The Olive Tree and had given her the postcode for her TomTom so she wouldn’t get lost—very thoughtful. She was in no mood for wandering up and down the streets of a strange town, in search of a restaurant she didn’t know. The journey didn’t take long, less than forty minutes along the same roads she’d be taking when she left Trecastle for good, a thought that made her feel sad. As sad as she had felt as a child every time her holiday had ended, dreading the return journey home, missing Hannah desperately, missing her mother too, knowing that soon Angelica would belong to everyone but her again.

  Known as the “Gateway to Cornwall” and sandwiched between Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor, Launceston was a lovely town, full of Georgian houses and quaint, narrow streets. She couldn’t think why she’d never visited before; it was so close to Trecastle. Too busy whizzing up and down the coast rather than exploring towns inland, she supposed. There were shops aplenty too, she was pleased to note, as good as the shops in Bude. She may well have to browse after lunch.

  The restaurant was bang smack in the center of town, in the shadow of the castle that dominated it. She found the nearest car park and bagged herself a space.

  After checking her appearance in the rearview mirror, she made her way to the restaurant, smoothing down her sensible, black, knee-length skirt. She’d bought it at the last minute, not thinking it appropriate to turn up in jeans and flip-flops for a meeting with the managing director of FarScapes. She had also purchased a plain blouse. The black high-heeled shoes she owned already, their first outing since Brighton.

  As soon as she entered the restaurant, the waiter approached her. “Yes, madam, can I help yo
u?” he asked, his Cornish accent only barely traceable.

  “I’m looking for—” she began but was interrupted.

  “Layla Lewis, look at you!”

  It was Jack Thomas, rising from his seat by the window and heading enthusiastically toward her. After kissing her on both cheeks, he guided her back toward their table, asking for two glasses of champagne from the waiter as he did so. “You look well,” he said, holding a chair out so she could sit down. “Very well indeed.”

  “Thank you,” she said, feeling suddenly very shy.

  He looked pretty good, too. What was he? Mid-fifties, she supposed, with salt and pepper hair that really suited him and barely any lines, not even when he smiled. She wondered if he would look as good in casual clothes as he did in a suit, but didn’t imagine so. He was definitely the suit type.

  “Order what you want,” he continued. “My treat.”

  “Thanks, again,” she said before quickly taking a sip of the champagne the waiter had duly placed in front of them.

  Appalled at her manners, she held up her glass and said, “Sorry, I meant to say cheers before doing that. It’s lovely to see you, too.”

  “Not a problem,” he countered. “See anything you like?”

  Perusing the menu, she replied, “The sea bream looks nice. I’ll have that.”

  “Good choice,” he beamed. “I’ll join you.”

  After they’d ordered, he sat back in his chair and looked at her, a slight frown on his face. Uncomfortable under such scrutiny, she did what she always did in awkward situations and babbled.

  “It’s so good of you to come all this way to discuss Easy Travel. And it is a long way. A hundred miles? Probably more. You’ve definitely done the lion’s share of driving. Thanks again. Alex is mortified by what’s happened, you know. Really, really upset.”

  “I’ll bet he is,” said Jack, the amusement on his face replaced with distaste at the first mention of Alex’s name. “As you know, I’m curious, what prompted you to write such an email in the first place?”