Rob chuckled. ‘No problem. So I’ll pick up the school minibus with the bike rack on the back and come and get you—what time?’
‘How about ten? Does that give you long enough? Either then or later, so it’s not too hot—and I could bring a picnic.’
‘That would be really nice. I’ll see you at ten, then.’
She hung up, a little smile playing around her mouth, and went through to the sitting room. Jem looked up as she walked in. ‘Who was that, Mum?’
‘Mr Werrick. He wondered if we’d like to go for a bike ride up on Bodmin.’
‘Cool! Can we go?’
‘I said yes—and we’re going to take a picnic, so you need to check the tyres on both our bikes while I have a look and see what I can find in the fridge.’
‘Tuna sandwiches,’ Jem yelled, running out of the back door, ‘and chocolate biscuits!’
‘OK!’ And humming, Kate took out the bread and set to work.
It was glorious up on Bodmin.
Glorious because, with the wind in her hair and Sam at her side, she could have been eighteen again, back in the days when nothing had troubled them and everything had seemed wonderful.
They’d ridden out across the moors on his big, powerful bike the summer he’d met her, when she’d only been seventeen and he eighteen, dark and dangerously exciting in his black leathers with the shadow of stubble on his jaw and that wickedly enticing twinkle in his eyes, and they’d lain in the heather and kissed for hours on end, till her lips were full and swollen and her skin was raw from stubble rash, but she wouldn’t go any further. Not until she was married. She was saving herself—it was a promise she’d made to herself ages ago, and she’d meant it, but hadn’t stopped Sam trying everything else that he could think of, and he’d had an amazing imagination.
But it hadn’t been enough, and so the second summer, after a frustrating year of letters and phone calls during term time and seeing her only when she was down in Penhally with her parents at their holiday cottage, he’d asked her to marry him, in a crazy moment, and she’d been so stunned and so in love with him she’d said yes.
They’d been up here on the moor when he’d asked her. Lying on a picnic rug, hearts racing, their bodies screaming for that last step that she wouldn’t take, and she’d often wondered if he would have asked her if she hadn’t held out, or if their affair would just have fizzled out.
But he had asked her, and it seemed incredible now that they’d gone through with it. She’d gone home to Bath on the pretext of needing some more clothes and had tracked down her birth certificate, and they’d gone straight to the registrar and arranged it, booked a time for the first legal opportunity just sixteen days later, and then, without telling anyone, they’d made their vows, with Jack and Lucy Tremayne, sworn to secrecy, as their witnesses.
They’d spent forty-eight hours of hedonistic bliss in the ramshackle beach house he was renting just a mile along from the centre of the village, and with incredible patience and restraint, Sam had gently, tenderly, shown her just what her body was capable of. They’d had so much fun, shed tears of laughter and of joy, eating, sleeping, talking and above all making love again and again and again, and then reality had intruded with a thunderous knock at the door in the middle of the night, and her parents had stood there, incandescent with rage. And telling them they were married didn’t help. At all.
‘Hey, what’s up?’
She dragged herself out of the past and looked up at him, still miles away. ‘Nothing,’ she said, blinking away the bitter-sweet memories of that long-ago summer. ‘Just remembering.’
‘Remembering?’ he said, a teasing light in his eyes. ‘Have you been here before, then?’
And she reminded herself that they were starting again, without the past, without the hang-ups and heartaches, and she smiled a little mischievously. ‘Oh, once or twice, but I was much younger then. I always loved it up here. How about you?’
‘Likewise—but I have to say the present’s every bit as good,’ he murmured.
She gazed up into his eyes, her breath lodged in her throat, and then he seemed to free himself from his trance and reached back into the car. ‘Here, I brought us some lunch. We can take it with us and find somewhere to sit and eat it.’
‘Oh! How lovely! Thanks, Sam. Let me take it, you’ve got the dog.’ And he couldn’t manage both, not with his torn shoulder.
‘Thanks. Wretched dog. He needs to learn not to go down holes so I can let him off for a run. It took five days to dig him out last time, and he was lucky to survive, apparently. Personally, I would have left him there, wouldn’t I, Digger?’
Digger wriggled his tail and grinned, tongue lolling, lead taut as he stood poised for his walk, and Sam grinned back and locked the car and headed off along the path with Gemma at his side.
They walked over the rise, not too far because of his ankle, listening to the sound of the curlews and the bleating of the sheep, and then they settled down with their faces to the sun and their backs to an outcrop of granite, and ate their lunch.
‘This is gorgeous,’ she said round a mouthful of smoked-salmon sandwich, and he grinned.
‘Ah, well, a little bird told me you like smoked salmon,’ he teased. Stealing her sandwich from her hand, he opened it, peeled out the salmon and dangled it over her mouth. ‘Open wide,’ he instructed, and then slowly lowered it to her lips.
She took it from him, their eyes locked, and he threw the bread to the dog who was poised waiting.
‘Mmm,’ she said, licking her lips, and his eyes darkened, his breath hissing out and touching her face. Another inch, she thought. Just another inch, and his lips…
The contact brought a shuddering sigh from his chest, and she could feel his hand trembling against her cheek.
‘God, Gemz, I want you,’ he breathed, and she heard a whimper of longing—hers? Oh, yes, hers, a longing for the touch of his body, for the feel of his skin against hers, for the weight of him poised over her, his solid, muscled body trembling with restraint.
His hand slid up under her T-shirt and cupped her breast, and she arched up into his palm, aching for him just as she had all those years ago. But it was worse now, harder to hold back, because she knew what she was missing, knew just what his touch had to offer, what his body could do to hers and the heights it could take her to, but she couldn’t let him, couldn’t go there again, not without telling him…
Sam hauled himself back under control. He couldn’t do this. Not up here, on the moor, where anybody could walk past and see them. They weren’t kids any longer, they were adults—married to each other, for heaven’s sake, although now that was little more than a technicality, he thought with regret—but he needed her. God, how he needed her, the healing touch of her hands on his body, the tender kisses, the sweet sighs, the fractured little screams as she neared her peak, and it was driving him mad.
‘Gemz? Let’s get out of here,’ he groaned softly. ‘I want to make love to you, and I’m not doing it with an audience of sheep and ponies and dog-walkers.’
‘We can’t, Sam.’
‘Why not? Give me one good reason why not.’
She swallowed and forced herself to meet his eyes with an unsteady smile. ‘Because we’ve only just met.’
She saw confusion in his eyes, then frustration and then, finally, irony. He laughed softly and dropped onto his back beside her, his wry chuckle making her smile. ‘Oh, you witch. Really?’
Her smile faded. ‘Really, Sam,’ she said quietly. ‘There’s still a lot we don’t know about each other. So many things have happened, so much water under the bridge—’
She broke off and he searched her face for clues. So many things have happened.
But what things? And why—?
‘Digger, no! Come back! Oh, hell.’
He leapt up, letting out a sharp groan and clutching his thigh, and headed off after the dog. ‘Digger, damn it, come back here!’
But Digger had seen something
, and he was off. Gemma scrambled to her feet and ran after them both, and then watched in horror as the terrier leapt into the path of a group of cyclists and tried to bite the front wheel of the leading bike.
The bike wobbled, all the others swerved and crashed, and the first bike arced through the air and landed on top of the child in the heather.
Oh, lord, she thought, and, racing past Sam, she arrived to a scene of chaos and sobbing, with Kate Althorp in the middle of it.
‘Kate! I’m so sorry, he’s a naughty dog. Digger, come here, baby. Good boy.’ She caught the limping dog and held him while Sam went to the child who’d fallen off. Jem, she thought. It’s Jem. She didn’t recognise the other boy, or the man who was hovering over him, but she knew Kate’s son, and she heaved a sigh of relief as he got to his feet, flexing his wrist and trying not to cry.
‘Are you all right, Jem?’ Kate was asking, and he nodded.
‘How’s Matthew?’
‘He’s fine,’ the man said. ‘He’s banged his shin but I think he’s all right.’
‘Here, Jem, let me have a look. I’m a doctor,’ Sam was saying gently, feeling the boy’s forearm and wrist carefully with his fingers. ‘I think it’s OK, but it’s hard to tell. It could be a sprain. If you can come down to the surgery, I’ll X-ray it for you and check, and we can plaster it if necessary, but I don’t think it will be. I’m just so sorry—I was distracted, and the dog just got away from me.’
Distracted by kissing Gemma, who was standing a few feet away from him looking shaken. Idiot. He should have tied the dog’s lead to his foot, not just assumed that the promise of food would be enough to keep him there.
‘It’s all right, accidents happen,’ Kate said, but Gemma could see she was shaking as she bent over her son. ‘All right, my love?’
Jem nodded, sniffing a little and struggling to be brave, and Kate said, ‘I’m sorry, I should introduce everyone. This is Rob Werrick and his son Matthew, and this is my son Jeremiah. Rob, this is Sam Cavendish, our locum doctor, and Gemma, our practice nurse.’
‘Sam—of course,’ Rob said, nodding at him. ‘I should have recognised you, you’re the spitting image of your brother.’
Sam grunted. Was he? Of course he was—and they were both the spitting image of their father, although he’d left his mother because he didn’t believe Jamie was his, of all the ironies. And now was not the time to get into that.
‘Where’s your car?’ he asked, and Rob jerked his head towards the top of the hill.
‘Up there—it’s next to a silver hire car. Is that yours?’
‘Yes. So we’re going in the same direction. How are we going to get us all back there?’
‘I’ll go and get the van—it’s the school minibus, it’ll go over these tracks. I won’t be long. Matt, stay here with Jem and Kate, and I’ll be as quick as I can, all right?’
He nodded, and his father set off for the car park at a run, and they settled down to wait. Sam glanced at the injured boy, and felt a vague flicker of recognition. Jem looked familiar, but he couldn’t work out why. He was nothing like James Althorp, that was for sure, but he reminded him so clearly of someone…
‘Why don’t we sit down and wait for him?’ he suggested, and they all sank down on the heather, the bikes still lying where they’d fallen, and Gemma brought the dog over to him, a worried look in her eyes.
‘Sam, I’m not sure, but I think Digger might be hurt.’
‘Oh, no! I didn’t mean to hurt him!’ Jem said, sounding worried, but Sam just gave him a rueful smile.
‘It’s hardly your fault, Jem. He’s a rascal. Digger, come here, boy, let me see.’
But he was holding his paw up, and Sam could see without getting closer that it was swelling.
‘I think it might have got run over,’ he said quietly. ‘Silly, silly dog. That’ll teach you to chase bikes. We’ll have to take you to the vet later.’
‘You can go now. Uncle Nick can X-ray my arm,’ Jem said. ‘He won’t mind.’
Uncle Nick? Or…?
The recognition was sudden and startling, and Sam let out his breath on a quiet, surprised sigh and turned back to the dog while he assimilated the information. Nick and Kate? Really? When?
‘Mum, I think my bike’s broken.’
‘Oh, no,’ Sam groaned. ‘Look, I’ll pay for a new one, OK?’
‘No, you won’t,’ Kate said with a smile. ‘It was too small for him anyway. I was going to buy him a new one for his birthday—it’s this month.’
May. Nine months after August. So that summer, the summer he and Gemma had got married, the summer of the storm, Nick and Kate had been having an affair?
God. Had Annabel known? Had Jack, or Lucy, or Ed?
No. Surely not? There’d been no sign—not that he would have noticed, he admitted, because he’d been so wrapped up in Gemma the world could have fallen apart and they wouldn’t have noticed.
The sound of an engine interrupted his thoughts, and the minibus appeared over the rise and bumped its way down to them. Minutes later they were packed up and away, and although the dog was injured, Sam insisted that they drive down to the surgery to make sure Jem was all right before they took Digger to the vet.
They were met by Nick, who examined the boy’s arm and X-rayed it with a curious detachment that Sam found puzzling. Almost as if he was keeping his distance…
‘Well, it’s just a sprain, I think,’ Nick said, and Sam, looking at the X-ray over his shoulder, nodded in relief and turned back to the others, to see Rob’s gaze flicking curiously from Nick to Jem and back again. So he can see it, too, Sam thought. It’s not just me. And who else has worked it out? Did Nick know? Surely to God he must?
But it was none of his business, and he forced himself to concentrate. ‘Thank heavens for that,’ he said, and smiled at the boy apologetically. ‘I’m really sorry, Jem, but I’ll make sure you get a new bike out of it, OK? It’s the least I can do. Right, if it’s OK with you all, I need to take the wretched dog to the vet now,’ he said. ‘Who do I call?’
‘Oh, that’ll be Melinda Lovac. Dragan was complaining that she was on call and so he’d be left with a grizzly baby,’ Gemma said with a smile. ‘He’s teething, and he’s had a cold. Give her a ring—here, we’ve got her number,’ she said, and, going behind Reception, she looked it up, dialled the number and handed him the receiver, then went to put a support bandage on Jeremiah’s arm.
‘Oh, Digger! What a smart paw!’ Gemma said, popping in later to see how he was and admiring his bandage. ‘And what a lovely hat!’
‘Idiot dog,’ Sam grumbled as Digger turned round and smashed the clear plastic Elizabethan collar into his leg. ‘How’s Jem?’
‘Fine. He’s a bit sore, but I’ve put a support on it and he’s OK, and everyone else is all right. Matthew’s got a little bruise on his shin but, apart from that, the only other damage is to Jem’s bike.’
‘I still think I should replace it.’
‘No. Kate’s insistent she’s buying him one for his birthday.’
‘Well, she can, but I’m paying for it,’ he said stubbornly, and Gemma chuckled.
‘I’ll let you two sort it out between you,’ she said, knowing just how stubborn Kate could be, too. ‘So what happened to his paw?’
‘Fractured metacarpal. Melinda said he’ll be fine, but he needs to keep the bandage on as long as possible—which will be as long as we can stand him crashing into things in that lampshade. Hopefully it’ll teach him a lesson, but I’m not holding my breath. He’s a terrier, and terriers are born to chase and to dig. He does both, with knobs on!’ He tipped his head over to one side. ‘So—we never got to finish lunch,’ he said softly, ‘and there’s the remains of the picnic sitting in the cool box in my car. How’s about going down to the beach to finish it? Without the dog?’
‘Oh, Digger, he’s so mean to you!’ she murmured, scratching his head inside the collar, and then she straightened up with a smile and met his eyes. His sexy, s
mouldering, midnight-blue eyes. And then she remembered what they were doing, what he was saying, when the dog had run off, and her heart pounded.
‘That sounds lovely,’ she said, and she pulled herself together with effort. They were supposed to be getting to know each other all over again—but not that fast! And there was so much she needed to tell him before she let him get that close, but they should be safe on the beach. ‘But I can’t stop for long,’ she added. ‘I’ve got lots to do.’
Which was a total lie, because she’d cleaned her house until it squeaked the previous weekend, apart from the ironing—well, OK, the ironing was still there, and would take her the rest of this weekend, so it wasn’t really a lie, except that now she’d have to do it!
‘Come on, then, we’ll take the car. All that running over rough ground hasn’t done my ankle any good. I reckon Lauren will kill me.’
‘No, she won’t. She’ll just sigh and fix it,’ she said, and followed him out of the door, leaving the disappointed dog behind.
They drove up over the rise past the church and the Smugglers’ Inn, and then past the surfing beach and on to the next cove, to the beach where Sam had been camping out in the tumbledown little wooden shack all those summers ago.
The place where they’d spent their honeymoon, she thought, with the single bed against the wall and a Primus stove to cook on and not much else, but it had been home, for one glorious and utterly romantic weekend. It wasn’t there any more, of course. It had been in a terrible state even then, and she imagined it had fallen to pieces long ago.
‘There used to be a little cabin here on stilts, just on the edge of the beach, by the sand dunes,’ she said softly, carrying on their game of let’s pretend as they settled down on the sand with their backs to a rock. ‘Along there, at the end.’
He met her eyes, his expression sombre. ‘Yes. It got smashed to bits in a storm, just after my…’ He hesitated, then went on, ‘Just after the girl I loved left me.’
She felt tears fill her eyes. She hadn’t known that. Hadn’t known that the house had been destroyed by the storm, that Sam could have been in it, that everything inside must have been washed into the sea. And all those memories…
Caroline Anderson, Anne Fraser, Kate Hardy, Margaret McDonagh Page 9