by Fiona Harper
Mind you, she’d never been in the boathouse this early in the morning before and she had no idea what time it was. Perhaps this was the colour of dawn down here so close to the river.
No, that wasn’t it. Gut instinct told to go and look out of the window. She dropped one leg over the edge of the day bed and started to move, but Ben grumbled again and pulled her back, nuzzling into the side of her neck.
Half-asleep, he was adorable, but whether he’d feel the same way when he was fully conscious was another matter. She’d humiliated herself last night, trying to seduce him and being knocked back, and the atmosphere between them was bound to be awkward. Things often looked different in the cold light of day.
But thinking about cold light fired her curiosity up again and she wriggled out of his arms, wrapping the patchwork quilt around her and leaving him covered with the goose down duvet. As she stood, and could see out of the window, she grasped. Even a tug at the trailing quilt couldn’t stop her running to the door, flinging it wide and walking out onto the balcony.
Snow.
Fresh and white and everywhere. It weighed down the bare branches of the young trees and topped the large stones on the beach so they looked like giant cupcakes. It seemed as if the whole world was buried under a blanket of purity, the past forgotten, everything new.
She twirled around in amazement, taking it all in, then reached for the layer of snow, only an inch deep, that topped the balcony railing. The icy crystals crunched under the weight of her fingertips.
A floorboard creaked behind her and once again she was wrapped up in Ben Oliver. He’d brought the duvet with him and he folded it over them both. She held her breath. She’d thought that maybe he’d been giving her the brush-off last night, but the way he was holding her now, as if he wanted to seal their bodies together, laid those fears to rest. He rested his chin on her shoulder so his head was right next to hers and kissed her cheek near her ear.
‘Merry Christmas, Louise.’
She twisted her head to look at him, her eyebrows raised. She’d been so caught up in the magic of last night, the beauty of this morning, that she’d completely forgotten that it was Christmas Day.
‘Merry Christmas,’ she whispered back, suddenly feeling very shy. But, as she went to shake her fringe in front of her eyes, he stopped with a gentle hand.
‘Don’t do that,’ he said, moving so they were now facing each other.
She wasn’t foolish enough to say, Do what? After glancing away for a second, she tilted her chin up and met his gaze.
‘That’s better.’
He smiled and, just like that, any residual awkwardness she’d been feeling evaporated. There was such warmth and light in his eyes, so many possibilities, that she felt an answering smile spread over her own face. So they stood there like that for goodness knew how long, grinning stupidly at each other, saying nothing and everything.
Then his eyes sobered and began to communicate all sorts of other things. Louise didn’t wait for him this time. There wasn’t much of a height difference so she reached up behind his neck and pulled him closer, lifting her heels off the floor just slightly.
Kissing Ben Oliver on a snow-dusted balcony on Christmas morning had to be one of the most romantic things she’d ever done. Not only were the kisses perfect, but the crisp cold air on her cheeks and the chill in her toes only seemed to increase the heat spreading from her core. She felt as if she was glowing from the inside out, so much that shivers rippled through her.
Ben pulled away, just enough to focus on each other without going cross-eyed, and tucked the quilt tighter around her.
‘How do you feel about cold curry for breakfast?’
She grinned. ‘My absolute favourite.’
And, as he playfully pulled her back inside the boathouse, she took one last look at the picture-perfect scene outside. The river reflected the colour of the iron sky perfectly and smoke puffed from the chimneys in the village across the river. As far as the eye could see, the rolling hills were bleached and frosted like the icing on a giant Christmas cake.
It didn’t matter to Louise if winter had stolen all the shades and tones and left everything monochrome. To her, this morning, life was very much in Technicolor ®.
Ben ran up to his bedroom, slammed the door open and stripped all his clothes off in under a minute. The last sock still hadn’t hit the floor when he ran into his bathroom and jumped in the shower.
He felt like a man possessed. Like a man with too much adrenaline coursing through his system, who was about to spontaneously combust. When he realised he’d just started to wash himself with conditioner, he forced himself to stand still and take a few deep breaths.
No good. He still felt like whooping aloud, or like running down the street and knocking on every door just to tell them he’d kissed the most astounding, marvellous, complicated woman in the world and, once he was clean and changed, he was going to go back and do it again.
Unfortunately, the only yelling he did was when the shampoo got in his eye.
Slow down!
This time, he was more successful. He managed to rest one hand against the tiled shower wall and watch the rise and fall of his chest slow a little. Relax. You can do it.
He finished his shower in a speed that could be classified more as ‘brisk efficiency’ than ‘mania’, cleaned his teeth and wandered back into the bedroom, whistling, a towel slung round his hips.
What time was it? He checked the digital alarm clock on his bedside table. Ten.
That meant he’d been gone about forty-five minutes. And it would probably be another hour until he saw her again.
Without really paying attention to what he was rummaging for in his chest of drawers, he pulled out clean clothes and got dressed. One last look in the mirror. He ran his hand through his wet hair, then stilled. Is this what Louise saw? A thirty-six-year old man, with dark hair and brown eyes? That description could probably fit hundreds of thousands of men up and down the country. Apart from the insane grin he couldn’t wipe away completely, he was just an ordinary guy.
Okay, he wasn’t desperately bad-looking, but he’d be kidding himself if he thought he could compete with the men in Louise’s world. A world in which he clearly didn’t belong.
But Louise isn’t with one of them, a little voice whispered gleefully in his ear. She’s with you. She kissed you. She even wanted to make love with you.
At that point he told his male pride to get a grip.
Even so, the unquenchable grin widened.
He grabbed his watch, fastened it on his wrist and jumped down the stairs only two at a time. But when he got downstairs he couldn’t find his keys. He never lost his keys. He searched the pockets of his jacket, which he found on the floor rather than on its usual hook. Nothing. Rather than dropping it again, he pulled it on.
Okay, now he was scaring himself. He sat down on one of the chairs in the kitchen and thought about where he could have possibly left his keys since he’d run through the front door. Best thing was to retrace his steps. He went to the cottage door, opened it and found his bunch of keys dangling in the lock.
What was happening to him? The sky was under his feet and the earth above his head. When exactly had the universe turned itself inside out so everything was back to front? An image popped into his mind: Louise, wrapped in a quilt, standing on the boathouse balcony, tipping her head up to meet his eyes and daring him to love her.
He realised it was a challenge he hadn’t refused.
Now he wasn’t so sure he wanted to wake all his neighbours up and share the news. Was he crazy? Quite possibly. How could whatever was happening between them have a future? Yet, while his head told him to back out while he had the chance; his heart told him to not lose faith.
He pulled his keys out of the lock and returned them to his pocket, then closed the door. He’d loved Megan, he was sure of that, but she’d never shaken his foundations like Louise did. What did that mean? Was this romance doomed or did
that promise great things?
He ought to stay away, he decided. He’d tried to be what Louise needed. It had never been part of the plan to develop a craving for her in return. He ought to make an excuse to back out and stay away. That was the sensible thing to do. He nodded to himself, took off his jacket off and carefully placed it on its hook.
But five minutes later he was in his dinghy, motoring across the river in the direction of the boathouse jetty.
Christmas was its own little universe for Louise and Ben. They shared a festive dinner of lasagne, which Louise found in her freezer, then retreated to the boathouse for the evening, where they talked and laughed and kissed and wished—not out loud, of course. Some things were far too delicate to be spoken aloud.
But this little universe was finite and, as night fell on Boxing Day, ugly reality started to shred the perfect picture they’d created.
Louise was sitting in one of the wicker chairs close to the fire with a book in her lap and Ben was stretched out on the day bed, trying not to doze. Suddenly, he raised his head and looked at her.
‘Louise?’
Her heart did a silly leap. Shouldn’t she be able to control that by now? It had started on Christmas morning when he’d reappeared, slightly damp and smiling, at her back door with a Christmas pudding big enough for ten and a bottle of port. Now, that was the way to spend Christmas. Especially if it involved being spoonfed the pudding in front of the fire.
She couldn’t remember a Christmas as perfect. Not even Jack’s first Christmas. Toby had spoiled it by getting drunk and disappearing off to a nightclub with one of his useless so-called friends.
‘What’s up?’ she said carefully.
Ben shifted himself onto one elbow. ‘What are we doing?’
‘Well, I’m supposed to be reading the book on the history of the River Dart I borrowed from you and you’re trying to pretend you didn’t finish off the last quarter of that plum pudding.’
Ben didn’t laugh as she expected him to. He gave a half-smile, then jumped off the day bed and drew the other chair over so he could sit opposite her, leaning forward. ‘No, I mean you and me. What is this?’
She placed the book open on the coffee table. She’d been staring at an old photo of the river’s most famous resident. Laura’s vibrant smile and laughing eyes looked back at her, mocking her. The photo was of her and a handsome young man she’d had a relationship with before her marriage. She bet Laura wouldn’t have got all tied up in knots about something like this. Laura would have thrown caution to the wind. She was confident and sophisticated. In an awkward moment, she’d have probably said something droll to make her lover laugh or swoon at her feet.
But Ben wasn’t her lover, and it seemed that Louise was the one closest to swooning at present. This was all so new—this thing with Ben—that sometimes it felt raw, even though it was wonderful at the same time.
‘Are you asking me if I want to be your girlfriend?’
There. That was as droll as she could manage. But she didn’t manage to pull off the knowing sophistication that was supposed to go with it when he leaned in close, gave her a lopsided grin and said, ‘Yeah, I suppose I am.’
She grabbed him by the shirt collar and pulled him in close for a long, slow kiss.
He rested his forehead against hers. ‘It’s just that …’
What? Her heart began to thump. It was too perfect. Something had to go wrong, didn’t it?
‘Jas is home tomorrow and …’
She nodded. This had been a time out of time. Tomorrow they had to go back to their real lives, which seemed to be on parallel tracks, running close, but maybe never destined to cross and merge again.
‘I understand, Ben.’
He pulled away and looked intently at her face. ‘No … No, Louise. I meant what—if anything—are we going to say to the kids? Are we going to keep this a secret or are we going to shout it from the rooftops? We need to decide how we’re going to handle it.’
Relief flooded through her. Followed hastily by confusion. What were they going to tell the children? Jack was the worst blabbermouth known to man. She frowned. ‘Do we need to tell anyone?’
And what would they say if they did? How should they define it?
And there would be other consequences too if they let the cat out of the bag. ‘You do realise we might get media attention if we go public?’ she said.
Ben’s face was a picture of surprise, as if he totally forgotten about that side of her life. That only made her want to kiss him again. Everybody else always saw the glitter first and nothing second. With Ben she was a woman, a person in her own right.
For the first time in days, she felt as if she were on familiar territory. ‘Believe me, you don’t want photographers camped on your doorstep. Why do you think I chose to live in such a remote place as Whitehaven? In the village, you and Jas would be easy pickings.’
‘Jas?’ There was more than a hint of panic in his voice. ‘You think they’d take pictures of Jas?’
Just great. This relationship was dead in the water before it had even begun, wasn’t it? She knew Ben well enough to know that creating a steady life for his daughter was paramount.
She stroked his arm. ‘Who knows? The paparazzi are a law unto themselves. But I think we have to consider the possibility.’
They both stared at one another.
There were no easy answers to this one. The only way to really protect Ben and Jasmine was to call the whole thing off right now. She broke eye contact and stared at her feet. Just the thought of saying goodbye to Ben now made her hurt—physically hurt. Cold fear shot through her.
He gently brushed his fingers under her chin and tipped her face up to look at him. ‘Hey.’ The word was filled with such tender softness, she felt her eyes moisten. He smiled at her. ‘I told you before—I’m not going anywhere, okay?’
She nodded and the cold, sharp feeling gradually withdrew.
‘Here’s my idea,’ he said. ‘We tell Jas and Jack shortly—because they going to work it out anyway—but we don’t tell anyone else yet. It will buy us some time, give us and the kids a chance to get used to things first.’
Sensible. He wanted to wait before letting the world know, just in case it didn’t work out.
‘I’ve got to wait at home for Megan to bring Jas back tomorrow, but I still want to see you.’
Good. She wanted to see him too.
‘Jas is due back at noon and it’s going to be quiet tomorrow—everyone recovering after Christmas. If you come for one o’clock and drive round, using the lanes, rather than coming through the village, nobody will see you. Once you’re here, we’ll put your car in the garage.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I can do that.’
She was greedily going to grab every chance to be with him. That much at least she could learn from Laura.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Once Ben had gone home, Louise returned to the diary. She’d almost forgotten it while he’d been here over Christmas, too caught up in the present to think about the past, but now her eyes kept falling on the desk in the corner, as if something in her subconscious was pecking at her. Maybe Laura’s story would give her hope that she could find her own happy ever after. After all, she’d lived at Whitehaven for more than forty years, and by all accounts she’d been happy there.
She went to the desk and fetched it, noticing as she began to read that the next entry was almost a whole year since previous one.
23rd August, 1954
Alex has sent me away for a holiday. He says the sea air will do me good, that I’ve been working too hard. He’s right. I have been working too hard. Mainly because being someone else is better than being myself. I don’t want to be this wretched creature who mopes around and can’t shake herself out of the doldrums.
I was doing quite well at holding it all together until I opened the paper one morning and saw the news that Jean Blake had given birth to a perfect baby daughter. There was even a quote
from Dominic about how smitten he was with his new bundle of joy.
I hate that expression: bundle of joy. I’m certain it’s something Dominic would never say. He’d say something clever, like ‘She’ll be my leading lady forever …’. At least, that’s what I’ve imagined he’d say in my idle dreams, when I block the bleakness of reality out and pretend that everything—opinions, gossip, situations and people—that stop us being together have magically vanished.
In my dreams we live in a beautiful old house on a hill, high above a river. The sun always shines, as it did that wonderful summer. We don’t do exciting things; we just live. And how we live. With laughter and smiles and colour, with intimacy and affection. And with a handful of flaxen-haired children racing round the house and squealing in the garden. Whitehaven is the sort of house that should have children running across its lawns …
Enough.
I can’t think this way any more. These dreams, these vapid wishes, they’re like poison. They seem so warming, so comforting—and they are at the time—but when they’re over they leave me feeling bleak and dissatisfied. They suck the life out of me. No wonder I can’t climb my way out of this pit.
Finally, Alex noticed it was more than just tiredness, that I was low. So here I am on Burgh Island off the Devon coast near Kingsbridge. It really is a marvellous hotel, the only building on the small and rocky island, and at low tide you can practically wade to shore. But it’s the sort of place one should share with someone and I’m here on my own. Alex has gone to Belgium—something to do with expanding his empire—and the only other person I’d want to share it with is rocking his new baby daughter and looking at his wife with new admiration and gratitude.
I’ve been here a couple of days now, and it truly is relaxing. But all the discreet butler service and gourmet cooking in the world can’t soothe my thoughts. They rage so, like the surf against the rocks beneath my window.