‘I love your nattering about carousels,’ I say. ‘This carousel is the most interesting thing I’ve heard about for years. I’d love to know if Camilla’s story is true and where it really came from.’
He makes a noise of disbelief and his smile doesn’t reach his eyes, and I’m suddenly desperate to know who has ever told him carousels are boring, and why he’s ever believed them.
It’s coming to the point where we can’t find any excuses to linger much longer, and we’re just standing in the street looking at each other.
‘Thank you for a brilliant night,’ he says. ‘With and without the gatecrashers.’
‘It was fun.’ I want to add something about it being fun because of him, because of his sense of humour and the way the same things make us both laugh, but I can’t think of how to word it without sounding like even more of a crazed stalker. I followed you halfway across the country and now I think you’re the best thing since sliced bread if sliced bread was tall, dark, handsome, charmingly awkward, and hilarious.
‘How does eight sound for breakfast?’
‘I’ll be there.’
He beams in a way that makes me feel so important, but he still seems reluctant to walk away. Maybe he’s trying to work out the politest way to say goodnight, like I am. Saying goodbye to a gorgeous man is just as complicated as saying hello. There should be a rulebook or something.
‘Okay, I should …’ He reaches out to take my hand but seems to reconsider and his fingers end up touching mine once before he pulls back. ‘I had a great time tonight.’
‘Me too,’ I say. I reach out to touch his hand too but he turns towards me at the wrong moment and I end up accidentally punching him in the stomach. I suppose I should be glad it wasn’t anything lower.
‘See? Too tall,’ he says, trying to take the blame again. ‘Okay, I should go or I’ll still be asleep at eight o’clock in the morning. You have my number if you need anything, right? I mean, if you hear the undead mooing of zombie cows or anything, call me on this little flip phone. I’m only five minutes up the road if you need protecting.’
‘Oh, I have your phone in my room. Shall I run and get it?’
‘Nah.’ He shakes his head. ‘Some other time.’
It gives me a little shiver again that he might’ve meant what he said on the beach earlier, about having an excuse to see him again, and that’s the exact reason I didn’t bring his phone out with me tonight. I could’ve handed it to him the moment I saw him outside the pub and that would’ve been it, but then I wouldn’t have had an excuse to go and see him again, even though I’m starting to wonder if I don’t need an excuse.
‘I hope you bought the big box of Coco Pops and not the small one.’
He looks offended. ‘What do you think I am, some kind of heathen? Of course I bought the big box. I know how to impress the ladies.’
His waggling eyebrows make me dissolve into giggles again as he turns around and walks up the street. I stay outside and watch him until he stops at the top and turns back. Even in the darkness, I can see the smile lighting up his face as he gives me another wave and disappears over the hill towards the cottages.
I can’t stop smiling as I let myself into my box of a hotel room, feeling like I’m in my very own chick-flick film, but with a guy who could give even the hottest of leading men a run for their money.
Chapter 8
‘Quarter to eight and you tourists have almost cleared me out of goodies already,’ the lady in the shop says as I peer into the glass counter of baked goods and try to decide what Nathan might like for breakfast. Coco Pops are one thing but I can’t turn up at the cottage empty-handed, can I?
The display case is tiny and the selections are limited to fruit pies, blueberry muffins, cinnamon swirls, and maple pecan twists. Nathan doesn’t strike me as someone who’d appreciate fruit for breakfast so I choose two cinnamon swirls and watch as she bags them up.
The shop itself is even tinier than it looks from the outside. There are only two aisles with the absolute barebones essentials of survival – milk, bread, eggs, tinned vegetables, flour, sugar, a tiny refrigerated stand with some cheese and a packet of bacon, newspapers, and chocolate bars. Next to the bakery display case is a stand of bubble wrap envelopes and parcel tape, and there’s a picture of a postage stamp on the wall behind the counter, and along with the postbox outside, I think that might be the extent of Pearlholme’s post office.
‘It’s going to be another beautiful day,’ she says as she pushes buttons on the till, giving it a wary look like it’s about to bite. ‘Are you doing anything nice?’
‘Work,’ I say as I hand her a two-pound coin. Things are certainly cheap around here. ‘I’m borrowing a Wi-Fi signal from one of the cottages and checking the emails that I couldn’t check yesterday.’
‘Aww.’ She makes a disappointed noise. ‘I thought you might go down to the beach again and see that lovely tall chap working there. He’s been in this morning and had two maple pecan twists. I was sure one must be for you.’
Is there anything they don’t know about us around here? Even so, I love the idea that Nathan’s had the same idea as me about pastries … or is really greedy … but I don’t want to confirm her suspicions or encourage more village gossip. ‘Guess I made the right choice with the cinnamon swirls then.’ I give her a smile that hides my desire to get out of there as quickly as possible. ‘Thanks, have a good day!’
‘That’s exactly what he said,’ she calls after me. ‘He is a polite young chap! No wedding ring either!’
How do they know so much? I know it’s a small village, but have I got my daily to-do list printed on my forehead or something?
I stop at the hotel on the way back to grab my laptop and Nathan’s phone before I head up the hill towards the cottages. It’s impossible not to pause at the top and take in the view. This early in the morning, there’s still mist across the sea, but the sun is burning it off quickly, and the breeze is warm. Hazy sky stretches for miles in front of me, until you can’t see the point where it meets sparkling blue water. The beach itself is empty apart from the odd dog walker, the tide is halfway out, and the smell of the seaweed left behind is strong in the air.
Nathan’s cottage has two brick steps up to a daffodil-yellow front door. It’s built of the same higgledy-piggledy stone that makes the houses on the main street look so quaint, and up close, I can see how unkempt the rhododendron hedge is around the back.
I knock on the door and hear a clunk from inside and he swears under his breath, and then there are footsteps on stairs and the click of a lock.
‘I’m not late. I intended to answer the door with shaving foam all over my face.’ He pulls the door open to reveal the lower half of his face covered in white mousse and a smile showing through it.
I can’t help but smile back at the sight. It shouldn’t be sexy, but he’s got on a plain black T-shirt that fits in all the right places and another pair of dungarees that are ripped in different places to yesterday’s ones and have different colours of paint all over them, and these ones are undone to his waist with the top part hanging down over his legs, and when I breathe in, I can smell the clean, masculine scent of the shaving foam. ‘Is your toe okay?’
He pulls the door back and looks behind it. ‘Is there a peephole in this thing that I don’t know about?’
‘I have much experience of stubbing toes in a rush to answer the door. Or phone. Or anything really. I’m quite capable of stubbing toes even when I’m not in a rush.’
‘I’m always tripping over myself. I think my toes have grown an armoured coating by now.’ He steps back from the door and gestures to the hallway. ‘Come in. I’m going to wash this gunk off my face. You seem to have a knack for turning up when I’m covered in something I’m not meant to be covered in.’
‘Plenty worse things you could be covered in,’ I say. It’s probably a good thing he doesn’t realise quite how sexy the shaving foam looks.
‘Can’
t deny that.’ He laughs and points to two open doorways. ‘Kitchen, living room, spectacular view that way. Make yourself at home, I’ll just be a second.’
He disappears up the stairs and I wander into the living room in the direction of the view. It’s a spacious room with pale grey carpet and cream walls, a stone fireplace, two squishy charcoal-coloured armchairs and matching sofa, all facing a flatscreen TV mounted on the wall, and it smells vaguely of lavender from a reed diffuser on the hearth. At the far end, there’s a wide bay window and it pulls me over like a magnet. I dump my laptop bag next to the nearest armchair and go to stand in front of it, unable to stop an audible gasp at the view.
It’s like what you can see from the road outside but better. Below the window is a dishevelled garden. I can see that it was neat once but hasn’t been maintained for a while now. There are plenty of plants, but most of them have outgrown their containers and are flowering willy-nilly and scrambling across the lawn, which is made up of more daisies and dandelions than grass now.
But beyond the garden is what must be the best view of the beach in the village. Miles of empty sand winds in both directions, and the cottage feels like it’s directly above it on the cliff edge. To the sides is the greenery of the cliff tops, and the edges of fence surrounding the other nearby cottage gardens, but in front of me is nothing but the beach. Sun, sand, sea so big that it stretches over the horizon until it joins the sky, and if I lean forward and press my face to the glass, I can even see the tip of the tent covering the carousel.
‘There are no words for how incredible this view is,’ I say when Nathan comes back in.
He walks over and stands beside me at the bay window. ‘I’ve done very little apart from stand here looking out since I arrived. I think I’d sleep here if the window ledge was a bit longer.’
All I can think about is the warmth from his bare arm where he’s standing so close and the lingering smell of shaving foam and deodorant. His hair is still damp from a shower, thick at the back of his neck and even darker than the soft, spiky top, looking like he’s just rubbed it dry.
‘Look at all the dickies waiting to be fed.’ I nod towards a row of birds lined up along the hedgerow next to the feeder at the end of the garden.
‘Yeah, I’ll get on that if you want to get something to eat.’ He gestures towards the doorway behind us, separating the kitchen from this room. ‘The kettle’s full, and I know I promised Coco Pops but I figured that you deserved a choice. I popped down the shop earlier and got—’
‘Two maple pecan twists?’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘Okay, I get the toe-stubbing but if you really are psychic, can you tell me next week’s lottery numbers?’
‘The woman in the shop told me.’ I hold up my bag. ‘And I got cinnamon swirls so we’ve got a choice.’
‘I nearly got those as well, but then I thought if I just got one thing, I’d have an excuse to make you come over for breakfast another day so we can try something different.’
Bugger. I should’ve gone for the maple pecan twists too.
Just past the living room, there’s a little foyer area with a doormat and row of coat hooks on the wall, and Nathan picks up a bag of birdseed from beside the door and goes outside to put a handful in the cottage-shaped bird feeder. There’s a path curving through the overgrown lawn, but the concrete is stained and there are weeds growing from every crack in it. It’s only when he turns back and waves at me that I realise I’m just standing in the window staring at him.
I hurry off to the kitchen and push the kettle switch down as I start opening and closing cupboards on the hunt for teabags, mugs, and plates. The kitchen has cheery yellow walls and deep red tiles on the floor. Red gingham curtains and red appliances complete the modern but charmingly retro look. It’s the kind of kitchen that makes me wish I knew how to cook something more complicated than three-minute noodles.
‘How’d you sleep?’ he asks when he comes back in. ‘No zombie cows?’
We sit on the window seat in the living room and watch the dickies having a feeding frenzy in the garden, although our pastries are so good that we’re both ripping them apart and making noises of pleasure that are so uncivilised it makes the squawking and flapping outside look positively refined. ‘I’d have been happier with the zombie cows than the giant spider that ran across the floor in the middle of the night. So big that I actually heard it.’
He cringes, and I don’t tell him that my poor sleep had very little to do with crappy hotel rooms, zombie cows, ancient ghost stories, or even the giant spider, and quite a bit to do with the way I couldn’t stop picturing his mouth, his voice, and the crinkles around his eyes every time I closed mine.
‘How about you? No carousel ghosts kept you awake all night?’ I ask to distract myself from how everything feels so easy and comfortable with him. He doesn’t seem like someone I met a few days ago, he seems like someone I’ve known for years. Maybe it really is the sea air and the spectacular view. The view has a way of making everything seem better than it is.
‘Not a chance. I’ve been sleeping more soundly than I have for years since I got here. Hence why I was still shaving when you knocked.’
Which I am definitely not complaining about. Nathan shaving could probably be sold as porn.
He snorts, making me really hope I didn’t say that out loud.
* * *
After Nathan has left for the carousel, I’ve just sat down in one of the armchairs and opened my laptop when my phone rings and Daphne’s work number flashes up.
‘I’m going to assume the reason you haven’t texted me since yesterday afternoon is because you had the most amazing first date and are now busily falling in love, and not because he’s murdered you and dumped your body in a ditch,’ she says before I have a chance to say hello.
I hadn’t even thought about texting Daph. I let her know that I’d got here safely, and then I texted to say I was meeting Nathan at the pub last night, but it was so late by the time I got back to the hotel that I didn’t bother to text, and I haven’t been able to think of anything but him yet this morning. It was the shaving foam that did it.
‘Hello to you too,’ I say. ‘And you don’t have to worry, I’m ninety-five per cent sure he’s not a murderer. He was just outside feeding the birds. Murderers don’t feed birds.’
‘I suppose they don’t have dimples either?’ she says with a laugh. ‘Come on then, are you head over heels in love with him yet?’
‘Of course I’m not. I’ve spent two days with the man – you don’t fall in love that quickly.’
‘No, but you haven’t got the first train back to London, which is a promising sign. I half-expected you to turn up for work this morning.’
I don’t tell her that I seriously considered it … before I actually met him.
‘What’s he like then?’
I sigh and snuggle further back in the squishy armchair. ‘He’s so lovely, Daph. He’s restoring this old carousel on the beach and he’s so knowledgeable about it. He makes me feel more intelligent just by talking to him. He’s thoughtful and kind and he’s got this sense of humour that’s just so cheesy but somehow it makes him even funnier. If you heard his jokes, you’d go “what is wrong with this guy?” but I can’t stop laughing at him. Every time I think I can hold it together, he’s got this look that starts me off again …’ I realise I’ve gone on a bit too much and stop myself before she starts phoning around wedding venues.
‘Glad to know your judgement of men is based on how much I’d hate them.’
‘He likes all the things that you laugh at me for liking. He even buys Coco Pops, and you say no one over the age of five eats them.’
She snorts. ‘Sounds like all you want in a guy.’
‘Say what you want but it works for him. He’s adorable and so flipping gorgeous. His eyes dance when you talk to him and they look different colours in different lights, and he—’ I stop myself when I realise I’ve gone off on one again. I’ll be
gibbering on about his nose hair next. Not that he has nose hair … well, he probably does, everyone does, don’t they? I clearly need to spend more time looking up his nose. ‘He’s really kind too. He went out to get us breakfast this morning even though he was running late, and I’m at the cottage now while he’s—’
‘You spent the night with him already?’ Zinnia squeals, making me jump because I didn’t realise she was there.
‘You’re on speakerphone?’ I squeak. I would never have been that open if I’d realised my boss was listening.
‘Oh, there are no secrets between us,’ Zinnia says. I can hear her perfectly manicured hand swooshing through the air. ‘Besides, you’re writing about this man for me. You are writing about him, aren’t you? Taking notes of all these things you’re falling in love with?’
‘I’m not falling in love with anything. He’s just a nice guy.’ I decide it’s best not to mention my lack of note-taking or any vague idea of what exactly I’m going to write about Nathan in part two.
‘I think there’s a bit more to it than that, don’t you, Vanessa? And you’ve already spent the night with him. That’s moving very quickly for you, considering you do work-related things at the pace of a supremely slow snail.’
‘I haven’t spent the night with him.’ I ignore the insult. She’s not exactly wrong. ‘I came up this morning to have breakfast and borrow his Wi-Fi. The signal is terrible at the hotel.’
‘Oh my God, that’s genius,’ Daphne says. ‘What a great excuse – I bet he didn’t suspect for a minute.’
‘It’s not an excuse. The signal really is—’
‘I wish I’d have thought of that one when I was still dating. I’ll have to save it in the unlikely event that Gavin and I ever break up. Ooh, maybe I can share it with our readers in an article about secret ways to get closer to a guy …’
‘How did the first meeting go?’ Zinnia asks. They’re both completely convinced that I’m some kind of femme fatale expert at underhanded seduction techniques. The only thing I’ve managed to seduce lately is a bag of crisps. ‘Was he pleased to see you? Ooh, I bet it was deliciously awkward! I can’t wait to read about it in your first draft. Do play up the awkwardness, won’t you?’
The Little Vintage Carousel by the Sea Page 12