Spring at Lavender Bay

by Sarah Bennett

  Not sure what to do for the best, he stuck to the truth as he knew it. ‘I don’t know. He was lucid and talking, which is hopefully a good sign. He had a few burns on his arms, but the fire officer seemed more concerned about smoke inhalation.’

  Her breathing changed, and at the first hitch he tucked himself behind her and held her tight. The wrenching sobs broke his heart, but there was little he could do for her right then other than let her cry it out.

  Eventually, she calmed, and he helped her to sit up and remove the sweatshirt when she complained of being too hot. When they lay back down, she rolled to face him, nuzzled into his shoulder and rested the fingers of one hand on his chest, over his heart.

  He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. ‘It’s nothing that can’t be fixed.’ She nodded against him, but didn’t reply. A surge of anger filled him—what the hell had that bloke been thinking? He could have killed himself, could’ve killed them all if the alarm hadn’t been raised in time.

  And behind all that anger was a bone deep fear that the fire would ruin everything. That it would taint the emporium for Beth, and cause her to reconsider her decision to return to the bay. Yes, they’d said ‘I love you’ to each other, and damn it, he’d meant it, but things were still so new between them. And what would happen when her mum found out? She’d jump at the chance to prove to Beth she’d made a mistake by moving back that, and would no doubt exert pressure on her to take the insurance money and run.

  His arms tightened around her, causing her to mutter a sleepy protest. Loosening his hold, he tried to calm his racing mind. There was no point in second guessing anything, but he couldn’t stop the fear that had wormed its way into his heart though. He couldn’t lose her now. He couldn’t.

  His parents rushed back the next morning, with Eliza hot on their heels as soon as Libby called her with an update. Beth appeared okay on the surface—accepting the support and sympathy of the many well-wishers who called into the pub, and dealing with the insurance adjuster when he arrived the next day. The one thing she refused to do was leave the pub and actually look at the damage for herself, leaving Sam to show the man around and make arrangements for things like a skip to dispose of the damaged stock.

  She listened carefully to the report from the adjuster, accepted his assessment and recommendations for repairs. He’d judged it too difficult a clean-up job for them to tackle, and she’d put up no arguments when he suggested a professional firm who would clear the place, salvage what they could and make a full inventory of recovered items. The fire officers had been brilliant, to the point of rescuing some of Beth’s clothes from her smoke-damaged bedroom which Annie washed, dried and ironed to ensure there was no trace of smell on them, other than lilac-scented fabric softener.

  Sam thanked the insurance agent for his time, then showed him downstairs, Beth trailing at their heels. The agent paused on the threshold to shake hands with them both. ‘It’ll take a bit of time to get the paperwork sorted, but once we have the fire report to back up your statements, I don’t foresee any problems.’

  Beth gave him a wan smile. ‘Thank you. I just feel so stupid for not locking the back gate before I left.’

  The agent stopped in his tracks. ‘Excuse me?’

  Oh shit. Sam’s heart sank as he watched the sympathetic smile fade on the man’s face. He wanted to clamp his hand over Beth’s mouth before she could say anything else, but he was powerless to do anything as she tucked her hands into the sleeves of her cardigan. She looked so small, and shattered. ‘I stopped locking the back gate all the time. It seemed a bit OTT when Lavender Bay is such a quiet place. I thought I was overreacting after living in London.’ She gave a little laugh, which trailed off when they didn’t join in. ‘What? What is it?’

  The agent fixed an insincere smile to his lips. ‘You’ve been very helpful, Miss Reynolds. I would suggest you don’t do anything next door until you hear from us.’ And with that, he walked away.

  Beth turned to Sam, a look of confusion on her face. ‘What does that mean?’

  Reaching out, Sam pulled her into his arms. ‘I’m not sure, darling. Let’s just wait and see.’ There was no dismissing the sick feeling in his stomach though.

  It was less than a week later that Sam’s worst fears were realised when Beth received a letter from the insurance company denying her claim citing owner negligence. Devastated, Beth allowed Libby and Eliza to commandeer her. His own bloody sister, treating him like a persona non grata! As though Beth spending the night with him somehow made the fire his fault. It was getting on his nerves, but he’d kept his counsel so far, not wishing to upset Beth further. They spent hours locked away in Eliza’s room or watching nonsense on the television to keep her spirits up. As a result, he hardly saw her other than at bedtime when she curled up in his arms and cried.

  Nothing he tried seemed to help. She didn’t want to do anything for her birthday, and the others had leapt to her defence when he’d tried to argue they needed to do something to try and break her cycle of grief.

  All his attempts to get her outside the pub’s four walls failed miserably. She was too tired to go for a run; or it was too cold outside; or his mum needed a hand with something. Whatever he suggested, Beth had an excuse to hand to thwart him. And so it went on for the next two weeks.

  Eliza had returned home after a couple of days, but Libby stuck to Beth like glue, giving him no option other than to grit his teeth and try and wait it out. She couldn’t go on like this forever. The emporium couldn’t be left to rot, so Sam had instructed the cleaners that the insurers had suggested, paying them out of his own savings. It put his plans for Subterranean another step out of reach, but to hell with that for now.

  They’d left everything they’d rescued piled in the stock room which had escaped almost completely unscathed. Wandering through the empty shop floor, Sam wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all. The security company had been in to replace the back door, the damage to the staircase hadn’t been as bad as initially feared and more of his precious savings had gone towards repairing them. He’d been upstairs to open the windows and air the place out, and there was some smoke damage, but nothing too serious. He glanced up past the blackened wood, feeling totally frustrated. The flat was Beth’s private domain and without her input, he couldn’t do any more than that.

  Needing to grab some fresh air, he unlocked the door and stepped out into the yard. The cobbles had been swept and washed clean, all trace of the source of the fire removed and placed in the skip in the alley beyond, together with the rest of the rubbish. The security firm had fixed a new lock to the rear gate free of charge, only mentioning it when they’d handed him the keys.

  A new lock… Beth said she hadn’t locked the gate, so why would the lock need replacing? Sam crossed the cobbles to study the wooden gate and the surrounding fence panels. Other than the panel closest to the building, everything else had survived unscathed. The outline of the old lock plate was visible, standing out from the natural weathering around it. The new lock had been placed lower down to avoid a splintered section on the post where the old staple had been affixed.

  The fire hadn’t touched the fence, and if Beth hadn’t locked the gate, how had it ended up damaged? Closing his eyes, he ran through the sequence of events. He recalled the fire engine pulling up just as they ran outside. The crew piling out and running through the open gate…The gate had been open! He rubbed his forearm, recalling the nasty scratch from when he’d caught it on the splintered section of the gate post. If the fire crew hadn’t broken the lock to get inside, then who had?

  Trying not to get his hopes up, Sam hurried back to the pub to track down the telephone number for the insurance agent. The man sounded irritated when he explained who he was. ‘I’m sorry Mr Barnes, but I can’t discuss the case with you.’

  Sam braced his arm against the wall, and fought for patience. ‘The lock on the rear gate was damaged. It wasn’t anywhere near the fire, so if Beth didn’t lock up behind
her as she said, how did that happen?’

  ‘As I said, Mr Barnes, I can’t discuss the case with you.’

  He ground his teeth. ‘I’m not asking you to discuss it with me. I’m just asking that if the only reason you rejected her claim was because of what she said about not securing the gate, that you take another look at the reports and see if you can ascertain how it came to be damaged. I remember the fire crew arriving, the gate was hanging open then.’

  A period of silence followed, and then the agent sighed. ‘I’ll check the reports, but you’d better not be wasting my time, Mr Barnes.’

  Hanging up, Sam clenched his fist. Best not say anything to Beth in case nothing came of it. If he got her hopes up, only to have them dashed again it might be the final straw.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Beep. Beep. Beep. Beth felt the mattress shift behind her as Sam got out of bed and turned off his alarm clock. She’d just nestled back down into her pillow, when a shock of cold air hit her back as the quilt was ripped away. ‘Get up.’

  Rolling over, she glared up at Sam. ‘Leave me alone, I’m tired.’ She stretched out her hand, hoping to find the edge of the quilt so she could tug it back over her, but the rotten sod had stripped it clean off the bed.

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘You can’t be bloody tired, you haven’t done anything for days. Now get up. I’m going for a run and when I get back, you’d better be showered and dressed and ready for breakfast.’

  He turned his back on her to pull on his running kit, and Beth stuck her tongue out at him. Had she honestly ever thought this bossy side of him attractive? Man, the experts were right, you didn’t truly know someone until you tried to live with them. Not that she and Sam were actually living together, it was just a temporary arrangement until she sorted things out. Her thoughts turned to the telephone number scribbled in the pocket diary in her handbag. When she’d called her solicitor, he’d found the contact details for Owen Coburn, the developer who’d previously offered to buy the emporium, in a matter of moments.

  It was the right thing to do. She’d tried to run the emporium, had thrown her heart and soul into it once her initial reluctance passed, but the fire had ruined everything. She didn’t have it in her to start all over again. With the insurance refusing to pay out, she couldn’t bloody afford it, even if she wanted to. Her initial idea of approaching the local artists with a view to taking over the place had flown out of the window. That had been way back in the beginning when she hadn’t been sure whether running the emporium would be right for her. She no longer had a going concern to offer them, only a ruined shell, and no one to blame for the mess other than herself.

  Just the thought of her own stupidity was enough to make her heart flutter in panic. Worst of all, she’d betrayed Eleanor’s legacy, been unworthy of the trust her old friend had placed in her. She hadn’t worked up the courage to call Owen yet, but she would. Today. Or maybe tomorrow. There was one thing holding her back from making that call, and that was the thought of telling Sam. She’d have to do it at some point, though. She had no idea how though.

  ‘I’ll be back in forty minutes. Get cracking.’ Sam zipped up the front of his hoodie and stalked out of the bedroom. Forty minutes. And then she’d have to leave the sanctuary of the pub and face what she had done. Beth threw back the quilt, energized for the first time in days.

  Taking the long route around to the station in order to avoid passing the emporium meant she missed the express, so her only choice was to catch the local service which called at every single station between Lavender Bay and Truro. The next fast service was over an hour later, and she needed to be out of the station on the off-chance Sam came looking for her. Not that she expected him to after reading the note she’d left him. It had been the coward’s way out, but if she tried to talk to him face-to-face he’d only try and persuade her to stay. And she was afraid she would let him do it.

  His tender care of her since the fire had been wonderful. Those quiet hours, when he’d held her long into the night, had soothed the pain in her heart like nothing else. She didn’t deserve that though. She’d ruined everything, so it was only right that it hurt.

  God! When she’d found out he’d dipped into his precious savings to try and help put the emporium to rights, she’d been furious with him. It wasn’t his place to spend money he couldn’t afford to lose trying to fix her mistake. And beneath the anger lurked a different emotion—love. Somewhere along the line, she’d fallen hook, line and sinker for Sam, and that had never been part of the deal. A spring fling, that was all it had been supposed to be, nothing more.

  Sam had already jeopardised his plans wasting his savings on the repairs, if she stayed she’d only be more of a distraction. A distraction he couldn’t afford if he was to realise his dreams. If he lost out on the restaurant because of her, she’d never forgive herself, and in the long run, neither would he. She needed to pay him back, and the best way to do that was to sell up. But if Owen Coburn didn’t come through, it might be months before she got an offer on the emporium. She needed to start earning again, and the best place to do that was back in London. Checking her watch, she settled back with a sigh. At this rate it would close to nightfall before she made it back.

  Six and a half hours after boarding her connecting train at Truro, Beth bumped her suitcase up the stairs at the underground station close to her bedsit then began to drag it along the uneven pavement. She was an hour later than she’d expected thanks to a faulty signal just outside Reading. Her stomach gave an angry grumble, and she gave it a quick pat. ‘I hear you,’ she mumbled and diverted into one of the takeaways lining the street.

  Swinging the white plastic bag containing her dinner, Beth turned onto the pathway leading to the sprawling Victorian pile containing her bedsit and stopped short at the figure sitting on the front step. The overhead light cast his face partly in shadow, but there was no mistaking his identity. ‘Sam? What are you doing here?’

  Sam rose. ‘Waiting for you. You took your time.’

  ‘There was a signal failure.’ She waved her hand, sending the takeaway swinging again. ‘Never mind that, why are you here? How are you here?’

  ‘I got your note.’ He waved a folded piece of paper then tucked it in his jeans pocket. Her stomach clenched, guilt washing through her in a queasy wave. ‘You made some interesting points,’ he continued. ‘And by interesting, I mean bone-headedly and fundamentally incorrect.’ Her jaw gaped, and the plastic bag containing her dinner slipped from suddenly numb fingers, but he didn’t give her the chance to respond.

  Taking a step closer, he held up a finger. ‘One, you claim that leaving is for the best. Best for who? For you, coming back to a place where no one knows you, no one cares about you? Or for me, to be separated from the woman who occupies at least eighty percent of my waking thoughts?’

  A tiny spark of hope flared, but she crushed it out before it could grow. ‘But don’t you see? I shouldn’t be taking up so much of your time. The restaurant is your dream, and it’s too important for you to risk losing it because of me!’

  Taking another step closer, he pressed a finger to her lips. ‘Shh. You already had your say, and now it’s my turn.’ The touch felt too much like a caress, sending a little shiver down her spine. Damn it, she was hopeless when he was this close to her. She tried to shuffle back, but his other arm snaked around her waist, holding her in place. ‘Two.’ His palm spread against her back, warmth radiating from that point of contact to every part of her body. ‘Dreams change. They expand and grow. I’m not giving up on Subterranean, not for one second, but the motivation behind it has changed. Oh, I still want success, still crave recognition from my peers, from the critics. I intend to create the best damn restaurant in the entire county. But not just to satisfy my ambition, but to give us a strong and stable future we can build upon.’

  The pressure of that hand on her back increased, urging her to lean into him, to accept the comfort of his familiar presence. ‘Us?’ It
came out shaky, a bare whisper against the rough stubble on his jaw.

  His lips brushed her temple. ‘Us. Because none of this is worth a damn if I can’t share it with you.’

  Her heart turned cartwheels in her chest. ‘But what about our deal. What about the spring fling?’

  ‘I want to renegotiate terms. How would you feel about adding some May play?’ Ducking his head, he nibbled the edge of her ear, sending little shockwaves rippling through her. ‘A little June swoon…’ His lips trailed lower to tease her neck.

  Laughing, she wound her fingers into the curls at his nape. ‘You’ve been working on those rhymes, haven’t you?’

  ‘All the way up here in the car. I got a bit stuck when it came to July, though.’

  July. How many months did he envisage them being together? He’d said he wanted to build a future for them, and as tempting as his words, and—God help her!—his kisses were, they didn’t resolve the biggest problem. ‘I’m going to have to sell the emporium.’

  His mouth left her skin, and the arms around her stiffened. ‘No, you don’t. The stock can be replaced. The damage upstairs won’t take much to put right. You can do this, Beth, I know you can.’

  He didn’t get it. ‘Just stop, okay? She tried to duck past him, but he took her shoulder in a gentle grip to stop her.

  ‘No. I won’t stop. Remember that day when we walked up by Gilbert’s Farm? What did we promise each other?’

  Oh, bloody hell, he was going to use her words against her. ‘We promised to always tell the truth. No matter how hard,’ she muttered.

  His free hand captured her ponytail, stroking the strands through his fingers in the way she loved. ‘I know you’ve had a shock, but you can’t just give up. You’ve had enough time, but now you need to face up to what happened and make some decisions.’