Summer on the Turquoise Coast
Page 25
‘I didn’t think you wanted to see me again,’ Nina said, at the same time Leo stated, ‘I thought you were giving me the cold-shoulder.’
Both of them ground to a halt.
‘Go ahead,’ Leo offered.
‘No, you.’ Nina didn’t want to be the first to speak, in case she made a total arse of herself.
‘Okay.’ Leo took a deep breath. ‘I wasn’t ready for you, I’m probably still not ready for someone like you. You scare me. No, listen,’ he said, as she opened her mouth.
Scare him? A big bloke like him, scared of her? He was almost twice her size, for goodness sake!
‘I mean, I’m not ready for the way you make me feel,’ he continued. ‘I’m frightened by it, but from the moment I saw you on that coach, I simply knew I had to get to know you better, though it went against every bone in my body.’
Nina opened her mouth again.
‘Let me say what I’ve come here to say, and if you want to say anything when I’ve finished…’ he trailed off.
Nina shut her mouth with a snap. She really, really wanted to hear this. Or did she?
‘That night, I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t help myself.’ He cleared his throat and paused.
Nina thought, he’s come to apologise…
‘I wanted you so badly, and not just for the sex, though that was pretty wonderful, but for you. You’re cute and beautiful, and funny and…’ He heaved a sigh. ‘Anyway, I didn’t think you felt the same way, and in the hotel near the hospital I was sure you didn’t. It almost killed me to leave you there with your parents. Walking away from you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I did it because I love you. There, I’ve said it.’ He sounded defensive, defiant almost.
Nina’s throat closed up. She couldn’t speak now even if she wanted to. The backs of her eyes pricked with tears, and the trembling in her left leg moved to her right, until both were shaking as hard as a couple of saplings in a hurricane.
He loved her.
He loved her!
That was what he said, wasn’t it? She heard him right, didn’t she?
‘Is that what you came all this way to tell me?’ she asked.
He lifted his head so he was staring down his nose at her. ‘Yes.’
‘If you thought I was avoiding you, why did you come? How did you find me anyway? And where did you get that number from?’
They paused and stared at each other. ‘Flossie,’ they chorused.
‘She must have read it out wrong, or I mis-typed it when I put it in my phone,’ Leo said. He was still tenser than a frog about to be prodded (not that she tended to prod many frogs nowadays, but she had done so when she was younger because they spawned in her dad’s garden pond, so she knew a tense frog when she saw one), but his face had lost a bit of the wariness it held earlier.
He said, ‘To answer your other questions, I came because I wanted to hear you tell me you weren’t interested from your own lips. I couldn’t believe that after that night and those days we spent together, it all meant nothing to you. I had to hear you say it. I found you because I called every high school within a ten-mile radius of Worcester.’
‘You did?’ she choked out.
‘I did, and after the first couple, I became a bit cannier, otherwise I got nothing out of those creatures manning the phones. They’re bulldogs, the lot of them.’ He shuddered. ‘I hit on the idea of telling them I was from an educational visits company – it was the only way I could get any of them to confirm whether you worked at their school or not.’
He stopped. Nina worried at her bottom lip with her teeth. Should she say it? Could she say it?
Damn and blast, just say it Nina, she told herself.
‘I love you too.’
Chapter 38
The volcano hung in the air, shimmering purple-grey in the distance, looming over the landscape, brooding and deadly, but only when its potential was understood did you realise how great was its silent threat, Nina realised. It was magnificent now; how much more majestic would it have appeared in 79 AD before it blasted its top to smithereens.
Nina put her hands to the small of her aching back and stretched. This history business was proving to be hard work, and here she was thinking she’d be having fun.
There was still so much more to see.
‘Can we come back tomorrow?’ she pleaded, all big eyes and pouty lips. She knew he’d be unable to resist.
‘We’re supposed to be going to Capri,’ Leo reminded her.
‘Meh.’ Nina shrugged. ‘If you’ve seen one island, you’ve seen them all.’
‘You could say that about Roman ruins,’ Leo countered, dryly.
‘Noooo,’ she wailed, twining her arms around his neck, trying to pull his face down to her level. If she could get her lips on his, she knew he’d admit defeat. ‘Pompeii is totally different to Elephant. It’s got enormous penises for a start.’
‘Yeah, that’s really gonna do it for me. I need an attack of penis envy like I need a hole in the head.’
‘You do know they’re paintings, don’t you, and they’re not taken from real life models either.’
‘How do you know? They might have been. Anyway, it’s still demoralising. A man can’t help but compare.’
‘You’ve got absolutely nothing to worry about in the trouser department, Mr Waters.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘Fancy testing it out later, just to make sure?’
‘It’ll be my pleasure.’
‘I’ll do my absolute best to make sure it is, Mrs Waters.’
‘Say it again.’
‘Which bit?’
‘The missus bit.’
‘Mrs Waters.’ Leo dragged the words out while he nibbled at the side of her neck just to the south of her earlobe.
Nina wriggled in delight.
‘Oi! I thought you was supposed to be showing me round Pompeii, not showing me how babies are made. I know how that’s done already, and in case I’ve forgotten, Mr Sneldon has been reminding me.’
‘You what?’ Nina held the tablet at arm’s length in case Mr Sneldon decided to remind her too. ‘Which one is Mr Sneldon?’
Gran might have moved back into her own house, but she spent more time visiting the nursing home inmates than she did seeing her own family.
‘Him what wears the bobble hat,’ Flossie said.
‘Oh, gross.’
‘He’s not gross, he’s lovely. He keeps his hat on for a reason though.’
‘No need to share the details with me, Gran.’
‘Why not? You shared everything with us last night.’
‘Us?’
‘Everyone at Happy Hills. We all watch you on the telly.’
‘We’re not on telly, Gran, we’re on your computer.’ Bless her, Flossie tried so hard to get to grips with technology and she was doing her best, but some things seemed a bit out of her grandmother’s reach.
‘Yes, you were. I used an HDMI cable and plugged you in. Had both of you on wide screen and in HD. In all your glory.’
Hang on, ‘What do you mean, all our glory?’
‘Put it this way – we could all tell you are newly-weds. You forgot to turn Skype off.’
O.M.G. She didn’t! Nina’s face flamed as she recalled what she and Leo had gotten up to after they’d finished Skyping Flossie, and she nearly dropped the tablet as a series of cackles and suggestive comments came out of it.
‘Nina? Nina? Are you still there?’ Flossie called.
‘I’m still here,’ she said, gritting her teeth. At this moment, she was extremely glad her grandmother wasn’t, for fear of what she might do to the old bat.
‘Ha Ha! Gotcha! I turned it off,’ Flossie squawked, ‘when I saw what you pair were up to.’
‘Thank goodness for that! I thought for a minute—’
‘I know what you thought, young lady, and I’m not that daft. Besides, I don’t want Mr Sneldon ogling you when he should be ogling me! Right
, where are we off to tomorrow then?’
‘We’ll still be in Pompeii, Gran.’ Nina glanced at Leo, who nodded and smiled. She knew she’d be able to talk him round. Pity she couldn’t say the same for her grandmother.
‘I wanted to go to Capri.’
‘We’ll go soon, Grannie, we will, but first I want to see a bit more of this place, it’ll help me when I start my course on The Roman Empire in September.’ Excitement swirled through her tummy when she thought of it, not to mention all the lovely field trips it promised, Rome being one of them.
‘Get a move on, then, I’m not getting any younger,’ Flossie cackled. ‘Today could be my last day on earth, and I wanna make the most of it.’
‘Told you we should have brought her with us,’ Leo whispered, his breath tickling her ear.
‘On our honeymoon?’ Nina gasped. ‘No bloody way!’
And as for it being Flossie’s last day, Nina suspected the old lady had a lot more days left in her yet. Fingers crossed!
Love in the City by the Sea
Tess Barton is stuck in a rut. She’s working three jobs while trying to get her career as an artist off the ground… and now her sister wants her to run a marathon too?! No thank you!
But it’s not just any marathon. It’s the Barcelona marathon and they’d be running in memory of their late sister. She hops a flight but when disaster strikes and Emma can’t make it, Tess finds herself facing a new city and challenge all alone. That is, until an unexpected rendezvous in a little tapas bar with gorgeous Spaniard Roberto.
Facing the unknown Tess laces up her trainers, determined to master the marathon…and maybe find love in the city by the sea at the same time.
Find out more…
First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Lilac Tree Books as Elephant and the Pinky Moon
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU
United Kingdom
Copyright © Lilac Mills, 2017
The moral right of Lilac Mills to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788632737
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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