Secret Evenings in Pretty Beach

by Polly Babbington

  ‘Good. It’ll be nice to catch up with Rory. You’ll be well set for a Special Drink, then,’ Lottie said giggling.

  Lottie and Dimitri stepped out into the garden, checked the back door was locked behind them and made their way down the path through the garden to the gate at the back.

  ‘Sam Millson is coming in the week. So it won’t be long and we’ll have another secret location up and ready to go,’ Dimitri stated.

  ‘Can’t wait. It’s going to be fabulous,’ Lottie replied smiling.

  Lottie and Dimitri walked down the lane at the back of Strawberry Hill until they got to the end. They turned left, and then back left up the hill towards Strawberry Hill House. They pushed open the gate and walked up the path.

  The front door was open and Lottie and Dimitri could hear voices and laughter from way out the back of the house. Lottie looked up at the walls of the hallway which had already been stripped of their bright colours and undercoated in white.

  ‘Looking gorgeous already,’ Dimitri remarked as they stepped in through the open front door and headed to the kitchen at the back.

  ‘I didn’t think it would take Sallie long. She was champing at the bit to get rid of all the old decor,’ Lottie replied as they opened the door to the kitchen. Chatter and warmth and a lovely atmosphere greeted them.

  ‘Hello, lovelies. Welcome,’ Sallie said as she saw them in, ushered them over to the dresser and offered them a drink. ‘What can I get you? A lovely glass of bubbles or a special Strawberry Hill Cocktail? I thought it was appropriate with the name of the house. I found this amazing strawberry liquor online and it went from there. I will warn you though, even though I’m obviously not drinking it, I believe from what Ben’s told me it’s lethal. As in up there with Xian’s Special Drink lethal.’ Sallie chuckled.

  Lottie shook her head in contemplation. ‘Go on. Why not. It’s the weekend after all. And I could do with letting off a bit of steam. I’ll give the strawberry cocktail a go. What harm can it do?’

  Dimitri’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘Really? The most you ever drink is the odd glass of bubbles. It’ll knock you for six!’

  ‘You know what? That’s what I’m hoping for, actually,’ Lottie said with a giggle as Sallie stirred the huge jug filled with strawberries and a very potent looking drink.

  Just as Sallie had finished pouring their drinks the back door opened and all looking up they saw Ben walk in with Connor Bally.

  ‘Oh! You found him then?’ Sallie said to Ben.

  ‘Yep, I rescued him. He needs a drink, though!’ Ben replied laughing.

  Lottie looked at Sallie confused and Sallie explained, ‘Connor locked his keys in his car and the recovery van is there now trying to get them out so Ben went round to pick him up and they left them to it.’

  ‘How did that happen Connor?’ Sallie asked

  ‘The remote had gone, the other keys I left in my other house, and I’ve been meaning to replace the battery for ages and yesterday they finally gave up the ghost. So I locked the car internally by hand, got out, shut the door, and there were the keys sitting there on the seat.’

  ‘Ahhh. Nightmare.’

  ‘Yep. Anyway, I’m here now. Whatever that red drink is with the strawberries in it I think I need one of those.’

  ‘Glad to be of service,’ Sallie said laughing while Ben stirred the jug of strawberry liquor.

  ‘Mate. Be warned. This stuff is potent. You won’t need more than a couple,’ Ben warned as he passed Connor a glass.

  ‘Great. Thanks,’ Connor said as he took the cocktail glass, walked over towards the table, leant on a chair beside Lottie and all five of them raised their glasses.

  ‘To the new house on Strawberry Hill.’

  ‘Yes, and to lovely new friends,’ Sallie added.

  ‘I’ll certainly drink to that,’ Connor said, smiling and looking right at Lottie with his piercing blue eyes.

  Chapter 22

  Lottie Cloudberry stood next to the huge dresser in Strawberry Hill House and touched one of her large sparkly earrings. She was having a lovely time chatting to all sorts of people she hadn’t seen for a while.

  The soft candlelight from beautifully scented candles on every surface flickered and filled the whole place with lovely golden light and everyone appeared to sparkle.

  Lottie watched from the other side of the room as Xian pulled a small hip flask out of her pocket, poured some drink into Dimitri’s near-empty glass and Holly in a sparkling, extremely expensive-looking gold top and a very high pair of Chanel shoes laughed and joked next to Sallie’s husband Ben.

  Lottie who had moved away from the kitchen and was standing quietly in the conservatory had finished off the last of the strawberry cocktail and although it had gone to her head a little bit, just as Dimitri had predicted it would, she quite liked how it had made her feel and had decided that it was time for a refill. A little fuzzy around the edges was good after the busy week she’d had.

  Lottie smoothed down her culottes, adjusted the diamond bracelet on her wrist and picked up the cocktail glass and made her way back out of the conservatory and over to the other side of the kitchen. As she headed to the cocktail jug, Rory, Holly’s son came strolling in from the hallway.

  ‘Hi! Goodness, I haven’t seen you forever, Rory! Where have you been hiding yourself?’ Lottie asked, kissing Rory on the cheek.

  ‘Ahh. Hello, gorgeous. Crikey, I’ve been just about all over the place. Speaking at conferences in Australia, and umm, spending way too many hours in hotels and on planes.’

  ‘I wish I could say the same. I think the furthest I’ve been in, what a year, is Newport Reef.’

  ‘Nothing beats it though, does it? There is nothing quite like coming back here after all that travelling, I can tell you,’ Rory said and started to look at all the drinks and bottles of alcohol lined up on the counter.

  ‘What’s good? That looks interesting,’ Rory asked, pointing to the large and now replenished jug of drink brimming with strawberries.

  ‘It’s a homemade cocktail in honour of Strawberry Hill, but be warned, it’s strong. I’ve had one and it’s gone to my head a bit. But I’m a bit of a lightweight, so I guess I’m an amateur.’

  ‘Sounds like just what I’m after. It might help with the lingering jetlag that I just cannot seem to shift. Another one for you then?’

  ‘Don’t mind if I do. It can’t hurt,’ Lottie said giggling.

  Rory reached over for two cocktail glasses, stirred the jug and started to pour the drink slowly in.

  ‘How are the boys then? Still boarding?’

  ‘Yep. They’re loving it. I miss them though. It’s so quiet in the house. They’re coming back to help with some painting and decorating next weekend for my dinners though if they don’t bail, so I’ve got that to look forward to.’

  ‘Ahh, that’s nice. Oh yes, the new business. Mum told me all about it. She’s looking forward to it. It’s a great idea.’

  ‘Thanks. Yeah, it’s going well so far. I’m really happy. As you know from my last disastrous job I just wanted to try and work for myself. See if it would work out,’ Lottie said fiddling with her diamond bracelet.

  ‘Good for you. You’ll make it work, I know you will.’

  ‘I hope so. If not, you’ll find me cleaning at Suntanned Pete’s.’ Lottie said with a chuckle and they both stood back and quietly observed the goings-on of the party. Sallie was deep in conversation with Lottie’s friend Juliette and bus driver Nel in a tight, shiny, pale pink dress, was chatting and laughing with Connor Bally over on the far side of the kitchen.

  ‘Oh, look! There’s Connor. I haven’t bumped into him for ages, either. I must go over and say hello. Do you know him?’

  ‘Nope. It seems I’m the only one who doesn’t though.’

  ‘I’m surprised you don’t. Although you do keep yourself to yourself and tucked up here on the hill,’ Rory said with a joke.

  ‘You’re not wrong. I do. I’m very picky who
I socialise with Rory, as you know.’

  ‘You are. He’s been here, what, six or seven years. Pretty Beach Diving, down near the seaplane shed.’

  Lottie pretended she didn’t know and raised her eyebrows in interest and hoping to get some more insider knowledge on Connor without actually asking for it, she let Rory continue.

  ‘It’s not for amateurs though. Not like a regular old diving school.’

  ‘What do you mean? What sort of diving is it, then? I know next to nothing about diving apart from it’s done under the sea.’

  Rory continued to look over towards Nel and Connor whilst topping up his drink.

  ‘It’s a diving school for instructors. Apparently, Connor is one of the highest-qualified divers you can get. He trains the best. It’s all a bit cloak and dagger though. I only really know through mum.’

  ‘You’ve lost me. Cloak and dagger? How can diving be cloak and dagger?’

  Rory lowered his voice. ‘Pretty Beach Diving not to be confused with the real name of the business PB Elite Divers. Connor Bally trains elite navy and police divers and only the best from all over the world. And a lot of it is top secret.’

  Lottie took a large gulp of the strawberry cocktail. ‘Oh, my! How deliciously exciting.’

  ‘More exciting than what I do for a living, certainly,’ Rory replied.

  ‘And me. I’m a fancy dinner lady,’ Lottie said giggling and laughing as Rory topped her glass with more of the cocktail.

  As they stood there chatting they watched Nel slink over in the tight dress, put her arm around Rory’s shoulder and kiss him on the cheek.

  ‘Hey, lovely. How are you? What are you up to?’ Lottie beamed at Nel.

  ‘Driving the buses and still trying to find myself a man. So, absolutely nothing new there,’ Nel replied laughing.

  ‘Looks like you were doing pretty well over there with Connor,’ Rory replied.

  ‘Oh dear, no. I’m far too young and sparky for Connor Bally, and anyway, I tried when he first came to Pretty Beach and got told in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t interested.’

  ‘Really? There’s plenty more fish in the sea though, Nel.’

  Janelle pouted her lip, fluffed up her beautiful baby-blonde hair, laughed and threw her head back. ‘Yeah, but if I could just only find myself one as stinking rich, handsome, and in-demand as Connor Bally I’d finally have got what I wanted. Right now though, it ain’t happening in any shape or form. I’ll be driving a Pretty Beach bus with my zimmer frame the way I’m going.’

  Lottie laughed along with Nel and Rory and kept her mouth firmly shut waiting to see if there was any more forthcoming information divulged about the gorgeous tall, dark, handsome man standing on the other side of the room.

  It seemed there may be a bit more to this Connor than she thought. Firstly, Rory had told her his little diving school was ever-so-much more than that, and secondly, Nel had intimated that he was rich. And in demand, too. So that was the end of that. Of course, he was. What had she even been thinking?

  Chapter 23

  Lottie stood watching the little gathering and decided that really she should go home. Socialising and small talk had always exhausted her, and though she had enjoyed the evening at Sallie’s, she’d really had enough. Lottie checked the time on her phone. She still had time to stroll up the hill, have a quick shower, put on her pyjamas, and pop into bed with her seed catalogues. She’d had two cocktails, a nice enough evening, and now it was time to slope off quietly and call it a night.

  She looked around the room to work out how easily she would be able to disappear without anyone noticing. Dimitri was still well into conversation with Xian and Holly and not looking like going home anytime soon, and scanning the room she saw that Connor, with a bottle of beer in his right hand, was just disappearing out of sight, probably looking for the loo. She’d learnt quite a bit about him tonight and parked the whole ridiculous idea of him back to the side and closed the tiny little bit of the gate in her head that had opened when she’d first seen him out on the pavement on the hill.

  An elite diving instructor, rich, and with his own business? The penny had dropped. The ‘old shed’ as he’d referred to it down near the Boat House, the confident manner and self-assured air. Connor Bally was hardly ‘keeping himself busy’ with his little diving school and had probably laughed at the silly, tiny woman collecting driftwood on the beach with talk of secret evenings and hidden locations.

  As Lottie started to make her way through the kitchen she smiled to herself. Never mind. It had all been a bit of a pipe dream anyway. Just passing Sallie’s huge old Aga, Lottie felt her earring drop to the floor and caught a glimpse of it bouncing under the table. She manoeuvred around a couple she vaguely recognised from her days at the school gates and dropped to the floor looking for the earring. Crawling under the huge old table in the centre she took out her phone, turned on the torch and shone it under the chairs. Crouched down on all fours she was just about to give up when the earring caught the light all the way down the end. Lottie crawled along under the table, the noise of everyone chattering above her, retrieved the earring and as she crawled out, her knees scraped on the tiles as she emerged back out at the other end of the table.

  Lottie pushed away a chair, leant on the seat and still half crouched under the table with a stinging on her knee, pulled up the leg of her culotte and looked down at her left knee. Blood ran down her leg as she went to heave herself up from the floor.

  ‘Errr, hello again. Not collecting driftwood this time? But instead emerging from under a kitchen table with blood running down your leg?’ Connor said, holding his hand out for Lottie and helping her up.

  Lottie gaped up at him and then down at her knee, and nothing came out of her mouth. She forgot all about her knee and the blood and got lost in the eyes. Connor reached over towards the kitchen sink, tore off a piece of kitchen roll, and passed it to Lottie. ‘Stay there, I’ll go and find some plasters.’

  Five minutes later, with Lottie holding the now drenched piece of kitchen roll against the cut on her knee, Connor was back at the end of the kitchen with a small, green First Aid box with a white cross on the front. ‘Right. I got a gold star in my first aid course, so I know precisely what to do,’ Connor said, smiling and taking a tube of saline out of the box and opening it.

  ‘I’m fine. It’s just a scratch. Really. Don’t worry about the saline. I’ll sort it out when I get home.’

  ‘Bit deeper than a scratch with all that blood. I’ll wash it out with this and then stick a plaster on top, and you’ll be good to go.’

  Okay. I’ll just have to put up with this gorgeous man attending to my knee. Shame. Lottie thought as she removed the piece of kitchen roll from her knee.

  Lottie still hadn’t said much and watched as Connor washed the cut with the saline solution, dabbed all around it with cotton wool and once it was dry, opened a large plaster and stuck it over the top.

  ‘Done. Now, please do enlighten me as to why you were crawling under the table at a housewarming party? Is it quicker for someone as tiny as you to exit underneath tables rather than the door?’ Connor joked.

  ‘Earring,’ Lottie said laughing.

  ‘Crawling around for your earring?’

  ‘Yep. I dropped it on the way out and it ended all the way back down here and I scraped my knee getting back up. ’

  ‘I think you need another drink before you leave,’ Connor said smiling and gestured around to the vast selection of drinks on the worktop beside them.

  ‘Well, I’ve already had two of those cocktails so I’ve probably had enough.’

  ‘Surely I can tempt you in one for the road?’

  ‘Oh, why not? Living on the edge as I do,’ Lottie said jokingly and looked up into the eyes.

  Chapter 24

  Connor picked up the strawberry cocktail jug and, seeing that it was empty, reached along the worktop where another full jug was conveniently ready and waiting. He collected two clean cockta
il glasses, slipped in some fresh sliced strawberries, and poured in the cocktail. Connor passed the glass over to Lottie and smiled as he held up his glass.

  ‘Cheers to my new tiny driftwood collecting friend who crawls around under tables at parties and grazes her knees,’ Connor laughed and clinked the edge of Lottie’s glass.

  ‘Cheers to you Connor Bally,’ Lottie giggled back gazing up at him.

  Cheers to you and your golden glow. The golden glow I want to be bathed in. All. Day. Long.

  As Connor raised his glass, Lottie noticed so many other things she hadn’t seen before when she’d been totally dazzled by the eyes; the strong jaw, the wide shoulders, the beautifully cut shirt and the elaborate diving watch. This wasn’t your average lumberjack Joe from the boatyard.

  I wasn’t looking for an average Joe anyway. Hang on. I wasn’t looking for anyone, anyway. I really mustn’t have another drink. Oh, why not? I haven’t enjoyed myself for a long time.

  Lottie continued to admire this lovely, tall, dark Connor with the piercing blue eyes as he chatted away seemingly completely unaware of the things that were happening to the tiny woman in front of him. They stood there leant up against the worktop in Sallie’s warm kitchen chatting about life on Strawberry Hill, Lottie explained to him that her boys were away at school, and he told her all about the first day he’d ever been to Pretty Beach.

  Lottie felt as if she was bathed from above in a golden, shimmering illumination. A golden light that seemed to make her wobble inside. As she stood there basking in the glow, all thoughts of leaving and going home, putting her pyjamas on and perusing seed catalogues in bed had gone very swiftly out the window. She could quite happily stand and gaze up and look into the eyes for the rest of the night. Week, even.

  One drink later and Lottie felt like she’d known Connor forever. Connor was relaxed and happy and intelligent, and she felt as if somehow meeting him had been meant to be. Everything around Lottie’s taut edges had softened and boy did it feel good.