“It’s bollocks, Summer,” had been Hattie’s reaction when Summer had told her about Justin’s mother walking out on him. “I don’t care if his therapist says that’s given him trust issues. Plenty of men have had shit mothers. They don’t all take it out on their girlfriends. Stop trying to make excuses. Justin’s not a victim; he’s just a bastard.”
Summer knew all this and she also knew her friend was right. She’d just been waiting for the right time to leave. The day had arrived when the second blue line had appeared. As much as Summer might have felt that deep down she deserved whatever Justin literally threw at her, there was more at stake now.
When she felt even braver she would ask Hattie to make an appointment for her to see a solicitor too. Justin would play nasty, so she would need to be prepared.
Just as Summer had anticipated, Justin had stopped all her bank cards – a move that would have left her stranded had it not been for Hattie, who’d kept her promise and wired money over to Summer’s secret account. According to her agent, Justin was fuming and demanding to know where Summer was. Fortunately, with a big game coming up, his manager had him on a tight leash. Summer had been with her fiancé long enough to know that he would only simmer for a while before he exploded. Then, manager’s veto or not, he’d come looking for her. Hattie had said that he’d accused her of hiding Summer and had then been through a list of her friends. It was only a matter of time until he realised that she’d done something extremely out of character – returned to her estranged family.
After bumping into Ella St Milton, Summer had been almost sick with fear that Ella would contact Justin’s management to invite him to the ball. Summer knew that if Ella had the slightest inkling that there was an issue, she’d love nothing more than a chance to exploit it; the hair-cutting episode would never be forgotten and it certainly wasn’t forgiven. Summer could only hope she’d managed to pull off the performance of a lifetime and had convinced Ella that everything was fine. Still, it had been a while. Surely if Ella had done something Summer would have known about it by now?
For the past few days these thoughts had been whirling around her head like malicious little wasps, every now and then stinging her with a terror that made her pulse race and caused her to jump at the slightest noise. Only the exhaustion from walking up and down the village, her nerves jangling in case somebody spotted her, had stopped Summer from lying awake at night with her heart thumping with dread.
It was a Saturday evening now, at the start of June. As she curled up on the window seat, sipping tea and watching the waves roll onto the beach, Summer knew that she couldn’t continue hiding away indefinitely. Her absence was bound to be noticed. Sooner or later somebody would mention that they’d seen her in the village, and before she knew it the press would descend. No, at some point she would have to screw her courage to the sticking place, face Justin and sort everything out. Right now just the thought of this made her mouth parch as though somebody had tipped half of the beach into it. She needed to be strong enough to make sure she was able to stand her ground and didn’t crumble. There was a better chance of gaining that strength in Polwenna Bay, where she could listen to the gulls and spend time with her mother in the family home. Here, where she was breathing in the thick salty air and had the whispering waves to soothe her, Summer felt that slowly but surely she was starting to heal. Just as her bruises and the soreness in her ribs were fading with every day that passed, so too were the scars inside that nobody else got to see.
Nobody else, that was, apart from Jake.
Summer sighed and leaned her head against the windowpane. She’d been trying very hard not to think about Jake since their half-conversation up at Seaspray. Her life was far too complicated to involve him any further, Summer told herself sternly, and he’d let her down so badly in the past that in his own way he was just as much of a disappointment as Justin. At least, this was what she was trying to believe – but her heart didn’t seem to want to listen to reason, and she’d replayed his words over and over again until she was almost driven insane.
It must be her hormones making her feel this emotional, Summer decided; this longing for him didn’t make any sense. They’d been apart for a lifetime, were little more than strangers now. He’d never brush his lips against hers again, his golden stubble grazing her skin as his mouth caressed her throat and trailed kisses across her collar bones, and those arms would never pull her close again to hold her against his heart. The too-short nights spent talking until the moon had sailed high and dawn had scratched the sky were just memories now. She’d never again curl into him in the darkness, wrapping her arms around his strong torso and burying her face into the nape of his neck. These were just shadows of another life that had ended a long time ago, memories that somehow kept slipping through her mind with a bittersweet insistence. She and Jake were strangers now and that was all they would ever be. Once she left here she’d not see him again for a very long time. For all she knew, when she next returned to see her family he might even be married to Ella...
At this thought a sharp pain stabbed her right below her breastbone, exactly in the centre of her heart, and she gasped out loud. Imagining Jake married to another woman hurt more than anything Justin had ever done. Maybe coming back to Polwenna Bay hadn’t been such a smart move after all? Although in her mind time had stood still – the village with its crumpled cottages and golden horseshoe beach looking exactly as it had the day she’d left – the reality was that everyone had moved on. Even her gruff father seemed less worried about his embarrassing daughter than he’d been before; he hadn’t bothered to give Summer the customary lecture. In fact, the couple of times she’d seen him, Big Eddie had been far more concerned about the antics of her brothers. He hadn’t even remarked on her bruises or made so much as one snide comment. Susie was glad to see her daughter back at home, though, and it had been good to catch up with Patsy too. Nevertheless, Summer knew she didn’t really fit in anymore; she didn’t belong anywhere.
The celebrity world no longer held any appeal and Summer was effectively homeless, since there was no way she could return to the London house. Polwenna held her heart in a way that nowhere else ever would – but there were too many memories here for comfort, and being close to Jake was proving surprisingly painful. The bruises from her final row with Justin were healing far more quickly that the betrayals and disappointments of twelve years ago. She’d never really loved Justin, Summer realised with a jolt, but she had loved Jake Tremaine with every beat of her tender sixteen-year-old heart.
As though her thoughts had conjured him up, Jake was suddenly outside the window and only inches away, walking past her cottage and looking breathtakingly handsome in a tuxedo. The evening sun turned his hair to flame and gilded his tanned skin. Mo, dressed in shimmering greens and turquoises, was beside him, laughing at something he’d said, and on his far side was a tall limping figure in a long curly wig that shielded his face. This had to be Danny, Summer realised, and her heart went out to him. It was hard to equate the sunny-natured boy she remembered with the stories her brothers had told her about a drunken and violent man whose injuries were truly shocking. Poor, poor Danny. All he’d ever wanted was to be a soldier. Summer, who’d been equally driven by her own childhood dream, could understand only too well how the bottom fell out of your world when the dream crumbled away from underneath you.
She shrank back against the curtains, not wanting the trio outside to think that she was spying on them. Try as she might, though, she simply couldn’t look away. The Tremaine siblings still had that magic which drew the eye and made you long to be with them. It was an innate confidence, an ease at being within their own skin, that was so attractive. All the family had that magic, Summer recalled. Patsy said they got it from their father, and Summer could well imagine that. Jimmy Tremaine was charming and handsome and great fun, even if he wasn’t the most effective parent. The Tremaine children had inherited all of his charisma, although it was tempered by Alice�
�s influence – except perhaps in the case of Nick, whom her father was ready to strangle.
Summer needn’t have worried about being spotted: the trio were so caught up in their conversation that not one of them glanced her way. Jake was saying something that made Mo throw back her head and laugh, and her giggles were so familiar that Summer felt the loss of her friend all over again. There had once been a time when she would have been with them too, off on some adventure and joining in the laughter, the d’Artagnan to their Three Musketeers. Now she was as much of an outsider as any holidaymaker just visiting for a few weeks. This wasn’t her place anymore. It was time to move on.
Long after they’d vanished from sight Summer sat on the window seat staring after them, lost in thought until the sun had slipped behind the headland and shadows pooled across the path. Down in the village lights began to shine in cottage windows, and across the harbour the fairy lights of The Ship threw trembling rubies and emeralds into the water. This was a safe time of day to wander through the emptying streets, Summer had learned. The locals were at home or sinking a few pints in the pub and the holidaymakers had drifted back up the village to their coaches and cars. If she wanted to stretch her legs and clear her head for a moment, then now was the time.
Minutes later her baseball cap was rammed on her head and she was locking the cottage door behind her before walking down the hill and into the village. Now that the evening had fallen the shops were all closed and the seagulls had headed out to the cliffs. Symon Tremaine’s restaurant was open for business; as Summer passed by, the aroma of garlic drifted on the breeze, making her mouth water and filling her mind with images of Paris and romance. She quickened her pace just in case Symon was about, then headed left towards the harbour where two trawlers were moored against the quay, their engines running. Fork-lift trucks buzzed up and down as the fishermen landed the day’s catch. Penhalligan Girl hadn’t moved all day, though – which was a bit puzzling, since the weather had been fair and, judging by the stacks of yellow fish boxes, it looked as though the catch was good. Maybe they’d saved tide and were going to go in the small hours instead?
Or had something awful happened to her father? Had Eddie had another heart attack?
Feeling sick at the very thought of this, Summer turned towards the row of ripple-patterned stone cottages and soon found herself at the bottom of the damp and narrow steps that led to the lower door of her parents’ cottage. The door was never locked; fisherman had a habit of either returning unexpectedly from sea or staggering home drunk and without keys, so this had always been the family’s preferred entrance. As usual an assortment of oilskins and rigger boots were piled up on the weathered bench beneath the plastic overhang, and somebody had heaped logs in a leaning tower, like Pisa’s, against the wall. Summer was just about to step inside when the door flew open and she was almost flattened by her brothers charging out of the cottage. At any rate, Summer guessed they were her brothers. It was difficult to be sure because they were both dressed up in masks, plumed hats and frock coats. It made a change from smocks and wellies, she supposed.
“Bloody hell, Summer! You’re right in the way!” cried the first, narrowly missing a collision with his sister by walloping into the log pile and causing a wooden avalanche. “Bollocks!”
“Be quiet, you harris! Do you want the old man to hear?” hissed the other brother. It was hard to tell them apart: they were both over six feet tall and fairly broad, and both had the dancing green Penhalligan eyes, so in fancy dress they were more or less interchangeable. It was only when they slid their masks up to see where they were going that she was able to determine which was Bobby and which was Joe.
Both of the boys scrabbled about grabbing logs and piling them back up in a haphazard fashion, trying to make as little noise as possible. It would have been comical if not for Summer’s growing suspicions that they were up to no good.
“What’s going on?” she demanded.
“Nothing,” said Bobby quickly – too quickly for Summer’s liking. The boys might be in their twenties now but the guilty looks on their faces were exactly the same as when they’d been kids and caught truanting or selling Eddie’s copies of Playboy at school in order to buy fuel for their jet skis.
“Nothing? Really? So you often go out dressed like Louis the Fourteenth then?”
“Eh? Who’s he?” Joe said.
“A French king, you twat,” Bobby told him scathingly. To his sister he explained, “We’re going to the St Miltons’ ball and it’s going to be wicked. There’s loads of free booze and Nick says all the birds will have their tits out in low-cut frocks.”
“Tits everywhere,” said Joe happily. Not for the first time, Summer reflected that the lads’-mag culture might have made her fortune but it hadn’t done much for the intellectual development of the likes of her brothers.
“How come you two were invited?” she asked, surprised that the boys had been included. Fishermen weren’t usually at the top of the St Milton family’s list of desirable guests.
Joe and Bobby laughed and then shushed each other loudly.
“Don’t be daft, Summer. Of course we weren’t invited,” grinned Bobby. “Zak’s playing and Nick’s persuaded him to smuggle a load of us in. Issie and some of the others have already gone up. Apparently it’s a piece of piss to get through security.”
“You’re gate-crashing the ball?” Summer was impressed at their nerve, although this sort of thing was typical of Nick Tremaine, from what she could gather of him. She supposed that as their big sister she ought to disapprove, but part of her liked the idea of Ella’s snobby gathering being infiltrated by the boys and their friends glugging all the free Moët and working their way through the canapés. Then a thought occurred to her. “So why are you sneaking out? What’s the problem with Dad? He’s no fan of the St Miltons.”
Her brothers exchanged a look.
“You look just like you did when your football smashed Sheila Keverne’s greenhouse,” Summer told them. “Guilty, in other words. Come on, out with it. Why can’t Dad find out?”
“Because we’re supposed to be going to sea at four and he’ll probably have another heart attack if he knows we’re up at the party,” Bobby confessed. He couldn’t quite look his big sister in the eye. “He’s got a real bee in his bonnet about everything these days. Like he never had a few beers before he went out.”
“Don’t look like that; we’re not getting totally pissed,” added Joe, seeing her concerned expression. “It’s only a couple of drinks and a few laughs. We’re not going to get bolloxed.”
“Yeah,” nodded Bobby. “We’re not total twats, you know.”
“Are you sure about that?” Summer was beyond exasperated with her brothers. She shook her head in despair. “What is it with you two? Don’t you realise just how serious this is? Haven’t you listened to anything the older fishermen have said?”
“Don’t start nagging,” said Joe.
“Nagging?” Summer could have grabbed her little brother and shaken him until his eyeballs rattled in his thick and empty skull. “You think pointing out that you’re taking risks with your lives is nagging?”
Her brothers looked mutinous but Summer didn’t care. They needed to listen.
“I think I got here just in time,” she said wearily. “Come on, you two; get back inside.”
Joe crossed his arms and glared at her. “No way. It’s going to be sick at that party. No way am I missing it.”
“Me neither,” said Bobby.
“Fine. Then I’ll tell Dad, shall I? He can decide whether the boat goes or not.” Summer knew that there’d already been the mother of all rows recently over the boys turning up for work hung-over. Maybe a blast of Eddie Penhalligan’s wrath was what they needed to see sense.
Joe shrugged. “Fine, tell the old man if you must. Go on, wind him up – but if it gives him a heart attack then it’ll be your fault. Just remember that the doctor said another one could be fatal. In the meantime, sis, w
e’ve got to meet Zak. Come on, Bobby. Let’s go.”
Summer stared after her brothers, furious with both of them because they’d well and truly outmanoeuvred her. Whatever decision she made now, Summer knew she couldn’t win.
She sighed and pushed open the door, calling hello to her parents and trying to ignore the uneasy churning in the pit of her stomach. All she could hope was that her brothers were true to their word and really did have only a couple of drinks. There was no way she could speak to her father about all this, because he’d fly into a white-hot rage and go charging after the boys, causing another almighty scene – hardly what the doctors would recommend for a man with sky-high blood pressure. Joe was right: it could be fatal.
But then again, so could three hung-over boys on a trawler…
Chapter 24
When the daylight started to bleed away from the sky and twilight draped its turquoise veil across the countryside, the narrow lanes leading to the Polwenna Bay Hotel began to fill with more supercars and Bentleys than all of Park Lane’s showrooms put together as the great and good of Cornwall made their way to the St Miltons’ ball. By the time darkness was falling in earnest, the hotel windows blazed with light and loops of white fairy lights danced in the trees like fireflies. Excited guests chinked glasses and chattered, their words popping in the breeze like the bubbles in their champagne.
In a past life, before death duties and the cost of upkeep had become issues, the Polwenna Bay Hotel had been the country residence of a wealthy family. As such, it occupied a breathtaking headland position, from which its floor-to-ceiling windows gazed across the formal gardens and out to sea. A sweeping gravel drive wound its way to the hotel, taking a leisurely route through several acres of grounds and up a gradual incline before circling the building like a scarf and ending at the foot of a flight of elegant steps leading to the vast front door. As each vehicle crunched over the immaculate gravel, valets in white gloves stepped forward to open doors, assist the passengers as they alighted and magic the cars away to the parking area. All that remained for the guests to do was air-kiss the hosts, take their flutes of Moët and drift away to the terrace where Zak Tremaine was channelling his inner Frank Sinatra by crooning about flying to the moon and playing among the stars.
[Polwenna Bay 01.0] Runaway Summer Page 28