Recipe for Love: A gorgeous Cornish romance (Polwenna Bay Book 5)

by Ruth Saberton

  “Sy?” Tara was waving at him and with a jolt he plucked himself from the past and back into the kitchen. “Wow. You were miles away there.”

  Years rather than miles, Symon reflected. More than eighteen years ago, in fact.

  “Thinking about it all?” she asked, handing him a mug.

  “I guess,” Symon said. “Although to be honest there’s not a lot to tell really, Tara. You’d be better off going up to Seaspray and finding out for yourself. From what I could gather yesterday, Dad met Emerald’s mum when he was in California and they had a relationship. She sounds like a bit of a free spirit and she never told him she was pregnant. Emerald traced him when she grew up and now here she is on our doorstep. I don’t think we can actually blame Dad too much for all this. He only screwed up by not telling us as soon as he found out about her.”

  “It’s like something from a soap opera,” said Tara. “Seriously, you Tremaines are way more exciting than my family. Their idea of drama is choosing Sainsbury’s rather than Waitrose.”

  “I’d be happy with that. Right now Mo’s in a strop with Dad, Issie’s apparently distraught and threatening to come back from Miami and Granny Alice is frantically trying to make everything all right.” Symon was worried because there was no way Alice could possibly fix this. Mo always blew up and then simmered down, while Issie was used to being the baby of the family and was probably feeling put out – but a new sister, unlike a cut knee, wasn’t going to go away with a kiss and a plaster.

  “So Emerald’s staying at Seaspray?”

  “I think so. She was keen to pitch a tent somewhere but Granny wouldn’t hear of it.” From what Symon had seen of Emerald she seemed a self-reliant type. He certainly admired her courage. Coming to England all alone and facing a strange family must have been hard enough in itself, so discovering that nobody knew she existed must have been doubly difficult. Emerald had eventually faced the situation head-on, telling them all about her upbringing in California, and by the time he’d left Seaspray Symon had decided that he liked her a lot. She had Mo’s fire, Jake’s honesty, a dash of Zak’s creativity, resembled Issie and was a million times braver than Jimmy. Was there any of him in her? Symon had wondered. Maybe. There was certainly an air of independence and a determination to do things on her terms.

  He hoped she was more sensible than he had been at her age.

  “I’ll look forward to meeting her,” Tara said. “As will the entire village. I thought Betty Jago was going to pop with the news, and Sheila Keverne’s telling everyone she meets that Jimmy’s love child has arrived at Seaspray.”

  Symon raised his eyes to the beamed ceiling. Superfast fibre-optic broadband had nothing on the speed of village gossip. No wonder he played his own cards close to his chest. “What century is this?”

  “You know how it is. Even Big Rog is agog. I heard that he was going to give the shed a miss and paint the window frames at Seaspray.”

  “The same ones he was supposed to do last summer?”

  “The very same. Isn’t it lucky he’s got a gap in his schedule today of all days?”

  Leaving Tara laughing, Symon picked up the mail and wandered outside into the small courtyard garden. It was mild today and spring was in the air. The slice of sky above the closely packed cottages was baby blue; beneath it, seagulls squabbled on the chimney stacks, fighting for prime real estate on which to build their nests. It was a time of hope and new life and optimism – all of which were very much at odds with the sensation of dread that washed over Symon when he opened the letter and scanned the contents.

  This time it was worse than just a rent hike. The landlord was writing to inform Symon that he’d been reflecting on the situation and come to a new decision. When their current tenancy agreement expired, the lease on the restaurant wouldn’t be renewed, because the landlord wanted to go ahead and convert it into a holiday home. That was it. The Plump Seagull was over. The years of gently building up its name, the hours spent restoring the crumbling building one scoop of filler and one lick of paint at a time, and the effort of slowly putting Polwenna Bay on the map as the place to dine were all for nothing.

  He crumpled the letter and let it drop onto the cobbles. At once a gull swooped upon it and then shrieked its rage when it discovered there was nothing to eat.

  “You’d better get used to it,” Symon told this would-be glutton as it flew back to its chimney pot and glared down at him. “And so had I.”

  He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. The warmth of the sun and the day-to-day noise of the village soothed him for a moment. The constant burble of the River Wenn was the background to his life here; it lulled him to sleep at night and sang him awake in the morning, just as the scrabbling of gulls’ feet on the slates above his head and the hoots of owls told him the time. He rose early and went to bed late, living and breathing this place and giving it all the love and devotion that Claudette had rejected. Without the restaurant who was he? And what the hell was his purpose?

  He knew that thoughts like these could send him spinning into that dark place where the lid slammed shut and where, no matter how loud he yelled, nobody came. Symon had been there once and he was determined never to find himself there again. He opened his eyes and took a long breath to slow the racing of his heart. The Plump Seagull was a brand name and it would travel with him. Wherever he, Symon Tremaine, decided to base himself next would by some mysterious alchemy become The Plump Seagull. All would be well. Hadn’t Jean-Luc and Claudette taken Papillon with them from the narrow backstreet in Montmartre to the beautiful boulevard not far from the Eiffel Tower? They were Papillon and the restaurant bound them more closely than love or marriage. Who knew that better than him?

  There was no need to tell his staff about this, Symon decided as he retrieved the screwed-up letter and smoothed it flat before tucking it into his trouser pocket. Tara and the others were already hard at work in preparation for the lunchtime service and worrying them wouldn’t achieve anything. Anything could happen between now and the end of the lease. He might find an even better venue, or the landlord might have a change of heart, or Symon might win the lottery…

  He laughed out loud. He’d need to win the lottery to buy a place in Polwenna Bay these days – or even to rent one. He supposed he could ask Ashley for help, but to go cap in hand to his brother-in-law went against everything Symon believed in. No, he would do this on his own merits or not at all. There had to be a way to make some cash that didn’t involve selling souls to the devil, flogging vital organs or developing a scratch-card addiction. All he had to do was think of it.

  “I’m just popping out for a moment,” he called to Tony and Tara. “If Perry comes while I’m gone, can you ask him for some more wild garlic? And extra rocket for the tortellini?”

  Tara called something back, which Symon took as assent. God, he hated to think that she might be out of a job if he had to move further west to find somewhere more affordable. The same went for Kelly, who wouldn’t want to be far from the fisherman she’d started dating recently – and Tony was a local man with an elderly mother to think about. Jobs were as rare as gulls’ teeth in these parts and his employees depended on him. There had to be a way to solve this problem.

  Leaving his team prepping, Symon slipped out of the side gate and headed towards the harbour. The sea was calm today and he longed to hop into a sailing boat and zip across the bay. The whipping of sails and the slap of waves against the hull would be a wonderful antidote to the churning dread in his stomach. There was nothing like racing over the water and leaving everything else far behind.

  As if his feet longed for the water too, Symon found himself entering the marina and meandering along the pontoon. Boats rose and fell with the water, their hulls creaking against the safe dock and their rigging clinking ahainst the mast and chiming in perfect time with the motion. Gull scarers whirled and at the furthest end of the jetty an engine coughed and belted out puffs of blue smoke as the owner attempted to start i
t after months of inactivity.

  “One for me, I think.” Jake joined Symon on the pontoon, shading his eyes against the glare of sunlight on water. “Alternator maybe? Or perhaps the fuel injection’s got some dirt in it?”

  Symon never failed to be impressed by how his brother could tell these things. To him one engine sounded just the same as another, yet Jake heard every nuance and every vibration.

  “How are things at home?” Symon asked.

  “Pretty much as you’d expect,” said Jake. “Dad’s gone AWOL, Mo’s in a sulk and Gran’s trying to make amends for being Jimmy’s mother.”

  “No change there then. And Emerald?”

  “Asleep when I left. I think she must be jet-lagged and worn out by it all, poor kid,” replied Jake. “Imagine arriving and meeting us lot en masse. No wonder she almost did a runner.”

  “I can’t believe Dad knew about her for months and never said anything,” Symon remarked.

  Jake gave him an arch look. “This is Dad we’re talking about. Of course you can believe it. He thought if he hid for long enough the problem would go away. It’s what he always does.”

  This was true. In a past life Jimmy must have been an ostrich.

  “So what next?” Symon asked. “Is she staying?”

  “I think so, for a bit anyway. Summer says she’ll show her around this morning and I think Danny and Jules will be about later. Best not to overwhelm her with the whole tribe. She’s an only child and not used to siblings.”

  “Lucky her,” grinned Symon. “But a new sister. Can you believe it?”

  “Like the other two aren’t bad enough,” said Jake. “I don’t know. Maybe she’ll be fun? She seems like a switched-on girl and she’s got guts, that’s for sure. Nick couldn’t wait to take her to the pub but apparently she doesn’t drink. He’s horrified.”

  “I bet. That’s his new partner in partying crime ruled out,” Symon observed.

  “He needs to get his head down and work before Eddie Penhalligan decides to sack him again,” Jake commented. Given that Eddie was Summer’s father, Jake knew what he was talking about. Symon was alarmed; the last time Nick was sacked he’d come to work in the restaurant instead, where he’d lasted about twenty minutes before growing tired of scrubbing pans and being given the brush-off by the waitresses. Never again.

  “Is everything all right with you?” Jake asked.

  Symon’s fingers, buried in his pocket, brushed against the letter. He was about to answer when Jake added, “Gran’s really worried about you.”

  Symon paused. The last thing he wanted was Alice fretting. She had more than enough on her plate. “I’m great, thanks. Just busy.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I told her,” said Jake. Then he glanced at his watch. “Do you think Ella will be in her office?”

  Symon was used to his brother changing tack (metaphorically and literally, when they went sailing), but this nearly had him overboard.

  “Ella St Milton? What on earth do you want with her?”

  Jake looked around to see whether anyone was listening in. Even though their only audience was a snoozing gull, Jake’s lowered voice was so soft that Symon had to lean closer to hear it.

  “Justin Anderson’s on the guest list for that big celebrity wedding at the hotel.”

  Premier League footballer Justin Anderson was Summer’s ex-fiancé and they were currently embroiled in an ugly court case. Summer and Jake were both highly stressed about the whole deal.

  “How on earth do you know that?” Symon asked, taken aback. The hotel’s wedding plans had better security than GCHQ. “Ella must sleep with the guest list under her pillow.”

  “Tom Elliot accidentally let it slip. He thought we should know. Can you imagine what it will be like for Summer to think that bastard’s anywhere nearby? And if the press gets a whiff of it they’ll be crawling all over us looking for a story.”

  Jake’s jaw was clenched with anger and Symon understood why. He’d known Summer for years, having grown up with the Penhalligans, and when she’d returned to the village he’d been shocked by how thin and frightened she’d been. Life with a violent bully had driven Summer to despair, and Symon knew that Jake wanted to kill Justin with his bare hands for this.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  “Nothing stupid, so don’t panic. Much as I’d like to take Anderson out to sea and throw him overboard, I’m going to start by visiting Ella and asking politely for him to be removed from the guest list.”

  Symon wasn’t convinced this would work. Ella St Milton wasn’t a huge fan of Jake’s. In fact, she wasn’t keen on any of the Tremaines. Poor Granny Alice and Jonny St Milton were like a superannuated Romeo and Juliet.

  “What makes you think she’ll agree?”

  “Not old time’s sake, that’s for certain,” Jake answered wryly. “I don’t know. Decency? Empathy? Female solidarity? The fact that Granny Alice is about to marry her grandfather?”

  “Maybe,” Symon said doubtfully, although from what he knew of Ella these were not qualities she possessed in abundance. Determination, arrogance and single-mindedness sprang to mind far more readily.

  “I have to try,” his brother said.

  “And if she says no?”

  A dark expression shadowed Jake’s face. “Then I’ll do whatever it takes to protect Summer,” he promised grimly, “and, Granny’s wedding or not, the St Miltons had better not stand in my way.”

  And with this he was gone, striding along the pontoon and leaping the steps up to the quay two at a time. Symon stared after him until Jake was just a matchstick figure crossing the fish market and then vanishing into the warren of narrow streets.

  Symon exhaled slowly. The folded letter pressed into his leg, the words burning against his skin in much the same way that the threat of losing the restaurant was seared into all his waking and dreaming moments. It seemed to Symon that everything he knew and loved was hanging by a thread – and he hadn’t a clue how to keep it all safe.

  Chapter 10

  “You want to postpone our wedding? You can’t be serious?”

  Jonny St Milton stared at Alice in disbelief. All of a sudden his dapper suit looked slightly too big for him, his mouth seemed to droop and even the jaunty feather in his tweed hat appeared dispirited. It was as if her hesitant suggestion that they put their wedding back a few months had been a sharp pin popping the balloon of his usual confidence. At this moment, the man she loved looked every one of his eighty-odd years.

  Alice sighed and passed a hand over her eyes. She was certainly feeling her age. Since Emerald’s unexpected arrival the previous afternoon she’d felt weary to her bones. Hauling herself out of bed this morning had been a huge effort; all she’d wanted to do was pull the covers back over her head, close her eyes and shut the world out. But this was Jimmy’s way of carrying on, not hers, and Alice knew that however difficult today might be, she couldn’t hide from the fact that her granddaughter was bound to have questions she needed answering.

  Thank goodness Danny and dear Jules had managed to persuade Emerald to come back. Alice had been horrified when her squabbling family had driven the poor child away, and hugely relieved when she’d reappeared. They’d spent some time together but mostly Emerald had been monopolised by the other grandchildren, who were fascinated by her – with the notable exception of Mo, who’d had a massive row with Jimmy and stormed home to Mariners with an apologetic Ashley in hot pursuit. Mo would come round, of course; she always did. In any case, this wasn’t about the appearance of a new sister as much as it was about reaching the end of her patience with Jimmy. Alice had explained this as best she could to the new arrival, but by this stage poor Emerald had been almost passing out with jet lag. Eventually Jake had carried her up to the spare room – where, the last time Alice had checked on her, she was sleeping soundly.

  Alice was quite envious. She wished she could do the same, but this dragging, grinding heaviness wasn’t just normal tiredness. It was
bone deep and nothing like the physical weariness she’d reluctantly become accustomed to these days when walking home from the shop or after a few hours of minding Isla. If the mere thought of trying to organise her wedding, referee the feuding between the two families and move all her belongings into Jonny’s apartment at the hotel was enough to make Alice long to close her eyes and give up, then the reality was impossible. Besides, how could she move out now? Her new granddaughter was going to need her and so were all the others.

  “It’s not forever,” she said gently. “Just until everything’s sorted here. Emerald arriving out of the blue has turned everything upside down. You can understand that, surely?”

  Jonny nodded. “Of course I can. It must have been a huge shock.”

  Alice considered this for a moment. “In some ways, yes, definitely – but in others I wonder if deep down I always knew Jimmy was hiding something? It’s a mother’s instinct I suppose. You always know when your child’s keeping a secret and Jimmy’s always been a hopeless fibber.”

  “Not for want of practising,” Jonny commented sharply.

  Alice tutted. “He never means any harm and I’m sure if he’d known about Emerald from the very start he’d have been a part of her life. That’s one thing I can promise you with my hand on my heart. I can say many things about my son, Jonny, but he loves his children.”

  Jonny took her hand and raised it to his lips. “I was just teasing, my love. The kids adore Jimmy and we all know he never means any harm.”

  “Things just seem to happen to him,” Alice sighed, hearing the excusatory note in her voice and not liking it much. Oh dear. More than sixty years on and she was still having to sort out her son’s problems and justify his actions. Jimmy had always got himself into scrapes and made things ten times worse by not knowing how to put them right. She supposed he would never change.

  “In fairness it could happen to any man,” said Jonny kindly. “It’s you I feel for, Ally, because as usual you’ll be the one who’ll end up having to deal with it all.”