Christmas on the Little Cornish Isles

by Phillipa Ashley

  ‘Bloody hell!’ His shout echoed round the pool but she giggled. She scooped up more water with her hands and he cursed her.

  ‘Wimp!’

  ‘Just you wait …’ He pushed off from the steps, half diving into the pool. Popped up shaking his head. ‘You … r-really are b-arking mad!’

  ‘Hadn’t you worked that out yet?’ Maisie agreed. The pool, replenished twice a day by the rollers, chilled you to the bone. Her legs were numb and even swimming constantly, hypothermia was probably a real possibility. She would and should have brought her wetsuit, but she was damned if she was telling Patrick that.

  Huffing with cold, he thrashed up and down while she wondered how much longer she could stand being in the pool. The water was clear, with weed and kelp swishing gently below her. There were fish, of course, and if you wore goggles you could spot them shimmering below you or weaving in and out of the seaweed. Orange crabs too, and ruby snakelock anemones. Sometimes seals popped their heads up over the edge of the pool, alarmingly close, to take a look at you, and once when she was swimming off the Driftwood one had nudged her from behind, scaring the life out of her. The only thing scaring her today was Patrick.

  His hair was plastered to his head, his face ruddy as he swam towards her. ‘Call me a wimp but I’ve had enough,’ he said, his voice cracking with the cold.

  ‘You’re a wimp,’ she said, secretly relieved as she’d been about to give up herself. ‘Let’s get out.’

  She let him clamber out first and not only because it gave her a view of his muscular bottom encased in soaking-wet cotton. He brushed droplets from his torso and jogged on the spot to keep warm.

  She climbed out after him. ‘I’ve brought a towel in my backpack if you don’t mind sharing,’ she said.

  ‘You first. And I’ve no intention of going home in dripping wet underwear so you’d better turn away or point me in the direction of a private place to change. I’ll go commando on the way home.’

  She tried not to look down at his boxers.

  ‘Not that I’m in any kind of condition to shock anyone after that cold water.’

  You could have fooled me, she thought. ‘There’s a rock outcrop just over on the other side of the pool. I use that to get changed and it’s not overlooked. I’ll go first and be as quick as I can.’

  Clutching her clothes and backpack, Maisie jogged to the outcrop and wormed her way between the rocks into the bathroom-sized space. She knew from experience that once within its ‘walls’ you couldn’t be seen from the pool or the path above the beach. Few folk knew the little chamber was even there. Mindful of Patrick shivering on the path, she wriggled out of her damp tankini and dried herself hastily. She was still damp and it was a challenge pulling on her dry clothes but she wanted to be as quick as possible and not soak the towel too much.

  She called to Patrick even before she was fully dressed and was at the entrance in her bare feet when he jogged over. He was carrying his clothes.

  Her toes curled on the gritty surface. His body was drying but water dripped from his hair in narrow rivulets over his shoulders and in tiny pathways through the tawny hair on his chest, minuscule glistening droplets. It ran down his stomach and thighs. His boxers clung to everything, not that there was much to see, as he’d joked after that immersion, but still. Maisie’s whole body tensed. She curled her hand into a fist as the jolt of desire hit her. It was like being knocked over by a wave. She wanted him so much. More than she’d ever wanted any man before. Way more than Keegan. This was real, grown-up lust and it didn’t matter that she was almost forty and sassy and cynical, she wanted him now.

  He stopped rubbing his arms and frowned at her.

  ‘Any chance I could borrow the towel?’

  ‘Oh. Oh yes. Here you are.’ She held out the damp towel. ‘You look cold,’ she said. He’d rejected her after she had come back from the hospital. Why should things be any different now?

  He looked down at her. ‘I wonder why?’

  He took the towel, and disappeared into the ‘changing area’. While he dressed, Maisie removed a metal flask from her backpack and unscrewed the top.

  ‘Hot chocolate?’ she asked. ‘I guess it ought to be brandy, but you’d have to pass on that anyway.’

  ‘Great idea.’

  She poured the chocolate into the flask lid and offered it to Patrick first.

  ‘Thanks.’

  He sipped it and then handed it back. It was still hot and she blew steam off the top. Patrick stood by her in a chunky sweater and jeans – the most magnificent man she’d ever seen. He had that half-smile on his face and the glint in his eye that never seemed to fade, apart from on the night her father had been taken ill and once or twice at Scorrier Holdings, when she’d caught him watching Hugo with an ill-disguised contempt. She’d only known him a few weeks and her life was full of doubts – about the Driftwood and ‘saving’ Gull – but she knew what she wanted now, without a shadow of a doubt.

  She finished the cup and refilled it, handing it back to him.

  He took a few sips and then put the cup down on a rock.

  ‘Maisie?’

  His smile had gone but the gleam in his eye had become a white-hot fire. She shivered with desire and her body was like a taut glowing wire.

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘You know. I’m going to take a huge gamble here and if it doesn’t come off, you’ll have every right to ask me to leave. We could dance around this all day. We could pretend there’s no elephant in the room, but I think we both know that if we don’t go to bed soon, I’m going to have to jump in that freezing cold ocean and keep on swimming until I reach Melbourne.’

  Chapter 22

  Maisie’s legs threatened to buckle. The jolt of lust was like a lightning strike straight through her, then she was flung back to the morning she’d made a pass at him at the pub. The humiliation, the shame …

  ‘After I’d come back from the hospital, you weren’t interested.’

  ‘Of course I was interested. It was agony to turn you down, but you were exhausted and emotional.’

  ‘Don’t you dare tell me I was vulnerable and you did it for my own sake. I couldn’t bear that.’

  ‘Not vulnerable. You’re the least vulnerable woman I’ve ever met.’

  Patrick took a step towards her. She flinched, and wasn’t sure his comment was a compliment or not. ‘Really? Do I come across as that …’ She groped for a word. ‘That hard?’

  He clutched her arm. ‘No. No … please listen to me.’

  Realising that he was holding her forearm, Patrick backed off, although she was desperate to hear what he meant. The least vulnerable woman I’ve ever met. His words echoed Keegan’s parting excuses: You don’t need me, Maisie. You’re a survivor. You’ll get through this and be better off without me. He was right, she had been better off without him, but only time had shown her that. In that moment, raw and lost after losing the baby, she had needed him and shown him she needed him. Unlike the Driftwood, she wasn’t made of granite but the months of working hard and pretending she was fine and could just breeze on night after night in the pub, smiling, laughing, when inside sometimes she’d felt like crying and screaming, they had taken their toll.

  ‘I’m listening,’ she said softly. ‘I want to hear what you have to say. I am trying to understand.’

  He let out a breath of relief. ‘Then understand this. That morning after your dad had been taken to hospital, I didn’t know what would happen if I had … done what you expected. What we both wanted. I had no idea if you and I … had sex … if you’d have regretted it and I’d be out on my ear the next morning.’

  ‘Are you saying you refused me because you were afraid of losing your job?’ she asked, in agony at having to ask yet desperate to hear the truth, however awkward. ‘Please be honest with me. I don’t want lies or soft soap.’

  ‘No. I was afraid of losing a relationship that could turn into something more than a quick and regretted shag. And before you
say another word, yes, it was hardly the ideal timing, was it? Admit it.’

  She groaned. She hated to agree with him but he was right. ‘Yes …’ she murmured.

  ‘It’s no shame to be hurt and upset. No shame to feel you need someone, Maisie,’ he said. ‘Is it?’

  She couldn’t answer him in words but her hand reached out for his. Her fingers closed round his rough ones and his eyes lit up with pleasure and desire for her.

  He turned to her. ‘I won’t make the same bloody stupid mistake twice. I don’t know how I get a bloody thing done in that bar or a wink of sleep, dreaming about you.’

  He picked up her hand and did something no one had ever done before. He touched his lips to her knuckles and kissed them. It was so old-fashioned and so innocent but the touch of his warm lips on her skin stoked her need for him.

  ‘You taste of salt,’ he said.

  ‘What did you expect? Wine and roses?’

  ‘Come here.’

  He pulled her into his arms and kissed her as the wind strengthened from the sea. Waves crashed into the pool but they were a rock buffeted by the gale. She let herself relax into his arms, and tipped back her head while he kissed her throat and then her lips again. He cupped her bottom in his hands, lifting her onto her tiptoes.

  ‘Not out here,’ she whispered.

  ‘I’m not that daft. “The hills have eyes”, remember.’

  She giggled at the thought of Una and Phyllis finding them naked, making love by the pool.

  ‘Where, then?’

  ‘At the Driftwood. Mum and Dad are on the main island. No one will think anything of seeing us together there.’

  Patrick groaned. ‘I’m not sure I can wait that long. What if you change your mind on the way back?’

  ‘You’ll have to, and I won’t.’ Maisie got up, grabbed her rucksack and Patrick did the same. She’d never got back to the Driftwood so fast from the pool. She longed to hold his hand and drag him back there but was terrified of being seen by someone she knew. Even now, it was possible that someone might have spotted them kissing by the pool.

  By the time they reached the inn, she was almost faint with lust. She was worried there was something wrong with her, the feeling was so intense.

  ‘My place or yours?’ he asked.

  ‘Yours. No, mine. Oh stuff it, I don’t care.’

  ‘Mine then.’ He grabbed her hand and they ran into the Piggery. Patrick closed and locked the door, while Maisie drew the curtains. He was behind her before she’d even closed them properly, holding her around the waist and kissing the back of her neck. His breath was warm and each tiny kiss made her skin tingle deliciously. He put his hand on her breast. He moaned in pleasure and her nipples stiffened under his fingers.

  ‘It’s almost killed me to keep my hands off you …’ he said.

  ‘Not as much as it’s almost killed me … oh my God …’

  She let her head rest against his sweater and closed her eyes. Could this be happening? Could she feel this amazing?

  He took her hand and sat down on his single bed. She stood facing him, fitting perfectly between his open legs. He reached up and lifted the hem of her sweater. With a delicious lack of haste, he slipped her sweater and top up and over her head. She wasn’t wearing a bra after the swim but she didn’t feel embarrassed at his seeing her bare breasts, she felt proud and joyful. Being undressed by Patrick and naked in front of him seemed the most natural thing in the world. All her doubts and troubles had evaporated as if they’d never been.

  ‘Maisie …’

  She helped him off with his own shirt and sweater. He threw them on the floor and drew her to him again. He lowered his head and she stood on tiptoe to meet his mouth. As they kissed, she tangled her fingers in his hair, breathing the scent of him, the tang of cold clean water. His skin was warm under her hands as she explored the muscles in his back and the smooth skin stretched taut over them. She tasted the sea on his lips as he kissed her, and felt the salt thickening his hair.

  Maisie flicked open the metal buttons of his jeans and pulled the fly apart. He tried to shove them down his thighs himself but overbalanced. Hobbled by his jeans, Patrick tumbled onto the bed, taking her with him. She ended up on top of him, half on and off the little bed. It was too small for him, let alone the two of them.

  She giggled. ‘Who’d have thought a single bed could be so much fun?’

  ‘Right now, the middle of a field would do.’

  They were a tangle of bare limbs, clothes and laughter as he tried to extricate himself. Still with his trousers round his ankles, he fumbled with her skinny jeans, cursing softly as he tried to pull down the zip.

  ‘Bugger it. Sorry.’

  She smiled. ‘Here. Let me.’ She tugged at the zip and it freed but she’d have cut off her jeans if she had to.

  Patrick sighed in relief. ‘Great. Can’t wait much longer. I need you.’

  She knew how he felt. She was almost bursting for him. She arched her back so he could pull the tight jeans over her bottom, dragging her knickers with them. Finally she was naked … on Patrick’s bed in the middle of the afternoon. If her parents – anyone – walked into the garden now, saw the drawn curtains and heard the heavy breathing, the moans and laughter …

  It didn’t matter. She still wouldn’t be able to stop. She’d still carry on and they could batter down the door. When did she ever get this wanton? When Patrick walked into the Driftwood, that’s when …

  And he was above her. She bunched the quilt in her hands. There was no going back and she didn’t want to go back. It would kill her to stop now. By the looks of him it would kill Patrick too. He climbed back onto the bed and lay by her side, clasping her against him on the narrow quilt. Their legs tangled, limb over limb, almost rolling off the bed at times but greedy to explore and devour each other all at once. She was as greedy as him, hungrier even, clutching at his bottom and back, entwining herself with him and wanting the grey autumn afternoon to go on forever.

  Chapter 23

  Too late to go back. In so many ways.

  Yet how could Patrick regret the past few hours? How, with Maisie tangled in the sheets of his bed, her soft lashes against her freckled cheek, breathing softly. After his shower, Patrick slung a towel around his neck and lingered in the doorway of the shower room, drinking in the sight of her in his bed.

  She was sleeping and her face was that of an angel. He smiled to himself: what they’d just done had been as far from angelic as it was possible to get but it had also been bloody wonderful.

  She opened her eyes and smiled.

  Not asleep then, and that smile was knockout. Pure happiness.

  Relief flooded through his veins. While he’d showered, he’d had a vague sense of unease that she might have regretted sleeping with him. She sat up. She was still naked and sexy, rumpled and gorgeous. He cursed inwardly. He wanted her again, right now … but she pushed the duvet off her and swung her legs out of bed, pouring cold water on his hopes.

  She sighed but was already on her feet. ‘I have to get back.’

  ‘You could shower here.’

  ‘I’d love to but Mum and Dad will be home soon.’ She groaned. ‘Sorry. That makes me sound as if I’m sixteen, not thirty-nine.’

  He smiled and tossed the towel on a chair. ‘We could always go public …’

  She squealed in horror. ‘No!’

  ‘OK, OK. That was mainly a joke on my part, though I’m easy on the subject.’

  ‘I’ve only known you a few weeks. What would people say?’

  ‘Do you care?’ he asked.

  ‘No … actually that’s hypocritical of me. Yes, I do care, but not because of any petty-minded opinions but because I value my privacy. We should be able to have some secrets.’

  He believed her completely, but talk of secrets made him uneasy, although he decided to ignore his guilty conscience for now. ‘In a place as small as Gull, it’s going to be difficult to keep it under wraps anyway,’ he said
, struggling to cope with the fact that Maisie was still naked.

  She arched an eyebrow. ‘So this – us – is an “it”?’

  ‘That depends on whether you want today to be a one-off …’ He joined her by the bed and took her hand. ‘I really hope it isn’t. I don’t know about you, but I think I’d have to leave for my own health’s sake if I thought that this afternoon, all of it, was the first and last time. Spending time with you, in every way, was way too much fun not to be repeated.’

  She let go of his hand and glanced down briefly. Was he imagining things or were her cheeks pink? He reached up to touch her face and found it soft and warm.

  ‘Maisie, I think you’re blushing.’

  ‘No, I am not.’ She rolled her eyes at herself and groaned. ‘But, yes, today was fun. It was great and I want to do it again.’

  He pointed at the bed. ‘Right here and now?’

  ‘No. You know I don’t mean now. However much I want to spend the rest of the day with you, I have to go. It’ll be dark soon.’ She batted him on the arm and moved away but he could tell she was still smiling from her body language. He’d made her happy and that meant a lot to him. Even though, as she pointed out, they’d barely known each other a month, he cared about how she felt – and how he made her feel. His stomach knotted. Paddy boy, you could get in a right old mess if you’re not careful … Maybe, a voice whispered in his head, you already are …

  Maisie rooted around the tangle of clothes on the floor and gathered up her jeans and Patrick’s sweatshirt. ‘Argh. Where are my knickers?’

  She pulled the duvet back off the bed and shot an enquiring glance at him. ‘Patrick?’

  He savoured the sight of her body a second longer before replying. ‘On the sofa?’

  He knew damn well they were. He’d thrown them on the couch himself. He could have found them for her minutes ago but he wanted to squeeze out every second of her scurrying around his room in the nude. Damn, he’d need another plunge in that freezing pool at this rate.

  She put her pants on and wriggled into skinny jeans. ‘What’s so funny?’