His fingers tightened on the mug handle. No. He wasn’t going to think about that. Better to just sit over there on his terrace and gaze out to sea, warmed by memories of the time they’d spent together, each recollection every bit as bright and as inescapable as the morning sunshine he was now stepping into.
The Pollards, who knew exactly how many breaks they were entitled to in their working day (for UKIP voters they were oddly keen on some aspects of EU employment legislation, Ashley had noted with wry amusement), had erected a makeshift bench out of a scaffolding plank and some blocks. It was hardly elegant but it did the trick, and he was grateful to sink onto it now and raise his face to the sun. It was a still morning, the sea below oily calm, and the fishing boats were long gone from the harbour. It would be a perfect day to head out to sea. He glanced down at the marina, where Big Rod nestled against the pontoon. He longed to be pointing the boat at the horizon, the sky filled with possibilities, and to have Mo beside him. The wake would peel away behind them, the gulls circling high above. Maybe dolphins would dance alongside them as well, just as they had that morning when he’d taken Mo to the next bay. How prickly she’d been about it too, and how she’d melted like ice cream when he’d kissed her…
Bloody great. So much for not thinking about Morwenna, Ashley thought wearily. She was as embedded in his grey matter as the sodding tumour and, he suspected, would be even trickier to remove. After all, she wasn’t just in his every thought, was she? Morwenna Tremaine was in his heart too.
Bloody hell. Ashley Carstairs had done his fair share of crazy things in his time but none of them came close to falling in love at a time when the life he might have remaining could be counted in weeks rather than years. Looking down at his hands he saw that they were trembling; his coffee was splashing onto the terrace. Used to being in control in every area of his life, Ashley was suddenly terrified. He should never have come back to Polwenna Bay. He knew that. When the prognosis was first delivered he should have left the renovations in the capable hands of his project manager and stayed in London. But he hadn’t been able to help himself: he’d had to come back and see her again.
Ashley closed his eyes in despair. He’d made everything ten times worse.
“Ashley?”
Now he knew that things were bad because he was hearing her voice. Nobody had mentioned auditory hallucinations as a symptom, nor visual ones either. And yet, on opening his eyes, Ashley could have sworn that Mo was standing in front of him, hands on her hips and with a frown creasing her brow.
“I know why you’re avoiding me,” she said quietly.
Ashley couldn’t speak; he was far too busy staring at her. God, but she was breathtaking standing there with the deep blue of the sea behind her and the sun’s rays turning her hair to pure flame. Scowling or laughing, he didn’t care: she couldn’t have looked more beautiful to him.
“You might say hello,” Mo was saying. “Getting here this early takes effort for me, you know. I’ve got up super early to see to the horses – two of which belong to you, by the way – and then walked all the way over here. I even had to grit my teeth and listen to the Pollards’ stupid-arsed comments about the calendar, so the least you could do is look pleased to see me.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” said Ashley. “I thought I’d made myself clear on that?”
She was standing so near to him that it was all he could do not to reach out and touch her. Christ. That was what he longed to do. Being so close yet so far was agonising.
Mo fixed him with her clear, blue-eyed stare. “We need to talk. I’ve had enough of lies and game-playing, Ashley.”
“I’ve never lied to you.” He was trying not to look at her mouth, not to remember how it had felt beneath his, but he just couldn’t drag his gaze away. He wanted to kiss her so much; it was as much a physical pain as any of those bloody headaches.
She shook her head. “Lying by omission, not telling me the whole truth. Call it whatever you like, it’s just semantics. The woods? The horses? Buying all those calendars? None of that makes any sense. Why did you do those things if you want nothing to do with me?”
“What can I say? I’m just a nice guy.”
She laughed. “Yeah, right. I think we both know that nice isn’t your strongest quality. Bloody-minded, stubborn and frustrating maybe, but nice? Not really how I’d describe you.”
“So why are you here if you have such a low opinion of me? I’ve told you before to stay away. What happened between us was a mistake. Move on from it. I have.”
Mo laughed again bitterly. “Yeah, that would suit you just perfectly, wouldn’t it? Well, tough luck, Ashley. I’m not that easily got rid of. I don’t like mind games and I don’t like being kept in the dark. It’s time you told me the truth about what’s really going on.”
Ashley knew there was no way he could do that, but he was so blown away by her presence that his brain refused to come up with a plausible excuse. In spite of the fact that he wanted her more than he had ever wanted a woman in his life, he had to make sure she walked away from him today and never came back.
“I’m using the village for my own gain, just as you always suspected,” he said flippantly. “I’m going to buy some properties, spin them around and make lots of cash. Who knows, I may even buy the church and convert that.”
“You certainly seem to like it up there. I’m surprised just how often you seem to be in the church lately.” Her eyes held his, so serious and so full of sincerity that his heart clenched. The urge to tell her everything was shockingly strong.
He looked at the horizon. “It’s a pretty spot. I like it.”
“And Polwenna Bay? Do you like it here too? Or is it just the money-making potential that appeals?”
“What else? Christ, it’s less stressful running the trading floor and working on eight currencies in six time zones than it is trying to organise plumbers here.”
She pushed her curls away from her face and shook her head.
“Yeah, nice try, Ashley. Just as well you’re a better property developer than you are a liar. I don’t buy any of that crap. You like the village, I think you quite like me too sometimes, and you certainly love this house – why else throw so much money at such an inconvenient place? And as for scoping out the church because you want to develop it? Well, that’s all bollocks too, isn’t it?”
His top lip curled and he glanced back at her. “Is it?”
“Do you want to know what I think?” Mo continued, before he could draw sufficient breath to reply. “I think you love it here. I think you love the village and I think you like all the other things that come with it.” She held his gaze as she said this; no matter how he tried, Ashley couldn’t look away. “There’s something else going on, isn’t there? I think you’re actually going to the church to think and reflect, maybe even to pray.”
“You seem to think an awful lot,” was all Ashley said. He didn’t dare say anything else. She was so dangerously close to the truth that his insides had constricted with dread.
“I get a lot of time to think when I’m out riding,” Mo said quietly. “And I’ve been thinking an awful lot about you, Ashley Carstairs. You’re a pain in the arse, a misery and pretty damn annoying in general, but I don’t care about any of that. I love you and I know that you feel the same way about me.”
His chest tightened. “Mo, just go away, will you? How many times do I have to say it? This isn’t going to work, I—”
She held up her hand. “I haven’t finished. I was confused for a while, and pretty pissed off too, with myself as much as you, but last night everything suddenly fell into place. I can’t believe it’s actually taken me this long to figure it all out. Whoever would have guessed that Silver Starr really is psychic after all?”
Mo stepped forward and took his hand. At just the touch of her skin against his, Ashley’s insides collapsed like an avalanche. His fingers wove into hers and held tight, as though her hand was the only thing in the whole world of an
y substance, the only thing keeping him from drowning in this deep ocean of terror. Suddenly Ashley knew that he couldn’t do this alone anymore. He couldn’t be without her.
“You’re ill.” Mo wasn’t asking him. She’d guessed the truth. “And it’s serious.”
And unable to keep it from her any longer, Ashley simply nodded.
“As serious as it gets, Red,” he said softly. “Unless my doctors can work a miracle, I’m dying.”
Chapter 18
Ashley was gripping Mo’s hand so tightly that her fingers began to tingle. If she’d ever been unsure of her wild shot in the dark then she wasn’t anymore. For once he wasn’t wearing the hat – and the shorn patch on his head, where the sutures were a livid red against the shockingly white skin of his scalp, told its own tale. Even if she hadn’t seen that, he was telling her openly now that all her instincts had been absolutely right.
Oh God. How she wished they weren’t.
“Why didn’t you stay away?” Ashley was asking, tugging her down onto the bench beside him. His free hand stole to the nape of her neck, caressing her skin as his eyes took in her shocked expression. Glancing down and noticing the tight hold he had on her, he released her fingers. Mo felt his cool, strong hands rise to cup her face. Then his mouth met hers and he kissed her as if he were a drowning man and she were his last hope of oxygen. “You should have stayed away,” he murmured, when they broke apart. “Oh, Red, you really should have.”
“Since when did I ever do anything anybody asked me to do?” Mo said. Or rather, that was what she tried to say, but there was a rasping sensation in her throat and the words sounded all peculiar. How was it possible to feel so happy and so broken-hearted all at the same time?
He laughed, but it was a despairing sound. “That will be never, then. God, that bloody stupid woman. When she started peddling fortunes, that was the last straw. Not only had I been forced to listen to Ella all night long but then she started too. I couldn’t take it a second longer.”
“Ella has that effect on a lot of people,” agreed Mo.
He exhaled wearily. “I don’t doubt that, Red, but the trouble is that I don’t have any seconds to spare anyone, least of all her. It’s a long story.”
Mo leant forward. “So tell me. I think it’s time I knew the truth, don’t you?”
Ashley stared out to sea. A sailboat was heading out of the marina, its sails unfurling as it danced over the waves towards the freedom of the horizon.
“You do, Red,” he said quietly, “but I was hoping to protect you from it. You don’t need to be involved.”
“I am involved,” Mo pointed out with simple logic. “And if I’m honest I’ve been involved for a lot longer than from that day on the cliffs. I think we both know that.”
In answer to this, he pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. Then, fixing his gaze on the boat, he began to talk. At first his words were hesitant as he began to describe how he’d had a skiing fall and found a bump on his head soon afterwards. Yet as the story continued it was as though a dam had been breached and the words tumbled out. His doctor’s bewilderment, the CT scans and the shock of discovering that he had three benign brain tumours – all of this information flooded out of Ashley in a torrent while Mo held him and listened, her heart breaking a little more with every sentence he uttered.
“But benign’s a good thing, right?” she asked him, clutching at what surely had to be positive news, or as positive as news could get when the man you’d fallen in love with had a brain tumour. “That means it isn’t cancer.”
Ashley tightened his arms around her. Mo felt his heart racing beneath the thin fabric of his tee shirt.
“That’s true. The kind of tumours they found in my brain aren’t cancerous at all. No, let me finish before you look relieved,” he said swiftly, sensing that Mo was about to speak, “because great as that is, it’s a little more complicated. There were three tumours in my brain. Two we could reach and I had surgery on those three years ago. That was when I quit the city job and decided to make a few changes. The main one was to get out of London, which I finally did this year.”
“That was why you bought Mariners?”
He nodded. “It was. I wanted to do a few things that were on my bucket list. My parents used to bring us here on holiday when we were kids and my dad always loved this house. He even had some designs he’d sketched out. It seemed right to do something with it when I had the chance, even though he’ll never see the place. I thought it might do me good to have some fresh air and a new start, away from all the medical crap. The woods were going to be my vehicle access when I got worse – but somebody,” he dropped a kiss onto her nose, “put the kibosh on that idea.”
Wasn’t it weird how your whole perspective could change in a split second, like staring at one of those magic eye pictures and suddenly seeing the hidden image appear?
“Oh Ashley, I am so sorry,” Mo whispered. She was appalled as she recollected how she’d accused him so many times of being lazy and of not caring about the environment. It had never occurred to her for a moment that he might actually have needed to get a car to the house. Or even, whispered a terrified little voice, an ambulance.
“Don’t be sorry. You were totally right. Fernside is beautiful and I’m glad every day that I never went through with making a drive. It’ll be there a lot longer than I will, too.”
Mo flinched at this but Ashley said it in such a matter-of-fact tone; even as she struggled to process what it meant, he was continuing with his story.
“So, rather than just being a development project, Mariners is really the fulfilment of a childhood dream. It was the castle on the cliffs that I used to look at as a kid. If you dream it you can have it, right?”
Mo wasn’t sure. She’d dreamed a lot about being on the Olympic squad but fate and her horses had different ideas, it seemed.
“Sounds a bit like something Silver Starr would come up with,” she said doubtfully.
He grinned. “You’d laugh now, Red, but for a while people like her were my best friends. I tried it all. Yoga, chanting, meditation, crystals – whatever mumbo jumbo they were peddling. None of it worked, of course. In the end escaping from the city and coming here was the only thing that cleared the fog from my brain. With my investment head on, Mariners also seemed like a good bet too, although Selina didn’t agree.”
“Who’s Selina?” The question flew from Mo’s lips and she clapped her hand over her mouth in horror. Talk about being shallow. Here was Ashley telling her something very personal and private and all she was worried about was some woman from the past? She couldn’t help it though. Mo was already jealous of the mysterious Selina. She could picture her: another of his identikit blondes with immaculately streaked hair and legs up to her armpits.
Mo was shocked by how much she hated Selina without even knowing the woman.
“She was my then girlfriend,” Ashley was saying. “Sel wasn’t very keen on sickness and hospitals though, and inevitably we split up. I don’t blame her. I wasn’t much fun to be around back then. When I wasn’t chanting and consulting gurus I was raging and railing against everything. Seriously, Mo – you think Danny was bad? I promise you I was ten times worse.”
“You are way too competitive,” said Mo sternly. It was a weak joke but she was rewarded with a smile.
“Yeah, you’re right. Dan wins by a mile,” Ashley conceded. “He’s a war hero, whereas I’m just… well, unlucky I guess. There’s a third tumour, you see, one that was too deep in my brain for the surgeons to be able to reach. It needed to grow before it was big enough to operate on but we had no idea just how long that would take. It could have been months or it could have been years.”
“Couldn’t they leave it if it isn’t cancerous?”
He shook his head. “No, Red, I’m afraid not. The tumour itself isn’t harmful but where it’s growing is. I was hoping that it wouldn’t change. Christ, maybe I was kidding myself it would just vanish. Bu
t a little while ago I started to notice some symptoms and I knew deep down I couldn’t ignore them, much as I wanted to. The doctors ran some tests and they told me what I already knew. The bloody thing was growing.”
The sailing boat was just a dot on the horizon now. Soon it would be out of sight, still existing somewhere but lost to their view. This thought made Mo’s eyes prickle and her throat tighten.
“Go on,” Mo whispered.
“There’s not much more left to tell,” Ashley said quietly. “The doctors wanted to operate and they told me that it would be within the next four months. That’s when I came back here, Mo. I had to see you again. You were all I could think about. It sounds mad now, and selfish too, but being with you makes me feel alive. Perhaps I allowed myself to get carried away with the horses and all the things we did, but I loved every minute.” He paused and then said softly, so softly that she wasn’t sure if she was hearing him correctly, “And I am head over heels in love with you too.”
“Ashley, I—” Mo began, but he stopped her words with a kiss of such tenderness that she couldn’t have spoken another word anyway.
“You don’t need to say anything,” he told her, cupping her face in his hands again. His fingers stroked her cheeks. “This is me telling you why things have unfolded in quite the way they have. Jesus, feeling like this about you was never on my agenda. It complicates everything and it’s bloody inconvenient. For ages I tried to talk myself out of it. You’re not my type. You’re annoying. You oppose me on everything I do. I even tried to explain my feelings for you away as a symptom of my tumour.”
“That’s so romantic,” Mo said.
He grinned. “Yeah, isn’t it? Along with headaches and blurred vision, you’re right up there! Except that my feelings for you, Red, are definitely from the heart and not the head. After our time together that very special afternoon, I was going to tell you exactly how I felt. What we shared was more than just sex to me and I’m pretty sure it was for you too.”
A Time for Living: Polwenna Bay 2 Page 17
