Hot Stuff

by Various

  While she waited for lunch, Gemma vented and Mrs Harris mmm-ed and ah-ed and oh dear-ed in all the right spots. By the time the shepherd’s pie was melting in her mouth, Gemma felt infinitely better. To hell with Ross and his rude voicemail! There was no way he was getting Michelangelo after what he’d done. Just let him try!

  Feeling comforted, Gemma decided to head back to the beach. It was too splendid a day to be indoors. And what else did she have to do anyway?

  ‘I’m going back to the bay, Mrs Harris,’ Gemma announced. ‘Would you like to come for a walk?’

  Mrs Harris looked at Gemma as if she had asked her whether she would like to fly to a rainbow on a winged unicorn. ‘Walk? All that way? On a day as hot as this? Goodness, child, that young Jake Dee would have to resuscitate me if I ever even made it that far.’

  Gemma laughed, ‘It’s less than a ten-minute walk! And you want to try summer in Queensland if you think this is hot.’ Ooh, but hang on, what had Mrs Harris just said? ‘Who’s Jake Dee?’

  ‘The lifeguard down there. And don’t you pretend you haven’t seen him! I know the real reason you’re after more time at the bay.’ She smiled knowingly.

  Gemma felt her ears turning pink. ‘He’s not easy to miss, is he?’

  ‘You’re wasting your time if you think you’ll get anywhere with that lad,’ Mrs Harris chortled. ‘Trevone’s most eligible bachelor is also the most elusive.’

  Gemma giggled. ‘Well it’s lucky I’m not interested then, hey? That’s the last thing I need, thank you, Mrs Harris. I’m going to take myself on a lovely walk and collect some lovely shells and head home for afternoon tea with my lovely landlady.’

  ‘Shells? Balderdash!’ Mrs Harris scoffed. ‘For your information, the beach is only patrolled until two on weekdays in May, so he won’t be there. Shells are all you’re going to get.’

  Gemma laughed, but she was surprised at the genuine disappointment she felt upon hearing this.

  Mrs Harris must have sensed it. ‘He’ll be back on Monday, so you won’t have too long to wait.’

  ‘Monday?’ Gemma’s high-pitched tone gave her away. ‘Not on the weekend?’

  ‘No, Miss “I’m only going for the lovely shells”, he doesn’t work on weekends. He has Lani to look after then.’

  ‘Who’s Lani?’ Gemma asked.

  ‘His daughter.’

  A daughter? Gemma was dying of curiosity, but she’d already shown too much interest in this Jake Dee, and Mrs Harris was well on to her, so she saved her questions and instead headed upstairs to grab her towel, cardigan and shoes again.

  Twenty minutes later, Mrs Harris laughed a hearty laugh when she found Gemma sitting on the third step, her nose deep in Little Women.

  When Gemma finally reached the bay, it was completely abandoned but for a single surfer out in the swell. The sound of the waves crashing against the rocks on the shore and the distant sounds of birds calling out into the open sky soothed her heart, and she felt a deep peace as she strolled along the sand, stooping down to collect a couple of faded lilac turreted shells.

  As she walked a little closer to the shore she felt the sand grow cooler under her feet. The next wave came in fast and she didn’t manage to step back quickly enough to avoid the water slapping against the bottom of her cotton skirt and making it cling to her calves.

  ‘Argh! Freezing!’ she squealed. Despite the warm sun beating down on her, Gemma’s whole body felt chilly from that two-second brush with the rogue wave.

  As she stood a metre or so further back from the water now looking out at the sea, Gemma noticed that the surfer wasn’t even in a wetsuit. What was running through his veins? Ice? He was lying face-down, board pointed at the sand, looking behind him as the next wave rolled in. When the huge wave curled in towards him, Gemma watched with admiration, as he popped up in one swift, smooth motion from prone to standing with his knees bent. He turned his board so that he moved back into the thickest part of the wave and managed to get deep inside the barrel for a few seconds and then popped out the other end. It was magical to watch as he rode two metres above the water on a swell that brought him in for a good fifty metres all the way into shore. It was only when he stepped off the board that Gemma saw who it was and her heart skipped a beat. Jake Dee.

  He was a mere few metres away from her now, and the sun’s rays caught each glistening bead of water that dripped from his body. He shook the water from his hair and gave Gemma the sexiest smile she’d ever seen.

  ‘Hey there,’ he said in a voice that oozed honey and chocolate. His voice suited his body. Up this close he was even better-looking than he was from afar. His bluest of blue eyes mesmerised her.

  ‘Hello,’ Gemma replied meekly, feeling tongue-tied and self-conscious with her white matted skirt clinging to her legs.

  ‘You’re back again,’ he smiled warmly. ‘You really like it here, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, you saw me here this morning? Yes, I do. I love this bay, it’s so peaceful.’

  ‘Of course I saw you,’ he smiled wider. Gemma loved his Cornish accent, so pronounced and dramatic. ‘I’ve been watching you for the past four days.’

  Gemma felt her cheeks turn a nice bright fuchsia. Oh my God!

  Jake wiped his hands on his wet black and white shorts in a failed attempt at drying them and held out a large masculine palm for her. ‘I’m Jake Dee.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Gemma gulped, as her small hand was lost in his. ‘My name’s Gemma Knox.’

  ‘You know? How do you know?’ Jake furrowed his eyebrows, still smiling.

  ‘I’m renting a room and my landlady, Mrs Harris, told me.’

  Jake looked surprised, ‘Ah, been asking about me, have you?’

  Gemma wished that the sand would turn to quicksand and rescue her from this situation with imminent death.

  Jake gave a soft chuckle.

  ‘Oh God, how embarrassing,’ Gemma groaned.

  ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Gemma Knox. And don’t worry, if I had somebody I could’ve asked about you, believe me, I would have.’

  Gemma looked into Jake’s eyes and saw that he wasn’t poking fun. He was giving her a look that made her stomach flip.

  ‘Why would you want to ask about me?’ Gemma asked incredulously.

  Jake put his hand on his hips and looked out to sea and back to Gemma again. ‘You’re fascinating to me. I’ve watched you sit on those rocks for hours at a time, being so still and contained. And I’ve wondered, what’s going on in that girl’s head? You’re not dozing in the sun, you don’t read. You just sit. I was curious about what it was that’s happened to you that made you need so much time to just sit. And I thought to myself, I bet she’s escaping. I bet she’s escaping a bad situation and all she wants is the nothingness of the sea. And now that I’ve heard that accent of yours, I see you’re escaping all the way from Australia.’

  Gemma was blown away. This stranger had her figured out without having been told a thing about her.

  She stumbled over her words, ‘Um, yeah. That’s pretty accurate. I’m escaping.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Jake said sincerely. He kicked the wet sand with his foot and laughed. ‘Also, you’re totally gorgeous, so I watch you because of that, too.’

  Gemma thought her blushing couldn’t get any worse.

  Jake rubbed his hands over his bulging biceps and shivered. ‘I’ve just got to grab my towel. Don’t move.’

  Gemma watched him run uphill to where his gear lay. He wrapped his towel around his shoulders and walked back down, carrying his stuff with one hand and drying himself with the other as he did so, back to where she stood fixated and staring. God, he was gorgeous!

  ‘Can I sit and join you in your nothingness for a while?’ he asked with a smile.

  Gemma took a moment to recover. It had been five years since a man had shown interest in her. And here she was thousands of miles from home, seeking refuge from the last man who did. She all at once felt thrilled, flatt
ered and terrified.

  ‘That sounds perfect,’ she heard herself say. ‘But don’t you have anywhere to be? What about your daughter?’

  Jake tilted his head back and laughed, ‘Seems like you know a helluva lot more about me than I know about you, Gemma. I’ve got some catching up to do!’

  Gemma groaned. ‘Ugh, I’m sorry — I must sound like a stalker!’

  ‘Not at all,’ Jake replied easily. ‘To answer your question, Lani’s getting picked up from school by her nan and spending the night at my parents’. I pick her up tomorrow morning.’

  Gemma nodded and tucked a long curl behind her ears. She wished she’d put some mousse in her red hair or even bothered to look in a mirror before leaving the house, and maybe thrown on a bit of blusher. Her pale complexion was probably blinding Jake, who was a beautiful golden-brown colour.

  Jake threw on a navy T-shirt and aviator sunglasses and they walked together the short distance to the rocks.

  Two boys walked past, wetsuits on and boards under arms, and Gemma recognised them as the young boys from that morning who had been surfing where they shouldn’t. Jake blew air out of his nose and chuckled ruefully, ‘They know I knock off at two so they waited before coming back.’

  The boys lashed their boards to their ankles and headed out into the foam. Jake readjusted his position on the rock so that he faced the direction the boys were heading in.

  ‘Did you only just arrive in Trevone this week?’ Jake asked.

  Gemma nodded.

  ‘Staying long?’

  ‘Who knows,’ she sighed.

  ‘Hmm, okay,’ Jake said. ‘And so far, what do you think?’

  ‘Oh, I love it,’ Gemma breathed dreamily. ‘It’s just as beautiful as I imagined it would be from all the novels I’ve read that were set here. This coastline, the cliffs, the rocks, it’s all so wild and rugged and stunning. It’s no wonder it’s the inspiration for so many love stories.’

  ‘Ah, the greatest love story of all time is Cornish, isn’t it?’ Jake said, lifting his sunglasses up onto his head so she could see the glint in his eyes.

  ‘Don’t tell me — King Arthur and Guinevere,’ Gemma smiled.

  ‘Pfft, no!’ Jake scoffed. ‘Tristan and Iseult, of course.’

  ‘Tristan and who?’ Gemma laughed.

  Jake did an exaggerated eye-roll. ‘You read love stories set in Cornwall and you mean to tell me you don’t know about Tristan and Iseult?’ He sighed dramatically. ‘Alright, here goes. In the twelfth century, Cornish knight Tristan won a duel with the Irish knight Morholt and received in reward the fair maiden Iseult for his uncle King Mark to marry.’ Jake’s voice had a faraway tone. ‘But on their journey back to Cornwall, Tristan and Iseult unknowingly ingested a love potion and they fell madly and irrevocably in love.’

  ‘Wow,’ Gemma whispered, transfixed by Jake as he told the story looking out to sea. ‘So what happened next?’

  ‘Well, Iseult married King Mark as was decreed by the law, but every night Tristan would sneak his way to her bedroom and they made love. Mark discovered the affair and Tristan was sentenced to death by hanging. But Tristan escaped from the gallows and visited his beloved Iseult one last time, giving her a silver ring and saying the words “Un bysow dhe dhysquedes agan kerensa — one ring to show our love” before leaving, never to return. Legend has is that every night for rest of her life Iseult stood on the Cornish cliffs looking out to sea, calling Tristan’s name.’

  Gemma silently stared at Jake, feeling as though she’d just ingested the love potion herself when he’d spoken those Gaelic words. A short gust of wind came across them and Jake’s hair blew across his face as Gemma watched, thinking, This is the most beautiful man I’ve seen in my life.

  Jake seemed lost in thought as he stared into the distance, past the waves and the rocks, as though he was also waiting for somebody to come back.

  ‘That’s a spectacular story,’ Gemma said softly.

  ‘Yeah, ’tis,’ Jake nodded.

  They sat in silence for a minute or two, but it didn’t feel at all awkward.

  ‘Do you know Mrs Harris well?’ Gemma asked after a while.

  ‘Known her my whole life.’

  ‘Did Mr Harris pass away?’ Gemma was pleased that she could find out about the mysterious Mrs Harris.

  ‘There never was a Mr Harris to speak of really,’ Jake said, looking at Gemma. ‘There’s another Cornish love story for you.’

  Gemma sat up taller, ‘Oh, really? Tell me.’

  ‘Mr Harris was Mrs Harris’s fiancé who was killed when the Prince of Wales battleship was sunk by a Japanese torpedo in 1941.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Gemma covered her mouth. ‘That’s so awful!’

  ‘So Rosamunde Smythe announced that she was to be called Mrs Harris from that day on and nobody has ever known her as anything else since. Never let another man so much as glance at her sideways, even though, according to my dad, even in her fifties she was still a real catch.’

  ‘Wow,’ Gemma had an urge to run back to the cottage and throw her arms around the loveable Mrs Harris whose bright demeanour belied her life-long heartache. ‘I’ve only known her a few days, but I already feel close to her. She’s so warm and caring.’

  ‘She’s a great listener,’ Jake added.

  Gemma nodded.

  ‘You’ve fallen in the right place if you needed somebody to care for you, from whatever you’re escaping from,’ he said gently. ‘Do you need somebody care for you, Gemma?’

  Gemma swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, looking at her feet in the water. ‘Yes, I really do. You’re right, I definitely fell in the right place. I’m nursing a broken heart, you see, a shattered heart actually, but it does feel like it’s mending here.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ Jake said, brushing a wisp of hair off her cheek and tucking it behind her ear. ‘I’m glad.’

  Gemma felt a spark shoot between them as his cool fingers touched her skin and she shivered.

  ‘Are you cold?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Gemma replied, blushing again. ‘Nervous, but not cold.’

  ‘Ah, don’t go being nervous,’ he smiled. ‘I’m a good listener, too, you know. Must come with being a Trevone local. We have good ears. So if you want to share your shattered-heart story, I’ll listen.’

  ‘Thank you, but I’ll spare you the sad tale,’ Gemma hugged her knees. ‘And anyway it’s a good kind of nervous.’ She paused. ‘Excited nervous.’

  ‘I like that kind.’ Jake’s eyes danced. ‘That’s my favourite kind of nervous. See?’ He held his forearm up closer to her and she saw that under his golden hairs it was covered in goosebumps. ‘Excited nervous.’

  Gemma bit her lip, and the spark between them sizzled some more as they stared at each other.

  ‘Surf’s getting rough,’ Jake observed, breaking the stare. ‘And look at those two idiots surfing where they know they aren’t supposed to.’

  ‘You’re a great surfer,’ Gemma said, facing away from Jake, and looking at the boys trying and failing to catch waves. ‘The way you caught that wave before was amazing.’

  ‘I saw you standing there, I was showing off for you. That fade was for your benefit.’

  Gemma turned back to face him, and he gave her his sexy smile and bumped her shoulder playfully with his. She felt shivers run up and down at her back. His touches were so electric.

  ‘Fade?’ Gemma asked, her voice cracking. She cleared her throat. ‘What’s a fade?’

  ‘The technique, it’s called a fade. You don’t surf, yeah?’

  ‘No,’ Gemma replied, thinking but I would if you taught me.

  ‘I’ll teach you if you like,’ Jake said, seeming to read her thoughts. ‘It’s in my blood. Almost learnt to surf before I learnt to walk.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, my dad was a pro surfer. He brought surfing to Cornwall. It didn’t really exist before he and his friends came. I’m half-Aussie, just like you.’
>
  ‘Your dad introduced surfing here?’ Gemma laughed, disbelieving. ‘Is that a fact?’

  ‘It surely is.’ Jake did a scout’s honour salute. ‘True story. My dad’s a legend in these parts. He owns the surf shop just up the hill now that he’s retired. Do you want to hear the story?’

  Gemma nodded eagerly.

  ‘The year was 1962,’ Jake said in a deep voice-over tone, and Gemma laughed and lay herself back on the rock, resting on her forearms.

  ‘So,’ Jake continued, ‘people had always drowned all over the place around Cornwall. I mean, the rocks, the big surf, the rips — all lethal around these parts. It was all too common to take a dip in the sea and never come out, yeah?’ Jake tilted his head at Gemma and she nodded for him to go on. ‘The government heard that Australia’s surf lifesaving society had a great track record with their swim-between-the-flags campaigns and surf rescue lifeguards, so they ran ads in Australia calling for paid lifeguards to come on over.’

  ‘And your father was one of them?’ Gemma interrupted.

  Jake smiled. ‘My old man was eighteen at the time. Just finished school, no job prospects, just bumming with his mates at Bondi every day. My nan saw the ad and thought it was the perfect solution for her lay-about son, so my grandparents paid his ship fare to the UK, as did three of his mates’ parents, who were all part of the same Catholic parish and all desperate to get rid of their useless teenagers. So the lads hopped on a boat and arrived at Tilbury dock, wedged their Malibu boards into London cabs and made a beeline for Newquay.’

  ‘Then what?’ Gemma asked, fascinated by Jake’s captivating storytelling.

  ‘They saw this brilliant surf,’ Jake motioned to the swell, ‘high-fived each other and ran straight into it.’

  ‘I’ll bet they were shocked at how cold it was.’

  ‘Hell yes! No wetsuits either, mind. Dad said it was like being hit by an iceberg. But they stayed in the water all afternoon and didn’t come out until it was too dark to see.’

  ‘No way! They would have frozen!’

  ‘Do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?’ Jake leaned in closer to her and her pulse quickened.