Wish You Were Here

by Phillipa Ashley

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2011, 2007 by Phillipa Ashley

  Cover and internal design © 2011 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover design by Georgia Morrissey

  Cover image © Gen Nishino/Getty Images

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  FAX: (630) 961-2168

  www.sourcebooks.com

  Originally published in Great Britain in 2007 by Little Black Dress, an imprint of Headline Publishing Group, London

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Ashley, Phillipa.

  Wish you were here / by Phillipa Ashley.

  p. cm.

  “Originally published in Great Britain in 2007 by Little Black Dress”—T.p. verso.

  1. First loves—Fiction. 2. English—Corsica—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6101.S547W57 2011

  823’.92—dc22

  2011004633

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  For Maureen and Garth

  Chapter 1

  ‘This one looks promising.’

  Jack Thornfield would have given a lot to avoid taking the application form out of his personal assistant’s hand. Not that there was anything wrong with his PA, unless you counted a caustic tongue and telepathic powers. He didn’t want to look up because he didn’t want the woman to see his eyes and just know…

  ‘Thanks, Martha, but I’ve already seen it.’

  ‘Yes, Jack, I know you’ve seen it, but have you actually looked at it?’

  Keeping his eyes on the computer screen, Jack reached out a hand. The form bypassed his fingers and flopped on top of his keyboard: three neatly typed sheets of paper with a passport photo attached.

  ‘She ticks all the right boxes,’ said Martha.

  He pushed the pages off the keyboard and frowned. A line of redundant Fs now marched across his email to the head of marketing.

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

  ‘Why don’t you take a look at her résumé? It’s pretty impressive.’

  He flashed Martha a smile he knew she knew was part of his best little-boy act. ‘You just want me to get a new product manager to get the operations division off your back. You know, I think you’d let me hire your cat, if you thought it could cope with the Tube in the mornings,’ he said.

  He also knew that Martha was right. He really did need someone to head up the European sector of his specialist travel company, Big Outdoors, like yesterday. The previous one had met, and married, a crocodile wrangler from Brisbane, all within the space of a month.

  ‘Jack, I have media budgets to finalize by close of play today. Shall I get this Beth Allen in for an interview?’

  He cradled his palm around the mouse again. ‘Why not? You’ll never leave me alone unless I do.’

  She shook her head at him in disbelief and he wondered, for the umpteenth time, why he put up with a PA who treated him, mostly, with indulgent disdain. Then he noticed the flawlessly prepared presentation, espresso, and king-size Mars bar Martha had laid on the table in his office. That must be three reasons at least, he told himself.

  However, chocolate and PowerPoint skills apart, he still didn’t trust Martha absolutely. He didn’t think it wise to trust anyone absolutely, not even himself, so he waited a few seconds after she’d left the office, just to be safe. As the door closed with a click, he pressed the ‘in conference’ button on his desktop telephone and smiled to himself. Let Martha ‘Sherlock’ Symington deduce what she would from that. With a glance at the door, he snatched up the application form and pulled off the clip holding the photo.

  Jack blew out a long slow breath. He was holding the girl’s face between his fingertips and she was staring back at him out of hesitant eyes. It was a face he would have known not just by sight, but by touch alone. Put him in a pitch-dark cave and he’d remember every last millimeter of it. The contours of that determined chin, the soft fringe of her lashes, that mouth like moist velvet… She looked pale but maybe that was the artificial light of the photo booth. He hoped so. The last time he’d seen her, her cheeks had been burnished a soft gold from the Mediterranean sun, just like the rest of her.

  As for the oh-so-serious expression, he told himself not to be too surprised. Everyone knew that ‘no smiling’ was compulsory now in a UK passport photo. If your mouth so much as twitched at the corners, they slammed your application back, marked ‘unreadable.’

  He ran a thumb over the picture again and then turned to Beth Allen’s résumé. It said she had a first-class degree in modern languages, a masters in business administration, and a gold survival swimming badge. The first two took him by surprise—the Beth he knew was struggling to stay the course; this woman had it in the bag and her MBA.

  As for the swimming badge… how he’d teased her about that as they’d sat round the fire, drinking beers and eating lamb off skewers, almost too hot to bear in your mouth. ‘A gold award? I’m impressed. Hey, Beth, maybe I should knock myself out on a rock and fall in a pool, just for you.’

  ‘Maybe you should,’ she’d teased back. ‘So I can ignore you.’ But he’d seen her eyes and known she’d have dived right in, even if her hands had been tied. Now, as he stretched back in his chair, the image slid into his head as easily as cleaving through water. Beth skinny-dipping in a mountain pool, her body shimmering out of focus beneath the surface. Her wet footprints on the rocks, drying out even as he followed them into the maquis, the heathland that bordered the coast.

  Even with the hum of the air-conditioning in his office, he could still hear the water cascading down the gully, smell the scent of wild herbs and her warm skin as he pulled her against him and she arched against his body. It almost snatched his breath away, seeming like yesterday, not years ago. He suddenly found himself hauled back to reality by a dull throb in his pocket. Jumping to his feet, he dragged his mobile phone from his trousers, pressed the call button, and barked into it: ‘Jack Thornfield.’

  ‘No need to shout. It’s only me,’ said Martha coolly.

  ‘I wasn’t shouting,’ he said patiently as she waited for his answer. ‘When I shout, believe me, the entire floor will know about it, not
just you. Didn’t you see my phone was on conference?’

  Martha sounded unimpressed. ‘It’s Miss Allen. I thought you’d want to know.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘She’s available for interview on Monday afternoon. In view of the urgency of the situation, I took the liberty of booking her into a hotel for the night after the interview.’

  He held the phone away from his mouth so his PA wouldn’t hear him suck in a breath. ‘Yeah. Fine.’

  ‘Shall I schedule a meeting for her with the operations director?’

  He paused, gripping the phone tightly, wondering which way to jump.

  ‘Jack?’

  ‘I’ll handle it.’

  Flicking off the mobile, he stared at Beth’s résumé, then pressed a thumb to the desktop phone. ‘Martha?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s probably best if you don’t tell Ms. Allen I’m interviewing her. My appointment hasn’t been announced officially yet. I wouldn’t like it to get out ahead of the press release. Please tell her that Allegra Arnold will be seeing her.’

  ‘Of course.’

  He paused, debating whether he should betray weakness at this early stage of his acquaintance with Martha. He’d been in charge for a few weeks now, even if his appointment wasn’t ‘official’ yet.

  ‘Is there anything else?’ she asked, as the silence on the end of the line lengthened.

  ‘No, that will be all for now.’

  Sitting back in his seat, he looked at Beth’s résumé again. He really needed fresh blood in the company, new ideas, and Beth did, as Martha had pointed out, tick all the boxes. It was a shame that, once upon a time, she’d also marked his with a thick black line that he’d never quite erased. Jack sighed at his own weakness. The company needed dynamic new staff, sure, but he was kidding himself if he didn’t admit he was keen to see her again.

  Rolling up his sleeves, he vowed to get the maintenance team to overhaul the air-conditioning system. Then he turned to the report from his sales director. He hadn’t got more than a few lines into it when he started shaking his head. Barely two pages long and reeking of cigarette smoke, the project hadn’t even been given lip service. It also didn’t contain any concrete revenue-producing ideas for new tours. If that was the guy’s idea of a ‘comprehensive report,’ Jack wondered how many other corners had been cut.

  Still, he told himself, it was typical. When he’d accepted the job, he’d known Big Outdoors had a good reputation and was one of the longest-established adventure travel companies in Europe. He’d also known it was going nowhere slowly. New owners had taken over and they recognized it was no longer enough to drift along while competitors were pulling for all they were worth. Their rivals had been busy adding exciting new tours and activities that had chomped into Big Outdoors’ market share—which is why Jack had been headhunted from his Californian role to be CEO. He needed staff who were just as enthusiastic as he was about developing new tours and activities. Who could come up with—and make a success of—exciting new packages that would not only be profitable but also set Big Outdoors apart from its rivals again.

  He scrunched up the sales report and threw it in the bin. He’d never been much of a diplomat and six years of climbing the corporate ladder in the States had knocked any verbal shilly-shallying out of him. Deciding that the element of surprise might work well with his errant sales director, he pressed the desk phone.

  ‘Martha.’

  ‘Yes, Jack?’

  ‘Can you tell Darius Sanford I want to see him?’

  ‘I think he’s in a meeting.’

  ‘Internal or external?’

  ‘Internal, I think.’

  ‘Then tell him to cut it short,’ he said firmly.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ replied Martha. ‘And while I’ve got your attention, you’ve had seven calls.’

  ‘Anything I should worry about?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Most were people wanting you to buy advertising space or from management consultancies.’

  ‘Thanks, Martha.’

  ‘The only one I couldn’t deal with was from a Camilla Reed, who says she’s a journalist. She insisted it was personal so I said you’d call her back.’

  He felt a smile tilt the corners of his mouth. Camilla was the chief feature writer on a travel magazine called Voyages. An über-groomed blonde as glossy and upmarket as the publication she worked on. He could just imagine her demanding to speak to him in her cut-glass accent. He’d met her once in the U.S. and she’d been calling to try and do a ‘profile’ on him ever since he’d taken over at Big Outdoors.

  ‘OK, thanks. I’ll speak to her myself. By the way, Martha. Thanks for the Mars bar. Sweet.’

  Chapter 2

  ‘Aren’t you going to have any breakfast, lass?’

  Cookie in one hand, bag in the other, Beth Allen brushed her lips over her father’s cheek. ‘Sorry—no time,’ she mumbled, shoving half a chocolate chip cookie into her mouth while trying to scoop a shopping bag of files from the floor. ‘And I wish you wouldn’t call me “lass,” you make me sound like some hard-done-by girl in a Catherine Cookson novel or Coronation Street.’

  She suspected he only called her ‘lass’ to annoy her—and truth be told, she almost half-liked it. In a retro-ironic way, that is, and as long as there was no one around to hear.

  ‘It doesn’t do, going without proper food at this hour,’ grumbled Steve Allen, ignoring her and doing his best to open the door with one hand. Early morning light filtered into the hall as he managed to get it half open. The light only seemed to make his face look greyer than ever. He looked like the old men who played dominoes in the local pub, yet he was at least thirty years younger than them. Beth was sure he’d aged inside as well as outside in the past few months.

  ‘You should at least have a bit of toast or something…’ his voice trailed off but she knew what he was thinking. That he should have got up and prepared something, and felt guilty that he hadn’t or couldn’t. She shook her head and chewed furiously at the same time, spilling crumbs onto the carpet.

  ‘Dad, I won’t starve, and besides, it’s too early for black pudding and fried egg. I’ll get something later on the train,’ she said, swallowing the last of her cookie. Her father looked on disapprovingly as she pushed the door fully open with her bottom. Outside in the yard, racks of bicycles packed the space between the old stone walls. The spring sun was glinting pinkly off the skylights of a lean-to workshop shoehorned in at the far end of the yard—the place that had been home and livelihood for her family for as long as she could remember. Not that she’d spent much time there since leaving for university. She felt a squeeze on her arm and glanced round. Not until recently.

  ‘You will mind how you’re going, won’t you?’

  ‘Dad, nothing will happen. It’s London, not the Sahara or Antarctica. No mountains, no scorpions, no sharks…’

  Her father looked doubtful. ‘I wouldn’t be too sure. Honor’s nephew got mugged on the underground last week.’

  ‘I promise I’ll be on my guard constantly. No mugger, scammer, pervert, or Jehovah’s Witness will get within ten feet without me noticing.’

  ‘There’s no need for sarcasm,’ said her dad, frowning. ‘Your mum’s second cousin is a Witness and he’s a qualified civil engineer.’

  ‘He could still be a pervert,’ she said, making her dad shake his head in despair. ‘Stop fretting, I’ll be fine—and now I have to go.’

  As she stepped into the cobbled yard, she hoisted her bags high to avoid a rack of trailer bikes whose flags were fluttering in the breeze. ‘See you on Friday,’ she called at the gate. Her father was leaning against the door frame, almost smiling but not quite.

  A horn hooted in the street.

  ‘Don’t forget to phone when you get there, madam,’ he shouted.

  ‘I promise! Sorry, Dad, I have to go. That’s Honor’s van—I don’t want to make her late for her customers. And don’t call me madam, eit
her.’

  She walked briskly down the path towards a van whose engine rumbled through the morning silence. It was, her mum would have said, a sight for sore eyes. No other van in the Lake District, or the world, as far as she knew—and she’d been around—had a Holstein cow paint-job. Its driver had one arm resting on the open window, the clutch of silver bracelets on her wrist jangling against the metal.

  ‘Morning, Honor,’ she called, still tasting cookie crumbs on her lips.

  ‘Good morning indeed!’

  Honor Matthews was scarily cheerful for 6 a.m. In fact, she was scarily cheerful a lot of the time. Beth bent her head to the open window. ‘Thanks for picking me up so early. It’s a bit of a cheek, me cadging a lift.’

  Honor pushed a hand through long blonde hair, streaked with silvery grey. ‘Pepper-and-salt,’ thought Beth suddenly, recalling one of her mum’s favorite phrases. Telling herself getting maudlin twice in one morning wouldn’t help anyone, she bit her lip and grinned. ‘Daisy’s looking well.’

  Honor pulled a face and patted the steering wheel. ‘Daisy may look well but she does have a slight clutch problem, which means a visit to Frayle’s next week, I fear, and a rather large invoice.’ She sighed, then smiled again. ‘But don’t worry about cadging a lift because I’d have been up and about whatever. I’m serving breakfast to a bunch of fabulously hunky firefighters doing the Three Peaks Challenge.’

  ‘Hmm… I agree that’s not a bad way to start the day,’ said Beth, stowing her bag in the back, careful not to squash the bread rolls. ‘Still, it’s really good of you to drop me off at the station. It’s a bit out of your way.’

  ‘Can’t have you getting a taxi. We want you fighting fit and ready for the fray. I’m sure you’ll knock ’em dead in London.’

  ‘I hope so. Fingers crossed.’

  With a rattle of the clutch, Honor pulled away. Beth glanced up at her little sister Louisa’s window. The curtains were still tightly shut, of course—it was horrendously early. It had been Louisa’s eighteenth birthday the night before and they’d all had a family dinner. Beth should have had an early night but they’d stayed up late, sharing a bottle of bubbly. Maybe she’d text Lou later, she thought, as Honor turned on the Radio Cumbria news. Gazing out of the car window as they skirted the lakeside road, she watched the sun rippling along the surface of the water as the mist rose.