[Escape 01.0] Escape for the Summer

by Ruth Saberton

  Andi was glad that her sister and Gemma were having such fun but she wanted nothing more than to get going. Every second wasted channelling their inner Jeremy Clarksons was another second that Jonty thought she didn’t care about him.

  “Maybe it would just be easier if I walked?” she said.

  But Angel was having none of Andi’s protests. It suited her sense of the dramatic to screech through town in a supercar with her blonde hair flowing in the breeze and all eyes on her. Her sister was up to something; Andi could tell from the way her eyes were wide and her cheeks flushed, and if she wasn’t more concerned about Jonty, Andi would have been alarmed. This was Angel’s crazy idea face, and the last time she’d seen it a threatening letter from a security firm had followed shortly afterwards. Still, there was no time to worry about Angel now, because the car suddenly bounded forward like Tigger and Andi found herself clutching the dashboard for grim death. Was it too late to say she wanted to get out?

  “Blimey!” Gemma gasped, her knuckles white on the wheel. “It’s got a bit more oomph than my car!”

  “Babes, a lawnmower has more oomph than your car,” Angel said kindly. “Now press that ‘S’ button Loz was on about and let’s turn this into a race car!”

  Gemma didn’t need asking twice. Moments later the car was quivering and dancing beneath them like a racehorse lined up at Aintree, equally explosive and equally likely to bolt. After the long journey to Rock Andi had never thought it would happen, but all of a sudden she was longing for that Beetle. What were a few carbon-monoxide fumes compared to death by Aston Martin?

  Andi hardly dared to look as the car tore along Rock Road and roared up the hill. Tourists and seagulls scattered, the scent of burning rubber fought with the stench of oniony pasties, and even the growl of the engine couldn’t drown out Angel’s squeals of excitement. As Gemma swung through Ocean View’s gates, narrowly missing one of the granite posts and spraying gravel everywhere, Andi’s stomach lurched. Would Jonty even want to talk to her? Or had she hurt him so much that he’d send her away? That thought was like a knife through her heart.

  While Gemma parked, Andi gathered up every ounce of courage she possessed, and went to knock on the pool-house door. The Defender, parked at an acute angle having left deep skid marks in the gravel, suggested that Jonty had returned home in a hurry. An upset hurry? Andi bit her lip. She hated to think of him hurting because of her. She was going to make it up to him for the rest of his life, if he’d let her.

  Her knuckles stung from rapping on the door. There was no answer. She knocked again and pushed the letterbox open to call through it.

  “Jonty? Are you there? It’s me, Andi. I’m sorry about earlier. Can we talk?”

  There was still no reply. She squashed her face to the glass, squinting against the reflection of the sunlit garden. Inside, the pool house was dark and there were no signs of life. Maybe he was at the boatyard? Or out on Ursula? When he was in need of time to think Jonty had said that boats always gave him headspace. As he took engines apart, peering into carburettors or unblocking fuel lines, he said he found that his own thoughts were similarly pulled to pieces and examined.

  “There’s nothing that an hour or two in the workshop can’t solve,” he’d explained. “I’ve had a lot on my mind this summer. Working on the boat helps.”

  At the time Andi had assumed that he was talking about Jax and that tinkering with Ursula had been a way to work through his heartache, but now she understood that there was so much more to it than a broken relationship. How did a down-to-earth guy who loved his family and his boats and the simple life come to terms with having the kind of wealth that made the royal family look hard up?

  It wasn’t just life changing, Andi realised, so much as ending life as he’d known it, forever. She wished she’d understood that when he’d told her, rather than being blinded by hurt. If only she’d seen beyond that.

  “He’s not here.” Mel, her face puffy and her eyes red rimmed, joined Andi by the pool house. “He’s gone, thanks to you. How could you say those things to him, Andi?”

  Andi swallowed the knot of grief in her throat. “I was upset, Mel. I felt like he’d lied to me in every way a person could.”

  “But he was honest with you!” Mel’s mouth trembled. “He let you in, Andi. He trusted you enough to let you get close, something I never thought he’d be able to do again after Jax took him for almost every penny. For the first time in far too long my brother had a smile on his face again. He was happy…” Her voice broke and she turned away.

  “I’m sorry!” Andi stepped forward and touched Mel’s shoulder. “I was shocked, and angry. I’ve been deceived in the past and it seemed like it was all about to happen again. I panicked and I just wanted to run away rather than be hurt all over again.”

  Mel spun round. Her eyes were a startling blue-green against the reddened lids.

  “He’d never hurt you! For Christ’s sake, Andi! Don’t you realise? Jonty would do anything for you. He adores you. He loves you!”

  “I know.” Andi hung her head. She knew now just how much Jonty did love her; he loved her so much that he would never ask her to stay out of guilt or obligation but would rather set her free no matter what it cost him. “I’m going to the boatyard and I’ll find him, I promise.”

  “The boatyard?”

  Andi nodded. “He’s there, isn’t he? That’s where Jonty always goes when he’s upset.”

  Mel exhaled slowly. “He’s a bit more than upset. He’s devastated. I don’t think that fiddling around with a boat will cut it this time. Si offered to take him out wakeboarding with the boys but Jonty didn’t want to know.”

  ‘But his car’s here!”

  “That’s the Cornish car,” Mel said bleakly. “Jonty took a cab.”

  Andi felt an icicle of dread trace her spine. “Where is he?”

  “On his way to Polzeath.”

  “Polzeath?” He’d gone surfing? At a time like this? It was official. Men were odd.

  “He keeps a helicopter there at a private airfield,” Mel explained, in between dabbing her eyes on her sleeve. “He’s going away, Andi. Really going away. He’s leaving Cornwall. He said there was nothing to stay for now and that he had to get away. I’ve never seen him so upset. You should have seen him let rip at Jax when she so conveniently turned up to pick up the pieces. She won’t be back, that’s for certain. He even threatened to sue her for the part of her company he helped set up unless she got out of his way. That had her shaking in her Louboutins, I can tell you. She practically ran back to her car. We won’t see her again, thank God.”

  But Andi didn’t register any of this. Jax no longer mattered. None of it did. All she had heard was that Jonty was leaving. The word gave Andi the sensation that she was sinking downwards very, very fast. Jonty couldn’t leave.

  “Where’s he going?”

  Mel looked utterly defeated. “I’ve no idea; he wouldn’t say. I don’t think he even knows himself but, knowing my brother, it’ll be somewhere very far away indeed. And let’s face it; he’s got the means to go wherever he wants for as long as he wants. What’s he got to stay for?”

  But Andi wasn’t sticking around to answer Mel. There wasn’t a second left to spare on explanations. Jonty couldn’t fly out of her life thinking that she despised him. The thought was enough to make her feel close to desperation. Mel was right: once that helicopter took off Jonty could go anywhere he wanted to. Safe T Net had floated and, with him no longer needed at the helm, an entire world of possibilities had opened up. No wonder he’d been so quiet at times. What did you do when you could do anything you desired?

  And if there was nothing left that you desired? Then what did you do?

  “Did you find him?” Angel demanded when Andi returned.

  “Obviously not,” said Gemma as Andi threw herself into the car.

  Andi gasped out the story, her throat tightening with panic at the thought of Jonty flying out of her life, goodness knew onl
y where, thinking that she really didn’t care.

  “Can you get us to Polzeath?” she asked.

  Gemma didn’t pause to reply. Instead, she pressed a button on the dash and, in true Bond style, a satnav system arose from the smooth walnut. Crikey. What was next? An ejector seat?

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  Andi had never been the type of girl who was impressed by fast cars, but as Gemma floored it out of Rock she began to see the point of them. The smooth Aston Martin ate up the miles like Cal and Gemma gobbled cake. Glancing at the speedometer, Andi was horrified to see that they were nudging one hundred miles an hour.

  “Don’t worry,” said Gemma, following her gaze. “If we get pulled over we’ll just tell the police I’m having a baby.” She patted her stomach. “After eating all that French stick I look like I’m about to give birth anyway.”

  “They’d have to catch us first. I bet we’d be faster,” said Angel smugly.

  Andi buried her head in her hands. If they didn’t die then they were bound to feature in one of those Police, Camera, Action type shows. Was this Angel’s latest reality-TV plan?

  Andi’s nails scored crescent moons into the butterscotch leather seats as Gemma swung the car through the twisty lanes linking Rock and Polzeath like tangled shoelaces. The car made light work of the steep hills, devouring the miles until they crested one final summit and all that lay ahead was the endless stretch of the Celtic Sea.

  “There’s Polzeath!” Angel, leaning forward, pointed to the higgledy-piggledy cluster of rooftops below. The fine weather was finally starting to break. The sky was the hue of an old galvanised bucket and for once the beach was empty; the windbreaks had been packed up and the pink bodies had decamped to the cafés and pubs. The place was certainly a lot quieter than Rock.

  Gemma stopped the car and looked questioningly at Andi. “This is Polzeath. Where to now?”

  “Is there an airfield?” Andi wondered.

  Gemma shook her head. “Not according to the satnav. Do you think it might be nearby?”

  Andi had no idea where Jonty kept his helicopter – she was still trying to get her head around the idea that he owned a helicopter, for heaven’s sake – but surely it shouldn’t be too difficult to spot one? Polzeath was just a tiny seaside town with a scattering of shops and a golden sweep of beach that was surfing Mecca to a bevy of tousle-haired and funky tattooed twenty-somethings. VW campers freckled the pavements. Helicopters not so much.

  “I hope so,” she said. If not, then Andi wasn’t sure quite what she would do. The tide of despair that threatened to swamp over her was terrifying.

  “According to Mel, Jonty took a cab – so he’s had a head start, fast as we are,” Angel said. She frowned. “Would that be enough time for him to have left already, do you think? Or would he have to fuel up or something?”

  “Well, the last time I travelled by helicopter...” deadpanned Gemma.

  Andi gulped back the rising fear that he might have already left. Surely not? Wouldn’t she know? Feel it?

  The girls scanned the landscape for a few moments. Andi wasn’t sure what she’d expected. A helpful windsock blowing in the wind perhaps, or a signpost?

  “What’s that over there?” Angel pointed to a small building on their left where a blue smudge blurred the green of a pasture several cornfields away. Shading her eyes against the glare of the sky, Andi made out the form of a helicopter.

  “That’s it!” she cried.

  The car surged forward but this time Andi wasn’t complaining. Instead she was willing it to go faster and faster. Gemma did her best, guiding the vehicle through the high-banked lanes in the direction of the field, but she met a series of dead ends and at one point a herd of sheep meandering along the road, all trembling bleats and newly shorn bodies. When the sheep finally poured into a field, only for the girls to meet yet another chained five-bar gate, Andi could have screamed with frustration. Only two huge fields stood between her and Jonty but it might as well have been two hundred miles. She could try to run across, Andi thought, but would she be fast enough and even going in the right direction? What if she only got halfway and then the helicopter took off? Jonty would never know she’d been there at all. When she heard the whir of blades Andi knew there wasn’t time to hesitate.

  There had to be another way! Another way she could show him how she felt. Make him see that she loved him.

  Hang on! That was it! The idea darted through her mind, quicksilver as the mackerel fishermen hauled up on their lines.

  Make him see…

  “Turn the car round! Drive down to the beach!” she cried to Gemma.

  Without even questioning her reasoning, Gemma reversed back up the lane. Foliage scraped against the car’s glossy paintwork and its high-performance wheels bounced against the Cornish bank. It was too late to worry about the Aston Martin though, especially as minutes later the car was making its way onto the beach and racing across the sand. When the tyres began to spin, spraying sand onto the windscreen and through the open roof, Andi flung open the car door and continued on foot. Kicking off her shoes, she sprinted across the beach until she reached the flat, wet sand closest to the breaking waves. All the time she ran she watched the sky, dreading the sound of the helicopter. Too soon and he’d be gone.

  Not yet, Jonty, she almost sobbed, not yet!

  Crouching down, little caring that her jeans were soaking up the brine lying in the ripples, Andi scooped her hand through the wet sand with swift and definite strokes. When she heard the unmistakable whir of a helicopter she doubled her efforts, her breath coming in short half-sobs. She had to finish in time! She had to!

  The second that her fingers scored the wet sand for the final time Andi sprang to her feet. Done! Was it visible from above? Did it make sense? Could Jonty see it? Would he even fly over the beach? There were a million and one questions racing through her head and, for once, she just didn’t have the answers. It was such a long shot but it was the only shot she had.

  It was the only hope she had.

  Then she heard it: a noise like the soft purr of a kitten, growing to the throaty burr of a cat and finally to the full-bellied roaring of a lion. The sound came first, divorced from what was making it and carried by the salty wind. Seconds later a blue helicopter swooped over the beach, its shadow darkening the sand as it hovered above, seemingly poised to strike like a bird of prey.

  “Stop! Stop! Stop!” screamed Andi, leaping up and down and waving her arms about wildly. “Jonty! Stop!”

  The wind from the blades whipped her hair from her face and slung stinging handfuls of sand against her cheeks. For a moment she hardly dared to hope – had he seen it, and would he stop? – before the helicopter circled lazily and flew away back over the town.

  Andi watched it go and her heart went with it. Broken and bereft, she sank to her knees. That was it. She’d given everything she had to give, laid her soul bare and declared her feelings in plain view, and it still hadn’t been enough to make him stay. She’d blown it.

  Jonty was lost to her and the future suddenly seemed as grey as the pewter sky.

  She was on the brink of making her way back to the car – heaven only knew how they would manage to dig it out of the sand – when a sharp blast of air and a shower of sand announced the helicopter’s return. It loomed over the headland for a moment as though undecided, before it sank slowly down onto the beach, as graceful as a ballerina dropping into a curtsey. The blades spun in hypnotic circles and she gazed at them mesmerised. Was this really happening or had her longing for him sent her over the edge and off on some wild hallucination? Only when the engines stopped and the only sound was once again the pounding of the surf did she dare to believe that this was real.

  The helicopter door opened and a familiar figure leapt down onto the beach. His dark hair lifted in the breeze and even from a distance Andi could see the sadness etched into his face. Her heart twisted. She had done that to him, and she wanted nothing more than
to hold him close and kiss away all the hurt.

  He was wearing aviator shades. She saw herself reflected in them, a small figure with wild red curls, marooned on the vast beach. Jonty pushed them onto the top of his head. In his faded jeans and white tee shirt, riding up to show a hint of the ripped flat stomach she knew lay beneath, he looked as though he’d stepped straight from a movie. And she knew exactly which one!

  “Very Top Gun,” she teased.

  “If you make any cracks about Maverick or ‘Take My Breath Away’, I’m jumping straight back in,” he warned.

  Andi couldn’t help herself. “Not even, ‘Jonty, you big stud. Take me to bed or lose me forever?’”

  Jonty’s lips twitched. “Now that one I might have to take on board. Although, it does depend.”

  It did? Andi was surprised he couldn’t hear her heart; it was thudding so loudly.

  “On what?”

  Jonty stared at the words she’d written so frantically in the sand, and when he looked up at her his turquoise eyes held none of the despair she’d seen earlier but instead they were flooded with hope.

  “Do you mean it?” he said quietly, indicating the words and turning back to look at them. “Is that really true?”

  Andi followed his gaze. Scrawled across the beach in the biggest letters she’d been able to manage in the few crazy minutes she’d had, were the simplest and most honest words she’d ever had to say.

  Project Manager B. I love you. A

  She nodded, unable to speak. Everything about Jonty robbed her of breath and flooded her with love. Those blue-green eyes that crinkled at the corners, the waves of dark hair curling against his neck, the strong arms that had held her close – but most of all his kind and generous soul. That was what was truly wonderful about Jonty; he was all that mattered. The rest of it was just wrapping. Looking at those simple words she wondered what had ever been so difficult.

  “I mean it with all my heart,” she said.

  Jonty didn’t move to close the distance between them but instead held her with his eyes. “And the other things? The secrets I kept? Being Project Manager B? Safe T Net?”