by Jill Mansell
Recognition had belatedly set in. That squiggly sensation inside her rib cage was the same squiggly sensation she’d experienced when she’d first met Nick. After the first few months it had worn off, of course, because you simply couldn’t go through life feeling that way all the time. But it had always come back to ambush her at unexpected moments: when she caught sight of him from a distance or saw him again after they’d been apart for a day or two.
She remembered arriving back at Heathrow after visiting her cousin in Switzerland years ago and experiencing a huge rush of adrenaline when she saw Nick waiting for her at the arrivals gate, because she loved him and still fancied him like mad and he loved her too. And when a few seconds later their eyes had met across a crowded airport and that wonderful smile had lit up his face, she vividly remembered thinking how lucky she was to have him in her life.
Until two years ago, when the luck had so cruelly run out.
So was this nature’s way of letting her know she was on the road to recovery? And was it also nature’s way of playing a bit of a mean trick on her?
Because it seemed slightly unfair that the first person other than Nick to make her feel this way should be the love of her best friend’s life.
Not to mention already in a relationship.
OK, enough. Coral switched off her phone and wriggled back down in an attempt to get some sleep. Then again, maybe it was better—safer—to have her first post-Nick crush on someone unattainable. That way, she could get used to all the feelings without the possibility of anything actually happening.
Like learning to ride your first bike with training wheels, with no risk of falling off.
Call it a practice run.
Plus, who was to say they’d ever see each other again anyway? Declan had said they would, but he might just have been saying it to be polite.
Maybe today had been her practice run and now it was over; that had been it.
Chapter 19
It was one of those split-second decisions you don’t stop to think about. One minute Dan was enjoying himself at the barbecue on Friday evening, chatting with friends and drinking a cold beer. The next minute he was throwing the bottle aside, leaving a foamy beer fountain in his wake as he raced across the lawn to stop a three-year-old from being crushed by a three-hundred-pound weight falling from a great height.
Well, twelve feet. High enough.
Big Al had hired the Velcro wall for his birthday barbecue. Having squeezed himself into the largest of the all-in-one Velcro suits and taken a running jump off the trampoline launch pad, he had catapulted into the air and landed—splat—against the wall an impressive distance off the ground and, thanks to a midair somersault, upside down. Letting out a yell of triumph, he was unaware that his daughter Maisie had scrambled up onto the inflatable mattress directly beneath him. Meanwhile, Big Al’s Velcro suit had begun to unpeel from the wall, and once that happened, there was no way of preventing the inevitable fall…
“Oh my God!” Big Al’s wife, distracted for a few seconds by their terrier making off like Groucho Marx with a barbecued chicken leg in his mouth, saw what was about to happen just as Dan flung himself across the launch pad, scooped Maisie up like a rugby ball, and sent her sliding to safety. There was the escalating sound of Velcro being ripped apart directly above his head, and the three-hundred-pound weight that was Big Al landed on top of him instead.
Searing pain radiated from Dan’s right shoulder like a smashed mirror. Somehow still aware that small children were about, Dan managed to amend his howl of “Fu—” to “Fu—gahhh!” Then, as Big Al scrambled to get off him, another jolt of pain crushed his left foot. “Sh—eesh!” yelled Dan as the two separate pain points battled for supremacy. To add insult to injury, Al elbowed him in the eye while clambering off the inflatable mattress. “Owww.”
“God, mate, sorry. Are you all right?”
For a supposedly intelligent math teacher, Big Al could ask some spectacularly stupid questions. Through gritted teeth—he should probably be grateful he still had teeth—Dan said, “Do I look all right?”
Maisie, clutched in her mother’s arms and less than sympathetic, clapped her hands and cried happily, “Again, Daddy! Do it again!”
“Is it your shoulder?” Maisie’s mother gazed worriedly down at Dan.
“I think I heard my collarbone crack.” He was beginning to feel light-headed now. “And something went in my foot too.”
“Oh fuck,” said Big Al.
Maisie’s eyes widened with delight. “Daddy! That’s rude.”
* * *
Lily was working in the yard the next day when she saw a silver VW Beetle pull up outside the entrance. About to go out and tell the driver he couldn’t park there, she experienced a jolt when she spotted Dan in the passenger seat.
Their history of swapping jokey texts had ground to a halt following the decidedly nonjokey exchange that had taken place after Eddie Tessler’s abrupt departure from Stanton Langley.
Hers had said, You told someone Eddie was here. Well done.
And Dan had texted back, It wasn’t me. But thanks for jumping to conclusions.
Except she knew he must have, which was why there’d been no further contact between them since.
She turned away, aware that Dan was watching her. The phone buzzed in her jeans pocket, and she pulled it out.
The text from Dan said, Sorry x
Did he really think she was that much of a pushover? She put the phone away and started carrying a recent delivery of stained glass into the barn behind the office.
Two minutes later, she heard what sounded like someone ancient making their way slowly across the gravel behind her. Turning to see how she could help, Lily did a double take when she came face-to-face with Dan. Oh God, what had happened to him?
“Again,” said Dan, “I’m really sorry.” He paused, then added, “Turns out it was me after all.”
The sight of him was shocking. He had a spectacularly bruised eye, a sling strapped his right arm firmly to his chest, his left foot was held off the ground, and he was supporting himself with a metal crutch in his left hand.
Then again, he clearly wanted to get the apology out of the way first. Lily said, “I knew it was you. How could you not know?”
He exhaled. “Anna was with me that night, remember? As soon as I got back into the car, she knew something was up. She kept asking me what it was, wouldn’t stop, so in the end I had to tell her. But I made her promise not to breathe a word to anyone else.” He shifted his weight on his uninjured foot. “She promised. And when word got out the next day, she swore she hadn’t told a living soul.”
“But she had,” said Lily.
“I only found out last night. Anna told her flatmate, who told her brother. Anna’s flatmate’s brother, it turns out, just recently started working for a news agency in London.”
“Right.”
Dan tilted his head. “I know. It was all my fault, but I didn’t mean it to happen. And I’m very sorry.”
OK, not asking him about his injuries was actually killing her now. Furthermore, he wasn’t going to be able to manage all the stairs leading to his fourth-floor flat overlooking the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, which he rented to be close to the airport. Lily said, “Whose car did you come up in?” Because the VW Beetle hadn’t been Anna’s.
“Big Al’s. He’s a mate of mine.”
“Where’s he gone?”
“Taking my cases over to the cottage. Looks like I’m back for a while. Unless Patsy’s rented out my room to anyone else in the last week.”
Lily ignored the dig. “How long will you be here?”
“Until I can fly again. Could be two months.”
Despite everything, it would be lovely to have him back here. Not that she would dream of telling him that, of course.
“Go on
, then.” She gave in at last. “What happened?”
There it was, a flicker of the old triumphant smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“Well, now I have.”
“Maybe I won’t tell you,” Dan said.
“And maybe I’ll steal that crutch and push you over,” Lily said. “Tell me how you got yourself into this mess. Ooh, were you beaten up by some girl’s jealous boyfriend?”
“Close. I saved a little kid from being crushed to death by a falling boulder.”
“Oh my God, really?”
“Well, not an actual boulder. It was Big Al.” Dan broke into a grin. “But I’m still a hero. Everyone says so.”
Maybe he was, but no way was he getting off that lightly. “A hero who can’t keep a secret,” said Lily.
“Unless I’m having an affair with someone I shouldn’t.” His dark eyes glittered with intent. “Then I’m absolutely discreet.”
“Oh well, when it’s in your own interests, you would be.”
Dan smiled. “Am I forgiven? Can we be friends again now?”
He already knew he’d won her over. And he wasn’t the only one who’d had difficulty keeping that particular secret. Lily heaved a dramatic sigh. “You mean now that you’re disabled and can’t drive and are going to be needing lifts everywhere.”
“Is that what you’re thinking? I swear that won’t happen.” He clutched his heart with his unstrapped hand, the one with the crutch dangling from it. “No favors, I promise. If you’re ever driving down the road and you see me limping along slower than a snail, my face white with pain, I won’t even want you to stop to offer me a lift. In fact, you have to promise you’ll never do that.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t. And if it’s raining hard, I’ll speed up and drive past really close, so you get splashed all over with mud.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” Dan said. “It’s absolutely what I deserve.”
A customer was lugging a marble statue across the gravel toward them. Lily said, “I have to get back to work.”
“I know. So are we OK? Friends again?”
“Possibly.” She held her finger and thumb slightly apart. “About this much.”
“Fancy a few drinks at the Star this evening?”
“Maybe. What time?”
“Seven?”
Lily nodded. “Seven it is.”
He gave her a playful look. “That means you’ll turn up at seven thirty, just to keep me waiting and make the point that I’m lucky to have you there at all.”
They’d known each other for so long that it was impossible to play games and not be called out on it.
“I’ll get there at seven forty-five,” Lily said.
“Great. Gives me more time to chat up whoever’s working behind the bar.”
“It’s Sean tonight.”
“Hey, no problem. I’m an equal opportunity chatter-upper.” Dan winked at her. “Practice makes perfect.”
Chapter 20
At seven thirty, having showered and changed into a striped red-and-white jersey dress, Lily was upstairs in her bedroom patting serum on her still-damp ringlets when she saw Dan making his way down the street toward the Star.
Honestly, how did he manage it? He was wearing a dark-purple polo shirt, narrow faded jeans, and a deck shoe on his right foot. The left foot, held off the ground, was in a lime-green cast. He was indeed progressing at a painfully slow pace, pausing every few steps to wipe the palm of his left hand on the side of his jeans. As for his eye—well, what a mess. The skin around it was purple and charcoal gray, yet he still somehow managed to look good, high-cheekboned and piratical rather than like a loser who’d come off the worst in a fight.
There was that familiar tightening in the pit of her stomach. As ever, Lily ignored it, because to do otherwise would be madness.
Nevertheless, she’d be lying if she didn’t admit, even if just to herself, that having Dan back here for the summer would be fun. He might be exasperating sometimes—OK, often—but he was never dull.
At that moment, he glanced up at her window and saw her looking down at him. Breaking into a grin, he raised his left arm, waved the metal crutch in the air, and pretended to wobble crazily like a clown on a high wire.
Lily leaned out of the window. “If you fall over and break your other foot, it’ll serve you right.”
True to form, when she joined him in the pub ten minutes later, he was perched on a stool doing his fortune-telling act on Tanya, who was working behind the bar with Sean tonight.
“…You have an adventurous spirit and a need for love in your life. There’s a tall, dark man… You’ve had a secret crush on him for years, but this could be the time you get together for a wild, romantic affair.”
“This tall, dark man,” said Tanya. “Would he happen to have his arm in a sling and a bit of a limp?”
Dan frowned and peered more closely at her palm, then raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You’re right, he has!”
Down-to-earth Tanya, who was in her forties and had a husband, five children, and two grandchildren, snorted with laughter. “Ah, but a bit of a limp what?”
“Oh, Tanya, you’re a cruel woman.” Dan dropped her hand and sat back, shaking his head in defeat. “You break hearts without even realizing it. I’m choking up. Just give me a moment…”
“Yes, that’s what I’ve heard.” Still chuckling, Tanya moved off to serve another customer.
Lily said, “Thirty love to Tanya.”
Dan heaved a mournful sigh. “She beats me every time.”
It only happened, though, because he allowed it to. Casting himself in the role of hapless underdog was another of his ploys to charm the opposite sex. Luckily, both he and Tanya were aware he wasn’t serious.
“I know all your tricks,” Lily reminded him.
“Then I’m just going to have to come up with some new ones. Anyway, never mind that now. Patsy tells me you met Declan last weekend. I want to hear all about him.”
One of Dan’s good qualities was his interest and enthusiasm; when he paid attention to you, it was with his full attention. He was genuinely interested in what you had to say and asked all the right questions. For the next hour, Lily told him all about Declan, showed him the photos on her phone, and relayed the stories Declan had shared about her mum.
“That reminds me… I left my phone charger in Bristol.” Dan took out his own phone and grimaced at the battery sign glowing red on the screen. “Two percent. Nightmare. You don’t have a spare, do you?”
“No, and I need mine tonight, but you can borrow it tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll do that. Can I use your phone now to order another charger online?”
“Help yourself.” Sliding down from her stool, Lily pushed her phone across the bar. “Back in two minutes. The skin around your eye is getting blacker, by the way. Does it really hurt?”
“Of course it hurts. The reason I’m not making a fuss is because I’m so incredibly brave.” He touched the skin around his eye. “Go on, have a feel. It’s hot.”
Gently, Lily pressed the tips of her fingers against the dark-blue outer corner of the eyelid, where the skin was puffy and stretched.
“Ow,” Dan murmured, his gaze fixed on her face. “Ow.”
“You’re the one who asked me to do it.”
“I wanted you to know how heroic I’m being.”
“And now I do,” Lily said. “I suppose I’d better write to the Queen. You’ll probably be awarded the Victoria Cross.”
When she returned from the bathroom three minutes later, Dan was ordering the new charger. Lily bought a fresh round of drinks while he finished tapping in his details.
“Thanks.” He handed back her phone. “It’ll be here by Tuesday.”
“No problem. Won’t Anna be coming over to visit
you? She could bring your old one with her.”
“I think we can safely say she won’t be coming over to visit me,” Dan said.
“Oh. Have you dumped her?” This inspired mixed emotions. Anna was a triumph of looks over personality, but she was the manager of a fantastic clothes shop in Bristol and had let Lily use her sixty percent discount code when she’d ordered a couple of dresses online.
Although now that she knew the code, would it be very wrong to keep using it if Anna and Dan were no longer an item?
“We don’t call it ‘dumped,’” said Dan. “But yes, it’s over. Seemed like time to call it a day. Anyhow, what else has been happening while I’ve been away?”
Poor Anna, dismissed from his life. Another one bites the dust.
“Not much. We’ve been busy at the yard. Oh, we sold that giant octopus chandelier to a hotel in Miami. Got three grand for it—they didn’t even haggle!”
“Excellent. And how about Eddie Tessler? Has he been in touch?”
Mini adrenaline rush. Lily casually shook her head. “Eddie? No.”
“What, you haven’t heard from him at all?” Dan sounded surprised.
She gave him a wide-eyed look. “Why would I? He stayed with Patsy for a few days, and now he’s gone back to London. End of story.”
“Yes, but you spent a lot of time with him. Patsy told me all about it. She said the two of you got on well together.” He raised an eyebrow. “Like, really well.”
Perspiration was prickling at the back of Lily’s neck. Patsy was right; they had gotten on well. In particular, there’d been that moment when Lily had thought Eddie might be about to kiss her—oh God, that had been such a thrilling moment—until they’d been interrupted by the sound of a key in the front door and Dan’s unexpected late-night appearance.
Yes, thanks for that, Dan; thanks a lot.
“Look, we got on fine, but that’s all it was.” Lily was effortlessly dismissive.
“But didn’t you wish there could have been more?”
“No!”
