Caroline Anderson, Josie Metcalfe, Maggie Kingsley, Margaret McDonagh

by Brides of Penhally Bay Vol. 03 (li

  ‘Are you coming to the reception?’ Kate continued, waving to Reverend Kenner as he hurried towards his car. ‘It’s a buffet at The Smugglers’ Inn so there’ll be plenty of food, and I’m sure Alison and Jack would be delighted to meet you.’

  ‘And I’m sure Tom has better things to do than go to a reception that will be packed with doctors and nurses who’ll only end up talking shop,’ Eve said quickly, and saw one of Tom’s eyebrows lift.

  ‘I can talk shop,’ he said. ‘I’m a doctor, too, remember, so I can talk shop with the best of them.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Afraid I might embarrass you by smashing up the furniture, getting drunk and insulting all your friends?’ he said dryly, and she crimsoned.

  ‘Of course not,’ she protested, though, in truth, she wasn’t one hundred per cent sure about the insults. ‘I just thought…’ She came to a halt. A small hand had slipped into hers. A hand that belonged to a little girl with long blonde hair who was staring up at her eagerly. ‘Tassie, sweetheart. Where in the world did you spring from?’

  ‘I’ve been out here since the wedding started,’ the ten-year-old replied. ‘Sitting on the wall, listening to the music.’

  ‘Oh, Tassie, love, why didn’t you come inside the church?’ Eve exclaimed, her gaze taking in the girl’s thin and worn T-shirt and her shabby cotton trousers, which weren’t nearly warm enough to withstand the cool of the early October day. ‘There’s quite a breeze blowing in from the harbour—’

  ‘Don’t feel the cold,’ Tassie interrupted, ‘and I’m not really wearing the right sort of clothes for a wedding. Her dress is pretty, isn’t it?’ she added, gazing wistfully towards the lychgate where Alison and Jack were having their photographs taken.

  ‘Yes, it’s very pretty,’ Eve murmured, her heart twisting slightly at the envy she could see in the little girl’s brown eyes. Eyes which had always seemed too large for her thin face even when she’d been a toddler. ‘Tassie, does your mother know you’re here?’

  ‘She said I was to get out from under her feet, so I did. She won’t be worried.’

  Amanda Lovelace probably wouldn’t, Eve thought with a sigh, but that wasn’t the point.

  ‘Tassie—’

  ‘I was wondering whether I could come to the reception?’ the girl interrupted. ‘I heard Mrs Althorp say there would be lots of food, so could I come? I won’t be any trouble—I promise.’

  Eve’s heart sank. Normally she couldn’t refuse Tassie anything. The child had so few treats in her life, but she didn’t want to go to the reception. She didn’t want to go anywhere but home.

  ‘Tassie, the reception’s not really for children,’ she began. ‘It’s more a grown-up thing.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Kate exclaimed. ‘My son Jem will be there and he’s only nine. And Alison’s son Sam and Jack’s son Freddie are both going, and they’re only three, so I’m sure Tassie would enjoy it.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Eve declared, ‘but I really don’t think—’

  ‘Oh, I do, most definitely,’ Tom interrupted. ‘If Tom Cornish can be given an invitation then I think this half-pint should have one, too.’

  ‘But her mother won’t know where she is,’ Eve protested, all too aware she was losing this argument, but determined to give it one last try. ‘She’ll be worried.’

  Tom delved into his pocket and produced his mobile phone.

  ‘Not if we use the wonders of modern technology,’ he declared. ‘Give her a quick call, and then I’ll get to take two beautiful women out to lunch.’

  Tassie giggled, and Eve sighed inwardly. There was nothing left to say—no argument she could come up with—and when she reluctantly took the phone Kate beamed.

  ‘That’s settled, then,’ the midwife said as Eve made her call then handed back the phone to Tom. ‘Tom, Eve can show you how to get to The Smugglers’ Inn if you’ve forgotten where it is, and…’ She stopped in mid-sentence as a dull, metallic thud suddenly split the air followed by the sound of breaking glass. ‘What the…?’

  ‘Sounds like someone’s just backed into something,’ Tom observed.

  ‘And no prizes for guessing who the “someone” is.’ Kate groaned as Lauren clambered out of her car, her hand pressed to her mouth.

  ‘Oh, come on, be fair, Kate,’ Eve protested. ‘The cars are parked really close to one another. Whose car did she hit?’

  Kate frowned. ‘Don’t know. It’s a metallic blue Range Rover, not from around here by its number plate, so my guess is it belongs to some flash holidaymaker.’

  Tom cleared his throat. ‘I’m afraid I’m the flash holidaymaker, so who is the “she” who has just reversed into my car?’

  Kate looked uncomfortably at Eve, and Eve bit her lip.

  ‘Lauren. She’s our practice physiotherapist, and a really lovely woman, but quite dreadfully accident prone.’

  And currently absolutely mortified, Eve thought as Lauren hurried towards them, her cheeks scarlet, her eyes worried.

  ‘I was certain I had enough space to reverse,’ she exclaimed, ‘absolutely certain, but…Does anyone know who owns the blue Range Rover?’

  ‘Tom does,’ Eve replied. ‘Tom, this is Lauren Nightingale.’

  ‘Not Florence?’ he said, and Eve rolled her eyes.

  ‘Tom, Lauren must have heard that joke about a million times.’

  ‘A million and one now, actually,’ Lauren said, ‘but that’s not the point. I’m so sorry about your car—’

  ‘From the looks of it, your Renault’s come off worse,’ Tom interrupted, gazing critically at his car, then at Lauren’s. ‘You’ve scraped quite a bit of paintwork off your tail, whereas you’ve only broken my indicator light cover.’

  ‘Which I will pay for,’ Lauren insisted, digging into her bag. ‘I have my insurance certificate in here—’

  ‘Look, how about I simply send you the bill for the repair, and we don’t involve our insurance companies at all?’ Tom suggested. ‘That way you won’t lose your no-claims bonus.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Lauren said uncertainly, and, when Tom nodded, she extracted a notebook and a pen from her bag. ‘You’ll need my address for the bill. It’s Gatehouse Cottage. That’s—’

  ‘The cottage at the bottom of the drive that leads to the Manor House.’ Tom smiled when the physiotherapist looked at him in surprise. ‘I was born in Penhally, lived here for the first twenty-four years of my life, so I know where everything is.’

  ‘Where are you staying so I can contact you?’ Lauren asked.

  ‘The Anchor Hotel,’ Tom replied, taking the notebook and pen from Lauren, ‘but I won’t be there long so you’d better have my London address.’

  His London address. So he didn’t live in the States any more, Eve thought as she watched him scribble in Lauren’s notebook, and he wasn’t going to be staying in The Anchor for long, but did that mean he was moving back into his old home in Penhally, or what?

  ‘You’re staying at The Anchor Hotel?’ Kate said before Eve could ask the questions she so desperately wanted the answers to. ‘Very posh.’

  ‘You mean, you’re amazed they let anyone called Cornish through the door?’ Tom said with an edge, and Kate coloured deeply.

  ‘Of course I didn’t mean that!’ she exclaimed. ‘I just meant…’

  Her voice trailed away into awkward, embarrassed silence, and Eve came to her rescue.

  ‘Kate, shouldn’t you be making tracks for The Smugglers’?’ she said. ‘Alison and Jack headed off a few minutes ago, and they must be wondering where you are.’

  ‘Oh. Right,’ the midwife declared with a grateful smile and, as she and Lauren both headed for their cars, Eve turned to Tom, her expression sad.

  ‘So, it still pushes all your buttons, does it, even after all these years?’

  Tom’s face tightened.

  ‘Only in Penhally,’ he said, then forced a smile as he noticed Tassie gazing up at him in obvious confusion. ‘Well, half-pint, what are we waiting f
or? If we don’t get to the reception fast all the best food will have gone.’

  ‘Are we going in your car?’ the little girl asked. ‘The one that got hit?’

  ‘We can walk,’ Eve said hurriedly. ‘The Smugglers’ isn’t far—just up the road.’

  ‘We drive,’ Tom insisted. ‘If I’m taking two gorgeous women out to lunch then we go in style, even if my car is missing one indicator light cover.’

  Walking would be better, Eve thought. Tassie would leap about as she always did, pointing things out to Tom, which would mean she wouldn’t have to talk to him, but she could hardly insist on them walking. Tom would wonder why, and if Tom was the same man she had known—and she strongly suspected he was—he would badger and badger her until she told him.

  ‘In style it is, then,’ she declared, striding determinedly towards his car before she lost her nerve.

  ‘Can I sit in the front?’ Tassie asked, hopping excitedly from one foot to the other, her fine blonde hair flying about her shoulders, and Tom shook his head.

  ‘Surely you know royalty always rides in the back behind the chauffeur?’ he replied.

  ‘But I’m not royalty,’ the little girl pointed out, and Tom smiled the smile Eve knew could charm the birds off the trees.

  ‘Today you are,’ he said, helping Tassie up into the Range Rover. ‘So, where to, ma’am?’

  ‘Smugglers’ Inn, as quick as you can, driver,’ Tassie declared with an imperious air that was completely ruined when she dissolved into a fit of giggles.

  ‘That was kind,’ Eve murmured, as she got into the front seat, and Tom slipped into the driver’s seat beside her.

  ‘It’s only manners to open a door for a lady,’ he replied, and Eve shook her head.

  ‘I meant it was kind of you to be so nice to Tassie.’

  ‘She’s a nice kid.’

  ‘Not everyone sees that,’ Eve observed, then managed a smile when Tom stared at her curiously. ‘Do you honestly remember where everything in Penhally is, or do you want directions for The Smugglers’?’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten anything about Penhally,’ he said abruptly, then grimaced as a slight frown creased Eve’s forehead. ‘Sorry. An hour back in the place, and already I’m defensive. No, I don’t need directions,’ he added as he drove out of the car park and turned left. ‘The Smugglers’ is at the top of Mevagissey Road.’

  Odd, she thought as he drove north, that he should remember that. They’d never been to the inn when they’d been younger. It had been too expensive for them when he’d just qualified as a doctor and she’d just finished her nurse’s training, and yet he’d remembered where it was. What else did he remember? she wondered, but she didn’t want to go down that particular memory lane. It was fraught with too many dangers, too many complications.

  ‘How long have you lived in London?’ she said, deliberately changing the conversation. ‘I mean, I thought you were still in the States,’ she continued as he glanced across at her, ‘but you gave Lauren a London address.’

  ‘I haven’t lived in the States for the past ten years,’ he replied. ‘I have a flat in London now, and an apartment in Lausanne overlooking Lake Geneva.’

  ‘Sounds—’

  ‘Posh?’ he finished for her dryly, and she shook her head at him.

  ‘Lovely—I was going to say lovely,’ she said, and Tom shrugged.

  ‘They’re just places I stay in between trips, not proper homes. Homes have people you love in them. Wives, children.’

  Don’t ask, she thought as she stared out the windscreen at the trees flashing by. Trees that were beginning to lose their leaves under a sky that was as blue as only a Cornish sky could be. She didn’t need to know, and it was better if she didn’t, but she couldn’t help herself.

  ‘You’re not married, then?’ she said, glancing across at him.

  ‘Nope,’ he replied, braking slightly to avoid the rabbit that had dashed out in front of them. ‘Never found anyone prepared to put up with the kind of erratic work patterns my job demands. At least, not for any length of time.’ His green eyes met hers. ‘What about you?’

  She shifted her gaze back at the trees.

  ‘No, I’m not married.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Tom, are you planning on coming back to Penhally to stay, or…?’

  ‘I’m only here until Monday. I have things to do—sort out—then I’ll be off again.’

  A surge of relief engulfed her. Monday. This was Saturday. She could cope with that. If she should accidentally meet him again tomorrow, she’d be pleasant and friendly, talk about everything and nothing. She’d managed to keep silent for all these years so she could keep quiet for one more day because what good would it do to tell him? Telling him wouldn’t change anything, alter anything, make it less painful.

  ‘Eve?’

  He was staring curiously at her, and she managed to smile.

  ‘I read in a magazine a while back that you’d been made head of rescue operations at Deltaron,’ she said. ‘You must be very pleased.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it’s certainly a whole different ball game when your desk is the one the buck stops on. What about you?’ he asked. ‘Still nursing?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I actually just started work in Penhally last month,’ she said. ‘Before that I worked in Truro and Newquay, but Alison—the girl you don’t know whose wedding you were just at,’ she added, and saw Tom smile, ‘is pregnant so I’ve temporarily taken over her position as practice nurse in the Penhally surgery.’

  ‘Which means if she comes back after her maternity leave, you’ll be out of a job,’ Tom observed.

  ‘Not for long,’ she said briskly. ‘There’s a big shortage of nurses in the UK so I’ll get something else pretty fast.’

  ‘But you’d rather work here, in your home village.’

  It was a statement, not a question, and her lips curved wryly.

  ‘Well, you always did say I had no imagination.’

  ‘Did I say that?’ He shook his head. ‘God, I had a big mouth when I was twenty-four, didn’t I?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ she replied, and he laughed. ‘Actually, although you don’t know Alison or Jack,’ she continued, ‘you do know Jack’s father. It’s Nick Tremayne.’

  ‘Nick Tremayne, the doctor?’ Tom declared.

  ‘The very same,’ Eve answered. ‘He’s the senior partner in the Penhally surgery now, and my boss.’

  ‘Are you telling me I’ve just been to the wedding of the son of somebody I went to med school with?’ Tom groaned. ‘God, but now you’ve made me feel old.’

  Eve chuckled. ‘Do you remember when we thought anyone older than forty was decrepit?’

  ‘And anyone over fifty might just as well be dead.’ He nodded. ‘Shows how little we knew, doesn’t it?’ His eyes met hers again. ‘Eve—’

  ‘Are we almost there yet?’ Tassie chipped in from the back of the car. ‘I’m starving.’

  ‘In other words, quit with the talking,’ Tom said ruefully, ‘and drive faster.’

  ‘Something like that.’ The little girl giggled and, as Tom grinned across at Eve, and her own lips curved in response, her heart contracted.

  No, she told herself. No. The past is past, nobody can ever go back, and if you allow yourself to be sucked back into his world he’ll only hurt you again, and this time you might not survive.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Tom asked, his green eyes suddenly puzzled, and Eve shook her head.

  ‘Just hungry, like Tassie.’

  ‘Eve—’

  ‘We’re here!’ Tassie interrupted with a shriek as the grey-stoned façade of The Smugglers’ Inn suddenly came into view. ‘And look at all the cars. I hope there’s room inside for us.’

  And I hope it’s standing room only, Eve thought, so I can hide myself in the crush, but Tom must have read her mind because as she got out of the car he took her arm firmly in his.

  ‘Now we eat, and socialise, right?’ he declared.

  ‘You go ahe
ad,’ Eve replied. ‘I just need…’

  She waved vaguely in the direction of the door leading to the ladies’ cloakroom, but it didn’t do her any good.

  ‘We’ll wait for you, won’t we, Tassie?’ Tom said, and Tassie beamed, leaving Eve with nothing to do but obediently disappear into the ladies’ cloakroom.

  At least it was empty, she thought with relief as she walked in. Company was the last thing she wanted right now, and quickly she washed her hands then pulled her hairbrush out of her handbag. Lord, but she looked awful. White face, panic-stricken brown eyes, her shoulder-length brown hair slightly windswept, and…

  Forty-two, she thought bleakly as she gazed at her reflection in the mirror over the sink. I look forty-two. OK, so that wasn’t old, but nothing could alter the fact that she was heavier than she’d been at twenty-two, that there were faint lines at the corner of her eyes, and her hair wouldn’t be brown if Vicki at the hairdresser’s didn’t tint it every six weeks.

  Impatiently, she dragged her hairbrush through her hair. What did it matter if she didn’t look twenty-two any more?

  Because I would like to have looked as I did when he last saw me, her heart sighed as her eyes met those in the mirror. Because it would have shown him what he lost when he walked away from me, and it was stupid to feel that way. Stupid.

  ‘Feeling any better now?’

  Eve whirled round to see Kate Althorp standing behind her, and forced a smile.

  ‘Much,’ she lied, and Kate shot her a shrewd glance as she ran some water into a sink and began washing her hands.

  ‘It must have been quite a shock to see Tom again.’

  ‘A surprise,’ Eve said firmly. ‘It was a surprise, that’s all, seeing him back in Penhally.’

  ‘Yes, but you and he were quite close before he went to the States, weren’t you?’

  Close. What an, oh, so very British, euphemistic way of saying ‘lovers’, Eve thought wryly, and of course Kate would remember she and Tom had spent that summer together. Kate was in her forties, too, and nothing stayed a secret for long in Penhally unless you really worked at it, and Tom hadn’t given a damn about what people thought.

  ‘Kate, I was twenty-two, he was twenty-four,’ Eve declared, injecting as much careless indifference into her voice as she could. ‘We shared a short summer romance, that’s all.’