‘Which wouldn’t make it any the less painful when it ended,’ Kate Althorp said gently.
The midwife saw too much—way too much—and Eve picked up her hairbrush again.
‘Water under the bridge years ago,’ she said. ‘We’ve both gone our separate ways since then, led very different lives.’
Or at least Tom had, Eve thought as Kate looked for a moment as though she’d like to say something, then dried her hands on a paper towel and left the cloakroom. Tom had gone off to the States, full of determination to succeed, and he had, whereas she…
She squeezed her eyes shut. He was not going to do this to her. She had spent all these years rebuilding her life into something to be proud of, something that mattered, and she was not going to let his presence tear it all down, make it seem worthless.
‘Enough, Eve,’ she said as she opened her eyes and gazed at her reflection again. ‘The past is past. Don’t resurrect it.’
Except it wasn’t that easy, she realised as she walked out of the cloakroom, and found Tom and Tassie waiting for her, grinning like a pair of conspirators.
‘Tassie was convinced you’d slipped down the toilet,’ Tom declared. ‘I told her we’d give you another five minutes, then I’d go over the top in my capacity as head of rescue operations at Deltaron.’
‘Promises, promises,’ Eve said lightly, and Tom’s grin widened.
‘You think I wouldn’t—or couldn’t?’ he replied.
‘I think we should eat,’ she said firmly, refusing to be drawn, but he knew what she was doing.
She could see it in the glint in his eyes. The familiar half daring, half challenging glint which had appeared in the past whenever he’d been about to do, or say, something completely outrageous, and a faint unease stirred in her. An unease which must have shown on her face because he smiled.
‘I’m a mature man now, Eve,’ he declared. ‘No fights, no arguments, I promise.’
And he was as good as his word.
For the next hour Tom charmed his way round the crowded room as only he could when he wanted to. Of course it helped that most of the people at the reception were newcomers to the village, but even when some of the older villagers cut him dead he didn’t rise to the bait. He simply moved away with a wry smile to gently reassure Lauren about his car, then make Chloe Mackinnon, the village’s other midwife, laugh as her fiancé, Dr Fawkner, stood by, watching protectively.
‘He’s changed, hasn’t he?’ Kate observed, nodding towards Tom who was now engaged in an animated discussion about fund-holding practices with Dr Lovak.
‘Tom always could string more than two words together, you know,’ Eve said more caustically than she’d intended, and Kate’s eyebrows rose.
‘I never thought he couldn’t,’ the midwife replied. ‘Just as you also know I never thought he got a fair deal in Penhally.’
‘Still won’t, judging by the reaction of some people,’ Eve said, nodding across to a small group of villagers who were throwing deep frowns in Tom’s direction.
‘People have long memories and old prejudices. I’m not saying they’re right,’ Kate continued as Eve opened her mouth to interrupt. ‘In fact, the longer I’ve lived, the less inclined I’ve become to judge anyone, but don’t forget Tom has friends here, too, as well as detractors.’
Name one, apart from yourself, Eve was tempted to say, but she didn’t.
‘I must get Tassie home,’ she said instead. ‘She’s beginning to look tired.’
Tom clearly wasn’t because the minute Eve began to make her way through the throng he was instantly at her side.
‘Trying to run out on me, are you?’ he said, and she shook her head at him.
‘It’s time I took Tassie home,’ she replied, sidestepping quickly as Freddie and Sam dashed past them, slipping and sliding on the polished wooden floor, whooping at the top of their lungs.
‘Regular little bundles of fun, aren’t they?’ Tom said with amusement as the youngsters scampered off.
‘You used to hate kids,’ Eve reminded him. ‘Said they should all be kept indoors by their parents until they were teenagers.’
‘Yeah, well…’ Tom glanced back at the two boys. ‘Do you ever find yourself wishing you’d had children?’
Eve stared fixedly at the wedding cake sitting on the table by the window.
‘No point in wishing, Tom,’ she said. ‘It’s better to deal with the here and now.’
‘I guess so,’ he said, then smiled and waved to Tassie. ‘But I still think I’d like to have kids.’
‘And I think it’s way past time Tassie went home,’ Eve said through a throat so tight it hurt.
‘Eve—’
‘Well, well, well. If it isn’t Tom Cornish. And what brings Penhally’s local-boy-made-good back to Cornwall?’
Eve glanced over her shoulder to see Nick Tremayne standing behind them, and smiled.
‘Tom,’ she began, ‘this is—’
‘Nick Tremayne.’ Tom grinned. ‘No need for an introduction, Eve. I would have recognised this old reprobate anywhere. Good to see you again, Nick, and still doctoring, I hear.’
‘And you’re still globetrotting with Deltaron if all I’ve read about you is true,’ Nick replied with no smile at all.
‘You’ve been following my career?’ Tom said lightly, but Eve could see a slightly puzzled look in his eyes. ‘I’m flattered.’
‘Oh, even in a sleepy little backwater like Penhally, we have the internet and satellite television now,’ Nick replied, ‘which means I’m all too aware of your exploits.’
‘Tom is just back for a short visit,’ Eve said, glancing from Tom to Nick, then back again uncertainly. Lord, but the animosity emanating from Nick was so patent it could have flash-frozen fish. ‘He’s leaving on Monday.’
‘Back to singlehandedly, heroically saving the world, I presume?’ Nick declared, and what little smile there had been left on Tom’s face disappeared completely.
‘If you want heroes, Nick, then it’s the people who live in the countries my team and I go into to help who deserve that title,’ he said tersely. ‘They’re the ones who have to tackle the long-term effects of any disaster.’
‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Nick observed, ‘but they don’t get the credit, do they? Because they get left with the boring, tedious stuff, like rebuilding their country, while you swan off on yet another photo opportunity.’
‘Now, just a minute,’ Tom began, his face darkening, and Eve caught hold of his sleeve quickly.
‘Tom, we really do have to get Tassie home,’ she said. ‘She’s very tired, and I told Amanda we’d make sure she wouldn’t be too late back.’
For a moment she didn’t think he was going to come with her. He certainly didn’t look as though he wanted to as he glared at Nick, and Nick glared back, then he nodded reluctantly.
‘Right,’ he said, then added, ‘See you around, Nick,’ before he strode out of the room, leaving Eve and Tassie with nothing to do but hurry after him.
‘I thought you said you and Nick Tremayne were friends?’ Eve protested when she caught up with him in the car park.
‘I thought we were, too,’ Tom replied, ‘but I’ve clearly done something to rattle his cage. Any idea what?’
‘None at all,’ Eve said. ‘He can certainly be a bit brusque at times, but he’s not normally so…so…’
‘In your face?’ Tom shook his head as he helped Tassie clamber into his Range Rover. ‘Kate Althorp sure had a lucky escape.’
‘From what?’ Eve asked in confusion.
‘From marrying him. Don’t you remember how close Kate and Nick were at school?’ he continued as Eve looked at him in surprise. ‘Everyone was certain they’d get married.’
‘Well, they didn’t,’ Eve replied. ‘Kate married James Althorp.’
‘So I gathered.’ Tom frowned as he switched on his ignition. ‘Which I have to say I find surprising. Don’t get me wrong,’ he added. ‘James was a nice enough bl
oke, but I’d have thought he was a bit too laid back for Kate, which only goes to show you never can tell. Nick married that girl he met at med school, didn’t he? Anne…Isabel…’
‘Annabel.’
‘Yeah, that was her name. Nice girl, she was, too, as I recall.’
‘She died nearly three years ago now,’ Eve replied. ‘Her appendix ruptured and because she’d taken aspirin she bled out and there was nothing anyone could do.’
‘I’m sorry about that,’ Tom declared, ‘but I still reckon Kate had a lucky escape.’
But Nick isn’t normally like that, Eve thought with a frown, as Tom drove them down the winding road back into the village. The senior partner could certainly be sharp and cutting if he felt people weren’t pulling their weight, but she’d never seen him verbally attack somebody for no reason, and yet that was exactly what he’d done this afternoon.
‘Where does Tassie live?’ Tom asked as they drove down Harbour Road.
‘Just off Morwenna Road, but if you drop us at the post office we can walk from there,’ Eve replied.
‘But that will still leave you quite a distance to walk,’ Tom protested.
‘All to the good,’ Eve said calmly. ‘I need some exercise after what I’ve eaten.’
‘But—’
‘Drop us at the post office, Tom.’
He sighed but, after he’d crossed the Harbour Bridge, he obediently pulled up at the post office.
‘Thanks for the ride, mister,’ Tassie said when she and Eve got out of his car, and he smiled and ruffled her hair.
‘Could you make yourself scarce for a couple of minutes, half-pint?’ he said. ‘I need to talk to Eve.’
‘Tom, Tassie really does have to go home,’ Eve began as the girl obediently skipped down the road for a few yards, then waited. ‘The wind’s getting up, and she’s not dressed for the weather—’
‘I was wondering whether you’d like to come out with me tomorrow?’ he interrupted. ‘We could have lunch, and you could show me the sights of Penhally.’
‘Tom, you were born here, you know what the sights are,’ she protested.
‘There’s bound to have been some changes—new developments—since I was last here,’ he argued back, ‘and I thought—perhaps for old times’ sake?’
She didn’t want to do anything for old times’ sake. Two postcards, that’s all he’d sent her after he’d left for America. One from New York, saying he was homesick and lonely, and another one from California six months later, saying he’d applied for a job with Deltaron. After that, there’d been nothing. Not a card, or a letter, or a phone call, for the past twenty years during which she’d got on with her life, and if it hadn’t been the life she’d planned, dreamed of, it had been a satisfying life, and now he was back, and she didn’t want him to be back.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said firmly. ‘I have things to do tomorrow.’
‘Please.’
If he had been smiling at her with that old gotta-love-me smile she would never have wavered, but he wasn’t smiling. In fact, he looked uncharacteristically unsure, uncertain, and Tom Cornish had never been unsure of anything in his life.
‘I can’t do lunch,’ she said hesitantly. Won’t, more like. ‘As I said, I have things to do tomorrow.’
‘Half a day is better than none,’ he said. ‘Do you still live in Polkerris Road with your parents? I’ll pick you up at two o’clock—’
‘Three o’clock,’ she interrupted. ‘And I’ll meet you outside your hotel.’
He looked disappointed, then he nodded.
‘OK, three o’clock it is,’ he said, then to her surprise he added quickly, ‘You will come, won’t you?’
The uncertainty was back in his eyes, big time, and a slight frown creased her forehead.
‘I said I’d come,’ she pointed out, ‘and I will.’
Though God knows why, she thought as she joined Tassie and the two of them began walking down the road together.
‘He’s nice,’ Tassie observed, hopping from one paving stone to the next in some sort of elaborate game only she understood.
‘Tom can be very nice when he wants to be,’ Eve replied noncommittally.
‘He told me you and he were best friends when you were younger,’ Tassie continued with her usual directness, and Eve manufactured a smile.
‘It was a long time ago, Tassie.’
‘He still likes you. I can tell. In fact,’ the girl added, ‘I bet if we turn round right now he’ll be watching you from outside the post office.’
‘Tassie,’ Eve began in consternation, but the girl had already stopped and was looking over her shoulder.
‘Told you so,’ Tassie said.
‘He’s watching us?’ Eve said faintly.
‘See for yourself if you don’t believe me,’ Tassie declared, and Eve shook her head, feeling her cheeks prickle with heat.
‘I’ve got to get you home.’
‘Chicken.’ Tassie laughed.
Self-preservation, more like, Eve thought, walking on determinedly. I don’t owe him anything, not after all these years.
But you’ve still agreed to meet him tomorrow afternoon, haven’t you? a little voice mocked at the back of her mind, and she groaned inwardly.
She must have been out of her mind.
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS strange, Tom thought as he leant back against the grey-stoned wall of the Anchor Hotel and breathed in deeply. He’d been all around the world in the course of his work, and yet no air had ever smelt quite the same as the air did in Penhally Bay.
And nobody had ever looked quite like Eve Dwyer, he decided when he heard the faint sound of footsteps in the distance, and turned to see her walking down Fisherman’s Row towards him wearing a cherry-red sweater and a russet-coloured skirt, her brown hair gleaming in the early October sunshine.
Lord, but she’d scarcely changed at all. She still had the same cloud of brown hair, the same long, curly eyelashes, and even the same two dimples which peeked out when she smiled. Perhaps she was slightly curvier now than she had been when at twenty-two, but it suited her. It suited her a lot, he decided as his gaze swept over her appreciatively.
‘Am I late?’ she said, her brown eyes apologetic when she drew level with him.
He shook his head, and breathed in deeply again.
‘You know, I think I would recognise Penhally air even if I was blindfolded.’
‘You mean the pong of old seaweed and fish?’ she said, her eyes dancing.
‘I meant the tang of the sea, as you very well know,’ he said severely, then his lips curved. ‘And there was me thinking you’d still be a romantic.’
The light in her eyes disappeared, and a shadow replaced it.
‘Gave up on romance a long time ago, Tom. So…’ She spread her hands wide. ‘Where do you want to start?’
‘Start?’ He echoed, still puzzling over what she’d said about giving up on romance.
‘You said you wanted a tour of Penhally,’ she reminded him. ‘So, do you want to go north towards the lighthouse first, or down to the lifeboat station?’
‘The lighthouse, I think,’ he said. ‘You always used to go there when you wanted to think, didn’t you?’
She shot him a surprised glance.
‘What an odd thing to remember,’ she said.
‘Oh, my mind’s a regular ragbag of odd bits of information,’ he replied lightly as she crossed the Harbour Bridge back into Fisherman’s Row and he fell into step beside her.
‘Of course, not many fishermen live in Fisherman’s Row any more,’ she declared. ‘In fact, there aren’t many fishermen left in Penhally full stop. Too few fish to catch nowadays, and too many quotas, to make it a viable way of life.’ She waved to a dark-haired young woman who had come out of one of the cottages to scoop up a ginger cat. ‘That’s Chloe MacKinnon. You met her yesterday at Alison and Jack’s reception.’
‘Midwife like Kate, yes?’ Tom frowned. ‘Works in the village pr
actice, and is currently engaged to, and living with, Oliver Fawkner?’
‘That’s the one,’ Eve said as the woman waved back and disappeared into her house. ‘You met Oliver at the reception, too.’
‘I remember.’ Tom nodded, then chuckled. ‘You know, if one of the local midwives and a practice doctor had been living together when I was last in Penhally, they’d have been tarred and feathered then run out of town.’
‘Times change even in Penhally, at least for some things,’ she murmured, and before he could say anything she pointed across the harbour to where a pretty cottage sat high on the hill. ‘That’s where Kate lives. Her house must have one of the best views in Penhally.’
‘Right,’ he said, shooting her a puzzled glance.
‘Dr Lovak used to live in Fisherman’s Row,’ Eve continued as they walked past the library and into Harbour Road, ‘but he and his wife, Melinda, moved out into the country in the summer. I guess with a baby coming they wanted more space.’
Tom was sure they did, but talking about where the members of the village practice lived was not exactly what he’d had in mind when he’d asked Eve to meet him today, and if she was going to spend the whole afternoon pointing out the homes of her colleagues it was going to be a very long afternoon indeed.
‘Eve—’
‘I’m sorry,’ she broke in, turning to face him, her expression contrite. ‘I know I’m babbling a load of boring drivel, but the thing is…’ She lifted her shoulders helplessly. ‘We don’t know each other any more, and I don’t know what to say, or talk to you about. I know we were…close…in the past, but—’
‘Us meeting again is fast turning into your worst date ever,’ he finished for her, and she coloured.
‘Maybe not quite that bad, but we’re practically strangers now, Tom, so why did you ask to see me again—what was the point?’
Good question, he thought, but how could he tell her that part of him had hoped to find her happily married so he could finally squash the dream that had haunted him for years—that he could somehow go back, change things—while the other part had hoped she was still single so he might be given another chance at happiness.
Caroline Anderson, Josie Metcalfe, Maggie Kingsley, Margaret McDonagh Page 33
