Runaway Summer: Polwenna Bay 1

by Ruth Saberton

  “I said I want a drink, for Christ’s sake!” Danny Tremaine yelled. The damaged side of his face was already livid red, but the side untouched by the bomb blast was fast catching up.

  Kelly flung a helpless look in Jake’s direction. She clearly didn’t want to serve Danny but everyone in the village was treating him with kid gloves. He was a hero, after all, and it was obvious just how much he was suffering – but anyone else who dared to behave like this would have been barred long ago.

  Jake was on his feet in seconds. It didn’t matter how much he cared for Dan or how much he knew his brother was going through; this behaviour had to stop. Nick, cross-eyed with drink and swaying, joined Danny.

  Great, thought Jake in despair. Another drunken brother was just what he didn’t need.

  “Come on, Dan. I think you’ve had enough, mate.” Nick placed his hand on Danny’s shoulder, only to have it shaken off when his brother rounded on him.

  “I haven’t had nearly enough! I said I want another drink!” Danny’s fist thumped down on the bar and he glared angrily around the pub. “What are you all looking at, eh?”

  “You’re making a scene.” Jake said softly, crossing the bar to his brother’s side. “Come on, mate, time to go.”

  Danny shook his head. The fairy lights on the beams above the bar turned his short hair to a golden halo as though he was some fallen angel. When he spoke his voice was low and laced with danger.

  “I’m not going anywhere. I want another drink. Just one bloody drink. Is that too much to ask? Or are you going to try and stop me?” He started to square up to Jake and his one good hand clenched into a fist. Jake eyed him warily. Even with one arm Danny was quick and strong. Could he manage to grab his brother and wrestle him outside? Would Nick be steady enough on his feet to help?

  “Well?” Danny’s voice rose again. “Are you going to try and stop me?”

  Jake was going to attempt it, but quite how he didn’t know. He saw Jules slide from her seat, reach into her pocket and pull out her dog collar, which she tucked around the neck of her hoody. She caught his eye and smiled reassuringly, touching the collar with her forefinger.

  “Trust me,” she mouthed.

  Jake trusted Jules but he certainly didn’t trust his volatile sibling. Jules ignored his horrified expression, though, and placed herself in between the two brothers. The look of surprise on Danny’s face would have been comical if the situation hadn’t been so tense. He probably thought he was so drunk that he was hallucinating vicars.

  “I don’t know what’s been happening with your wife,” Jules said gently and while Danny was too taken aback to shout, “but please don’t take it out on your family or the people in here. It isn’t their fault.”

  Danny’s fist was still clenched. Slowly and deliberately he turned his head towards her until Jules could see the full extent of his injuries. Jake always thought it was like looking at two halves of two different men, which some cruel joke had spliced together. The side closest to them was a leaner version of Jake: a high cheekbone and one denim-blue eye starred with dark lashes, a strong jaw sprinkled with golden stubble, a striking profile and a full sensual mouth. But the other side? That was like gazing at a vandalised masterpiece.

  Seeing this for the first time was as shocking as it would be to see somebody take a sledgehammer to a Michelangelo sculpture, but Jules remained composed. The cruelly burned flesh, the lid of the eye pulled tightly closed, the downward pluck of what remained of his mouth... Jake thought that Danny Tremaine had every right to rail against a world and a God that could let this happen.

  “This is what’s happening with my wife,” Danny growled, thrusting his damaged face even closer to the vicar’s. “And can you bloody well blame her?”

  Jules didn’t flinch. “No, not at all. It must have been a huge shock for her.”

  Danny stared at her, taken aback. “What did you say?”

  “I said that your wife must be shocked. What’s happened to you is awful because yes, your injuries are shocking when you first see them,” Jules told him bluntly. “Nobody can even begin to imagine what it feels like, but it isn’t just you who’s been affected, is it? Everyone who loves you is hurting.”

  Danny snorted rudely. “And Jesus wants me for a sunbeam, right? Come on, Rev, don’t hold back. Aren’t you going to tell me that my wife should love me whatever I look like? Then you can remind me that at least I’m a war hero even if I am hideous?” He laughed, a harsh mockery of a sound. “Come on, aren’t you thinking that she ought to just close her eyes when she’s with me and put up with it? That’s what everyone thinks around here.”

  The vicar shrugged. “I’m not here to judge your wife, Danny. I don’t know her any more than I know you, but I do know that it’s your yelling and your breaking glasses that are upsetting everyone in here, not the way you look. It’s the way you’re behaving that’s ugly, not your face.” She lowered her voice but held his gaze without fear. “Fact. As your son Morgan would say.”

  It was as though at just the mention of Morgan something changed in Danny. The anger in him seemed to vanish and his shoulders slumped. Suddenly the raging figure of only moments ago was gone and in its place was a broken man. A tear, as bright and as lonely as the glass strewn on the floor, slipped down his cheek.

  “She wants to take Morgan away,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t think I can deal with it if she does. It’s bad enough that Tara’s gone; it’ll be unbearable without Morgan. What’s the point? What am I without them?”

  There was a lump in Jake’s throat. He could bloody well throttle Tara Tremaine.

  “Come on, let me walk home with you. You don’t want to be in here anymore,” Jules suggested quietly, and Danny nodded.

  Jake wasn’t sure but it felt to him as though everyone in the place released a breath. His own hands were trembling. To come this close to another fist fight with Danny had unnerved him. His brother was out of control.

  “Shit. Did I do that?” Danny said, glancing around the bar and seeming to notice for the first time the smashed glasses and staring customers. He passed a hand over his eye, as though he wanted to wipe away the evidence of what had just occurred. Catching the cowering barmaid’s eye he opened his wallet, pulled out a wad of notes and placed them onto the bar, just out of reach of the spilled drink and shattered glass. “Kelly, I’m really sorry. I hope this covers it.”

  He seemed to shrink into himself as he pushed through the evening drinkers and, stooping through the low doorway, staggered out into the dusk. Jake stared after him in despair. He didn’t think he’d ever felt more helpless. How the hell could he help Dan? What on earth could he do to make things better for his younger brother? Not being able to think of a plan was driving him to distraction because Jake was a practical guy; he liked to fix things and make them right again, which was easy to do with boats and engines but a million times more complicated with humans.

  What if Danny couldn’t be mended? This thought was so agonising that Jake pushed it away as quickly as he could.

  “I’ll walk him home,” he said to Jules. “You’ve done more than enough just by calming him down.”

  “I haven’t done anything that isn’t all in a day’s work for a vicar.” Looking embarrassed, Jules brushed off Jake’s thanks. “He’s going to need a bit of time out to clear his head after what’s happened here, that’s for sure, and I might be able to help. And this,” she lifted her fingertips to the dog collar and smiled, “is usually really good at making people feel able to talk, comforted even.”

  “No offence, but Danny doesn’t believe in God,” said Nick sharply. “How could he after what’s happened to him?”

  Jules, who must be used to hearing this kind of thing, nodded. “Don’t worry. I’m not about to give the guy a sermon. It’s just that sometimes people find it easier to talk to somebody like me. I guess because I’m not family; I’m neutral, a bit like Switzerland?”

  Jake wasn’t convinced. Much as he was
impressed with the way the new vicar had managed to defuse the situation – there was definitely more to her than met the eye – a drunken Danny was not something he would ever allow a woman to handle, vicar or not.

  “I appreciate everything you’ve done but he’s not your responsibility,” he said firmly. “Enjoy your evening here with Issie. Hopefully the Tremaine family fireworks are over now.”

  “Chillax, Jake. I’ll go with the vicar,” Nick offered. He drained his glass and gave his brother a sheepish grin. “I think I ought to knock it on the head anyway, seeing as I’m off to sea later.”

  There was no arguing with this. Having a stern word with Nick about mixing deep-sea trawling and heavy drinking had been on Jake’s (very long) to-do list. Once Jules and Nick had managed to assure him that if there were any problems at all they’d call him, Jake returned to the bar. A headache was starting to beat behind his eyes. Jesus. What a day. He supposed Danny had at least managed to take his mind off Summer, although now that the latest family drama was over thoughts of her were rushing back just like the tide tore back into the harbour. Maybe another drink was what he needed.

  “Hey, you.” The distinctive scent of Chanel perfume and a soft hand on his forearm announced the arrival of Ella St Milton. She placed a pint of Pol Brew in front of him and hopped onto a bar stool next to him. “Looks like you could do with a drink.”

  Ella was all wide-eyed concern, sympathy and tight tee-shirt. Her blonde hair was straightened into a sheet of gold and her red lips glistened in the soft lighting. As she leaned forward to reach for her glass of wine her breast brushed against his arm. She smiled slowly when he looked up in surprise, a pink triangle of tongue moistening her lips.

  Jake smiled back. The message couldn’t have been any clearer and suddenly he was more inclined to listen to it than he’d been for a very long time.

  “A drink sounds great,” he agreed, picking up the pint glass.

  Summer who?

  Chapter 9

  “Sausages or bacon? Or do you want both?” Alice Tremaine looked up from the Aga and gave Jake an expectant smile. The enormous frying pan on the hotplate was hissing like the waves breaking against the rocks below the house and the whole of Seaspray was filled with the mouth-watering aroma of full English. Normally Jake would have been first in line for one of his grandmother’s fry-ups, but this morning the thought alone was enough to make him want to run to the stable door, stick his head out over the bottom half and gulp fresh air.

  “Jake?” Alice’s spatula hovered over the pan. “Hurry up, love. The eggs will go cold.”

  At the mere mention of fried eggs, Jake swallowed back a wave of nausea. Christ, just how much had he drunk yesterday evening?

  “Nothing for me, thanks,” he said weakly, opening the fridge and helping himself to most of the orange juice straight from the carton. A big hit of vitamin C was what he needed, and then some coffee to jump-start his system. Surely after that he would feel slightly more human?

  “Jake’s hung-over, Grand Gran. Fact,” observed Morgan from his seat at the head of the kitchen table. Chewing thoughtfully on a hunk of fried bread, he added kindly, “Don’t worry, Jake. You’ll feel better soon. My dad looks like that a lot.”

  Alice shot Jake one of her you-are-such-a-bad-example looks.

  “Eat up, Morgan,” she said firmly. “We’ve got to get to church and thank Reverend Jules for helping your dad out yesterday when he was feeling poorly.”

  Morgan looked confused. “Dad wasn’t poorly, Grand Gran. He was drunk. Fact.”

  “Total fact,” nodded Issie. “Well, it is!” she insisted when Alice glared at her. “Morgan isn’t stupid, Granny: he’s got an IQ of 159.”

  “I’m highly gifted. Fact,” said Morgan.

  Alice brandished her spatula at Issie. “I don’t care what his IQ is! He’s still a child – and from some of the behaviour I’ve seen here lately, so still are all of you. Thank goodness for Reverend Mathieson. I’ll be thanking her personally after the service. I don’t know how she did it but somehow she managed to calm everything down while all of you were out enjoying yourselves at the festival without a care in the world.”

  “That’s not fair,” Issie said. “Jake wanted to take Danny home but Jules insisted and then Nick said he’d go with her too.”

  Alice’s hands were on her hips. Even though she was dressed in the novelty bra-and-stockings print apron that Zak had bought her for Christmas, she managed to assert her authority and quell any further protests with one look. Having raised her grandchildren she was very good at this and, regardless of their age now, they all knew that Granny Alice’s look was not to be messed with.

  “We’re Tremaines and we stick together,” Alice told them. “That’s the way this family’s always been and that’s the way it stays. We look out for one another.” She turned her attention back to the breakfast that was now spitting furiously, and dolloped a huge pile of sausages and bacon onto a plate, which was then deposited with a cross thump onto the kitchen table. “Now eat up.”

  “I really can’t,” said Jake regretfully; his grandmother’s fry-ups were the stuff of Polwenna Bay legend. He pulled out a chair and reached for the cafetière instead. It was time for a caffeine injection.

  “I don’t care who eats this, but this isn’t going to waste,” Alice said sternly. “And no feeding it to Cracker, either,” she added to Mo, who was on the brink of taking a sausage for their Jack Russell.

  “I’ll have some, Granny. It smells wonderful!” Zak waltzed into the kitchen, dropped a kiss onto his grandmother’s cheek and plonked himself down at the table. “Load me up! I’m ravenous!”

  Zak really was proof that there was no justice in the world, Jake thought with grudging admiration. How his brother managed to be clear-eyed and chirpy when Jake knew for a fact that Zak had been drinking vodka shots and partying into the daylight hours with a bevy of doting girls was a mystery. The sunshine beaming through the big bay window turned Zak’s hair to pure gold, and in his white tee-shirt and leather trousers he looked like some kind of rock-music angel come down to earth. Even his stubble didn’t look scruffy like Jake’s; instead, it glinted like gold dust. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth as far as Alice was concerned and so, distracted now from the previous conversation, she fussed around Zak, pouring tea and dishing him up a mound of food.

  “You don’t eat enough, love. You need to come home more often,” she told him.

  “I really should,” Zak agreed, tucking in with gusto. Jake guessed that all the singing, partying and no-strings sex had helped Zak work up quite an appetite. His brother certainly never seemed to put on an ounce of weight. The tallest and most slender of the brothers, Zak was born to swagger about on the stage, showing off flashes of his taut navel and lean hips to crowds of adoring girls. It was a hard life.

  Zak was, Jake reflected fondly as he listened to his brother entertain them with stories of his latest tour exploits, one of those magical people who could fall into an open sewer and yet come up smelling of Paco Rabanne. He’d always been this way. Teachers had loved him and had always turned a blind eye when he was naughty; women adored him; and the whole family made allowances for his lack of phone calls and visits because that was just Zak. In other words, Zak had buckets of charm and was so much fun that you’d forgive him pretty much anything he did. Like the girl who, Jake was fairly certain, was hiding out in Zak’s bedroom right now. She’d be waiting for Alice to leave for church before making her own escape, without even a cup of tea or a slice of toast to see her on her way. Zak wasn’t much of a gentleman when it came to his demanding stomach, and he wasn’t going to miss out on one of his grandmother’s Sunday-morning fry-ups just because he’d scored. Besides, the hungry and neglected rock chick was bound to forgive him because that was just Zak, wasn’t it?

  “The Tinners were so good yesterday,” Issie was saying. “Weren’t they, Jake?”

  But Jake couldn’t concentrate enough to comment: as
Zak forked black pudding into his mouth and mopped up egg yolk with thick hunks of crusty homemade bread, his own stomach was see-sawing and he felt every one of his thirty years. Still, he was willing to bet that after the antics of the night before Danny was going to feel even worse than he did. Hopefully Danny would sleep it off. Then, when he was sober – or what passed for Dan’s version of sober these days – Jake fully intended to have a serious talk with his brother. Alice was right: the Tremaines did stick together and, difficult as Danny was lately, Jake knew he had to try to help him, flying fists or not. After all, Dan couldn’t carry on like this. Tara was a piece of work, but even she had a point about the fitness of Morgan staying with a father who was hitting the bottle hard. Jake understood why Danny was angry – and it was clear to him that his brother was also suffering from post-traumatic stress. Nevertheless, causing a scene in the local hadn’t done him any favours. In fact, Jake strongly suspected that Tara had provoked Dan publicly so that she had witnesses who could testify to his volatility. It was just the kind of devious plan she’d come up with.

  He groaned, and not just because of his throbbing temples. Dealing with the situation wasn’t going to be easy, especially if Danny continued to drink so heavily. Jake had wanted to speak to him last night, but by the time he’d finally let himself into Seaspray, there’d been no sign of his brother. The old house had been completely still and Danny’s bedroom door had been firmly shut. So far it had yet to reopen.

  “Where’s Nicky?” Zak was asking through a mouthful of food.

  “He’s gone to sea with Davey Tuckey while the Penhalligan boys have the morning off,” Alice told him. She untied her apron, hung it on the hook by the ancient dresser and frowned. “They went at midnight, saving tide I suppose. I wish he wouldn’t do that if he’s been out to The Ship.”