Christmas on the Little Cornish Isles
Page 31
‘A Coke. A pint of full-fat, please.’ He left his pack by a table and approached the bar. Uncertainty flickered in his eyes, the colour of the sea on a summer’s day. He looked like the same man who’d strolled in all those months before, and yet he was very different. Less cocksure, less of a charmer – and even though she knew the worst of him now, she liked him all the better for it.
Maisie picked up the soft-drink gun and squirted Coke into a pint glass. ‘You’re not from round here, by the sounds of it,’ she said.
‘No. I’m not.’
She pushed the glass at him. It was barely half full but she couldn’t play this game any more.
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
They exchanged looks over the untouched Coke. ‘My name is Henry Patrick Scorrier McKinnon and I’m an alcoholic and a liar and the father of your child,’ he said. ‘I also happen to own Scorrier Holdings, the scumbags who wanted to take over your home and livelihood. I don’t want to do that to you or anyone that lives here, but I can’t run away from the inheritance or responsibility I’ve been given. I can’t be someone else even though I’ve tried, so I’ve come up with a compromise that I hope you and your family and friends will accept. It may not be perfect but I think it could work, if we all come together. And I also love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my life.’ He smiled. ‘Can I have my drink now? I’m dry as a drover’s dog.’
Shaking like a leaf, Maisie nodded. Patrick sipped his drink.
‘And if you don’t mind me asking, who you would be?’ he asked, putting the Coke on the counter.
‘I’m Maisie. That’s my name over the door. I don’t take crap from anyone and I don’t like liars but I’m willing to give you a try. Because despite the fact I scare the living daylights out of half the men on these islands, inside I’m just human – like you. I make mistakes and I often feel like crying when people expect me to smile and laugh. I’m having a baby and I’d do anything to protect it but I want it to have a father too, a father who I love and who loves me. I’ll have a drink with you now, if you want to stay a while.’
Patrick’s mouth tilted at the corners and he leaned across the bar. His mouth was warm and sweet as he kissed her and when his lips left hers, he whispered. ‘I do.’
Epilogue
Six weeks later
Patrick slipped his arm around Maisie’s back as they walked out of the hospital and into the spring sunshine. It was a mild February day, and the palm trees along the seafront were rustling softly in the brisk breeze. Maisie patted her bump, hidden under her jumper but still visible as they walked down the road into the centre of Hugh Town. Patrick tightened his arm around her.
It was Patrick’s thirty-eighth birthday and after her latest antenatal scan, the two of them were heading for lunch with Jess and Will at the restaurant overlooking Porthcressa beach. Across the deep water channel, the island of St Saviour’s floated in the distance, its green fields bursting into life in the spring sunshine.
‘Feeling better now we know the little sprog’s doing well?’ he asked.
Maisie smiled at his nickname for the baby. ‘Yes, but I don’t think I’ll really relax until he or she’s here safely.’ She was sixteen weeks now. Less than five months to go. She wouldn’t say she’d learned to relax but she no longer spent every moment terrified of something terrible happening.
‘We’ll soon be halfway there,’ said Patrick.
Maisie laughed. ‘“We”? Remind me again who exactly is having this baby?’
‘Sometimes I think I am,’ said Patrick wryly. He was right. It had been a tense time for both of them but as the days lengthened and the weather improved, Maisie felt she was emerging into the sunshine too.
They strolled hand in hand along the seafront, nodding at familiar faces. Maisie was so relieved and happy that everything was finally out in the open. Patrick had rented the little cottage at the campsite for the foreseeable future, and Maisie had recently moved in with him. It was better for everyone to have some space, including Ray and Hazel. After some pretty frank discussions, they were starting to trust each other again.
Patrick had every right to live in one of Petroc’s luxurious holiday homes, of course, but that was too close to comfort for either Maisie, Patrick or Hugo. He’d met with Hugo and their respective lawyers several times and assured his cousin that he could continue to run Petroc the way he wanted, which Hugo was slowly beginning to accept. He’d been to visit his uncle Graydon too and now understood, he said, some of the pressure that Hugo had been under even if that didn’t excuse his harassment of Maisie and the Gull islanders. Patrick intended to offer to sell Scorrier House to Hugo at some point but that was for the future. Maisie’s focus was on her baby and slowly finding her way forward with Patrick on Gull.
The first wave of investment in the Gull Island Trust – instantly known as GIT by everyone, of course – was underway and with the extra money and contractors from the mainland, Hell Cove was already ready for the new season. Work on the Fudge Pantry had also begun.
‘I hope you’ve remembered my birthday present,’ said Patrick.
‘We’re past that sort of thing, aren’t we?’ said Maisie, thinking of the card and bottle of non-alcoholic fizz waiting back at the campsite cottage, along with a painting of Patrick serving behind the bar at the Driftwood, which she’d commissioned from Archie. They really knew how to party these days, she thought with a smile, but hoped he’d love the picture.
‘Besides, what could I possibly get for the man who has everything?’ she added.
‘You’re never going to let me forget what I did, are you?’
‘Nope. I’ll keep reminding you until the day you die.’
He caught her in his arms. ‘So you’re planning on letting me stay for a while longer, then?’
Maisie was about to reply when she felt a fluttering sensation in her stomach. Patrick started to speak but she put her fingers on his lips.
He stared at her as she stood stock still, her hand on her bump. Could it have been? Had she imagined it? Was it too early? She hadn’t had time to feel it the first time, but now …
‘Oh!’ It was there again. A brief and gentle flutter like a butterfly stirring deep inside her.
Patrick’s brow furrowed. ‘What it is? Are you OK?’
She felt like crying. ‘Yes … I think I just felt the baby moving.’
‘Really?’ he said in wonder, laying his hand on her bump. Maisie stood a few moments longer knowing it was too soon for Patrick to feel those stirrings of life yet.
‘You’ll feel it too in a few weeks,’ she said gently, taking his hand away and smiling at him.
‘Clever little sprog must know it’s my birthday,’ he said, speaking to her bump. ‘And by the way, I love you both.’
Maisie felt the gentle warmth of the spring sun on her face as she looked up at him. ‘You too, Crocodile Dundee. You too.’
THE END
Acknowledgements
I can’t tell you how wonderful it’s been to work with the fabulous Avon team on this new series of Little Cornish Isles books. My editor, Rachel Faulkner-Willcocks, has done a fabulous job of editing The Driftwood Inn and seeing it through to publication – thank you, Rachel F-W. Along with Rachel, there are so many other people at Avon and HarperCollins who help to bring my stories to readers and I’d like to thank them too, including publishing director Helen Huthwaite, and ace publicist Sabah Khan. I am one of those authors who can’t wait for their copy-editor to work their magic on a manuscript so thank you to Jo Gledhill once again for waving her wand over my work.
My agent, Broo, has made my publishing journey exciting and fun – and successful – over the past eleven years. She’s always on hand with a soothing word or a glass of very nice wine and I hope we work together on many more books and share many more glasses.
Of all the people who have helped me with research on the Little Cornish Isles series, I’d like to mention Hilary Ely, whose photographs and
posts about Scilly inspired my first visit in 2014. She’s been holidaying on the isles for fifty years, I’ve just been for the third time and can’t wait to be back. Special thanks also goes to my friend Nell Dixon – author, midwife, and a wonderful mum to three amazing daughters – for sharing her experience of multiple miscarriage. I’m so glad you now have your family, dear Nell.
This book has required research from around the globe. So thank you to:
In Melbourne – Judy Worrall, Joy Herring and Cassandra O’Leary.
On Scilly – Churchtown Farm and Scilly Flowers, St Martin’s – https://www.scillyflowers.co.uk/ – and Seaways Farm and Juliet’s Garden, St Mary’s http://www.julietsgardenrestaurant.co.uk/
On the ‘mainland’ – Jadie at the Tame Otter, Hopwas, Stephen Mooney, Amy Owen and the bar team at the Spread Eagle, Cannock and Marie Deakin of Mim’s Café, Bridgtown. What other job requires hanging around pubs at eleven o’clock on a Monday morning for ‘research’?
Thanks too to my author friends Elizabeth Hanbury, Jules Wake, Claudia Carroll, Bella Osborne and Cressida McLaughlin, and to bookseller Janice Hume, plus all the fantastic book bloggers who have supported the Cornish Café series and my other books so enthusiastically.
To my wonderful family, I love you, especially Mum and Dad who listen to my endless highs and lows of publishing. Thank you for your support, the lifts to the station for my London trips and also for the bacon sandwiches on writing days.
To my father-in-law, Charles, thanks for answering my questions on building renovations and vegetable gardens and for always reading my books.
Finally, to my husband, John, and my daughter, Charlotte, who are always by my side through thick and thin, your support and love means everything to me.
About the Author
PHILLIPA ASHLEY writes warm, funny romantic fiction for a variety of world-famous international publishers.
After studying English at Oxford, she worked as a copywriter and journalist. Her first novel, Decent Exposure, won the RNA New Writers Award and was made into a TV movie called 12 Men of Christmas starring Kristin Chenoweth and Josh Hopkins. As Pippa Croft, she also wrote the Oxford Blue series – The First Time We Met, The Second Time I Saw You and Third Time Lucky.
Phillipa lives in a Staffordshire village and has an engineer husband and scientist daughter who indulge her arty whims. She runs a holiday-let business in the Lake District, but a big part of her heart belongs to Cornwall. She visits the county several times a year for ‘research purposes’, an arduous task that involves sampling cream teas, swimming in wild Cornish coves and following actors around film shoots in a camper van. Her hobbies include watching Poldark, Earl Grey tea, Prosecco-tasting and falling off surf boards in front of RNLI lifeguards.
@PhillipaAshley
Return to the little Cornish Isles …
Available for pre-order now
Coming February 2018
Available for pre-order now
Coming July 2018
If you loved Christmas on the Little Cornish Isles, don’t miss Phillipa Ashley’s stunning Cornish Café series
Out Now
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Also by Phillipa Ashley
Summer at the Cornish Cafe
Christmas at the Cornish Café
Confetti at the Cornish Cafe
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