The sky was grey and smoky and rain didn’t look very far away, but Shelley took a chance, and walked along the shoreline, filling her lungs with great breaths of salty air. Beneath the mist, the sea was the colour of mercury and the tips of the waves were crested with bubbles like bath foam. Seagulls circled overhead like low-flying aircraft, and in the far distance she could see the slow, stately movement of a ship.
She walked until she was pink-cheeked and glowing and told herself that she was free to explore where she wanted—and that if her path took her through the sand-dunes and past the old coastguard’s cottage, then so be it. Drew might own half the Westward but he didn’t own the beach yet!
As she approached, she thought that it was a little like childhood in reverse. Instead of being smaller than she remembered, the cottage looked about twice the size, and closer inspection soon showed her why. It was twice the size, but the extensions had been so carefully constructed that the entire building somehow retained that look of being there for centuries. Clever, she thought grudgingly. Very clever.
It was long and low and whitewashed, and the window frames were all painted a deep delphinium-blue. The garden was beautiful—with tall, billowing grasses and the blue-green blur of lavender bushes which blended so well with the landscape. The pale frothy flowerheads of hydrangeas blew gently in the sea breeze and she could see small, silver-leaved plants and the maroon fronds of a Tamarix.
But there was no sign of Drew.
She told herself that she was relieved not to have seen him as she walked slowly back to the village centre and pushed open the door of the general store. And she told herself that again as she looked around her appreciatively.
The shop had been deliberately designed to look as though you were stepping back in time—to a time when provisions were wholesome and processed foods rare. Except that it now sold olive oil from Tuscany, which was comparable to the fruity blend she used to buy in her local market in Italy! On the floor were great sacks of coffee beans, filling the air with their dark, bitter scent—along with all kinds of dried mushrooms, and boxes of exotically flavoured biscuits. And bread which looked hand-baked, and cheeses from local farmhouses—not the tasteless blocks she had been used to as a child, which had looked like soap and tasted like soap!
The man who served her was called Charlie Palmer, and he chattered away and told her that he owned the shop. He looked about thirty-five, and wore the wedding ring and comfortable smile of the happily married. He filled up three boxes with all the basic foodstuffs she needed, then added fresh eggs and some organic meat which he had talked her into buying.
‘Oh, heavens!’ groaned Shelley, wondering how she was going to carry everything home. ‘I’ve bought more than I meant to! And I haven’t even started on my fruit and veg yet!’
‘I trust you’re buying them next door, and not from the out-of-town superstore?’ He gave her a humorous frown.
‘Oh, I am! Definitely!’
‘Well, if you bring it all in here, I can deliver later, when I shut up shop.’
She smiled at him. ‘That would be wonderful! And very kind of you.’
He smiled back. ‘It’s a calculated kindness. That sort of service gets me custom. People don’t mind paying a little bit more if they get the personal touch—and who in their right mind would want to do their shopping in a place the size of an aircraft hanger?’ He pulled a face. ‘Where do you live?’
She told him.
‘Next door to Jennie Glover?’
Shelley nodded. ‘That’s right. Do you know her?’
‘My wife does. We’ve got a baby the same age as Ellie. And, of course, I know her brother.’
‘Do you?’ asked Shelley casually.
‘Yeah—I supply coffee and chocolate to the hotel.’ He grinned. ‘Oh, and Drew thrashes me at tennis occasionally, too!’
‘Really?’ Shelley decided to risk it. ‘I didn’t know that Drew played tennis?’
Did she detect a twinkle in Charlie’s eyes? Was he, as his sister had once been, familiar with women asking him sneaky little questions about Drew?
‘He only took it up a couple of years ago, apparently—and he’s sickeningly good!’ He wrapped a piece of cheese in greaseproof paper and looked up. ‘Friend of yours, is he?’
Shelley spoke from the heart as she remembered the harsh way he had left her, and the bitterness of his parting words. ‘Oh, no! No.’ She saw Charlie looking at her as if she were slightly deranged. Or lying. ‘Not buddy-buddy, not really. I just knew him way-back-when.’
‘You grew up round here, then?’