A Baby for Eve. Maggie Kingsley

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СКАЧАТЬ I can’t believe you’re still single,’ he observed. ‘The men in Penhally must be either blind, or stupid, or both.’

      ‘I almost got married once,’ she replied, kicking the sand in front of her so it sprayed out as they walked, ‘but…’

      ‘It didn’t feel right?’

      ‘Something like that. What about you?’ she asked. ‘Were you never tempted to take the plunge?’

      ‘I’ve had a couple of semi-serious relationships, but…’ He shrugged. ‘My work makes it difficult because I never know where I’m going to be from one day to the next.’

      ‘Maybe you’re just not the marrying kind,’ she said. ‘Some people aren’t.’

      He stared out to sea, then back at her, and to her surprise he looked suddenly wistful, almost sad.

      ‘And maybe I simply got my priorities all wrong.’

      His eyes were fixed on hers, refusing to allow her to look away, and her heart gave an uncomfortable thump. This conversation was getting too personal, way too personal, and she had to change it. Now.

      ‘Last one to reach the end of the beach is a wimp,’ she said, and, before he could reply, she was off and running, her bare feet flying over the sand, her skirt billowing above her knees, her shoes swinging from her hand.

      From behind her she heard him shout a spluttered protest, but she didn’t stop. She just kept on running and when she heard his footsteps begin to thud behind her she suddenly, and inexplicably, began to laugh.

      To laugh like the girl she’d once been. The carefree young girl who had once sung on a beach, feeling nothing but the joy of being alive, and she knew she probably looked like a demented lunatic, but she didn’t care. For this moment—for just this one moment—with her hair streaming in the breeze, and the taste of the sun and the sea on her lips, she felt like that girl again, and it was wonderful.

      ‘You cheated!’ he exclaimed when he caught up with her, and grasped her by the waist, spinning her round so fast she had to catch hold of his shirt to prevent herself from toppling over.

      ‘Sore loser,’ she threw back at him, laughing breathlessly as she pushed her hair away from her face. ‘You’ve been spending far too much time behind a desk.’

      ‘Too much time…?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘I’ll make you pay for that remark, Eve Dwyer.’

      ‘Oh, no, you won’t,’ she said, turning to run again, and he made a grab for her, and she jumped back to escape him, only to let out a yell as she ended up ankle deep in the sea. ‘Oh, my God, it’s freezing.’

      ‘Serves you right.’ Tom laughed but, when she scooped up some water and threw it at him, he splashed into the water after her. ‘Play rough, would you? OK, you deserve a complete ducking for that.’

      ‘You wouldn’t,’ she cried, trying to evade him, but he caught her round the waist again and swept her up into his arms.

      ‘You think?’ he said, deliberately lowering her towards the water, and she shrieked and threw her arms round his neck.

      ‘Tom, no!’

      He grinned. ‘OK, if you don’t want to be ducked, you’ll need to pay a forfeit, and I think you know what that forfeit is, don’t you?’

      A kiss. The forfeit had always been a kiss when they’d dated and, as Eve stared up into his, oh, so familiar face, she realised with a stab of pain that even after all that had happened, even after all the heartache and desolation, she wanted to kiss him, and the thought appalled her.

      ‘Tom, let me go,’ she said, but he didn’t hear the strain in her voice.

      ‘Nope, not a chance,’ he said. ‘The forfeit, or the sea. Your choice.’

      ‘Tom, please.’

      ‘Make a decision—make a decision,’ he insisted as he whirled her round in his arms, but she didn’t have to.

      She had suddenly seen what he hadn’t, and she tugged desperately on his sleeve.

      ‘Tom, we have company.’

      ‘Company?’ he repeated, then swore under his breath as he followed her gaze. ‘Oh, wonderful. Bloody wonderful. Is that who I think it is?’

      ‘I’m afraid so,’ Eve said, through gritted teeth, and when Tom quickly put her down she splashed out of the sea, feeling completely ridiculous and stupid, as Audrey Baxter walked towards them.

      ‘Tom Cornish,’ Audrey declared the minute she drew level with them, her faded brown eyes alive with curiosity and speculation. ‘My heavens, but I never thought to see you in Penhally again.’

      ‘Us bad pennies have a nasty habit of turning up again, don’t we, Mrs Baxter?’ he replied dryly.

      ‘Oh, I wouldn’t call you a bad penny, Tom,’ Audrey declared. ‘You were a little wild, to be sure—’

      ‘I think the words you used to shout after me when I was a teenager were, “You’re heading straight to hell in a handcart, Tom Cornish”.’

      Audrey patted her steel-grey curls and shook her head at him reprovingly.

      ‘That was a long time ago, Tom.’ She shifted her gaze to Eve, making her all too aware that her hair must be sticking out all over the place, and the hem of her skirt was wet. ‘I see you and Nurse Dwyer are getting reacquainted.’

      Tom moved up the beach a step. ‘We are, but now I’m afraid we have to be going.’

      ‘I thought you might have come back to Penhally two years ago, Tom, when your father died,’ Audrey continued. ‘I know you didn’t always get on—’

      ‘And I think your dog’s looking for you,’ Tom interrupted, pointing to the brindle and white greyhound which was splashing in the water further up the beach.

      ‘Looking for crabs, more like,’ Audrey replied. ‘He loves them.’

      ‘Indeed,’ Tom declared, ‘and now if you’ll excuse us…’

      But Audrey wasn’t about to let him leave so easily.

      ‘I hear your father left you his house in Trelissa Road?’ she called after him, and Tom turned slowly to face her, his expression tight.

      ‘What a very knowledgeable little community Penhally is,’ he said, the sarcasm in his voice so plain that even Audrey couldn’t miss it, and Eve grabbed his hand quickly, not caring that Audrey’s eyes followed her action.

      ‘Tom, we really do have to be going,’ she insisted, and determinedly she urged him back up the beach, but it wasn’t over as far as he was concerned.

      ‘Nothing changes, does it?’ he spat out when they reached the steps leading off the beach, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Audrey was watching them. ‘Twenty damn years, and nothing changes. I could be the Prime Minister of Britain, and in Penhally СКАЧАТЬ