A Baby for Eve. Maggie Kingsley

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 practice, 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 СКАЧАТЬ