My Summer of Magic Moments: Uplifting and romantic - the perfect, feel good holiday read!. Caroline Roberts

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ view. She supposed she should be grateful that the balcony that led out from her upstairs bedroom was holding up.

      Right, Claire Maxwell – enough moaning, you old tart. You’re here to rest and recuperate. Her mind took on a school-marmish voice which sounded very like her mother’s. No, they hadn’t given her nearly a month off work to sit grumbling. This was the start of her new life, and she had no idea where it was going to take her. For now, it was sitting on a rickety wooden balcony on a Friday morning in June watching the sun rise over the North Sea. It was a place of calm, with a solitary gull swooping in the sky and a pair of black-and-white oystercatchers balanced on spindly legs dipping their orange beaks in the shallows.

      A door slammed somewhere nearby, causing her balcony to wobble. She gripped her mug to prevent a spill. There were two stone cottages here, side by side, which fronted the beach – being isolated had been its appeal. Typical that the other was occupied, but it was the summer season. There was some guy coming out; he was probably here with his wife and a brood of noisy kids. The rest of them would be safely tucked up in bed for now, it being six a.m., but no doubt ready to shatter her peace in another hour or so.

      Claire stared at the man; she had nothing better to do. He walked from his grassy square of garden straight out onto the beach. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with sandy-blond hair – quite handsome, actually – wearing flip-flops, a white T-shirt and red shorts. He looked in his thirties. He began to jog straight for the sea, stopping a couple of metres before he hit the waves to slip off his footwear. Then, in one swift movement, he pulled off his T-shirt, revealing a rather gorgeous toned and lightly tanned torso. Hey, things were looking up! Another swift motion and his shorts were off. Jeez, he wasn’t wearing any Speedos beneath. The peachy whiteness of his firm buttocks and the muscular V of his back entranced her. He bent slightly to drop his clothes. Gulp. Claire leaned forward in her seat, her heart racing.

      He continued his now-naked jog down to the sea. The rear view was gorgeous, athletic. Wow! Was this real? Had she guzzled way too many glasses of wine or something last night? Was this wishful thinking, a hallucinatory dream? She really didn’t want to wake up from it if it was. She squeezed the mug in her hand – it was solid, painted a pukey-looking green colour, and the tea had a cooling milky look to it. This had to be real.

      The guy reached the breaking waves, took a dive straight in, and there he was, bobbing up and down in the surf line. She watched him swim out to the calmer, deeper sea. He seemed a confident swimmer.

      Ooh, then she realized he’d have to come back in, facing her in the buff with nuts and bolts and everything in full view. She should probably go discreetly back indoors, give him a bit of privacy.

      And miss a view like that? Sod it. No! You didn’t get the chance to see a gorgeous body like that often, if ever. Her ex certainly hadn’t had a physique like this guy’s. But what if he saw her? Sitting there gawking like a perv? She’d look a bit odd, wouldn’t she – voyeuristic. But really, when was she going to get the chance to sneak a look at a body like that again? After all, she was here first. He shouldn’t be flaunting himself like that if he didn’t want a normal, warm-blooded woman looking at him.

      She decided to shift her deckchair slightly back into the shadowy area of the balcony – he probably wouldn’t notice her there – and sat back down, watching his head bobbing like a seal out at sea as she smiled to herself. Well then, it wasn’t so quiet here, after all. And what was the harm, after everything she’d been through, allowing herself to watch a strong, healthy, rather handsome male?

      Cancer had a way of doing that to you – putting things in perspective, making you realize just how precious life could be, that you needed to seize every moment – especially little magic moments like seeing a gorgeous man naked. Why not? Why not indeed.

      So, still holding the dregs of her tea, she leaned back in her chair and took it all in: the sea rolling and gently crashing, the smell of salt in the air, the cry of a gull, the golden warmth of June sun breaking into another day. And she watched ‘Adonis’ reappear from the waves. First his shoulders, chest, the definition of his abs, his stomach. Ooh, what was about to be revealed next?… and … Oh blimey, a brown thatch of hair. And yes, it would be cold in the North Sea, but that was still impressive. Not a bad effort at all, Mr Adonis.

       Right, now behave, Claire Maxwell – get a grip on yourself and go on inside.

      But if you move now, he’s bound to see you, her alter ego chipped in cheekily (this voice definitely not sounding like her mother). Her cheeks felt flushed and her heart was pumping. What if he saw her? That would make it very awkward if they met over the coming days and weeks. She could imagine the conversation:

      ‘Hi, I’m Claire, your neighbour for three weeks.’

      ‘Ah yes, I spotted you ogling my naked body … Do you make a habit of voyeurism?’

      She shrank back in the chair. If she got up now, she was pretty sure he would see the movement from the balcony. Best to stay put.

      He strolled towards his pile of clothes – whoa, stare, don’t stare, gulp – slipped on his shorts, the T-shirt, the flip-flops, and shook his hair out, the action reminding her of a wet dog, then jogged back, seemingly oblivious to her presence.

      Claire was left with a big grin creeping across her face.

       2

       ‘I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.’

      J. B. Priestley

      As well as her cottage falling apart, the hot water system left a lot to be desired. She’d gone inside to freshen up for the day, but had been seared, then iced, by a relic of an electric shower that was positioned above an avocado-green bath (more shitty green, she’d thought). The whole experience was like something out of a torture movie. She’d had to spring in and out of the piddling stream of water trying to time it right, and washing her hair had been a joke – half the suds were left in as she gave up and clambered out. At least there wasn’t much hair to bother with at the moment: the curls only just growing back, giving her a pixie crop that her sister, Sally, said suited her – a gamine Audrey Hepburn look, apparently. Claire thought she was just trying to be nice.

      As she towelled herself dry, she carefully dabbed the ridged scar that ran across her left breast. It didn’t hurt much any more; just the odd weird pain now and again. But she didn’t like to look at it. She was still trying to get used to the change in her body.

      She moved to the bedroom. It was slightly better than the bathroom in decor: a pine double bed with blue-and-white patchwork bedding, a cream throw (granny’s crocheted best), and a white-painted dressing table with mirror – an attempt at jaded seaside chic (or plain jaded), which roughly worked. The best part of the room was its French doors, which opened out onto the balcony overlooking the expanse of silver-gold sands and the little stream which wound down beside the two cottages and out to the shoreline.

      Claire sat in her underwear on the dressing-table stool in front of the pine mirror. She had always been petite at five foot three, but was rather skinnier than she’d like to be after her illness. She smoothed on some moisturizer, brushed on mascara above her deep-brown eyes – it was great to have eyelashes again – and applied a slick of pale-pink gloss. She’d never been interested in wearing a lot of make-up, and today she wanted to feel the fresh air and sun on her skin. Then she dressed casually in a pale-pink T-shirt СКАЧАТЬ