The Final Seduction(22)

'You'd better get out before either of us does something we might really regret,' she warned him.

'I think I just have! I stopped before the home truths. I should have  waited until afterwards-and at least that way I might have got you out  of my system once and for all!'

And he slammed his way out of the house before she had time to think of a suitably crushing reply.





CHAPTER EIGHT




THE resumption of power supplies to the house gave Shelley a feeling of  having some control back in her life. It was just slightly galling that  she had Drew to thank for the speedy arrival of men in vans wearing  overalls.

'It's very sweet of you to come out so quickly,' she ventured to the man from the Water Board.

He shrugged. 'Drew Glover drinks with the boss-what do you expect?'

Guilt at the inequality of life nagged her. 'That's terrible!'

'Not for you, it isn't!' The man grinned at her, and looked around  curiously at the house. 'You're going to be living here, are you?'

The tone of his voice told her what he really meant-that she looked all  wrong in a tiny semi, wearing her sleek designer clothes. And he was  right.

'For the time being,' she said, aware that she was making her mind up as  she answered his question. 'But I'm going to decorate, first. Then  decide.'

'Yeah,' he agreed. 'The place could do with it!'

She spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening scrubbing  the house from top to bottom and fell into bed exhausted after eating  beans on toast. To her great pleasure and even greater surprise, she had  a dreamless and Drew-less night's sleep. Maybe she was slowly working  him out of her subconscious. Maybe …

The next morning, following a delicious hot bath full of childhood  memories, Shelley walked into the village centre to buy groceries and a  newspaper. It was a cool, misty morning and in the distance the sea  looked all fuzzy and indistinct, like a grey mohair scarf lying on the  shore, stretching as far as the eye could see. The sea drew her like a  magnet, and she decided that she would go for a bracing walk before she  bought her shopping. If she had heavy bags to carry she knew she  wouldn't get round to it.

She peered into the windows of the shops as she passed, noticing that  there was nothing which catered for clothes of either sex … not even a  baby boutique. She wondered if the new-look Milmouth approved of that.

She was dressed more appropriately today in an outfit which was casual  and warm. She had hung the linen suit at the back of her wardrobe where  she suspected it would remain unworn. At least for the time being. In  the meantime she found a pair of black jeans and a black sweater in her  suitcase, which were the most suitable things for facing a blustery sea  breeze.

Admittedly, the jeans were designer-made so they were cut to flatter  rather than to stride around in-and a costly cashmere sweater wasn't the  best thing to wear if you were pottering around the house! But they  were the best she could come up with and obviously she was going to have  to invest in some new clothes. Maybe she would suggest that shopping  trip to Jennie soon.                       
       
           



       

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?'

'That's right. I've just … ' She hesitated, having no desire to tell this  man, however nice, her whole life story up until now. 'Come home,' she  said simply.

She spent the next week in a flurry of activity, pruning the hedges at  the front of the house and cleaning out all the cupboards inside. The  garden at the back needed very little attention-thanks, she realised,  with an odd little beat of her heart, to Drew. She stared out of the  window at the Michaelmas daisies which were the exact colour of the  curtains of the Lilac suite, and sighed.

She was persuaded by Jennie to go down to the boatyard at Milmouth  Waters to see Jamie hard at work. And to see the boat which he was  desperate to buy.

Shelley had grown up by the sea, and recognised a beauty of a vessel  when she saw one. Inside the cavernous interior of the boatyard, the  Misty Morn was strong and hunky and yet elegant, too. True, she had been  allowed to run down into a state of disrepair, but there was nothing  that lots of hard work and love wouldn't cure.

She spotted Gerald O'Rourke straightening some rigging, the unlit butt  of a cigarette clamped between his lips. He had been working round boats  at Milmouth since the beginning of time-or so it seemed.