You And Me, Always(21)

It just wasn't going to happen.

Coral scrolled on through the more recent photos that didn't feature  Nick, then came to the ones from tonight. She'd taken some of Lily and  Declan standing together smiling into the camera, as well as several  more informal unposed ones.

So there it was; against all odds it had happened at last. This  afternoon she had looked at Declan Madison out in the yard and seen a  nice-looking man who did nothing for her. Then this evening she'd looked  at him across the dinner table and experienced a jolt of attraction so  out of the blue and completely unexpected that at first she hadn't known  what it was.

Recognition had belatedly set in. That squiggly sensation inside her  ribcage was the same squiggly sensation she'd experienced when she'd  first met Nick. After the first few months it had worn off, of course,  because you simply couldn't go through life feeling that way all the  time. But it had always come back to ambush her at unexpected moments:  when she caught sight of Nick from a distance, or saw him again after  they'd been apart for a day or two. She remembered arriving back at  Heathrow after visiting her cousin in Switzerland years ago, and  experiencing a huge rush of adrenalin when she saw Nick waiting for her  at the arrivals gate, because she loved him and still fancied him like  mad and he loved her too. And when a few seconds later their eyes had  met across a crowded airport and that wonderful smile had lit up his  face, she vividly remembered thinking how lucky she was to have him in  her life.                       
       
           



       

Until two years ago, when the luck had so cruelly run out.

So was this nature's way of letting her know she was on the road to  recovery? And was it also nature's way of playing a bit of a mean trick  on her?

Because it did seem slightly unfair that the first person other than  Nick to make her feel this way should be the love of her best friend's  life.

Not to mention already in a relationship.

OK, enough. Coral switched off her phone and wriggled back down in an  attempt to get some sleep. Then again, maybe it was better  –  safer  –  to  have her first post-Nick crush on someone unattainable. That way, she  could get used to all the feelings without the possibility of anything  actually happening.

Like learning to ride your first bike with stabilisers attached, with no risk of falling off.

Call it a practice run.

Plus, who was to say they'd ever see each other again anyway? Declan had  said they would, but he might just have been saying it to be polite.

Maybe today had been her practice run and now it was over; that had been it.





Chapter 19



It was one of those split-second decisions you don't stop to think  about. One minute Dan was enjoying himself at the barbecue on Friday  evening, chatting to friends and drinking a cold beer. The next minute  he was throwing the bottle aside, leaving a foamy beer fountain in his  wake as he raced across the lawn to stop a three-year-old being crushed  by a twenty-stone weight falling from a great height.

Well, twelve feet. High enough.

Big Al had hired the Velcro wall for his birthday barbecue. Having  squeezed himself into the largest of the all-in-one Velcro suits and  taken a running jump off the trampoline launch pad, he had catapulted  into the air and landed  –  splat  –  against the wall an impressive  distance off the ground and, thanks to a mid-air somersault, upside  down. Letting out a yell of triumph, he was unaware that his daughter  Maisie had scrambled up on to the inflatable mattress directly beneath  him. Meanwhile, Big Al's Velcro suit had begun to unpeel from the wall,  and once that happened, there was no way of preventing the inevitable  fall  …

‘Oh my God!' Big Al's wife, distracted for a few seconds by their  terrier making off like Groucho Marx with a barbecued chicken leg in his  mouth, saw what was about to happen just as Dan flung himself across  the launch pad, scooped Maisie up like a rugby ball and sent her sliding  to safety. There was the escalating sound of Velcro being ripped apart  directly above his head, and the twenty-stone weight that was Big Al  landed on top of him instead.

Searing pain radiated from his right shoulder like a smashed mirror.  Somehow still aware that small children were about, Dan managed to amend  his howl of ‘Fu-' to ‘Fuh  …  gahhh!' Then, as Big Al scrambled to get  off him, another jolt of pain crushed his left foot. ‘Sh  …  eesh!' yelled  Dan as the two separate pain points battled for supremacy. To add  insult to injury, Al elbowed him in the eye whilst clambering off the  inflatable mattress. ‘Owwwww.'

‘God, mate, sorry. Are you all right?'

For a supposedly intelligent maths teacher, Big Al could ask some  spectacularly stupid questions. Through gritted teeth  –  he should  probably be grateful he still had teeth  –  Dan said, ‘Do I look all  right?'

Maisie, clutched in her mother's arms and less than sympathetic, clapped  her hands and cried happily, ‘Again, Daddy! Do it again!'

‘Is it your shoulder?' Maisie's mother gazed worriedly down at Dan.

‘I think I heard my collarbone crack.' He was beginning to feel light-headed now. ‘And something went in my foot too.'

‘Oh fuck,' said Big Al.

Maisie's eyes widened with delight. ‘Daddy! That's rude.'



Lily was working in the yard the next day when she saw a yellow VW  Beetle pull up outside the entrance. About to go out and tell the driver  he couldn't park there, she experienced a jolt when she spotted Dan in  the passenger seat.

Their history of swapping jokey texts had ground to a halt following the  decidedly non-jokey exchange that had taken place after Eddie Tessler's  abrupt departure from Stanton Langley.

Hers had said: You told someone Eddie was here. Well done.

And Dan had texted back: It wasn't me. But thanks for jumping to conclusions.

Except she knew he must have done, which was why there'd been no further contact between them since.

She turned away, aware that Dan was watching her. The phone buzzed in her jeans pocket and she pulled it out.

The text from Dan said: Sorry x

Did he really think she was that much of a pushover? She put the phone  away and made a start on carrying a recent delivery of stained glass  into the barn behind the office.                       
       
           



       

Two minutes later, she heard what sounded like an old-age pensioner  making their way slowly across the gravel behind her. Turning to see how  she could help, Lily did a double-take when she came face to face with  Dan. Oh God, what had happened to him?

‘Again,' said Dan. ‘I'm really sorry.' He paused, then added, ‘Turns out it was me after all.'

The sight of him was shocking. He had a spectacularly bruised eye; a  sling strapped his right arm firmly to his chest, his left foot was held  off the ground and he was supporting himself with a metal crutch in his  left hand.

Then again, he clearly wanted to get the apology out of the way first. Lily said, ‘I knew it was you. How could you not know?'

He exhaled. ‘Anna was with me that night, remember? As soon as I got  back into the car, she knew something was up. She kept asking me what it  was, wouldn't stop, so in the end I had to tell her. But I made her  promise not to breathe a word to anyone else.' He shifted his weight on  his uninjured foot. ‘She promised. And when word got out the next day,  she swore blind she hadn't told a living soul.'

‘But she had,' said Lily.

‘I only found out last night. Anna told her flatmate, who told her  brother. Anna's flatmate's brother, it turns out, just recently started  working for a news agency in London.'

‘Right.'

Dan tilted his head. ‘I know. It was all my fault, but I didn't mean it to happen. And I'm very sorry.'

OK, not asking him about his injuries was actually killing her now.  Furthermore, he wasn't going to be able to manage all the stairs leading  to his fourth-floor flat overlooking the Clifton Suspension Bridge in  Bristol. Lily said, ‘Whose car did you come up in?' Because the VW  Beetle hadn't been Anna's.

‘Big Al's. He's a mate of mine.'

‘Where's he gone?'

‘Taking my cases over to the cottage. Looks like I'm back for a while.  Unless Patsy's rented out my room to anyone else in the last week.'

Lily ignored the dig. ‘How long will you be here for?'

‘Until I can fly again. Could be two months.'

Despite everything, it would be lovely to have Dan back here. Not that she would dream of telling him that, of course.

‘Go on then.' She gave in at last. ‘What happened?'