Page 44 of Second Chance Summer
‘It’s a small community – we wouldn’t survive if we didn’t. Of course, there’s also a downside to living in each other’s pockets.’
‘No privacy,’ she murmured. ‘Ironic that I came here for that and the opposite has happened.’
‘Yes, I’m afraid everyone probably knows who you are by now. You might have been better off in London where you could at least have been one among millions. You’ve clearly decided Stark was the lesser of two evils.’ He added a smile as he said it.
‘I didn’t stay here because I had no choice. I felt it was what I needed to do.’
He nodded and stopped the Land Rover outside a white-painted place. ‘Here we are. Hell Bay House.’
Lily slid down from the passenger seat and stared at the building. ‘OK?’ he said, seeing her eyes widen at the sight of his home.
‘Yes. It’s – well, Hell Bay. It doesn’t live up to its name.’
Sam followed her gaze to his double-fronted house, the gardens thick with mauve agapanthus and towering echiums. Scallop shells adorned the low white garden wall. He’d helped implant them in the cement himself when he was younger and his parents and Nate lived here too.
‘You should see it on a wild January night in the middle of a raging storm. Sand gets blown into the garden and you can feel the foundations shake.’
‘The actual foundations shake?’ Lily asked, eyeing the ocean with trepidation.
‘It feels like it, but we’re far enough back from the sea for safety.’ He saw her eyes widen at the sight of the jagged rocks closed around the white sand bay like jaws. As the tide ebbed, Stark seemed to be almost within wading distance across the shining strand and shallow pools. So tranquil, so benevolent a scene … Nothing bad or tragic could ever happen here, surely?
‘So far, anyway. Come on in. Make yourself comfortable while I sort out some stuff.’
Hell Bay House had once been the home of one of the better-off families on Bryher, amid a clutch of cottages owned by fishermen and modern bungalows built in the middle of the twentieth century.
The Teagues had made money on mainland Cornwall, initially from pilchard fishing, and had invested it cautiously, which had enabled them to buy the house at the turn of the twentieth century – and to purchase Stark from its previous owner, a bankrupt minor aristocrat who’d been given it by the Crown and had been desperate to be rid of it.
Although Stark had been left jointly to Nate and Sam by their grandparents, Nate had never shown an iota of interest in it and hadn’t put in a penny of investment. He’d told Sam that he could have the place and keep any profit he made from ‘the godforsaken rock’.
Lily lingered by the gate to look out over the sea.
‘This view is … breathtaking.’
He glanced up, used to the panorama of navy sea, bone-white sand and a sky that could be anything from clear blue to leaden.
‘I guess so. I suppose I take it for granted. Even so …’ he said, allowing his gaze to rest on the clouds scudding across the sky and the terns landing on the pool ‘… I would find it hard to live anywhere else.’
‘Hard or impossible?’ she said.
‘Very hard,’ he said, reminded of a similar conversation he’d had on this very spot. He’d known she was leaving then, as he knew Lily would soon. Only this morning he’d convinced himself he’d be glad to see the back of her but now … he longed for her to stay so he could know her better yet that would be to risk liking hertoomuch.
She shivered.
‘Shall we go inside?’ he asked.
She nodded.
‘Lily, can I ask what really made you change your mind about staying here?’ he said, back in the sitting room.
‘I – I made a strategic business decision.’
‘A strategic business decision?’ He sat on the arm of the sofa, arms folded.
She turned away from the window. ‘Yes.’
‘I see.’
‘I decided that now wasn’t the time to go back. The press are hounding me, and yes, I do need more time to gather myself. My family want me to take a break too and, for all our sakes, I think I should do it. The past few days have been … challenging … and it’s probably best if I allow myself time to fully process them.’
