Page 96 of Second Chance Summer
‘Cake.’
‘Beans on toast.’
‘No, I want cake.’
‘Poisson cru?’ Étienne offered hopefully.
‘I can make that,’ Lily said, sliding a look at Sam.
Étienne raised his eyebrows. ‘Maybe we should have it for dinner then.’
‘Let’s have burgers,’ Sam cut in to avoid a diplomatic incident.
‘Yes, burgers! Burgers!’
The twins took hold of Sam’s hands and forged ahead to join the queue at the barbecue.
‘I see you acquired a new skill while you’ve been here,’ Étienne said to Lily.
‘I can make about six things. That’s it. I couldn’t let Sam do all the cooking and sit eating alone while he lurked in the kitchen – it was just weird.’
‘If you say so.’
‘Étienne, don’t make more of this than it is.’
‘I didn’t even know there was a “this” to make more of.’ He slipped his arm around her shoulders. ‘It’s wonderful to see you happy. I’m so glad you didn’t rush home that first weekend. It would have been a tragedy.’
‘Tragedy? That’s a strong word.’
‘Rejecting something precious when it might be your only chance in life to grasp it, is a kind of tragedy. Believe me,’ he said wistfully.
Lily couldn’t argue so she nodded and joined the girls in the queue for food. Deciding between hot dogs and cheeseburgers was so much simpler than deciding who was doing the rejecting: Sam or her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
After the craft fair, Sam took them back to Stark for a campfire supper on the tiny beach below the main cottages. They all gathered driftwood for the fire and cooked fish tacos that even Tania ate.
Lily and Étienne lounged on rugs, beer bottles cooling in the sand beside them.
Sam had taken the twins beachcombing, giving Étienne and Lily a chance to talk. She had a feeling that Étienne might have asked him if they could have some time alone.
‘The girls love it here,’ she said.
‘Who wouldn’t?’ Étienne replied, looking at the flames. Their light and that of the sinking sun lit up his face, and Lily glimpsed the melancholy behind the smile.
She wondered if he was thinking of her sister, and the bittersweet memories that came along with that remembrance. When he and Cara met, she had been working as a nurse at a clinic on one of the more remote islands where Étienne was running a small hospital. She’d said she wanted to experience life outside the bubble of her own little world.
She wanted to see other perspectives, experience other cultures, but after a few years, she’d returned to Englandwith Étienne and they’d both worked at the same London hospital before she’d had the twins.
How cruelly her life was cut short, but at least she’d lived it. Done what she’d set out to do, found love, had a family.
‘I hated it here at first. It was smothered in fog, chucking it down, and it felt like I’d been banished to Stark like one of the pestilent sailors,’ Lily said.
He laughed. ‘And now?’
‘I love it, even when it rains. It isn’t only the gorgeous beaches and the sea. There’s something unique about the landscape, the peace. The people.’
Étienne threw another stick on the fire. ‘People or person?’
