Page 29 of One Cornish Summer With You
Listen to me,she thought,acting all cool and confident.She might be in her element creating a design for her own pleasure on her local beach – or even feel competent to do a proposal – but OceanFest was a huge leap in scale and exposure.
‘See you on Thursday, then,’ she said.
‘Can’t wait.’
Once more, they held each other and their lips met in a kiss that was briefer than before, yet all the more tantalising for its brevity. The promise of so much more was enough to make her twitchy all the way home.
Today had only made her surer that, despite first appearances, they had a lot in common. There was more to life thanwork; they shared a passion for the sea; and they weren’t prepared to sacrifice their lives for work and money. Not to mention the physical connection: the sight of him, wet and tousled and in a wetsuit, had sent her heart rate soaring.
She could hardly wait until Thursday evening and that scared her.
She wasn’t sure which worried her most: the festival commissions or the fact she felt a pull of attraction to Ruan more powerful than she might be able to handle.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
No. That was rubbish.
Tammy ripped out the page from her sketch pad, screwed it up and dropped it in the bin next to the counter.
In between serving customers, she’d been trying to sketch out ideas for a dolphin-inspired sand art. She hadn’t even got beyond the paper stage yet, let alone transferred it to her iPad to check dimensions and scale and see how it would look on the actual beach. And she had less than three weeks left to be ready. She wasn’t panicking yet, but she did feel constantly on edge, as if she was crouched on the starting blocks for a hundred-metre sprint.
It was even more difficult to concentrate when her mind kept wandering to those kisses on the beach, Ruan’s hands at her waist, the warmth of her body so tantalisingly close to his. Fun, mutual benefits, a good time … No. She had to drag her focus back to work. In a few short days, so many new opportunities had landed in her life and she wanted to fully embrace them all.
Luckily, Tuesdays in the gallery were pretty quiet, but she’d still had to do some actual work alongside her failed planning. She’d packaged up some prints of Porthmellow Harbour and a small bronze of a seal that had been orderedby online customers, ready to take them to the post office later.
Among the tourists buying greetings cards and giving their sometimes quite rude opinions of the artwork was a craggy middle-aged man with a German accent wearing very tight orange jeans.
Despite his dubious dress sense, he turned out to be her best customer for weeks, buying one of Davey’s larger bowls and an original acrylic of Breda’s. The bill was over six hundred pounds but the German, whose name was Jürgen, didn’t bat an eyelid.
Tammy chatted to him as she carefully packed up the items.
‘You have great taste. These are stunning pieces. Both the artists live and work here in Porthmellow. The ceramicist actually has his studio at the back of the gallery here.’
Jürgen lapped up every detail, which was no surprise to Tammy, who found that most customers wanted to hear as much as possible about the artist. Engaging with them was a big part of the job and Tammy found it a hundred times easier to talk about and big up other artists’ work than her own. It gave her a glow to hear someone praise Davey’s work and she knew Breda would also be delighted. Davey didn’t charge her anywhere near as much commission as he did for the other artists whose work he had on show.
During the quiet post-lunch lull, she went back to her sketching and managed to create a passable design of a dolphin that could work. Obviously, she already knew the tidetimes and the beach landscape for the festival, but the pieces would still be a major undertaking. She wanted her work to complement the beach rather than dominate it … she wondered if she really could persuade Ruan to have a go at drawing on Thursday.
The gallery bell rang as the door opened and a tall woman entered.
Tammy glanced down to find she’d doodled a figure in the corner of the sketch pad. It was Ruan striding across the beach, his wetsuit peeled down.
‘Hello, darling!’ the woman said, coming to the counter heralded by a cloud of gardenia fragrance and carrying a large bubble-wrapped picture. ‘Are you busy?’
In contrast to the tourists in their shorts and T-shirts, Breda St James wore a black column dress. It would have looked as severe as Ruan’s suit but for the coppery silk scarf draped casually around her neck.
‘Er. Not really,’ Tammy said, covering the sketch with some tissue wrap. ‘It’s nice to see you, Breda. Have you come to see Davey?’
‘Well, I was hoping to see him,’ Breda said cautiously, her silver earrings jingling. With her chic Afro crop and elegant looks, she was a complete contrast to Davey.
She rested the picture against the counter. ‘Unless, of course, he’s too busy with this hotel commission he mentioned. To be honest, I’m surprised to see you here, Tammy.’ Her brow wrinkled. ‘I thought you were busy preparing for the OceanFest?’
‘I am. I can do planning for that while I’m here.’ Shepatted the sketch pad under the tissue paper. ‘I’ve been working on some preliminary ideas.’
‘Oh, can I see?’
‘Um. Er … they’re really not very good,’ Tammy insisted. ‘Most of the early ones have gone in the bin.’
‘OK, if you’d rather keep them to yourself at this stage of the creative process, I understand, darling,’ Breda said.
