Good Enough to Trust (Good Enough, Book 2 - Going Back) (5 page)

“You okay? You
sound different.”

I probably sounded
like I was expecting to talk to a man who’d just giving me a good seeing to and
left me anticipating more.

“I’m fine thanks,
Mum.”

“I’m not your
mum.” She laughed, a laugh tinged with concern and sensible intentions.

“Exactly, so stop
talking like one. And yes I’m eating my greens and doing my homework.”

“Idiot.”

She hesitated.
Don’t you hate it when people do that? Because you just know the next thing out
of their mouth will be something you don’t want to hear.

“Where are you
then, Soph?” All light and innocent.

“Is Dane there?”

“Er.” Which meant
yes.

“You mustn’t tell
him.”

“Fine, sure, we’re
both great.”

Holly was rubbish
at lying, at covering up and I could just imagine Dane’s ears perking up, if he
could be bothered. Dane was like a kid, he looked like he wasn’t interested but
he took every damn thing in.

“I’m in Cornwall.”

“But—”

“Don’t you dare
say it, Holl. I’ll explain when he’s not there sometime.” If Dane found out it
would complicate things, I just knew it. And I wanted to do this my way, on my
own. “Look I’ve got to go, we can talk later.”

“Promise?”

I softened my grip
on my phone. “Promise.”

“You’ll give me a
full update?”

I laughed. “Well,
I don’t know about full. I mean, there are some things a lady doesn’t talk
about.”

“And since when
were you a lady?”

I missed her. I
missed all of them. But if they were with me I’d be too busy interfering in
their lives to sort out my own.

“I’ll tell you if
you tell me.”

She giggled and I
hung up before the urge to interrogate her took over.

The wintry
sunshine tried its best to filter through the canopy of trees and failed. Let’s
face it I could see why this particular cottage was so cheap to rent—it would
be dark and damp even in the summer, but at this time of year there was no
chance. But it didn’t matter. Today I was going to go down to the coast. Let
the sea breeze blow the cobwebs away, watch the clouds chase each other across
the sky.

I sat at the spot
I’d visited so many times before, pulling my knees tight into my chest to try
and hide from the buffeting wind that was sending my hair whipping against my
face. I was too high up to hear the crash of waves, but the sea was angry as it
lashed the rough rocks below relentlessly. I stared at what was left of the
beach down below. The Atlantic waves breaking hard as though trying to
eradicate every last trace of the King Arthur who might have once lived here.
If there had been a Merlin, he’d have needed more than a little bit of magic to
survive in a cave down there, competing with a grey winter sea whose only
bright spot was the white lash of the surf. Maybe, like the seals we’d watched
playing, he’d moved on in the winter, maybe he was a summer kind of guy.

“Hey.”

The deep voice
should have made me jump, but it didn’t because it was just right, it belonged,
even if I’d believed it only existed in my memory now. Even though I hadn’t
thought he’d be here.

“Hey back.” I half
turned, switched my gaze from the sea relentlessly beating the rocks, up to a
face I hadn’t seen for a long, long time. Funny how all of a sudden it could
have only been yesterday. What is it they say? Familiarity breeds contempt, but
not here.

“I thought you
might be able to use this.” He squatted down, held out a paper bag and I took
it from him, knowing before the heat had seeped into my hand, before the smell
reached me, exactly what it was.

“Nothing like a
Cornish pasty to beat off the chill.”

“It might take
something a bit stronger this time of year.” I wondered how long he’d been
watching me.

He sat down next
to me on the rock that was made for one— or two if you were friendly—took a
bite of his own pasty and stared out to sea. I’ve never been a fan of these
sidelong glances under eyelashes, but I did it now. His hair was a bit longer
than before, pulled back into a ponytail so you could see every bit of those
sharp cheekbones, making his long straight nose seem even more defined. Where
Will was all broad, stocky and strong, Ollie was the stuff sword-wielding
heroes were made of. All he needed was the ruffled white shirt and tight
breeches, and he’d be ready to fight for his lady’s honour. Except he wasn’t
interested in keeping a lady, he just wanted the fun, liked being the
daredevil. More gypsy than gent.

I followed his
lead and took a bite of the soft pastry, and the heat and pepper hit the back
of my throat. I coughed, well, more of a splutter.

“You okay?” He
gave me a hearty slap on the back, then his hand stilled and the warmth bled
straight through my layers, reminding my body of how it used to be.

“Fine, thanks.” I
shifted away and fought the impulse to get up and walk. I was here for a
reason, I just hadn’t expected reality to meet me halfway.

“Why are you
here?” His voice was soft, and he’d gone back to staring at the Celtic Sea as
though it might hold the answers, and I wasn’t sure if he meant what was I
doing down in Cornwall, or right here— next to him. A spot we’d shared more
times than I wanted to remember that youthful summer that had started out with
promise and hope.

I put the pasty
down on top of my rucksack. Why was I there? “I needed to come back, work out
why I was here in the first place.”

He didn’t look at
me. “You really know how to put a guy in his place, don’t you?”

There was a rough
edge to his voice that hurt.

“I didn’t mean why
I was with you.”

I didn’t, I’d been
with him because I’d thought we were supposed to be together, because I thought
we meant something to each other. I relaxed back against him a bit, this was
supposed to be about me, not raking up what did or didn’t go wrong. “I meant
why we left home, came here, why I ran away.”

“We weren’t
running away, Soph, people grow up, move on and what happened to your—” I
resisted the urge to put my hands over my ears, but he stopped short. Never mentioned
my parents.

“I just need to do
it again, grow up, without the shit ending.”

It was true, I’d
never actually thought of it that way before, but it was true. I didn’t want to
change anything, I couldn’t change anything, but I wanted, no needed, to understand.

“So you’ve had fun
these last few years?” He was pissed, definitely pissed, and he had a right to
be.

“I was a cow.” I
picked the pasty up again and peeled a bit of the flaky pastry back, watching
it blow away in the wind. Risked another bite, tried not to get my hair mixed
up in it. “I’m sorry.” It was muffled but I knew he’d hear it and it was the
best I could do right now.

“You were, but I
understood.”

The hurt edge had
lessened and the deep, deep timbre of his voice rolled along my bones like it
used to do. Ollie was a man who’d been able to talk his way into my bed,
whisper his way into my body. But I’d rushed back to Cheshire, left him,
refused to talk about it, and I’d never let him back in because I’d blamed
myself, and so I’d blamed him too.

“It wasn’t your
fault.” His voice was soft and I wanted to agree, accept what he said, move on.
But I couldn’t.

“Or yours, you
mean, Ollie?”

He laughed, but it
wasn’t exactly a happy laugh. “Now you’re being nasty.”

I was. But I’d run
away and he’d not tried that hard to run after me, and it had hurt. Really
hurt. We’d been kids when we’d gone off on our big adventure, kids who didn’t
want responsibility or commitment. But when I’d gone back to Cheshire to bury
my parents, blaming myself for leaving in the first place, it cut deep when I
realised that he’d taken my ‘leave me alone’ demand at face value. Had I gone
with him because I loved him, or because I needed to get away from the fear?
From a dad who got drunk and beat my mum, from a mum who ignored my pleas to
leave him. I was pretty sure running from them was part of the story, but I
needed to work out how big a part. And how much of it had been about Ollie and
me. And I needed to know if when I’d run away from him he’d really cared.

Yeah, sad eh?

So, I couldn’t
blame Ollie really. Maybe he was the only one in the whole damned mess who had
known what he wanted and gone out and got it— a summer of great sex, fun and
freedom. And I was here to understand me, not him.

“Sorry. Again.” I
sighed. “So what are you doing down here?”

“I never left. I
decided I liked it here.”

He said it with an
even tone, no accusation, but I felt bad. We’d been so close, shared so much
and then nothing. Full stop. And I hadn’t tried to find out, even though it
would have been easy. One word and Dane would have told me.

“Dane says you’re
all educated now.” Ah, Dane, so he did know everything.

“He never said
what you were doing.” I tried to keep it light, not let the accusation show in
my voice.

“I asked him not
to. Thought it was better that way. So, smart girl, what happened to the big
city?”

“Oh I was never
big city, just Grove and Grove.”

He laughed. “Dane
tells me they still do the Christmas grab and grotto.”

“What else does he
tell you?” I was genuinely interested; I’d love to know how the world looks
through Dane’s eyes.

“Ah, this and
that.” They were so alike and so different in so many ways Ollie and Dane. They
were cousins, but they could have been brothers the way they looked. But where
Dane was cautious, Ollie was the bad boy, where Dane wanted roots, Ollie wanted
freedom. He’d always been a gypsy at heart, which was partly what had attracted
me to him. The wild side, well that and the good looks and the hair I couldn’t
keep my fingers away from.

He took a man-sized
bite from his pasty, crumpled up the wrapper and turned so that I didn’t have
to admire his profile any longer. “You’ve not changed much.”

“No wrinkles?”

“No wrinkles.” The
warmth of his hand on my chin was a touch that hadn’t changed, and nor had the
effect it had on me. He brushed over my lips with a roughened thumb and I
couldn’t stop the little sigh.

“Your hair’s
longer.” Looking at his hair was easier than meeting that steady gaze.

“Your breasts are
fuller.” Which got me looking at him again. Still playing the bad boy, and who
could ignore a bad boy? Not me.

“That’s the big
coat and jumper.”

“I wouldn’t mind
checking for myself.”

I parted my lips
slightly and I could taste the salt on his skin, and it was a taste that made
me hungry. Then before I could react, he leaned forward and his lips met mine,
a light firm touch, that was soft and sweet but oh so demanding, because the
taste of Ollie was one I’d missed so much.

He pulled back and
looked, and my heart was hammering harder than it had when I’d been striding up
that hill into the mist yesterday. So, obviously this wasn’t going to be the
plain sailing I’d planned. For one, I’d never expected to see Ollie here, and
for two— and boy, two was the worst bit —never thought I’d want him exactly the
way I had when I was sweet seventeen. In fact I think it was worse because my
hormones must have multiplied or something, I could have sworn I’d never felt
this desperate.

But he’d left me,
or rather I’d left him and he’d let me. I stroked my fingers along his cheekbone
because I had to and those tawny brown eyes darkened before he jerked away and
caught my hand.

“Maybe I should
go.” Maybe coming here had been a mistake.

“And how will that
help with the working out thing?”

I picked at the
harsh grass at the side of me and didn’t say anything.

“Does Dane know
you’re here?”

“No. Don’t tell
him, will you? Please?”

Dane would go
ballistic if he knew I was down here, I wasn’t sure of much, but I was of that.
He’d told me off for running away from my problems, not facing up to myself,
but he didn’t want me near Ollie. He’d made that clear, more than clear.

He didn’t answer,
so I turned to look at him and as I did the wind whipped between us and I saw
the thin long scar that snaked across his temple. I put a hand up instinctively
to touch it, but he had my wrist in a grip stronger than anything I’d
remembered. The boy had turned into a man.

I tried not to
flinch. “Where did you get that?”

“Old war wound.”
He released his grip slightly, but not so much that I could move or touch him.

“What kind of
war?”

“Nothing.” He
pushed my hand down, held it between us on the rock and it was then that I
noticed the second scar that ran over his collar bone. “Battle scars.”