Winter Wishes (15 page)

“If I tell you I’ll have to kill you,” Danny said, and then yelped when Jules punched his arm. “OK! I’m just teasing you. I haven’t a clue either, but after the naked-calendar fiasco my money’s on Sheila Keverne. She probably has an entire wardrobe full of whips and crotchless panties.”

“
That
is an image I do not want to have,” Jules shuddered. “Thanks, Danny. Now I’ll not be able to eat for a week.”

“It’s good to know I have some uses. Danny Tremaine’s Diet Tips at your service.”

“Talking of diets, I’ve missed my walking buddy. I’m far too good at talking myself out of exercising at silly o’clock.” She gave him a stern look. “Some personal trainer you’ve turned out to be.”

He reached out for her hand. The teasing atmosphere melted away and Jules’s breath caught in her throat. “I’ve been waiting to catch you away from everyone,” he said softly.

Jules was sorely tempted to twine his gloved fingers with her own cold ones but, catching sight of Tara and Morgan dragging a drunken-looking Guy across the beach, she stepped back and instead rested her hand on his arm.

“We’re hardly alone here, Dan. Half the village is on the beach.”

“I meant away from Seaspray and from the church.” He sounded exasperated. “Anyway, we’ve got nothing to hide because we’re doing nothing wrong! Jules, I just want to talk to you. I’m not about to drag you into the cave and kiss you until you can’t breathe.” He paused and then grinned at this thought. “Actually that sounds like a great idea. Fancy exploring the cave with me, Rev?”

Embarrassed, Jules said, “No, I don’t want to explore the cave with you!”

The left side of Dan’s mouth quirked upwards and he stepped closer. “But kissing me is OK? Happy to do that bit?”

“I didn’t say that!” Heart racing, Jules snatched her arm away. “Stop teasing me like this, Danny. It isn’t fair.”

There was a pause and she raised her eyes to look at him. In the afternoon sun his fine bone structure was beautifully lit, and her stomach went into free fall.

“Who says I’m teasing?” Danny asked quietly. “What would you say if I told you that kissing you is all I can think about?”

Jules felt exactly the same way.

“You’ve got to stop saying things like this,” she whispered.

He shook his head. “I don’t think I can, not when I mean them. Why can’t you just trust me, Jules? Tara and I are finished and nothing you could say or do will change that. We can never get back together.”

“Why not?” Jules asked, feeling increasingly frustrated. It seemed a simple question. After all, nothing about Danny’s attitude towards his wife really made sense to Jules. Tara must have struggled to come to terms with his injuries. Why was that so difficult for Danny to accept? It seemed like grudge-holding, and this wasn’t Danny at all. All Jules could imagine was that Tara really must have broken his heart for him to still be so bitter. And how did the old saying go? Love and hate were just two sides of the same coin.

Danny looked across the beach and sighed wearily. “I can’t say.”

She crossed her arms. “Can’t or won’t?”

“Both, I guess. Like I said, you have to trust me on this one, Jules. Sometimes things break and even if you glue them together carefully they’ll never be the same again. The cracks are there and every time you look at the thing you’ve tried to mend, all you see are the flaws and the damage. You know that you’ll never feel the same way about it again. It can never, ever be repaired. That’s my marriage.”

His expression was hard, his mouth set in a tight line.

“What makes you so sure?”

He reached again for her hand, his grip strong, and held her fingers against his chest until she could feel the steady beat of his heart through the scratchy wool.

“This,” he said quietly.

Jules’s mouth was as dry as the tinder piled up for the village bonfire. This was the point where she knew that she should say something, make a speech about his marriage and her role as a vicar, but instead silence grew between them. She simply couldn’t find the words. When she was with Danny all her objections seemed to vanish. It would be a huge lie to say that she didn’t long for him to pull her into his arms and kiss her until she didn’t have any breath to protest. They stared at one another and Jules felt the unmistakable tug of longing, a current that would snatch them both up and drag them under just as surely as the rip tides beyond the bay could. All Jules needed to do was step forwards and she would be totally and utterly lost in her love for him.

A love that she had no right to feel.

“I can’t,” she said bleakly. “I’m sorry, Danny, but it’s not enough of a reason. Not to throw a marriage away, anyway.”

Danny stared at her. The rosy flush had fled from his cheeks now and his face looked pale. Jules’s fingers slipped from his grasp as he stepped away, shaking his head sadly.

“It’s not my secret to tell,” was all he said. “If you can’t trust me then just walk away now because, believe me, Jules, without trust there really is nothing worth having. Nothing at all.”

And then Danny was gone, striding away from her across the rippled sand. Jules watched him go, his lean figure blurring with her tears, and she pressed her fist against her lips to stop herself from calling after him. The truth was that Danny was only half right: Jules trusted him entirely. She always had done and she knew she always would.

The person she didn’t trust was herself. When it came to Danny Tremaine her feelings were in as much danger of bursting into flames as the Polwenna Bay bonfire – and, Jules knew, every bit as likely to burn anyone who came too close.

Chapter 10

The evening of November the fifth couldn’t have been more perfect if the Polwenna Bay Fireworks Committee had managed to arrange the weather as well as everything else, Tara thought as she huddled deeper into her coat.

The day itself had been one of those perfect crisp autumnal days. When she’d first pulled open the curtains that morning, the sky had been a bright Wedgwood blue; frost had glittered on the rooftops and bushes, and the shrubs in the Seaspray garden had sparkled with lacy spiders’ webs. Morgan had already been up for hours and was itching to join in with the building of the bonfire and to make a Guy. Although they’d been back in the village for less than a week, already he was losing the pinched worried look that had broken her heart, and his cheeks were a healthy pink from the wind and fresh air. How could she regret coming back, Tara asked herself now, when her son was so happy?

If Morgan had slotted straight back into village life, Tara was finding it a little harder. Although Alice was being nothing but gracious and Summer was always friendly, Mo and Issie were avoiding her and Danny obviously wasn’t sleeping in Seaspray. Jake and Nick were cool with her too, and whenever she walked through the village Tara had the impression that people were whispering about her.

Now, standing on the quay and watching the tide of visitors flowing into the village for the fireworks display, Tara couldn’t help laughing out loud. What did she mean, the
impression
that people were talking about her? Of course they were! She was the scarlet woman who’d walked out on her war-hero husband, wasn’t she? The one who’d come scuttling back with her tail between her legs. Gossip and scandal didn’t come much better than that. Sheila and her coven would be loving every minute.

Tara shivered in spite of her thick scarf. Thank goodness nobody knew the real story – and double thank goodness that Danny was a man of his word and had never told a soul. Once he made a promise he would rather die than not keep it, a quality that she appreciated far more now than ever. If the truth ever leaked out, the villagers would probably throw her on the bonfire in a Polwenna Bay version of
The Wicker Man
.

The bonfire was burning brightly against the darkness, crackling and spitting and showering orange sparks into the night. Morgan was thrilled with it and was jigging up and down by her side, his camera constantly in his hands as he tried to figure out the best exposure and shutter speed to do the spectacle justice.

“Isn’t it just the best bonfire, ever?” he asked Tara, tugging her sleeve to drag her out of her thoughts. “Do you think it’s the biggest one the village ever had?”

“Absolutely,” Tara nodded, although to be honest one bonfire looked pretty much like another to her. This one was huge though, and to Morgan’s delight she’d helped to build it too. Dragging old pallets and sticks of scrapped furniture across the beach had worked wonders when it came to taking her mind off everything. Or rather, it had until she’d spotted Danny and Jules deep in conversation across the beach. They’d only been talking, but there was an intensity between them that had made the hairs on the back of Tara’s neck prickle with unease, a feeling that worsened when she saw Danny try to take Jules’s hand. The vicar hadn’t reciprocated or given any indication that she wanted to, but Tara’s every cell was on red alert; the attraction between them was palpable. They hadn’t spoken for long before Danny was walking up to Mariners to help the Pollards, while Jules’s plump figure was crossing the beach to join in the fire-building activities. Nevertheless, Tara had felt on edge for a long time afterwards.

What if this couldn’t be her place anymore and Danny really meant what he said and couldn’t forgive her? This thought made her chest constrict, and Tara wrapped her arms around herself tightly. Everything was going to be fine. She would make sure it was.

“I can’t wait for the fireworks,” Morgan was saying eagerly. “I’m going to take lots of pictures! Maybe the
Cornish Times
will publish one?”

Looking down at his excited face, blushed crimson by the bonfire, Tara felt such a rush of love for him that for a moment she could hardly breathe.

“Your pictures will be fantastic, sweetie,” she said finally, but by then Morgan had scampered down the steps to the beach to join Issie and Nick who, cans of lager in hand, were watching the dancing flames. Knowing that they’d not welcome her presence, Tara stayed put on the quay and watched from a distance that was almost metaphorical.

She couldn’t remember ever feeling quite so lonely, especially on Bonfire Night. It was among the highlights of the year in Polwenna Bay and had always been one of her favourite occasions. As she watched the crowds begin to gather on the quay and line the narrow streets, memories overlapped the present. The stirring notes of Holst’s
Planets
suite, the green and blue blurs of glow sticks, the scent of woodsmoke, the rattle of collecting tins… All these were entwined with images of standing here a lifetime ago with Danny’s arms around her and his lips pressing kisses onto her cold cheeks. Usually by this point she would have been hungry for the hot soup and baked potatoes after working all day to build the bonfire. Hand in gloved hand, she and Danny would have explored the stalls erected on the village green for the evening. Tara didn’t need to visit these stalls now to know that beneath the striped awning one of them would be selling mulled wine, another would house a barbeque and a third would boast the same tombola that was wheeled out every time the village had an event. When she’d lived here the routine of village life had made Tara want to scream; now she found it comforting.

What was it they said about not knowing what you had until it was gone? If only she really could drift back in time with the bonfire smoke and catch the Tara of ten years ago. She’d tell herself to hold onto Danny, to love him and to never let him go…

It was only six-thirty, but the clocks had gone back just over a week ago; inky darkness bled over the rooftops by five o’clock in the evenings now. The horses in Mo’s paddocks huddled in their rugs and stood in muddy gateways. In the harbour, the trawlers rolling in from the sea cast shimmers of emerald and ruby from their starboard and port lights, and the cottage windows glowed with warmth.

It felt as though winter had arrived.

Despite this, the Bonfire Night celebration had the power to entice people from their snug houses. Wrapped up warmly in their thickest coats, they had stomped down to the harbour to enjoy the spectacle. All around was chatter and laughter. The people who owned houses overlooking the bay were having their own parties in their gardens with friends and family; right now they were settling onto their terraces to watch the show with glasses of mulled wine in hand.

Tara checked her watch and waved at Morgan.

“Morgan!” she called down to him. “The display’s going to start any minute and you’ll get a really good view of it from here.”

This year the fireworks display itself was set up in the grounds of Ashley Carstairs’ house. This was far enough away to ensure that no rogue rockets or bangers strayed near the crowd but, because the garden stretched out onto the headland that rounded the bay, it was also just the right distance to afford the perfect view and fill the harbour with trembling reflections of the evening’s wonders.

Torches flickered across the dark garden as the Pollards and their helpers made the final checks, and in spite of her melancholy thoughts about gloved hands and winter kisses, Tara felt a familiar fizz of excitement. This was going to be stunning.

“Are you ready, Mum?” Morgan was asking, beside her now and busy setting up his shot.

She ruffled his hair. “Absolutely!”

“Mo says that Ashley paid for extra fireworks too, including a huge fierce tiger rocket,” her son continued. “Isn’t that cool?”

“Very cool,” agreed Tara. She had no idea what a fierce tiger rocket was, but it was clearly very exciting.

“Money for the fireworks!” A rattling bucket announced the arrival of Danny. Clad in a fluorescent vest marked
Steward
, he stepped up beside them and shook the bucket again.

“How come you got landed with this job? I didn’t know you were on the fireworks committee?” Phew, at least her tongue was still working, thought Tara as she recovered from the shock of seeing Danny again after five days’ absence.

“They daren’t let me loose on the explosives,” he deadpanned.