‘You’re staying at The Anchor Hotel?’ Kate said before Eve could ask the questions she so desperately wanted the answers to. ‘Very posh.’
‘You mean, you’re amazed they let anyone called Cornish through the door?’ Tom said with an edge, and Kate coloured deeply.
‘Of course I didn’t mean that!’ she exclaimed. ‘I just meant…’
Her voice trailed away into awkward, embarrassed silence, and Eve came to her rescue.
‘Kate, shouldn’t you be making tracks for The Smugglers’?’ she said. ‘Alison and Jack headed off a few minutes ago, and they must be wondering where you are.’
‘Oh. Right,’ the midwife declared with a grateful smile and, as she and Lauren both headed for their cars, Eve turned to Tom, her expression sad.
‘So, it still pushes all your buttons, does it, even after all these years?’
Tom’s face tightened.
‘Only in Penhally,’ he said, then forced a smile as he noticed Tassie gazing up at him in obvious confusion. ‘Well, half-pint, what are we waiting for? If we don’t get to the reception fast all the best food will have gone.’
‘Are we going in your car?’ the little girl asked. ‘The one that got hit?’
‘We can walk,’ Eve said hurriedly. ‘The Smugglers’ isn’t far—just up the road.’
‘We drive,’ Tom insisted. ‘If I’m taking two gorgeous women out to lunch then we go in style, even if my car is missing one indicator light cover.’
Walking would be better, Eve thought. Tassie would leap about as she always did, pointing things out to Tom, which would mean she wouldn’t have to talk to him, but she could hardly insist on them walking. Tom would wonder why, and if Tom was the same man she had known—and she strongly suspected he was—he would badger and badger her until she told him.
‘In style it is, then,’ she declared, striding determinedly towards his car before she lost her nerve.
‘Can I sit in the front?’ Tassie asked, hopping excitedly from one foot to the other, her fine blonde hair flying about her shoulders, and Tom shook his head.
‘Surely you know royalty always rides in the back behind the chauffeur?’ he replied.
‘But I’m not royalty,’ the little girl pointed out, and Tom smiled the smile Eve knew could charm the birds off the trees.
‘Today you are,’ he said, helping Tassie up into the Range Rover. ‘So, where to, ma’am?’
‘Smugglers’ Inn, as quick as you can, driver,’ Tassie declared with an imperious air that was completely ruined when she dissolved into a fit of giggles.
‘That was kind,’ Eve murmured, as she got into the front seat, and Tom slipped into the driver’s seat beside her.
‘It’s only manners to open a door for a lady,’ he replied, and Eve shook her head.
‘I meant it was kind of you to be so nice to Tassie.’
‘She’s a nice kid.’
‘Not everyone sees that,’ Eve observed, then managed a smile when Tom stared at her curiously. ‘Do you honestly remember where everything in Penhally is, or do you want directions for The Smugglers’?’
‘I haven’t forgotten anything about Penhally,’ he said abruptly, then grimaced as a slight frown creased Eve’s forehead. ‘Sorry. An hour back in the place, and already I’m defensive. No, I don’t need directions,’ he added as he drove out of the car park and turned left. ‘The Smugglers’ is at the top of Mevagissey Road.’
Odd, she thought as he drove north, that he should remember that. They’d never been to the inn when they’d been younger. It had been too expensive for them when he’d just qualified as a doctor and she’d just finished her nurse’s training, and yet he’d remembered where it was. What else did he remember? she wondered, but she didn’t want to go down that particular memory lane. It was fraught with too many dangers, too many complications.
‘How long have you lived in London?’ she said, deliberately changing the conversation. ‘I mean, I thought you were still in the States,’ she continued as he glanced across at her, ‘but you gave Lauren a London address.’
‘I haven’t lived in the States for the past ten years,’ he replied. ‘I have a flat in London now, and an apartment in Lausanne overlooking Lake Geneva.’
‘Sounds—’
‘Posh?’ he finished for her dryly, and she shook her head at him.
‘Lovely—I was going to say lovely,’ she said, and Tom shrugged.
‘They’re just places I stay in between trips, not proper homes. Homes have people you love in them. Wives, children.’
Don’t ask, she thought as she stared out the windscreen at the trees flashing by. Trees that were beginning to lose their leaves under a sky that was as blue as only a Cornish sky could be. She didn’t need to know, and it was better if she didn’t, but she couldn’t help herself.
‘You’re not married, then?’ she said, glancing across at him.
‘Nope,’ he replied, braking slightly to avoid the rabbit that had dashed out in front of them. ‘Never found anyone prepared to put up with the kind of erratic work patterns my job demands. At least, not for any length of time.’ His green eyes met hers. ‘What about you?’
She shifted her gaze back at the trees.
‘No, I’m not married.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Tom, are you planning on coming back to Penhally to stay, or…?’
‘I’m only here until Monday. I have things to do—sort out—then I’ll be off again.’
A surge of relief engulfed her. Monday. This was Saturday. She could cope with that. If she should accidentally meet him again tomorrow, she’d be pleasant and friendly, talk about everything and nothing. She’d managed to keep silent for all these years so she could keep quiet for one more day because what good would it do to tell him? Telling him wouldn’t change anything, alter anything, make it less painful.
‘Eve?’
He was staring curiously at her, and she managed to smile.
‘I read in a magazine a while back that you’d been made head of rescue operations at Deltaron,’ she said. ‘You must be very pleased.’
‘Yeah, well, it’s certainly a whole different ball game when your desk is the one the buck stops on. What about you?’ he asked. ‘Still nursing?’
She nodded.
‘I actually just started work in Penhally last month,’ she said. ‘Before that I worked in Truro and Newquay, but Alison—the girl you don’t know whose wedding you were just at,’ she added, and saw Tom smile, ‘is pregnant so I’ve temporarily taken over her position as practice nurse in the Penhally surgery.’
‘Which means if she comes back after her maternity leave, you’ll be out of a job,’ Tom observed.
‘Not for long,’ she said briskly. ‘There’s a big shortage of nurses in the UK so I’ll get something else pretty fast.’
‘But you’d rather work here, in your home village.’
It was a statement, not a question, and her lips curved wryly.
‘Well, you always did say I had no imagination.’
‘Did I say that?’ He shook his head. ‘God, I had a big mouth when I was twenty-four, didn’t I?’
‘Uh-huh,’ she replied, and he laughed. ‘Actually, although you don’t know Alison or Jack,’ she continued, ‘you do know Jack’s father. It’s Nick Tremayne.’
‘Nick Tremayne, the doctor?’ Tom declared.
‘The very same,’ Eve answered. ‘He’s the senior partner in the Penhally surgery now, and my boss.’
‘Are you telling me I’ve just been to the wedding of the
son
of somebody I went to med school with?’ Tom groaned. ‘God, but now you’ve made me feel old.’
Eve chuckled. ‘Do you remember when we thought anyone older than forty was decrepit?’
‘And anyone over fifty might just as well be dead.’ He nodded. ‘Shows how little we knew, doesn’t it?’ His eyes met hers again. ‘Eve—’
‘Are we almost there yet?’ Tassie chipped in from the back of the car. ‘I’m
starving
.’
‘In other words, quit with the talking,’ Tom said ruefully, ‘and drive faster.’
‘Something like that.’ The little girl giggled and, as Tom grinned across at Eve, and her own lips curved in response, her heart contracted.
No, she told herself.
No
. The past is past, nobody can ever go back, and if you allow yourself to be sucked back into his world he’ll only hurt you again, and this time you might not survive.
‘What’s wrong?’ Tom asked, his green eyes suddenly puzzled, and Eve shook her head.
‘Just hungry, like Tassie.’
‘Eve—’
‘We’re here!’ Tassie interrupted with a shriek as the grey-stoned façade of The Smugglers’ Inn suddenly came into view. ‘And look at all the cars. I hope there’s room inside for us.’
And I hope it’s standing room only, Eve thought, so I can hide myself in the crush, but Tom must have read her mind because as she got out of the car he took her arm firmly in his.
‘Now we eat, and socialise, right?’ he declared.
‘You go ahead,’ Eve replied. ‘I just need…’
She waved vaguely in the direction of the door leading to the ladies’ cloakroom, but it didn’t do her any good.
‘We’ll wait for you, won’t we, Tassie?’ Tom said, and Tassie beamed, leaving Eve with nothing to do but obediently disappear into the ladies’ cloakroom.
At least it was empty, she thought with relief as she walked in. Company was the last thing she wanted right now, and quickly she washed her hands then pulled her hairbrush out of her handbag. Lord, but she looked awful. White face, panic-stricken brown eyes, her shoulder-length brown hair slightly windswept, and…
Forty-two, she thought bleakly as she gazed at her reflection in the mirror over the sink. I look forty-two. OK, so that wasn’t old, but nothing could alter the fact that she was heavier than she’d been at twenty-two, that there were faint lines at the corner of her eyes, and her hair wouldn’t be brown if Vicki at the hairdresser’s didn’t tint it every six weeks.
Impatiently, she dragged her hairbrush through her hair. What did it matter if she didn’t look twenty-two any more?
Because I would like to have looked as I did when he last saw me, her heart sighed as her eyes met those in the mirror. Because it would have shown him what he lost when he walked away from me, and it was stupid to feel that way. Stupid.
‘Feeling any better now?’
Eve whirled round to see Kate Althorp standing behind her, and forced a smile.
‘Much,’ she lied, and Kate shot her a shrewd glance as she ran some water into a sink and began washing her hands.
‘It must have been quite a shock to see Tom again.’
‘A surprise,’ Eve said firmly. ‘It was a surprise, that’s all, seeing him back in Penhally.’
‘Yes, but you and he were quite close before he went to the States, weren’t you?’
Close.
What an, oh, so very British, euphemistic way of saying ‘lovers’, Eve thought wryly, and of course Kate would remember she and Tom had spent that summer together. Kate was in her forties, too, and nothing stayed a secret for long in Penhally unless you really worked at it, and Tom hadn’t given a damn about what people thought.
‘Kate, I was twenty-two, he was twenty-four,’ Eve declared, injecting as much careless indifference into her voice as she could. ‘We shared a short summer romance, that’s all.’
‘Which wouldn’t make it any the less painful when it ended,’ Kate Althorp said gently.
The midwife saw too much—way too much—and Eve picked up her hairbrush again.
‘Water under the bridge years ago,’ she said. ‘We’ve both gone our separate ways since then, led very different lives.’
Or at least Tom had, Eve thought as Kate looked for a moment as though she’d like to say something, then dried her hands on a paper towel and left the cloakroom. Tom had gone off to the States, full of determination to succeed, and he had, whereas she…
She squeezed her eyes shut. He was not going to do this to her. She had spent all these years rebuilding her life into something to be proud of, something that mattered, and she was not going to let his presence tear it all down, make it seem worthless.
‘Enough, Eve,’ she said as she opened her eyes and gazed at her reflection again. ‘The past is past. Don’t resurrect it.’
Except it wasn’t that easy, she realised as she walked out of the cloakroom, and found Tom and Tassie waiting for her, grinning like a pair of conspirators.
‘Tassie was convinced you’d slipped down the toilet,’ Tom declared. ‘I told her we’d give you another five minutes, then I’d go over the top in my capacity as head of rescue operations at Deltaron.’
‘Promises, promises,’ Eve said lightly, and Tom’s grin widened.
‘You think I wouldn’t—or couldn’t?’ he replied.
‘I think we should eat,’ she said firmly, refusing to be drawn, but he knew what she was doing.
She could see it in the glint in his eyes. The familiar half daring, half challenging glint which had appeared in the past whenever he’d been about to do, or say, something completely outrageous, and a faint unease stirred in her. An unease which must have shown on her face because he smiled.
‘I’m a mature man now, Eve,’ he declared. ‘No fights, no arguments, I promise.’
And he was as good as his word.
For the next hour Tom charmed his way round the crowded room as only he could when he wanted to. Of course it helped that most of the people at the reception were newcomers to the village, but even when some of the older villagers cut him dead he didn’t rise to the bait. He simply moved away with a wry smile to gently reassure Lauren about his car, then make Chloe Mackinnon, the village’s other midwife, laugh as her fiancé, Dr Fawkner, stood by, watching protectively.
‘He’s changed, hasn’t he?’ Kate observed, nodding towards Tom who was now engaged in an animated discussion about fund-holding practices with Dr Lovak.
‘Tom always could string more than two words together, you know,’ Eve said more caustically than she’d intended, and Kate’s eyebrows rose.
‘I never thought he couldn’t,’ the midwife replied. ‘Just as you also know I never thought he got a fair deal in Penhally.’
‘Still won’t, judging by the reaction of some people,’ Eve said, nodding across to a small group of villagers who were throwing deep frowns in Tom’s direction.
‘People have long memories and old prejudices. I’m not saying they’re right,’ Kate continued as Eve opened her mouth to interrupt. ‘In fact, the longer I’ve lived, the less inclined I’ve become to judge anyone, but don’t forget Tom has friends here, too, as well as detractors.’