Page 4 of Coming Home to Crumbleton

Well… here she was. Back in Crumbleton.

She couldn’t wait to leave.

CHAPTER 2

RUBY

Ruby stared after Brian’s cab as it trundled away, heading back across the marshland in the direction of Crumbleton Sands. The urge to chase after him, waving her arms and begging to be taken straight back to the train station, was almost overwhelming.

‘No such luck,’ she sighed as he disappeared around a bend.

This was it then – the moment she’d been dreading for weeks. She was well and truly back in Crumbleton!

Dragging her feet, Ruby turned reluctantly to stare at the City Gates.

‘City gates!’ she muttered, rolling her eyes.

Crumbleton wasn’t a city by any stretch of the imagination. It was a small town crammed onto a steep hill that stuck out of the surrounding salt marshes. Once upon a time, it had been a lot closer to the sea, but over the centuries the marshes had grown, the waves had receded, and Crumbleton had been left high and dry with nothing but its nautical-sounding house names to remind it of its coastal history.

Ruby stared at the huge stone archway with its wooden gates covered in a jumble of signs warning motorists that the high street was “access only”. Without thinking about it, she reached out and patted the rough stonework, before snatching her hand back in confusion as a strange rush of sensation threw her off kilter. She sucked in a sharp breath. Her hand tingled with a sense of deep recognition, almost as though the ancient, sun-warmed stone was welcoming her home.

‘Don’t lose the plot now, Rubes,’ she muttered, giving herself a little shake for acting like a goggle-eyed tourist. Plenty of visitors stopped next to the gates every single day during the summer season - keen to get a selfie in front of the well-known site. Locals barely even noticed it was there, though – to them, it was just part of the landscape. She’d clearly been away for too long.

‘Or not long enough,’ she whispered, glancing at it one more time before scuttling through into Crumbleton.

Ruby’s plan was to head straight to her parents’ place where she could dump her bag and go to ground for a couple of hours. But first… she had to choose which route to take. She could follow the main road - the winding, cobbled high street that led from Downhill to Uphill. It was probably the fastest route, but it also meant she’d have to walk past every single business in town. It had to be the quickest way to announce her return that Ruby could think of.

‘Steps it is, then!’ she murmured, setting off in the direction of the vast, white frontage of the Dolphin and Anchor hotel, before turning up a narrow pathway that led between two ancient, crooked cottages.

Crumbleton was full of little passages like this - secret cut-throughs that invariably consisted of some of the steepest steps she’d ever come across. They tended to be uneven, and narrow and usually boasted clumps of wildflowers and grasses growing between the old stones. Still - they made navigating your way around Crumbleton a whole lot easier when the place was swarming with tourists… or when you were trying to avoid someone or…

Or when you’re sneaking off to meet a boy no one knows about!

Ruby shook her head to dislodge that particular memory before it had the chance to take root like the clump of dandelions she’d just stepped over. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t waste any time thinking about him! It had happened years ago, and she was over it.

Over it.

She was over it.

Kind of.

The fact that she hadn’t been back to Crumbleton for so long had nothing to do with him. Nothing at all. She was a big girl now - an internationally known author. There was no way she was still broken-hearted over a boy she’d known at school.

‘He wishes,’ she huffed, noting that her heart was hammering - which had everything to do with the steep steps she was now climbing and absolutely nothing to do with the memories of toned arms, a cheeky smile and stolen kisses that were doing their best to break through her defences.

Ruby sped up, determined to punish herself for letting him into her head so soon after arriving back in town. It was ridiculous. After all - he didn’t even live there anymore. Hell, he’d left Crumbleton before her. There was no reason on Earth she’d bump into him now.

Ruby shook her head in annoyance and grabbed hold of the age-worn metal railing to haul herself up a particularly steep section of steps. This was exactly why she’d avoided Crumbleton all these years. Every single nook and cranny held memories. Most of them good. A few of them sweet. But some of them… some of them were so painful it felt like she was being run-through with a sword.

‘Idiot,’ she puffed, pausing as she came to a little cobbled yard – a break between one set of steps and the next. In true Crumbleton style, it was crammed with planters bursting with colourful flowers. Just because it wasn’t on the main route through the town didn’t mean that it didn’t deserve love, attention and a dash of colour. Orange marigolds and deep blue cornflowers bobbed in the light breeze, welcoming her to their little hidey-hole. After a couple of seconds, Ruby had her breathing back under control.

Good. Okay, she could do this.

One more steep flight, then she could take the narrow passageway between Phyllis Taylor’s cottage and the bridal shop and she’d almost be at her parents’ house.

Just the thought of seeing them again brought a smile back to her face – though it hadn’t been that long since their last visit. Ruby’s mum and dad made a point of travelling to London fairly often – but she never got to see much of them while they were there. They always arrived with an itinerary that was so jam-packed with museum visits, concerts and exhibitions that Ruby was forced to tag along just to get some time with them. Her parents had always been like that, though - completely caught up in their own interests. Sure, they loved her - and she knew that – but it had always been in their own, slightly distracted way.

It was one of the things that had made it so easy for her to read and write the majority of her teenage years away. Except for that last summer, of course. That’s when she’d quickly discovered her parents’ preoccupation with their own interests made it super-easy to sneak away to meet boys… or, in her case, one boy in particular!

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