Page 1 of Best Summer Ever

Chapter 1

I was a couple of hours into my journey back to Norfolk when it suddenly dawned on me that the universe had recently been trying to give me a heads-up about the appalling behaviour my partner – now ex-partner – had been indulging in and that I could have used it as an excuse to be shot of him weeks ago.

‘Oh, Daisy,’ I admonished huffily, striking the steering wheel and inadvertently hitting the horn. ‘What are you like?’

In my defence though, I had been so focused on looking for a way I could resign from my current job that wouldn’t make it look as though I wasn’t giving up on the world of work again, that it would have taken a flashing neon sign to make me take notice. The fact that Laurence had practically confessed his infidelity ages before I cottoned on was no comfort now though.

‘She’s a total ball-buster,’ I remembered him saying, when I had asked what his new colleague was like. ‘Very focused on getting what she wants.’

His description had been accompanied by a salacious grin he hadn’t even tried to suppress, the obvious implication ofwhich should have immediately given the game away. Or at least given me a clue.

‘Ball-buster’ was an entirely appropriate description, as it turned out. She certainly looked as though she had been busting his balls when I turned up at their office early and unannounced, having finally made up my mind to end things and determined not to wait a second longer to do it.

I had found the pair in a most compromising position. Her skirt hoisted up higher than her hips and him groaning in a way that left me in no doubt what was coming. Pun intended. I had snuck out unseen, rushed back to Laurence’s flat and bundled my already haphazardly packed possessions into my car, feeling full of relief that he’d saved me a task I’d been dreading and none of the guilt I had been expecting.

We’d never had much in common and the only people who really thought the relationship might go the distance were my wishful-thinking parents. A former friend from university had introduced me to Laurence when I happened to be waiting on the table that she and some of her friends had booked.

Beth had graduated with a first, but I’d dropped out after my second year and had been floundering ever since, moving from one casual job to another. When she turned up with Laurence and somehow recognised me, I was heartily sick of my drifting and when he handed me the bill with his phone number written on the back, it felt like the ideal opportunity for a potentially fresh start.

Laurence was a proper grown-up with a structured career path and investment plan, and I had hoped some of his ambition would rub off on me and at the start, it had. The initial chemistry between us and the phenomenal sex suggested wewere a good match and within six months of getting together, I had moved into his flat and he was helping me get my life in order. It was the first time my parents had looked at me with something akin to pride and I felt my life had turned a corner.

That was almost two years ago and the scales had long since dropped, the rose-tinted specs were definitely off. I was still the same free spirit with no pension plan, who couldn’t seem to stick to anything and Laurence was now the most materialistic man I’d ever met and becoming increasingly self-absorbed and even more ruthlessly ambitious as a result. Ergo, we really did have nothing in common and opposites certainly no longer held any attraction whatsoever.

Hence the lack of upset at finding him in flagrante, the hastily scribbled note sketchily describing what I had seen and the mad dash to block his number and leave. I was now heading back to the comfort of my childhood family cottage on the Wynbrook Manor Estate, a couple of miles beyond Wynmouth on the Norfolk coast. The only thing I wasn’t sure about was what to tell Mum and Dad.

They had loved Laurence from the moment they met him and I knew they had always thought, like I originally had, that he would be the making of me. That his work ethic would be a steadying influence and, with him by my side, I would finally settle down and stick with something. Not only had Laurence now been culled, I also still had the ability to rinse through jobs faster than the North Sea tide could turn and as a result, I had no money, no prospects, no options…

‘Home sweet home,’ I nonetheless said, as the road sign for the familiar coast flashed by.

Perhaps I could put off Mum and Dad’s crushing waves of disappointment about letting Laurence go a little longer, courtesy of some real waves?

In spite of the parental predicament, my heart soared as I drove through the village of Wynmouth and around the Green and its row of brick and flint shops, with the car windows wound down. The air that rushed inside was hot rather than warm and carried with it that most welcome salt-laden smell and taste of home.

My heart happily thumped even harder as I carefully turned into the top of the one-way narrow lane, which had the Smuggler’s Inn situated on the left, rows of traditional fisherman’s terraced cottages along both sides and a path straight down to the beach directly in front. It then almost leapt completely out of my chest as a guy, with a huge rucksack on his back, appeared from nowhere and stepped out in front of the car. I stamped on the brake and only just tamped down the urge to give him a blast on the horn. That would have done nothing for my discreet return to the county.

He stepped quickly out of the way and bent to peer inside as I drew level.

‘Sorry,’ he apologised through the open window, both hands raised.

He had sandy blond hair, blue-green eyes and was wearing at least a couple of days’ worth of stubble, a light cotton red and blue checked shirt and jeans.

‘I got so excited to see the sea,’ he added as I tried to pin his accent to the right American state, ‘that I forgot myself and stepped straight out.’

I felt a creeping heat spread up my neck. I didn’t want to be charmed; I wanted to be huffy, but his apology and hundred-watt smile were both extremely disarming.

‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘No harm done.’

Well,’ he said again, straightening up and looking back up the lane, ‘that’s all right then.’

I lingered for a moment, then realised one of the beach tractors that hauled the few fishing boats in and out of the sea had turned into the top of the lane behind me, so I had no choice but to carry on. Rucksack guy raised his hand in salute and then strode off towards the beach. I indicated and carefully turned left into the tiny car park that belonged to the Smuggler’s Inn. I was sure Sam, the pub owner, wouldn’t mind me parking up for a while.

‘Please be here,’ I begged fervently as I made my way, barefoot, across the warm sand towards the row of prettily painted and much-loved beach huts.

There were about a dozen in total and one of them, the pink, orange and yellow brightly painted hut, belonged to the Wynbrook Manor Estate, which was where both my parents worked and where the cottage I’d spent my childhood growing up in was located. The estate owner, Algernon Alford, very kindly allowed his staff access to the hut and the key was kept for safe-keeping, unimaginatively, in a small box on a ledge above the door.

‘Bingo,’ I exclaimed, as my fingers closed tightly around the box.

The sight and smell that rushed to greet me as I opened the door instantly carried me back to childhood on a nostalgic wave of happy memories. Unlike the other estate families, Mum and Dad had never ventured further than the beach during theholidays and consequently, Wynmouth and the row of huts felt as familiar to me as home had once done.

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