Page 28 of A Summer Scandal

Violet wasn’t sure she agreed. Married was married, whether or not you lived in the same house, or the same town, or the same country.

‘He doesn’t wear a wedding ring,’ she said, sure she’d have noticed.

‘Probably lost it. I’d have chucked it off the end of the pier if I was him.’ She looked up as the pub door opened. ‘Ah, here he is. We can ask him.’

A flush shot up Vi’s neck. ‘No! God, Keris, please don’t. I don’t want him to think I was prying.’

‘You weren’t,’ she said. ‘Or only a tiny bit, but that’s okay. Every woman on the planet asks about Cal.’

Violet was getting a different picture of Cal tonight: charming every woman in town and a wife tucked away somewhere in the world to boot? Was he a womaniser? And he was the Mayoress’s son too. The Mayoress who had taken violently against her. He wasn’t just complicated. He was a seething mass of trouble wrapped up in an easy smile and dark, sparkling eyes. Violet didn’t want to become another notch on his bedpost, however chivalrous he was about it the morning after.

‘Safely through his front door,’ Cal confirmed, shrugging out of his leather jacket. ‘Bloody hero, he is. Been telling me about the boat he was on that went down in the war.’

Keris laughed. ‘Not that story again.’ She turned to Violet. ‘No doubt you’ll hear it a million times before the summer’s out.’

Vi found herself looking at Cal with different eyes. Married. He’d stood at the altar and promised his forever to someone. That was as big as it got. Perhaps it was amplified in Vi’s mind because of Simon’s recent proposal; marriage was something she’d thought quite a lot about lately.

‘So the plan is to have your own store one day, Keris?’ she said, catching the other girl by surprise with her new line of conversation. Keris blinked a few times before she caught up.

‘Oh. Umm, yes, one day. The rent though …’ She shrugged, as if to say she was in a Catch 22 situation.

‘Same as me, really,’ Vi said. ‘I have a workshop in my mum’s garden back home, but it’s not ideal. And I’m working in the living room here, which is even worse.’

Cal nodded, raising his drink because he was in the same boat.

And that was when it happened – inspiration struck.

‘The pier,’ Vi said, suddenly.

‘Your pier,’ Cal said, and Keris clinked her glass to his.

‘To Violet’s pier.’

They toasted her, but she shook her head. ‘No. I mean I know what I want to do with the pier.’

The others looked at her, trying to catch her train of thought.

‘Work there,’ she said. ‘The light in there is perfect. You too, Cal. You could work from there, right?’ She looked at him, desperate for him not to shoot her fledgling plan down. Turning to Keris, she pressed on. ‘What do you think? Could you open up your store in one of the glass units on the pier?’

Keris opened her eyes wide. ‘Are you serious?’

Violet nodded. ‘For the summer to begin with, but then who knows? If it works, maybe we could stay there.’

Cal looked at her steadily. ‘Why don’t you sleep on it before you get carried away with the idea?’

She frowned. He reminded her for a moment of her father, cautious. ‘You don’t think it’ll work.’

‘I didn’t say that,’ he said, leaning forward on his stool. ‘But you’ve been in there, Vi. It would need work, and there’s more units than just three, you’d need to fill the others to convince the council that it’s being put to good use. If I know my mother that’ll be the tack she chooses – she’ll argue that it should be fully utilised, helping the community.’

Vi pressed her lips together, thinking. ‘And I will be. I’ll be creating workspaces for small businesses. Yours, mine, Keris’s.’

Keris glanced between them. ‘Our businesses are kind of connected …’ she said, trailing off to let them all see where she was going. ‘Maybe you could make a thing of that?’

Vi was a step ahead, buoyed by the wine and annoyed by Gladys Dearheart. ‘Yes! I could theme it. Lease the units to adult businesses. Nothing too bad – I don’t want to prove your mother right, Cal. But there must be other craftspeople who could come in with us?’

‘Does it even have electric?’ There he was again, Mr Practical.

‘Yes, it flipping does,’ Vi said, sparkly-eyed. ‘Come on, be enthusiastic, this could be great.’

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