Page 23 of Coming Home to Sturcombe Bay
“No. Maybe later.” He smiled again as he finished the snack, and held out his hand. “Come and have a dance with me.”
That smile — it made her insides melt. She put her hand into his and let him lead her into the sitting room where an old Rolling Stones album of her mother’s had everyone rocking.
In spite of the press of people, he managed to make enough space for them. He didn’t put his arms round her. He just laid a hand on her hip, and they moved together to the music.
It was difficult to hold a conversation, but Liam leaned down to speak close to her ear. “What have you been getting up to lately?”
“Oh, just studying for my A levels. That hasn’t left me much time for anything else.”
“Not even riding?”
“Sometimes. Lisa and I went up to the moor a couple of weeks ago with Tom and Ollie.”
“Would you like to come out for a ride with me tomorrow? We’ve just taken in a youngster who wasn’t making it on the racecourse. He needs a good outing, but he likes company. You could ride Missie, if you’d like.”
She hesitated, longing to say yes but feeling suddenly shy. “Oh . . . Okay, yes . . .” She was struggling to project a cool demeanour while excitement was sizzling through her veins. “Um . . . I’d like that.”
“Tomorrow. Say, two o’clock then?”
“That would be fine.”
She wondered if he could hear her heart beating, so fast that she felt light-headed. The crowd was shoving them closer together, and she didn’t notice when his arms slid round her. Was it deliberate? She let her forehead rest against his shoulder. Just dancing with him, feeling the warm strength of his body, breathing the subtle male scent of his skin . . .
It was after one o’clock in the morning when the party began to wind down. She and Liam wandered outside and across the road to lean against the wall and look across the bay, bathed in silver moonlight. So romantic. And when he tipped up her face to his, and his lips brushed over hers, warm and firm, she felt as if the whole world was slipping away.
It was a magical kiss, tender and demanding. She’d been kissed before, a couple of times, by callow boys who didn’t know what to do with tongues and noses. Never like this. The taste of him, the feel of his silky hair between her fingers . . . Those things would stay with her forever.
They went riding the next day, and many days after that. They talked and laughed as if they’d been together for years. And when he went back to university, he phoned or texted her every couple of days, and came home most weekends.
And when he came home for the summer vacation, they spent time together every day. She could hardly believe that she was living her dream.
But the other dream hadn’t gone away. It was still there, in internet searches for water-sports centres in Florida and around the Gulf of Mexico, and for how to get a working visa for the US. And in the PADI diving certificate and RYA power-boat handling qualification she had gained while studying for her A Levels.
She had no idea how she could reconcile the two dreams, so she just pushed the question aside, and kept them in separate boxes in her head.
It was her grandmother who had forced her to face reality. One afternoon as the date for starting university loomed, Cassie had gone up to her house with the shopping her mother had brought home, and had stayed to sit on a stool at the kitchen table, watching Nanna bake one of her fabulous coffee-and-walnut cakes.
“So then, where do you see yourself in five years’ time if you stay and marry Liam?” Nanna demanded in her usual blunt fashion.
“Well, I . . . I’ll be with him.”
“And?”
“He’ll be qualified.” Why did she sound so hesitant? “Working with his dad and his brother.”
“And what will you be doing?” The prodding was relentless.
“I don’t know . . .”
“What about your dream of travelling the world?”
“Well, I . . .” Five years. She would be only twenty-three. “Maybe he’ll come with me.”
Nanna shook her head. “Do you really think he will?”
Something seemed to be constricting her throat, making it difficult to speak. “No.”
Nanna put down her wooden spoon and took both her hands, forcing her to meet her gaze. “Then you have to choose which dream to follow and which to give up.”
