Page 69 of Coming Home to Sturcombe Bay
* * *
They left at eight o’clock the following morning. Dougie had always had the annoying ability to bounce out of bed like a March hare, however much he had drunk the night before. And he had drunk twice as much beer as everyone else, while complaining cheerfully that it tasted like warm piss.
They drove up to the top of Cliff Road and round the roundabout onto Haytor Avenue, then onto the main road, leaving Sturcombe behind. Maybe it would be better if she didn’t come back, Cassie reflected. She could just fly off with Dougie — back to his water-sports resort on New Zealand’s stunningly beautiful South Island.
Fly back to New Zealand, and leave Liam to Annabel.
Would she make him happy? She hoped so. Though . . . somehow she couldn’t see it. Annabel didn’t seem the type to settle down in a sleepy South Devon seaside town.
Sooner or later she’d probably leave him — as she herself had done. She had never stopped feeling guilty about that — she’d hate to see it happen to him again.
But maybe he just wanted a casual relationship, casual sex. Though she couldn’t quite imagine that of him. But then he was a man, after all — a very physical one.
She could still vividly remember the nights they had spent together in that hidden sandy cove when she was eighteen. They weren’t the kind of nights you would ever forget.
Anyway, it was none of her business now. All that was long past. Sitting back in the comfortable leather seat of the Lexus, she watched the rolling green Devon countryside slide by.
Dougie had put on some Aussie hard-rock band she’d never heard of, and she tapped along with the driving rhythm on her knee, letting her mind empty of all thoughts and memories.
* * *
Liam sighed with relief as he pulled the Land Rover into the front yard. It had been a long night and a long day, with three tricky births, but now three pretty foals were beginning to find their feet and three happy mares were recovering well from their efforts.
His dad came out of the kitchen as he parked the car beside the garages. “How’d it go, son?”
“Touch and go at times, but we got there. Three safe arrivals.”
“Good. You’ve got a visitor.”
Liam’s heart thumped.Cassie?
“Name of Annabel.” His dad grinned. “Where did you find a thoroughbred like that?”
“Oh . . .” He managed a smile. “She’s Caro Gillard’s niece.”
He’d been supposed to take her out to dinner again, but he’d had to ring her to cancel when he’d got the second emergency call to a farm up near Bodmin. By the time the third one had come in, he’d known he would be very late home.
He turned as he heard her voice at the door. “Liam! Heavens, you have had a long day, you poor thing. Your mum said you got called out at one o’clock this morning.”
“That’s right.” He smiled wryly. “I’m sorry about dinner.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that.” She came across the yard, wobbling slightly in her high heels on the cobbles. As she came closer she caught a whiff, and wrinkled her pretty nose. “Oh, wow. You smell awful.”
“Sorry.” He laughed. “I’ve spent most of the day up to my elbows in mares’ backsides.”
“Eeek!”
“It’s my job. Look, I’m starving. If you don’t mind waiting for about twenty minutes, I’ll change out of these things and have a shower, then we could pop over to the hotel and I can get something to eat.”
“Okay.” A flash of that pretty smile. “I’ll meet you over there.”
He leaned forward carefully and brushed a kiss over her lips, then strolled round to the back door into the mud room, pausing to hose down his rubber boots at the tap.
He slid them off and carried them into the mud room to dry, then stripped off his shirt and jeans and dropped them into the big white butler’s sink, dousing them with cold water to wash off the worst of the muck before putting them in the washing machine.
He was cold, tired and hungry, but the hot shower went a long way to reviving him. He was used to long days, often with no more than a sandwich or a packet of crisps to eat.
It was his life, and he loved it. Especially days like today — the joy of seeing a new-born foal struggling to its feet and tottering over to take its first milk from its mother.
