Page 25 of Coming Home to Sturcombe Bay
The landlady finished serving a customer and came up the bar. “Who? Well, Cassie Channing, as I live and breathe!” Her broad face was wreathed in smiles and she reached both hands over the counter to take Cassie’s. “Welcome home, my luvver. When did you get back?”
Cassie smiled warmly. “A couple of days ago.”
“And you’re staying?”
The same old question. “For a while.”
“That’s good. What are you drinking?”
“I’ll have a white wine spritzer, please.”
“Coming right up.” A wide beam spread across her homely face. “This one’s on the house.”
At the back of the room a couple of people were playing a casual game of darts, and a few more were gathered around the pool table.
“Fancy a game?” Paul suggested to Cassie.
“If you don’t mind getting beaten into the middle of next week.”
He laughed, confident, and Cassie smiled to herself. He’d learn.
They took their drinks, eased through the throng, and laid their stakes on the side of the table. She watched the play with interest as they waited their turn. Tom Cullen — big, handsome Tom Cullen, one of Paul’s best mates since they were at school together. He was playing against an older man whom Cassie recognised vaguely — she couldn’t remember his name.
Tom straightened from the table, grinning broadly as he recognised her. “Cassie, hi.” He leaned over to drop a kiss on her cheek. “I heard you were home. Lovely to see you.”
“You too!” She patted his wide chest. “And I hear you’re getting married in a few weeks?”
“That’s right.” He looked like the cat who’d got the cream. His Vicky was a lucky girl, Cassie reflected.
Tom turned back to the table, lined up his cue, and took his shot, bouncing his red off his opponent’s yellow. It trickled neatly into the side pocket, leaving the yellow in an awkward position against the cushion, and the white perfectly placed for his next shot.
There was a murmur of approval around the table. “Nice shot.”
He pocketed his next shot, but the ball after that teetered frustratingly at the edge of the pocket. His opponent had two balls left, which he cleared, but missed an easy shot on the black. Tom nudged his ball in, took a tricky angle on his last ball, then knocked the black perfectly into the side pocket.
“Okay, who’s up next?”
Cassie sipped her drink and watched him beat his next challenger. He was good — but she could beat him.
He won the game, then Paul was up. It was a tight game and Cassie was enjoying the nip-and-tuck as they both set up tricky shots for each other, and Paul managed to force Tom into a foul.
Suddenly she felt a kind of prickling at the nape of her neck, and the group around the table shifted slightly to accommodate a newcomer. She knew it was Liam even before she caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye.
He was chatting with friends — not that she was watching him. It was a few moments before he glanced in her direction. Their eyes met before she could look away, and he smiled. She acknowledged it with a cool smile of her own and turned her attention back to the pool table.
Tom won again, to a murmur of good-natured grumbles. “Liam’ll get you.”
“No, Cassie’s up next. Come on then, girl.”
Several patronising smiles confirmed that this was expected to be a bit of light relief before the return to serious bloke match-ups. She didn’t react, just selected a cue from the rack and chalked the tip, calling heads as Tom tossed the coin.
She lost the toss, and Tom chose to break first. He slid her coin into the slot and released the balls, and racked them up on the table. The smile he slanted in her direction as he bent to line up his shot told her that he, at least, had guessed that she would be no walkover.
He took the break but didn’t sink any balls. Cassie moved round the table, studying the angles as she considered whether to go for a quick win or to string it out a little, make it look as if she really was a klutz.
A comment of, “Beginner’s luck,” somewhere behind her as she sunk her first ball made the decision for her. In little more than two minutes she was on the black, while Tom stood holding his cue.
“That wasn’t beginner’s luck,” he remarked. “Well done.”
