Page 73 of Coming Home to Sturcombe Bay
“She probably didn’t have time.” Oh dear. He had been afraid of this. “She would have had to pack her case and find her passport, and then it would be a long drive to the airport to catch the aeroplane.”
“Will she be gone for long?”
“I don’t know,” he responded gently. “A while, I expect.”
“Oh.” The small frown furrowing the child’s forehead told him that another question was coming — anything from why thesun was hot to whether dinosaurs had names. Instead: “Daddy, who was that lady who came yesterday. Was she your friend?”
“Well, sort of. She’s . . . someone I met.”
“She had nice hair,” Robyn conceded judiciously. “But she wasn’t as pretty as Auntie Julia. Or Auntie Debbie. Or Auntie Cassie.”
“Probably not.” Ah, the subjective assessment of a five-year-old child! “Now give Daddy a kiss and close your eyes. Time for Robyn’s sleepy-byes.”
The child puckered up her sweet pink mouth and planted a kiss on his cheek as he bent over her, then obediently closed her eyes. In a few moments, her deep, level breathing told him that she had fallen asleep.
He envied her the ability to do that. He usually didn’t have much trouble sleeping, but last night he had lain awake for a long time, even though he had been tired after his long day — thinking about Cassie. About the gamine teenager she had been, the woman she had become.
What might have been, if he’d been able to persuade her to stay? Would she have been happy? Could they have made a future together?
But there was no point thinking about it. She’d gone, as he had assumed she would. Sooner than he had expected — clearly the lure of adventure, of Australia, of an Australian who looked like a Greek god, had been strong.
He crept quietly from the room, leaving the door slightly ajar. Outside he paused for a moment, listening to be sure that Robyn was settled. The soft sound of her breathing assured him.
He nodded and walked down the stairs. A cup of coffee and a good book — with his fingers crossed that there would be no emergency calls.
* * *
The ‘shindig’ was a fabulous affair. Dinner was served in the Art Deco dining room — a starter of Jerusalem artichokes with crème fraiche and bronze fennel, followed by tender breast of duck with apricot and lavender, and a stunning desert of chestnut truffle with caramelised pear and rum.
There followed a charity auction. Dougie bid enthusiastically for several items. “Why on earth do you want that?” Cassie murmured as he bid for a football signed by the Chelsea football team.
“Why not?” he countered, grinning. “It’ll look great in my trophy room.”
She laughed, shaking her head. He didn’t win the bid, nor did he for the golf lessons he wouldn’t have been able to take up. Anyway, he had never shown the slightest inclination to play golf.
He did win the right to have his name used for a character in a children’s book, which he thought was hilarious, especially when he found out that the character was a cowardly dragon.
After the auction, there was dancing. She felt like a million dollars, twirling around the floor with him. He was a surprisingly good dancer for such a big man, and he looked superb in his immaculately tailored dinner jacket, his blond hair gleaming in the light from the ornate chandeliers swinging from the high ceiling.
She couldn’t help but notice how much attention he was attracting from many of the women in the room. If she wasn’t with him, she was quite sure that one of them would have been accompanying him up to his room later.
* * *
Two days later she saw him off from Heathrow.
“Are you sure you won’t come back with me?” he asked as they strolled across the concourse to the check-in desk.
She shook her head. “I promised to stay for Tom and Vicky’s wedding. Besides, I haven’t got my passport with me.”
Had that been a deliberate omission, to ensure that she wasn’t lured into making a decision by spending five days in his charismatic company?
“Well, I’ll be hoping to see you soon.” He swept her into one of his giant bear hugs and kissed her cheek. Then with a wave he was off towards the fast-track security gate. He had already spotted a very attractive blonde heading the same way, and in moments he had eased up beside her.
Cassie laughed, turned away, and headed for the train station and home.
* * *
Liam liked picking Robyn up from school whenever he could. It wasn’t just the joy of seeing her little face light up as she spotted him waiting at the gate, it also brought back so many happy memories from the years when he had attended Fowey Road Primary School himself.
