Page 23 of Christmas at Sturcombe Bay
They both laughed, and Shelley could feel herself relaxing, beginning to enjoy herself.
“Do you miss your job, flying aeroplanes?” she asked.
“Some elements of it.” He took a bite of his scone. “Flying jets is the most amazing feeling. I flew Hornets, beautiful machines. They can reach a speed of almost Mach two, and climb to fifty thousand feet.”
“What’s Mach two?” She felt safe asking that — it sounded like something technical which an ordinary person wouldn’t be expected to know.
“Twice the speed of sound. That would be fifteen hundred miles an hour. The Hornet can do around twelve hundred.”
“Phew, that’s fast!” She laughed. “Does it have guns and missiles and things?”
“Of course — it’s a fighter. It can take Sidewinders, Sparrows and Mavericks — those are missiles. And it’s got a Vulcan rotary canon with a firing rate of up to six thousand rounds per minute.”
Her eyes widened. “Did you . . . did you ever have to fire them?”
A shadow crossed his face, and she saw memories there of a darkness he wanted to forget. “A couple of times. But mostly we flew defence — securing Canada’s airspace.”
“It sounds really exciting. Why did you leave?”
He laughed dryly. “Flying those things is a young man’s game. If I’d signed on for another tour, I’d have likely been shunted into a desk job, and that’s not my thing. But enough about me.” He spread the second half of his scone. “What about you? Tell me about your life.”
A flicker of an edgy smile. “Oh, there’s not much to tell. I’ve never done anything exciting.”
“Were you born here? In Sturcombe? Or in Devon, eh?”
“No.”
“Where then?” He smiled encouragingly. “I assume you didn’t just spring up out of the ground like a daffodil.”
That dragged a laugh from her, though she could feel the familiar knots twisting in her stomach. “No . . . I was born in London.”
“But you didn’t want to stay there?”
“No. I like it here. The sea and the beach and the countryside.” She paused to pour the tea, taking the moment to find a new topic of conversation. “Is England very different to Canada?”
To her relief he accepted the change of subject without question. “Well, Canada’s a lot bigger, obviously. And there’s some fantastic scenery — a lot of it’s really wild. And there’s alotof lakes — some figures put it at nearly two million.”
Her eyes widened. “That many?”
“Uh-huh. But England has some very pretty scenery, too, though obviously on a much smaller scale. And some things are similar — most places feel safe, the cops are friendly. Though it took me a while to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road.”
“The wrong side?” she protested, laughingly indignant.
“Well, the other side, I guess.” He picked up his teacup. “And like you Brits, we’re fond of our tea.”
“And you play ice-hockey instead of football.”
“That’s right. Well, we do play football — we call it soccer. We’re not in the top rank, though we have been in the World Cup a couple of times. And it’s not nearly so popular as it is here.”
They chatted easily as they ate their scones. So long as they kept well away from any questions about her past, Shelley felt comfortable. She liked listening to him talk — he had a deep,soft voice, with that fascinating Canadian accent. And when he laughed . . .
“Well, that was good.” At last Alex set down his teacup and smiled at her across the table. “Thank you for keeping a lonely Canadian company.”
“Oh . . .” She returned the smile. “That’s okay.”
“I was just wondering . . . If you have a day off, maybe we could take a drive up to the moors? It’s a long time since I’ve been up there. I used to love going up to see the ponies.”
“Uh . . .”
