Page 2 of Christmas at Sturcombe Bay
“Okay, honey-bun.” Julia’s voice was gentle, calming. “Drive safely.”
“See you in a couple of hours.”
Which, apart from a bit of a hold up at roadworks outside Taunton, was a pretty good estimate.
The view as she drove down through the Devon countryside was stunning — gently rolling hills of lush green grass where cows grazed contentedly, ignoring her as she passed, ploughed fields dotted with huge bales of golden hay like giant sausage rolls, and trees just beginning to drop the first leaves of autumn.
And as she approached Sturcombe she caught glimpses of the sea, a vivid shining blue beneath a high blue sky dotted with a few wisps of white cloud.
But it was all wasted on her. All she could think of was getting to Julia’s. She ignored the first turn-off for the village and took the second, down past the shops and the quaint old church, and turned right onto the lane behind the Memorial Gardens.
The lane led past the white frontage of the old Carleton Hotel. A little further on was a low stone wall surrounding a paved front yard, with a wooden table and chairs and a few half-barrel tubs filled with flowers.
To one side was the house — a rambling, quirky, ivy-clad L-shaped cottage built of the local grey stone. You could see that it had once been three cottages, but they had been knocked together many years ago. The roof-line was a jumble of square chimneys and dormers, every window a different size and a different level.
As she turned in through the gate the front door flew open and Julia raced out, dragging open the car door before Jess had even got her seatbelt off. The hug from her twin was what started the tears pouring down her cheeks again, soaking the shoulder of Julia’s sweater.
“Oh, honey. No, don’t say a word. Come on inside and sit down, have a cup of coffee, then you can tell me everything. No one else is home right now, so we can be quite private.”
Jess hiccupped and scrubbed her hand across her eyes. She let Julia link her arm into hers to draw her inside.
She had always liked the Ellis’s family home. Julia’s husband, Luke, was a vet, and so were both his parents and his brother. They had horses, dogs, a cat and a couple of rabbits which belonged to Julia’s seven-year-old son Ben and Robyn, her five-year-old niece.
“Go on through into the sitting room,” Julia urged. “I’ll put the coffee on.”
The sitting room was comfortable and unpretentious, with rough white-painted walls and dark oak beams across the low ceiling. The big stone fireplace was empty apart from a few withered flowers, and the long sofas facing it were piled with mismatched cushions. An ancient wooden cabin trunk served as a coffee table, but the large television was uncompromisingly modern.
One of the sofas was occupied by an elderly springer spaniel who showed no sign of being willing to move, so Jess sat on the other. Julia brought in two mugs of coffee and a plate of chocolate brownies. She set them down on the cabin trunk, and sat down next to the spaniel, who lifted her head to grumble mildly then went back to sleep.
“Now, tell me what’s happened.”
Jess huffed out a heavy breath, trying to ease the tension in her jaw. “Okay. Well, you remember last year I found out he was using one of those online sites to hook up with women? And he swore he’d never do it again?”
“But he did?”
Jess nodded. “He’d been acting a bit weird with his phone for the past few weeks, maybe longer, but that’s when I really noticed it. At first I thought maybe it was something about the wedding, some kind of secret surprise he was planning.”
She took a sip of her coffee, holding it carefully because her hands were shaking so much.
“Then this morning he’d answered a call when he first woke up, and when he went into the bathroom he forgot to turn the phone off. When it pinged . . . I was still half asleep, and I picked it up without thinking.”
“And there was a message from a woman on the same site?”
“There were more than a dozen, from several different women. And that’s not the worst of it.” She took a pause, struggling to force the words past the constriction in her throat. “I checked the messages he’d sent. And there were dick pics.”
“What?”
“Uh-huh.”
Julia’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “That’s . . . that’s . . .”
“Quite. So, the wedding’s off.” Oh dammit, she was crying again. “It’s all off.”
“Oh, love.” Julia moved quickly to wrap her arms around her sister. “That’s awful.”
Jess cuffed away the tears. “Not as awful as being married to that despicable low-life gutter rat.”
“Too right.” Julia’s voice was uncharacteristically fierce. “I’m going to have to kill him.”
