Page 4 of The Cornish Cream Tea Holiday
Surprise that he’d been the subject of her photo flashed across his face, before he schooled his features and raised a supercilious eyebrow. She thought he straightened slightly, too, but decided she’d imagined it.
‘Enjoy your book,’ he said. And then, ‘Come on, Scooter. Let’s go and find you some breakfast.’ He gestured towardsthe cottage and the dog obediently led the way, with him following behind.
‘Shit.’ Thea flopped her Elly Griffiths onto the table, then realised she’d left it open, stretching the spine of the hardback, and carefully placed the bookmark inside and closed it properly. Already, this man was unsettling her to the point of carelessness. She should have gone inside the moment he appeared.
She made herself a fresh coffee, then returned to her seat and the story set in windswept Norfolk, which was doing a good job of taking her away from the beautiful view and the sun warming her legs. There were a few bangs from Oystercatcher Cottage, she thought she heard a shouted swear word, but she ignored the noise and was soon lost in the pages again.
‘Hello!’
Thea started, almost dropping her book, and looked up, into a pair of very blue eyes. This blond, smiling man didn’t look like a builder, in his pale green shirt with the sleeves neatly rolled up to the elbows and dark jeans, his hair tightly curled. He was tall, but his frame was leaner than the builder’s, and while he was undoubtedly handsome, his expression was immediately welcoming, rather than closed-off.
‘Hi.’ Thea closed her book and slid her feet off the chair she’d been using as a footstool.
‘I’m Finn,’ the man said, holding out his hand.
‘Thea,’ she replied, shaking it.
‘You’re here on holiday?’ he asked. ‘It’s a lovely spot.’ He glanced around him, as if he was seeing the cliffs and sea for the first time.
She nodded. ‘Three weeks. I’m on my own, though, so—’
Finn looked horrified. ‘Are you? I’m so sorry. Unless that … unless you planned it that way? That sounds terrible, doesn’t it? Let me start again.’ He grinned, and Thea couldn’t help laughing.
‘It wasn’t planned,’ she admitted. ‘I was supposed to be here with a friend, but a work thing came up and she had to stay behind.’
Finn blew air out through pursed lips. ‘Now that is something I know a little about: work getting in the way. Or I used to, anyway. At least it’s not because you’ve had a horrible break-up,’ he added, but then his horrified expression was back. ‘Unless—’
‘No, I haven’t,’ Thea said quickly. ‘Not at all.’
‘Thank God.’ He smiled, relieved. ‘Foot-in-mouth disaster number two averted. Have you met Ben yet?’
‘He’s Ben the builder?’ Thea asked, and was rewarded with a chuckle from Finn.
‘Now why didn’t I think of that? So youhavemet him.’
‘And his dog. It seems a bit unfair of the owner to make him work on a Sunday. And he told me he wasn’t being paid anything, but I can’t believethat’strue. That would be outrageous!’
Finn narrowed his eyes as he turned to look at Oystercatcher Cottage.
‘Oh shit,’ Thea muttered. She said to him, ‘You’rethe owner, aren’t you?’
‘What?’ Finn turned back to her. ‘No! Not me. I live with my girlfriend in town. Ben’s the owner.’
Thea frowned. ‘He’s …’
‘Doing the place up himself, so that comment about not being paid …’ Finn shook his head. ‘I must apologisefor my friend. He occasionally has a less than sunny disposition, but he’s generally a great guy. I’ll go in and drag him back outside, because it’s obvious that he didn’t introduce himself properly, and if you’re going to be rubbing along next to each other for three weeks, that has to change.’
‘He told me that whenever I took a selfie, I lost a bit of my soul,’ Thea admitted, because unlike Ben, Finn didn’t make her feel remotely self-conscious.
‘Did he really? Well, then. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’
‘You honestly don’t have to—’ Thea started, but Finn was already striding in through the front door of Oystercatcher Cottage without knocking, calling out for his friend. She heard the dog, Scooter, barking, then a conversation she couldn’t make out. She felt inexplicably nervous at the thought of Finn bringing Ben back outside to speak to her. There was no need: they might bump into each other occasionally while she was here, but it wasn’t as if they were sharing a house.
She fidgeted, silently cursing herself for allowing such a simple situation to overwhelm her. She was a grown woman with a good job and a fully fledged life plan – abusinessplan, that she was going to start implementing over the next few weeks, all being well – and yet the thought of having a conversation with an attractive, oblique man was making her palms clammy. Did she have croissant crumbs around her mouth? A dribble of coffee on her chin? Should she go inside and check? What would Ben think if he came outside with Finn and she wasn’t there? Would he think she’d run away? Why was she even worrying what he thought: whateitherof them thought?
She realised she could check her appearance in her phone camera, and that was what she was doing, pushing a strand of hair off her forehead, when Finn reappeared with Ben behind him, Scooter bringing up the rear.
Thea hurriedly put her phone down, but it was too late. Something like satisfaction flashed in Ben’s eyes: that he had caught her at it, she supposed.
