Page 45 of The Cornish Cream Tea Holiday
‘I’d like that,’ Thea said. ‘Thank you.’
Once they’d gone, Finn flopped back on the sand, his creativity exhausted. Ben lay back on his elbows, and Thea tried not to look at the band of flat, tanned stomach that was visible where his T-shirt rode up.
‘I think we’ve adopted each other,’ Meredith said, returning to their earlier conversation. ‘It’s not exactly a chore, hanging out with you.’
‘Likewise,’ Thea replied, drawing patterns in the sandwith her toe, hiding her elation at Meredith’s compliment. ‘Anyway, now I’ve been to a cook-off, taken part in this competition, met some celebrities and had an unpleasant encounter with a landlord.’
‘What?’ Ben’s voice was sharp. ‘While you’ve been in Cornwall? Was this somewhere you were looking at for the bookshop?’
She hadn’t meant to say that: why had it come out?
‘Yes,’ she murmured, less defiant now. ‘That was the appointment I mentioned to you the other day. I was feeling pretty down about it, but then Meredith and I went to Padstow, and you were so kind the other night, when we were walking home from the restaurant.’
‘Who was it?’ Ben asked. ‘The landlord.’
‘He was called Jamie Scable. He’s got an empty building on Main Street, a little way down from Cornish Keepsakes. It wasn’t perfect, but I’ve got a budget to stick to, and a lot of my ideas overspill it. But he didn’t …’ She took a deep breath. She wouldn’t let the feelings from that day overwhelm her again. ‘He didn’t think it would work.’
‘What? He didn’t think your bookshop would work?’ Ben’s voice was quiet and steady. Finn shot him a glance.
‘He said it was a pie in the sky idea,’ Thea admitted. ‘That it wouldn’t last more than a few months, and then he’d have to start the whole process again: the paperwork; the effort of finding someone else to rent it to.’
‘What the hell does he know about it?’ Finn asked. ‘He’s a landlord, I assume, rather than your business advisor?’
‘Exactly,’ Thea said. ‘Anyway, I can’t let him put me off. That can’t be the only available commercial property around here, and as you say, it’s not up to him.’ She took a sip ofher iced mocha, aware of the three pairs of eyes on her. ‘The only thing is, it’s really hard, I’ve discovered, when it’s your absolute dream. A part of me has always found it difficult to believe it could actually happen, I suppose. So then, when people throw doubts at you, it’s easy to catch hold of them.’
Ben scooted closer to her. He had some grains of sand stuck to his cheek, in the stubble that was mostly brown but sometimes glinted gold in the sunlight. His eyelashes were long and glossy and, as they were sitting facing the sea, the sun setting off on its daily descent towards the horizon, she could see so many colours amongst the soft brown of his eyes: green and amber, flecks of blue.
‘But the way you spoke about it the other night,’ he said quietly. ‘Youdobelieve in it, don’t you? Despite what this guy, Jamie, said. You really believe that you can find the perfect place and set it up, run it the way you’ve been imagining? You can picture yourself doing it?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said instantly, because she had fantasised about it so often: helping a grandmother pick out books for her grandchildren who were coming to stay; offering suggestions to a woman who had just finished the best romcom she’d ever read and wanted more like it; even those tricky customers who knew the cover was blue and that it was a thriller, that the title contained the word ‘Girl’ or ‘Woman’ or maybe even ‘Night’, and being able to whittle down the possibilities and find it for them. She had imagined it so many times, played through so many scenarios, that she sometimes got a shock when she remembered she was still a library assistant. ‘Yes, I believe in it,’ she said again. ‘I can picture myself doing it.’
Ben nodded. His legs were drawn up, his wrists restingon his knees. His forearms were tanned, with a light dusting of brown hair, and her mind tripped back to what Meredith had said in Padstow. She wished, for just a second, that he had taken his shirt off while they were pretending they could make sand sculptures.
‘Well then,’ he said, bringing her out of her less-than-appropriate reverie. ‘If you believe in it, then you should believe in yourself, too. Fuck Jamie Scable, and anyone who’s against you. They’re not worth a second of your time.’
