Page 52 of The Cornish Cream Tea Bookshop
‘You,’ she said, her words slightly breathless, ‘are a hopeless romantic. That makessomuch sense.’
‘Why would that make sense?’
Ollie walked backwards, more to encourage him to keep moving than to distance herself from him. ‘Because you’re always so kind, so generous. You’ve got so much …’ she was about to sayheart,but didn’t know if that would be OK ‘… warmth in you. It stands to reason that you’d believe in happy endings: in love.’
‘Don’t you?’ he asked.
‘Not recently,’ she said, and then, because she didn’t want to taint their morning with thoughts of Guy, she added, ‘and I think that, even if a legend does have a happy ending, there has to be tragedy somewhere along the way. It has to have emotional weight, otherwise how have these things lingered for so long? Kerensa’s handprint, the phantom battle at the church, the Lost Fisherman. They exist because of the emotion those people felt. It was too much for mere mortals to handle, so some of it got left behind.’
‘That makes sense,’ Max said, taking another step towards her. ‘But why does the emotion have to be negative? Aren’t there any legends in your book that talk about overwhelming, all-consuming love: a love that wasn’t lost or ripped away?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ollie admitted. ‘I haven’t read them all yet. But if thereis, then the lovers will have been through trials to get there. You can’t have an epic love story without challenges. Two people like each other, they fall in love, the end. There’s nothing epic about that.’
Max shook his head, and this time he stayed where he was. When he spoke, his voice was quieter. ‘I think that’s the most epic thing of all. When there are over six billion people on this rock, the fact that, over and over again, twopeople can find each other and experience a love so deep, so profound, that they’re desperate to spend the rest of their life – their one life on this earth – with that person. No other drama is needed.’
Ollie swallowed. His eyes seemed so bright in the gloom, as if they were a beacon she could always turn to, could find in the fog, to keep her safe. ‘I hadn’t thought about it like that,’ she whispered. ‘I had never—’
She stepped backwards, and her foot rolled over something, unbalancing her.
Max was there in a flash, gripping her arm, steadying her. Pain stabbed through her shoulder, and her wince was automatic. Max let go. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, I had no—’
‘It’s OK,’ she rushed, not wanting him to think that she didn’t like him touching her. ‘Just my stupid shoulder. What did I roll on, though?’ She bent down, the whistling wind and the crash of waves filling her ears, and then she saw it: a white and blue shell, its curves perfectly proportioned, its pearlescent surface gleaming, even though the sun was hidden. How could nature create something so beautiful? ‘Oh my God!’
Max stood in front of her. ‘You planted this.’
‘I did not! I wouldneverdo that. Do you really think I’d be able to navigate my way to this exact spot, to place it and then come back to it, with this sea fret going on?’
‘You admitted you’d been here earlier, to check you’d got the location right.’
‘Max,’ she said, laughing. ‘This is not a stitch-up. I swear on Henry’s life.’ Her dog, who had returned to them with his stick in his mouth, dropped it on the sand so he couldbark at her, then rushed towards Max. ‘No, Henry—’ she started, but an icy wave hit her so suddenly that the words were shocked out of her.
Max swore, pulling her forwards, but it was too late.
Under the cover of the sea fret, they’d got too close to the shallows, and a wave had snuck up and broken over her knees. She looked down to see water dripping off the hem of her coat in steady rivulets. She was already beginning to shiver.
‘We need to go now,’ Max said. ‘You need to get dry, get warmed up.’
‘I’m about thirty minutes from here,’ she replied, her teeth chattering.
‘We’ll quickstep it.’ He put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side as they started walking. ‘Make it in twenty-five.’
‘I didn’t plant that shell, Max. I wouldn’t know where to get one from.’
‘I know that really. But it’s just … it’s crazy, isn’t it?’
Ollie shrugged. ‘Or whoever wrote the book of legends found these beautiful, unusual shells on this beach,’ she held up their found treasure, ‘and created a story to fit the discovery.’
Max glanced down at her. ‘Don’t ruin it,’ he murmured, and planted a kiss on her forehead. ‘Come on, let’s step it up a gear. I don’t want to think about how cold your feet are right now.’
‘They’re a bit chilly,’ Ollie admitted. What she didn’t add was that, after his kiss, as brief and platonic as it had been, she was already beginning to feel warmer.
It felt a little bit strange and a whole lot intimate having Max in her home.
She tried seeing it from his perspective: the cool colours and clean lines, mostly tidy, but with a little bit of her personality thrust into each space; her latest read,Ten Yearsby Pernille Hughes, on the table next to the sofa; aFood for the Soulcookbook open at the ‘Bountiful Brunch’ recipe on her book stand in the kitchen; the weighty Christmas garlands draped over everything.
‘Make yourself a coffee, if you want.’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ he said. ‘Just go and get in a hot shower.’
