A Fresh Start at Polkerran Point (The Little Cornish Cove #4)
Chapter One
The One When Kate Decides to Go West
The Point Hotel, nestled in its embrace of tall evergreens above the quaint Cornish fishing village of Polkerran Point, exuded elegance, as did the dark-haired woman emerging from the entrance with a brisk step.
Unlike the hotel, however, Kate Stretton’s aura concealed a tendency towards clumsiness, which she’d tried hard to overcome since childhood, and never quite mastered.
Pausing under the striking portico of the building, she fished in her designer clutch for her keys, which fell to the floor with a clatter. Rolling her eyes, she retrieved the keyring and walked carefully down the steps, relieved to have the final interview over.
Could this – at last – be the completion of the puzzle, one she’d laboured over for more than a year? Who knew extracting oneself from a failed marriage could be more complex than planning the wedding in the first place?
Driving out of the beautifully landscaped hotel grounds, Kate eased the car down the winding hill into the village, too focused on avoiding scraping the paintwork on the cottages leaning on each other either side of the narrow lane to appreciate her surroundings. Once she’d parked up on the harbourside, however, and exited the car into the crisp January air, she took an appreciative look around.
The wintry skies over Polkerran Point were the palest of blues, dusted with gossamer wisps of cloud stretching their tendrils towards the horizon. Sea birds soared and dived in the wake of a small fishing boat as it approached the harbour, their plaintive cries mingling with the staccato hammering emanating from a nearby boatyard.
Turning around, Kate leaned against the harbour wall as a brisk breeze whipped a strand of hair from her neatly fastened chignon. She tucked it behind her ear, her keen gaze skimming over pastel-painted cottages huddled in clusters on the steep hillside, as smoke curled from various chimneys, spiralling upwards against the stark background of exposed cliffs and winter-stripped branches.
‘Kate! Over here!’
Wheeling around, she waved at her friend, Anna Seymour – a Polkerran resident – and set off across the street, picking her way carefully over the uneven cobbles in her high heels.
‘So, how’d it go?’ Anna led the way into Karma, a smart coffee shop nearby.
‘They’ve offered me the role.’
‘Fantastic!’
Anna’s hazel eyes sparkled with delight as they ordered drinks, and once they’d settled onto the squashy sofas positioned in the window, she leaned forward eagerly.
‘You’ll take it? You could do the job stood on your head.’
Which was precisely why Kate was dithering about whether to accept.
‘Ah.’ Anna picked up her mug. ‘You’re thinking it might not be enough of a challenge.’
‘I was so enticed by the thought. Moving to this gorgeous place.’ Kate waved a manicured hand at the window. ‘A new beginning and a fresh perspective for Mollie – a chance for her to escape that awful school.’ She picked up her own mug. ‘When you showed me the ad in December, it felt as though it was meant to be.’
The two women had been good friends ever since Kate had taken Anna on as a project manager at an event co-ordination company in Yorkshire, and Kate missed her friend very much when she’d inherited a property in Cornwall and made her own fresh start four hundred miles away. When Kate finally visited Polkerran Point, for Anna’s marriage to Oliver Seymour just a month ago, she’d been charmed by its quiet winter beauty.
‘But you don’t have to do the job for ever. It’s just a means to an end, to enable you to start over, remember?’
It was true, and it wasn’t as if the slightly lower salary was a problem. The marital home – an extensive property on the outskirts of Harrogate – had sold a year ago and Kate could easily afford a house when the time came, especially as she’d also leapt at the chance to take a generous package from her company when they’d been restructuring.
‘When do they want you to start?’
‘Yesterday!’ Amusement filled Kate’s attractive features. ‘They’re flexible, saying I can work from Yorkshire initially, but as you know, being an event manager isn’t something that can be done remotely. No, if I’m going to do this, I need to get down here. The school break in February will be the best time for Molls to switch.’ Kate sipped her coffee, eyeing Anna over the rim of her mug. ‘It was nice staying up at the hotel last night, but I prefer your place.’
Anna ran a bed and breakfast from her home at Westerleigh Cottage – a slight misnomer. For all its charm and character, it was a substantial house, perched on an outcrop of rocks near the entrance to Polkerran’s crescent-shaped bay.
With an apologetic smile, Anna nestled back into her seat. ‘I’m not usually full in January, but this walking group has been coming every year. I would have asked you up there for coffee, but there’s no way we’d have survived the morning without interruption.’
‘How so?’
Anna looked over as the coffee shop door opened. ‘One of the unanticipated charms of the cove, as people around here refer to it. Morning, Mrs Lovelace.’
An elderly lady with white curls framing a pleasant, weathered face came over, a shopping basket on her arm.
‘There you be, my lovely. Jeannie said as you’m be out this mornin’.’ She eyed Kate with curiosity, and she bore with the scrutiny.
‘This is an old friend of mine, Mrs Lovelace: Kate.’
The lady nodded. ‘You’m was at the church for the wedding, young’un. I remembers saying to my mate, Cleggie. That maid’ll be regretting they heels by nightfall.’
Kate laughed. ‘You were quite right. I did.’
Mrs Lovelace’s bright eyes fell upon Kate’s much cherished Laboutins.
‘And I haven’t learned my lesson.’ She smiled warmly at the elderly lady as her gaze took in Kate’s business attire. ‘I’ve been for an interview, Mrs Lovelace. Otherwise, I’d probably be in my wellies.’
‘Kate’s been offered the job of Event Manager at the hotel,’ Anna interjected.
Mrs Lovelace hitched the basket more firmly onto her arm. ‘Tha’s right. Those people at the posh hotel would expect no less. My Jeannie works there in the down season. Has to put her Devon clothes on, she does. Well now, my lovelies. Best be getting on. Time waits for no jam.’
The lady bid them farewell and headed to the counter, and Kate eyed Anna in confusion.
‘Mrs L has her own special vocabulary.’
Grinning, Kate got to her feet. ‘Fair enough. Okay, I’d best head off too.’
Anna followed Kate from the cafe, chattering about her recent honeymoon in Switzerland and speaking fondly of Oliver – who was a social historian and author – and his new book contract.
‘Let me know what you decide and if you need a couple of rooms in the short term.’ Anna hugged her fiercely when they reached the car and, for some reason, emotion pricked Kate’s eyes. She needed to be around people like Anna, those who were genuinely good at heart. ‘I wish you’d been able to stay longer. I barely saw you at the wedding, there was so much happening.’
‘I know. Sorry it’s short and sweet this time.’ Kate opened the car door and tossed her bag onto the passenger seat, before turning back for one last look around. ‘I suppose I should’ve brought Mollie with me, but I didn’t need any teenage negativity just now.’
Anna waved her off, but as Kate drove along the harbour front and took the road uphill out of the village, she reflected on her daughter. For years, every decision she’d made had been centred around Mollie and what was best for her – even sticking it out in a long-dead marriage – until the final straw came.
The habitual anger washed over Kate as Hugo’s deception flared into focus, and her grip tightened on the wheel momentarily, before she drew in a calming breath.
‘Let it go, let it go,’ she sang tunefully, determined to harness the refrain her daughter had sung repeatedly during her old Frozen obsession. ‘Think of Mollie instead.’
It was the perfect distraction and, as Kate reached the main road, she turned her mind to weighing up the suitability of this move and its potential impact on her mercurial, but also extremely smart, thirteen-year-old daughter.
A couple of weeks later, with Mollie’s private school broken up for the fortnight’s break, Kate repeated the journey south, this time with her daughter’s blessing and all ties severed. Neither of them had been sorry to close the door for the last time on the furnished flat they’d been renting for the last year.
Dropping Mollie and Podge – their portly, tabby rescue cat – at her parents’ in Bristol, Kate hugged her daughter tightly as they said farewell.
‘I’ll call this evening. Are you sure you’ll be okay?’
‘Muuuum!’ Mollie had protested, wriggling out of the embrace. ‘I’m thirteen, not three. You know I love Glammie and Glamps. We’ve already agreed how much time I can spend on my phone. Besides, Glammie wants me to teach her how to make reels. It’s only a week and they’ll be bringing me down.’
‘I hope I’ve done the right thing, love. You’ve never even been to Cornwall and—’
‘Google images, Insta, YouTube.’ Mollie ticked them off on her fingers. ‘This place is a seaside town, isn’t it? Water, boats, seagulls. I doubt there’ll be anything exciting. Besides, you’ve been binge watching Doc Martin and Beyond Paradise since you came back from Anna’s wedding. I get it.’
Feeling she’d got the message too, Kate started the engine. Instinctively, she glanced in the rear-view mirror as she reached the junction from her parents’ street, knowing Mollie would have gone inside without a second thought.
But her daughter stood on the pavement, watching as the car moved away, and unexpected emotion caught in Kate’s throat.
‘Get a grip,’ she silently admonished as she turned out of the road. ‘You’re the grown up, remember?’
The first morning in the new job passed in a blur, which was how Kate liked it, but after a hurried lunch, she followed her new colleagues down the marble-tiled entrance hall to a meeting of all the office-based staff, which apparently took place on the second Monday of every month.
‘We use the private dining room,’ one of them said to Kate as she led the way.
Private, Kate mused to herself as she took a seat, was a tad misleading. Although the room was separated from the restaurant by a thick wall, there was a large arched Georgian-style window in the centre of it, and despite the leafy plants on its sill, from where Kate sat, there was a clear view of the centre of the dining area.
Kate paid careful attention to the agenda – despite it covering many topics she had no familiarity with yet – and made notes in the margin to follow up on later, but as the next slide changed, something caught her eye in the adjacent room.
A man with dark red hair had taken a seat at a table not too far away. Kate ducked her head, staring at the page of notes, her brow furrowing. She had a feeling she’d seen him before, but he hadn’t been a wedding guest, she was certain…
Surreptitiously, she raised her head. If she scooted slightly to the right, he was hidden from view behind the central arrangement on the sill. Ten seconds later, Kate eased back to the left.
The man had placed a laptop on the table and, as she watched, he paused to take a sip of water before his thoughtful gaze returned to the screen. There was an air of melancholy about him that instantly drew Kate’s curiosity, and she continued to observe him discreetly as he turned his head to where the windows gave out onto a balcony.
He had a handsome profile, with a chiselled jawline, a straight nose and a layered fringe of hair which he brushed aside, and—
A sharp nudge of her arm, and Kate swung around to look at the young woman beside her.
‘You’re on,’ she said quietly.
The hotel manager continued. ‘As I was saying, it’s time to introduce our new member of staff. Kate, would you like to come up front?’
Summoning her most professional smile, Kate sent a final glance towards the Georgian window as she joined the manager. It was a long time since she’d noticed a man in the way she’d admired the one in the restaurant.
Was there something about the Cornish air, and if so, would it change her for ever?