Chapter Twelve
Zennor opened her eyes to find Matt thigh deep in water. Despite her bravado, it was a welcome sight – if surreal.
She wanted not to look at him but it was impossible. Out of curiosity, she had to see what the years had done to that body she remembered so vividly – despite trying to forget.
She’d known he’d filled out from seeing him in his work T-shirt in the office but she wasn’t prepared for what lay beneath.
Seeing his body was like finding a treasure chest full of gold and jewels.
His chest was broad with faint tan lines at the neck and arms. His stomach was muscled, his hips sinking below the water as he waded towards her.
It was like Neptune coming to her rescue, not that she’d ever admit that.
She’d slipped into the water from the Miners’ Pool quite easily and swum round to Bosigran Cove, thinking she would haul out on the rocks, take off the tail, and then carry it to the beach.
However, already tired and fighting the cramps and cold, her limbs had been stiff and they didn’t react how she wanted them to.
Somehow, when she’d tried to squeeze between two rocks, the monofin had become wedged, and she hadn’t been able to take it off.
As she’d tried to get out, she’d jarred her back and was pretty sure she’d grazed her side.
There was a splash as Matt stumbled and cursed.
‘Be careful. The bottom’s uneven.’
‘I know. I’ve been in here before. It’s fine. You stay there.’
‘I don’t have much choice, do I?’
Matt waded forward, now up to his chest in water. He cursed again when his foot slipped but he was soon standing right below her, balancing on a large boulder. Her stomach did a somersault. The years rolled back as if they’d never happened, with all their bitterness and heartache.
‘How exactly did you end up in that position anyway?’ he asked, shaking his head.
‘How do you think? I swam.’
‘You could have got out on the hotel beach.’
How she wished she had … ‘The families had a drone and I felt I ought to swim all the way until they stopped filming and by the time I managed to make it round here, the tide was higher than I expected.’ The swim had also been a lot tougher than she’d anticipated but she didn’t want to let on to Matt, even though he was right.
Why did she have to decide to go for the performance of a lifetime when she could have waited until the kids were out of sight and got the hotel staff to help her back on to the beach? Too late now.
‘Well, let’s get you out of there. I could climb up and try to pull you free?’
‘Thanks,’ she said grudgingly, though she was immensely relieved he was here.
He was both the first and last person she’d ever have wanted to help her out in this situation.
First because if anyone knew what to do it would be him, and last because she never wanted to be beholden to him for anything.
‘OK. Hang on. Sorry.’
His rueful grin drew a smile from her against her better judgement. She quickly tamed it. ‘Be careful. It’s slippery and if something happens to you, we’ll both be in deep trouble.’
‘I’ll be careful.’
Matt clambered over the rocks and was soon on a level with Zennor. He crouched down beside her. ‘So, er – how does this thing work? I mean how have you got into it?’
‘With a lot of lube and a lot of effort.’
‘Lube?’
‘Don’t go there,’ she said desperately. ‘Please just help me out of here.’
He stood up again and scratched his chin. Zennor tried to avoid noticing the way his boxers clung to his hips.
‘I’ll have to lift you under your arms. I can’t get you out without – some contact and possibly some force.’
She gritted her teeth. ‘I realise that.’
‘I promise I’ll be as gentle as I can.’
Despite her predicament, and her resolve not to care, his soothing words made her stomach flip again and her emotions bubble to the surface.
The memories of the past, the effort of entertaining the kids and swimming, the genuine worry that she was stuck with the tide rising …
all had conspired to strip her of some of her resistance.
‘OK. I need to hoist you up somehow. You brace against the rocks and I’ll lift you.
’ He crouched behind her, inserting his arms under hers.
The irony of being back in Matt’s arms after so long was not lost on her, even in this horrible situation.
He’d bulked up and she could feel his muscles against her arms.
‘Ready? One, two, three.’
She pushed with all her might and Matt grunted as he lifted her up. At first, she didn’t budge and she sat back down with a groan of frustration.
‘We nearly got there. I’m sure we can free you.’ He patted her shoulder briefly and then said, ‘Ready? One, two …’
‘Three!’
Zennor felt herself hoisted into the air, scraping her arms as she emerged from the cleft in the rocks like a cork out of a bottle. It hurt momentarily but she was free.
‘I can’t stand!’ she said, flopping into the pool.
‘H-hold on to me.’
She was in his arms, supported by him, and looking straight into his face, red with the effort of lifting her whole weight. ‘Thank God. Thank you.’
‘You’re w-welcome,’ Matt said, breathing heavily. ‘And Zennor …’ He sounded agonised and she was sure he was going to say something that both of them would regret. She found she was shivering, but whether from the cold or the ordeal, she wasn’t sure.
‘Not now. Please. I just want my tail off.’
‘Not a phrase you hear every day …’ Matt said with a grin.
Zennor glared at him.
‘OK. Sorry, this isn’t funny in any way.’ He nodded and carefully, as if she were a fragile object, lowered her to sit on the rocks.
‘Do you want a hand with – taking it off?’ he asked, keeping his distance.
‘Yes, please. It’s very tight, even with the lube, but please, don’t drag my bikini bottoms down with it.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it. Let me help. I’ll be gentle, I promise.’ From the look in his eyes, no irony or joking, she knew he meant it. She was in a ridiculous situation and maybe – probably – eventually, she’d have got herself out of it. Maybe.
‘OK. Thanks,’ she said; then, ‘Shall we get on with it?’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ Matt said, his grin back in place.
With Matt tugging on the tail, she wriggled out of it and finally, at last, was able to stand on her two feet again.
Matt picked it up and whistled. ‘This is heavy.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Zennor said, almost feeling as if she could fly without the weight of the tail.
‘I’ll carry it back to the beach for you. Be careful.’
Soon she felt the firm sand of the cove under her feet.
Matt threw the tail on to the sand and sat next to it, huffing lightly. ‘Jeez. That was a lot trickier than I expected.’
‘Me too,’ Zennor said, sitting down next to him with a huge sigh of relief. The wind had freshened and now she had time to breathe, she was shivering with adrenaline.
Matt found his T-shirt and handed it to her. ‘You might want this to keep you warm.’
Too cold to refuse, she accepted it with ‘Thank you’.
The T-shirt was warm from lying in the sun on the rocks and as the soft cotton brushed her face, she couldn’t help but breathe in Matt’s scent, earthy and familiar. Slipping on his T-shirt was like slipping on a comfort blanket. She’d better not get used to the feeling.
‘I hope Freddie’s OK,’ she said, dragging her thoughts away from Matt. ‘Roo must be so worried.’
‘I’m sure he will be. I got into so many scrapes when I was little, though it must be scary for him. He’ll bounce back. Kids do.’
Zennor nodded. ‘Yeah. Thanks for coming, though I feel a bit of a numpty to be honest. I should have got out on the hotel beach but I wanted everything to be perfect. I should have brought a waterproof pouch with my phone, though God knows where I’d have hidden that.
I’ve done every reckless thing I tell people not to. ’
Matt looked at her with a grin. ‘Well, the circumstances were fairly unique. There’s no protocol for being a mermaid.’
‘There is, actually, and I didn’t even follow that.’ She leaned back with her hands splayed on the sand, thanking her stars for that feel of dry land. ‘I’m an idiot.’
‘That’s not how I’d describe you.’
His eyes raked over her, leaving a trail of heat wherever his gaze landed. His hair was drying, the ends fluffy, and his body glistened with droplets. ‘You were trying to be kind and do something special.’
His hand closed over hers, curving around her fingers.
It felt so warm, so safe – though safe probably wasn’t the word to describe the feelings surging through her.
Her nerve endings tingled and her stomach tightened with a knot of lust. How could Matt still do this to her body?
They were mature adults, not hormonal teenagers.
It would be so easy to take his hand and move closer; to kiss him and feel his body against hers again.
The drone buzzed in front of them. It must still be filming.
She pulled her fingers away and scrambled to her feet. ‘I’ll kill that bloody drone operator.’
Matt looked up. ‘Why are you bothered? I don’t think they saw anything.’
‘There was nothing to see!’ she said, wondering if the drone had captured that brief moment of contact. ‘Matt, I’m really grateful you were able to come along and – help me.’ She refused to say ‘rescue’ out loud. ‘It was kind of you but don’t think we’re going to start anything up.’
He folded his arms defensively. ‘Stop worrying. I can promise you that I’d never dream of starting anything between us ever again. In fact, I’d put the chances of seeing a real mermaid far higher than us ever getting back together.’
‘Were we ever together formally in the first place?’
‘Depends what you mean by formally,’ he shot back. ‘I thought that – even though we were young – we meant something to each other.’
‘We did. I … But it wasn’t our time. I went to uni and then – you just left to go travelling.’
‘Yeah. I did. You had a new life, and I didn’t want to hold you back. I couldn’t just hang around waiting for you to move on. I had to find something in my own life to replace – to focus on,’ he said.
Somehow, the conversation she’d dreaded having with Matt was happening: all the old feelings had been stirred up and were swirling around them again.
She couldn’t downplay the hurt she’d felt when she found he’d gone travelling – even if it had probably been for the best. It was a hurt that had now resurfaced, along with a desire that scared her with its intensity.
They’d barely held hands and she’d almost jumped on him.
If they’d kissed – who knew what would have happened next?
‘You never said a word about how much you felt before the wedding or when we were young. You let me go off to uni without even asking if we could make a go of things.’
He stared at her, lips parted, clearly dumbfounded by her outburst. The drone was high above, but even so, she could barely hear his reply.
‘Would it have made a difference if I had told you how I felt – when you first went to uni or when I found out you were engaged to Trev? You’d made your decisions and I’d have looked needy and desperate. I would never have held you back. You must understand that.’
‘I do, but you never even tried to explain why you took off. You just let me go right on and make—’ Mistakes, she might have added.
‘I only wanted you to be happy. You did love Trev,’ Matt said. He spoke softly yet with a sadness that made Zennor’s spirits sink. So many lost opportunities.
‘I did,’ she said, unable to deny the fact that she had been in love with Trev. Or thought she was. Those feelings had been powerful and real.
He folded his arms. ‘And would you really have broken it off if I’d come to you as soon as I was back home and found out you were engaged? What if I’d begged you not to marry him before the wedding? Would you have broken it off and run away with me?’ Matt scoffed. ‘Somehow I don’t think so.’
Zennor didn’t know how to reply. She’d been dazzled by Trev as soon as he walked into her life: he’d swept her off her feet.
‘There you go. Your mind was made up. If I’d said anything before the wedding, you’d have hated me and I’d only have made you unhappy.’
Zennor was goaded into reacting sharply. ‘But you did do those things. You did wreck my wedding and drive a wedge between me and Trev. You told everyone, all my friends and family, that you thought I was making the biggest mistake of my life – when – when it was too late.’
He scuffed the sand with his foot. ‘And I’m sorry. Don’t you think I’ve regretted the hurt I caused you every day since? I was selfish and stupid. I made the situation a hundred times worse and I will never forgive myself for that.’
Zennor was so surprised at his frankness that she couldn’t reply.
He sighed. ‘But the last thing I want to do is make your life difficult now. We’re going to be spending more time together at your office and the club and we can’t arrange our whole lives around trying to avoid each other.
Whether we like it or not, I think it would be better if we could get along without the drama. ’
‘I think that’s something we can agree on,’ Zennor murmured, still processing his blunt confession about his feelings and guilt.
‘And we do have common goals,’ he added. ‘Your office and the Surf Club renovation. We both want those to succeed.’
‘They’re bricks and mortar,’ Zennor muttered. ‘They’re not emotions. Not feelings. Outside of’ – she struggled for the word – ‘buildings, we don’t have anything in common any longer, do we?’
She was on dangerous ground. She was challenging him to tell her how he felt, even though she didn’t know what she’d do if he did.
Was she imagining a conflict in his eyes? Was she hoping he’d tell her that he still felt the same now?
Turning away, he picked up the tail. ‘I think we should get out of here so we can both warm up. I hope you’re not going to stop me from carrying your tail up to the cliff for you?’
Her throat was clogged with so many emotions, she could barely answer. ‘Do what you want. I never want to see the bloody thing again.’