Chapter Forty-Two
Zennor shaded her eyes, searching the water, which shimmered under the evening sun. The light was at an angle that made the rock pool look the deepest agate and almost black. Her heart pounded.
There. There. It was Matt sculling on his back in the pool, gazing up at the sky.
Fighting back tears of relief that she’d found him, she scrambled down the cliff path, slipping on loose pebbles and finally dropping the last foot on to powdery sand. The surf boomed in the distance.
She called him as she ran towards the pool. ‘Matt!’
Hearing her, he swam to the side of the pool and hauled himself on to the rocks. Her legs buckled.
There were droplets of water in the tiny hairs on his chest and his nipples were tight with the cold.
She tried to focus on his face. With his blond hair wet and slicked back, and his torso tanned light gold, he might have been a young sea god or a statue of Neptune.
Even though she’d found him, she dreaded that their last chance might have gone after both of them had managed to sabotage their shot at happiness so many times.
She was breathing so hard, she could barely speak. ‘I – th-thought you’d gone for good.’
‘I was on my way north. I just packed my bags and left. I was going to drive until I couldn’t drive any longer and just book into a hotel while I thought what to do next.’
‘You didn’t have a plan?’
‘No. I – haven’t been in the planning mood. I haven’t known what to do with myself since you walked out of Sybil’s.’
‘I haven’t known what to do with myself either,’ Zennor said, still processing this glorious figure here in front of her. She wasn’t too late after all. ‘Why did you stop here?’
‘I felt I wasn’t in a fit state to drive after saying goodbye to Sybil and seeing your mum. I needed to clear my head and calm down the only way I knew how: cold water.’
Zennor sighed in relief. ‘Thank God you did. I was frantic that I’d lost you!’
‘Lost me? I thought that was what you wanted, for me to get out of your life. I’ve caused you so much trouble and worry.
I decided that the only thing to do was leave Cornwall and accept being miserable without you.
’ He stared at her with such intensity that she shivered.
‘So … are you going to stay out there or are you going to come in here with me?’
The pool sparkled with promise, like the light of hope in Matt’s eyes and in her heart.
‘B-but I – don’t have my swimsuit.’
‘That never stopped you before.’ He smiled.
‘Someone might come along …’
‘You know they won’t and what will they find if they do? Two people swimming in a pool.’
‘I – Oh, what have I got to lose?’ In an instant, she’d pulled off her sweatshirt and T-shirt in one go and was slipping out of her jeans.
Meanwhile, Matt was back in the pool, watching her.
When she was down to her bra and knickers, she sat on the edge. The chilly water took her breath away but left the heat of desire burning as fiercely as ever.
She swam to Matt and trod water a foot away from him, breathing hard.
‘What’s changed?’ he asked. ‘I’m still the same person who hurt you even if he didn’t mean to. Still the same person who’s so sorry he can’t stop saying it.’
‘Then please stop,’ she said. ‘I’m here because nothing has changed except that time has passed and now – now I realise we are the right people in the right place at the right moment. And now I’m worried it’s too late again because I have also fucked up so badly.’
‘Join the club. Look – let’s stop treading water. Let’s get our feet on dry land.’
He suddenly put his feet down and picked her up in his arms, supporting her easily in the water. She felt so safe, even in the pool’s cold embrace – she was so in her element and at peace.
‘You could stand up all along.’
‘Yeah.’ With a smile that lit up his gorgeous eyes, he asked, ‘Can I kiss you?’
‘Why are you even asking?’
‘Because I want to make sure that, from now on, what I want is what you want. Not assume and not take over.’ He sounded so serious that she felt a rush of tenderness for him.
‘I appreciate the good intention but you won’t keep that up,’ she said.
‘We’ll both carry on getting things wrong.
We’re not perfect. You be you and I’ll be me and we’ll just have to carry on getting it wrong, having blazing rows, and making up.
That’s the way we roll and what keeps us alive,’ she said, loving the feeling of weightlessness and freedom that came from being cradled in his arms in the water, even if she was shivering with the cold.
‘It doesn’t sound like the basis for a great long-term relationship …’
‘It’s kept us in love for a long time. It’s a fire that’s never gone out, and one that’s meant we couldn’t keep away from each other. Let’s honour that now. The universe must intend us to be together, however imperfectly.’
‘But seriously, I will try. I will give you credit for the brilliant, strong woman you are, who can take care of herself.’
‘I would still like to be taken care of sometimes,’ she said softly, ‘by you.’
Matt’s eyes lit with joy and when he kissed her, the joy of them finally being together lifted her high as if she could soar into the sky with him.
A while later, after they’d warmed up – in the only way that two dripping wet, half-naked people could – and got dressed, Matt made a fire from driftwood and the flames crackled into life.
‘I’m impressed you have a fire-lighting kit in your rucksack,’ she said, sitting in his arms, basking in the glow of the flames.
These flames were gentle and benign, not like the raging ones that almost took Sybil from her.
She shuddered, thinking of how she’d almost lost her friend.
She could forgive her. Anything else only sucked the life out of both of them.
‘I’m always prepared for a romantic evening on the beach with the woman I love.’
Her heart did a hundred somersaults. ‘Is it possible to be this happy? I never thought we could. Everything always seemed to be the wrong time, the wrong place, and then I met Trev … I’ve often thought,’ she said, ‘that Trev was like a rocket exploding in the sky in front of me. I couldn’t see beyond him for a while.
He blotted out the stars – the things that shone brightly forever. Like you.’
‘I was always out there,’ Matt said, holding her hand.
‘Now I know that, but at the time, I had to find out for myself.’
He held her gaze intently. ‘I’ve come to realise that. I’m glad now that I didn’t ask you to marry me when we were young. I knew I wasn’t good enough for you then. It wouldn’t have worked, but I could see us growing old together. That scared me too.’
Was this Matt? Irritating, annoying, persistent Matt, the thorn in her side that had been lodged forever? ‘Can you see us growing old together now?’ she asked playfully.
‘Oh, yes. I can see us riding along the Wharf in our mobility scooters, waving our walking sticks at the seagulls stealing our ninety-nines.’
She gasped in mock outrage. ‘No way! I can see us racing in the veterans Surf Lifeguard championships and beating all the youngsters.’
‘That too,’ Matt said, laughing.
Zennor was ready to burst with happiness. ‘Now, shall we go and amaze and delight a lot of people who probably hoped this might happen all along?’
‘Yes, but not right now …’ He ran the tip of his finger along the goosebumps on her arm. ‘That fire still has some life in it and, in my professional opinion as a trained surf rescuer, I think we need to warm up a bit more.’