Chapter Nine
Flynn had considered offering Lara a lift to the Waterwheel Café on the Harley but was pretty sure she’d have said no. In the end she asked him to meet her there, as she had some shopping to do beforehand.
The village of Thorndale was about two miles from the gates of the castle.
In summer, so he’d been told, there was a lovely walk to it across footpaths, but on a soggy late November day, Flynn didn’t fancy getting soaked.
There wasn’t much to see anyway, with the fells hidden beneath low clouds as he rode to the café.
Newquay felt like a capital city compared to Thorndale, whose slate-roofed cottages were clustered around a tiny village green. At its heart lay the church, shop and pub, with the café situated on the road out of the village towards the dramatic lake and mountains of Wast Water.
As its name implied, the café had clearly once been a watermill, and its wheel was still in place over the beck, which tumbled down the valley.
Flynn thought it was all very picturesque as he carried his helmet into the café.
He hadn’t spotted Lara’s vintage Land Rover in the car park so didn’t expect to see her yet.
He was greeted inside by a young server with red streaks in her hair.
‘Just me and a friend,’ he said, when she asked how many the table was for.
‘OK. Table for two. Can I get you a drink while you wait?’
‘Thanks. I’ll have a cappuccino, please.’
‘No problem.’
The place was half-full and Flynn took out his phone to check there were no urgent messages.
He noticed a couple of the waiting staff steal a look at him when they thought he wasn’t watching.
Some people seemed to regard bikers as a threat and it amused him to think of their reaction if they knew he had a responsible position in the employ of the local aristocrats.
The waitress with the red streaks brought his coffee. ‘Here you go.’
‘Thanks.’
She didn’t leave. ‘I – er – saw your bike outside.’
‘You did?’
‘Yeah. Actually, I heard it before I saw it. My cousin has a Harley. Used to take me on the back of it sometimes.’
Now Flynn knew the reason for her interest in him. She wasn’t wary of him, she was interested in his bike, which was much more palatable.
‘Ever thought of learning to ride yourself?’ he asked.
She snorted. ‘Me? No way. I don’t have the cash to buy a bike or pay for the lessons even if I wanted to.’
‘Molly.’ An older woman, who seemed to be in charge, had appeared at the table. ‘Do you mind helping out at the door? We have customers waiting for a table.’
‘Sorry,’ Molly said with a grimace. ‘Coming.’
One of those customers proved to be Lara. She waved at Flynn and his heart gave a schoolboyish skip of pleasure. He heard her explain to Molly that her friend was already in the café before making her way over.
‘It’s warm in here,’ Lara said, with a nod to the wood burner in the corner of the café.
‘Very cosy,’ Flynn replied, while she unwound a scarf from her neck and took off a puffa jacket.
Her cheeks were tinged rose pink, either from the cold or from rushing about doing her errands.
Her neck was lovely too – had he ever admired a neck before?
And her eyes were beautiful. What was happening?
Oblivious to the desire surging through him, she sat down and nodded at his cup. ‘How long have you been here?’
‘Um. Only five minutes.’ He snatched up a menu. ‘Would you like a coffee? Or one of the hundred other fancy hot drinks they seem to offer?’ he joked, to hide his discomfiture.
‘Think I’ll have a mocha, please. Best of both worlds: chocolate and caffeine.’
Flynn caught Molly’s attention and she took their order but didn’t linger this time, with her boss looking over her shoulder.
‘Shopping go well?’ he asked, still tongue-tied at having Lara sitting opposite him, not for any work-related reason but purely because she, presumably, wanted to be with him.
‘As well as shopping can. I picked up some supplies from the farm shop.’
‘I didn’t know there was one nearby. I thought I’d have to go miles for my groceries.
Sounds like I need to pick your brains about the local area.
’ He had a sense of being outside himself: going through the motions of polite chit-chat while fighting a powerful urge to take her in his arms and kiss her in front of everyone in the tea shop.
‘If I’d known you were taking the job, I could have sent you a welcome info pack,’ Lara said with a wry smile.
‘Yeah …’ he said, returning her smile with his own sheepish grimace.
‘I definitely haven’t had much chance to explore yet, and I’ll need to visit the bank and dentist. And I don’t want to live on take-outs from the Castle Café, no matter how good the food is.
Talking of which, shall we grab some lunch while we have the chance? ’
‘Good idea.’ Lara picked up a menu. ‘I hear their avo and poached egg on sourdough is good.’
‘I might take the hint. My diet consists of Cumberland sausage and bacon at the moment.’
Away from the pressures of work, she was definitely more relaxed. Flynn certainly wasn’t going to sour the moment by mentioning any recent unfortunate incidents or waste their time talking about work.
Over lunch, they chatted about the area, with Lara reeling off a list of places he could get stuff, from bike parts to a haircut.
‘Not that you need a haircut,’ she added hastily.
‘Oh, I do. I don’t want to end up with a man bun.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Yeah, not sure I want to see that.’ She seemed to regret such a personal remark and changed the subject. ‘Anything else you want to know about the area? Best walks? Good pubs?’
‘Both of those. You obviously know the place inside out. How long have you been working here?’
‘Not that long, really. Not compared to some of the staff. I joined last autumn.’
‘Wow. I thought you’d been here a few years at least.’
‘It’s a small community so there aren’t many places to get to know – not in terms of shops and pubs. The fells are vast, of course. You could live here all your life and never try all the walks and hills.’
He smiled. ‘I’d like to explore. It’s very beautiful. Did you once tell me you used to work at a house in Warwickshire? Was it National Trust or private?’
‘Private. Same as Ravendale but I worked for the Trust when I was younger.’ Staring intently into her coffee, she said, ‘The time was right for a change. I don’t think it’s good to stay in one place too long.’
‘Maybe … but you seem very happy at Ravendale.’
‘I was. I am. It’s a dream place to work.’ She looked at him very directly. ‘How about you? Do you miss Cornwall? Have you left family behind?’
‘I haven’t had time to miss Cornwall yet and I do have some family there.
My parents live in Falmouth and I have a brother who’s a plumber – he moved to Walthamstow.
I have mates back there too, but they understand that I need to travel for work.
Two of them worked with me at Kernow Park, but in our line of work you get used to moving around and settling in different communities.
As you know, I was going travelling solo anyway. ’
‘You do a lot of things solo?’ she asked, resting her chin on her hand.
Such directness.
‘If you mean do I like being independent, I guess so. Like I said, it goes with the territory.’
‘Never been tempted to put down roots?’
He smiled. ‘Tempted, yes. A couple of times. But it didn’t work out.’
‘But you wanted it to?’ Lara asked.
‘Yeah. I wanted it to. Once, I wanted it very badly.’
‘Do you mind me asking what went wrong?’ Lara asked tentatively.
After taking a sip of his coffee, Flynn said, ‘She was married.’
She let out a gasp. ‘Oh …’
‘I didn’t know she was married. You can believe that or not.’
‘Why wouldn’t I believe it?’ she said, frowning.
Flynn immediately regretted his throwaway remark.
‘I don’t know …’ Because he thought Lara might have formed an impression of him as a Jack the Lad?
He wasn’t going to say that out loud, so he shrugged.
‘I don’t know why I said it. Ignore me. I really didn’t know Abigail was married, though.
She’d kept it quiet from everyone. I met her at a local pub and we hit it off straight away …
’ Flynn checked himself. The last thing he wanted was to talk about his feelings for another woman, which at the time had been powerful.
‘We started a relationship, but at no point did she mention her husband to me or anyone else. Turns out he was working in Qatar and I didn’t find out until I – until things came to a head between us. ’
Flynn had noticed the cute smudge of chocolate on her top lip and wanted to wipe it away with his finger but didn’t dare even mention it.
‘How did you find out about the husband?’ she asked.
‘Well, I thought we might make a go of it. Settle down. I even suggested she might move in with me. I’d been seeing Abi about six months by then.’
Although Lara was listening, her lips were pressed together, almost as if she’d been physically trying to hold back her comments, but she broke her silence. ‘That was the crunch moment … and things could never be the same …’ Her comment was laden with experience.
Flynn was sure she knew exactly what he was talking about. ‘You’re right. I think me asking her to move in was the moment when she realised that our relationship couldn’t go any further and she admitted she was married.’
Lara was aghast. ‘How cruel to lie to like that!’
‘I thought so for a long time, but I’ve come to accept she was lonely and unhappy in her marriage and looking for an escape – a fantasy. She said she was heartbroken about us splitting up, and admitted it was all her fault.’
‘I’d have been the same,’ Lara said, ‘if I found out I’d been living a lie …’
‘She said she’d never meant things to go so far between us and then fooled herself into believing we could have a future, but, in the end, she didn’t want to leave her husband and I refused to continue being part of the affair.
I didn’t even want to be part of encouraging a split.
Even if she had wanted to leave him, my trust was shattered.
That’s not how I want to live my life.’ He paused.
‘I understand people have problems, but to be honest, I felt used.’
‘I can understand that …’ Lara said, finally meeting his eyes fully. ‘Surely she wasn’t happy if she’d turned to you?’
‘She definitely wasn’t.’ Flynn paused. He had left out the part where Abigail had also said he ‘was the kind of man who was exciting and great to have a wild fling with but not to settle down with’.
Perhaps she’d been trying to console him with the kind of thing she thought he’d like to hear, but her words had cut him deeply.
He’d also wondered if there any truth in her comments?
When he was younger, he’d have been delighted to be considered exciting.
Who wouldn’t? He’d been very happy to travel, meet new people, and play the field.
He’d been drawn to women who felt the same way.
With Abi, it was perhaps the first time that he hadn’t wanted a relationship to end.
He’d been surprised how much he hurt and for how long.
Those words had nagged at him ever since.
Had it been love? Had he had his heart broken?
He’d felt crushed at the time: angry, foolish, and it had made him wary of getting serious – and hurt – again.
And no one who might have threatened his heart had come along.
He’d had a few short-lived relationships and ‘friends with benefits’, but mostly thrown himself into work, travelling on the bike and seeing friends.
Lara cut into his thoughts. ‘I’m sure she did care about you, despite knowing what she did was wrong.’
‘I think she did, but in the heat of the moment and for a while after, I couldn’t believe it. We split up as soon as I found out. Once her husband was back in the UK for good, she decided to try again with him.’
‘What a horrible situation to be in,’ Lara said soothingly, making Flynn realise not only what a kind person she was but also that he’d been doing the one thing he’d vowed not to: going on about a previous relationship.
‘Yeah.’ He refocused on her lovely face and thought how lucky he was to be here with her. ‘I’m not sure that dragging up the past is the best way to spend our precious free time,’ he said with a warm smile. ‘And anyway, I think the waitress is about to bring our lunch.’
Their conversation during and after steered clear of personal matters – both to Flynn’s relief and, from what he could gather, to Lara’s.
She left before him, driving off in her old Landy. Flynn stood by the bike, watching the beck tumble down the valley next to the old waterwheel.
‘Friends’ was how they had described each other to Molly and they were right to do so.
There wasn’t really any other appropriate word and ‘friend’ covered a multitude of possible permutations.
Flynn knew he shouldn’t really want to add complications to their relationship – they hardly knew each other, they were colleagues and Lara had more than enough on her plate.
He needed to take things slowly. Perhaps he’d wait until New Year to try to take things to any kind of a new level.
Although considering the way he reacted when he saw Lara enter the café, he seriously doubted if he could stick to the plan.