Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
A mid-morning visit from Seren and Kit lifted Lily’s spirits, as did the beautiful weather and the buzz of the busy shop.
The lack of contact from Flynn bothered her, and she regretted how grumpy she’d been with him that morning.
Not that she had much time to dwell on it given the constant stream of customers in the afternoon.
When she spotted him loitering outside, she felt immediately better.
At least until she arrived back from the back room and there was no sign of him.
“Did Flynn come in?” she asked Jessica.
“I haven’t seen him,” she said while scooping chocolate ice cream. “Why?”
“I thought I saw him outside.” She wandered to the door and looked along the promenade, but there was no sign of him. She lingered for a few minutes, basking in the warm sun on her face and enjoying the sight of families on the beach.
“Did you find him?” Jessica asked when she went back inside.
“No.” She already had her phone out and fired off a quick message: sorry about this morning.
He replied immediately. Don’t worry about it. I finish work in a couple of hours. I’ll come over then.
She responded with a smiley face.
“Everything okay?” Jessica asked after handing over change to an elderly lady.
“Fine.” Lily glanced outside at the gorgeous blue sky. “Do you think you can manage alone for the rest of the day?”
“Yeah. Of course.” The flash of delight in Jessica’s eyes made it very clear she enjoyed looking after the place on her own.
After a trip to the supermarket, Lily got to work cooking.
When Flynn arrived two hours later, he looked into the flat with a frown. “Did you cook?” he asked, following her into the kitchen.
“I made sausage rolls,” she told him, “and a quiche and cheese pastries. All from scratch.” She turned back to him. “I thought it was about time we had our picnic.”
His lips twitched into a playful smile. “Great minds think alike,” he said, dropping his backpack from his shoulder.
“You made a picnic too?” she asked as his arms encircled her waist.
“Yes.” He dropped his forehead to hers. “I told you we’d get some decent weather eventually.”
With her hands on his neck, she looked him in the eyes. “I wanted to do something nice after I was so grumpy with you this morning.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said quickly. “But I do want to talk to you about some stuff. Which beach do you want to go to?”
Since neither of them was interested in venturing far, they settled for the quiet end of Porthcressa Beach and were soon tucking into a feast of a picnic.
“You never told me what you did that was illegal?” Flynn asked eventually.
Lily frowned. The last few days had been such a blur that it took her a moment to figure out what he was talking about. “Are you asking as a police officer?”
He shook his head and picked up another sausage roll. “Just your boyfriend.”
She couldn’t control her grin.
“What did you do?” he coaxed.
“Went into Gideon’s place through an open window. It was the only place at the retreat I hadn’t searched, and Len offered to lend me his ladder so I could get in there.”
“That’s when he planted the necklace?”
She nodded. “Apparently so. I thought he was helping me search.”
“He denied planting it.”
“He must have done,” Lily said.
“Yeah, I know, but it’s also not a bad thing that he’s denying it. If he admits it, he might also mention you were with him.”
“Oh.” She grimaced. “I didn’t think about that.”
“He hasn’t said anything, and I can’t imagine he will.”
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“He has to go to court next week for sentencing. I think he’ll spend some time in prison. After that, I guess he’ll need to find a new place to live. It would be awkward for him to stay on the islands.”
“He completely fooled me,” Lily said. “If it weren’t for Kit saying he didn’t like him, I wouldn’t have figured it out.”
“What?” Flynn said, and Lily filled him in on that piece of the story and then how smug Kit was now about his character assessment.
She went on to tell him all the other parts of her investigation that she hadn’t told him.
“Sorry,” she said finally. “I should have told you everything from the start.”
“Yeah. You should have.”
“I was wondering about the pencil I found at my place, with the name of the art retreat. Do you reckon Len dropped it by accident or on purpose?”
“Who knows? Could have been either, but I imagine he knew you’d investigate. Leaving you a clue to set you on a wild goose chase makes some sense.”
“If he knew I’d investigate, you’d think he might have chosen not to target me.”
Flynn began putting lids on the Tupperware boxes. “Apparently, he was holding a grudge against you for getting the lease for the shop. He’d asked about it a while back and been turned down.”
“That makes a little more sense then.”
With the remaining food cleared away, Flynn patted the space in front of him on the blanket, and she moved to get comfy between his legs, leaning against his chest.
With the sun heading quickly towards the horizon, the sky had turned a vibrant pink with streaks of orange.
“We never talked about what Maria said about your parents,” Flynn said.
Her whole body tensed, and a lump swelled in her throat. “I’ve been avoiding thinking about it.”
“You’re not tempted to look into it?”
“Very tempted,” she said immediately. “Every time I look at my laptop, I think about doing some research and seeing what I can find about the company that wanted to buy my parents’ house. I guess I could find that information if I tried.”
“But you haven’t looked?”
“No. There’s been too much going on in my head. I can’t deal with it.”
“I don’t blame you.” He fell silent for a few minutes. “We need to talk properly about how we make a long-distance relationship work.”
“They don’t work,” she replied automatically, anger rippling through her.
Flynn didn’t argue, just tightened his arms around her. “I love you,” he whispered in her ear.
“Don’t do that,” she snapped, fighting the urge to wriggle out of his embrace.
“What?”
“Tell me you love me just to reassure me.”
“That’s not why I said it. But if it helps reassure you that we’ll be okay, that’s a bonus.” He threaded his fingers through hers. “When you were growing up, and moving around a lot, did you keep in touch with people?”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t allowed. Not when I was a kid anyway, but even when I was a teenager and had more control, it still didn’t matter. I had friends, and we swore we’d keep in touch, but it never worked out that way. Out of sight, out of mind, and all that.”
“Okay, so it makes sense that you don’t think this will work, but I love you. It’s never going to be a case of out of sight, out of mind. You’ve been on my mind pretty much constantly since I met you, and I can’t imagine a few hundred miles is going to change that.”
She nodded, but didn’t believe him.
“I was thinking we could see each other every three weeks.”
She turned her head to look questioningly at him.
“I think it’d be realistic for us to visit each other every three weeks. Will you come to London first?”
“In three weeks?”
“Yeah. I want to have a definite date, so when I leave I know when I’ll see you again. That would make it easier, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah,” she said vaguely. That would make it easier. And three weeks felt manageable. “I could come to London. And it’s good if I come before Jessica leaves, so she can open the shop if the weather is decent.”
“We’ll arrange it so you come on my days off. We can go sight-seeing… or just lie around in bed. Oh, but you also have to meet my mum.”
“What?” she said, a small smile pulling at her lips.
“She’s desperate to meet you.”
“You told her about me?”
“Of course. She’s heard all about you.”
“I’d like to meet her,” Lily mused. “And a few days in London with you sounds like fun.”
Her muscles slowly relaxed, and she sank into Flynn’s embrace as the sun descended to the horizon. The tips of waves reflected the soft pink light, twinkling gloriously.
“The sunset was worth waiting for,” Flynn said, wrapping his arms tighter around her.
“Yes,” she turned her face into his neck and inhaled the scent of him.
He’d told her he loved her, and she was very aware that she hadn’t said it back. She opened her mouth, but the words wouldn’t come.
It felt like a mental block, and it occurred to her it wasn’t something she’d said often in her life. Only to her uncle, and definitely not as often as she should have done.
Lifting Flynn’s hand to her lips, she kissed his palm.
Hopefully, he knew how she felt about him without her having to say it.