Chapter 20
Twenty
Lara hadn’t meant to look in the direction of Tom’s cottage.
She had made herself a pact just over a week ago now – or was it two weeks?
Time seemed to fly here and one day was very much like the next if you didn’t go out much.
But she had been so busy painting and decorating and furnishing her own cottage that she genuinely wasn’t sure what day it was.
She wouldn’t look at Tom’s cottage though.
She wouldn’t.
Oh, okay. Maybe just a quick glance.
Damn.
She had done it again.
No matter how many times she told herself not to, her gaze repeatedly drifted towards that damn cottage.
While washing up her breakfast things. When a flock of gulls flew by. Twice, yesterday, when she had put out some recycling, followed soon after by a bag of rubbish for the black bin.
Each time she tutted at her foolishness and quickly looked away.
Well, usually.
Unless, like today, it wasn’t so easy to avert her eyes from Tom’s cottage.
Or his garden.
Because like today, Jasper was there.
In the back garden.
With a spade.
Once again.
Just as Lara had hoped he might be.
Just as he had been each day for the last one, no two, weeks.
She made her way, somewhat hastily, to the window seat she’d had built to one side of the door. She knelt on the padded cushion and brushed the blind to one side to get a better view.
She wasn’t sure how long she watched him, but she almost fell off the seat when Jasper peeled off his jumper, followed soon after that by his T-shirt, revealing his gorgeous torso.
The Indian Summer that had been forecast to last for two weeks from the end of the first week of October had now stretched into the third, with no signs of this unseasonable heat letting up.
The mornings were chilly with a definite nip in the air, as were the nights, but the days were like midsummer.
People were picnicking or sunbathing on the sandy beach and some were even swimming in the sea. Ice cream vendors were selling out of stock, and autumn clothing had been packed away again and shorts and T-shirts had been brought back out.
Lara was wearing one of the summer dresses she’d had to buy due to the fact that she had brought mainly jeans and T-shirts with her and the last two weeks had been absolute scorchers.
She knew she shouldn’t be spying on Jasper, but her willpower was weak and the man looked so damn good.
She opened the camera on her phone and zoomed in to the maximum, surveying him from the tips of his boots to the waves in his lustrous dark brown hair.
He was certainly a sight to behold. A body fit for either a magazine cover, or a month on a calendar.
Probably July, because that was one hot body, she couldn’t deny him that.
Nor could she deny the appreciative smile spreading across her mouth and she licked her lips unwittingly and then got cross with herself for having done so.
Then, to her surprise, he looked in her direction and she nearly dropped her phone. As if he could see her ogling him, a devastating smile appeared on his gorgeous mouth, as he ran one hand through his hair, as if to say, ‘Yes. I can see you looking at me. This is what you’re missing.’
And she was definitely missing him.
Lara hadn’t meant to, but in her state of shock her finger clicked on the camera, taking several photos of him in rapid succession. Until she did drop her phone. Almost as though that was the only way she could stop herself from taking more.
What on earth was wrong with her? Of course he couldn’t see her?
Or could he?
She had seen him quite clearly even before she had zoomed in for a closer look.
She had been sitting at the table, sketching. She told herself that it was Tom’s cottage and the immaculately kept garden she was focusing on, but that wasn’t the case at all.
The truth was that every sketch she had drawn during the last couple of weeks, contained a tall, broad-shouldered, bare-chested man toiling in the garden, his well-defined muscles rippling in each pose he adopted.
The fact was, she had drawn several pictures of Jasper. The garden, the cottage, and everything else were merely added extras. The man was the only thing that she had drawn in any detail.
‘Damn him,’ she said, picking up her phone. ‘Why can’t I get him out of my head?’
Angry with herself, and with him, she decided to go for a walk. She needed to get out of this cottage. She would go to the beach via the sloping cliff opposite. She might even paddle when she got there.
She would take her sketch book and draw something other than Jasper Bright. Anything other than him.
Tossing everything she would need into a large shoulder bag, including a towel just in case, and a bottle of water, she ambled up the path.
She still hadn’t done much to the front garden, nor to the back for that matter.
The weather had been far too hot, and unlike Jasper, she couldn’t take her T-shirt off if the heat became unbearable.
Well she could if she wore her bikini beneath. But gardening in a bikini top might come with its own set of difficulties.
The sheep had been taken indoors, their fleeces too thick to keep them cool in the glaring sunshine on the clifftop, so the walk to the beach was a solitary one.
But she was glad of that. Since arriving in Bluewater Bay her cottage had seemed to be bursting at the seams with people, and she treasured these days on her own.
She hadn’t seen Tom for a while. Not since she had visited him in hospital on the day of his accident. She had considered taking Jenny with her to see him, but that might seem weird to everyone concerned. But she was too cowardly to visit him on her own, just in case she went when Jasper was there.
She had almost done that once last week. Luckily she had spotted Jasper’s car coming up the lane and had managed to hide behind a bush on the verge. She was still closer to her cottage than to Tom’s so she had scurried back to her cottage, hoping that no one had seen her.
She had sent Tom a couple of texts saying that she was busy with the cottage, and with some urgent work, so she couldn’t get to see him for a while. The work part wasn’t true. She didn’t want to tell Tom that she wouldn’t – or couldn’t – risk visiting him because she didn’t want to see Jasper.
She didn’t know whether Jasper had told Tom what had passed between them, or about his girlfriend, or anything concerning him and Lara, but again, she couldn’t ask Tom if he had. Just in case he hadn’t.
She reached the sandy beach, which in this tiny section of the bay was almost completely empty save for one other couple.
They were so engrossed in one another they hadn’t seen or heard her approach.
She wondered if she should leave them to it and head back to her cottage, but she was far enough away not to bother them or for them to bother her.
Nevertheless she moved a little further away from them.
She spread out her towel, kicked off her sandals and walked to the water’s edge.
Dipping in one foot, she shivered. Despite the heat of the day, the water was freezing.
Maybe not quite freezing but far too cold for her, or anyone she would’ve thought, to swim.
But she knew people were in the main area of the bay, down in the valley. They were clearly brave.
She headed back to her towel, her toes sinking just a fraction into the sand as she walked and she felt the sun on her back.
She sat on the towel, shifted her sunglasses to the top of her head, and closed her eyes.
Her cheeks tingled with heat from the sun.
If she sat here for long, she would get a suntan. In October! How crazy was that?
She eased back onto the towel and stretched out her arms and her legs so that she was like a long pole. She wiggled her toes and let out a contented sigh. This was the life. She couldn’t do this if she went back to Woking.
If she went back to Woking.
She hadn’t given that much thought since she’d arrived. Although after what happened between her and Jasper, she had told herself she would go home at the end of the month. She wasn’t sure how long he was staying. When he’d told her he had taken time off, he hadn’t said how long.
She was doing it again.
Thinking about Jasper.
She had come to the beach to not think about him.
A loud splash made her sit upright.
No!
Surely not.
It couldn’t be.
And yet it was.
Jasper Bright stood up in the waist deep water, having obviously dived in head first. His wet hair was dripping on to his shoulders and his chest and he filled his cupped hands with more water and tossed it over him head so that it cascaded down his torso.
He hadn’t seen her yet as far as she was aware, and she sat as rigid as a rock. When he dived back into the water once again, she leapt to her feet, grabbed her towel and her bag and scampered back to the sloping cliff.
She reached the foot of it when she heard him call her name.
‘Lara!’
She stopped for barely a second, and then rushed on her way again. She would pretend she hadn’t heard him. She might be able to pretend it wasn’t her. He hadn’t seen her in a dress so he might not recognise her.
But he had, because he had called out her name.
Cross with herself and with him, yet again, she ran back to her cottage and slammed the door behind her, leaning her back against it and gasping for breath.
Running might be something Jasper enjoyed, but not her.
A bang on the door startled her so much that she let out a shriek.
‘Lara.’
It was Jasper. He had followed her.
She stayed as quiet as a mouse.
‘Lara,’ he repeated. ‘We need to talk. Please open the door.’
That was the last thing she was going to do. Seeing him close up would be hard enough. Seeing him with just swimming trunks on, or whatever he had been wearing, would be unbearable.