Chapter 14 #2
‘Or…’ They both looked at each other and laughed. ‘Anything much, really,’ she admitted. ‘But it’s beautiful, isn’t it?’
Sam took a deep breath and closed his eyes, picturing Kelsea Sands in his mind. ‘Just so incredibly peaceful and remote.’
‘Where you can breathe.’
‘And think.’
‘And be.’ They smiled at each other. ‘Even though I’m an outsider,’ she added.
‘You’re not an outsider,’ he said indignantly. ‘Your mum grew up there, just like mine, and your grandparents still live there. Your great-aunt and uncle, your cousin—’
‘First cousin once removed actually,’ she pointed out.
He laughed. ‘Okay, well whatever Rosie is, she’s very much part of Kelsea Sands. The Wainwrights have been there for generations. It’s in your blood. In the twins’ blood.’
‘I can see it means a lot to you,’ she said.
‘No wonder you couldn’t bear the idea of giving up The North Star.
I always questioned how you could give up your job and move back to take over the reins there, but now I understand.
You just couldn’t stand to cut the connection with the village, could you? ’
‘No.’ Sam tipped the rest of his sugarless tea out of the car window, feeling like a total git. ‘There’s something I have to tell you,’ he said suddenly. ‘Something I haven’t told the rest of the staff yet. Well, except Kenny. Mac hasn’t said anything to you? About the pub?’
‘Mac? No, he hasn’t. Why, what about the pub?’
Sam could hardly believe he was going to say the words, and he wondered again why Jenna had this weird hold over him.
He felt as if he always had to be honest with her.
Maybe it was because she’d lived for so long with a liar in her life, and he wanted to be different.
Whatever the reason, though, he didn’t feel good about what he was going to say.
‘The truth is, The North Star’s going up for sale. There’ll be a sign outside any day now. Dad’s telling everyone tonight.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Probably right now.’
‘But…’ Jenna stared at him in shock. ‘I thought you didn’t want your dad to sell up!’
‘I don’t. I didn’t.’ He gazed miserably at the flask in his hands.
‘Thing is, I’ve been offered my old job back with LI Builders.
My mate, Luke, is the owner and he’s won a huge new contract up at Millensea.
I’ve missed it – the building trade. I was never cut out to run a pub.
I told Dad and I really thought – well, hoped – that he’d see sense and agree to take over again. ’
‘But he didn’t?’ she asked gently.
He shook his head sadly. ‘No. He told me I should have let him sell it when he’d wanted to after Mum died. I don’t know. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I should have done. It’s achieved nothing really, has it? It just cost me my job and my flat.’
‘And your girlfriend,’ she reminded him.
‘I suppose. At the time it seemed like the end of the world, but now…’
‘Now you’re over her?’
‘Like I said, I don’t think I ever really loved her. We can fool ourselves that we’re in love so easily, can’t we?’
Was that what this was, he wondered? It would be so easy to tell himself he was in love with Jenna.
But was he? He’d never believed in love at first sight, and if he hadn’t experienced the incredible surge of emotion for her that first night when she walked into The North Star, he still wouldn’t.
Now he wasn’t so sure. But how could he know for certain? How could anyone?
‘We certainly can,’ she said wistfully.
Sam looked at her sharply. ‘You’re not sure you’re in love with Joel?’
‘It wasn’t Joel I was thinking of.’ She inhaled slowly as if mustering her courage. ‘You’ve been honest with me. I guess I should be honest with you.’
He nodded worriedly. ‘Go on.’
‘I-I almost had an affair,’ she admitted, so quietly he strained to hear her. ‘Just after Christmas. There was a man at work. I convinced myself I was falling in love with him.’
Sam swallowed. ‘Right. I see.’
‘You don’t,’ she said bitterly. ‘You really don’t. I wasn’t in love with him. It was just… Oh! I can’t explain. It’s all mixed up in my head.’
‘Maybe,’ Sam said thoughtfully, ‘you just needed someone to show you some affection, and when they did, you mistook your feelings for love.’
She gazed at him for a long, long moment.
‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘That’s exactly it.
I was so unhappy. So unhappy. I knew, deep down, that things weren’t right with Joel.
I knew the signs. We’d been there before, so many times.
And even though I didn’t imagine he’d leave me again, I had a very strong feeling that he was seeing someone else. And I didn’t know what to do.’
‘Confront him?’
‘If I confronted him, he might be pushed into leaving,’ she said dully.
‘Of course, he intended to leave me anyway, but I didn’t know that back then.
All I knew was I was so sad and so wretched, and Alex and I got talking at work and he was flirting with me, and I liked it.
I liked the feeling of being wanted, admired. It sounds so pathetic now.’
‘It doesn’t,’ he assured her. ‘I get it, honestly.’
‘Well, anyway, we arranged a night together. I’d asked Mum to have the twins, and Joel was away in Derbyshire with work – genuinely, for once. Well, I think he was anyway.’ She shrugged. ‘I got all dressed up and ready. I was a bag of nerves, I really was.’
‘But you didn’t go through with it? You said you nearly had an affair.’
She laughed, clearly embarrassed. ‘My mum caught me! She’d come to my house for something for the twins. Luckily, they were outside in the car. The way I was dressed left her in no doubt what I was up to, especially as I’d told her I was at a work meeting.’
Sam couldn’t help wondering what she meant by ‘The way I was dressed’. The mind boggled. He decided that speculating on her attire that night was the last thing he should be doing and forced himself to return to the conversation.
‘Bad timing,’ he said, saying a mental congratulations on how unfazed he sounded. ‘Or good timing, depending on how you look at it. I’ll bet that went down well.’
‘It was awful. I’ve never been so humiliated in my life. Especially when she said…’ She broke off, swallowing hard. ‘She said my dad would have been ashamed of me.’
She glanced up at him, and he had to force himself not to wipe away the tears that were spilling from her eyes.
‘She was right. He would have been. I knew I couldn’t go through with it.
I knew I didn’t even want to. I think – I think I just wanted someone to hold me, you know?
And, deep down, I think I wanted Joel to find out and be jealous.
I wanted him to feel what I’d felt, so many times. ’
‘I understand that,’ he said softly.
‘Do you? Thing is, I don’t think he’d have been jealous at all. Knowing him, he’d probably have laughed. It was pathetic really.’
‘So you sent this man packing?’
‘I didn’t have to. He didn’t even show up. We both realised it was a stupid mistake, and we’d got carried away with it all. We’ve barely spoken two words to each other since.’
‘Blimey.’ Sam wasn’t sure what to say to all that.
It was quite the confession. If he was going to return the favour, he’d have admitted there and then that hearing her say she’d almost slept with another man had made his stomach lurch in sickening jealousy.
He’d had to accept that she still had feelings for Joel, but if there’d been someone else in the picture it would have been even more difficult to deal with.
Even so, he understood why she’d acted the way she had.
And that she felt wretched about the whole thing was obvious in her dejected manner.
He wished he had the nerve to put his arms around her for comfort, but if he did that, he might want to kiss her even more than he already did, and that wouldn’t be the right thing to do at all, especially given her vulnerable state.
‘Cheese and pickle sandwich?’ he asked instead.
Jenna looked up at him in surprise, and he inwardly cursed and called himself every insulting name he could think of. Then she burst out laughing.
‘Sounds perfect,’ she said, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand.
‘Great.’ Relieved, he handed her the plastic tub of sandwiches he’d packed earlier. ‘Don’t forget there are sausage rolls if you really want to push the boat out.’
‘Thanks, Sam,’ she said gratefully. ‘It’s true what everyone says about you, you know.’
He put the empty cup back on the top of the Thermos and put the flask back in his rucksack. ‘Oh? What do they say about me?’
‘That you’re a nice man,’ she said, reaching for a sandwich. ‘“Seb’s lad Sam, he’s a right good ’un”. That’s what they say. “Do owt for anyone”. I think they’re probably right.’
‘Even though I’m abandoning The North Star? Do you think they’ll still be saying that when the For Sale sign goes up?’
‘You have to think of your future,’ she told him.
‘You’ve done all you can. If your dad doesn’t want to be helped, well, that’s his lookout.
It’s a shame because he really seemed to be making progress that night he minded the twins, but the fact is, you have your life to live. Some people just can’t be helped.’
She sounded so bleak again that, without even thinking about it, he reached over and squeezed her hand, feeling that same tingle of electricity and wishing with all his heart that she felt the same.
Looking up at him, she managed a faint smile, utterly oblivious to his feelings. ‘You know what? This is a waste of my time and yours. We’re not going to see them, are we? Let’s go home.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yeah.’ She put the lid back on the tub of sandwiches and handed it back to him. ‘There’s just no point.’
As he tucked it back into his rucksack, he couldn’t help remembering the way she’d said, ‘Some people just can’t be helped’.
Was she thinking of his dad? Or was she thinking of herself?
Because no matter how many times Joel hurt her, she still seemed unable to break free from whatever spell he’d cast over her.
Sam couldn’t help wondering if she ever would.