Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
brYNN
I’m here for coffee. That’s what I tell myself as I push open the purple door of the Lavender Café.
The morning light streams through windows that need cleaning, catching dust motes that hang in the air like they’ve nowhere better to be.
After Jude’s dawn invasion – after watching him try to hold it together while his father’s boat was missing and his hands were shaking – I need ordinary.
Or as ordinary as anything gets when you’re a Trelawney in Sea Salt Bay.
I went back up to the cottage after he left.
Scrubbed the kitchen counter until it gleamed, cleared the mouse droppings from under the sink, bleached the surfaces until my eyes watered.
Not because Jude Harding told me the place was a health hazard.
Because seeing it through someone else’s eyes made the grime real in a way it hadn’t been when it was just mine.
First item on the list: Kitchen – clear, scrub, make functional. I drew a line through it with grandad’s pencil.
A tiny victory. One down.
I’ve also rung the roofer in Pencross. He can do the flashing on Tuesday for ￡180 if I supply the lead.
I’ve got ￡212 left in my account, which means the lead and the labour and then I’m eating air until I can generate some income.
But a dry roof changes everything. A dry roof means the damp stops spreading, the walls dry out, the rest becomes cosmetic.
So: Tuesday. Lead flashing. Then everything else.
Nina looks up from the espresso machine, and there’s no surprise on her face. Like she expected me. ‘Coffee?’
‘Industrial strength.’
‘That bad of a morning already?’ She’s pulling shots before I answer, movements automatic but graceful. ‘Heard there was some excitement at the harbour earlier. Reuben’s boat going AWOL.’
‘News travels fast.’
‘News travels at the speed of Frankie’s mouth, which is surprisingly quick for someone with such few teeth.’ She slides the cup across, perfect crema on top that makes me want to weep with gratitude. ‘Lavender shortbread?’
‘I don’t—’
‘On the house. You look like you need sugar.’ She’s already plating it, delicate purple-grey squares that smell like summer and better times. ‘Besides, I made too much. Stress baking. It’s becoming a problem.’
I bite into one and make an embarrassing sound. ‘Oh God.’
‘Right? Peter used to say they were—’ She stops, that careful pause people do when they’ve accidentally walked through a door to grief. ‘Anyway. They’re addictive.’
‘Dangerously so.’ I take another, because if I’m going to have feelings, I might as well have carbohydrates too.
She’s late twenties, I’d guess. Around my age, though grief has a way of adding decades overnight.
She’s got the look of someone who belongs here – salt in her bones, the café an extension of her body – not someone who washed up four years ago.
And she told me the other day, she arrived well after the Trelawneys left, which means she doesn’t carry the weight of whatever history everyone else is dragging around.
‘So you missed the great Trelawney exodus?’ I ask her, because there’s no point skirting the conversation.
‘I did. Though I’ve been getting the highlights from various sources. Dramatic midnight fleeing, mysterious circumstances, possible curse on the harbour.’ She grins. ‘The stories vary depending on who’s telling them and how many pints they’ve had.’
‘No curse. Just regular small-town ugliness.’
‘Those are often worse than curses.’ She tops up my coffee without asking, which might make us friends.
‘Speaking of the Hardings – Kit. He’s in New York, yeah? With Isla Quinn?’
Nina’s eyes widen with the particular delight of someone who didn’t expect me to already know this. ‘You’ve heard?’
‘Hard not to. The Marcus Vale thing was everywhere – even in the garages where I was working, someone had a paper with her face on it. And then someone at the harbour mentioned Kit’s with that actress.’ I sip my coffee. ‘Didn’t connect it to Sea Salt Bay until I got here.’
‘Oh my God, it’s quite the love story. She grew up spending summers here – childhood sweetheart thing with Kit.
Then she went off to be famous, but came back last October when that scandal broke.
’ Nina’s in full flow now, the way people get when they’re telling you a story they love.
‘Rekindled the whole romance. Very cinematic, except with more fish and less background music. She’s been offered a six-week stint on Broadway – first time back in the spotlight since everything happened.
Kit went with her, took Maisie too – that’s Kit’s daughter, she’s eight, eats her weight in cinnamon buns after school – the whole family out there supporting her. ’
‘Leaving Jude to handle everything alone.’ The words are razors. Unexpectedly sharp in my throat.
Nina tilts her head, studying me. ‘Defensive of Jude Harding? That’s unexpected.’
‘I’m not defensive. I’m just…’ What? Recognising the weight he carries? Understanding what it’s like to be the one who stays while everyone else gets to leave? ‘Making an observation.’
‘Hmm.’ She doesn’t look convinced but lets it go.
‘To be fair, Jude gives the impression he’s managing.
Though between you and me, I think he’s drowning a bit.
Reuben’s … well, he’s a force to be reckoned with.
And Kit settled down with Isla, moved up the hill, and Jude …
well, Jude got everything else.’ She trails off and shrugs. ‘Family business, hey?’
‘Family business.’ I take a bitter-edged swig of coffee. ‘My grandad restarted in Bristol, building up from scratch.’ Behind a blink of my lashes runs a film reel of those years – boat sheds, engine oil and chip suppers and grandad’s hands guiding mine over a gearbox at dawn.
I blink again and it’s gone.
‘Speaking of the business – and don’t take this wrong, but how exactly are you planning to relaunch Trelawney Marine Services when you don’t even have a boat?’
I smile into my coffee, feeling the first genuine spark of excitement since Reuben’s explosion yesterday. ‘Who says I don’t have a boat?’
‘Do you?’
‘Not yet. But I’m driving to Plymouth this afternoon to look at one. Nineties beam trawler, needs work but the hull’s sound and the engine’s salvageable. Owner’s emigrating to Australia, wants a quick sale.’
‘That’s brilliant!’ Nina’s enthusiasm is real, warming. ‘Though Plymouth’s a bit of a drive alone.’
‘I’ve driven further for less.’
‘Still.’ She wraps two more pieces of shortbread in paper, slides them across. ‘For the road. And Brynn? Be careful. Some of these boat dealers…’
‘Are creeps who’ll happily take advantage of a woman they think doesn’t know about boats?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Good thing I know about boats then.’
A grin flashes across her face, quick and bright, erasing the dark shadows for a moment.
I grin back.
The walk back to the shed takes me past the main dock, where the morning has properly started now. Fishermen checking nets, engines warming up, the ordinary chaos that keeps Sea Salt Bay breathing. I should walk past, get my things, hit the road before traffic builds.
Instead, I stop. Because there’s Jude at the dock, baseball cap turned backwards, and he’s clearly fighting a losing battle with an engine part I could probably name but won’t give him the satisfaction.
He’s got one boot braced against the deck of the Mary Jane, both hands on what looks like a seized winch pulley, and he’s muttering a string of curses creative enough to make a sailor blush.
His jacket’s discarded despite the cold, sleeves pushed up, and there’s grease already streaking his forearms.
I should keep walking. Should definitely not notice the way his shoulders flex with effort, or how he’s biting his lip in concentration, or how genuinely terrible he is at this.
‘You’re going to lose a finger if you keep doing it like that.’
He jerks, nearly does lose a finger, and glares at me. ‘And you’re going to get impaled if you keep sneaking up on me.’
‘I wasn’t sneaking. You were just too busy sweet-talking that pulley to notice.’ I step onto the boat without invitation, crouch beside him. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘It’s seized. Salt corrosion probably.’
‘Obviously. But you’re coming at it wrong. Here—’ I reach past him for the tools, our arms brushing. ‘You need to work it loose gradually, not force it. Penetrating oil first, let it sit, then gentle pressure alternating directions.’
‘I know how to—’
‘You really don’t.’ But I soften it with a half-smile, taking the spanner from his hands. ‘Watch.’
I work the pulley carefully, feeling for the point where resistance gives just slightly. It’s meditative, this rhythmic work. The problem presenting itself through your fingertips, the solution emerging through patience and proper technique. Within minutes, the pulley’s moving freely.
‘How did you—’
‘Magic.’ I wipe my hands on my already ruined jeans. ‘Or, you know, actual mechanical knowledge.’
He’s looking at me with what might be annoyance, but could also be respect. Hard to tell with Jude. ‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome.’ I stand, brush off my knees. ‘Try not to break anything else. I’m heading to Plymouth this afternoon.’
‘Plymouth?’ His whole posture changes, alertness replacing embarrassment. ‘Why on earth would you go to Plymouth on a Saturday afternoon? Do you know what the traffic is like?’
I roll my eyes and somehow fight my smile. Somehow. ‘Boat shopping.’
‘You’re buying a boat?’
‘Looking at one. Guy’s got a day-trawler, needs work but priced right.’
‘You’re going alone?’ I don’t like the way his voice lifts at the end.
‘Yes, I’m a grown woman, not a Victorian invalid.’
‘You don’t even know this guy – he could be anyone. These private sales, sometimes they’re—’
‘A creep luring me with a fishing boat that smells of fish guts?’ I’m teasing but he’s not smiling. ‘Jude, I’ve been looking after myself for a long time. I think I can handle a boat viewing.’
‘In Plymouth. With some stranger. Who knows you’re a woman coming alone with cash.’