Sink or Swim

Chapter 1

Aria Wilson ran across the car park of the motorway service station in a panic. Moments before, she had been staring into space in her broken-down Kia, contemplating hitch-hiking the rest of the way to her home town. As if today wasn’t already bad enough.

‘Excuse me. Can I get through, please? I think I left my phone at the counter.’ Pushing to the front of the coffee queue, she caught the elbow of a man as he turned towards her with a hot drink in his hand.

Quick as a flying fish, the small cup tipped, and an arc of dark liquid cascaded onto his jeans.

He cursed under his breath, shifting from one foot to the other while brushing at the scalding mess on his thighs.

Aria felt herself blush as she grabbed a pile of napkins on the counter to dab his trousers dry.

‘I’m so sorry, I—’

‘Need to watch where you’re going,’ he snapped, holding her away from him.

Straightening up, she found herself looking directly into a very attractive face. ‘Oh!’ she said, unable to bottle her response to the deepest, darkest eyes she had ever seen. ‘So brown,’ she murmured as he huffed out a breath that could have blown the Beaufort scale.

‘Black, actually. An overpriced triple shot espresso.’

The barista appeared from behind the counter with a mop, clearly familiar with this type of incident. ‘Can I please ask you all to take a step back?’ he asked the scattered queue. ‘And sir, can I suggest you run the affected area under the tap? The bathrooms are over there.’

Aria’s eyes left the man’s face and landed on his crotch which bore the brunt of the geyser flow. ‘That could require quite some gymnastics,’ she said.

He raised an eyebrow, and a smile unexpectedly tugged at his lips.

‘I’ll see what I can do without my leotard.

’ When he stooped to pick up some of the napkins she’d knocked to the floor, she couldn’t help wondering what he might look like in a mankini.

She giggled briefly before snapping back to her own problems, which sadly couldn’t be sorted with a mop and bucket.

‘Sorry to bother you,’ she said to the barista as he finished clearing up, ‘especially as I’ve been such a nuisance to this gentleman, but I think I might have left my phone on the counter a few minutes ago.

When the recovery services rang to say they were almost here, I grabbed my bags in a panic and left the queue to wait in my car.

Then realised my phone wasn’t in my hand, or my coat, or indeed my bag—’ Aria stopped dead as she felt a vibration in her handbag.

Opening it up, she discovered the device ringing merrily in the corner.

‘Well, that solves that problem, then. It seems I’m the only one out of pocket here,’ the man complained.

Wincing at the cost on the display board, Aria reluctantly said she’d buy him another.

‘It’s fine,’ he said, as the barista simultaneously offered to fix him a replacement on the house.

Grateful, if still a little flustered, she turned away to accept the call.

Her stepmother’s shrill voice rang out. ‘Are you nearly home? I’d like to talk to you before the funeral tomorrow. I’ve left several messages over the last couple of days.’

Aria took a step further away so the people in the queue didn’t overhear a lie.

‘I won’t be back in Inglemere until much later tonight.

I’ve only just got onto the M6. Plus, I’ll need to settle at the B&B.

’ She was unwilling to admit how close she was to home until she figured out how to get there.

Glancing out of the window, she saw the rescue van drawing up and decided it was time to extract herself.

‘Gotta go. See you tomorrow.’ As she swung around, she narrowly missed tipping a second coffee down the man’s front, his grumpy expression prompting a more reluctant apology.

‘That’s what dry cleaners are for, right?’ he replied sarkily, and sipped his complimentary injection of caffeine, this time delivered in a cup with a lid.

‘Have a nice onward journey,’ she said, with a sickly sweet smile.

As she crossed the car park, she found herself wishing men with that kind of sex appeal hung out in Inglemere.

It might make the next few days easier to get through.

The boys she’d known at school had looked like Herdwick sheep and smelled like farmers.

And then there was Justin, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, when he bothered to cover himself at all.

In the last few months of their relationship her ex-fiancé had developed a habit of walking around without a shirt on to show off his overdeveloped physique.

His posturing was so like a peacock displaying its feathers that she’d always halfexpected him to emit a trumpet-like honk when a pretty woman passed by.

Shuddering at the thought of seeing him again, she prayed the funeral would be a quiet affair.

While it was true she was now completely alone, she could do without pitying looks from everyone from her past.