Chapter 26
And boy, did they await. Her after-lunch queue snaked its way among her neighbors, made up of avid readers hauling trollies full of books, bloggers with prizes for her to sign, handmade albums with beloved quotes pulled from the story.
She was hugged, she held someone’s baby, she video-called with someone’s best friend on the phone in France, and she signed, signed, and signed.
Her face ached from smiling and her back ached from being constantly up and down, but she loved every last second.
“What’s that noise?” she said, toward the end of the afternoon.
Charlie handed her a fresh bottle of water. “Rain. I did say it was on the way.”
The woman at the front of the queue grumbled about the weather and handed her book over, then narrowed her eyes as she studied Charlie for a long second.
“I was hoping he was going to have husky-blue eyes,” she leaned in and stage-whispered, more than loud enough for Charlie to hear too.
Kate froze, even as her internal voice told her to laugh it off.
“Oh, right,” she managed. “No, this is—it isn’t him.”
“Maybe next time. Can you make it out to Melanie, please? It’s a gift for my best friend, she’s been telling everyone they have to read this book.”
Kate looked down, thrown off her stride, and signed the book To Stephanie, with love.
“It’s Melanie,” Charlie said, glancing over her shoulder.
Kate bit her lip, unsure what to do, and he just shrugged and handed her a fresh copy off the pile.
“Any Stephanies in the queue?” he called, raising a laugh as he held the mis-signed book up in the air.
Overhead, the weather had taken an abrupt turn for the worse, rain drumming on the tent roof.
“Sounds like a good old Cornish storm is blowing in,” someone in the line said, as the crowd thinned with end-of-day weariness and the sudden desire to beat the weather home.
The festival clear-down crew moved in with an efficiency that had tables folded before Kate could even gather her belongings up to leave.
Authors milled around chatting, many coming to see how Kate’s first signing event had gone, some even snagging a signed copy of the book.
She felt included, part of something special, and more than a little out of her depth.
“Ready to go?” Charlie said, looking out of the tent at the pouring rain. Kate was in her sundress and Charlie in jeans and a T-shirt, not a jacket between them. “We’re gonna get wet.”
She threw her bag across her body and shrugged. “I don’t mind the rain. I already look like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backward and that was the most exhausting day ever. A cold shower is kind of welcome right now.”
“All right, then…” he said, as if he wasn’t convinced she wouldn’t change her mind. “There’s a pub down the lane we can call a cab from.”
“No need,” she said. “Rachel’s already booked one to pick me up there, let’s make a dash for it.”
Turned out it didn’t matter whether they dashed or dawdled. The rain fell in solid sheets from the slate-gray skies, forks of lightning ripping through the clouds toward the sea in the distance.
“Oh my God!” she shouted, catching hold of Charlie’s hand when he reached out to pull her along beside him. Thunder cracked overhead and they picked their pace up to a run, water streaming down their faces, the road a river when they reached it.
“Just keep going,” he yelled. She was glad of his hand—she could barely see through the rain clinging to her lashes.
By the time they reached the pub they were drenched to the skin, hair plastered to their heads, clothes clinging to their bodies, gasping at the ferocity of the sudden summer storm. A familiar car flashed its headlights from the gloom of the car park.
“God bless my miserable cab driver,” she said.
They tumbled into the back seat, apologizing for the state of themselves as they landed in a sodden heap.
“Am I glad to see you,” she said to the driver. “You’re my hero for coming out in this.”
“A pre-booking is as good as a promise,” he grouched, navigating his way carefully along the rain-flooded road.
“Where are you staying?” she said, looking at Charlie.
He paused, looking at the weather. “I’m getting the train back.”
“Londoners,” the cab driver barked with pleasurable derision.
“Line won’t be running till morning after this lot.
Station floods at the drop of a hat, some smartarse built it in a dip.
I’ll drop you both where I’ve been paid to and then I’m away home.
” He glanced up into the gray sky. “June doesn’t do well with thunder. ”
Kate softened into silence, managing not to comment on the everyday romance of him racing back for his anxious wife.
“Pink Cottage.” The driver stated the obvious when he came to an abrupt stop beside the gate.
They splashed out into the still-sheeting rain, Kate digging around in the bottom of her soggy bag for the front-door key.
“Sorry, I should have found it in the cab,” she said.
“We couldn’t be wetter,” Charlie said, unfazed. “At least it’s warm rain.”
Kate’s fingers finally closed around the key.
If this had happened with Richard, she’d have been on tenterhooks and felt somehow responsible for the weather, and he wouldn’t have made any attempt to lighten her load.
Over their years together they’d fallen into a pattern where she facilitated and made his life as easy as possible, and anything that played against that narrative always left her feeling as if she’d somehow planned inadequately.
Even something as uncontrollable as the weather.
“Got it,” she said, throwing the front door wide. “Come in.”
Pink Cottage didn’t have a hallway; they were straight into the living room, dripping onto the old oak floorboards.
“I’ll grab towels,” she said, kicking her sandals off and running barefoot up to the bathroom.
She’d used the biggest of the towels for her shower that morning, and there was only a small extra supply piled on a driftwood shelf.
Not nearly enough for two unexpectedly drenched adults.
Her eyes landed on the chunky white terry-toweling robes hanging on the back of the door as she stepped out of her soaked dress, and she wrapped one around herself, cocooned.
A glance in the mirror told her she looked as much like a drowned rat as she felt, makeup washed away, hair coiling heavy around her neck. She could use a hot shower, but was too aware of Charlie waiting downstairs so wrapped a towel around her hair and headed back down.
“There’s another of these robes on the bathroom door,” she said. “Have a shower if you like, I’ll put your clothes in the tumble dryer.”
He was back within ten minutes, his clothes and her sundress jumbled together in his hands. She ignored the shiver down her spine and grabbed them from him.
“So, there isn’t a tumble dryer,” she said, having investigated while he was upstairs and found only a collapsible clothes drying rack in a cleaning cupboard. It was far too warm to light a fire, so they were left with no option but to hang their clothes to dry slowly over the rack in the kitchen.
“I feel as if we’ve joined a cult,” she said, gesturing between their matching outfits as she filled the kettle.
“Sorry, it’s a bit weird,” he said. “Definitely not in the agent handbook.”
She started to laugh as she added tea bags to the pot. “I just had an image of how much Fiona would hate being caught in this situation. Or worse, your dad! I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to be in bathrobes with your father.”
The thought of Jojo charging around Pink Cottage in a bathrobe didn’t work at all. He was considerably shorter and less rangy than his son, yet somehow he’d seemed to take up more space.
“He’d have been like a small, trapped bull,” Charlie said, standing close to the window to study the steel-gray skies. “I’ll walk into town when it blows over and sort a hotel.”
“You’re very welcome to the sofa,” she said, aware they were being awkward around each other and not sure how to make things less weird, because in truth he looked as if he’d just wandered down for breakfast in his Amalfi villa and it was massively distracting.
He was just naturally luxurious on the eye and it had her on edge.
“I can’t vouch for it, though, it might be lumpy as hell.
” She opened the fridge. “And the establishment would like to make it known that it can only supply egg-based meals, and”—she picked up a bottle of red that had been left for her and inspected the label—“Pinot Noir.”
He accepted the mug of tea she passed him. “Let me make a few calls,” he said. “It’s a tourist hotspot, somewhere nearby will have a room.”
They didn’t. Not available places, in any case, being the height of summer, a heat wave, and romance festival weekend.
“Looks like I’ll have to take you up on the sofa, if the offer still stands?” he said, pushing his hand through his hair.
“Honestly, it’s fine, we’re adults. You came all this way, I’m not about to chuck you out in a storm.” She twisted her hair around her fingers, nervous.
“I’ll cook.”
“No arguments here,” she said, holding her hands up. “I can’t remember the last time someone except Liv made me dinner, and I’d never tell her but she’s a pretty terrible cook. Her kids are always glad when Nish is on weekend cooking duty.”
He opened the fridge, and she clutched her mug of tea, suddenly overwhelmed with the forced intimacy of the situation.
“I might go and grab a shower,” she said, turning away. In the bathroom, she threw the lock and leaned against the door. So they were spending the night together in Pink Cottage. That was okay, wasn’t it?