Escape for the Summer (49 page)

“Oi! Stop snogging, you two!” Angel burst through the curtains, towing an awkward Laurence in her wake. “This is Shakespeare, not the stage play of
Fifty Shades
!”

“Do you mind?” said Gemma. “We’re trying to make up for lost time here!”

Cal’s arms tightened around her and he pressed a kiss against her temple.

“If Angel hadn’t read me the riot act then we’d still be wasting time,” he said.

Gemma was confused. “What’s Angel got to do with you coming here?”

Angel grinned. “Go on, Cal. Tell her what happened.”

“Aw, it’s a long story,” he began, “but let’s just say there I was minding my own miserable business and eating Wotsits in peace. My TV career was in meltdown, Emily had convinced me that I’d ruined Gemma’s career and life, and the press were at the gate trying to get a shot of me comfort eating. Mike doubled security and I’d told him nobody was to come anywhere near. It was death by Wotsits for me.”

“So how did you get in?” Gemma asked Angel. Then a thought occurred to her. “Was it like when you tried to gatecrash Peter Andre’s barbie?”

“What’s this?” asked Laurence.

“Nothing, nothing!” said Angel airily. “Just a bit of a misunderstanding!”

“But how did you get past everyone? Cal has serious security.” Gemma had seen enough of the cameras and guards and barky dogs to know this much. How on earth had her friend managed it?

“Ah, this is down to me, I think!” The squat man in the Hawaiian shirt stepped forward. Beaming at Gemma, he held out a meaty paw and added proudly, “I am Vladimir Yuri. I own VY Security – vorld’s biggest security agency – so I able to tell all the guards to step aside or, tch – they in beeg trouble with me!”

Mr Yuri? Husband of Angel’s nemesis? Gemma was suddenly hugely disappointed. Of course. This was all a crazy dream, wasn’t it? Cal wasn’t really in love with her and she hadn’t really just given the performance of a lifetime; she was actually in bed. This crazy dream was nothing more than the outcome of eating too many slices of Cal’s cheese bread before bedtime. Pretty soon she’d wake up in her narrow little bunk with Cal still behind razor wire and with her stomach full of knots about the play.

Bollocks.

She closed her eyes, counted to three and then opened them again. Mr Yuri was still there, his smile looking a bit pained now, and with his hand still outstretched. Oh Lord! This really was happening. Still dazed, Gemma stretched out her hand too and had it practically crushed as he pumped her arm up and down. How he moved his arm with a Rolex that big was anyone’s guess. It looked like he’d strapped Big Ben to his wrist.

“It was like something out of a movie,” Cal told her. “There I was, festering in my trackie bottoms and working my way through a family pack of Wotsits, when your sister and Mr Yuri marched in, with all my security guys trailing behind like puppies. We thought it was an armed robbery. Mike was fecking terrified.”

“People are,” said Mr Yuri, looking thrilled to hear it.

“Not of you, sir! Of Angel!” Cal shook his head. “She gave me a right dressing-down, so she did. Told me to get off my fat arse if I knew what was good for me and to come and find you.”

“You left a family-sized bag of Wotsits for me? I’m flattered,” Gemma teased.

“Sure, they’ll still be there when I go back,” he deadpanned. “Maybe I’ll even share them?”

“You must really like me,” said Gemma.

Cal squeezed Gemma’s hand and smiled down at her with such love that she thought her heart would burst.

“I can’t thank you enough,” she said to Mr Yuri.

“I owe Angel great debt,” explained the Russian. “But you! You are
the
Callum South! I only help my son in law buy Dukes Rangers because I massive fan of yours. When Chelsea for sale I say, ‘Pah! Roman, you have eet! I only want to buy team Callum South play for.’ You are legend.”

In his baggy trackies and grubby tee shirt, and with his curly hair sticking up like a crazy halo, Cal looked more like a tramp than a legend, but Mr Yuri didn’t care. He was far too busy recounting a match where Cal had apparently shown Rio Ferdinand a thing or too.

“Yes, yes,” said Angel impatiently. She’d never got football, unless you counted the WAGs and their fashion; then she found it fascinating. “That’s brilliant and everything, but Cal, there’s something Laurence and I really want to talk to you about. We think you’ll love it and it could be the solution to—”

“Angel! There you are!”

Simon Rothwell burst through the faded velvet curtains, stumbling across the boards in haste to reach Angel. His usually sunny face was clouded with worry and he was waving his mobile phone about like a Hogwarts first-year pupil in a wand lesson. Thrusting it under Angel’s nose so that she could see the screen, Simon said frantically, “This can’t be right, can it? Is she joking?”

Colour drained from Angel’s face as she gazed at the screen. Surely not? It didn’t make any sense. Why on earth would Andi do such an out-of-character thing? Angel was filled with a deep and certain sense of dread. Something very bad must have happened.

Si exhaled slowly.

“You didn’t know either, did you?” He looked around at the others. “I guess you may as well find out from me. It’s Andi. She’s only gone and left Rock!”

Chapter 44

The strap of the holdall dug into Andi’s shoulder but she was beyond caring whether or not it hurt. There was something about the physical discomfort of the webbing strap biting into her flesh that was preferable to the savage despair of realising that everything she had worked for and come to treasure was about to come crashing down around her. At least while the strap pinched and the heavy bag thudded against her hip she could pretend that the tears blurring her vision were from pain.

She paused to swing the bag onto her opposite shoulder and to unwind the carrier-bag handles that were twisting around her fingers and making them glow an unearthly green. It was incredible just how much stuff you could accumulate in only seven weeks, and even harder to believe just how awkward it was to carry it all around without the help of a car. Even leaving heavier objects behind like welly boots and accountancy books didn’t seem to have made that much difference; she was still bent double under the weight of her worldly goods like some kind of mutant hermit crab.

It was getting late. The evenings were starting to draw in and the scent of woodsmoke in the air spoke of autumn and melancholy. Lights shone from the town, snatches of music drifted on the breeze and, somewhere amongst the higgledy-piggledy rooftops, Gemma was acting her heart out. How Andi wished she’d been able to keep her promise to watch the play. She hated to let Gemma down. But she wished even more that she’d never met Tom, never been stupid enough to trust him…

There was no point staying: Andi had known from the moment she’d seen her ex looming over her that her life in Cornwall was over. Tom would never let her know a moment’s peace now that he’d found her. Yes, she could have given in and paid up, but she knew Tom inside out and once he’d had a taste of money he’d be back for more. How could she possibly work for Simon when she would be terrified that every new day might turn out to be the one when Tom decided to reveal that she’d been sacked from her last job? The thought of just how let down Si would be didn’t bear thinking about. There was, of course, the option of standing up to Tom and telling Si everything herself, but how disappointed would he feel? Or she could tell her ex exactly where to stick his threats, but then he’d be sure to circulate those pictures out of sheer spite and ruin things anyway. The humiliation would be too much to endure. And how would she ever be able to explain herself to everyone?

No, there was no option. She had to leave Rock and soon, before Tom could cause any more trouble. The moment he’d vanished over the stile, she’d raced into the caravan, stuffing her belongings into her holdall and a collection of Tesco carrier bags, trying to suppress the growing feeling of panic. A quick note to Angel and Gemma was left propped against the kettle with a promise to call them as soon as she could. Then Andi had walked into Rock in an attempt to pick up a mobile signal.

Where she was going, Andi didn’t have a clue; she only knew that she had to leave. There was a bus to Bodmin soon and once she was in the small town she would be able to catch a train to London. When she was back in the city she could rent a cheap room somewhere and regroup; her meagre savings wouldn’t last forever, but if she was really careful she might have a couple of weeks’ grace while she looked for a job. Any job. It wouldn’t be like working for Simon – Andi had loved every minute she’d worked for him – and it certainly wouldn’t involve feeling like part of a family.

She swallowed. How come she hadn’t realised before just how much she missed that sense of belonging, the teasing, the laughter and the easy companionship? Was it because it had been missing from her own life for so long, even before her mother had died? Alex had never been one for close father–daughter chats, and boarding school had been a chilly, sterile experience. The nuns had liked to talk about love but in practice they hadn’t been big fans of it. The Rothwells, though, were always hugging and laughing and having fun. Andi had worked hard but there had always been somebody to chat to: Mel with a cup of coffee and a biscuit, Angel with some hare-brained plan, the boys wanting to kick a ball about, Jonty…

Andi’s vision blurred dangerously and she bit her lip hard to gain control.

Was it just the strap of the holdall pulled tightly across her chest that was causing this sharp pain, or was it the thought of never seeing Jonty again? The memories of the time that she’d spent with him were stored safely away in her head, and even before she’d even left Cornwall Andi knew that she’d pore over them in the weeks and months ahead like a miser with his money. The day out on the boat, drinking tea up at the boatyard, sharing chips down by the pontoon; all simple enough, but already tinted golden in her mind’s eye with the sunshine of this perfect summer and the glow of pure happiness.

The stop for the special summer bus was on the edge of the town, just opposite the same general store where she’d tried to buy the
FT
all those weeks ago. Letting her bags slide through her fingers and bump to the ground, Andi wondered why she still felt so weighed down. Wearily, she closed her eyes in defeat. If the timetable was running to plan then she was only minutes away from leaving Rock, and her heart, behind. She wondered if she could ever summon up the energy to start again.

Or even if she wanted to.

She checked her watch. Almost five past nine – and that sweep of lights headed straight towards her had to be the bus. How typical that just when she longed for a few more minutes it had decided to be on time for once. As the bus hissed to a stop, Andi took one last look around her. If this were one of Gemma’s pink books, Jonty would come screeching up now in his Defender to beg her to stay.

Andi sighed and hauled her bags onto the bus. It was just as well she was leaving if she was starting to think along these lines. Of course the road was empty: Jonty was with Jax and probably eating dinner in Rick Stein’s right now. This was just another sign, as if the big Tom-sized one wasn’t enough, that it was time for her to move on.

Ticket purchased, Andi wedged herself into a seat and pressed her forehead against the cool window. Then the bus lumbered forward, away from the town, away from the friends she’d made there and away from the man who, against all the odds, had somehow managed to steal her heart. With the lights of the town growing ever fainter, Andi closed her eyes – and when the tears trickled from beneath her lids she didn’t try to stop them. Even if she’d wanted to, she didn’t think she could.

Bodmin Parkway, an old-fashioned wooden relic of the golden age of railways, was marooned in a sea of dense trees and a mile or so down a very dark lane. Apart from the tail lights of the departing bus and the orange glow of the platform, the place was filled with an inky blackness that city dwellers seldom see. The car park was empty save the odd car that had been left behind like a leftover tooth in a gummy mouth. An owl’s call scraped the stillness and as Andi lugged her bags towards the ticket office her footsteps sounded unnaturally loud on the gravelly path. It was as though she’d alighted from the bus straight into an American slasher movie, and she shivered.

Maybe this hadn’t been such a bright idea?

And maybe she shouldn’t have just assumed that there were sure to be trains to London passing through at this time of night? She bit her lip and tried to ignore the little knot of dread tightening in her tummy. There’d be a train at some point. All she needed to do was wait – easier said than done when the waiting room was locked and the ticket office closed for the night. It seemed that she had no choice but to stand alone on the gloomy platform. Hoisting her bag up onto her shoulder, she was about to head towards the small bridge that crossed the tracks to the Paddington-bound line when a sweep of bright headlights cut through the dark with dazzling intensity. A white Range Rover Evoque with registration plates declaring the legend MEL 1 swished to a halt alongside her and, as Andi stood blinking the stars from her vision, the car window hissed down.

“Andi?”

The voice from the car almost bowled her over. Squinting into the gloom she made out a figure buried deep in the shadows with eyes as dark as the night that had now wrapped its grasp around the Duchy.

Jonty.

Her gaze met his and she stared, unable to believe it. Jonty leaned across and pushed the door open, casting a pathway of light straight to him.

“I don’t know what this is all about,” he said, “and I’m not going to pretend that I think it’s a good idea to run away, but there’s no way I’m leaving you on an isolated railway platform this late at night.”

Andi bristled at his tone. She was just about through with the men in her life thinking they could call the shots.

“I’m fine.” She raised her chin a little. God, it was terrifying just how happy she was to see him. The way her insides were seesawing could only be very bad news indeed. “I’m waiting for the London train.”