Chapter Fifteen

‘ A re you sure you don't mind me leaving early today?' Standing in the kitchen, Debbie wrung her apron in her hands.

‘I'm perfectly sure, love. I wouldn't have suggested it if I wasn't.' Walking towards her, Elsie wiped her floury hands down the front of her apron before holding them out for Debbie's. ‘It's not every day you meet your cousin's children for the first time.'

‘No, I know, but I'm here to volunteer. I feel bad just leaving mid-shift.' Reluctantly, she passed Elsie her apron.

‘Well, don't. You've been helping me and Teresa with the morning baking every day this week. Take this as time owed to you.'

‘Okay, okay, I will. Thank you.' Debbie nodded. Now that Elsie had told her she was giving her the time off because she was owed, Debbie felt a little less like she was running out on her job. Just a little.

‘Have a lovely time, love.'

‘Thanks.' Debbie nodded and turned towards the door. What with her nan welcoming her back into her life and running into Richie again, and now meeting up with her cousin after all this time, this break away was becoming a whirlwind of reconnecting and catch-ups. She smiled. She didn't think she'd ever spoken about herself and her past as much as she had this week or asked as many questions of others as she had.

She waved to Teresa, Brooke and Diane as she stepped outside onto the cobbles. Being surrounded by friends and family, both old and new, the bay was quickly feeling like home and, strangely, it was beginning to feel as though she'd never left. Or at least as though she hadn't left so much time between visits.

Looking toward the beach and ocean as she walked across the promenade, she smiled. It might just work if she did stay on after her voluntary position finished, and maybe one day she could officially make the bay her home. In the short time she'd been here, she'd made more friends than she ever had back home and, of course, she had her nan here. And her cousin and his family close.

But could she do that? Really? Leave her mum and the family she'd got to know up in Scotland? Her friends?

Looking down, she tucked her hair behind her ears as a gust of wind blew in from the ocean. At least she'd found the silver lining in no longer having a permanent job – she wouldn't have one to leave if she moved down here. And she guessed that made it the perfect time to make the big move, didn't it? If she returned to Scotland, fell back into living there and started another job and then later decided she wanted to make the move to Penworth Bay, that would only make the decision harder.

No, this was the perfect time. It was the practical time. So why did she feel so conflicted still? Her mum would be fine. She and Fraser had been planning their tour around Europe in their camper van for next year, so it wasn't as though they'd be staying indefinitely in Scotland, anyway. Yes, they'd be back, but a year is still a very long time.

‘Debbie? Debbie, is that you?'

Tearing her eyes from the view of the ocean, she looked across the cobbles towards the bottom of the hill and a blue estate car which had pulled over. She squinted. Who was that? Who had called her name?

As she walked across towards the car, she widened her eyes. It was her cousin, Bertie. He had the same mop of unruly brown hair and the same dimple in his cheek that he'd had when she'd last seen him. ‘Bertie?'

‘Wow, it is you! Hold on one moment.' Bertie turned to the woman sitting in the passenger seat before jumping out of the car and running towards her, his arms wide open. ‘I can't believe it's really you! My little cousin, Debbie.'

Sinking into his arms, she laughed. ‘Hey, I was always older than you and I still am.'

‘Haha, but look...' Leaning back, he held his palm against the top of his head before transferring it to Debbie's head, sloping his arm down dramatically as he did so. ‘...you're still the shortest of us both.'

Grinning, she shook her head before drawing him into another hug. ‘It's so good to see you.'

‘You too. Seriously. I had thought I'd possibly never see you again, so when Nan rang to invite us over and said she had a special guest. I never in a million years thought she meant you.'

‘Haha, and yet here I am.'

‘Yep, here you are. Just casually walking down the promenade as though you'd never stepped foot outside the place, let alone been missing in action for the last umpteen years.'

The car beeped before driving slowly off again and Debbie watched two faces peering through the back windscreen waving their hands. ‘Aw your kids! I can't wait to meet them. Nan said you had daughters?'

‘Yes, for my sins.' He chuckled. ‘Two. A twelve-year-old and a nine-year-old going on sixteen.'

‘Wow, you're like all grown up now.' Debbie shook her head. Her cousin, the boy she'd skimmed stones out to sea with, paddled in rock pools and ran around their nan's cottage playing tag had kids of his own. Her nan had told her but actually seeing him and them, well, it was different. It made it real.

‘Ah, that seems to be what happens. A side effect of the human condition and all.' He shrugged, a huge grin still plastered on his face. ‘So, tell me, how about you? You must have a dozen little ones running around by now? Cute husband?'

‘Yuck, no.' Debbie grimaced. She'd known this topic would come up. She should have prepared an answer, an excuse. Instead, she was left floundering.

‘Oh, never mind. You've still got time.' He held his arm out and waited until she'd looped hers through his elbow as they began walking up the hill.

‘Ha, yes.' She held up her left hand and wriggled her ring finger. ‘I was engaged until about four months ago.'

‘I'm sorry about the breakup.' He looked down at her, concern etched across his face.

‘Don't be.' She shrugged.

‘He didn't leave you standing at the altar or anything like that, did he? Or you him? I know when I got married to Jill, I had this overbearing worry that she just wouldn't turn up.'

She shook her head slowly. ‘Nothing like that, no. He just chose work over me in the end.'

Bertie sighed. ‘Life can be rubbish at times.'

She glanced across towards the pub as they walked past and smiled as she spotted Richie helping a man unload casks of ale from a lorry. ‘Oh, I don't know. I actually think it might have been for the best.'

‘Good for you. That's the spirit.' Bertie followed Debbie's gaze. ‘Oh, I see.'

She held her hand up and waved as Richie looked up, spotted her and grinned. ‘You do?'

‘I do. Does the tall, bearded landlord have anything to do with your healing heart by any chance?'

‘Huh?' Looking back at him, she felt her cheeks pink.

‘How long have you been in the bay? I'd hope only a week or two before Nan invited me down and you've already sought out the local talent?' He chuckled again.

‘No, it's not like that.' She shook her head. ‘That's Richie.'

‘Richie?' He looked back towards the pub.

‘Yes, the boy I knocked down on my bike when I was thirteen. Do you remember? I don't think you came that summer because it was the year your parents took you to visit their friends in Australia, wasn't it? But I know I told you about him.'

‘Yes, yes you did. I remember. That's how you ended up with the scar on your cheek! That's him?' Now they'd passed the pub, he looked over his shoulder.

‘Don't stare.' Laughing, Debbie tapped him on the arm. ‘But, yes, that's him. It's Richie. The boy I spent that summer with.'

‘And he lives here?'

‘No, he's just looking after the pub while his aunt and uncle are away.'

‘Wow, so he happens to be in the bay at the exact time you decide to visit? You know what that is, don't you?' He raised his eyebrows at her. ‘Fate. By the way you're acting and the look he was giving you, there's something going on between you both.'

‘What? No.' She scrunched up her nose. There wasn't any point in lying to Bertie. He always had been able to see right through her. ‘Well, we may have been on a date.'

‘On a date? The first of many, I presume.'

Debbie shrugged. She hoped so. ‘We'll see.'

‘Yes, we will.' He looked back again. ‘And next time you see him, you'd best let him know that I'm your cousin and not competition.'

Debbie tutted as they turned down their nan's lane. ‘Stop it.'

‘Sorry, I'll stop. I won't tease you. Much anyway.' Bertie paused and looked around the lane. ‘We had some good times here as kids, didn't we?'

‘We sure did.' When she looked at her nan's cottage, she could still picture the memory of her mum telling them what had happened, the cold fear that she'd felt, and the pain, but slowly with each visit she made to the cottage, older memories, sweeter memories, happy memories were inching their back in too. She shook her head and began walking again. ‘Right, let's go and meet these gorgeous kids of yours. And your wife too. Nan said she was lovely.'

‘She is.' Bertie smiled as he held the gate open for her. ‘I'm very lucky.'

‘Good, you deserve to be.' Debbie walked into the garden just as the front door swung open and their nan appeared in the doorway.

‘There you two are.' Florrie drew them both into a hug and squeezed them tight. ‘I finally have my two mischief makers under the same roof again.'

‘Oi, I hope you're referring to Debbie with that one. I seem to remember I was the angel of the two of us.' Bertie chuckled as he hugged her back.

‘The angel?' Tapping him on the back of the head, Florrie shook her head and stepped back, ushering them inside. ‘I'm not sure that's quite how I remember it.'