Winter Wishes (5 page)

Jules had been even more embarrassed to learn that Issie had also climbed up behind her in an attempt to coax her down. She’d been so frozen by terror that she hadn’t even registered this, and now she was mortified. What a lot of trouble she’d caused by wanting to help and not thinking things through first. A wise person had once told Jules that a vicar must always consider the consequences of her actions, but it seemed that this was still something she needed to work on. First of all there had been the naked calendar fiasco, then almost kissing Danny on the morning of his sister’s wedding, and now shooting up a ladder when she had acrophobia. It wasn’t a great track record.

She’d pray hard about it, Jules decided. Yes, she’d ask for some help to be less impulsive.

OK then. A lot of help.

The stinging humiliation had been eased somewhat by having Danny’s arm around her shoulder (although it now troubled her that she’d enjoyed his embrace so much) and Alice’s sweet reassurances that being stuck up a ladder for twenty-five minutes really wasn’t such a big deal. Once she’d stepped inside Seaspray, Jules had begun to feel better still. Alice’s kitchen was so warm and welcoming, with its pools of cosy light and the soft hissing of the kettle from the hotplate amid the family’s chatter. The mouth-watering aromas of home-made soup, sausages and jacket potatoes cooking in the oven certainly had restorative powers too.

“How are you feeling?” Danny asked. He was crouched down beside Jules, his hand resting lightly on her knee, and looking concerned. “You’re still really pale. Maybe some sugary tea would be better than soup? Sugar’s good for shock.”

In Jules’s experience sugar was good for most things, from celebration to feeling fed up. She was just about to agree, when a knock at the front door sent the family’s Jack Russell into a fit of barking.

“That’ll be the trick-or-treaters,” remarked Alice from her seat at the kitchen table. Her laptop was open in front of her and, with her eyes still fixed on the screen, she added, “I’m just in the middle of something here. Can one of you get the door, please? There’s a bowl of sweets in the hall ready for them. Only a few, mind, or we’ll run out. Mo! Shut your dog in the boot room, for heaven’s sake! I can’t concentrate.”

Danny caught Jules’s eye.

“Told you,” he whispered. “She’s glued to that computer. It has to be online gambling.”

Jules laughed but Danny pulled a face.

“I’m not kidding. Where do you think Pa gets it from?”

Mo Tremaine grabbed her dog’s collar and dragged the animal, still barking and straining to get to the door, into the boot room. “Shush, Cracker. It’s only trick-or-treaters! Shush, I said! Ashley, answer the bloody door before we’re all deafened.”

Mo’s dark-haired husband raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? If I answer they’ll run a mile, surely? Frankenstein’s-monster property developer with the scar on his head and bald patch coming to get them? Arms outstretched as he tries to grab their parents’ cottages? “

Ashley had undergone major surgery only weeks before, and part of his scalp was still shaven and criss-crossed with pink scars. With his stern, hawk-like profile and intense glittering eyes he was strikingly handsome. Shaven head and scars or not, he was hardly in the league of Frankenstein’s monster. Still, Ashley did have a fearsome reputation in Polwenna Bay. Although it had been softened a little by his recent marriage to Mo, it might well send the youngsters scuttling back into the village.

“Stay put, Ashley. I’ll get it,” offered Issie, leaping to her feet and heading into the hall in a blur of braids and velvet.

“Don’t you dare eat those sweets, Issie Tremaine! They’re for the children,” her grandmother called after her.

“You know she will. She always does,” Mo grinned, and Alice laughed.

“Of course I do. Why do you think I stocked up with extras?”

Their family banter washed over Jules like a tide. The Tremaines were a noisy bunch, and were sometimes tricky and determined – but they were loyal to a fault, loved one another fiercely and always made her feel welcome. As she drank her soup she tuned in and out of the rise and fall of their chatter, broken now and again by more bouts of frenzied barking from the captive Cracker when there was another knock at the door. Family members flowed in and out of the kitchen, helping themselves to sausages and soup, and teasing one another. But throughout all of this Jules was so acutely aware of Danny that she could hardly concentrate on anything else.

How was it possible, Jules wondered, that one person could become the sunshine of your entire world? That as hard as you tried you just couldn’t help longing to turn your face towards their warmth? Even when she wasn’t looking at him she knew exactly where Danny was. Her ears seemed to be perfectly attuned to his steady voice, rich and deep as the seams of copper that ran beneath the Cornish landscape. She could picture just how his head would tilt as he listened carefully to Jake, knew that his brow would crinkle thoughtfully as he considered his reply, and saw the way he ran his hand over his cropped hair as he began to speak. Even the hand was etched into her mind’s eye, large and strong, the back sprinkled with golden hair, the fingers square with short nails that had perfect half-moon cuticles.

She’d memorised his hand? That was ridiculous.
She
was ridiculous.

Jules bit into a piece of jacket potato, hoping that the hot buttery flesh would jolt her out of these thoughts, but instead managing to scald her tongue. Nothing, it seemed, was going to help her get over this foolish crush. She’d tried praying. She’d applied logic. She’d avoided him. Now she was even self-harming with steaming-hot food, but all to no avail. She was still totally and utterly in love with him.

The tears that sprang into her eyes weren’t just from the scalding potato.

“Do you want some water?” Danny was at her side holding out a glass. “Those potatoes are so hot that you need an asbestos mouth to eat them.”

Jules glugged a few mouthfuls down gratefully, wishing that her heart could be dealt with as easily as her burned tongue. While she drank he sat down beside her, his lean body sinking easily into the saggy cushions and his left arm resting on the back of the sofa just inches away from her shoulders.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said quietly, “Don’t answer, Jules. You don’t need to. We both know it’s the truth. I’ve hardly seen you since that morning we walked up to Fernside.”

Jules stared miserably down at the glass of water. “Danny, I—”

“It’s OK, I don’t need an explanation.” Danny’s voice was low and steady. “I’m not an idiot, Jules. I know how these things work. I understand you’re the vicar, and I totally respect that it’s your job and your calling – of course I do. I also know when a woman is telling me one thing with her voice but another altogether with her heart. You wanted me to kiss you that morning. We both know that.”

She turned her head and the intensity in his good eye took her breath away. His gaze was full of the same fire she’d seen there back in September when they’d walked hand in hand through the russet woodland and he’d made a move to kiss her. For a moment Jules had almost given in to the longing, had nearly let his mouth rest on hers, before her senses had kicked in and she’d stepped away.

“Danny, it doesn’t matter what I want,” she said gently. “I told you then that nothing can ever come of it.”

Danny shook his head. “I think you’re wrong, Jules. I think there’s something between us that’s special and wonderful and rare, and I’m not prepared to give up on it. You can tell me about my wife and my marriage and my vows until you’re blue in the face, but none of that matters. Tara and I are over. We’ve been over for a long time.”

“Your injuries must have been tough on her, on you both—” Jules began, but Danny wasn’t prepared to listen.

“Don’t you dare try and go into vicar mode on me! You don’t know the half of it. We were over long before the Taliban decided it was their turn to have a pop. Christ, even they couldn’t do me as much damage as bloody Tara.”

Frustration was coming from Danny in such waves that the fishing boats at sea were probably rocking like crazy.

“We’re friends, you and I – or at least I thought we were,” he said bleakly.

“Of course we’re friends,” Jules protested.

“Friends don’t hide from each other or run away when life gets tricky.”

“I was trying to do the right thing.” She was still trying but it was so hard, especially when he was this close and offering her everything she’d secretly dreamed of.

“You always do the right thing,” Danny replied wearily. “That’s the problem.”

Jules wasn’t so sure. Wishing for another woman’s husband at St Wenn’s Well probably hadn’t been the right thing to do.

“You’re married,” she said woodenly. “I care about your marriage.”

He sighed in exasperation. “I know you do. You care about so many things, Jules, and I love that about you. But my marriage is over. There’s no resurrecting it. Life isn’t black and white. Can’t you just trust me on this one? What about what’s right for us?”

Jules was dangerously close to saying that she did trust him and throwing all caution to the wind, when Alice slammed her hand on the kitchen table. Her usually gentle face was taut with anger.

“Who’s been booking flights to the USA and using the household account?”

“God, you almost gave me a heart attack,” Issie gasped, her hand pressed theatrically to her chest.

“I’ll give whoever it was more than a heart attack,” her grandmother promised grimly. “Well? Who was it?”

There was silence while Alice glowered at her family.

“Well? It must be one of you. Nobody else knows the banking passwords.”

“Don’t look at me,” grumbled Issie, looking wounded. “Bet it was Zak. He’s always flying off somewhere.”

“Or Symon?” suggested Nick. “Perhaps he has some business there? Or maybe it’s a mistake?”

With shaking hands, Alice shut the laptop. “Zak and Symon have their own business accounts, though. And this doesn’t look much like an error to me. The transaction was made this morning. I’ve checked the account twice, and over a thousand pounds has gone to British Airways. It can only be one of the family.”

“Maybe the account’s been hacked?” Jimmy Tremaine offered quickly. “Personal details get hacked all the time, don’t they?”

His mother fixed him with a knowing look.

“Do they, Jim? How very convenient.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean exactly, Ma?” demanded Jimmy Tremaine. The tall story he’d been telling Summer about how he’d ridden a horse from Paris to Istanbul had halted mid-canter and he was looking unusually flustered.

“Shall I go?” Jules offered, awkward at finding herself flung into the midst of a Tremaine family crisis. She didn’t know Danny’s father particularly well, but she’d picked up enough from Alice and other family members to realise that he might be charming and a good raconteur but was also totally feckless. Jake was driven to distraction by his father using the boatyard like his own personal playground, and Alice had often hinted that she was considering whether or not she trusted him to manage the property when she was gone. He was fun and good-natured and his family loved him dearly, but Jimmy drove them crazy.

It was no secret whom Issie and Zak took after…

“No, no need to leave. There’s nothing here we wouldn’t say to you,” Danny said to Jules. He squeezed her shoulder and her heart did a forward roll at the heat of his fingers through her shirt. “Besides, you’re practically one of the family.”

Ashley winked at Jules. “Careful, Vicar. I’m not sure that’s always such a good thing!”

Mo whacked him with a dog-eared copy of
Horse & Hound
. “Too late now, Carstairs. Unless you want me to divorce you and take half of your evil empire?”

“If you’ll put on a leather Princess Leia style bikini and wear your hair in Chelsea buns for me I’ll gladly give you all of my evil empire,” Ashley drawled. There was a gleam in his eye as he grinned at his wife, and Jules could almost see the electricity crackle between them. “Hmm, know what, Red? That would actually be worth losing all my fortune to see!”

Issie made a puking gesture while Nick rolled his eyes and Danny laughed – but even Ashley’s joking couldn’t ease the atmosphere completely. Alice was still scowling at the laptop and Jimmy couldn’t have looked guiltier if he’d sauntered through the kitchen in full burglar costume with a bag marked “swag”
over his shoulder.

“So what’s the problem, Ma?” he asked.

Alice sighed. “You know exactly
what
, Jimmy Tremaine. Small withdrawals here and there. Not usually enough to make too much of a difference, and I never normally say anything – but do you really think I don’t notice? I may be old but I haven’t gone gaga yet, you know! I can still cope with basic mathematics.”

Jake stepped forward and laid a calming hand on Alice’s shaking one. “Let’s take it one step at a time, Gran. Nick’s right: it’s probably a mistake. If you show me the details we can probably trace who made the transfer.”

“Oh, it’s no mistake. Is it, Jim?” Her mouth set in a thin line, Alice looked across the table at her son.

Jimmy Tremaine pulled a wounded face. “I love the way you assume I’m to blame. I’m not the only person in this room who can access that account.” His eyes slid from one child to another. “Am I? It could be anyone here.”

“Did you take it, Dad?” Jake asked quietly. His words were spoken calmly but a muscle ticked in his cheek, indicating just how angry he was. To his grandmother he added, “How much has gone in total?”

“Nearly fifteen hundred pounds,” Alice whispered. She looked utterly defeated.

Jake paled. “Fifteen hundred? The business can’t replace that amount. We’ve a massive diesel bill to pay and the winch hydraulics need fixing.”

Summer and Mo exchanged worried looks. Ashley was probably itching to reach for his chequebook, thought Jules, but he surely knew by now how proud the Tremaines were. According to Alice, his previous offers to help the business out had been rejected very swiftly. Summer’s finances had been practically wiped out as a result of replacing her family’s trawler and taking her ex to court, but she too had offered what little she did have left. Danny had mentioned that this gesture had caused the only row he’d ever witnessed between Summer and Jake. The family would find a solution without accepting handouts, Jake had insisted. That was the Tremaine way. Quite what this solution could possibly be, Jules didn’t know. Holiday cottages and boats only paid dividends in the summer. The winter months were lean for everyone in a village that depended on seasonal trade, and the Tremaines were no exception.