response. ‘Thank you.’
It was only when Ben and the two kids had disappeared through the crowd that she realised she should have asked him to get one for her too. She opened her mouth to yell, but stopped herself and pulled the hem of her hat down until it was touching the bridge of her nose. Too many faces.
There were always too many faces these days. Yes, back in the beginning, she’d loved that aspect of her golden life with Toby. Dad had needed a lot of help when she’d been finishing secondary school and, after being in class so infrequently that some of the kids in her year hadn’t even known who she was, it had been nice to be recognised. She’d underestimated just how addictive being noticed could be.
Her first hit had been the adrenaline rush she’d had when that talent scout for a modelling agency had come up to her when she’d been working in the supermarket one Saturday afternoon. Within weeks she’d been flying round Europe for photo shoots, attending industry parties, meeting famous people…
Dad had been so proud of her. And she’d ignored the guilt she’d felt at letting Sarah, the next oldest, slip into her Cinderella role whilst her big sister had danced away in an imaginary world where the clock never seemed to strike midnight.
And then she’d met Prince Charming-Tobias Thornton, rising star and darling of the British film industry. After that, she’d smothered all those nagging feelings by reasoning that now, at least, her family had decent food on the table. That they’d moved into a proper house with a bedroom for all of them…except Louise. And the school uniforms were no longer hand-me-downs or scavenged from local charity shops. Best of all, Dad had a full-time nurse to look after him.
It had been the nurse who’d been sitting beside him when he’d died only six months after she and Toby had said ‘I do’ on a private island in the Caribbean.
Tears stung Louise’s eyes and the bonfire became a big orange blur. She stared at the mass of colour until it started to sharpen and move again. Slowly, she became aware of people talking and being nudged, but she didn’t seem able to move. It was only when she heard Jack laugh and splutter with a mouthful of hot dog that she realised the others had returned. She carelessly rested a hand on top of Jack’s head but he shook it off.
‘You looked hungry too.’ There was a smile in Ben’s voice and she turned to look at him, even though the world was still shimmering slightly. He was holding up a big, juicy sausage in a roll, dripping with fried onions and ketchup. ‘Of course, I’ve heard models don’t eat, so I’m prepared to make the sacrifice of eating two if you don’t want it.’
‘Ex-model,’ she said, snatching it out of his hand and stuffing one end in her mouth before he could change his mind. Ben threw his head back and laughed. And, when she had finished chewing, she did the same.
‘Mum? What’s so funny?’
Louise gave a tiny shake of her head, her gaze locked with Ben’s. ‘I don’t know, Jack. Just…’Ben was still grinning, but his eyes weren’t just smiling at her now. Deep underneath, there was something intense, something that drew her and terrified her at the same time. ‘…something.’
She breathed out and returned her attention to her hot dog, which wasn’t hard to do. She hoped these had been happy pigs because, boy, they made one heck of a good sausage. Their sacrifice had been entirely worth it.
But then, sacrifices often were.
If Mum hadn’t died, if Dad hadn’t been ill, if she hadn’t been standing at that particular supermarket till that day-looking ‘haunting’ as the scout had told her-then she wouldn’t have met Toby. Okay, she might not have any regrets about erasing Toby from her life at this particular moment, but without Toby there would have been no Jack. And Jack was worth any sacrifice.
She looked at him, hanging off the rope and trying to edge closer to where the fireworks were being set up. Before she could reach for him, a strong male hand gently grabbed his coat and hauled him back into place.
A bonfire sprang into life inside Louise. In a place that had been cold and dead for so long, flames licked and tickled.
No. Not now. Not here. Not with this man.
Not that Ben Oliver wasn’t worthy of admiration. After all, he was good-looking, thoughtful and kind. A good father. All the things a girl should put at the top of her list when searching for a prospective Prince Charming. And he had a presence, a quiet charisma that made it impossible not to search him out in a crowd or feel that he was someone you could trust your life with.
But this wasn’t the time to be noticing those things about someone. This was time for her and Jack to heal, to rebuild. And she’d felt this way before, had trusted Toby with her life, and he had made it glitter and shine for a while, but ultimately he’d decided it wasn’t worth his enduring attention.
So this was her sacrifice: she wouldn’t go there. She’d cut off the oxygen supply to whatever feelings were warming her core. Jack deserved all her attention and her love at the moment and he shouldn’t have to share it with anyone. He wouldn’t.
The fireworks started. Louise had thought herself immune to the pretty showers of colour. Last year they’d seen the New Year’s fireworks in London from a balcony of an expensive riverside apartment a quarter of a mile away. It had been a dramatic display, with rockets shooting off the London Eye and barges on the Thames, but she’d felt removed from it all somehow.
There was no ignoring anything tonight. Not the way the crowd collectively held its breath waiting for a bang. Not the warmth of the bonfire on one side of her face. Especially not the breath of the man standing slightly behind her that made her right ear tingle.
In the inky blackness of a country night, the sprays of light-from pure white to red and green, and blue and gold-were reflected in a river that had stretched itself taut and flat. The effect was stunning. Magical. Soon she was saying ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ with everyone else, and clapping and watching Jack’s reaction-and finding herself catching the gaze of a warm brown pair of eyes, then quickly looking away again.
The last firework glittered and fizzed, shooting so high up into the sky that she would have sworn that, briefly, she caught a glimpse of her big white house on the opposite bank. And then it exploded and split into a thousand stars that gracefully fell to earth. She sighed and closed her eyes. Simple pleasures.
How odd. She’d always thought that money and fame would make it easier to find pleasure, but all it had really done was make it more complicated. Pure happiness, joy with no strings attached was an unknown commodity in her life. When had she become so poor? And how had she become so blind she hadn’t even realised what a sorry state she was in?
‘Come on…’ Ben’s hand, resting once again on the shoulder of her thick wool coat, caused her to open her eyes, releasing the magic moment and letting it flutter away like the sparks from the bonfire. ‘I’ll give you a lift home.’
Jack, who should have been totally worn out by now, jumped up and down even harder. ‘Are we going on the dingy again?’
Jas put on a very superior tone. ‘It’s not a dingy, Jack. You say it
Jack pulled himself up to his full height. ‘I knew that.’
Ben shook his head. ‘No. I’ll drive you.’
Louise opened her mouth to protest. It would take more than half an hour to drive down to Dartmouth, catch the ‘higher ferry’, as the locals called it, and double back to Whitehaven.
‘I wouldn’t take the kids out in the boat when it’s this dark,’ he explained.
Louise followed him as he headed for the quiet spot where he’d parked his car and looked carefully at the scenery. It had been verging on darkness when they’d made the trip over, or at least she’d thought it was. The trees had been dark grey shapes and the sky had faded from bright cobalt at the horizon to indigo overhead but, compared to how it looked at the moment, that had merely been twilight. Everything was black if it wasn’t lit up by either starlight or electricity.
‘And you and Jack would have to scramble back through the woods in the pitch-dark.’
Okay, he’d convinced her. She got lost in her own back garden in daylight still. No way was she dragging her eight-year-old through those woods tonight.
As she strapped Jack into the back of Ben’s car, Louise went still. Ben must have known all along that they wouldn’t be able to return to Whitehaven the way they’d come. It explained why he’d disappeared when they’d first arrived to move his car-away from the main road and the village centre, where the crowds were now ambling-into a
