to start packing up and went off to find a man with a van.
He was back in an amazingly short time to help me. ‘Somebody called Dave is coming in a couple of hours. He’s agreed to take all the stock off our hands.’
‘What on earth is he going to do with it?’ I asked curiously.
‘I didn’t ask, and neither should you. Your problem is his trading opportunity.’
We were dusty and tired by the time we had finished. Dave had turned up, as promised, and to my huge relief had taken away all the stock-which wasn’t all that much once I started to pack it away. Then we’d bought a couple of brushes and a mop and cleaned the shop thoroughly, and Phin had mended the back door where the thieves had broken in.
I straightened, pressing both hands into the small of my back. ‘I think that’s it,’ I said, looking around the shop. It was as clean as I could make it.
Then I looked at Phin, sweeping up the debris from his repair. I thought about everything he had done for me and my throat closed.
‘I don’t know what I would have done without you,’ I told him.
Phin propped his broom against the wall. ‘You’d have coped-the way you always do,’ he said. ‘But I’m glad I could help.’
‘You did. You helped more than you can ever know,’ I said. ‘You helped me just by being here. I’m only sorry to have dragged you all the way down to Somerset as soon as you got home.’
‘You didn’t drag me anywhere,’ said Phin. ‘I wanted to be here.’
I laughed. ‘What? In a quiet side street of a pleasant provincial town? It’s not really wild enough for you, is it? I can see you wanting to trek to the South Pole, or cross the Sahara or…or…’ What
‘You’re not the only one who’s changed,’ said Phin. ‘It’s true that I used to be an adrenalin junkie, but it took that race from Rio to show me that I could push myself right to the edge, I could face everything the ocean could throw at me-and believe me that was a lot!-but hanging out on a trapeze over the waves in an Atlantic gale was still nothing like the rush I get when I’m with you.’
His tone was so conversational that it took me a moment to realise just what he’d said, and then I felt my heart start to crumble with a happiness so incredulous and so intense that it almost hurt.
Phin was still standing on the other side of the room, but it was as if an electric current connected us, fizzing and sparking in the musty air. I was held by it, by the look in his eyes and the warmth of his voice, and I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. All I could do was stare back at him with a kind of dazed disbelief.
‘I thought about you every day at sea,’ he said, his voice so deep it reverberated through me. ‘It was tough out there, tough and exhilarating, but as soon as we got into port all I wanted was to see you, Summer. I wanted to hear your voice. I wanted to touch you. I suddenly understood what people mean when they say they want to go home. It wasn’t about being in my house, or in London. It was just being with you. And if that means spending a day clearing out an old shop, that’s where I want to be.’
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. The air had leaked out of my lungs without me noticing and I had to suck in an unsteady breath.
‘I’ve missed you, Summer,’ said Phin.
I felt my mouth wobble treacherously and had to press my lips firmly together. ‘I’ve missed you, too,’ I said, my voice cracking.
‘Really?’
I made a valiant effort to pull myself together. It was that or dissolve into an puddle of tears and lust. And what a mess that would be.
‘Well, apart from your fiddling, obviously.’
A smile started in his eyes and spread out over his face as he took a step towards me. ‘I even missed your obsessive tidying.’
‘I missed you being late the whole time.’ It was my turn to take a step forward.
He came a little closer. ‘I missed the way you scowl at me over your glasses.’
‘I missed your silly nicknames.’
We were almost touching by now. ‘I missed kissing you,’ said Phin-just as I said, ‘I missed kissing you.’ Our words overlapped as we closed the last gap between us, and then we didn’t have to miss it any more. I was locked in his arms, my fingers clutching his hair, and we were kissing-deep, hungry kisses that sent the world rocking around us.
‘Wait, wait!’ I broke breathlessly away at last. ‘It’s not supposed to be like this!’
‘What do you mean?’ said Phin, pulling me back. ‘This is
‘But I want to seduce you,’ I wailed. ‘I had it all planned out. I was going to be your fantasy again-but this time I was going to lock the office door so that Lex couldn’t interrupt us.’
Phin started to laugh. ‘CP, you’re my fantasy wherever you are.’
‘Not dressed like this-all dirty and dusty!’
‘Even now, without your little suit,’ he insisted. ‘You’re all I want.’
Well, how was a girl to resist that? I melted into him and kissed him back. ‘That’s all very well, but
‘I agree,’ said Phin, his eyes dancing. ‘If I’m going to be seduced, I’d like it to be in comfort. Does it have to be the office? Let me take you home instead. There’s something I want to show you, anyway.’
So we picked up my bag from the B &B, dropped the key to the shop through the landlord’s door, and headed back to London. Phin’s car was fast, and incredibly comfortable as it purred effortlessly up the motorway, but I was so happy by then that I could probably have floated all the way under my own steam.
I was shimmering with excitement at the thought of what was to come, and it was still incredibly easy being together. We talked all the way back. Phin told me about sailing up the coast of South America, about winds and waves and negotiating currents, and about their dramatic rescue mission. I told him about my mother’s new plan, and Anne’s wedding, and how I’d decided to rent a little place on my own and not tie myself down with a mortgage.
We caught up on office gossip, too. I told Phin about Jonathan’s new job. ‘It’s a big promotion for him.’
‘Lex won’t be happy, but I can’t say I’m sorry he’s leaving,’ said Phin. ‘But then, I’m just jealous.’
It was so absurd I laughed. ‘You can’t possibly be jealous of Jonathan, Phin!’
‘I am,’ he insisted. ‘I remember how you felt about him. I know how important steadiness and security has always been to you. When you told me you’d talked to Jonathan in Aduaba, it seemed to me that he was offering you everything you really wanted.’
‘Is that why you left when I went to work for Lex?’
He nodded. ‘I thought it would be easier for you to get together with Jonathan, but as soon as I agreed to go to Rio I knew I had made a terrible mistake. All the time on the boat I thought about you with him, and I hated it. I couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been. What had I been thinking? Helping you to get Jonathan back when all along I’d been falling in love with you myself.
Phin slapped his forehead to make the point. ‘And who had I been trying to kid with all that stuff about wanting you to be happy with Jonathan if that was what you really wanted? I was way too selfish for that. I wanted to make you happy myself, and I knew that I could do it if only you’d give me a chance. I had my strategy all worked out.’
‘What strategy?’ I asked, turning in my seat to look at him.
‘You’ll see,’ said Phin. ‘I flew back to London as soon as we hit land, which gave me the weekend to put the first part of my plan into action. The next stage was to find you and separate you from Jonathan somehow. So I went into the office yesterday, but of course you weren’t there-and nor was Lex. I couldn’t get hold of him until later, and that’s when he told me you were down here on your own. I was partly outraged that Jonathan wasn’t here to help you, but I was pleased, too, that you were alone so I could tell you how I felt.’
He glanced at me with a smile. ‘Then you told me that you weren’t going to marry him after all. You’ll never know how relieved I was to hear that, cream puff.’
I smiled back at him. ‘It took you going for me to realise how much I loved you,’ I told him. ‘I knew then that I
