Alex gasped. ‘Everyone’s leaving.’
She and Magnús sprang apart and made a show of searching at opposite ends of the rails.
‘Ah, there you are!’ Minty announced on discovering the pair rummaging unconvincingly.
Alex’s voice was pitchy. ‘Magnús is helping me find my hat.’
The whole party was gathering by the cloakroom now. Mrs Crocombe’s right eyebrow was arched in a knowing way which Magnús hadn’t seemed to notice but which worried Alex terribly.
‘Walk you home, Alex?’ Jowan was saying, as he pulled on his jacket and tucked Aldous inside.
Wordlessly, after throwing an apologetic smile at Magnús, Alex squeezed through the crowd and made for the door in Jowan’s wake.
With that, the evening was over and Alex had somehow, in her zeal to help Magnús repair some of his hurt pride, decided to step into her mum’s shoes as a diner owner. The impulse had come from somewhere so deep within her she hadn’t even known it was there, but now that the agreement had been reached she couldn’t wait for morning, and if playing in Borrow-A-Bookshop all day was going to delay her rejoining the real world for a little longer, all the better.
Chapter Twelve
Bottled Messages
Alex had drifted back Down-along that evening, talking with Jowan about all the ingredients she’d need if she was to help out in the café tomorrow, and she had seemed cheerful on the surface, yet on the inside she’d felt a numb, but not unpleasant, kind of shock.
All the way home in the drizzling rain, all the way upstairs and into bed, she’d held it together, smiling and saying goodnight to Jowan, but her brain was crackling with activity.
She’d almost kissed Magnús, and even though it had felt like he was going to kiss her back, she had been the one instigating the whole thing.
She replayed it over and over, looking for anything she might have missed. He’d held her hands. That was all him. But she had been the one stepping closer and leaning in, closing her eyes, wanting it.
What had she been thinking? Runaways didn’t go getting involved in cloakroom clinches with near strangers, no matter how much those strangers radiated warmth from their very insides; not even if being near them felt like reaching a life raft after days floundering in the ocean.
Shipwrecked women were supposed to lie low and concentrate on survival. If she were on a desert island right now, she’d be focused on sorting out her basic needs: food, warmth and shelter. Yet these were all things Magnús seemed to represent.
He’d given her a jumper, baked for her, made her sit and drink coffee when she’d been unsure what else to do, and it had all been so easy, and she definitely felt safe with him.Dammit!This was not at all what she’d planned.
Getting in theDagalien, sailing off into the horizon – she was supposed to be runningawayfrom everything, not running towards the first hot landlubber she laid eyes on. And hewashot. She’d felt it when he’d pulled her from the boat, and she’d seen it when they’d talked in the café, but with all the champagne and Christmas carols and the feeling of being the only two sane people in the entire county she’d been hit by the full effect of it tonight.
He was magnetic somehow, pulling her in, and frankly everything he did, from his straight-faced joking to the way his blue eyes lit up like dawn over the Atlantic whenever he was listening to her speak, was completely delightful to her.
What on earth was going on? Was this how it worked for other people? How was it possible to take one look at a person from a faraway land and instantly connect with them?
That was not how it had been with Ben. She’d known of Ben’s existence since she was at primary school, even though he was in the year below her, and she’d been to discos and youth clubs where he’d hung around with his mates and hadn’t given him a second glance. When they were older, he was always at the local pub at the weekends and they’d chatted now and again but it had taken an unexpected New Year’s Eve kiss at midnight after lots of Sambuca and then weeks of shy, tentative dating to decide she might quite like him enough to kiss him again.
Even then, after falling into a cosy cycle of work, dinner, telly, bed, she’d never experienced the same electric current of attraction passing between her core and someone else’s like when she’d stepped close to Magnús tonight. That jolting, buzzing magic just hadn’t been there with Ben and until tonight, she hadn’t even known it had been missing.
She stroked at her hair in bed with the brush (Isolde’s) that Jowan had let her use, wearing the oversized T-shirt that read ‘Crocombe’s Ices’ with a big strawberry sundae printed on the front.
As she brushed, she gave herself a stern talking to – which was the kind of thing a sensible person might do if they wanted to protect their heart and stop themselves making an even bigger spectacle of themselves in a strange place where they’d already been a bother.
She told herself she’d have to leave Clove Lore soon, no matter how cosy she was getting. She told herself Magnús wasn’t even from around here. He’d be going home after Christmas, maybe even before then if she failed in her mission of reminding him of the highs of running his own bookshop. There was also the small problem of having run away and left a million messy loose ends she had no idea how to untangle.
So she vowed to stick to her plan. Yes, she’d help Magnús, as any grateful friend would. She’d have fun in the café tomorrow. She’d keep her distance, and her secrets. Then she’d move on. Unfortunately, that was the part of the plan where she still drew a blank. ‘What am I going to do after this?’ she asked the night.
At that moment, as she pulled the brush through her hair with one last static crackle and laid it down, her old life burst into the shore-side sanctuary she’d made for herself.
Her phone, which had dried out all day long and was now attached to a charger, suddenly awoke, its screen garishly bright, and one after another, loud notification alerts buzzed and pinged, making the screen flash with missed calls and messages.
The blood rushed to her cheeks and made them burn. She found herself hunched over it on the bed, reluctant to touch the thing and wishing the storm had taken her and her phone to the bottom when it had the chance.
She read the messages first. The first one she’d seen ten days ago but hadn’t had a chance to reply. It was from Ben’s mum and seemed so sweet now, it winded her.
