Chapter10
‘You’re home early, Mum.’ Skye walked out of her bedroom with her tablet in her hand, her white-blonde hair tied up loosely in a scrunchie.
‘Aren’t I a good girl.’ Star smiled.
Skye shook her head and tutted. ‘So?’ She removed her earbuds. ‘How was your date?’
‘It wasn’t a date.’
‘Yeah right. You haven’t made that sort of effort since Uncle Jim’s funeral.’
‘Well, that’s not a good comparison is it, really.’
‘You know what I mean. You look a little flushed. What have you been doing?’
‘It’s cold out there. Anyway, I haven’t got time for a boyfriend.’
‘Who are you kidding? All you do is sit up here making jewellery and binge-watching period dramas.’
Star didn’t dare admit that she was mainly doing those things to distract her from worrying about Skye and waiting for her to return home safely.
‘And are you drunk?’ her daughter persisted. ‘I’ve never seen you drunk before.’
It was true. Her own mother, who was always drunk or stoned, had put paid to any desire on Star’s part to losecontrol, especially since she’d become a mother herself. ‘I had two glasses of wine, that’s all, madam.’
Syke looked at her phone. ‘Anyway, that’s Tegan messaging. I’ll see you in the morning, yeah? Love you, Mum.’
‘Love you too, darling.’ Star kissed the cheek her daughter offered and walked through to the kitchen to put the kettle on.
She couldn’t help but smile at what had just happened. Porpoise! There was no denying that Conor Brady was hot. He was also very funny and the bad boy part of him kind of aroused her. Why couldn’t she just have said, ‘Yes, Conor, I’d love to see you again.’ She had felt a spark, but not the immediate and powerful connection she had felt for Jack Murray, the day she had first caught sight of him across her market stall. That same evening they had made passionate love in the kitchen, the bathroom, the hallway and then in her bed. It had taken Star a week to get round to cleaning the shoe marks off the hall paintwork where she had wrapped her legs tightly around him and given herself into complete ecstasy. She remembered having to move a table and put flowers on top of it so that Skye didn’t notice.
Star had to admit that that some sex would be nice. It must be around three or four months by now since that unforgettable night with Jack, which had awakened something in her that had been dormant for far too long. Maybe that was it? She hadn’t had sex for so long that when she and Jack had got together, the connection had onlyseemedthat much stronger. ‘Hmm,’ she said aloud. Conor had thrown a pebble into the pond of her brain and the ripples it was causing were preventing her thoughts from making much sense right now.
Taking milk from the fridge, she made herself a calmingcup of hot chocolate. Afterwards, she curled up on the sofa and found a meditation track on YouTube. As she listened to the hypnotic sounds of rain and birds calling through her phone speaker, her eyes closed and her thoughts became clear.
She had chosen not to question Jenifer, Kara’s sister and Jack’s previous work colleague, about him again as she feared that if she did so, the scary woman might literally bite her head off.
When the truth came out, Star had learned that it was in fact Jen who had sent Jack over from New York to stay at Kara’s newly set up Airbnb so he could spy on Pearl. This was because Jen suspected that Pearl was planning to woo Joseph Moon with the sole aim of making a claim on his daughters’ inheritance.
Star flipped open her laptop. ‘One last time and I mean it,’ she said aloud. She glanced at her sent messages. Four of them. All to Jack Murray and none of them having received a reply. And yet when he had bumped into Kara in New York, he had made a point of asking Kara to tell Star that he was sorry. This gave her hope. There was unfinished business between them, and she just knew that there had to be a simple explanation for his lack of response.
Her logic said to drop it, but she couldn’t. What she had felt for Jack Murray was too powerful to ignore. She then asked herself: what if this was Skye or even Kara asking for her advice? She would tell them to stop clinging on like this, to have more respect for themselves – but this was different. Shecouldn’tlet go. It was almost as if the agony of him ignoring her satisfied a painful need in her – brought her subconsciously back to her young isolated self. To the long, lonely days of sitting on the benches on Penrigan Pier or atHartmouth Head car park, waiting for her mother’s various lovers or lecherous drinking companions to either have left or crashed out on the sofa.
She checked the time. It would be4.30p.m. in New York – if he was still in New York, that was. Knowing that he didn’t use social media, and that the personal email address she had originally used for him and his phone number were no longer active, her only option was to contact him via his work email. It was her only hope of ever getting hold of him. With the words ‘one last time’ running through her head, she began to type,Dear Jack …
