Blinking, I glanced down and the ground rushed up towards me.
Karma, I thought, but maybe if I fall and break my leg, I’ll get a nicer seat on the plane.
‘Ren, I am so sorry,’ I replied, threats of cramp shooting along my fingers. Why hadn’t I gone round the front? Why couldn’t I find the stairs? How had his grandad done this at eighty? ‘I was stupid and scared and a bit hungover and last night was so perfect, I didn’t want to ruin things.’
His rage was starting to burn itself out. As I looked over my shoulder, I saw him staring up at me, full of hurt.
‘You didn’t think skipping out on me without a word would ruin things?’
‘I thought it would keep a special night special. I was trying to protect us.’
‘Not us,’ he challenged as one hand lost its grip on the ledge. ‘You were trying to protect yourself. If you meant the things you said in your letters, you wouldn’t be able to walk away from this.’
‘I’m not walking,’ I yelled. ‘I’m falling!’
He caught me, shirtless and strong, holding me in his arms like the hero on the cover of one of my gran’s Mills & Boon novels.
‘Well, this is a bit on the nose,’ I muttered, swallowing hard as I wrapped my arms around his neck. ‘But thank you.’
All the anger and upset in his eyes swirled away, replaced by something even more frightening that I was afraid to name.
‘How cheesy would it be if I said I will always be here to catch you?’ he asked, his voice cracking at the edges.
‘Extremely,’ I said, his skin breaking into goosebumps as I curled my fingers in the soft hair at the nape of his neck. ‘But I’d be very into it.’
We stayed that way for a long moment, me in Ren’sarms, still soaked through from the pool and dripping onto his grey sweatpants, Bel and Suzanne leaning over the edge of the terrace, slurping on what looked like freshly refilled margaritas.
‘I’m so sorry, I never should have left,’ I said, pushing my wet hair out of my face and turning my attention back where it belonged. ‘I wasn’t thinking about us, I was thinking about me and how hard it’s going to be to go back to the way things were before I met you.’
‘Sorry, but there’s no going back,’ he replied, lowering his face to mine as I closed my eyes and wet my lips and—
‘Oh look,’ called a familiar voice. ‘It’s Phoebe Chapman, half-naked in the arms of that boy she definitely isn’t interested in.’
Ren’s kiss landed somewhere to the side of my nose as I turned my head to see Myrna Moore standing smirking in the middle of his back garden.
‘Darling, put some clothes on,’ she said, positively glowing in a scarlet caftan. ‘The sixties were a long time ago, you know. And Joe’s boy, you really mustn’t walk around half-naked. I’m an old woman and my heart can’t take it.’
A nervous-looking man in a shiny suit appeared behind her. ‘You already know your new neighbours?’ he asked.
‘For my sins,’ she confirmed as Ren lowered me to the ground.
‘Myrna, what are you doing here?’ I asked, picking up the sweatshirt Bel had helpfully hurled over the edge of the terrace. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Not as bright as you think, are you?’ she repliedbefore turning a blinding smile on Ren. ‘I’m the one who bought your house; I’m afraid I’m the cuckoo in your nest, darling!’
‘This,’ I heard Bel mutter from a safe distance above us, ‘is wild.’
Once again, she was not wrong.
Minutes later, Myrna rapped her cane against the top of Suzanne’s outdoor dining table, calling the session to order.
‘I have a proposition for you.’ She pointed to Ren, who was clutching my left hand almost as tightly as I was holding a new frozen margarita in my right. ‘My awful stepchildren were right. My house is too big for me. I’m too old to be rattling around the place by myself, but that doesn’t mean I have to slope off to the old folks’ farm while they wait for me to die.’
‘Myrna,’ I began with gentle reproach, but she wasn’t interested.
‘Don’t look at me like that, I won’t be patronised,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a few more good years in me yet, last night confirmed that for anyone who cared to see it, but I’d rather spend them in my own home than in a hovel, surrounded by decrepit husks.’
‘That’s exactly what I feel like after your party,’ Suzanne said as she handed Myrna a margarita of her own. She took a sip and nodded her approval.
