Page 36 of Coming Home to Inishbeg Cove

Chapter 23

Penny

Even though my head said to keep walking, my feet didn’t listen. They stopped and waited for Tadgh to reach me. My heart was hammering. I racked my brain thinking of something to say to him, but all thoughts had fled. His intense blue eyes and rugged features reminded me of the rocky cliffs and crystal-clear sea that surrounded Inishbeg Cove, and his wild tangle of hair was like the wind waving through the marram grass on the dunes. It was as if he had been etched out of this landscape.

‘I thought you’d be in the restaurant?’ I said as he got closer.

‘I needed to pick up some more ice cream from Greg.’

‘Look, Tadgh, I’m sorry if I was rude in the café the other day,’ I began.

‘No worries.’ His eyes flickered down to the grass.

‘You caught me off guard. I’m feeling so confused about everything right now,’ I explained.

‘I get it. I think we’re both feeling confused...’

‘What do you mean?’

He took a deep breath and I could tell he was steeling himself for whatever he was about to say next.

‘Maybe it’s just me, but ever since you came back to the village, I feel that something has changed.’ A note of frustration peppered his voice. ‘Now maybe I’m crazy and it’s all in my head, but no matter how much you deny it, I think there is something still there between us. Something I thought had burnt out a long time ago.’

I knew exactly what he was talking about. It was like the invisible force you felt when you put two magnets of the same charge together – strong and unbreakable. I couldn’t lie to him; he knew me too well.

‘I can feel it too,’ I admitted, scared to allow myself to say it out loud. Telling him was terrifying, as if opening up a chasm of unknown depth into my heart.

‘I knew it wasn’t just my imagination.’ His eyes met mine with brooding intensity. ‘I knew you had to feel it too.’ He pushed a curl back off his face. I longed to reach forward and touch it. ‘But I know you still want to work things out with Joe,’ he continued, ‘and I would never get in the way of that—’

‘Well, actually I think I’ve finally accepted that it’s over between us,’ I confessed.

There was an unmistakable flicker of hope in his slate-blue eyes, but he quickly composed his face again. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Penny.’

‘Thanks, Tadgh,’ I whispered, feeling a sadness weigh me down as I thought about my doomed marriage.

‘Look, I know your head is all over the place right now, but ... I wanted to let you know that I’m here for you, whenever you’re ready. I’ll wait for you.’

His words were like a warm blanket cocooning me. Suddenly I was transported back to when we were carefree teenagers, before Tadgh’s parents had been killed. Back when the village was our playground and our biggest worry was whether we could sneak out of our houses to meet down at the moonlit cove. All thoughts left my head, the roar of the crashing waves faded, until all I could hear was the blood pulsing in my ears. Everything melted away before me until it was just Tadgh and me, the way we used to be, before life got complicated. He took a step towards me and I moved closer to him until our faces were millimetres apart. Our eyes met. It felt like this was the moment we had both been waiting for: everything, all the heartache we had experienced, had led us right here, to this moment. This was the path we were destined to be on. Slowly he bent his head and began to kiss my neck, so gently it felt as though a butterfly’s wing was caressing my skin. I melted against him, knowing I could fight no longer.Our lips met, warm and familiar, soothing like a balm. We kissed as if making up for all the years we had spent apart. We fell to our knees, the marram grass coarse and damp beneath us. Our kisses became more fervent with every passing second, as our bodies communicated to one another in a language only we knew.