‘For now it is,’ Fen said darkly. ‘Hang on a minute.’ She raced upstairs to collect her cushions, and ran down to find Joe peering into the sitting room.
‘Hell, Fen, it’s worse than the kitchen,’ he said, appalled. ‘You actually spend time in here?’
‘None at all.’ She handed him the cushions and pulled on her denim jacket. ‘Let’s go.’
In the comfortable leather-scented interior of Joe’s car, Fen leaned back with a sigh and relaxed as they threaded through roadworks to make for the motorway.
‘Sorry,’ she said, yawning. ‘I won’t be much company for a while.’
‘Take a nap. Mind if I play some music?’
‘A lullaby would be good.’
While the Jaguar ate up the miles to the strains of Ravel, Fen wriggled comfortably into her nest of cushions and was fast asleep before they’d gone a couple of miles.
‘Are we there?’ she yawned later, when the car slowed down.
‘Not yet—pitstop for coffee,’ Joe informed her.
Fen sat up, pushed back a few escaping strands of hair, and smiled at him as he parked in the motorway service station. ‘As company on a day out I’m a washout so far,’ she said apologetically. ‘I swear I’ll improve as the day goes on.’
‘After double shifts at the Mitre all week no wonder you feel tired. Come on, out you get. We need coffee.’
‘Urgently, if I’m to stay awake all the way.’ She eyed him challengingly as they walked towards the restaurant. ‘Would you have been as keen on the trip if you’d known that I’m such boring company?’
Joe gave the matter due consideration. ‘On reflection I think I prefer peaceful silence to incessant chattering.’
‘You wait until the journey home,’ she said, giggling.
‘Do that again!’
‘What?’
‘The girly little laugh. But first,’ he added hastily, as she glared at him, ‘tell me what you want and I’ll fetch it for you.’
She snatched up a tray. ‘No need. I can get my own.’
There was an argument when Joe insisted on paying for her toast and coffee, but in the end Fen gave in rather than provide more entertainment for the girl at the cash register.
‘I asked you out, so I foot the bill,’ he said flatly, as they sat down by a window.
She buttered her toast, frowning at him. ‘Look, Joe, I’m perfectly able to pay my own way.’
He drank some coffee, his eyes gleaming at her through the steam. ‘OK. You can pay for lunch.’
Great. It would serve her right if he fancied a three-course meal in some expensive hotel. ‘I wasn’t being difficult,’ she said belatedly, remembering she had good cause to be grateful to him. ‘I just like to be independent.’
His smile disarmed her completely. ‘No offence taken. But if you’re paying for lunch I’ll treat you to another coffee.’
‘Where are we going?’ Fen asked, on the way back to the car.
‘If you stay awake for the rest of the journey I’ll tell you when we’re nearly there,’ Joe promised.
She gave him a warning look as she fastened her seatbelt. ‘Tell me now, or I don’t pay for lunch.’
He laughed. ‘I never intended you to.’
She ground her teeth in frustration. ‘Has anyone ever told you that you’re an infuriating man, Joe Tregenna?’
‘Frequently, but they invariably succumb to my charm in the end,’ he said smugly, and drove off to rejoin the motorway.
CHAPTER THREE
THEIR destination, which Fen guessed once they were driving through the county of Dorset, was Lulworth Cove.
‘This is just perfect,’ she said, delighted, when they reached the white cobbled beach, which was an idyll in watercolour in the sunshine, with boats riding at anchor on a calm blue sea.
Joe unfolded the steamer chairs he’d taken from the boot of the car, handed Fen into one, then let himself down in the other with a sigh of pleasure. ‘I borrowed these from my neighbours in the hope that the weather would stay good,’ he said with satisfaction, and glanced at her over his sunglasses. ‘Have you been here before?’
‘Once, when I was very small, but I don’t remember much about it.’
‘Was Cousin Adam along on the outing?’
‘Probably,’ said Fen shortly. She dug in her bag for her sunscreen, smoothed it over the small area of skin exposed, then put on sunglasses and a white cotton sunhat, and leaned back.
There was silence between them for a while, broken only by the calls of seagulls and scraps of conversation drifting on the air as other sunseekers began approaching over the cobbles.
‘I don’t mean to be stroppy, Joe,’ said Fen, after a while. ‘But I just don’t want to talk about Adam.’
‘Then we won’t,’ he said promptly, and sat up to open the cool-bag he’d brought. ‘Fancy a cold drink? Or I can provide apples, peaches and chocolate.’
Fen sat up, impressed. ‘You’re very organised.’
‘Habit. I was brought up in Cornwall. Days on the beach were part of life.’
‘Do your people still live there?’ she asked, then gave him a wry grin. ‘Which is a nerve, I know, when I refuse to discuss my own background.’
‘I’m perfectly happy to discuss mine,’ he said, lying back in his chair. ‘I’ve got two older brothers. They’re London-based. But my parents are still in Cornwall, in the same house on the headland above the village of Polruan, with a path leading down to a small cove.’
‘Sounds wonderful.’
‘Until I left home I never appreciated how idyllic my childhood actually was. Not a lot of money to spare, but we lacked nothing important. My parents are retired now, but they both taught at the village school.’
‘Did you go there, too?’
‘All three of us, until we were eleven.’
Fen’s eyes sparkled. ‘Did it cause trouble with the other kids—because your parents were teachers, I mean?’
Joe grinned. ‘It meant quite a few bloody noses after school. My father was the headmaster, and famous for coming down like a ton of bricks on fighting. But he was forced to turn a blind eye in our case, because my mother was adamant that we sorted things for ourselves.’
‘So you grew up tough, Joe. No wonder you pitched in when you saw me in a spot of bother.’
‘Only because I saw a girl,’ he said frankly, and turned to look at her. ‘Which was an inspired move, because it led to meeting you.’
‘A pretty speech,’ she said lightly.
‘True, though. Want some chocolate?’
‘No, thanks. It might spoil my lunch. Where shall we eat?’
‘Right here. On the way down I noticed a place that does crab sandwiches to take out.’
‘Perfect!’
As the morning wore on the sun grew hotter, and after a while Joe got up and stripped down to shorts.
‘You’d better have some of this,’ said Fen, handing him the sunscreen.
He