‘And is Esme meeting you at the station once you arrive?’ Sarah asked.
‘That’s what she said.’
It had been almost two weeks since she’d received the phone call.
She’d been standing in the queue in the canteen at work waiting for a plateful of lasagne, stomach rumbling as she watched the steam rising from the melted cheesy topping. With colleagues stood on both sides and chatter coming from all directions, she’d been surprised that she’d even heard her phone ringing from inside the confines of her bag. But miraculously, she had, and she’d been so surprised to hear Esme’s voice that when the lasagne had been handed back over to her, she’d lost grip of the plate and sent it crashing to the floor, splattering her white jeans and pastel pink heels with a steamy red mess. Colleagues had fussed around her legs and feet, cleaning and picking up pieces of the smashed plate, asking if she was okay. While all this had been going on, she’d stumbled backwards away from the chaos as her world had begun to swim in and out of focus. That phone call had been the one thing that she’d been dreading since she’d begun her life in London. That single phone call was capable of dragging her right the way back to a place that she thought she’d done an excellent job of forgetting existed. In this instance, the phone call had achieved exactly that and deserved a huge round of applause for smashing up her fantastically un-messy life in just a few seconds. But, even though the thought of returning was enough to make Jessica want to flee the country without a single backwards glance, she knew as soon as she’d heard what Esme had had to say that she’d had no choice in the matter. After all, what kind of daughter wouldn’t attend her own parents’ funeral?
‘Jessica?’ Sarah ventured quietly.
‘Yes?’
‘Are you strong enough to deal with this?’
She swallowed and clutched the phone a little tighter. ‘I hope so…’
‘When you’re back home, let’s get this year’s holiday booked. What do you think? It’ll give you something to look forward to. Cocktails, sun, sea and sand?’
‘That sounds perfect,’ Jessica replied, her voice a tiny bit brighter at the thought of being somewhere else, anywhere else. It really didn’t matter where, as long as it was far away from here. A holiday with Sarah would give her something to dream about whilst she crawled through the next couple of weeks. An imaginary place to escape to when reality became too much to handle. ‘While I’m away, you get planning. Find somewhere exotic and full of dark haired, muscly, rugged men who’ll feed us grapes and fan us with those huge palm leaves, and make sure you—’
She paused in her list of holiday requirements as a tall figure appeared in the corner of her eye. She glanced up at the new passenger with a backpack slung over one shoulder. While she’d been chatting away, the train had stopped at another station. She only meant to acknowledge him out of politeness but as their eyes caught, chocolate brown on olive green, she struggled to look away. He nodded towards the two empty seats opposite her. Dark haired, muscly, rugged… It was as if someone had been listening to her list of holiday requirements and magically conjured him up.
He remained standing as people pushed past him impatiently to get further down the carriage. Apparently, he was waiting for her approval before sitting down, which was rather gentlemanly of him, Jessica thought to herself.
‘Dark-haired, muscly, rugged men who will feed us grapes and fan us with huge palm leaves whilst stretched out on sunbeds beneath a tropical sun.’ Sarah’s voice had a dreamlike quality to it as she carried on. ‘Okay. Got it. Just don’t mention that part to Luke. We’ve only been going together for four months. I don’t think he’d appreciate being replaced just yet.’ She giggled girlishly. ‘Listen, Jess. I’m going to have to go. Lunch is almost up and if Pete finds me in here using the work phone again, heads will roll. We have a party of twelve in this afternoon so I need to start folding napkins. Oh, exciting life that I lead! Text me once you arrive and remember, I’m only a phone call away. Love you, Jess.’
‘Love you too, Sar.’ The call came to an end.
‘You can sit there,’ Jessica motioned to the handsome man still waiting for the go-ahead. ‘I mean, if you want to sit there, because no one else is sitting there.’ She waved towards the empty seats and immediately wanted to snatch her flailing, floppy hands back down to her sides. She shoved the phone into her pocket and turned her head sharply to stare back out of the window, feeling embarrassed.
‘Thanks. Everywhere else was taken.’ The deep, gravelly voice made her inch her eyes back towards him. Treacle-soft, sugar-sweet, dark-chocolate-divine.
He dropped into the seat opposite with obvious relief and ran his fingers over the smattering of dark stubble that swept across both sides of his very masculine, very appealing jaw. She’d never thought of a jaw as a physical attribute before. It took her a few trying moments to remove her eyes from his face. Thankfully, he was oblivious to her admiring glances as he fiddled with his phone. She probably looked like she’d never seen a man before. Well, she hadn’t, not one that looked like him, anyway.
‘All right?’ he asked casually once a few minutes of silence had passed. One corner of his delicious mouth lifted upwards. Shiny, conker-brown hair and twinkling, green eyes created the perfect package of man.
‘I’m fine, thanks. You?’ She righted her position, pulled herself up a little straighter. She imagined she looked like a child cowering in the corner of the compartment and something about this man made her want to appear more womanly than she’d ever been before. She discreetly smoothed down her raven black hair and swept her fringe from out of her eyes.
He pushed up the sleeves of his hoodie to reveal toned, tanned forearms and grinned. ‘Great, thanks.’
She was treated to another of his smiles and couldn’t help but return it. There was something about him that captivated her. His confidence perhaps? Whatever it was, she liked it. Rather a lot, actually. She wasn’t used to chatty strangers. Especially handsome chatty strangers, and rarely did they attempt to speak to her. There just weren’t that many around. Well, not that many besides this one who had just happened to cross her path. But anyway, this wasn’t the time for flirting. She had more important things to think about. She offered him another quick smile that she hoped didn’t appear rude and turned to face the window once again.
Not long now, she mused. She placed her forehead against the glass and watched the outside world as it passed by.
‘Off on your holidays?’ the handsome stranger asked.
He must have noticed her suitcase. ‘Something like that.’ She glanced at it, too. It sent her stomach violently lurching into what felt like a washing machine spin-cycle. She looked away, determined to ignore its existence. Stupid thing.
‘Anywhere nice?’ he continued, oblivious to her discomfort.
‘I’m off to Cornwall,’ she replied quickly, blurting out the first thing that came to mind. ‘A few days by the sea. I can’t wait.’ An image popped into her mind of herself wearing a pretty sundress and taking a happy stroll through the seaside town. There were seagulls, ice-cream, sand castles and the scent of the sea-salt whistling through the air. It was a shame that her reality looked nothing like that but he didn’t need to know the not-so-pretty version. They were strangers. She could pretend to be anyone doing anything right now, so why bother with the nasty reality of where she was really going and what she was really doing there? Right now, she wanted to be that sundress-wearing, carefree young woman rather than the one carrying the world on her shoulders and struggling beneath