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Mia sighed and looked around while she waited for Charlie to return. For all that the cottage was still a work in progress, she was surprised at how habitable it actually was. Of course, she knew her father had been living here, but she’d been thinking of it more as camping. From what she could see in the faint torchlight, George had actually made it rather homey.
“How much work have you done on this place?” she asked, watching Charlie’s torch beam enter the room ahead of him.
Charlie wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, and she wriggled out of her t-shirt and jeans under it as he answered. “New windows and door, plumbing’s sorted, electrics work–except not right now, of course. We’re just starting the decorating, really.”
“That’s a lot.” Mia tossed her wet clothes on the floor and huddled tighter under the blanket for a moment before slipping into the dry t-shirt. “I was imagining Dad living out here in a ruin.”
“We were lucky.” Charlie moved to hang her clothes over an old chair in the corner of the room. He was being very optimistic if he thought they were going to be dry by morning. “The basic structure was sound, and even the roof’s not too bad. Magda’s brothers have done some shoring up that should last until I can afford to replace it properly.”
Mia nodded, then stopped. “Then why were you so worried about Dad? Why climb all the way up the cliff path in this sort of weather if he was in a basically finished house.”
Shrugging, Charlie gave her a sheepish smile. “He wasn’t answering his phone. Besides, you were worried about him.”
“I thought he was living in a slum,” Mia pointed out.
Charlie came closer and settled beside her on the window seat. Taking the torch from her hands, he switched it off, saying, “Better conserve power.” Then he leaned back against the opposite end of the sill, and Mia could feel his eyes on her in the darkness. “It’s okay to admit you care about him, you know.”
“Haven’t you got any candles in here? It’s unnerving, talking to someone you can’t see but know is there.”
She heard Charlie sigh, then a rustle of movement, and expected the sharp beam of the torch again at any moment while he went to go and look for candles. Instead, she felt his arms wrap around her waist, turn her so she was facing away from him and tug her into his embrace so her spine rested against his chest.
“Better?” he asked, and she could feel the words vibrate underneath her.
She wanted to argue that this didn’t actually address her original point, but the truth was she did feel better, so instead she just nodded, trusting he could sense the movement of her head even if he couldn’t see it.
“Good,” he said, and Mia settled down to just listening to him breathe.
“I had a visit from Tony tonight,” Charlie said, after a few minutes.
Mia thought about acting surprised, but it didn’t seem worth the effort. “I know. I popped by. Overheard.”
“You heard his offer?”
Mia nodded again, and felt him shift behind her. He was so very close. And the thin layers of t-shirts between them wasn’t doing anything to stop the warmth radiating off him, despite the rain and the cold. A girl could get used to that.
“I’m not going to take it,” Charlie said. “I don’t want to leave Aberarian.”
“It’s a good offer,” Mia pointed out, wondering even as she spoke why she had to make life miserable for herself. Because I want him to be happy. Which was a stupid reason, she decided. But her mouth went on without her. “You should consider it.”
Charlie shook his head, and water droplets from his still-wet hair dripped onto her neck. “I’m not leaving you,” he said, and his voice was so low and so warm Mia felt it right through her blanket and t-shirt and into her chest, where the words vibrated.
And before she even acknowledged them, before she realized what she was doing, she was twisting in his arms and reaching up and her lips were on his and–oh thank God–they were kissing again.
Her mouth moved against his like a fever, because Charlie was wrong. He might not leave her, but she would have to leave him, in the end. She’d been trying not to think about it, but she knew what the storm outside meant. There was no way they were going to get the festival up and running in time in the morning. God only knew how much damage the wind was doing to all their careful preparations.
And if the festival didn’t happen, it wasn’t just the Coliseum Mia was going to lose. There’d be no place for her in this town if she failed again. StarFish might take off, once the casino was in place, but would there be a place for the A to Z shop? It didn’t seem likely.
And if Becky was here, every day... Mia tore her lips from Charlie’s and set about kissing the line of his neck, instead, tasting the rain water on his skin. Anything to block out the inevitable truth.
She was going to have to leave Aberarian.
Charlie brought his arms up behind her, locking her against him, and Mia could feel every inch of his chest against hers. It seemed wrong that she was finally going to sleep with Charlie Frost, for what might be the first and only time, and she couldn’t even see him.
Then he moved his hands under her t-shirt, and she stopped thinking all together.
Chapter 19
When Mia awoke, the storm was over.
Sunlight streamed through the window, leaving the window seat very exposed for a couple wearing nothing more than a blanket.
A couple. Was that what they were?
He’d said he wasn’t leaving. Wasn’t that enough?
Charlie was still fast asleep beneath her, so Mia carefully maneuvered herself out from under the blanket and pulled on his t-shirt. Her jeans were still damp when she fought to tug them up her legs, so she decided the first order of business had to be clean, dry clothes.
Then she’d set about fixing everything else.
Ditsy raised her eyebrows when she spotted Mia walking toward the A to Z shop.
“Don’t ask,” Mia said, fumbling for her keys. “It’s been a long night.”
“Clearly.” Ditsy followed her into the shop. “I was just heading down to the beach to see what the damage is.”
Mia flipped a light switch on and off, relieved to see a burst of light from the bulb. “Me too. Just give me five minutes to change.” Mia started up the stairs. “Oh, and I owe you for a torch...”
As they headed down to the festival site, Mia watched the pale gray clouds race across the almost blue sky, and worried. About the festival, about her father and about what Charlie would think when he woke up alone.
Susan Hamilton was already waiting for her on the Esplanade, wrapped in a tweed peacoat and looking miserable. “Look at it! All our hard work.”
Mia surveyed the beach. The bunting along the sea wall lay in tatters, while sea gulls pecked at the brightly colored flags, but that was only a minimal casualty. They’d held off setting out most of the stalls after April Havers saw the first weather forecast and Jacques confirmed it with an ache in his knee. Still, the high winds had changed the lay of the sand, and even the plan would need changing now. On the sands, the electrical team, comprised m
ostly of Doug the local electrician and handyman and a couple of Madga’s brothers, were shaking their heads at the wind.
“Can’t string lights in this kind of wind,” Doug shouted up to her. “We’ll have to wait and see if it calms down.”
Joe and his brother were standing at the harbor wall, also shaking their heads. Mia called out to them, and Joe explained, “Sea’s too choppy for pleasure rides. We’ll have to ground the boats unless it calms.”
Mia turned to Ditsy. “Right. So. We’ve no lights, no boat trips, no bunting, and I’m pretty sure the inflatable rides won’t stay upright in this weather.”
“So what do we do?” Ditsy asked. “Cancel?”
It was tempting, Mia had to admit. Circumstances beyond their control and all that. But the whole town had put such effort in to this festival. Besides, what would happen to the Coliseum then? Walt Hamilton had come to stand beside his wife, looking just as miserable.
“No,” Mia said, still staring out at the beach and along to the cliffs. In the distance, something caught her eye; a figure, moving closer to them. Charlie, maybe?
“No,” she said again, pulling her attention back. “We’re not going to cancel. We’re going to fix this. I need you to call everyone on the committee, get them down here immediately. We’ll start working on a job list, ready to delegate. We can do this. I’m sure we can.”
She must have sounded a lot more certain than she felt, because Ditsy ran off to make the calls without argument. Mia took the steps down from the Esplanade to the beach and started to walk across the sand to the cliffs, mentally checking off all the required tasks. It was going to be a big job.
As she drew closer to the cliffs, the figure started running, and she realized it wasn’t Charlie.
It was her father.
“Mia,” he called once he was near enough for his words to reach her. “You’ve got to come and see this. Now.”
* * * *
The sound of someone crashing through his new front door jerked Charlie awake, and he stumbled to his feet just in time to catch Mia as she barreled into the lounge and into his arms.
