‘She knows where she’s going,’ Melissa laughed, watching Winnie run off as fast as her legs could carry her. The sound of her laughter rolled with the breeze that already carried with it the smell of the sea, the distant swoosh of the waves, the screech of the gulls.
‘I bring her down here a lot. She’s had me panic more than once, running into the water.’
Harvey led the way, battling the brambles and careful not to let them ping back in Melissa’s direction. Although he came down to the cove often he hadn’t come here with Melissa in a long while and already it felt different. This had always been their special place. It was where she’d come to grieve after her parents died, where he’d come to yell away his frustrations over his father, a place they’d shared a romantic picnic of croissants, fresh cream and strawberry jam as a surprise for him when he’d landed his first job. He could still remember Melissa shrieking when a seagull snatched his croissant from his hand. She said the seagull had ruined the picnic; he thought it had made it. To see the expressions on her face had always got to him in a way he couldn’t explain. And the night he hadn’t gone with her as planned, when he hadn’t met her at the bus stop to leave Heritage Cove behind, he hadn’t seen the look of sheer disappointment on her face but he hadn’t had to, it had still been embedded in his mind ever since.
The track got even narrower as they went the same way as Winnie. The sounds of the sea, the salty tang in the breeze grew stronger the closer they got. There was nothing like it. He’d thought that back when he and Melissa floated ideas of cities around the world they could visit – London, Tokyo, New York, Paris, Sydney – the beaches they could lie on in France, Spain, the Maldives if they were lucky. Their list had been endless but when circumstances had forced him to stay in the village he’d realised that he hadn’t been all that sorry. He would always regret the way he’d let Melissa down, but at the same time he’d had to let her go. She might have resented him if he hadn’t because, given how long she’d been gone, it was clear she was more suited to a life away from Heritage Cove than he ever would be.
He stopped at the best vantage point to look out at the sea as it broke and crashed down below on the shore. Finishing up his ice-cream, he turned to Melissa when she came to his side brushing away a few crumbs from her cone that had fallen on her top. He tried to ignore the soft wisp of sweet-smelling hair that blew against his cheek when she stood close enough to share the view, the waft of light and flirty perfume he didn’t recognise.
He started to head on down when Winnie, impatient, bounded back up to get them both, tongue hanging out with exertion. ‘Come down when you’re ready,’ he told Melissa, venturing further to follow the crooked path down towards the sands. Narrow, uneven with small rock formations catching the least suspecting out, there was a rickety wooden rail on one side that probably wouldn’t do much if you reached out and expected it to hold your weight, but Harvey didn’t need it anyway, he knew this place too well.
By the time Melissa joined him on the sands he was on to the third game of throwing a stick for Winnie to retrieve and bring back to her master.
Melissa took off her sandals to feel the cool water between her toes. ‘I’d forgotten how beautiful it is down here.’ The cove, despite its restricted entrance leading the way here, opened up to a wide oval coastal inlet with golden sands and a calm, shallow sea that only got deeper when you waded farther away from the beach.
‘You must see stunning beaches all the time.’
‘I’ve seen plenty, but travelling takes it out of you. The time between flights isn’t always long either.’
He threw the stick again and this time watched Winnie take it over to her rather than him. ‘Thanks, Winnie, nice to see where your loyalties lie.’
She laughed but picked it up and threw it in the other direction. ‘She’s a great dog, I’d love to have one eventually.’
‘Might not fit in with the job.’
‘No, it wouldn’t.’
They had the whole cove to themselves, the way it had been more times than Harvey could remember. The way they liked it. And when she stood smiling, face tipped up to the sun, it shocked him back to the day he’d gone to London after her, many months on from when she’d left. Tracy had heard from Melissa, had her new address, and he went to find her – if only to explain why he hadn’t gone through with their plan, why he’d kept his distance for so long, and the reasons he needed to stay in the Cove. He’d been about to cross the road when he saw her come out and stand on the top step leading up to a house that was probably made up of several flats. Head tilted up exactly like it was now, she was smiling at a man, she kissed him, their bodies close, before waving him goodbye. Harvey had frozen on the spot, she hadn’t seen him, and so he’d left. She had a new life and one he wasn’t a part of. He’d gone back to Heritage Cove, asked Tracy not to mention his little trip, and he’d done his best to move on.
‘So…Barney,’ Melissa began, throwing the stick once again for Winnie. ‘How do you think he’s doing?’
‘Same as last time we had this discussion.’
‘Exactly as I thought. I haven’t mentioned us organising the Wedding Dress Ball to him yet.’
‘Whoa, hang on a minute, who said we were definitely doing that?’
‘Please, Harvey, I think this is the only way the ball will go ahead and I also think he needs the event as much as everyone else does.’ She turned to face him, one hand holding back the lengths of hair that the wind insisted on wrapping across her face. His hand twitched and almost reached out to lift her hair and hook it behind her ear for her.
He didn’t argue because, he suspected, she was right. ‘You’re not the only one to suggest I help,’ he admitted. ‘Tilly and Ashley both seem to be thinking along the same lines.’
‘Barney agreed to it? He’ll let it go ahead if he doesn’t have to be the one organising?’
‘None of us agreed to anything and I haven’t mentioned it since. I didn’t want to upset him, you know what he’s like.’
‘He does seem to get wound up when the topic of conversation isn’t one he approves of.’
He grinned. ‘I never thought I’d see the day he’d tire of any topic of conversation.’
‘Me neither. And I want to ask him more about that dress too. Don’t you think it’s weird?’
‘I do, but don’t go there, I’m telling you. The look on his face the day I asked is one I’ll never forget. Whatever he’s hiding, he doesn’t want any of us to know.’
‘I really think it might give us some answers though.’ She picked up the stick and threw it for Winnie yet again. ‘He was a bit odd last time I was there too.’
‘In what way?’
‘It started when I accidentally knocked the model ship off the mantelpiece. I caught it just in time, but when I was dusting the shelves in the kitchen I looked over at him and he had it on his lap as though it was precious, as though it has memories attached with it.’
