Ginny laughed. ‘All the time apparently. Mum often complains in ourphone calls, but it’s only ever about little things, like Daisy texting on her phone, or leaving the dirty mugs in the sink and forgetting about them, nothing huge.’When Daisy had first taken on working in the shop Ginny had predicted she and their mother would fall out big time. Ginny had had visions of Loretta calling her to say she simply couldn’t do it anymore. But it was as though Daisyhad adopted a determination so fierce that she never strayed from the boundaries. Ginny wasn’t so sure that was the best thing for her little sister who had always been so free-spirited, at least right up until a year or so before their dad died, when everything had changed and she went off the rails.
‘Mostly we work well,’ Lucas went on. ‘We share the jobs around, the good and the bad – youknow how I always hated paperwork, but I accept it’s a part of the job so I’ll do it. Dad’s always saying “big red bus”.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘He says we all need to know each facet of the job in case one day one of us is hit by a big red bus.’
‘Sounds a little morbid, and I don’t see many big red buses in Butterbury.’ She grinned. ‘But I kind of see his point.’ Her hands were toasty warmby now on the half-drunk cup of hot chocolate. ‘Do you ever think about what life might have been like if you’d carried on with marine biology, the diving you loved?’
He leaned back against the bench and looked at her honestly. ‘Sometimes.’ She got the impression he didn’t admit that to many people. ‘But that’s human nature, isn’t it? To wonder what might’ve been.’
‘You could’ve been still livingin Florida.’
‘Away from the cold?’ he said with a shiver she wasn’t sure was completely put on. ‘How could I give all this up?’
‘I like a bit of winter, it’s pretty on days like today.’
They let the words settle between them until Lucas spoke up. She wondered if he had been wanting to say it for a while when he told her, ‘I’m sorry I hurt you when I left.’
Addressing it after all this timetook her by surprise. She hesitated, wanting to express herself the way she needed to. ‘You were right to go.’ He looked shocked. ‘I wasn’t in a position to go with you, so you did what was best for us both.’
‘I never—’
‘You never expected me to say that?’ He shook his head. ‘I’m just glad you were by my side when Dad died, you were there for me, and I’ll never forget that.’
After her dad diedGinny hadfound it hard to compartmentalise things in her life. There didn’t seem to be room for anything other than her career and her own survival, and even though it had been Lucas’s decision ultimately to break up, she’d known deep down that it was the right thing to do. She was in a strange place, on some days she didn’t think she deserved happiness, her head was a mess and she hadn’t thetime to think of anyone else. And she hadn’t wanted to inflict her misery on Lucas, she wanted him to live his dream, whatever that might be.
‘Florida was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had,’ he confessed. ‘All that sunshine, the ocean, the surfing, the diving. It was a freedom I can’t explain. And I loved it. Travelling is an adventure, right?’
‘I’m glad I’ve been able to do so much.’It didn’t matter whether she’d avoided him on her visits home, Butterbury was small enough that he would’ve heard about her travels, from his parents, brother, or her family.
‘The word adventure takes on different meanings over time.’ He turned so his body was almost facing her and suddenly he felt so much closer. ‘I’ll never regret studying marine biology or moving to Florida for a while, butI reached a point where I saw my next adventure as the family business. I wasn’t obligated to take it on, you know that as well as I do. I was encouraged by my parents to go and do something else, as was Joshua. Maybe part of their thinking was that by urging us to do so to ensured we saw a different life so that we would know 100 per cent what we wanted. Joshua did his management degree but likeme, he ended up still wanting the farm even after leaving it behind for a while.’
‘I’ll bet your parents were pleased.’
‘Actually, they really were.’ He held her gaze. And it seemed he didn’t want to talk about him, the farm, or his family. ‘I knew you were hurting over your dad and I knew you were in a place I couldn’t reach. On some days you were so distant I thought I’d lost you. Perhapsit was cowardice on my part, ending it before you did.’
‘I never thought of it that way.’ With so much seriousness she moved the conversation on. ‘Do you think you and Joshua will fight over who gets the farm in the years to come?’
He shook his head. ‘I think we both quickly understood we both want it so it’ll be a joint venture. I’m happy with that.’ They both smiled at Annie who walked pastto take a bag of doughnuts over to a family at the bench opposite. ‘What about you three? Ever think you, Daisy and Fern will run the shop together?’
‘Could you see us doing that?’ She liked the way he was smiling at her, showing he knew her and her family on a deeper level. ‘Fern would go crazy and she’d be sitting in one of the upstairs rooms studying the figures constantly, then bossing usabout telling us we had to this, that and the other to increase turnover. Daisy would hate being ruled by Fern after Mum treating her as more of an equal.’
He nudged her. ‘You didn’t mention yourself in the equation.’ And when she said nothing he carried on. ‘I always thought you’d be the one to take on the shop.’
‘You and me both,’ she sighed. All three sisters had worked on quilts togetherbut it was Ginny who’d lost herself in the task, she who carried on long after her sisters finished up on the days they’d sit together. Ginny would take material to her bedroom and she’d make things on her pink sewing machine. Her blue and white cushions were still on the sofa in the kitchen, the hand-stitched teddy bear still dangled from her mum’s house keys, the rainbow-coloured hot water bottlecover she’d made was still in the cupboard in the utility room, a little frayed, but ready for when she needed it.
‘Even though I ended things, I still wanted you, Ginny.’ He looked at his polystyrene cup, his declaration out in the cold open air. ‘This hot chocolate must be making me way too honest.’
‘Chocolate does have magical powers.’ The fluttering she’d felt when they first started datinghad settled over time but it was as though his words awakened those feelings all over again.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her now. ‘You seem happy. Are you?’
She shifted uncomfortably. ‘I’m fine.’ Did he mean here in Butterbury? Being with her family? With her job and her travels? Or was he asking whether she was happy to be with him after all this time?
Instead of asking she got up from thebench. ‘I’d better keep walking, this is my only chance of freedom before lunch with Grandad.’ And after that she’d be hard at work on their quilting project.
When her phone buzzed she pulled it out to find a text from Fern who asked whether she’d have a chance to grab some cranberry sauce because she’d already left the shops and had totally forgotten to get any. Ginny almost looked to see whetherFern was watching her standing here with Lucas.
