has friends here, too, as well as detractors.’
Name one, apart from yourself, Eve was tempted to say, but she didn’t.
‘I must get Tassie home,’ she said instead. ‘She’s beginning to look tired.’
Tom clearly wasn’t because the minute Eve began to make her way through the throng he was instantly at her side.
‘Trying to run out on me, are you?’ he said, and she shook her head at him.
‘It’s time I took Tassie home,’ she replied, sidestepping quickly as Freddie and Sam dashed past them, slipping and sliding on the polished wooden floor, whooping at the top of their lungs.
‘Regular little bundles of fun, aren’t they?’ Tom said with amusement as the youngsters scampered off.
‘You used to hate kids,’ Eve reminded him. ‘Said they should all be kept indoors by their parents until they were teenagers.’
‘Yeah, well…’ Tom glanced back at the two boys. ‘Do you ever find yourself wishing you’d had children?’
Eve stared fixedly at the wedding cake sitting on the table by the window.
‘No point in wishing, Tom,’ she said. ‘It’s better to deal with the here and now.’
‘I guess so,’ he said, then smiled and waved to Tassie. ‘But I still think I’d like to have kids.’
‘And I think it’s way past time Tassie went home,’ Eve said through a throat so tight it hurt.
‘Eve—’
‘Well, well, well. If it isn’t Tom Cornish. And what brings Penhally’s local-boy-made-good back to Cornwall?’
Eve glanced over her shoulder to see Nick Tremayne standing behind them, and smiled.
‘Tom,’ she began, ‘this is—’
‘Nick Tremayne.’ Tom grinned. ‘No need for an introduction, Eve. I would have recognised this old reprobate anywhere. Good to see you again, Nick, and still doctoring, I hear.’
‘And you’re still globetrotting with Deltaron if all I’ve read about you is true,’ Nick replied with no smile at all.
‘You’ve been following my career?’ Tom said lightly, but Eve could see a slightly puzzled look in his eyes. ‘I’m flattered.’
‘Oh, even in a sleepy little backwater like Penhally, we have the internet and satellite television now,’ Nick replied, ‘which means I’m all too aware of your exploits.’
‘Tom is just back for a short visit,’ Eve said, glancing from Tom to Nick, then back again uncertainly. Lord, but the animosity emanating from Nick was so patent it could have flash-frozen fish. ‘He’s leaving on Monday.’
‘Back to singlehandedly, heroically saving the world, I presume?’ Nick declared, and what little smile there had been left on Tom’s face disappeared completely.
‘If you want heroes, Nick, then it’s the people who live in the countries my team and I go into to help who deserve that title,’ he said tersely. ‘They’re the ones who have to tackle the long-term effects of any disaster.’
‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Nick observed, ‘but they don’t get the credit, do they? Because they get left with the boring, tedious stuff, like rebuilding their country, while you swan off on yet another photo opportunity.’
‘Now, just a minute,’ Tom began, his face darkening, and Eve caught hold of his sleeve quickly.
‘Tom, we really do have to get Tassie home,’ she said. ‘She’s very tired, and I told Amanda we’d make sure she wouldn’t be too late back.’
For a moment she didn’t think he was going to come with her. He certainly didn’t look as though he wanted to as he glared at Nick, and Nick glared back, then he nodded reluctantly.
‘Right,’ he said, then added, ‘See you around, Nick,’ before he strode out of the room, leaving Eve and Tassie with nothing to do but hurry after him.
‘I thought you said you and Nick Tremayne were friends?’ Eve protested when she caught up with him in the car park.
‘I thought we were, too,’ Tom replied, ‘but I’ve clearly done something to rattle his cage. Any idea what?’
‘None at all,’ Eve said. ‘He can certainly be a bit brusque at times, but he’s not normally so…so…’
‘In your face?’ Tom shook his head as he helped Tassie clamber into his Range Rover. ‘Kate Althorp sure had a lucky escape.’
‘From what?’ Eve asked in confusion.
‘From marrying him. Don’t you remember how close Kate and Nick were at school?’ he continued as Eve looked at him in surprise. ‘Everyone was certain they’d get married.’
‘Well, they didn’t,’ Eve replied. ‘Kate married James Althorp.’
‘So I gathered.’ Tom frowned as he switched on his ignition. ‘Which I have to say I find surprising. Don’t get me wrong,’ he added. ‘James was a nice enough bloke, but I’d have thought he was a bit too laid back for Kate, which only goes to show you never can tell. Nick married that girl he met at med school, didn’t he? Anne…Isabel…’
‘Annabel.’
‘Yeah, that was her name. Nice girl, she was, too, as I recall.’
‘She died nearly three years ago now,’ Eve replied. ‘Her appendix ruptured and because she’d taken aspirin she bled out and there was nothing anyone could do.’
‘I’m sorry about that,’ Tom declared, ‘but I still reckon Kate had a lucky escape.’
But Nick isn’t normally like that, Eve thought with a frown, as Tom drove them down the winding road back into the village. The senior partner could certainly be sharp and cutting if he felt people weren’t pulling their weight, but she’d never seen him verbally attack somebody for no reason, and yet that was exactly what he’d done this afternoon.
‘Where does Tassie live?’ Tom asked as they drove down Harbour Road.
‘Just off Morwenna Road, but if you drop us at the post office we can walk from there,’ Eve replied.
‘But that will still leave you quite a distance to walk,’ Tom protested.
‘All to the good,’ Eve said calmly. ‘I need some exercise after what I’ve eaten.’
‘But—’
‘Drop us at the post office, Tom.’
He sighed but, after he’d crossed the Harbour Bridge, he obediently pulled up at the post office.
‘Thanks for the ride, mister,’ Tassie said when she and Eve got out of his car, and he smiled
