After a generous brandy nightcap, Sam had left his mum to settle his dad in bed while he walked Pops back to the sheltered accommodation flats about half a mile along the front. The fresh air had hit them both, and it hadn’t been entirely clear who’d held who up, but Sam was accepting no responsibility for the rousing chorus of ‘She was only a farmer’s daughter’ Pops had insisted on singing as Sam fumbled with the key to his grandad’s door.
Pops waved a dismissive hand. ‘Bah, she’s as uptight as that awful perm on her head.’
This time Sam couldn’t hold back his snort of laughter. ‘What am I gonna do with you, Pops?’
His grandad winked then eased himself off the stool to join his cronies in their favourite spot. ‘Well you could fetch me a bite of something from that buffet. Your ma’s done us proud again today. Eleanor would be right pleased with everything.’
Sam nodded. Pops was right. Mum had pulled out all the stops to make sure their erstwhile friend and neighbour had the send-off she deserved. He’d offered to do the catering, but his preferred style of cooking had been deemed too fancy for the occasion, and his mum had been happy to help, leaving him free to help Beth manage the logistics surrounding Eleanor’s funeral.
A sudden lump formed in his throat at the realisation that feisty, funny Eleanor Bishop would never again perch at the corner of the bar to sip the single dry sherry she treated herself to on the way home from church on Sunday mornings. She’d been a fixture of the place his whole life, slipping him and Eliza a lemon sherbet or an Everton mint from one of the ever-present paper bags she kept behind the counter in the emporium.
When he’d found himself unexpectedly back in Lavender Bay, his dreams on hold, she’d been the first to welcome him back—and to offer a sympathetic ear during those first frustrating weeks as he juggled his own disappointment and his father’s wounded pride. With regret, he let the memories go. There would be time enough to mourn her later, in private. Someone needed to hold the fort until they could usher the gathered mourners from the pub.
As no one else currently waited at the bar, he ducked under the side hatch and grabbed a plate from the end of the buffet table. After a quick glance to where the girls sat, he took a second plate. Heaping them both with sandwiches, sausage rolls and mini quiches, he delivered the first to his grandad’s table to a champion’s welcome, then made his way to Eliza’s corner.
The girls had claimed it as their own from the first day they’d been old enough to drink. He could vividly recall a rare weekend visit home from his training placement at the Cordon Bleu in Paris when he’d found them ensconced with a bottle of wine, filling the bar with laughter. They’d been home from their second year at university, and seeing them so grown-up had been a shock to the system. Though Eliza and her friends were only three years younger, the age gap between them had seemed huge growing up. When he’d thought about them, they’d been this amorphous collection of pigtails, terrible taste in pop music, and annoying interruptions. That weekend, they’d diverged into distinct personalities, and that age gap had narrowed considerably.
He’d found Beth particularly distracting, but that had been a moment of madness. A surge of youthful hormones, alcohol and opportunity. The bottle of wine the girls had split had been followed by several large vodka and tonics, leaving them all a little unsteady on their feet. Worried about the way she’d almost fallen out of the door, Sam had followed her out, almost tripping over himself thanks to several pints and an enormous brandy Pops had poured for him.
When he’d straightened up, she’d been standing on the railing that lined the edge of the promenade, arms flung out like she was Rose standing on the prow of the Titanic. With her hair streaming out behind her, and a flush on her cheeks from the booze and the chilly wind, she’d looked as tempting as the mermaid who decorated the pub’s sign swinging over his head.
He’d crossed to her without thinking, her name on his lips. Startled, she’d turned too fast and lost her balance to tumble the short distance into his arms. It might have been all right if she hadn’t hooked her arms around his neck, pressing their bodies up close so he couldn’t fail to notice the womanly curves, the way his hands slotted perfectly at her waist, as though the sculpted indent had been carved to fit only him.
Her fingers had knotted in the curls at his nape, and then they were kissing, hot and wet and frantic—a clumsy clash of lips and tongues. God only knows what might have happened had Libby not staggered out of the bar at the moment to screech in disbelief at the sight of them. Her shocked laughter had doused his passion as effectively as a dip in the sea and Sam had come to his senses. With a muttered apology, he’d fled back into the pub and brushed it off as a stupid mistake. Thankfully, that brief flutter of attraction had passed, and he’d tucked her firmly back into the like-a-sister-to-me box where she belonged.
Sliding the plate onto the table, he studied their red-rimmed eyes with a surge of brotherly concern. ‘I thought you might be hungry.’
Beth glanced up at him. Her hazel eyes, which could morph from brown to green to blue depending on her mood, stood out huge in her pale face. Her chestnut hair had been dragged up in a high ponytail, the strands dull and lifeless. A jut of collarbone he’d never noticed before poked out from the too-loose neck of her navy blouse, and he had to shove his hands in his pockets before she saw them clench into fists. Voice husky with tears, she thanked him for the food.
His lip twitched, wanting to curl into a snarl. Beth had been hooked up with the same bloke for a few years now, so where the hell was he? What kind of man let the woman he loved get herself in such a state? There was no sign of the glossy confidence she’d attained during his years at university. She looked hollow, brittle.
The protectiveness he’d felt for Beth since the day she’d first skipped into his life at six-years-old, roared into life. At the grand age of nine, he’d been told old for the silly games his sister and her best friends played in the yard behind the pub, so had restricted himself to a lofty sigh or a weary shake of his head when they needed him to fetch a ball or help them sketch out a hopscotch on the concrete floor of the yard. Even back then, they’d known he would do anything for them and his complaints fell on deaf ears.
Pops had never understood Sam’s fascination with fancy cooking, and had taken it upon himself to teach him the workings of the pub, whether Sam had much interest in it or not. They’d been down in the cellar one morning checking the barrels and making a note of what they needed to order that week from the brewery, when a high-pitched cry had reached their ears. Racing up the cellar steps, Sam had burst into the yard to find a tear-stained Beth on her hands and knees where she’d tripped over.
He hadn’t been able to do much more than stare into her limpid hazel eyes before his mum had bustled over with a flannel to soothe the grazes on Beth’s palms and shins, but it had been enough for him to make a decision. With no brothers or sisters, Beth didn’t have anyone else to look out for her, so it would be his job from that day forward. It was true that little Libby Stone was an only child as well, but she’d always been as tough as old boots and would likely thump Sam if he tried to pull any of that big brother stuff with her. Beth had always been more delicate, more in need of his protection. Something her feckless parents had failed to give her.
The adult version of Libby wasn’t any less scrappy than the mini one, and right now she was eyeing Sam in a way that made him want to squirm, or scrub at the heat he could feel rising on the back of his neck. With a knowing smile, Libby snagged a sausage roll from the plate in front of Beth and popped it into her mouth. ‘So kind of you to think of us, Sammy.’
Having witnessed that momentary indiscretion between Sam and Beth, she’d been like a dog with a bloody bone, reading far too much into a something-and-nothing
