A Gift to You (10 page)

‘And . . . er . . . is Daniel coming, or will he be milking cows?’ The tone was acerbic.

‘It was his dad that used to have cattle. We own a stables,’ Ella murmured, thinking,
You haven’t changed, you sarky mare.

‘Of course. I’d forgotten. My mother regales me with the village gossip when I phone but I never remember
any
of it.’

‘Really?’ Ella smiled sweetly as a breeze blew her copper curls around her face. ‘I suppose the goings-on of us boggers wouldn’t be of the slightest interest to a City
Slicker like you. Anyway I’d love to stop and chat but Daniel’s meeting us for lunch so we must get our skates on.’

‘We’re having a picnic with my dad; do you want to come?’ Andrew invited gaily.

Oh, hell!
Ella thought. She didn’t want her husband’s ex-girlfriend joining them for lunch, now or ever.

‘I don’t think Paula’s quite dressed for the beach; it would be a bit hard going down the ninety-nine steps in those high heels,’ she pointed out to her kind-hearted
son.

‘What happens if it rains? Does your car get flooded?’ Andrew enquired, staring at the convertible.

‘Err . . . no, I put the roof up.’ Paula gave him a supercilious glance.

‘Do you have to build it?’ he persisted.

‘No, you press a—’

‘Andrew, we have to go. Daddy will explain it to you,’ Ella said firmly.

‘Give Daniel my regards. I expect I’ll get to see him; I’m here for a few days,’ Paula purred silkily.

‘I’m sure he’ll be delighted to see you.’ Ella kept her tone neutral, as a burst of jealousy swept through her. She wanted to smack the cold-eyed woman in front of her.
How Daniel had ever had a relationship with Paula was a mystery to her. ‘Bye.’

‘Cheers,’ drawled Paula as she slid gracefully into the cream leather interior of her sports car. She started the engine and roared off with a nonchalant wave.

‘Cool car, Mum. Let’s tell Daddy about it.’ Andrew grinned up at her, the sprinkling of freckles across his nose so endearing she wanted to lift him up in her arms and smother
him in hugs and kisses. There would have been uproar had she done so. Andrew did not care to be kissed in public any more and she had to restrain her urges to cuddle him until bedtime, when he
endured them . . . and, she hoped, secretly enjoyed them. But he wouldn’t admit it; he was a ‘big boy’ now was his constant refrain.

‘Let’s go and meet Dad.’ Ella smiled down at him. ‘Lead on Macduff.’

They walked along the winding path until they came to the ninety-nine steps that led down to a golden slice of beach that curved in the direction of a small pier further on, where fishing boats
danced up and down on the rippling, glittering sea and nets and lobster pots lay strung along the quay, and old anchors lay rusting in the sun. Gulls wheeled and circled and swooped and dived.
cawing raucously. The chugging and throbbing of a boat’s engine added to the seaside cacophony, melodic on the breeze.

She saw her husband waving and her heart lifted. She loved Daniel Finn with all her heart and always had done, even as a spotty teenager, and even through the heart-stinging days when he’d
romanced the beautiful Paula and then been left high and dry when she’d shaken the dust of Clearwater Bay off her stilettos and headed for the bright lights of New York.

Ella had gone to work in Dublin and share a flat with her best friend, Maggie; and one weekend, when she’d come back home for the annual Lifeboat Fundraiser Dance and Barbecue, Daniel had
asked her to dance as the evening drew to a close. To her surprise, she’d found him very easy to talk to. He’d confided that he was thinking of buying land to open a stables and
she’d offered to help out in the yard on the weekends she was home. She was mad about horses and mad about Daniel. And soon, it became clear that he was equally keen on her. They’d
married two years later and built up a livery and horse-riding business, which was now thriving.

Paula had come back to Dublin the previous year and had secured herself a top-notch job in PR, but she’d never come back to Clearwater Bay to visit, until now.

How chic and sophisticated she’d looked in her sports coupé, her taupe linen trousers crisp and sharply creased, her cream, figure-hugging vest showing off her toned, sculpted
body.

Ella sighed as she followed her children down the wooden steps. Typical of her luck to be caught in her faded-denim shorts and the black V-top that was speckled with white paint. It had splashed
on her earlier when she’d been whitewashing the yard. She hadn’t even a slick of lipstick on, she thought, glumly, as she remembered Paula’s full, glistening lips. Her husband
waved and loped towards them in his rangy, long-legged stride.

‘Come on, dear woman, what vitals have you got for your starving hunter-gatherer?’ Daniel planted a firm kiss on her unlipsticked lips, before kissing their daughter, Sally, and
swinging Andrew up in the air.

‘
Am
I your dear woman?’ She looked up at him, drinking in the sight of him, so lean and rugged, his blue eyes crinkling up in the most attractive way when he smiled, his
teeth white and even against his tanned weather-beaten face.

‘Of
course
you’re my dear woman, especially if you brought me some of those scrumptious cherry-and-walnut buns that I
adore
,’ he replied grinning, dropping
Andrew onto the fine, hot sand and taking the picnic basket from her.

‘I made egg and onion sandwiches for you.’ She slipped her hand into his and his warm fingers closed over hers in a loving clasp.

‘What have I done to deserve such a banquet?’ he teased, as they reached their favourite spot – a small hollow surrounded by green spiky marram grass and with a soft bed of
mossy fern to sit on. She spread out the green-checked-tartan rug, and he knelt beside her, taking plastic plates and cups out of the basket, while she unwrapped the sandwiches and buns, and the
children raced down to the shore and screeched in delight as a frothy surge of white spray played around their bare feet.

‘Paula’s home,’ Ella blurted.

‘Aahaa!’ Her husband’s eyes narrowed as he stared at her, comprehension dawning. ‘Hence the “Am I your dear woman” question?’

‘Daddy, Daddy, come on into the sea, it’s warm, honest, Dad.’ Andrew pranced around them, scattering damp sand all over the rug.

‘Andrew!’ Ella exclaimed, exasperated.

‘Sandwiches always taste better with sand, ‘Daniel assured her, standing up to follow his son, who had gone tearing back to join his sister.

He leaned down and kissed her. ‘My dear woman now and always,’ he said tenderly, stroking a finger along her cheek before he sprinted down to join his children at the water’s
edge.

Paula Nolan paced around the small bedroom chewing the inside of her lip. She felt terribly restless. Her mother was fussing and fluttering and making her numerous cups of tea
and proffering apple tart and homemade shortbread and telling her she was far too skinny. It was driving her mad.

She sat down on the faded, pink candlewick bedspread draped over the narrow divan bed that sagged in the middle, and remembered how caged and frustrated she’d felt living in this
godforsaken backwater. A tsunami of long-forgotten feelings were back, threatening to submerge her. Why she’d let her mother persuade her to come to the annual Lifeboat Fundraiser Dance and
Barbecue she had no idea. Well, she had, she supposed. She’d wanted to show off the new convertible; she’d wanted Daniel to see just how well she’d done for herself by leaving
this little sleepy seaside village and making a life for herself.

Meeting Ella today had rattled her, though. It was years since she’d last seen her. Then she’d been a spotty teen with greasy hair and braces. The woman she’d met today had a
glow of health and happiness that shone in the gleam of her copper curls and bright, sparkling eyes that were devoid of make-up. Her arms and legs were golden from the sun and even though Paula had
the most expensive all-over fake tan, it looked faintly orangey compared to Ella’s natural colour.

She frowned, remembering the stomach-lurching sense of shock when her mother had told her that Daniel Finn had married Ella Russell. What could he have seen in the gawky teen who’d been so
shy she’d blushed every time he looked at her?

Shyness was not a trait she could attribute to herself, she thought wryly, remembering how she’d made all the running to get Daniel to date her. She’d been brazen, flaunting herself
at him, and the more he resisted, the more she persisted until eventually he’d agreed to go to a dinner dance with her and they had become an item.

Skinny, lanky, black-haired, Daniel with the piercing blue eyes had been the only man she’d dated whom she totally respected. Daniel, even at twenty, had always been his own man. When she
hadn’t been able to persuade him to come to New York with her, she’d told him it was over. He’d shrugged and said, ‘Suit yourself. Good luck.’ And she’d hated
him for not even making
some
effort to persuade her to stay. She’d tried to put him out of her head and slowly purged him from her thoughts, until her mother rang her in New York a
few years ago to tell her that he was getting married. She’d been shocked. Even though she was dating a high-flying hedge-fund manager, she’d never forgotten Daniel and his rejection of
her.

Life in New York had got tough as the recession hit and her job in a high-end interiors-and-design magazine had evaporated when the publishers went belly-up. Being unemployed in NY was not for
the faint-hearted, and she didn’t want to live off her hard-earned nest egg. Reluctantly, Paula had decided to move back to Ireland. She’d spoofed her way into a PR job in Dublin that
was right up her alley, and had bought a penthouse apartment overlooking the seafront in Clontarf. She’d got it for half the price she would have paid for it in the boom years, so, all in
all, she hadn’t done too badly.

How had Daniel fared in the intervening years? she wondered, irritably waving away a wasp that had flown in the open window. He was probably florid and balding now, she thought nastily, as she
stood up and unzipped her trousers and stepped out of them. She pulled her top over her head and studied herself in the long cheval mirror and smiled with wry satisfaction. A woman in her prime,
she decided, as she turned sideways and saw her toned, supple body with not an ounce of spare flesh. Her highlighted-blonde hair was cut in a sharp bob and she looked every inch the sophisticated,
successful career woman.

‘Eat your heart out, Daniel,’ she muttered, posing in front of the mirror, wondering how would he feel when he met her at the barbecue. She’d wear her black, strapless Karen
Millen dress that clung to every curve of her body and his eyes would follow her every move, she vowed.

But why wait until the party? She’d drive around the winding roads that lead to his stables. Her mother had told her that the Finns had bought Twelve-Acre Field from the Corrys. He might
be mucking out his horses or what ever he did with them. If Ella could look wholesome in her denim shorts,
she
would look sexy and alluring, she decided, eyes sparkling with anticipation
as she opened her suitcase. She was going to rub Daniel’s Finn’s nose in it. Let him see what he could have had, if he hadn’t been such a stick-in-the mud.

‘Aw, Maggie, it’s great to see you. Hello, darlings!’ Ella hugged her best friend warmly and swooped on the two adorable six-year-old twins who tumbled out of
Maggie’s beat up Focus.

‘Thank God I’m here. The M50 was a car park and the N11 wasn’t much better,’ Maggie groaned, hugging Ella back. ‘Thanks so much for having us, it was unfortunate
that Mam’s got the builders in; she said the house is a tip. Mind, my house isn’t much better,’ she added, following Ella into the bright, homely kitchen and gazing around
enviously.

‘It’s so tidy.’ She sighed. ‘Mine’s a breeding ground for MRSA.’

‘Stop – your house is lovely,’ Ella chided as she filled the kettle and spilled a packet of chocolate gold grain onto a plate.

‘Is Paul coming later? I put his name in the pot, I was going to make a steak and kidney pie?’

‘Oh, yum!’ Maggie exclaimed, plonking herself in the chair and stretching.

The girls raced into the kitchen. ‘Mam, can we go with Sally to—’

‘Go where you like . . . do what you like, just let me talk to Ella for twenty minutes. We’ve a lot to catch up on.’ Maggie waved them away.

‘Thanks, Mam!’ They couldn’t believe their luck as they galloped back outside to join their friends.

‘OMG! Look at my legs; they look like I slashed myself Maggie stared in dismay at her long skinny legs that had streaks of dried blood on them. ‘I decided I better shave them, it was
worse than the Forest of Arden, and the razor was blunt,’ she explained dolefully, and Ella giggled. It was great to have her friend staying for a few days. It would be just like old times
when they’d shared a flat in Dublin.

‘Paul?’ she queried again, wondering if Maggie’s husband was coming down from Dublin later.

Maggie shrugged, and threw her eyes up to heaven. ‘Don’t know, is the honest answer. He’s installing some new software at work and the computer has to run all night. I’m
hoping he’ll make it for tomorrow evening but I’m not banking on it.’

‘Oh,’ Ella murmured. She knew the other couple had issues about Paul’s workaholic tendencies.

‘Mam, can we change into our swimming togs?’ Maggie’s twins burst in thought the door.

‘What did I say? Twenty minutes for Ella and me.’

‘But—’

‘Aw—’

‘Out! Out!
Out!
’ Maggie pointed her finger, and they left, grumbling loudly.

‘God Almighty, I brought you into the world; isn’t that enough for you?’ she declared after their retreating backs. ‘What do you want me to do . . . rear you?’

‘Maggie, you’re incorrigible.’ Ella laughed, as she handed her a mug of tea.

‘Well, we’ve more important things to be dealing with. I got your text about Paula. Tell me all. What does she look like? Is she as glam as ever or, by any stroke of all that’s
fair and wonderful, has she put on a stone and got batwings, and roots that need doing, just like me? Sit down and tell me everything . . . now!’