Summer at the Heartbreak Cafe: Summer Sweet Romance (Lakeview Contemporary Romance Book 0) (11 page)

T
hey hadn’t spoken
about anything, but now lying in his arms afterwards, more questions swirled in her mind.

Reluctantly, Nina pushed herself up and went into the bathroom. Sam followed her and they stood together under the warm water. By the time they came out of the shower, there was no time left and they dressed hurriedly.

The school bus stopped in front of the flat the moment Sam and Nina reached the living room. She smiled at him.

“Good timing eh?” Nina said.

“If it were up to you, we would still be up there.”

“True.” She took a step back and watched as Sam exchanged high fives with Patrick. She loved that he got on so well with her son.

Nina couldn’t take her eyes off Sam as later the three of them sat together and ate. He was even more handsome than she remembered.

“So did your publishers like your book?” Patrick asked.

Sam grinned. “They did. That’s why I haven't been in touch and I apologise. There was a lot more editing than I’d hoped and I’ve been pretty much under lock and key for the last few weeks trying to get it ready for production. But it’s done now and I’m on a roll actually,” he said. “Ready to start my next one. That’s why I’m back. I’d going to stay for a couple of months this time.”

“Oh,” Nina said, feeling a stab of disappointment.

Of course.

She had automatically assumed that he was back because of her.

A little while later, Patrick finished his food and then went to his room.

When they were alone, Sam leaned forward and whispered. “I lied.”

“What?” Nina said distractedly.

“I came back because I can’t spend one more day without you. I love you Nina.”

Her heart swelled until she thought it would burst from her chest. He
loved
her. “I just want us to get to know each other more, spend a lot of time together and see where it goes. How does that sound?”

It sounded perfect to Nina, and she said so. “But what about your work?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I’m a writer, I can work from anywhere.”

Thy sat quietly contemplating each other. Nina was not a great believer in miracles but sitting there with Sam, it felt like one had just happened.

“Tell me about the tourism course,” he said chatting easily, and Nina embarked on a description of her lecturers and fellow students, making Sam laugh with her comical portrayals.

Later that night, when Patrick had gone to bed and Sam had retired to his newly rented cottage, Nina went to bed content just knowing that he was here in Lakeview, just a stone’s throw away.

T
hey very quickly fell into
the routine they had before Sam left. After breakfast, thee three of them went for a walk on the trail, enjoying it for a few more weeks before it got too boggy and made it impassable.

“You’ll get to see winter here after all,” she said to Sam.

“Don’t you know that’s the main reason I came back,” he teased.

The meadow was quiet, the butterflies had long returned to their hiding places.

Still she liked the silence that covered the trail now. There were no voices of people, just the swish of the wind as it went past the trees and the grass.

Nina smiled and took Sam’s hand, as Patrick raced ahead of them.

Summer in Lakeview might have ended for everyone else, but for her, it would continue for a long time to come.

F
rom the Author
:

Thank you for reading Summer at The Heartbreak Cafe.

I very much hope you enjoyed this short-novel introduction to the Lakeview Series. All full-length novels in this series are
currently available
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ead
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‘
P
enny
, hurry up, you’re going to miss it!’ Elle Harte called out excitedly as she sprinted barefoot down the beach, her auburn hair swirling around her face in the breeze. Golden sand and ochre pebbles snaked alongside the deep blue of the Irish sea, little shaving foam breakers dimpling the surface.

Her ten-year-old sister; her junior by two years, strained to keep up. Penny’s shorter legs weren’t as fast and she was getting winded; Elle had always been much more athletic. Cool sand squished between her toes and she pumped her arms furiously, pushing herself to go faster. She didn’t want to miss the ship before it headed down the coast.

‘Elle stop, please,’ Penny called out.

But Elle pushed on for another fifty yards until she stopped abruptly on the strand, one arm extended out towards the horizon, the other shading her eyes. ‘Look at that, it’s just like the pirate ship in The Goonies,’ she called back, referring to the swashbuckling adventure movie that they both loved.

A moment later, Penny finally caught up with her. She pushed her wispy fair hair out of her eyes and clasped a hand on her hip, working to knead a stitch out of her side from the exertion. ‘Did we really have to run like that? I think I stepped on a jellyfish or something,’ she complained, but Elle didn’t answer. She was entranced by the sight unfolding in front of her.

Penny followed her sister’s gaze towards the open water where an 18th century English Tall Ship, complete with three tall masts and billowing sails, was leisurely making its way south off the Wexford coast. The ship, a true original that had been saved, preserved and recently unveiled to the Irish public, had made a temporary home for itself in the water at their hometown Mulberry Bay, just down the beach from where Elle and Penny’s family ran the local hotel.

Perched high on a hill above a sweeping bay, and overlooking the pretty little seaside town with a huge sugarloaf mountain as backdrop, the Bay Hotel’s coastal location and seafront bedrooms were a perfect haven for tourists. For generations the popular hotel had housed visitors from all over the world, as well as weathered some of worst of the storms the South East coast had seen.

Some of Elle’s favourite memories growing up there were of dramatic lightning strikes at sea, while she, her family and entranced guests watched from the windows. She knew that the tourists took memories like that home with them, to be taken out and relived when life got too overwhelming.

The hotel was located just a short walk up the coast road from the centre of Mulberry Bay.

There was just one main street in the little coastal town, which led directly to the sandy beach. The street was cobbled with red sandstone and no cars were allowed to drive through, the space being reserved for walking and simply enjoying the pretty little shops and eateries. The lamp posts were old wrought iron style, brightly coloured flower pots hanging from them, in keeping with the town’s tourist heritage status.

Elle knew all the shops in the main street: artisan bakeries boasting homemade bread, charming organic produce shops, little boutiques and craft stores with candles and jewellery made to order: tourist mementoes of time spent at the picturesque seaside town.

The local businesspeople were intensely proud of their produce and the homegrown/handcrafted nature of their wares. Elle loved walking on Main Street in the height of summer; eating ice-cream from Scoops, smells of baking from The Grain Store Bakery, fresh fruit from SunBurst Organics and ground coffee from Pebbles Café mingling in the bright air as tourists wandered down to the beach with buckets and spades and brightly coloured towels and inflatables.

In the winter, it was much quieter and considerably greyer in the absence of bright blue skies and the kaleidoscope of beach accoutrements, and populated solely by locals. The only thing she didn’t like about Mulberry Bay was its size and the fact that you tended to meet just about everybody you had ever known.

The entire community had been buzzing about the tall ship for the past few days. Elle had already seen the vessel twice, and had used the fact that her sister had yet to see it, as an excuse to get out of their hotel duties early and head down to the beach to watch it leave.

It was coming to the end of the heavy tourist season, and the Bay Hotel had held one of its famed ballroom dancing nights the evening before. Elle and Penny had been in the thick of the organising for days leading up to it. There was always so much to do at the hotel, but even more for any event in the ballroom; polishing the dance floor to a high shine, dusting the enormous glass chandelier, ironing the crisp white table linen, and arranging fresh flowers from the garden in the alcoves, and at reception. As well as a host of other boringly mundane tasks like replacing burnt-down candles in the candelabra, polishing the glassware, and tidying any rogue family-related paraphernalia away from the entrance or common areas.

Still, despite the annoying chores their mother, Anna set them, Elle had to admit that there was a great buzz and energy about the hotel in the lead up to such an event, and indeed at the event itself. Her mother was in her element with all the preparations, though Elle couldn’t understand all the fuss about the drinks or the food when ultimately people were coming to dance, and generally tried to hide out in the gardens with her dad, who she knew felt the same way. But inevitably Anna roped them all into participating, like it or not. And despite herself, Elle did enjoy the excitement and the fact that the bigger events always seemed to put a twinkle in her ever-busy mother’s eye and an extra bounce in her step.

Elle and Penny weren’t allowed to attend on the big night of course, but they routinely sat on the stairs and peeped out at the guests’ arrival at reception below. Women in bright red lipstick and glittering jewellery, looking like peacocks in glorious dresses and shoes that exuded pure sophistication like those women in Dynasty, accompanied by handsome men in smart suits that on closer inspection were usually many of the locals surprisingly scrubbed up for the night.

Once the dancing got underway, the ballroom itself was a riot of colour and music, as the band - a group of part-time musicians from the town - played waltzes and lively jives well into the night.

Penny, who like her mother adored a celebration, had as a four-year old, nicknamed these events ‘sparkle nights’, and the name still stuck. Elle agreed that yes their hotel could indeed throw a sparkling party, but Mulberry Bay was just a small town, a tiny community, really. Imagine the likes of such an event in Wexford, or in Dublin even? She could only guess at how sophisticated a party - a proper event - in a big city would be like, but one day she was determined to find out.

‘Isn’t it amazing?’ breathed Elle now, as she watched the boat sail away, fascination thick in her voice.

Penny looked out toward the horizon and shrugged. ‘It’s just a big boat.’

Elle turned to her little sister, a look of amazement on her face. ‘It isn’t just a big boat, Penny. It’s amazing. It’s like a living thing. Can you imagine the places it’s gone? The people who have sailed on it, the adventures it’s been in?’ She wrapped her arms around herself and proceeded to rub her elbows, warding off goose bumps. ‘It just screams excitement.’

Penny considered her sister’s words and turned around, squinting as the setting sun hit her in the face. She shrugged again. ‘Like I said, it’s just a boat.’

‘I can’t believe we’re sisters. Where’s your sense of adventure? You’re just like Mum and Dad. Sometimes I wonder if I’m adopted,’ Elle tisked. Not waiting for a response, she continued. ‘Oh, I wish I was on that boat. I’m destined to see the world. To live a big adventurous life. To get out of here.’

Penny cocked her head, seemingly confused. ‘What’s wrong with here?’ she enquired, genuinely curious.

This time Elle was the one who shrugged. ‘It’s fine I suppose. It’s just…I don’t know. It’s so small, isn’t it? Like everyone who lives here has been here forever. It’s as if none of them know that there is this big, huge world out there. Or if they do, they don’t care. I just know that I’m not meant for this place. And as soon as I can, I’m leaving Mulberry Bay, you know.’

Penny’s mouth dropped open, and she stared at her sister, shocked. ‘You mean you’re going to run away?’

Elle laughed. ‘Don’t be such a baby. No, I’m not going to run away. But when I’m seventeen, and finish school, I’m definitely leaving. Only five more years. And then I can go to college, somewhere that isn’t here, somewhere glamorous and sophisticated and exciting.’

Her younger sister pondered this new information and sat quiet for a moment, as if trying to picture a world where Elle couldn’t be found a couple of doors down the hallway from her own bedroom. ‘Do you mean like Dublin?’

Elle looked out toward the horizon, where the ship was fading into the distance, going on to places and ports unknown.

‘Maybe even further than Dublin,’ she said wistfully.

Penny processed this and bit her lip, as if willing herself not to become upset by her beloved big sister’s impending departure.

Noticing the silence, Elle smiled and placed an arm around her shoulder.

‘Hey kid, don’t worry,’ she said (Elle always felt very grown-up and worldly when she referred to Penny as ‘kid’), ‘I’m not going anywhere yet. Besides, you might want to skidaddle one of these days, too.’

But Penny was already shaking her head adamantly. ‘No, I never want to leave Mum and Dad or the hotel. I love it here. Mulberry Bay is my home.’

Elle repressed the urge to roll her eyes—her mother was always telling her that it wasn’t polite. ‘All teenagers do it in the movies Mum, it’s what you are supposed to do, I’m simply expressing myself,’ she had argued.

‘I don’t care if Molly Ringwald walks around with her eyes constantly in the top of her skull. It’s not nice to have a perpetual look of disdain on your face,’ scolded her mother, ending the discussion. Elle had rolled her eyes but Anna didn’t catch it as she had been walking away.

‘Well, OK,’ Elle said, making an effort not to belittle her younger sister’s (misguided) intentions to remain in their hometown forever. ‘You can just come and visit me then. Wherever I’m living. In Dublin or London with my gorgeously handsome and insanely successful husband.’

Penny’s eyes were as big as saucers. ‘But where will you live? And where will you meet your husband?’ she asked, wonder in her voice, as if Elle’s words were law and the future was certain.

Her sister smiled and said flippantly, ‘Who knows? I bet I’ll meet him in college—and we will form a big company together, and make crazy money. And then we can live wherever it suits us. London. New York. Paris. Tokyo even. What with me being a high powered career woman with a big business we might just live in multiple places. We’ll … ah, split our time.’ Elle hoped that she was using that phrase correctly—she had caught one of the characters from Dallas saying it on television the other night and thought it sounded very cool.

‘But you’ll come back here to visit won’t you?’ asked Penny. ‘What about Mum and Dad? And me? We’ll really miss you,’ she added tentatively. ‘The hotel will miss you.’

‘Ha.’ Elle laughed. Whatever about her family, she definitely wasn’t going to miss the hotel and that endless parade of annoying visitors, ongoing chores and constant entreaties from their Mum to ‘behave’. Well, of course I’ll come to visit now and then.’ She wasn’t going to admit it, but she was pretty sure that regardless of where she was living or how rich, successful and worldly she might be, she would of course miss her family too. ‘Or whenever you need me.’

‘Promise?’ questioned Penny, holding out her small finger.

‘Promise,’ Elle agreed, entwining it with her own, and the Harte sisters completed their usual ritual, forever sealing the vow.