The Lavender Bay Collection. Sarah Bennett
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‘Just a few stresses with Dad, that’s all.’
Beth laughed. ‘Let me get changed and stick the kettle on and we can commiserate together, yeah?’
‘Sounds good. Can you lend me a towel to dry off ?’
Beth winced. ‘Those are all the towels from the airing cupboard, sorry. Hold on a sec, I’ll grab you something to put on and we can put your stuff in the dryer.’
It would probably be as easy to nip home and change, but she was gone before the thought occurred to him. Oh, well. He tugged off his sodden T-shirt and began to wring it out over the bath. ‘Here, you can use thi…’ He turned as Beth’s voice trailed off to find her holding out an oversized white bathrobe, her mouth open in a perfect ‘o’ shape.
Her eyes roamed down over his bare chest before flicking back to his face, the look of surprise on her face expanding as though suddenly realising what she’d done. A bright flash of colour heated her pale cheeks. ‘Sorry, I’ll leave you to it.’ The robe dropped to the floor and she dashed back out.
There was no getting around it, Beth had definitely been checking him out. Not quite sure how to feel about it, especially given his own roving eyes earlier, Sam quickly stripped the rest of his clothes and tugged on the thick, fluffy robe. The luxuriant material drew the clammy cold from his skin in moments. After squeezing the worst of the wetness from his clothes, he folded them into a neat pile. Grabbing a hand towel from the railing to dry the back of his hair, he wandered out of the bathroom to see if he could make her blush again.
Having been in the flat numerous times over the years to help Eleanor out with one thing or another, he knew his way around. Sam walked to the end of the hallway, and tapped on the door to the master bedroom which stood slightly ajar. When there was no response, he eased it open a fraction wider and stopped dead. Other than a thin film of dust, nothing about the room had changed since Eleanor had occupied it.
A flannel night gown, the kind that buttoned to the neck and had elasticated frills on the sleeves lay across the end of the floral bedspread. He could recall the one and only time he’d been in the room—to reseal the edge of the window when it had begun to leak the previous winter. Eleanor had scoffed at him when he’d asked her where her duvet was, insisting sheets and blankets were preferable to being ‘choked by some huge marshmallow monstrosity’. The plain flannel garment was about as far removed from something he could image Beth wearing as the fur-lined tapestry slippers sitting neatly beside the bed. The pots and jars on the dressing table looked untouched.
So where was Beth sleeping? Backtracking, he checked the larger of the two spare rooms and found it too dusty and unused, the mattress stripped bare, the pillows uncased. The third bedroom—a single with faded boy band posters still decorating the walls—had a neatly tucked in quilt on the bed and a suitcase on the floor, its contents spilling out into a small circle around it. What on earth was she doing, cramming herself in there? Utterly bemused, Sam made his way back to the kitchen.
Beth had found a mop from somewhere and was tackling the last of the water on the floor. Her own wet jeans had been replaced with a soft pair of yoga pants which clung invitingly to the delicious round curves of her bottom. The bathrobe did nothing to disguise his rising interest in the view she presented, so Sam side-stepped to shield his lower half behind a kitchen chair before speaking. ‘Do you want me to stick these in the dryer?’
She set the mop aside, and held out her hands. ‘Here, I’ll do it. I’ve already put my things in there. I got distracted clearing up. Can you put the kettle on while I sort this out?’
‘Sure.’ Sam made a pot of tea, then rescued the box containing the macarons from the hallway. Beth opened the window to hang the hot air pipe outside then switched on the dryer. She gathered cups mugs and plates from the cupboard and joined him at the table. He poured their tea, adding a splash of milk to his mug before doing the same to hers after Beth nodded. Her eyes strayed to the still-closed Tupperware box, and he placed a hand over the top of it. ‘If you want one of these, you have to promise to be honest with me about a few things.’
Her head shot up to meet his steady stare. ‘Like what?’
‘Like whether you regret giving up your life in London to run this place, and if you don’t, why are you camped out in your old bedroom?’
A stubborn frown etched between her brows, and he thought for a moment she would refuse to answer. He knew what it was like to be thrown a curve ball by circumstances, and he didn’t want her ending up feeling trapped the same way he had lately.
With a sigh she folded her arms and sat back in her chair, every line of her body rigid with tension. ‘They’d better be bloody good macarons.’
Sam grinned then removed one from the box, placed it in the centre of a plate and slid it towards her. ‘They’re very good, I promise. The toast of Paris once upon a time.’
Beth rolled her eyes at his boast. He watched carefully as her teeth sank into the gooey treat. Her eyelashes fluttered, then closed as she chewed the small bite. She swallowed, and opened her eyes, her pupils dilated to fill most of the deep-brown irises. ‘Oh, bloody hell. You weren’t kidding.’ She stuffed the other half of the macaron into her mouth.
The funny little noises she made had him crossing his legs under the table, and he slid the plate away from her. ‘Right, if you want more then start talking.’
Feeling uncomfortable at his level of insight, it was on the tip of her tongue to tell Sam to mind his own business, but the taste of the macaron still lingered, and she knew just how stubborn he could be. If she wanted more of that pistachio heaven, she’d have to give him some information in return. She sipped at her tea whilst shuffling through possible answers in her mind. There had to be a way to satisfy his nosy big-brother instincts without baring her soul to him.
Placing her mug down, she folded her hands together on the table and looked at him. He had that one-eyebrow quirk thing going on which was straight out of Annie’s playbook. ‘You look just like your mum. Everyone makes the connection with your dad and Pops because of the hair and those eyes, but when it comes to bone structure and certain mannerisms I see much more of Annie in you.’
Sam raised both eyebrows this time, and she could tell she’d caught him off guard. ‘I never really thought about it, but you’re right. Eliza looks much more like Dad than I do.’ He sat quietly for a few moments as though contemplating the idea before a look of determination narrowed his eyes. ‘Nice distraction attempt, no macaron.’
She couldn’t help but laugh. ‘I honestly wasn’t trying to put you off, you just had this expression which was pure Annie. I don’t regret leaving London. There was an accumulation of things—Charlie dumping me back in the summer, Eleanor dying and leaving me this place, and everything at work coming to a head. I wasn’t happy there anymore.’
‘What happened with Charlie?’
Surprisingly, the question didn’t bother her. After so many months of pain over the break up, all that was left now was confusion. ‘I’m not a hundred percent sure. Things seemed to be going all right, maybe we’d gone off the boil a bit, but isn’t that what happens in most relationships after a while?’ She stared into her tea. ‘He came home one night and out of the blue told me it wasn’t working for him. Packed a case and told me he’d give me a bit of time to find my own place then walked out the door.’
‘And that’s all he said? Wanker.’ She had to smile at the outrage in his tone.
‘I know it sounds ridiculous, but I was so blindsided by it I didn’t know what to say until he was halfway out the door. I tried to contact him for a few days, but he ignored my calls and messages. It was his flat and the rent was way beyond my salary, so I found some digs and moved out.’
Sam reached across the table to grasp her hand. ‘You must have been