Safe Harbour

by Cara Cooper

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

A British romance by Cara Cooper. Cassandra Waverley is thrilled with her  beautiful harbourside restaurant. She's escaped a stressful job in the  city and a personal meltdown which haunts her still. Just when she is  relishing her seaside haven, dark, brooding Adam Hawthorne turns up,  taking an unhealthy interest in her property and turning her world  upside down. He's a serious threat, both to her business and to her  heart. The more she learns about him the more she realises he's a man  with mysteries in his own past. Throw in a wayward younger sister and a  rescue kitten who needs a home and Cassandra has her work cut out for  her. Will she ever find a safe harbour, and a love that will endure?

Release date: June 16, 2011

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 137

Sample

HE WAS EVERY POSSIBLE kind of threat. Cassandra Waverley stood with folded arms and her hand cradling her chin, studying him out of the window of her small harbourside restaurant. If he had noticed her, he wasn’t letting on. She bit her thumbnail and shifted uneasily from one foot to another.

‘He’s been out there for 40 minutes now. Someone should go out and ask him what he’s up to.’

Megan sat at one of the little round tables and picked up another fork, polished it with the fresh white tea towel and peered at the stranger standing across the road. ‘Well, you’re never backward in coming forward. You could do it.’

‘I suppose I could, but unfortunately I don’t own the street so I can’t go and accost people walking up and down it and demand to know what they’re doing.’ Cassandra was aware she was being bad tempered, but concern had clouded her green eyes and, apparently, her judgement.

‘Actually, he’s kind of cute, don’t you think?’ Luckily Megan, sweet as ever, hadn’t taken offence. She picked up a spoon and polished it till she could see her face looking back.

Exasperation rang in Cassandra’s voice. ‘If you think someone decidedly suspicious, who has stood for half an hour taking photos of your property and who has stony black eyes that miss nothing is cute, I suppose so. I’d say he looks dodgy.’

Megan stopped her polishing and put her head to one side, considering. ‘Uh huh, dangerous sums him up more like. Wonderfully dangerous, like a big cat waiting to pounce. I’d take bets this sleepy old town hasn’t seen a man as dangerous as that since there were pirates in the harbour.’

‘Yup, and they ran the pirates out because they didn’t want that sort round here. What on Earth do you think he’s up to?’ Cassandra could feel her chest tightening with the tension.

Megan who now had in front of her three neat piles of knives, forks and spoons came over and stood by the window. Megan was short, slightly round with dark straight neatly cropped hair. A complete opposite to her boss, Cassandra, who stood tall, with long untameable blonde locks and olive green eyes. The only similarity the two girls had was the standard waitress uniform they wore of black hipster trousers and crisp white shirts. Even here they differed in that Megan spilt plumply over the top of her waistband whereas Cassandra’s hip bones could be seen underneath hers.

‘Maybe he’s a tourist,’ ventured Megan.

‘On his own, and pacing backwards and forwards. I don’t think so. He’s casing the joint in some way.’

‘Casing the joint,’ laughed Megan. ‘You’ve been watching too many gangster movies.’

‘Maybe that’s it,’ sparked Cassandra. ‘He’s either a crook ... or a policeman.’

‘He could be. He’s certainly got the build for it. With shoulders that wide and being that tall he could protect anybody. But why would any policeman be interested in this sleepy old place? Nothing ever happens here.’

‘Good question. Well, that only leaves us with him being a crook of some sort. Now those new antiques places have opened round the corner, he might be sussing them out.’

‘You know what I think,’ said Megan sitting herself down at the table again, taking out a paper napkin and wrapping a knife, fork and spoon up in it.

‘No, what?’ asked Cassandra, all ears.

‘I think you’ve got too fertile an imagination.’ Megan placed the rolled-up napkin in a large earthenware jug and prepared to start the next one.

‘I’m only being observant.’ Cassandra ran her hands along the crystals which dangled from threads in front of the window and threw rainbows from the early morning sun, all round the peppermint green walls. ‘And protecting myself.’

‘Are they part of your protection?’ Megan pointed to the dancing glass crystals.

‘Of course they are. They energise the chi currents which promote harmony and happiness. Perhaps they’ll ward him off.’

Megan snorted. ‘If he really is some sort of crook it’ll take a lot more than a few sparkly crystals and you frowning at him to see him off.’ She didn’t know anything about all that mystical Chinese stuff but she knew that since Cassandra had bought and done up the restaurant, it did have an extraordinarily peaceful feel to it.

Cassandra wandered to the bar at the back of the restaurant with a definite harrumph. Well, Megan might not be unnerved by the stranger but then she didn’t own the Feng Shui restaurant. She hadn’t staked her whole future and virtually every penny she had in it the way Cassandra had.

Taking a pair of secateurs out of the side drawer, Cassandra marched over to the door, a determined look on her face.

‘Crikey, you’re not planning to attack him with those, are you?’

‘Very funny. I’m going out to pick some fresh flowers for the tables and to show him I’ve seen him.’

‘I bet that’ll get him quaking in his smart leather shoes.’

‘You may laugh but it can put some criminals off if they think people are on the ball and prepared to take them on.’

Cassandra stepped out into the spring sunshine brandishing her secateurs. The stranger was standing on the corner now, writing in a small notebook. Cassandra glared at him, getting even more annoyed as he studiously concentrated on his notes, stubbornly failing to look towards her. She snipped at the cloud of scented philadelphus which grew in the tiny garden at the front of the restaurant, and selected the longest stemmed white roses from the climber which grew around the door. She felt unsafe with her back turned upon him. She glanced around. There he was, looking again. She couldn’t stem that feeling of his eyes boring into her back.

The season, if you could call it a season, in this sleepy seaside hamlet hadn’t got going yet and it was unusual to see anyone but locals around. Her next-door neighbour, Jasper Eames, who owned the secondhand bookshop, ambled out, tucking his shirt in. Jasper was one of those dishevelled men who looked like a perpetual schoolboy; he even had ink stains on his fingers.

‘Good morning.’ He yawned. ‘You’re a sight for sore eyes for a man who’s been staring at accounts all morning.’

‘Hi, Jasper. Your accounts wouldn’t take half as long if you did them on a computer. I offered to show you how.’

‘No thanks. I’ve got used to the slow torture of doing them with good old pen and paper, and computers and I wouldn’t get on.’

‘You’re probably right. Any man who’s run a business as long as you have without even owning a mobile phone is probably too much of a Luddite to get on with a computer. Jasper, have you noticed that man across the road? He’s been prowling about for ages.’

‘Can’t say I have,’ answered Jasper. ‘You’re the only one I really notice around here. You’re looking extraordinarily well, I must say.’

‘Thanks for the compliment, but you must have noticed him, he’s been floating around for ages.’

‘He’s just an early tourist, I guess. Nice flowers,’ he said, nodding to the bunch in her hand.

‘Here,’ she offered without feeling. Sometimes Jasper could be so laidback he was in danger of falling over, ‘Have a rose for your desk.’

‘Don’t mind if I do, although it should be the other way around. I should be offering you flowers.’

‘Well, don’t you go getting any bright ideas. I’m far too busy running a business here to take time out flirting with you.’

‘You say the sweetest things, Cassandra.’ Jasper, who ran his fingers through his hair in a small attempt not to look like he’d just got out of bed focused on the stranger for the first time. ‘I reckon he’s a property developer of some description. Is that a measuring device he’s got in his hand?’

Cassandra’s hand dropped to her side and the secateurs nearly fell out of it. ‘Property developer?’ she breathed, prickles of anxiety running up her skin. The stranger had promoted in her feelings of concern she’d not felt since she’d given up her high-powered city job. ‘Oh heaven, I hope not.’

‘Why not? We could do with a few luxury flats hereabouts to smarten the place up a bit. Have you seen that new development along by the beach where the old Ship Inn was? Really smart it is. Brand new flats, all glass and steel with posh balconies looking over the sea. I’d buy one myself if I had the money.’

‘But most of the places along here are listed. I was counting on all this staying as it is. I love it this way.’

‘That’s because you’re an incomer. You have a romantic view of the harbour area. Not like those of us who were born here. The old place could do with a bit of a shakeup. Anyway, much as I’d like to stand here and look at you all day, I have to open up if I’m going to make a living.’ With that he ambled back into his shop and flipped the Closed sign to Open.

That did it. Cassandra shot inside the restaurant and grabbed her black jacket.

‘Going somewhere?’ enquired Megan.

‘Jasper thinks he’s a property developer. If he is, I’m going out there to give him a piece of my mind. Those people,’ she spat out, ‘come to small, quiet places like this just because they are small and quiet and then they turn them into some sort of yuppified version of what we’ve all come here to run away from.’ She yanked her long hair out of the jacket and tied it back into the severest ponytail she could manage.

‘Very businesslike.’ Megan looked up. ‘Go get him, Cassandra.’

To say that Cassandra marched out to meet her adversary was no understatement. Her lips pursed and her arms stood rigid at her side, as she strode up to the stranger and tapped him on the shoulder.

‘Yes?’ He turned around and she realised he was even taller than he’d looked from across the road. Imposing was the word which immediately sprang to mind. Imposing and silently good looking but enigmatic. To hell with his good looks, thought Cassandra, someone’s got to check him out.

‘I ...’ She opened her mouth but unfortunately it had stopped working. All she could do was think to herself, Why on Earth didn’t you engage brain, Cassandra, before you tried to engage speech? Suddenly, standing here in the sunshine in this quiet little English street, it seemed plainly absurd to go accosting complete strangers with mad ideas about robbers, policemen or dastardly property developers. Quite frankly, when it came to it, Cassandra Waverley had lost her bottle. ‘I ... just wondered if you were lost.’

He looked down at her like a headmaster regarding an errant child. He had dark eyes which betrayed nothing, and a jawline set firm and immobile. ‘This is Seaport, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ All her fight had been replaced with meekness.

‘And this is Park Street, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ she squeaked.

‘Then I’m not lost at all. Are you?’

Considering he must have noticed her in the window of the Feng Shui dressed up quite plainly as a waitress and must have seen her picking flowers in a very proprietorial way, his question could be considered to be impertinent. ‘Well, I’m not.’ She held up her chin. ‘Obviously. I was just trying to be helpful.’

‘Were you now?’ His statement was less a question and more a challenge to her to defend herself on a charge of nosiness in the third degree.

‘Of course. We locals like to be helpful to tourists.’

‘Well, that’s very comforting although I wouldn’t describe myself as a tourist.’ She took a second to study him. He was incredibly well dressed. An expensive suit, perfectly cut, had probably been made for him. Well, at least she was getting somewhere. She waited for him to continue with a hopeful look in her green eyes. Waited for him to give her some clue as to what he was up to. The longer she waited, the more embarrassing it became. He was not going to play her game. If there was one thing Cassandra couldn’t abide when she’d been caught out, it was silence. She had to fill the space. ‘It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?’ How could you resort to the weather, Cassandra Waverley? she berated herself

‘It’s OK.’

Those two words sounded so dismissive Cassandra began to feel herself fold up inside. If only she hadn’t started this. If only she’d curbed her stupid imagination and left him alone she wouldn’t now be standing, with Megan looking expectantly at her through the window and with Jasper Eames frowning at her from his desk in the bookshop. That was the trouble with small places like Seaport – everybody was interested in everybody else’s business. Funny, she thought wryly. Before she came here, when she was working at the bank in London, she would have despised a place like this for that very reason. Amazing how circumstances can change your opinion though. Now she felt it was essential to her survival to know what people like this stranger were up to. But he obviously wasn’t going to give an inch and quite plainly was happy to see her cringing embarrassment.

‘Well, if you do need anything, I own the restaurant over the road – the Feng Shui. We do lunches, dinners and have a bedroom for rent.’ She pointed sheepishly, not an ounce of her previous fighting spirit remaining, listening to her voice trail off into the air. She was gabbling and she knew it. ‘Feel free to let us know if we can help in any way.’

‘I will,’ came the brief reply. ‘Goodbye.’ He turned on his heels and made his way off down the road towards the harbour.

Well, how was that for being dismissed, she thought angrily as she watched his figure disappear into the distance. He then stopped and, looking pointedly in her direction, took out a mobile phone. Drat, if only she’d been a bit cooler, not accosted him, and simply wandered in the same direction as him, she might have had a chance to hear what he was saying. It was almost as if he was teasing her. No, she thought, that’s just more of your over-zealous imagination. She then squared her shoulders and marched back to the restaurant as surel. . .