shivered. She looked down at the sand crumbling around his shoes, the way he stood next to her, solid and real. It was, in some ways, as if time had stood still. It was now, and yet it was twenty years ago.
‘Remember this?’ She yanked at her neck and pulled out the soft scarf.
‘You kept it?’
‘Of course I kept it.’ She pulled it out further and stroked her cheek with the soft silk. ‘I love this scarf. It reminds me of you.’
He pulled the scarf from her hand gently. Then, he threw it back over his head and around hers, linking his hands behind her head. He leant in and kissed her on the lips, sending a huge fizz down her spine as the scarf fluttered over their heads.
He was looking at her, grinning. ‘Remember Widemouth Bay? Remember what we used to do!’
Maddie laughed.
‘Remember the surf there?’
She nodded. ‘I remember it being freezing!’
‘We had a way to warm up…’ He blinked at her a few times. Was he going to cry?
‘I went body surfing recently. Hadn’t done that for twenty years.’
‘Here?’ He was scuffing his boots in the sand, forming little piles of sand, then kicking them over, he looked up at her.
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Bali – it all came back to me.’
‘Bali?’
‘With Ed.’ She shrugged, as they started to walk along the shore again. ‘Long story, but he was in trouble and I went to help. I just took a leap of faith. Tim… he… he wasn’t going to go, but I had to. He was my son… Ed was fine in the end. Turns out it’s a bit like riding a bike, body surfing – you don’t forget.’ She paused for breath, thought about how alive she’d felt in the sea – how completely alive she felt now.
Suddenly, he ran ahead of her with Taffie. She watched the broad shoulders, the long legs, and was taken straight back to Widemouth beach. He turned and beckoned her over, holding out his arms wide. When she laughingly got to him, he lifted her up high and twirled her round. She held on to the back of his neck, then slid back down alongside his firm body and put her head on his shoulder, breathing him in, feeling the rough weave of his jumper on her skin. Never wanting to let go.
This was what she missed. Being part of a team. Not feeling alone, even when you were. She felt invincible. It wasn’t that he was some knight in shining armour – she was too old for that kind of thing now. In fact, with his slightly crooked nose and floppy brown curls, he was hardly classically good-looking, but that wasn’t the point was it? He was her Greg. And that’s all that mattered. He ‘got’ her in a way few other people did.
‘Hey!’ Greg had placed her down in the sand and had pulled her hat over her eyes. ‘Race? Back to the cottage? Ready?’ Taffie was barking at their heels, running around in circles on the sand.
‘You bet!’ she said lifting her hat up, and with that she started to run, as fast as she could towards the cottage, towards another future. One that included Greg Baker.
*
When they got back to the cottage the floors were still slightly wet.
‘We’ll have to wait till tomorrow to put another coat on,’ Greg said, bending down to the floor and touching it gently outside the kitchen. ‘It’s still a bit tacky.’
‘Right. Wine?’ Maddie impulsively suggested as he came up, standing to face her. He nodded. She busied herself with opening the cupboard in the kitchen, got paint on her hands, then laughed, dropped a glass, and picked it up as he stood, leaning against the table, arms folded and watched her. Eventually, she poured out two glasses of Merlot and handed one over. They both took a gulp. She enjoyed the warmth of it down her throat, its musty, blackberry aroma filling her nose, and how the heat radiated into her stomach. The silence in the kitchen was overwhelming; all she could hear was Taffie breathing in his basket. Greg put his glass down on the counter and moved towards her, reached out and placed a hand on the back of her neck. She stood, motionless, as a sensation built up in the pit of her stomach. She felt exhilarated and terrified.
‘Not many places to go in here, to avoid walking on the floorboards, unless we go upstairs.’ His face