A Perfect Cornish Escape by Phillipa Ashley Page 0,42

decide. I’m up for it!’ Tiff declared.

‘Wait. You haven’t been briefed yet. You don’t know what it involves,’ Dirk cut in.

‘Are you fit and healthy?’ Rachel asked. ‘You’ll have to fill in some forms.’

‘Fit as a fiddle,’ Tiff declared, regretting her comment about the gin. ‘And it would make a great feature for the mag, if it’s OK to write about it?’ She dared Dirk to object.

‘That would be brilliant. We need all the publicity we can get,’ Rachel said, beaming. ‘Thanks! Now, I’ll leave Dirk to brief you and get you to quickly fill in the insurance and safety forms. Then come into the equipment room and we can get you into your survival suit.’

Half an hour later, Tiff held onto her seat inside the cabin for dear life. The doors at the bottom of the slipway were now open to reveal the sea churning, grey and endless. Despite the swell, the coxswain and other crew seemed as chilled as if they were off for a Sunday afternoon picnic. Tiff’s knuckles whitened on the edge of the seat and her stomach was a tangled knot. Any moment now, any moment now … she felt a hand on her shoulder and the briefest squeeze.

‘You’ll be fine,’ the voice murmured close to her ear.

She had just enough time to realise it was Dirk at her side before the lifeboat plunged down the slipway on its nightmarish rollercoaster ride towards the ocean.

‘Fu—!’

With a huge boom, the bow hit the waves, spray rising sky high over the boat. For a few horrific moments, Tiff thought they were going to carry on right to the bottom of the harbour. Then suddenly the bow pointed heavenwards … then crashed down again into the surf.

She might have screamed but the noise drowned out her cries.

The lifeboat seemed to steady – though that was a relative term – as it passed the harbour wall and the engine note grew even louder. They were off, hurtling for the horizon, throwing up spray as the vessel cut through the waves. She couldn’t believe a boat could go that fast, tearing through the water, up and down, up and down, rearing high when it met a breaker before slapping down on the water.

Tiff sat rigid, gripping the seat, while Rachel, Dirk and a couple of other crew stood in the wheelhouse shouting and laughing.

‘Cuppa?’ Dirk shouted, miming a drinking sign in case Tiff couldn’t hear.

She didn’t trust herself to open her mouth in case more than words came out, so she just shook her head.

Tiff had ceased to believe in God a long time ago, but she started to pray. And she hadn’t even been thrown overboard yet.

Chapter Twelve

Since Lachlan’s unexpected invitation, Marina had been humming with a mix of excitement, nerves and curiosity about their Sunday lunch.

Tiff had raised her eyebrows and teased her about the ‘date’ – as expected – and Marina had insisted it wasn’t a date … but on Sunday morning as she shaved her legs and put on lip gloss even she had to admit it kind of was.

She’d been due to go to the cottage ‘around one-thirty-ish’ after doing the first shift at the lookout station with Gareth. She strolled along the coast path, enjoying the late spring sunshine and the bluebells bursting out in the little copse she passed on her route.

She’d barely taken her mug of coffee into the control room when her mobile rang. At first, she thought it was Tiff calling to be rescued from whatever Dirk had planned for her, but saw it was actually Gareth’s name flashing up on the screen.

He was very sorry but he couldn’t join her because his family’s elderly cat was ill. His mum was taking it to the emergency vet and she’d begged Gareth to go along with her for support. Marina wished him all the best and settled down for her watch, knowing she’d be very busy.

It was a cool but breezy day, and many weekend sailors had taken the opportunity to sail their yachts from Porthmellow Harbour around the coast. She spotted numerous craft – fishing trawlers, motor dinghies, dive boats and a wildlife cruiser – bobbing on the waves by the lighthouse. Through the large binoculars she saw what they were looking at: a pod of dolphins playing around in the surf.

At one point, she saw the all-weather lifeboat powering towards Mount’s Bay, but she’d been made aware it was on a training day so wasn’t concerned. She realised that