‘Hold on! I won’t be a minute,’ Connor said, as he suddenly let go of Lottie’s hand.
She frowned. ‘Why? Where are you going?’
She reached for him but Connor was already yards away.
He came back and brushed her lips with his. ‘You’ll find out soon enough. Wait here on the harbour for me. Don’t worry, I won’t be long, Dotty Lottie.’
‘Don’t call me that!’ Lottie said, trying not to laugh.
Connor’s grin was unrepentant as he melted into crowds of holidaymakers thronging the harbourside of Porthmellow, leaving Lottie on the quayside.
She shook her head. Dotty Lottie was what some of the kids had called her at the Lakeland school she and Connor had both attended. He’d been four years above her and as a result they’d barely been aware of each other’s presence at the time, only meeting again through their work a few years before. Lottie was an events organiser at a hotel and Connor’s insurance firm had been one of their clients. However, she’d once unwisely confessed to him how much she hated the nickname and he’d used it ever since to wind her up and tease her – affectionately, of course.
Puzzling over his mysterious behaviour, Lottie wandered along the harbourside, while she waited for him to return. She was hardly alone, surrounded by hundreds of tourists enjoying the late September heatwave, but she had a curious feeling that she’d been cast adrift, like a cork bobbing in the sea.
Perhaps it was the unfamiliar surroundings, and the fact that she hadn’t known they were even coming to Cornwall until forty-eight hours previously, when Connor had parked the car outside a tiny holiday cottage on Porthmellow’s quayside.
Lottie could see its jaunty blue facade now, on the opposite side of the harbour, part of a row all painted in bubble-gum colours. The holiday cottage was such a contrast from the stone and slated houses of the Lakeland village where she and Connor lived. Langmere nestled on the shores of Derwentwater, encircled by the heather-clad fells and soaring peaks – equally pretty but with a subtler palette.
It struck her that in many ways, the tight-knit community of Porthmellow, with its houses huddled around the harbour – and the sense that everyone knew each other – reminded her of the Lakeland village she’d grown up in. The locals chattered outside the fish kiosk, just as they did outside the village shop and post office. Sail ropes clanked against masts just as they did on the yachts moored in the lakeside marina. But the contrast delighted her too. While the sea was steely blue topped with whitecaps, the lake’s dark surface reflected the fells like a mirror. That morning, she’d woken to the slap of waves on the harbour wall rather than the beck tumbling beside their Lakeland home.
It felt wonderful, but slightly disconcerting to have been whisked almost five hundred miles south at short notice, especially when she’d had no idea of their precise destination. Now she was here, she was keen to embrace every moment.
She breathed in, savouring the tang of sea air and fishing creels, rather than the scent of woodsmoke and fresh rain she was used to.
‘Hello!’ Connor tapped her shoulder.
Lottie twisted round. ‘You made me jump!’
‘Guilty conscience.’ With a smile, he joined her on the bench and crossed one leg over the other. He seemed extremely pleased with himself and he was grinning broadly.
‘You look like a dog with two tails.’
He waggled his eyebrows. ‘You should be so lucky.’
She groaned. ‘That’s a terrifying idea.’
‘Terrifying?’
‘Weird too. I don’t think I could handle it.’ She wrinkled her nose but was smiling.
‘Or them,’ he said, with what was meant to be a sexy grin. ‘Come on, let’s go back to the cottage.’
‘I’m not sure I want to after what you just said …’
But of course, she did want to go back to the cottage and knew exactly what he had in mind when they got there. Their unexpected week in Cornwall had certainly amped up the romance in their relationship – if the past couple of days was anything to go by. Although Lottie was now wondering where he’d been and what had happened to make Connor so smugly happy. Whatever it was, she was intrigued at this newly mysterious side to her partner.
He certainly didn’t relish surprises normally. His work as an actuary for an insurance company was a job that involved the precise calculation and prediction of risk. And while Lottie’s job as an events organiser at a large hotel