The Waffle House on the Pier - Tilly Tennant Page 0,104

and she cried.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, his voice husky and exhausted too, all traces of his drunkenness gone. ‘Coastguard’s here.’

Sadie looked out to see the lights of the boat, and she uttered a silent prayer of thanks for their arrival. But Ewan and Luke weren’t safe yet.

‘Dec!’

Sadie looked vaguely for the source of the new voice and saw Melissa running towards them.

‘What the hell is going on?’ she shouted.

Declan didn’t move, and he didn’t let go of Sadie.

‘What are you doing with her? Why are you both wet? What’s the lifeboat doing here?’

Declan shook his head. ‘Now’s not the time, Melissa.’

‘It bloody well is!’

‘No! It’s not! For once stop thinking about yourself and look at the bigger picture! Two men might be dying out there as we speak and all you care about is the fact that I’m sitting here with Sadie! You’ve always been obsessed with Sadie, convinced that she’s out to get you. Did you ever stop to consider that you might be the problem, not her?’

Sadie opened her mouth to say something, but her thoughts were sluggish and she couldn’t form the words. All she could think about was that she might be about to lose her brother and the man she’d begun to believe might be her future. She glanced down the beach, beyond Melissa and out at the sea where the coastguard’s boat had now stopped and was bobbing on the water, its engines silent. A small crowd of onlookers was beginning to gather and one figure broke free and ran towards them.

‘Andy,’ Declan said wearily.

‘What’s happened?’ Andy asked.

Sadie looked up at Sea Salt Bay’s part-time lifeguard. His face was in gloom now, obscured by the dusk that had settled over the beach, but she could make out the lines of concern.

Declan nodded towards the water. ‘Ewan and that Goldman fella are out there.’

‘Looks to me like you’ve been in there too.’

‘Yes. Idiot me started it. Long story. Safe to say there are many regrets right now.’ He glanced at Melissa but she looked awkwardly away.

‘Are either of you injured?’ Andy asked.

‘I don’t think so.’ Declan looked down at Sadie, and she craned her neck to look round at him. She gave her head a small shake – it was all she had the energy to do.

Andy cast his gaze back to the water. ‘Unless I’m very much mistaken it looks as if they’ve managed to pull someone out.’

Sadie heard the boat engines coming to life again, confirming Andy’s statement.

‘Where will they take them?’ she asked.

Andy shook his head slowly. ‘Depends on what state they were in when they fished them out.’

Declan’s arms folded tighter around her. For once, he wasn’t who she needed, but he was all she had right now.

Chapter Twenty

There had been four ambulances lined up on the promenade, one for each of them. Sadie couldn’t help but feel it was a bit surplus to requirements, though she didn’t doubt that her brother and Luke, at least, needed theirs.

Miracles did happen, though, and she’d never been so relieved to see the evidence of that. She’d been deemed fine, if a little cold and wet, by her paramedic, and Declan had quickly been given the all-clear too. Ewan had a slight case of hypothermia and dehydration and Luke a marginally more severe case, but it was nothing that a night under observation in hospital wouldn’t fix for the both of them. Declan had gone home with Melissa. They had a lot to talk about, and Sadie was hopeful that in light of the evening’s events Melissa would be a bit more inclined to listen to what he had to say.

At the hospital she went to Ewan first. By now, Kat and the kids were there too. Henny was on her way down, but Graham had stayed at home with April, having been reassured on the phone by Ewan that he and Sadie were fine and there was no point in distressing his grandma over it.

‘Hey,’ Sadie said, sitting next to Kat on the spare seat by the bed. ‘How are you?’

‘Fed up,’ Ewan said. ‘I don’t see why I have to be in here.’

‘Because you almost drowned?’ Kat said, arching her eyebrows.

‘I didn’t almost drown. I would never have drowned – everyone’s getting carried away with this drowning business. And to be rescued by the lifeboat – I’m never going to live it down.’

‘Well,’ Sadie said, ‘perhaps living full stop is better than just living it down. You’ll just have to suck it