The Waffle House on the Pier - Tilly Tennant Page 0,106
you were jumping in to save?’ she asked finally.
‘Of course I did.’
‘And yet you still did it?’
‘What else was I going to do? Leave him to drown?’
‘Some people might have done.’
He frowned. ‘Would they? I don’t like the sound of them. He’d done me no harm.’
‘But what I told you about him—’
‘Made him even more important. If he meant that much to you then I had to try to help.’
She smiled. ‘I’m glad you didn’t die.’
‘I’m fairly chuffed about it too. How is he?’
‘Dec…? He’s OK. He’s gone home with Melissa to work things out.’
‘What needed working out?’
‘That’s kind of what was happening on the pier when you saw us. Melissa had dumped him and he wasn’t handling it well.’
‘Oh. I had wondered…’
‘Whether it was a thing between us?’ She shook her head. It had been that too, sort of, but she felt certain that it had been resolved, once and for all. For her, it had, and she didn’t see the point in raking it all up now. Whether Declan and Melissa worked it out was up to them but, as far as Sadie was concerned, with Melissa was where he belonged. And if that meant she couldn’t spend time with Declan as Melissa had demanded, she wouldn’t like it, but in time she supposed she’d get used to it. And she had Luke now, and he deserved better than that anyway. At least, she thought she had Luke. Right now she wasn’t sure if that was still true.
‘What about your brother?’ Luke asked.
‘Oh, he’s fine. Smarting that he had to be rescued; thinks his reputation is in tatters now.’
‘You know, for a few scary minutes out there I thought…’
‘So did I. I thought I’d lost you both. I thought I might go with you. Let’s just say I’m not in a rush to repeat the experience.’
‘Me neither. There’s nothing like a near-death experience to focus the mind.’
‘One good thing has come out of it – Ewan can hardly be grumpy with you now for the boat thing because he owes you big time for tonight.’
‘I didn’t exactly do anything useful in the end except keep him company until we got rescued.’
‘But the intention was there and that’s what counts. You went in for him. You went in for Dec too and that makes you a hero.’
‘Does it?’
She nodded.
‘I’ve never felt much like a hero before.’
‘You just needed the right circumstances to bring it out in you. After all, most of us never need to be heroes, so how do any of us know if we’re up to the job? It’s only when the moment comes that you know if you’re capable or not.’
‘Hmm.’ He closed his eyes for a moment.
‘You’re tired,’ she said. ‘Maybe I should go so you can sleep.’
‘No. Not yet.’
‘I’m tired too, come to think of it. And I need to shower; my hair is full of sea.’
‘Like a mermaid…’ he murmured. ‘Sexy.’
‘I don’t think sexy is the word I’d use to describe it. I look like I’ve been through a washing machine with a load of very muddy trousers.’
He opened his eyes. ‘OK,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘If you need to go that’s OK.’
‘Now I feel bad.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you looked so sad when you said it.’
‘I will be sad when you’ve gone; I like having you here.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Well then, I suppose I ought to stay.’
‘It would make me happy,’ he said with a tired smile and closed his eyes again. ‘And it’s the least you can do. After all, I am a hero…’
Chapter Twenty-One
By the time the day of the annual midsummer fireworks party arrived, it was almost as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened in Sea Salt Bay. There had been gossip, of course, when the news first broke of the drama in the sea the night Sadie, Ewan, Luke and Declan had all gone in. There had been speculation aplenty about what might have happened between them all to cause such a disaster, and the stories that had emerged from that speculation had grown and grown, until they were a world away from the actual events of that night.
Everyone involved had their own reasons for not bothering to put anyone right. Melissa didn’t want anyone to know what had happened between her and Declan because, in light of the events that followed her dumping of him, she felt a bit stupid. Declan didn’t want to tell anyone because he felt stupid too. Getting blind drunk and falling off the pier wasn’t a