The Waffle House on the Pier - Tilly Tennant Page 0,27

than she’d been in months as her head broke through and she filled her lungs again. She turned to Kat, but the grin died as she focused on her sister-in-law’s face and saw only shock and panic.

‘Sadie – look out!’

Sadie whipped around, but everything happened swiftly while she could only react slowly – far too slowly. The bow of the boat loomed, not speeding towards her but moving with an inevitable steadiness. There was no way she could escape the collision that she realised – with horror – would come. It wasn’t huge, she thought quickly – it was more of a rowing boat really. Perhaps it would be OK.

But even as those vague, half-formed observations raced through her mind, it struck her a glancing blow to the side of her head, enough to send her beneath the waves, lights popping and vision failing. Sadie’s limbs were suddenly heavy, uncontrollable; her lungs empty of precious air as she drifted downwards into the depths.

Chapter Six

Sadie opened her eyes to the worst headache she’d ever had and a circle of faces framed by the sky above her.

‘Ow,’ she said, and never had an exclamation felt less appropriate for the gravity of the situation. She could see by the faces surrounding her that something very bad had just happened, even if it had all taken place so fast that she couldn’t remember much of it.

‘You always did have a way with words,’ Ewan said, the sharp edges of his frown softening a little.

Sadie tried to acknowledge him with a smile but it wouldn’t come.

‘Jesus, Sadie, you nearly frightened me to death. I thought…’

Kat’s sentence tailed off. Sadie didn’t know how it would have ended and perhaps it was better that way. Next to Ewan, Freddie and Freya looked down at her too, something more like awe on their young faces.

Sadie tried to engage her trembling limbs and pushed herself to sit, sand gathering under her nails as she dug for traction. It was a shock to feel so weak, and for the world to start spinning as it did.

‘Steady,’ her brother said. ‘Take it easy. How do you feel?’

‘Like I’ve been hit by a boat,’ Sadie said.

‘All those clients for all those years,’ Kat said. ‘And I’ve never had to save a single one of them from drowning, not ever. An afternoon out with my sister-in-law and… honestly… You’re just lucky I could remember my training.’

‘I am,’ Sadie said, though she realised that it was Kat’s shock talking. She updated her training on a regular basis and she and Ewan ran practice lifesaving drills all the time – there was no way she wouldn’t have been able to rescue Sadie despite what she’d said. ‘I’d like to say I’ll return the favour one day but I don’t expect I’d be able to.’

Ewan turned to his wife, dreamy and lustful for a moment. ‘You’re brilliant,’ he said in a husky voice. ‘Just bloody amazing.’

Sadie felt queasy, and this time it wasn’t from the bump on her head, or the amount of saltwater she’d swallowed.

‘Get a room, would you?’

Ewan turned to her now and started to laugh, while Kat blushed. At least their kids seemed oblivious to the whole thing, still fixated on Sadie’s situation.

‘I think that tells us everything we need to know,’ Ewan said. ‘She’s alright – no serious damage. And if there was it might be an improvement anyway. At least she might not be such a sarcastic little mare.’

‘Watch it,’ Sadie fired back. ‘I may be incapacitated now but I’m sure I’ll recover enough to kick your backside later.’

With Ewan still chuckling, a note of huge relief in it, Sadie looked down the beach. A small, shallow-bottomed boat rested on the shingle at the water’s edge. Close by she saw Andy Travers – one of Sea Salt Bay’s volunteer lifeguards – talking earnestly to a man she’d never seen before. She’d have put him in his early to mid-thirties. He was dark-haired, tall, toned and tanned. It was hard, even in her current state, to ignore that there was a certain pleasing symmetry in his looks.

‘There’s the dickhead who nearly killed you.’

Sadie turned back to Ewan. His tone was far more serious and menacing now than the one he’d just been teasing Sadie with. He glared in the direction of the man, jaw twitching. If Sadie hadn’t known him better she would have sworn he was about to run over with his fists flying – he looked as if he was