The Waffle House on the Pier - Tilly Tennant Page 0,43

too busy for you. What can I do for you?’

‘We were hoping for a ride home.’ Sadie flopped onto a teal sofa nestled in a nook beneath a panelled window that framed the harbour and the forest of tiny white boat masts bobbing in it. April sat down next to her.

‘Tough day?’ Kat asked, looking between them both. Sadie could see her calculating, quickly trying to work out what kind of day they’d had.

‘Busy,’ Sadie said carefully, remembering that even if she’d wanted to confide in Kat – as she often did – her sister-in-law might feel obliged to tell Ewan. And Ewan had been one of the doubters who had warned Sadie against this venture, and Sadie didn’t want to give him any reason to say I told you so or any other variation of that most irritating of phrases. Maybe, somewhere down the line, she’d have to admit that they’d been right all along, but she wasn’t ready to admit it yet.

‘I’d drive you, but Ewan’s out with a client and I can’t lock up here because I’m expecting a party of four in the next half hour. I need to be here, just in case they turn up early and think we’ve forgotten them. Don’t want to be handing out four refunds.’

Sadie glanced up at the clock on the wall behind Kat. ‘Isn’t it a bit late to be taking people out?’

Kat gave a slight shrug. ‘They have a bit of experience so they’re not complete novices. Besides, it’s not dark for ages yet. If they want to go out then who am I to refuse their money?’

‘Right. Where are the kids?’

‘On the boat, actually, with your mum and dad. Freddie was desperate to go out because your dad said he’d seen dolphins in the bay this morning. I think Freya was less bothered but she wasn’t going to miss out.’

Sadie nodded. She’d been like Freddie once – full of energy and interested in everything. She’d been so lucky to have grown up in a place like Sea Salt Bay where she could indulge her passions and experience a life that many girls her age would have given their right arms for, and to have parents who had the means to enable that indulgence. She’d taken it for granted, of course, as all children do, and she’d been convinced that the adventure she craved lay in the world outside the bay. There had been plenty, naturally, and it wasn’t that she hadn’t enjoyed life outside the bay. But sometimes, she reflected now more and more often, you simply had to look a little closer to home to find the things that mattered, and it was only by going away that you learnt to appreciate that.

‘If you want to wait for Ewan he’ll be finished in about ten… fifteen maybe, then he’ll be heading back. I’m sure he’d run you home then.’

Sadie was about to say they’d walk it, sure that her brother would be tired and the last thing he’d want to do was be their taxi, until she glanced across at her grandma, whose eyelids were heavy and closing even as she sat in the bright light that flooded the office through the window they sat beneath. Sadie had to admit she sort of felt like falling asleep herself – it had been a long day and the warmth of the sun on her neck as she sat here was lovely and relaxing.

‘We’ll wait if it’s OK with you,’ she said.

Kat smiled. ‘You want a drink?’

‘Have you got tea?’ Sadie replied, eyeing Kat’s protein drink doubtfully. Kat gave a light laugh as she noticed the distrustful gaze towards her plastic bottle.

‘I’m sure I can find a couple of teabags. Give me a minute.’

She disappeared into a back room while Sadie sank deeper into the sofa and let the sun warm her, allowing her eyes to close for a moment. Before she could do anything about it she’d started to drift, letting the room and her tiredness fall away.

‘Um… Hello…’

Sadie opened her eyes. For the briefest moment she was disorientated as she looked to see April was smiling up at a man who’d just come in. Why the hell had she allowed herself to fall asleep knowing that Kat was expecting clients? Although, hadn’t she said a party of four was coming? There was only one person here that she could see.

‘Kat will be right out, darlin’,’ April said.

‘Right, thank you,’ the man replied, jamming his hands