[Polwenna Bay 01.0] Runaway Summer Read online

  Runaway Summer

  by

  Ruth Saberton

  Copyright

  All characters, organisations and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  The opinions expressed in this book are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and / or legal right to publish all materials in this book.

  Copyright © 2015 Ruth Saberton

  Cover illustration copyright © Carrie May

  Editor: Jane Griffiths

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Also by Ruth Saberton

  Escape for the Summer

  Escape for Christmas

  Dead Romantic

  Hobb’s Cottage

  Weight Till Christmas

  Katy Carter Wants a Hero

  Ellie Andrews Has Second Thoughts

  Amber Scott is Starting Over

  The Wedding Countdown

  Writing as Jessica Fox

  The One That Got Away

  Eastern Promise

  Hard to Get

  Unlucky in Love

  Always the Bride

  Writing as Holly Cavendish

  Looking for Fireworks

  Writing as Georgie Carter

  The Perfect Christmas

  A note from Ruth

  Welcome to Polwenna Bay! Watch fishing boats dance in the harbour, hear waves breaking on the beach and explore the pretty village where new friends wait and there’s love to be found, warmer than the summer sunshine!

  I’ve loved meeting and writing about all the characters in the Cornish fishing village of Polwenna Bay and escaping into their stories, romances and adventures. I really hope that you’ll enjoy them too and share in their laughter, loves and tears. I have lived in Cornwall for twenty years and it’s a place very dear to me, and one I miss whenever I am far away. Writing about Polwenna Bay has been a joy and when I type I can almost hear the seagulls calling and smell the pasties. No matter where I am in the world, when I’m writing about Polwenna Bay I’m back home again and I hope the books also transport my readers to beautiful Cornwall.

  Polwenna Bay is a magical place full of big-hearted families, colourful characters, handsome heroes, feisty heroines, myths, legends and stunning locations. I’m really looking forward to sharing all the excitement and stories with you all as the series unfolds.

  Enjoy the book!

  X Ruth x

  PS. Don’t forget to check out the sneak preview at the back of this book of Polwenna Bay 2: A Time for Living!

  Chapter 1

  Summer Penhalligan was only five years old when she stood on the stage of the Polwenna Bay Village Hall and sang Somewhere over the Rainbow, but even before the final verse was over her mother knew she was destined for fame and fortune, far away from Cornwall and in the bright lights of the West End. Nothing was going to get in the way of Susie Penhalligan’s dreams – least of all her daughter.

  Summer had spent most of her childhood learning lines, being trundled up and down the country to rehearsals and practising ballet and tap until her feet hurt. While her siblings had spent their time playing on the beach or surfing – or, later on, drinking scrumpy in The Ship – Summer had focused on her acting and tried not to care that she was missing out on what looked like a lot of fun. On the odd occasion when she’d felt like missing a dance class or Saturday rehearsal to spend time with her best friend Morwenna, just the thought of her mother’s disappointment had been enough to stop Summer in her tracks. Susie had lived and breathed Summer’s acting, thinking nothing of driving her daughter hundreds of miles to auditions or classes in their exhausted Ford Fiesta, and she’d saved every penny from her job cleaning holiday cottages to help pay for it all. Even Summer’s father Eddie, a gruff fisherman who spent more time propping up the bar than he ever did at home, would sometimes make it to a show and then boast drunkenly to all and sundry in The Ship that his girl was going to make them proud. Summer had always known that she had to succeed. Letting her parents down hadn’t been an option.

  Fortunately hard work, dedication and talent had been in Summer’s favour, and so had her striking looks and slim figure. Like all of the Penhalligan family, Summer had been blessed with a combination of inky black hair and olive skin – rumoured to be the legacy of a Spanish Armada survivor who’d been washed ashore in Cornwall and had found comfort in the arms of a local girl – and eyes as sea green as the waves that danced beyond the harbour wall.

  It had broken Summer’s heart to leave her family and friends behind, especially one friend in particular, whom even now she couldn’t think about without her chest constricting. Nevertheless, she’d left Cornwall shortly after her sixteenth birthday and set off for London, where (to her mother’s immense pride) she’d managed to secure a place at a top drama school. In the twelve years since, Summer had scarcely had time to breathe. She could certainly count on one hand the amount of times she’d been free to return home.

  Home. When she’d first arrived in London, just the thought of Cornwall had been enough to make her eyes prickle. Whenever she’d allowed herself to dwell too much on everything she’d left behind, from the higgledy-piggledy rooftops to the ceaseless crash of the waves breaking on the rocks below her bedroom window, Summer had started to panic – and she’d had to think very hard indeed about how many sacrifices her family had made to send her all the way up country to drama school. Each time she’d thought about that one person in particular, the person whose hurt and anger had made Summer feel as though her own heart was being clawed out, she’d had to screw her eyes tightly shut and concentrate on how proud everyone at home was and just how much they’d given up so that she could be here. It would have been selfish and ungrateful to turn tail to Paddington Station and hurl herself onto the first train home.

  Sometimes Summer had resorted to pulling one of her precious Topshop earrings out of her earlobe and digging it into her arm, until the bite of metal managed to blunt the homesickness. Then, when her emotions were back under control, she’d always give herself a stern lecture: about how her mother had toiled for her, clearing the mess left behind by the Range Rover-driving holidaymakers who rented the prettiest cottages down by the harbour, and about how her brothers had chosen to go to sea with Eddie and put money into the family pot rather than take their A levels. She couldn’t let them all down. Ironically, even her friend Morwenna had once sacrificed the money she’d saved for a new saddle so that she could buy Summer a beautiful collector’s edition of Shakespeare’s plays.

  As it turned out, though, Mo and the rest of the Tremaine family had ended up letting Summer down in just about the worst way possible…

  In those early, lonely days, thinking about her best friend had often meant another earring jab. The two girls had grown up together and been closer than sisters. Although Morwenna was as fair skinned as Summer was dark, they’d often liked to imagine that they were twins. Back then it was certainly true that wherever one girl was, the other was never far away. Even more than a decade on, Summer often still found herself thinking that she must tell Morwenna about some incident or other, or feeling her heart lift when she caught sight of a curly red head in a crowd. The subsequent realisation that the friendship was long gone was every bit as painful as if the loss had happened yesterday. Mo and Summer no l
onger spoke – and they probably never would again.

  In desperation, Summer had thrown herself into her studies, and before long the excitement of her new life in the city had been a balm to the homesickness. The longer she stayed away from Polwenna Bay, the less upsetting the memories became. It was easier not to think about home, Summer had soon learned, to shut the door firmly on the longing to be back and to refuse to dwell on it. Besides, it couldn’t have been made any clearer that she was no longer wanted.

  There were many advantages to having years of acting classes under her belt; not least of these was discovering that if she played the part of a confident and sassy city chick, she could pretty much convince everyone around her and possibly even herself too. Elocution and acting classes had soon smoothed away the warm Cornish drawl from her voice and with practice Summer had managed to erase Polwenna Bay from her heart as well, or at least lock it away in a very small corner that she was determined to seldom visit.

  As time slid past in that imperceptible yet alarming way that years do, Summer found that if she did ever miss the calling of the gulls, the tang of salt in the air or the lemon-sharp light of the bay, then she was able to console herself with the knowledge that at least she’d managed to find the fame that her mother had craved for her.

  Had she made her family proud? Summer wasn’t so sure. Maybe proud wasn’t quite the right word; somehow Summer doubted that her Shakespeare-loving mother approved of the direction Summer’s career path had taken in the end. Her father had been utterly mortified – no more bragging in the pub from him, she imagined – but at least she’d managed to pay off their mortgage and could make sure they were taken care of. Her brothers were less delicate and had readily accepted the down payment on their new trawler, Penhalligan Girl, but Polwenna was a small place and people had long memories, so Summer stayed away. Her face was on billboards and magazines the length and breadth of Britain; she belonged to that small and very select group of celebrities known solely by their first names, and she lived a lifestyle that most people could only dream of.

  Summer had never intended to disillusion her family by letting them know that the dream was actually more of a nightmare. But now, suddenly, it seemed that she didn’t have much of a choice…

  After all those years away, it was a shock to find herself returning to Polwenna Bay, the small Cornish fishing town where she’d grown up. Summer hadn’t known that this was where she was heading, or even that she was leaving London. Everything had happened in such a hurry. Her head was still spinning at how an entire life could change in a heartbeat. One minute she’d been sitting at the bottom of the stairs with her head in her hands, an entire galaxy of stars whirling in front of her eyes, and the next she’d been scooping up her car keys from the table and running out of the door, down the scrubbed steps and out into the street. Had she even shut the blue front door of their sweet Kensington mews house? Summer didn’t have a clue – and as she’d floored it along the A38, she hadn’t really cared. She was away from Justin and that was all that mattered.

  Now, as she guided the Audi off the main road, Summer became aware that her heart was racing from more than the adrenalin of her flight from London. These sunken lanes, rendered cool green tunnels by gnarled trees interlocking their limbs above, were achingly familiar. Cornwall, the county of saints and sinners, smugglers and wreckers, she thought – and her stomach tangled with delicious excitement. Driving westwards, Summer knew every twist and turn of the road, and the names of the small villages and hamlets were as familiar as her own. Trerulefoot, Narkurs, Nomansland and Hessenford: strange foreign-sounding names half-forgotten but suddenly as fresh in Summer’s mind as though she’d seen them only yesterday. These places unfolded before her just like the landscape that peeled away from the narrow lanes into rolling fields of ripening crops and acid-green pastures, dotted with sheep resembling balls of cotton wool. Any minute now the road would bear sharply to the right, skirting an ancient church that slumbered in the sunshine, and then she’d see it: the glimpse of glittering blue sea that meant she was nearly back at Polwenna Bay.

  Sure enough the road right-angled, exactly as she knew it would, and Summer found herself braking hard. Lord! She’d been driving way too fast in her haste to put as much distance as possible between herself and the city. Heaven only knew how many speed traps she’d sailed through. She’d probably lost her licence before she’d even hit the M4. At least moving at speed had meant that she’d avoided the paps, though. There were usually a few hanging around the London house in the hope that they might get a shot of Britain’s favourite couple. Usually Summer gave them what they wanted, because it was easier that way – she made sure her image was controlled and they got a picture that could actually be used – but today she’d shot out in such a hurry that the one guy who’d been sunning himself on her wall hadn’t even had time to grab his camera before she’d raced away. With any luck Justin wouldn’t be home until late, as there was often a function on after a match, and by that time the pap would have pushed off for his tea.

  The last thing Summer needed was a story breaking off the back of a typical Justin Anderson episode. If the press got wind that she was in Polwenna Bay then she’d be well and truly stuck. The town was tiny; you could sneeze at one end and have Mrs Keverne in the village shop at the other calling out bless you! There wouldn’t be many places Summer could hide, and if some people still held grudges – her stomach lurched at the thought – it wouldn’t be hard to drop her in it. She guessed she was counting on the fact that, no matter what had gone on in the past, the Cornish looked after their own. The network of caves and tunnels rumoured to honeycomb the hillside beneath the town, not to mention the amount of cafés and gift shops that bore reference to wreckers and smugglers, certainly stood testament to Polwenna Bay’s history of remaining tight-lipped. Be it hiding a smuggler from the excise men or keeping quiet about a runaway actress-turned-model, Summer was hoping that all that had changed was the date displayed on the calendar.

  And then, all of a sudden, there it was! On the horizon, the sea was nestling between two perky hills that reminded Summer a little uncomfortably of her latest advertising campaign. Although she was twenty-eight now, she still felt the same excitement that this glimpse of the sparkling ocean had always given her. Summer had woken up to the sea every day for the first sixteen years of her life. Like a stroppy partner, the sea was never the same two days or even two minutes running: it was a constant kaleidoscope of blues and turquoises or greens and greys. Sometimes it turned savage, spitting like a cat and hurling handfuls of brine at the windows of Cobble Cottage, causing Susie to pace and fret until Eddie’s trawler was safely moored against the harbour wall and the gate was firmly shut. On other mornings Summer had flung open the curtains and gazed across a sea as oily-smooth as petrol, the bay reflected as though in a mirror and admiring itself in the sunshine. The best days of all had been those when the sun had been out, the waves had been glittering and, craning her neck, Summer had been able to see a red hanky fluttering from the top window of Seaspray House across the bay. She knew then that a small wooden boat was already making its way across to collect her…

  No, no, no. Summer shook her head as though trying to shake the image out of her mind’s eye. Memories like these were staying securely shut away. She’d had them under lock and key since the day the taxi had driven her slowly through the town and away to a new life; to open her personal Pandora’s box now would be nothing short of crazy. The girl who had watched the little boat dancing closer, who had sneaked away from the house to snatch a few forbidden hours exploring the coves and creeks, no longer existed. The feel of that mouth on hers, the blue of his eyes the same as the cobalt water, the way he’d held her face between his hands and looked at her as though he’d never be able to tear his gaze away: all these things that had once meant so much were really as insubstantial as the sea frets that blew in over the bay. That time had gone and Summer knew that her past wasn’t so much
a foreign country as another world altogether.

  Yes, that girl had left a long time ago, but as she drove the last mile towards Polwenna Bay, Summer couldn’t help wondering whether maybe, just maybe, the boy with the sea-blue eyes might have stayed…

  Chapter 2

  Jake Tremaine was never quite certain whether he loved or loathed the Polwenna Bay Festival. On the one hand it was good fun to see the village come back to life after the long winter of empty streets and closed shops, but on the other it meant that getting the pickup truck through the narrow roads was even harder than usual. To continue would risk squashing several dancing locals (all wearing emerald face paints and adorned with greenery, for reasons he’d never quite fathomed in all his years of living in the place) or scraping even more paint from the bumper of the truck if he pulled in tightly against one of the cottages to allow the procession to pass. It was easier to abandon the work vehicle in the tourist car park at the top of the town and walk down to the marina. Not that Jake had ever scraped the truck. Having learned to negotiate the narrow streets as a teenager, knowing how many centimetres were spare at either side of the vehicle was almost a sixth sense; he could coax it through the narrowest spots with an ease that had been the undoing of many holidaymakers who’d attempted to copy him. No, the fresh scars on the side of the Ranger were undoubtedly the work of his younger sister, Issie, whose spatial awareness was in inverse proportion to her ability to cause havoc wherever she went.

  As he parked the truck in one of the few spaces left on this sunny May Saturday, Jake reflected on the problem that was the youngest Tremaine sibling. Whereas he was the oldest and practically had dents in his shoulders from the weight of worrying about the family business, Issie was the total opposite, whirling in and out of the family like a blonde-dreadlocked and henna-tattooed tornado. Having recently returned from her latest travelling stint, Issie was no doubt somewhere in the town dressed in a costume, downing scrumpy and getting herself into all kinds of trouble that at the age of twenty-two she really should be beyond. Last night’s skinny-dipping in the harbour certainly hadn’t been her brightest idea, no matter how earnestly she’d tried to explain that the full moon had restorative powers. Their grandmother, Alice, had been mortified. Jake sighed. The thought of the chaos Issie might cause today was yet another stress he could do without. He was only relieved that her twin, Nick, and the Penhalligan brothers were at sea and not around to encourage her, because when that bunch met up anything could happen. Take the time they’d “borrowed” three thousand pounds’ worth of nets from the quay to make a tree house, for example. Eddie Penhalligan had been wild. Jake still remembered how Summer; her green eyes wide as she retold the tale, had said that even the walls of their cottage had shaken with his roars of fury.