Summer Kisses at Mermaids Point, page 1
Summer Kisses at Mermaids Point
Sarah Bennett
For M – my happiest of happy endings
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Acknowledgments
More from Sarah Bennett
About the Author
About Boldwood Books
Coming soon …
Prologue
1
Laurie Morgan surveyed the mostly empty tables on the opposite side of the counter. Barbara Mitchell and her best friend, Kitty Duke, were at their usual spot in the corner, knitting tiny hats for a charity which donated them to premature baby units around the country, but other than them she’d had nobody in since the breakfast rush. Turning her gaze to the raindrops streaking the plate-glass window of her café, Laurie squinted through the rivulets of water. She could just about make out the view beyond the window. With the clouds so thick and low, it was all but impossible to distinguish where the sky met the sea, turning everything into a wall of miserable grey. What a difference a day makes.
This time yesterday she’d barely been able to hear herself think over the hubbub of conversation, teacups rattling on saucers and forks scraping on plates, thanks to a visiting WI coach trip. They’d all but eaten her out of that day’s baking, and she’d had to hastily defrost a couple of emergency Victoria sponges to make sure her lunchtime regulars had something to go with their sandwiches. It wasn’t only her cake stock which had taken a beating; one look at the queue snaking halfway around the café from the visitors’ bathroom had her scrambling for her phone to send an SOS text to her brother, Nick, begging him to do an emergency run to the corner shop to replenish her dwindling supply of toilet paper. Of course, he’d found the whole thing hilarious and insisted on making a big entrance through the front door like some white knight come to save the day, rather than sneaking in through the back entrance and leaving them in the stock room, which also served the gift shop their parents ran next door.
A ripple of laughter from the corner table drew Laurie’s attention from the gloomy weather. She watched Barbara and Kitty for a few minutes, full of admiration for the way their needles flashed back and forth without hesitation. Neither woman spared much more than the odd glance to their knitting as they chatted. Her nan had tried to teach Laurie to knit as a child but, as with all the other crafty type activities she’d tried over the years, she’d found it impossible to get to grips with. Being the only left-hander in the family hadn’t helped as everything they tried to show her felt awkward and clumsy. Even now, at just shy of twenty-three, she had to concentrate when using her knife and fork or she would find herself pulling things apart with the fork in her naturally dominant left hand. Thankfully, when it came to cooking and baking it didn’t matter which hand she held a knife with and she’d spent many happy hours at her nan’s knee learning the basics and discovering a true passion. It had been a gamble on her parents’ part when she’d come to them with the idea of converting one end of their sprawling seafront shop into a café, but they’d decided it was one worth taking. If they hadn’t, it would’ve left Laurie facing the prospect of leaving Mermaids Point to seek employment in one of the bigger towns and cities. Having grown up a stone’s throw away from the ever-changing tides of the Atlantic Ocean, the prospect of moving inland had filled her with dread.
She’d always been drawn to the sea. Whatever the season, there was beauty to be found. From the balmy summer days when the shiny white triangles of pleasure boat sails dotted the gentle waves, to the roiling majesty of a winter storm in full tumult when even the hardiest of the local fishermen kept their boats secured in the sheltered bay. Even on a filthy day like today, she’d rather be out than in. Her eyes roamed the café once more. If business didn’t pick up after lunch, maybe she’d flick the closed sign over, tug on a hat, turn up her collar and snatch a few moments of peace on the wet sands of the beach.
If things were this quiet in the café, they were likely just as dull in the adjacent shop. Laurie checked the clock above the counter. It would be at least an hour before the first visitors looking for lunch showed up. Pulling down one of the reusable mugs she kept for locals who didn’t have time to stop on their way to and from their own places of work, she brewed a cappuccino with an extra shot on the fancy machine she’d invested in. With a stencil she decorated the top with a chocolate powder smiley face, before screwing on the lid. Designer coffee had become the norm – even in a little village like theirs. When the tourists came, they expected the same kind of choice they got in the big retail coffee chains of their hometowns. Her dad had wrinkled his nose at the cost when she’d told him, but one sip of the first cappuccino she’d made for him had him hooked. Though he’d worked his way through the entire menu, the creamy delight of the frothy Italian staple was his first love. Pausing only to wrap a small square of flapjack in a napkin, Laurie called out a request to Barbara to keep an eye on things for her – not that there was anything to keep an eye on – and made her way through the low archway that linked the café to her parents’ shop.
The scent of baking and fresh-brewed coffee gave way to the earthier fragrance of the essential oils and baskets of dried herbs and flowers from a large table to her left. Hessian sacks in three different sizes and small gauzy sachets hung above the table, ready for visitors to create their own potpourri or scented drawer bags. Crystals of every shape, size and colour filled the next display she passed, each with a hand-written card beside them describing the purported beneficial properties of each type of stone. The soft strains of traditional Celtic music came from speakers hidden in the uneven stone walls and ceiling of the shop.
When they’d agreed to partition the original building to create the café, her parents had decided to rebrand and refurbish the shop at the same time, moving away from the more traditional branded tea towels, fridge magnets and other touristy nick-nacks and instead focusing on the ‘new-age hippy stuff’, as her dad called it. This kind of fare had become increasingly popular with visitors drawn to the area by the stories of mythical sea creatures which had given their village the more fanciful part of its name. Thus Morgan’s Gifts and Souvenirs had been transformed into The Mermaid’s Cave.
The dark stone walls might be nothing more than the clever application of a fake veneer, but together with uplights in shades of green, blue and purple and the installation of a gold-lined water feature the size of a small pond surrounded by more fake boulders, the interior of the shop had been transformed into a magical underground cavern. Crystals and figurines of mythical gods and monsters winked up from the base of the pond – a mermaid’s hidden treasures and the perfect showcase for items of stock her father wanted to draw attention to.
As long as men had been going to sea, they’d been making up tales of mermaids, and the ancestors of families like hers who could trace their roots back to the origins of the village, were no exception. Though he scoffed at it, Laurie thought there was a tiny corner of her father’s heart, which wanted to believe in those legends. Why else had he persuaded Mum to christen her Lorelai? Not that anyone other than her nan had called her that, not unless she was in big trouble. The use of her full name – Lorelai Christina Morgan – by either of her parents still had the power to make Laurie quake in her shoes. Smiling at the thought of her gentle giant of a dad actually bringing himself to punish either of his children, Laurie wove between a rack of CDs and mythology books, skimmed past the gorgeous glittering confections of silver and glass beads created by a gifted local woman who’d begun making jewellery after being made redundant several years previously, and finally reached the large sales desk.
Perched on his usual stool, eyes fixed on the phone in his left hand as he stroked the greying strands of his neat beard with the other, Andrew Morgan didn’t notice her arrival until Laurie plonked his metal coffee mug down on the counter with a clunk. Eyes, as dark as her own, creased in delight as her dad looked first at Laurie and then at the silver mug. ‘Is that for me?’
‘Who else would it be for, hey?’ Laurie asked as she circled around the desk to peck a kiss on his cheek. Leaning into the solid weight of his side as he circled an arm about her waist, she peered over to see what had been keeping his attention fixated on his phone. ‘Checking your followers again?’ After the refurbishment, her parents had branched out into cyberspace, creating a simple website through which people could order anything being sold in the shop. Dad had also become something of an Instagram addict and loved nothing more than posting photos of different items of stock, as well as gorgeous black and white landscape shots of the village and the surrounding area. He’d built up quite a decent following and had persuaded Laurie to get on board with her own page for the café where she could share pictures and recipes.
‘Not sure what’s going on, love. I posted a picture of those new polished agate bookends and my likes have gone crazy. It doesn’t make sense.’ He tilted the screen so she could see it better.
Laurie studied the image. The striated waves of red, orange and gold were certainly striking, but no more eye-catching than many of the other pictures he’d posted. Dad had a knack with a camera she couldn’t dream of matching. She glanced at the number of likes registered beneath the photo and did a double take. Over a thousand when they were lucky to hit a tenth of that usually. The number of comments was even more surprising. They had a few regular followers who tended to respond to posts, but she could count those on the fingers of one hand. ‘There’s nearly three hundred comments, Dad.’ It was impossible to keep the disbelief from her voice. ‘Have you read any of them?’
He shook his head. ‘I haven’t had a chance. I’d only just opened my phone when you came in.’ He pulled the phone back and tapped the screen. Unable to see it from where she was standing, Laurie watched his expression instead. Every time his thumb flicked to scroll further through the comments, the frown line between his brows deepened. ‘Have I seen who?’ he muttered. ‘Is someone on a wind up?’ Looking thoroughly puzzled, he offered her the phone. ‘Everyone is using the Mermaids Point hashtag for some reason and they’re all asking if I’ve seen a mermaid.’
Taking the phone, Laurie flicked up and down the list of comments. He was right. Along with the usual hashtag for the village, which they used for all their posts, the replies were full of stuff like #mermaids #mermaidsarereal #mermaidsquad #thetruthisoutthere. Bemused, she clicked on #MermaidsPoint and almost dropped the phone. ‘What the hell is that?’ Beneath her dad’s post showing the agate stones was a murky image completely at odds with the usual sharp focused, carefully curated and staged images she was used to seeing on the website.
Selecting the post, she found it was a series of pictures, most of them blurred, as though the person holding the camera had been clicking too fast to focus properly or had expanded their phone to the maximum zoom capacity. The number of likes was over 150,000 and climbing rapidly, unheard of for anything other than a celebrity’s account. The original poster didn’t have a handle she recognised, and when Laurie clicked to their page it held only a handful of posts, all dated that morning. The first picture showed a cluster of islands, the furthest little more than a twisting spire. She recognised it instantly as the grouping known locally as the Seven Sisters. The Sisters marked the far end of the scattering of unoccupied islands stretching several miles off the end of Mermaids Point that were a haven for seals, seabirds and other wildlife. Beyond them lay nothing except several thousand miles of ocean.
The second photo was a zoomed shot showing the blurred outline of what looked to be a person sitting on the edge of one of the rocks. Rather them than me. There were no landing points out on the Sisters as far as Laurie knew so there was no way to access them other than swimming. Even if a small boat had steered close to the rocks the water temperature would be frigid at this time of year. It only really became bearable at the very height of summer, if there’d been weeks of hot sunshine to warm the waters by a few degrees – something that had been in painfully short supply the past couple of summers. Plenty of hardy souls went for a dip throughout the year, but never that far from shore, and rarely without a wetsuit.
The next couple of photos showed the figure – a woman from the masses of long blonde hair on display – slipping down from the rocks and into the water, nothing remarkable beyond the location and, from the amount of skin on display, the fact she appeared to be topless. It wasn’t until Laurie scrolled to the last of the photos that she suddenly understood what the fuss was all about. The woman had dived beneath the water leaving what looked to be a long fish-like tail covered in silvery-green scales sticking out of the water. A mermaid’s tail.
‘It’s just someone’s idea of a joke.’ Laurie handed the phone back to her dad. ‘A hoaxer with too much time on their hands. Looks like it’s gone viral, which is why you’ve got more people than usual looking at related posts.’
Her dad flicked back and forth through the group of photos, shaking his head. ‘They’re not even very good quality, are they? Almost as blurry as those old photos of the Loch Ness Monster that did the rounds back in the day.’ He closed the app and tucked his phone in the top pocket of his shirt. ‘Oh well, it keeps whoever it is off the streets, I suppose, and with any luck, it’ll send a bit of extra business our way.’
Laughing, Laurie rounded the counter. ‘You can dream, Dad! It’ll be like everything else on the internet, here and gone in a flash. I’d better get back next door. I left Barbara holding the fort.’ She pushed the silver mug and wrapped slice of flapjack towards him. ‘Don’t let your coffee go cold.’
Her dad raised an eyebrow at the piece of flapjack. ‘What happened to your mother’s ban on mid-morning snacks?’
‘I can take it back…’ Laurie’s hand had barely extended before her dad slapped his palm down over the sweet treat. ‘Or not,’ she said with a laugh, heading back towards the café. ‘I won’t tell if you don’t,’ she added over her shoulder.
‘You know I tell her everything.’ It was true, she’d never known either of them to keep a secret from the other, and she and Nick had been raised with the same levels of openness and honesty. The fact he’d confess to it wouldn’t stop him eating the flapjack, though.
Pausing next to the display of homemade jewellery, Laurie spun on her heel to face her father. ‘Tell her after you tell her about our newest resident. She’ll be too busy thinking about mermaids to be cross with you.’
‘Good idea, love!’ Her dad popped the corner he’d broken off the sticky square into his mouth and gave her a thumbs-up.
2
Laurie’s prediction that the story of the mermaid would be just a fly-by-night sensation proved wide of the mark. As word went around the village, the café filled up with people dropping in for a bite to eat and to add to the gossip and speculation. Most were of the same opinion as her – that it was someone messing around – and the talk soon turned to likely culprits. It was little surprise to her when Nick’s name cropped up more than once in the conversation. Like generations of men from the village, he earned his living from the sea, though he’d moved in recent years from the harsh world of deep-sea fishing to running a sightseeing and day-tripping service for tourists. The islands off the end of the Point teemed with wildlife and were popular with general visitors who came to enjoy the beaches, as well as the more discerning enthusiasts.
It’d been a sad day when their uncle sold the trawler Nick had crewed on since turning sixteen, but the ever-increasing pressure from government quotas as well as greater competitiveness from boats coming over from France, Spain and the Nordic countries had proven to be too much. It wasn’t only Laurie who’d heaved a secret sigh of relief when they’d stopped, either. Though Mum had never said anything, she had always been restless and lacking in her usual bubbly warmth on those weeks Uncle Tony, Nick and the rest of the crew had been out at sea. Things had only grown more tense following a terrible accident on one of the other trawlers, resulting in the loss of one crew member and debilitating injuries to another. There’d been tears of relief when Tony and Nick had announced their new venture, and for the first couple of years, they’d raked it in as the sun beamed down and visitor numbers grew and grew.
Then, on top of a general economic downturn, they’d had two of the worst summers in living memory, weather-wise. Bed and breakfast rooms stayed empty and the local camping sites were barren of their usual motley collection of bright tents and shiny white caravans. The few hardy souls who ventured to the coast were greeted with warning flags on the beaches and views as disappointing and grey as the one outside the café’s windows today. Everyone had felt the bite, and only a few businesses like her parents’ shop had the option to diversify online. Like many others in the village, Laurie had watched her profits dwindle to nothing. If she hadn’t still lived at home, there was no way her business would’ve survived. Offering special deals to groups like the WI had helped a bit, but if they didn’t get a good spell of decent weather soon, the future looked grim.
