Edie Browne’s Cottage by the Sea: A heartwarming, hilarious romance read set in Cornwall!

‘Hell no. Thanks all the same.’

If I didn’t know better I’d think he was trying to hold back his smile. ‘So maybe you can tell me how come you’re less in love with sewing than the rest of them?’

‘I got off to a bad start at school.’ To be honest it’s a relief to have something to take my mind off the heaving of the ship. ‘The first ever lesson, the textiles teacher caught me holding a pin in my mouth.’ That was practically the only useful thing my mum had ever taught me about needlework. ‘Apparently teenagers giving sudden whoops and ending up in A&E with pins jammed in their throats is a massive Health and Safety issue.’ I know that I’m blurting and over-sharing, but I can’t stop. My only excuse, I must be a nervous sailor. ‘To be honest I’d have thought sewing through your finger with a machine was way worse. That’s what Bianca Hill from the other group in our year did. But, whatever, the teacher had a hissy fit and things went downhill fast from there.’ A lot like things have in St Aidan, come to think of it.

‘Okay, we’re going to swing the sail around and change direction in a minute, so hang on tight and duck … one two three, BOOM!’

‘Jeez, what the HECK … BOOM! To you too!’ There’s so much splashing and heaving and groaning it feels like we have to end up upside down, pitched into the water. I’m digging my fingers in so hard to the boat side I get splinters under my fingernails, but at the end of it somehow we’re still afloat, even if we’re at a crazy angle.

‘Okay, now come and sit the other side of the boat, and this time try to lean back as far as you can to get your weight out over the water.’ As he watches me make my way across, inching forwards on all fours through the puddles, I no longer give any fucks. The will to look stylish disappeared somewhere in the harbour car park, and I left my last shred of pride back on the jetty. I get there eventually, but he can forget leaning out.

‘So much chopping and changing. It’s hardly relaxing is it?’

He’s rubbing his fist over his mouth. ‘So, how far downhill did your sewing go?’

‘By the time we got to making dresses for GCSE, mine was the size of one of those things that you put your bed quilt inside.’

‘What, a duvet cover?’

‘That’s the one. Then I put the zip in upside down, and somehow stitched the front to the back so, even though it was the size of a house, it was still impossible to climb into.’ It’s all true, and at least it’s a better excuse for why I was completely failing to cut out Loella’s patchwork pieces. I’d rather not explain that my fingers won’t do what I want them to at the moment.

‘I can see why you’re traumatised.’ He’s spluttering into his fist. ‘Okay, we’re turning again, ready, and BOOM!’

‘Surely not? BOOM!’ But we are, and the whole damned heaving and splashing thing starts again and, before I know it, I’m on my hands and knees, crawling back across the boat again. Once I get back onto my plank seat with both hands safely clamped on the boat sides, I squint at him. ‘And people do this why?’

He shrugs. ‘Because it’s fun.’

That word again. ‘Not in my book it’s not.’

‘I’ve had more laughs in the last half hour than I have for a long time.’ He’s tilting his head at me and being ridiculous, because he hasn’t even broken into a grin. ‘I’m not sure you know quite how funny you are, Edie Browne.’

I give that the eye roll it deserves. Funny was how I was before, what he’s finding amusing now are my blunders.

With his deck shoes and tousled hair, and the shadows under his cheekbones set against the flashes of the dark water, he could have been parachuted in from a Diesel advert.

He coughs. ‘I know we’re only going slowly, but listen to the swish of the water as the boat passes across it, feel the rush of the breeze. I mean, look back at the harbour and the shore.’

I only screw my head around because I know if I don’t he’ll go on about it. Looking back from out here in the bay, I’m getting the familiar postcard view of the town with the higgledy rows of cottages rising above the cluster of masts in the harbour, and the seafront railings that stretch around the bay.

‘So, doesn’t it give you a wonderful sense that you’re escaping?’

I nod at the stack of stone and stucco fronts, their pastel colours fading to monochrome in the greyness. ‘The calm swishing gets wrecked every time we almost get pitched into the effing sea.’ Aunty Jo’s cottage is nudging the skyline, and I’m trying not to notice how wildly it’s swaying up and down as the boat rocks. ‘My escape to solitude ends firmly at the beach, any further is too much like Desert Island Discs.’

There’s a choking noise from behind the sail. ‘You’ve picked the wrong place if you’re looking for peace.’

Someone else said that, but I’m not picking him up on it. I give him my serious stare. ‘And how can anyone relax when it sounds like the damn boat is about to split in two at any second?’

Somehow he looks totally at one with the thunder-grey clouds billowing behind him. ‘The creaking is the beauty of a timber hull. With a whole world of ocean stretched out beyond us, there’s such a wonderful feeling of freedom, that’s all.’

‘Probably more a feeling of totally bricking it.’

His teeth are closing on his lip. ‘Don’t worry, we’re on our way back in now. We’re going to drop the boat around the other side of the harbour. It’s your first time out, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it more next time.’

‘I seriously doubt it.’ It’s not like there will be another, I won’t fall for this twice. A thought flashes into my head. ‘You don’t make poor Cam do this, do you?’

He’s shaking his head. ‘For now Cam doesn’t do boats. Mostly I come out in the afternoons, which is why I thought you might be up for the occasional blast around?’

‘Not being rude—’

‘But you’re going to be anyway?’

‘I’d rather have my teeth pulled.’ All things considered. The heaving. My soaking feet and my soggy bum. The BOOMS! And that’s before we get to the company, and feeling seasick. ‘To express how much I enjoy that, you should know I once had a tooth out when I was eleven and I had to go all the way to Bristol to a special centre for nervous patients and be knocked out with Valium.’

He throws me a ‘what the eff?’ look then turns to the pontoon that’s racing towards us. ‘Well, that went well.’

As he stands up and unzips his life jacket I ignore the view up his sweatshirt. We’re bumping up against some other jetty now and he’s winding down the sail and bundling it into the bottom of the boat. And, just before he launches into his Superman routine again, he bends down and picks up this giant-size spanner. ‘Here, hang onto this for a second while I tie up.’

My arms sag under the weight, and there’s a lurch as he springs off the edge of the boat. I watch as he thuds onto the jetty and secures the boat with one deft twist of the rope.

He’s holding out his hand. ‘Okay, Edie, let’s get you back on dry land.’

I shuffle as far as I can on my bum, then, as I stagger to my feet, the huge spanner slides through my fingers and plummets downwards. There’s a second when I almost catch it somewhere around my knees, but it’s like a slippery fish sliding down the Dayglo fabric. A moment later it plunges through the narrow gap between the boat side and the jetty’s edge, and on into the soupy depths of the harbour.

‘Crap!’ My stomach is plunging faster than the spanner. And SHIT, ARSE and BOLLOCKS for not being able to rely on my grip any more.

‘Last time you were throwing knives at me, now it’s a wrench?’

I could kick seven bells out of the jetty side, but I’d rather jump into the harbour than have him know the truth. I grind my teeth, push my growl deep inside me. ‘I’m SO sorry.’

‘Don’t worry, these oversized tools make bids for freedom all the time. This is nothing – last week someone dropped a twelve grand outboard engine out in the bay. We’re in a fishing port, we’ll send in the deep-sea divers.’

‘Really?’ That sounds major.

‘Only joking – of course we won’t, we’ll hook it out at low tide.’ He glances at his watch. ‘Not that I want to rush you, but the class is almost over.’

As I clamber back onto the landing stage, I know I’m never going to live this down. As for where the time went, it definitely didn’t fly because I was enjoying myself.

And that was my afternoon at Patchwork.

10 (#ulink_e534c6f0-9e7f-5edc-8366-8e7d76b012f5)

Day 142: Friday, 23

March

The day room at Periwinkle Cottage

Epic Achievement: Making a start.