Page 57 of Broken Beyond Repair

Beatrice tilted her head as she raised her eyebrows. “Even though it wasn’t part of the job description?”

She had her there, and Sydney’s pursed lips said she knew it too.

“Even so.”

“Thank you,” Beatrice said as Sam lowered her onto the jetty where Sydney was waiting with her crutches.

“The pleasure is all mine, believe me.”

She did believe him. It was unlikely he’d lift an international film star on and off a boat again.

“How long do you think it will take to fix her, Sam?” Sydney asked as they made their way up the jetty.

“I’ve got everything I need, so give me a couple of weeks.”

“I should be out of my cast by then,” Beatrice said. “I can bring you back.”

“Thanks,” Sydney replied with a smile. “I’m going to pop to the loo, and then we better head off. Are you still okay to give us a ride back, Sam?”

“No need. I have a car,” Beatrice put in.

“How?” Sydney asked, her hands slipping to her hips.

“Jonathon. He’s been tracking us all day.”

“Don’t you trust me to get you home?”

“I don’t trust anyone,” Beatrice replied, trying not to notice the look of disappointment on Sydney’s face.

Sydney tilted her head. “You should work on that.”

“Perhaps I already am. Albeit slowly.”

Sydney turned on her heel and headed along the jetty up to the house.

“This is an idyllic spot, Sam,” Beatrice said, looking out over the harbour. “I’m sure I could sit here all day and listen to the waves washing up the beach.”

“Thanks. It certainly brought much inspiration to Syd when she lived here.”

“You lived here together?” Beatrice asked, trying to quell her surprise. Knowing she was on Sydney’s old turf helped her feel that little bit closer to her assistant.

“Yeah, for a few years. We ran the business together, and she’d write when she could. It was her dad that encouraged me to follow my dream and set this place up. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her. We had our problems, but I spent some of the best years of my life with that woman. It’s a shame they ended the way they did. She’s a special person.”

Beatrice followed Sam’s gaze to Sydney as she entered the house. “I’m beginning to see that.”

Was he still harbouring feelings, or was it more a passing feeling of nostalgia?

“So you can fixGertiethen?”

“She’s all glamour on the outside, but underneath she’s hiding a lot of problems,” Sam replied. “She’s broken—”

“But not beyond repair?” Beatrice finished hopefully.

“No. At least I hope not. Who knows what I’ll find when I strip her down to her bare bones?”

“It seems to have quite the hold over Sydney,” Beatrice said, flatly refusing to use a personal pronoun for the camper van like everyone else did.

“Gertie’s all she has left of her dad; he bought her for her seventeenth birthday. They worked on her bodywork together, and now it’s time to fix the heart of her. She only stayed down here to get the money together to fix her. By rights, she and Gertie should be roaming the countryside now. I’m glad she did, though; it gave us a chance to reconnect.”