Page 16

‘Subtle’ was not for Susie Molland. In her world view, being subtle was just taking a long, boring detour when a sprint would get you there five times as fast, even if you did bash your ankles on the way.

She was a big believer in saying yes – to a new adventure, a new gig, an unplanned night out.

If it all went wrong, she knew that home was always there.

But even if she could sometimes be impulsive and impatient, she also liked to think her more positive qualities were just as unsubtle but in a good way – she loved without ever holding back, she dropped compliments as big as buses, and she would open her heart to a new friend in a heartbeat.

Sometimes to someone more than a friend.

‘Pretty handy, aren’t you?’ Susie sat on the edge of one of the bar tables, her legs dangling and a jay cloth in hand.

She’d given the ancient wood a hardcore wiping down already – there was no way she was trusting her vintage miniskirt to its usual sticky state, and definitely not after an eight-hour boozing extravaganza like FairyFest.

Rather than grump or grimace, Mark in fact seemed to light up after being chided, and hopped to it. He was now tucking his sixth chair away in the snug and dusting his hands together in the international gesture for ‘a job well done’.

‘I like to try,’ Mark said, smiling. ‘And Margie is a not a woman you say no to.’

‘Watch it,’ Susie lowered one eyebrow, ‘I might get jealous.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ve plenty of room in my life to be bossed about by several women at any one time.’

Susie nodded. ‘I can work with that. Bacon sandwich?’

‘Sorry?’

She slipped down from the table and subtly checked her knickers weren’t showing as a result.

‘Festival tradition. If you’ve made it until the very end of the night – either as punter or staff – we open the kitchen back up and do a round of bacon sandwiches.

‘The most rewarding food on the planet, Margie always says.’ She bit her bottom lip. ‘Unless you’re veggie?’

‘No, I er . . .’ Mark checked his watch.

It was an understated, simple face ringed with gold, with a black leather strap.

Definitely vintage. Susie bet it had some history to it and her fingers itched to gently reach out and touch the material around his wrist. But that would be ever so slightly creepy as a come on, she knew.

‘It’s half one, though. Isn’t it a bit late?

Or,’ he scrunched his eyes up for a moment, ‘a bit early?’

She shrugged. ‘We’re probably an hour’s drive from the nearest kebab shop here, even if they were still open at two-thirty, so this is as good as late-night snacks get.

And Margie’s got the good bacon in from the butchers in Salcombe.

It’s so thick and it goes so crunchy under the grill that my sister once chipped a tooth on it. You have to try it!’

‘OK, I will.’ Mark obediently followed her through the back of the pub and into the kitchen.

‘Apron for you,’ Susie looped the blue and white cotton apron over his head, moving in close to tie it up behind his back.

His smile went wolfish. ‘You take your hygiene regs pretty seriously then?’

‘Oh yes,’ she pulled the last loop of a bow tightly and dropped her voice just by his ear, ‘except when I’m feeling dirty.’

Mark’s laughter exploded and bounced around the stainless steel worktops. ‘You, Susie Molland, are incredible. Can I kiss you now or after the bacon sandwiches?’

‘Let’s do both and compare notes,’ she muttered against his lips, most definitely in his personal space now.

His lips moved against hers as his hand smoothed its way along her collarbone and behind her neck, resting there and gently pulling Susie even closer to him.

Susie’s hands were clutching at the cool, crisp cotton of his shirt at his shoulders and she was entirely too swept up in their kiss to be thinking about tuning into what she might be able to read from him in that moment.

Using the full strength of her magic involved focus and composure.

You needed a clear head to be able to absorb someone else’s feelings and memories.

All she had space for in her head was the sensation of how Mark’s tongue moved against hers, how the subconscious little murmured growl of pleasure that he gave shot a bolt of electricity through her.

It may have been true that Susie had enjoyed some cheeky moments with campsite guys over the last few years, and had even run to a six-week relationship with a fellow paddleboard instructor in Woolacombe last summer, but this kiss was banishing all that to a dim and distant memory.

This kiss rewrote the rules. Susie suddenly understood what ‘Like a Virgin’ was all about.

She sunk even further into the moment, letting her hips budge right up against his and earning another guttural growl.

Mark smoothly manoeuvred Susie back a few paces until she was up against the big stainless steel fridge: the cold metal against the back of her thighs contrasted deliciously with the heat she felt between their bodies.

She risked a gentle bite of his bottom lip and it definitely hit the spot.

‘Susie,’ he half-whispered, pulling back for just one second, ‘how has it taken me my whole life to find you?’

It was a while before anyone got their bacon.

‘Fucking phenomenal,’ Mark said through a mouthful, his hand casually stroking back and forth along Susie’s shins.

She had kicked her legs up onto his lap when they took their plates to sit in the snug and they’d been comfortably chatting and chomping there for twenty minutes, neither of them wanting to eat too fast and bring this moment to a close.

The snug was Susie’s most favourite place in the whole pub, if not the whole world.

A tiny cave-like area with thick walls painted in a deep green, it felt like you had crawled into the perfect thicket as a kid and made a secret den surrounded by undergrowth.

Susie should want to be anywhere but the pub after a long, crazy shift, but she always felt like she could while away all the hours in a day here. Especially with such good company.

‘Tell me again about the smugglers.’ He squeezed her leg gently.

‘You’ve asked me about my favourite sandwich fillings, about my short-lived career as a hand model and my top five beaches in the South West, and now you’re after a bedtime story?’

‘No, I’m after keeping you here with me for as long as I can, before Margie kicks us out and I have to say goodnight.’

Susie smiled. Mark was proving an enjoyable riddle so far.

He kissed like a goddamn animal, had plenty of flirty talk, but he also asked her lots of questions – about all the different jobs she’d had, how she grew up in the village, everyone she works with at the pub – he was interesting and told her about the places he’d been travelling.

But he wasn’t pushing his luck. She’d already mentioned she lived just next door and left that little opening about a bedtime story, but he was obviously enough of a gentleman not to see that as an invitation.

Susie was impressed. And a little disappointed.

She let out a long breath. ‘The Witch’s Nose is over three hundred years old, and it’s had a lot of different lives in that time.

But to start with, it was a smuggler’s inn.

If there was a shipwreck along the coast, the smugglers would pick over the wreckage, carry off the booty and hide it here.

Margie swears on her life that she’s still got some fire pokers that belonged to the King of Spain, but I’m not totally convinced. ’

Mark licked his index finger and picked up the last crumbs on his plate. ‘You’d argue with Margie and a red hot poker? You’re even more of a badass than I thought.’

Susie bit down the smile creeping up into her cheeks.

‘I mean, I wouldn’t say it to her face .

But yeah, we like to think the pub is still a hub for the village and anyone coming on their holidays here.

They might not be stowing nicked barrels of rum anymore, but people get drawn here, sometimes accidentally – they took the wrong lane and they’re too knackered to go on.

But however they find us, they never forget us. ’

Mark’s eyes pinned her to the spot. ‘That’s exactly it.’ His hand stopped moving along her legs, now above her knees. ‘And East Prawle is in the Domesday Book, right? It’s that old?’

Susie felt a little breathless. ‘Super old,’ she managed.

Getting to know Mark was great; they’d clicked over the beaches they loved, the cities they wanted to visit, the best local beers.

But, God, she was longing for him to talk less and act more, push his hand right up along her thigh, under her skirt and kick off a chemical reaction that she just knew would be deliciously explosive.

If that twenty-minute snogging session was anything to go by.

Unconsciously, her bottom wriggled side to side by just an inch and his eyebrows raised in response. Mark’s fingers moved imperceptibly up, and up.

Susie could feel every tiny follicle on her skin come to life and she held her breath.

His hand – warm and smooth – was gliding now, up her thigh, to the hem of her short miniskirt.

But just as Susie went to say something, even just to give half a gasp, the lights went off.

‘You don’t have to go home . . .’ Margie’s voice yelled from somewhere in the back.

‘But we can’t stay here,’ Susie chimed back, reluctantly. ‘Night, boss!’

There was just enough of a glow from the fairy lights strung around the bar and the doorways for Susie to lead Mark behind her to the front door. His hand held hers tightly.

Just as they walked past the bar, Mark stopped suddenly. ‘Hear that?’

Susie froze. ‘No. What?’