Chapter Nine

As they left the pub together, Jake had the distinct impression that something in the evening air had changed. A subtle shift, almost a sense of settling. He wasn’t sure what would happen as the night wore on, but for the first time since he’d arrived in Porthavel, he felt relaxed. Maybe it was Locryn’s influence, when he wasn’t ranting about pasties at least.

They didn’t hold hands as they wandered to the café but they walked close together. Closer than they had before.

The weather was surprisingly uneventful compared to the wildness of the night before, the village quiet. All except for Locryn’s café, whose lights were spilling out onto the quayside from its illuminated windows.

“Cream horn?” Locryn asked innocently as they reached the door. “On the house for the chap in the leather jacket.”

“Can’t say no to that!” Jake patted Locryn’s arm as they went inside. At first all seemed calm. Zoe and David were sitting together on one side of a table bearing a cloth of pale blue gingham and opposite them were Petroc and Merryn. In the middle of the table was a china teapot and in front of each, a cup and saucer. A plate containing tempting pastries was beside the teapot and to all intents and purpose, it was a scene of village perfection. An afternoon tea by moonlight.

Until Jake looked at their faces. To a one, the four wore thunderous expressions, and Merryn’s arms were folded tightly across her chest. He need only see Fionn, her mobile clamped to her ear behind the counter, to know that she was the source of the trouble.

What is it now?

Jake strode in, rubbing his hands together. He did his best to smile. “Evening, everyone. You must all be tired, having to shoot so late? Fionn, can these lovely people be allowed home now?”

It was David who spoke, one of the few occasions Jake had heard him speak. “Mr. Brantham, we thought we’d be dealing with you, but—”

Zoe looked at Merryn, then at Jake, and said angrily, “This isn’t the sort of program we want. I want to get out of this contract. She’s upset Mum with all her talk!”

Merryn heaved a sob. “I said it wasn’t to be talked of, I said, then she told me there wouldn’t be a wedding if we didn’t, and when she said reconstruction in a water tank—!”

Jake’s newfound calm collided with a rapidly advancing wave of rage. He shoved his fingers into his mouth and emitted a shrill whistle that could’ve been heard in Taunton. “That’s it. Fionn, get over here now!”

“Sympathetic mood-building reconstruction,” Fionn corrected. Petroc said nothing, but patted Merryn’s shoulder, the gesture as gentle as he was hulking. Fionn pocketed her phone and looked at Jake. Then she clicked her fingers, but she remained where she stood. “This is the Christmas special. Think Noel in a children’s ward with a sled full of presents!”

“Yes, Christmas special. What’s supposed to be festive about forcing a family to revisit something as painful as—as—?” Jake threw up his hands in frustration. “Fuck me, Fionn, do you not have an ounce of cocking compassion? And I told you, it’s not to go in the program in the first fucking place!”

Merryn started to cry in earnest now, and Jake shook his head as he offered her his hanky. Petroc put his arm round her shoulders too, hushing her gently as Zoe rose to her feet and addressed Jake.

“She’s horrible! I wouldn’t have anything to do with her if I was you.” She jabbed a finger toward Fionn and dashed away her own tears with the back of her hand. “Because she’s a cow! And if I knew a cow like her, I wouldn’t want anybody to think she was a mate of mine!”

Fionn emerged from behind the counter, shaking her head as though this was all too much. She told them, “It’s reality telly, love. You don’t get the wedding of your dreams without a few tears.”

“They’re meant to cry over my crap attempt at Cornish pasties,” Jake said, “or because the cake topper gets trodden on and someone replaces it with Barbie and Ken! Not because you’re forcing everyone to relive trauma! It’s not happening on my show, Fionn, and you know that because I’ve already said no!”

“Jake, have an eclair and calm down.” Fionn plucked up an eclair from the counter and threw it. It landed short, splattering on the polished wooden floor.

And as Locryn’s voice suddenly thundered across the café, Jake knew once and for all that even the king of Cornwall could be pushed too far.

“That’s enough!” Everyone looked at him and he blinked, apparently as surprised as they were. When he spoke again, his usual calm was restored. “Consider yourself barred, Fionn. You’ve upset my friends, shown no respect to my café or my eclair and— Please leave. And before you ask, no, I won’t sign a release so you can put this on air.”

Jake clapped his hand on Locryn’s shoulder. “Nice one,” he whispered. Then he looked up at Fionn. “Go on, sling your hook. We’re having a meeting tomorrow, us two. And to borrow one of your favorite telly phrases, you won’t want to miss it!”

Fionn shrugged and said, “I’ll have to check my schedule. I’ve got a full day tomorrow.” Then she put her handbag over her shoulder and strode across the café toward them. When she reached Locryn she told him, “I think they’d go a bundle over you in the States. If you fancy it—”

“Goodnight,” he replied. “I won’t ask you to clean up the mess you’ve made.”

With a cheeky wink, Fionn turned away. She was a picture of composure until her spike of a heel came down in the splattered eclair then, with a shriek of, “Fuck me, you fu—” Fionn flew up into the air and landed with a smack against the floorboards.

“Ooof! You want a good pair of stout wellies for Cornwall, Fionn! Not those spiky things!” Jake started to laugh, but as he did, he noticed that Fionn’s leg was stuck out at an angle that no human limb had any right to be at.

Oh fuck it.

“My sushi!” she wailed. “Bloody hell!”

“Someone ring an ambulance!” Jake had done his first-aid training and knew a broken leg when he saw one. “Petroc, you take Merryn and the happy couple to the pub, okay? Locryn and me’ll see to this.”

“Should I?” Petroc asked Merryn, “Fancy a drink, Merryn? Oh, and the youngsters, of course.”

“I’d love a drink.” Merryn shook out her hair, and with that one gesture was the sassiest woman in Porthavel. She looked over at Fionn and rolled her eyes. “Shame you weren’t filming that,” she said as she got up from her seat.

“Weren’t we?” Fionn asked the cameraman, who shook his head in response. “Call it a night, boys. And, Jake, pass me my phone. I can’t walk but I can still Skype.”

Jake shook his head as he passed the phone to her. “Try not to move, okay?”

He took out his own phone and rang nine-nine-nine. The remaining crew began to pack away for the evening, taking down the lights and folding down the reflectors, but not one of them approached Fionn to see how she was.

“Tell them I need the air ambulance, and some gorgeous guys in uniform,” Fionn instructed with a saucy wink.

A quarter of an hour later, the beat of helicopter blades heralded the arrival of the air ambulance.

Jake whispered to Locryn, “Surprised she’s not being taken away on a broomstick, the old witch!”

Fionn hadn’t wasted a moment though, and was instead making phone calls to one high-powered executive after the other, discussing filming schedules and money, transport and star names. Only when the café door opened and the ‘gorgeous guys in uniform’ appeared did she put her phone away.

“Knights in armor,” she called. “Thank God!”

As Fionn was assessed, all the time asking the medics if they’d considered reality TV, Locryn was tidying the café. He looked so domestic, so at home, Jake thought. But still gorgeous. Jake waited with a mop to clear up the squashed eclair. He didn’t want Locryn to have to do it, especially not when the sight of wasted baked goods were upsetting to him.

“I’m going to Plymouth,” Fionn advised Jake. “Not for sushi, sadly. Can you manage without me for a day?”

“It might be a little bit longer than a day,” one of the paramedics told him. “Your wife’s leg looks pretty bad.”

“She’s not my wife, she’s my producer,” Jake said coldly. “Don’t hurry back, Fionn. You take your time and get that leg nice and better.”

It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.

Locryn handed the helicopter crew a large box of delicacies and, with Fionn still barking into her mobile, they stretchered her from the café. Before the door closed one of the men darted back inside and asked Jake, “Can I get your autograph for my wife? And can you write fucking scallop on it?”

Jake grabbed a napkin with Locryn’s carefully printed italicized name on it. He scribbled sod off with your fucking rancid scallop! and signed underneath.

“There you go, now fuck off!” Jake laughed. With a cheery slap to Jake’s shoulder the man departed, leaving Jake and Locryn alone.

Jake puffed out his chest. “Well, that spares me the job of sacking her from the series.”

“I’ve never barred anyone before.” Locryn sighed, surveying the café. “How on earth did you end up saddled with her?”

“She seemed okay when I started working for her, but the more successful she’s become, the more terrifying she’s got. She’s a fucking media monster, and she’ll probably do well for herself and exploit every last fucker in her path.” Jake put the last finishing touches to his mopping job and admired the clean floor. “You’d never know the creator of My Haunted Dildo had broken her leg on the floor just there, would you?”

“My Haunted— That can’t be real?”

“The dildo or the program?” Jake asked. “She really did produce that show, and, yeah, it made me question a lot of things. Such as, what the fuck is wrong with people who watch this fucking twaddle?”

Locryn turned off the main lights, bathing the café in the gentle glow of the soft bulbs behind the counter. Then he said, “And kneading dough can actually be very sensuous, I’ll have you know. More sensuous than a haunted dildo, that’s for sure!”

“Sensuous? So that’s why you do it in your dressing gown?” Jake smiled at Locryn. “I don’t think I’ve ever got the knack of kneading, sensuous or otherwise.”

“I couldn’t sleep the other night on account of this infuriating, bad-tempered, gorgeous, leather jacket-wearing Londoner who’d swaggered into the village and kicked up a stink.” Locryn pursed his lips, then smiled. “Kneading took my mind off him until he turned up at my cottage and took his clothes off.”

Jake laughed awkwardly. “Timed that well, didn’t I? Did the kneading help a bit?”

“It did. Right up until you wet T-shirted your way into my kitchen.” Locryn ruffled his hand through his hair and told Jake, “And if you don’t have the knack of kneading, I’ll be happy to teach you.”

“Will you?” Jake waggled his fingers at him. “Have I got the right tools?”

Locryn took off his coat and was already unfastening his cufflinks when he assured Jake, “It’s all a question of what you do with them.”

Jake peeled off his leather jacket, revealing his fitted T-shirt beneath. “It’s not wet this evening. Is that okay?”

“I’m sure you’ll do.” Locryn rolled up his sleeves then crossed to the sink. As he washed his hands he glanced over his shoulder and asked Jake, “What about the Merryn and Petroc conundrum, then? You know about them?”

Jake went over to the worktop and leaned against it. “Yeah. Merryn told me they’d been dating but Petroc just won’t… He’s lost his friend, he’s lost his wife, and I suppose he got scared when he realized he was getting close to Merryn. Maybe he thought he’d lose her too?”

As Locryn spoke he moved around the kitchen, adding ingredients to a large mixing bowl. What surprised Jake wasn’t that, but that he made no effort to measure them. In went flour and salt, and more, as though on instinct. An instinct that Jake had never seen quite as well-honed in anyone except himself.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Petroc and Merryn could be at the wedding as the couple they both really want to be?” He was at the fridge now, scooping butter into the mixture. “Does matchmaking ever really work? What do you think? You’re the worldly city chap, I’m just a baker from Cornwall.”

“Matchmaking? Do people still do that? They use apps now!” Jake laughed. “But I like what you’re saying. And now I don’t have a producer on the show. Shall we have some nice scenes with Merryn and Petroc together, showing the viewers around Porthavel, that sort of thing? Write some dates for them into the show, without them thinking they’re dates?”

Locryn grinned. “Yes! They could have afternoon tea here and talk about the progress that’s being made on the boat.” He held up his hand and added, “That’s not me trying to get in on the gig, don’t worry. It’s your show, but it’s a chance to bring two good people together. Since Zoe works here and Merryn did before her, it seems like a good place, don’t you think?”

“It’s a fucking brilliant idea, Loc! Let’s do it!” Jake clapped his hands. “Are you licensed? We can sneak in a cheeky champers afternoon tea too!”

“Am I licensed? Bubbly afternoon teas are my summer staple!” He returned to the worktop where Jake was leaning and began to mix the ingredients. “Petroc’s camera shy but Merryn’s a natural. If anyone can put him at his ease, it’s her. People are going to love her, aren’t they? The West Country’s answer to Liz Taylor!”

“Just a bit! I’m glad you were the one to say it though. Lovely woman. And the last thing we need is to see her in tears on screen.” Jake bobbed his head. “You know, I think we make better producers than Fionn. We get a romantic wedding, and we get a romance!”

“I never would’ve had you down as a romantic.” He glanced across at Jake, a little too casual when he asked, “And there’s no handsome fellow waiting for you in London?”

“Nope.” Jake shook his head. “I’m—I’ve been too busy. I’ve had the odd bloke here and there, obviously, but I don’t have a boyfriend or anything like that.”

Locryn said nothing, but the look on his face left Jake in no doubt that he was happy with the answer. For a little while they fell silent, Jake watching Locryn work, the enjoyment of watching someone so accomplished something that had never left him. Nowadays it was usually Jake who was the expert, but this was Locryn’s world, bunting and all.

Eventually Locryn scattered a handful of flour across the worktop. Then he looked up and asked, “Ready?”

Jake rubbed his hands together. “Yeah! Where do you want me?”

“Watch me for a couple of minutes, then we’ll swap places.” Locryn tipped the bowl and the dough landed on the worktop with considerably more grace than Fionn had employed when she had hit the floor. Then he put his hands on the dough and began to knead.

And all Jake could do was watch.

Locryn’s hands were large but elegant and they kneaded the dough with all the care of a caress. There was more tenderness in the way Locryn handled his culinary creations than there had been in some of the lovers Jake had known. He looked like an artist, dusted with flour rather than paint, and it was mesmerizing. Gone was the prim, buttoned-up man who had recoiled from Jake’s efforts at Cornish pasties and in his place was an artist entirely at ease and at one with his work.

There was plenty of passion in Locryn Trevorrow, Jake realized.

Jake leaned his head on his arm, watching, observing not just Locryn’s hands and the dough he was kneading, but the movement of the muscles in his arms and the smile in his eyes as he worked.

This’d make great telly.

They needed more close-ups on Locryn’s face though. Far, far more. Then Jake could watch at his leisure and enjoy the love in Locryn’s expression when he was doing what every baker does naturally.

After a few minutes had passed, Locryn looked toward Jake and smiled. Then he took a step away from the worktop and brushed the palms of his hands against each other.

“Your turn, Chef. Show me how the man with the Michelin stars does it.”

“Erm…badly?” Jake laughed as he took up position. He pressed his fingertips into the dough and it was warm from Locryn’s hands, then he started to knead it but… “Am I more pummeling than kneading?”

Locryn leaned his elbow on the worktop beside Jake and watched, hovering there like a fretful parent. Now and again Jake had the impression that he was about to speak, but he remained silent until Jake spoke to him. Then he said, “Don’t be angry at it. Think of it as though you’re giving a very special massage. Savor it. Experience it.”

“Feel the dough?” Jake asked, remembering his demand to Locryn live on television. ‘Feel the meat.’ But then, he hadn’t thought Locryn capable of comparing kneading bread to a massage of all things. “I reckon I can manage a special massage.” Jake ran his hand over the curve of the dough and whispered, “Look at how round it is, like a buttock. If I pretend that a saucy baker is lying on his bed in his storybook cottage, his bottom on view, all warm from the sun coming through the opened curtains, and I stroke it just like this, then I…”

And with both hands, Jake grasped the dough, then folded it over on itself before pulling and stretching. Then he rolled it into a ball over the floury surface and pressed his knuckles in, rocking against it.

Fucking hell.

Locryn was watching his hands, his fretful expression replaced by something rather different. His lips were slightly parted, his blue eyes dancing as he lifted them to meet Jake’s gaze. Another moment passed, the air crackling between them. Then Locryn cleared his throat and asked, “Do you know many saucy bakers?”

“No, just this one guy. He mentioned something about his cream horn.” Jake quirked his eyebrow at him. “He’s so fucking hot. He’s got these strong arms…”

“Strong arms help with the kneading…amongst other things,” Locryn replied, his voice husky. Then he moved to stand behind Jake, so close that the electricity in the air seemed more fizzy than ever. Those strong arms reached around Jake and Locryn entwined their fingers together atop the dough. He was so close to Jake that they were almost touching, almost embracing, Locryn’s cologne filling the space, his hands sure. “Not too rough, not too gentle. Just think of your saucy baker.”

Then, as if they were one, he guided Jake’s hands into the dough.

“I’m thinking of him. I’m struggling to think of anything else.” Jake half-closed his eyes, breathing in Locryn’s cologne and the scent of the dough. “Locryn, you bastard, you’ve made baking sexy!”

“I told you,” Locryn whispered, his lips close to Jake’s ear, “I have plenty of passion. I just don’t always know how to let it out.”

“I can help you with that,” Jake promised. “I hope.”

“Tell me more about this naked baker of yours?”

“He’s got big blue eyes, the sort of blue I imagine the sea is here in the summer. And they sparkle. You know when the sunlight’s on the waves and it’s so bright you should look away but you can’t?” Jake chuckled. “And I forget to swear my head off when I’m around him.”

Locryn laughed gently and Jake felt the slightest brush of his dark-blond hair against his cheek. It must be an accident, he told himself, even as Locryn placed a kiss against the side of his neck, as tentative as it was soft.

“Oh, God, Locryn, do that again.” Jake moaned. “Please.”

Jake wasn’t used to such slow teasing. Men and women flung themselves at him, even if Jake wasn’t interested. And now, that slight touch of Locryn’s hair sent desire singing through Jake’s blood.

The second kiss was as tender as the first, as filled with promise and heat. Their hands were unmoving now, fingers still linked.

Jake slowly, slowly turned his head, whispering, “I want to kiss you, Locryn…”

“Be my guest,” was the gentle reply as Locryn’s lips brushed against his.

Jake’s lips tingled at the touch of Locryn’s soft mouth and he only danced his lips against Locryn’s. He could have clasped Locryn with his dough-covered hands, he could have pressed him with the weight of his body to the wall and kissed him with all the fierceness of his passion. But instead, their kiss was as gentle as a murmur.

And when it ended, Locryn’s smile was gentler still.

“You’re not nearly so terrifying as I thought you might be,” was his conclusion.

“Terrifying, me? I’m a cute little lamb, really.” Jake rubbed the tip of his nose against Locryn’s. “Well, I am when I’m holding back. And I will hold back, if you want me to.”

“What I want is another kiss, Chef.”

“And you will have one!” Jake ghosted his lips over Locryn’s then, with a little more fire than before, kissed him. What would Locryn make of it? Jake didn’t want to send him reeling away in horror. There was something almost delicate about him, a gentleness that Jake had mistaken for that same prim quality that Locryn had accused himself of. In a world filled with Fionns, he was like a breath of fresh coastal air.

But he didn’t seem shocked at all. Instead he met the heat in Jake’s kiss with his own, his arms tightening around his waist.

Jake cupped Locryn’s face, dough stuck to his fingers, kissing Locryn with increasing fire. This was Locryn Trevorrow, for heaven’s sake, the quiet, meek, sugar and fiddlesticks baker.

It’s always the quiet ones.

And that definitely wasn’t a rolling pin that Jake could feel pressed against him. The image of Locryn naked on the bed returned, but naked anywhere would be just as wonderful. Even naked on a flour-scattered worktop in a cozy café by the sea.

Jake slid his hand down to Locryn’s buttocks and squeezed the firm flesh. A special massage? Jake would happily give it, and—

“Ahem, sorry.”

Jake looked up and found himself eye to eye with one of the show’s runners, a keen young man in a track suit. “What the fuck?”

Locryn stepped back then scooped up the well-kneaded dough, bustling away across the kitchen as though nothing irregular had happened at all. Nothing irregular that had left a clear and doughy handprint on his tempting bottom.  

“I thought I’d left my clipboard in here.” The runner nodded over to the serving hatch. “Ah, there it is!”

Jake laughed. “Grab it and sod off, and I’ll see you tomorrow!”

Locryn called breezily, “I would’ve looked after it. Goodnight!”

“‘Night!” The runner grabbed the clipboard, then his eyes widened in surprise. “Mr. Trevorrow, you’ve got a—on your—erm…”

Jake willed Locryn to take the hint but instead he looked at the young man, his brow furrowed in confusion. Then he glanced over his shoulder and blushed a deep red.

“Clipboard,” Locryn told the runner with a bashful smile. “And grab a bun if you like.”

Terrible choice of words.

The runner glanced at Jake and Jake furiously rubbed a cloth over his hand. “Thanks, Mr. Trevorrow!”

And as the runner hurried off, Jake saw him pick up a cream horn.

It would be.

The door closed with a tinkle from the bell and the two men were alone again. Locryn drew in a deep breath then said with just a hint of mischief, “Oops!”

“Well, I wonder what they’ll be talking about in the guest house tonight?” Jake said as he picked the last bits of dough off his fingers.

“I’ll deliver the loaf there once it’s baked.” Locryn laughed. “It’s the least I can do to go with the gossip.”

“The sensual loaf? It’s a baguette, right?”

“I’m afraid it’s a standard white farmhouse. They’re perfect for teaching technique,” Locryn told him, tidying the worktop. “But a standard white farmhouse has plenty to recommend it too. Shall we have a wander up to your place? I’ll bring the saucy loaf along and bake it tonight.”

Jake zipped himself back into his leather jacket. “I won’t get lost in the dark with my very own local guide. I wonder what stray I’ll find on the way tonight? I’m hoping for a donkey!”

“I’ll introduce you to mine. They love making friends.”

Locryn put the dough carefully back into its bowl and covered it over with a tea towel, its jaunty sunflower print exactly what Jake had already learned to expect of him. He put on his coat and picked up the bowl, then balanced a small box on top of it and said, “Ready, Chef?”

“Ready, Baker!”

“Chef and Baker.” Locryn opened the café door onto the moonlit village. Jake could hear the soft lapping of the waves down on the beach, somewhere in the darkness. “That sounds like it deserves a Michelin star or two.”

“Oh, at least three!” Jake grinned. He was surprised to see Locryn offer his arm, ever the gentleman. Even Locryn looked surprised as he looked down at his own arm.

“Go on,” he teased. “Nobody’s going to see. Your fearsome reputation’s safe with me.”

“Well, if you insist!” Jake looped his arm through Locryn’s. He wasn’t used to wandering about arm in arm in public, he was more of a stride-along-hands-in-pockets sort of man. “Are you sure you’re not seducing me, Mr. Trevorrow?”

Locryn chuckled and admitted, “I wouldn’t know where to start. But I do have a little something for you in this mysterious cake box, which I hope might do the seductive job for me.”

“It’s not your haunted dildo, is it? No, hopefully you don’t have one of those!”

“I don’t need one!” Locryn’s laughter left Jake in no doubt that he was very much in on that particular joke. He nodded toward the box that rested atop the tea towel. “Go on, have a look.”

Jake unhooked their arms and opened the box. There inside it, innocent until it became an innuendo, was a cream horn.

“What’s the best way to tackle your cream horn, Loc? Shove it all in at once or do you suggest a gentle nibble?”

“My cream horn specifically? Never take a bite and try to suck out the cream—it won’t end well.” Locryn blinked, all innocence as he considered the question. “I suggest a gentle nibble to start with. Take your time. Savor it, let your lips caress it, taste it. And when you’re feeling confident, you can really settle down and enjoy it as enthusiastically as you like!”

Jake swallowed. His own cream horn had returned to his trousers. Locryn, in bed, stretched naked across a chintz quilt. What a picture that is.

“Well, you know me, I’m enthusiastic when it comes to food!”

“I imagine you have a healthy appetite.” Locryn glanced down, casual as anything. “I do do a rather good baguette, if I say so myself.”

“I know, one of your baguettes was pressing against me earlier!” Jake closed the box and linked his arm with Locryn’s again. They strolled along the harbor front, the only living souls as far as the eye could see, though Jake could hear seagulls crying overhead. “I was really fucking impressed by how fast your dough could rise.”

The Cornishman gave a laugh and admitted, “You had exactly the right kneading technique. How could it do anything but rise? We should practice together again, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, there’s more I need to learn. Much more.”

“And maybe we’ll share a Horlicks as well as a cream horn,” Locryn suggested, as saucy now as he had been prim earlier. It suited him though, Jake liked it. “I’ve been thinking about those pasties of yours. We need a neutral tasting panel, don’t we?”

“We do. What do you suggest?” Jake remembered the stacks of plastic boxes containing his hopeless prototypes. They paused and looked out through the bristling masts and fluttering pennants toward the open ocean, where stars were reflected on its surface like twinkling Christmas lights.

“I’ll put them out in the café tomorrow, free of charge.” The café? The place where Locryn supposedly created the most exquisite Cornish cream teas known to man? “And I’ll label them as tasty pasties, because if I put Cornish pasties, you won’t have a fair hearing. We can leave a little comment box and people can give their opinions. What do you think?”

Jake ran his hand back through his hair. Is this wise? “Oh, why not? But you have to read the comments first, and edit out the ones that might make me want to throw things.”

“I behaved badly earlier. But I am the king of Cornwall. And you are Captain Jake, they tell me.”

“Yeah, I am! Watch out or I’ll make you walk the plank on my pirate ship!”

Locryn chanced a kiss to Jake’s cheek and they strolled on, turning away from the harbor and into the narrow streets. They walked in contented silence between brightly painted cottages where soft lights glowed, catching the occasional snatch of a television program or the sound of laughter from within. It felt as though Porthavel was theirs and theirs alone, as though the pirate ship wedding might not turn into a catastrophe after all.

What would you call this feeling?

With a glance toward Locryn, Jake realized that it was contentment. There was no stress, no sense that it could all go wrong, just a peaceful sensation, as comforting as floating in a warm ocean. Was he finally relaxing?

Kneading dough was magic.

“Tell me about Jake,” Locryn said. “How on earth did you end up with boats as your gimmick when you drive round in a London bus on your programs?”

“Quite simple, really. The cheapest place I could find when I decided to set up my own restaurant was a retired canal boat café! The guys from the last kitchen I’d worked in took the piss and called me Captain Jake.” Jake laughed, thinking back to the faithful Lucy May on Regent’s Canal. To her traditional paintwork and the geraniums in salvaged buckets, to the small kitchen where he’d somehow managed to cook for thousands of people and made his name. “And after that, as you know, I ended up with an old party boat on the Thames. And I was set.”

Locryn laughed and said, “I wasn’t expecting that at all. How marvelous! I can’t imagine the sheer hard work that must’ve gone into a success like yours. No wonder you ended up being such a sweary so-and-so.”

“Hard work and luck!” Jake said. “Lucy May got a hole in her bottom—don’t laugh! And I would’ve lost her, I would’ve lost everything, if my canal boat family hadn’t leapt on board and bailed out!”

“Do you still have her?”

“She’s back to being a café again now. I let one of my staff have her. They’re doing quite well. Great coffee!”

“And leaf tea, I hope.” As they reached a bend in the road, Locryn paused. He turned and Jake turned with him, realizing as he did that they were now above Porthavel. Below them the village was laid out like a miniature, clustered around the harbor that gave it life and had, in the eye of the storm, taken it away. Locryn sighed softly and told Jake, “This is my family. My publisher and the TV people think I’m mad because I haven’t turned what I have into an empire, but then it wouldn’t be me, would it? Your restaurants are all you. That’s not luck, it’s passion.”

“Passion and being a tenacious bastard.” Jake put his arm around Locryn’s shoulder. “It’s a lovely place, Porthavel. I won’t lie, I cursed being sent here to start with. Well, okay, as you know, I passed out! But it’s grown on me, day by day, even if the weather did its best to get rid of me.”

“God, that was awful, I was worried sick.” Locryn tipped his head and let it rest on Jake’s shoulder. “I rang Fionn to ask how you were and she said you’d picked up food poisoning from a rival’s restaurant. She didn’t tell me who, but…not a very good advert for them!”

Jake could’ve clung to the lie, could’ve pretended that he was an indomitable male who never had a day off sick. But that wouldn’t have been true.

“Look, you should probably know, that wasn’t food poisoning.”  

He felt the soft sweep of Locryn’s hair as the baker lifted his head and told him, “If it was the goujons, it’s okay to tell me. I won’t bolt.”

“No, it wasn’t that.” Jake took a deep breath. Precious few people knew what was really wrong with him, and even Jake wasn’t that sure. “To cut a long story short, it’s stress. Boring old stress. At least, my doctor says so. My blood pressure’s a bit too high and…well, she reckoned that spending a couple of months in Cornwall was one of the best things I could do, but she didn’t factor in a pirate ship, a storm or my producer pissing everyone off and breaking her leg!”

“Stress?” Locryn pronounced the word as though it were the most extreme obscenity he could think of. Maybe it wasn’t a word he was familiar with, living here in this storybook village, living a charmed life. “Then you’re talking to the right man. And you’re in the right place to give it the heave-ho.”

“Seems like it,” Jake replied, cautious. He didn’t want to jinx anything. “Maybe I should take up breadmaking? It takes so long to do, and I’m thinking, maybe that’s good. Nice and slow. None of this—” Jake clicked his fingers, “Come on, come on, hurry up, out the way, get on with it nonsense which is all I ever hear in London.”

“But I’ll bet you’re putting plenty of pressure on yourself too, aren’t you? You’re the very best at what you do, that’s not an accident.”

Jake shrugged. He didn’t want to admit it, but Locryn was right. “I don’t know how to stop, that’s my problem. But I wouldn’t have come as far as I have if I’d just sat on my arse and picked my nose.”

“The thing with being the best—and I know, because I’ve got one of the best for a father—is that it’s addiction.” He put his arm around Jake’s waist, his hand resting on Jake’s hip. “You have to keep on surpassing yourself. Or rather, you think you do.”

Jake wondered what on earth Locryn meant. “But aren’t I meant to? I can’t go backwards, Loc! I can’t close everything down and go back to the Lucy May. Or to jobbing in other people’s kitchens.”

“No, but you can take a bit of time off and actually enjoy what you’ve struggled to create, can’t you?”

Can I?

The idea had never occurred to Jake before and he stood there in stunned surprise. Vague notions drifted in his mind but he couldn’t grasp any of them long enough to turn them into words. Instead, his mouth moved as if he was trying to speak, but no sound came out.

Until he managed to say, “I’d never thought of that before.”

“You could always think about it now,” Locryn suggested. His head settled against Jake’s shoulder once more. “There’s a lot to be said for looking at the ocean when you want to put things into perspective.”

The edge of the sea was illuminated by the harbor lights, and beyond the ocean was dark, nothing that Jake could see but he could feel it, somehow. And when he closed his eyes, he could hear it—the roll and splash of the waves drawing back and forth on the sand, the chuckle of water against barnacled hulls, the distant rippling cry of night birds somewhere in the dark.

The sea didn’t care how many restaurants Jake ran, how many Michelin stars he’d accumulated, how many top reviews or television shows he had to his name. But it didn’t leave Jake feeling bleak. Instead, something else stirred inside him, a connection to something infinite, something that was inside him as much as it was out there in the sea. An echo in his genes, perhaps, of a time before people, when his ancestors had lived under the waves.

They stood there in silence together, nothing pushing Jake to move, nobody clamoring at him for an answer, for a signature, for a moment in the limelight. Looking out over the edge of the land, as so many had before him over the centuries, he didn’t feel like ‘TV’s Jake Brantham’ anymore. He felt like the young man who had dreamed of glory, who had lain awake planning elaborate menus and whiled away his weekends experimenting in his mum and dad’s tiny kitchen with its old gas stove and the grill that never lit on the first try.

And it felt wonderful.

All the tension had gone from Jake’s body and his shoulders sagged. Not in a defeated way, but now Jake realized that it was his stress that had kept him going, had kept every muscle in his body taut.

And he didn’t need it. He didn’t need to be on point and raring to go when he should be raring to get to sleep. There wouldn’t be any restaurants if he kept blanking out.

“Yeah, maybe I do feel relaxed. A bit,” Jake said.

“And Dorothy’s waiting for a cuddle from her dad,” Locryn reminded him. “Let’s get you safely home to your little girl, and I can pick up those London pasties of yours ready for our unfocused focus group tomorrow.”

As his house came into view, the stones white with moonlight, Jake wondered how he could possibly have ended up lost the previous evening. It seemed like such a straightforward walk out of the village, but the ferocity of the storm had changed the very landscape itself. And he was glad it had, because he wasn’t sure he would be arm in arm with Locryn right now if it hadn’t. It felt oddly like coming home.

When he opened the front door, Dorothy trotted into the hallway then flopped down on the floor and rolled about.

“That’s quite a welcome!” Jake crouched down to stroke her, then she rubbed herself against Locryn’s legs. “It’s good to know she likes both of us!”

“She’s a lovely little thing. I wonder where she came from.” Locryn stooped so he could scratch behind Dorothy’s velvety ears. “I’ve had a wonderful night, in spite of the broken leg. Thank you, Jake, for not thinking I was an insufferable snob.”

Jake gently touched Locryn’s cheek before settling a soft kiss on his lips.

“I don’t suppose—” Jake shook his head. No, he couldn’t ask Locryn to stay. It was far too soon. In London he could start and finish a relationship within a week, but not in Porthavel. “I’ll help you load up Betsy.”

With the box containing the cream horn safely on the kitchen table under Dorothy’s, Locryn and Jake piled Betsy’s basket with the pasties, and nestled among the stacked containers was the bowl of dough, still covered with its bright tea towel. As Locryn stood at the door, holding the bike and its precious cargo steady, Jake knew that this was the right thing to do. Locryn was right too. Some things were better savored.

“I think that’s that.” Locryn smiled, chancing a cheeky ring of the bicycle bell. “Give my love to Fionn when you hear from her, and I’ll make sure everyone that comes in gets a pasty or a squab.”

“Don’t tell them I made them. I want them to be honest.” Although they probably would be honest, especially if they knew they were Jake Brantham creations. Jake gave Locryn one last hug. “I’ll see you around tomorrow then?”

He nodded. “Definitely. Why don’t I pop along to your galleon once the café’s closed? I can see how things are going and we can look at the feedback together.”

“I’d like that. And maybe I can cook dinner?”

“I’ll never say no to that. But don’t forget that cream horn, because Dorothy won’t!” Locryn leaned closer and kissed Jake softly on the lips. “Sweet dreams, Captain Jake.”

“Night-night!” Jake waved Locryn off, and once he’d rattled off across the uneven farmyard courtyard, Jake stood in the quiet for a while, enjoying the calm.

Then he went inside and was just in time to see Dorothy, claws extended, trying to take the lid off the cream horn’s box.

“That’s how we’ll fall out, young lady!”

Jake settled her for the night, then he headed upstairs with a cup of cocoa and the cream horn. It might not’ve been cocktails in a West End nightclub, but it seemed a much better way to end the day.