“This is where you wanted to go after visiting my mum?” I quizzed. “The pier? You want to go walking?”
“Yep,” he chirped. “The last time I walked to the end of this pier and stared out at the ocean was with you . . . I don’t like being here without you.”
I had no idea what to say to that, so I followed his lead by getting out of the car. Risk pressed on the car fob and locked the vehicle. I fell in step next to him and we began walking towards the pier’s entrance. It was night-time, so the café, restaurant and gift shops along the pier were closed. It was freezing out too so we were the only idiots dumb enough to be outside walking, but I kind of liked it. I liked that we had the place all to ourselves. Even though it was very cold, the ocean was calm and there was only a slight breeze.
“I can’t wait for spring,” I said as we walked, slipping my ice-cold hands into my pockets. “I’m so fed up with the cold.”
“Really? I don’t mind it.”
I glanced up at him. “You live in LA; the winters there are pretty much our summers.”
Risk smiled, then he fixed his scarf in place, hiding most of his face from me. I wished I had brought a scarf of my own because my nose was so cold that it stung. I was confident that I already had wind burn on my cheeks too.
“God, I’ve missed that smell.” Risk inhaled deeply and exhaled with a satisfied sigh. “Cool, salty air and no humidity.”
I chuckled. “I guess I don’t notice the smell anymore since I’ve never left.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that,” Risk said. “Have you never gone on holiday anywhere?”
“Nope,” I answered. “For lots of reasons. The main one is my mum, I was never comfortable with leaving her even in the early days of her illness. Another is money, I had to save every penny so I could buy my cottage off Michael upfront without needing to apply for a mortgage.”
Risk jerked his head in my direction.
“You own the cottage?”
“Yeah.” I shivered as a breeze swirled around us. “I bought it two years ago. Michael wanted to just give it to me, can you believe that?”
“Well, yeah, I can,” Risk replied. “You and him are very close now compared to what I remember of you both.”
“We are,” I agreed. “But I wasn’t about to let him just give me a four-hundred-thousand-pound cottage. It’s tiny but the location is what makes the property value so high. Michael wouldn’t take a penny over fifty thousand, though. I tried to work out a deal to triple it, but he refused.”
“Why did you fight him so hard on it?”
“It’s just the way I am,” I shrugged. “I’ve always had to work for what I had and even though it’s not much, I earned it. I guess I felt like I was robbing Michael if I just accepted the cottage from him. Paying him, even though it was such a small fee compared to the house’s value, made me feel better. Like it was well and truly mine.”
“So that little place is all yours?”
“Yep,” I smiled. “I love it more than ever.”
“I think you should invest in getting taller door-frames,” Risk commented, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “It’d be nice not to have to duck every time I came by your place.”
Was he planning on coming by often? I was too chicken to ask.
I snickered. “I’ll add it to my to-do list.”
We walked down to the very end of the pier and we both leaned against the railing and stared out at the ocean of darkness. In the distance, the lights of a ship could be seen, as well the flashing red light of a buoy. A wisp of light coated the waterfront for a second or two before disappearing only to return. I glanced over my shoulder and smiled at the lighthouse before I returned my attention forward.
“You always smile when you look up at the lighthouse. Why?”
“Because it’s operational,” I glanced up at Risk. “When the light of the lighthouse is working every night, it makes me happy because if someone gets lost out on this side of the ocean, they can follow our light all the way to Southwold where they’d be safe. That light is a beacon to someone’s darkness.”
“If everyone thought like you did, Cherry,” Risk nudged me with his elbow. “There would be fewer wars.”
I smiled, then I closed my eyes and hummed with content. Listening to the gentle clash of the waves on the beach not far away, and the slosh of the water against the support legs of the pier gave me a sense of peace that filled me from my head all the way down to my toes.