And they’d walked down to breakfast together holding hands.
Belle Abbot holding hands with James Bennett while they walked through his huge, imposing castle on their way to breakfast like it was the most natural thing in the world.
She thought she might have a major panic attack at the very thought of settling into life by Jack’s side. She thought she’d spend all her time questioning his attraction to her and also questioning her trust in him. She thought she would make excuses to run away, to protect herself, it was too soon, there were too many ifs, she wasn’t good enough for him, she couldn’t feel safe with him.
She thought her mind, as it always had done, would work against her.
But none of that happened.
It was, for some reason, easy.
It seemed to come naturally.
And this, Belle was certain, was all because of Jack.
He was good with her and her crazy behaviour. He was also good with her crazy mother and grandmother. Further, he was good with his own crazy mother. And lastly, he was good with the equally crazy Yasmin.
He’d been overrun by women, crazy women, and he didn’t seem to care.
Not even a little bit.
What he seemed, and what Belle was taking a risk to believe, was a man who had a lot of patience, a bizarre (to Belle’s way of thinking) but ever present sense of humour, more than a little bit of tenderness and what appeared to be a lot of love.
Belle was betting everything important in her life (her sanity, her faith in her fellow man, things like that) that she was right.
That morning after breakfast, Jack had driven her to work while Olive went straight to the airport where he was going to fly them both to London. The gods were definitely smiling on them because the day before, after Jack had publicly spent the night in Belle’s cottage, the media were in a frenzy.
That morning, however, something else must have been happening in the world. There were half as many photographers and they hung back, none of them shouting questions.
Apparently, Jack and Belle were still news, just old news.
There were, she guessed, only so many pictures worth taking of Jack walking Belle to her store.
And for that, as she had done a half a dozen times that morning, she thanked her lucky stars.
Jack had left her at the store. After, of course, on the stairs, he’d given her a long, sweet, thorough kiss and told her to have a good day.
Belle’s mother had come later in the morning to be Belle’s newest shop assistant. Dirk had taken Mom under his wing and, even though the media seemed to be losing interest, the customers definitely weren’t. It was high season in St. Ives and Belle’s store was a crush. This happened during high season but, because of her recent spate of popularity in the papers, it had shot straight to ridiculous.
Belle was happy to leave Dirk and Mom in the shop while she, Nola and Carol saw to their business upstairs with Nola or Carol wandering down when things got too mad which wasn’t often. Dirk was Super Shop Assistant. He was the only man Belle knew who could multitask and do it while charming every customer into buying that one, do-I-really-need-that? item which he did by giving them a blinding grin. That was it. He said nothing, just grinned at them.
It made for a brilliant day.
It also helped knowing she’d be going home to the criminally handsome Jack Bennett, the father of her child and, apparently, the real-life, walking, talking, breathing, kissing, making love, showering together and holding hands man of her dreams.
She only had two moments that caused blips in her day and they came back to back.
The first was when she was alone in the workroom, Nola off to get sandwiches, Carol downstairs to help with the crush.
Belle was drawing a pattern for a new blouse she was going to introduce when the vision of Davey and Penny, sightless and lifeless, their limbs floating eerily in the water, seared through her brain.
At the memory, she pulled in a deep, horrified breath at the same exact moment her mobile rang.
The display said, “Jack Calling”.
Belle stared at the phone, stunned for a second then picked it up and hit the green button on the screen answering it in a quiet voice by asking, “How did you know?”
There was silence then Jack queried, “Belle?”
She didn’t respond to his call, instead she repeated, “How did you know I needed you to call?”
Jack’s voice no longer sounded questioning. It sounded alert when he enquired, “What’s happened?”
She shook her head, realised he couldn’t see her and answered, “Nothing. I just, two seconds ago, remembered Davey and Penny. Then you called as if you knew I needed you to call. How did you know?”
“Poppet,” he replied, his voice soft and warm, “I wish I could tell you I knew you needed me but I didn’t. I was calling to tell you I wouldn’t be home for dinner.”
“Oh,” Belle murmured.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes.”
More silence then, “Belle.”
“Really, Jack, I’m fine,” she assured him, though she wasn’t.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that it was uncanny, the minute her mind had filled with terrible, frightening images and, even though she didn’t consciously think it, unconsciously, she needed him and all of a sudden he called.
There was something weird about that.
Wonderful but weird.
“Poppet –” she heard him call softly in her ear.
“Jack, I’m fine,” she repeated, stronger this time.
There was silence a moment then he asked, “Will you walk the dogs?”
Belle didn’t like the sound of that and enquired, “How late are you going to be?”
“You’ll wake up next to me.”
Holy heck.
“That sounds like it means you’ll be really late,” she whispered tentatively.
“Yes, my love,” he replied cautiously.
“Does that mean you’ll be…” she paused, her heart clenching, she swallowed and then asked in a rush, “flying in the dark?”
He didn’t answer her question instead he declared, “I’ll be safe.”
“Will you be flying in the dark?” she asked again.
“Maybe,” he answered, his tone still cautious.
“Oh my goodness gracious,” she breathed.
“Poppet, I’ve flown in the dark before.”
“Okay,” she replied swiftly, thinking it best that she didn’t think at all about him flying in the dark. It was hard enough driving in the dark when you had headlights and even high beams.