Chapter 76

Sara’s ride arrived right on time, taking her out deep into the beautiful Cornish countryside, where she took huge numbers of photos of the hunt, immensely happy to be using a digital camera, where she didn’t need to keep changing film - just keep on taking photos until the batteries were exhausted! Tonight, she could upload them all to her laptop, freeing up her camera memory again. By mid afternoon, the hunt was over, except for a very few diehards who were hacking home, scorning the horseboxes, and she was glad when her ride offered to take her back to the hotel.

When they got into the car, Sara turned her cellphone back on - she didn’t need the distraction when she was working. They were almost back to her hotel when she was shocked to suddenly hear Jon’s voice, accompanying the vibration of her phone.

“Hey gorgeous - it’s me - pick up the phone!” It began to repeat, and she realised what Jon had been doing with her cellphone the other day - he’d set a new ringtone - in the form of this personal recording - for any calls from his cellphone. Despite herself, and carefully not looking at the driver, Sara smiled as she answered the call.

“Hello.”

“Hi baby. How are ya?”

“I’m fine. Tired. Were you messing with my phone the other day?”

“Oh! Shit - I forgot about that! Am I in trouble again?”

“Well, I answered the phone, so what d’you think?”

Jon chuckled, and Sara felt her belly knotting at the sound. God, she missed him.

“Hey - how did the show go last night?” She asked, suddenly remembering he was in Florida, and wondering how she’d forgotten, considering the way they’d parted company.

“It was okay, I guess. I didn’t really want to do it, but Richie gave me a verbal ass-kicking, so it was okay.”

As Jon spoke, Sara heard another familiar voice in the background.

“Is that Sara?”

“Yeah……..hey!”

There was the sound of the phone being grabbed, then another voice came on the line.

“Sara?”

“Hi Richie. How are you?”

“I’m great, now that our primadonna here is happy again. How ‘bout you?”

In the background, Sara heard another plaintive ‘hey’ from Jon at Richie’s description, and she giggled.

“That was a bit unfair Richie! I’m fine, though. Now.”

“So.” Richie put on his best Sopranos-style voice. “You want I should kick his ass for ya? For upsetting my girl?”

“No, Richie. If you’d asked me a day or so back, I’d have probably said yes - but only if I could watch - but it’s okay now!”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Richie was serious again. “Okay, girl, I’ll give you back to Jon. I’ll see ya soon, though, right?”

“Well, I’m over here another couple of weeks, but I’ll be home soon enough. Bye Richie.”

Jon came back on the line, and they spoke for a few minutes longer, but a phone call really wasn’t enough to let them work through their recent problems, and Jon felt vaguely dissatisfied when they said goodbye. Although Sara was at least talking to him again, there was a definite coolness in her voice which worried him. As he laid his phone on the table and reached for his coffee, he realised that the four guys were staring at him.

“What?”

“Bro, you need to talk to Sara.” Richie told him.

“I just did.” Jon missed Richie’s meaning, and his buddy gave a despairing headshake.

“I mean, you need to go see her. Don’t wait until she comes home - go over to the UK and sort this out. Trust me,” Richie gave a rueful grin, very conscious of Ava sitting there, “the longer you leave something like this, the harder it is to fix it.”

Jon looked across the table, seeing Dave and Tico nodding wisely, and he was reminded how they had both already gone through divorces, so maybe they did know what they were talking about. He sighed heavily.

“Much as I hate to admit it, I think you’re right, Rich.” Jon thought for a few minutes. “I could fly over tomorrow - Sara’s working, but she’s off Tuesday and Wednesday. I can find out where she’s staying, I think, so all I need to do is get a flight over.”

Now that he’d made the decision, Jon couldn’t wait to get going, and Dave laughed suddenly.

“I wish you could see yourself, Jon - you look like you did when Dot first agreed to go out with you.”

“Yeah.” Tico’s gravelly voice joined the good-natured teasing. “And I heard that you even washed dishes for this girl?”

Groaning, Jon buried his head in his hands as everybody laughed at him - even Ava.

“Certainly sounds like love to me.” Dave opined, and Jon thrust out his hands in a very Italian ‘Well, what can I say?’ gesture, grinning.

They finally moved on out of the restaurant, their extended breakfast having taken them up almost all the way to lunchtime, and Jon called his long-suffering assistant, sweet talking her into sorting out his travel arrangements for the next day. When he hung up the call, Richie was shaking his head at him again.

“Jesus, man - I need to get an assistant like yours. You call her up on a Sunday, and she doesn’t just hang up on you? How come?”

“Have you seen the size of her paycheck?” Jon laughed as he headed into his room to pack up his stuff.

While Jon was packing, his assistant called to let him know she’d sorted out his flights, telling him which airline and the time. Fortunately his passport lived permanently in his travel bag, because she’d booked him to fly out of Florida, then a private plane down to Newquay. She asked about accommodation, but he told her that it was already under control - well, with any luck he’d be back sharing Sara’s bed, though obviously he didn’t mention that to his gossipy secretary! If he and Sara couldn’t sort things out, then accommodation would be the least of his worries.

He went to Richie’s room, thumping on the door until it was opened from inside by a grouchy Ava.

“Daddy’s in his room.” She told him, heading right back to the TV.

Jon grimaced - sometimes Ava was so like Heather that it was downright scary! He went into the bedroom, where Richie was stuffing clothes into a bag.

“Oh, hey Jon. What’s up?”

“Nothin’. I’m flying from here to London tomorrow, so I thought you and Ava may as well take the plane back to LA.”

“Cool. Thanks, bro. Give Sara my love when you see her.”

“Yeah, sure.”

They hugged like brothers do - even though they were unrelated, Jon felt closer to Richie than he did to his real brothers most of the time, just because of all the things they’d shared through the years. Jon kissed a distracted Ava as he left, stopping briefly in his own room to put on a baseball cap and his sunglasses - if he wasn’t going home, he’d need some more clothes! It was always funny how just a cap and glasses allowed him to shop unrecognised, most of the time anyway.

He walked down to a nearby mall, quickly finding a couple of pairs of Levis and a few tshirts. Standing waiting to pay, he saw a tshirt that just screamed Sara’s name, so he ducked out of the queue to pick one up, then paid for his purchases. The sales assistant, whose nametag read ‘Ana’, did a serious double-take when he handed over his credit card, and Jon braced himself for the inevitable autograph request, but she merely asked him to punch in his verification number, then handed over his bag and receipt with a smile.

“Thank you. Have a …… good day, Mr Bon Jovi.”

Jon grinned as she avoided using the phase ‘Have a nice day’, whose connotations had been forever changed for so many people by their recent song. His grin got even broader as she blushed when he answered with a wink.

“Thank YOU, darlin’. You have a good day, too.”

While Jon leisurely strolled back to his hotel and spent a wonderfully lazy afternoon by himself, across in the UK a tired Sara was uploading all her photos onto her laptop and reviewing them until she finally dozed off, only waking when her forehead hit the keyboard. She decided enough was enough, and got ready for bed, especially since she had another early pick-up time the next day. At least, though, she had Tuesday and Wednesday off, so she’d be able to relax a little then.

The next day was almost a repeat of Sunday, although this time it was the North Cornwall hunt, so it was over a different area of country. This time, Sara took all her stuff with her, as she was being taken to a new hotel for her couple of days off.

Monday morning, before his flight, Jon called Sara’s studio and spoke to Paul, who luckily didn’t seem to have heard about the fight. He readily enough gave Jon the name and address of the hotel Sara would be in that night, when Jon said he was going to send her some flowers. He did have to spell it for Jon, though - ‘Seiners’ and ‘Perranporth’ weren’t exactly words Jon was familiar with! While he sat in the cab going to the airport, though, he didn’t feel the excitement he’d felt while heading up to Canada to surprise Sara - more a nervous trepidation, praying that they could get through this, and very, very aware that it was entirely his own fault. That even made it worse, knowing it had all been avoidable if only he’d engaged his brain before putting his mouth in gear!

Jon tried to call Sara just before his flight boarded, but her cellphone was turned off, and he vaguely remembered her mentioning once that she switched it off when she was working, so she wouldn’t get distracted. He left a quick message, telling her he’d be busy all day, but he’d call her the next morning. He said again that he missed her and loved her, then said goodbye and put his phone off.

When the day’s hunting was over - a good scenting day over the high stone walls having provided some spectacular scenes for Sara’s cameras - her guide/driver took her down to the small seaside village of Perranporth. He drove her to the Seiners Arms hotel, situated right at the beach, where he said goodbye. She checked in and was shown up to a room which overlooked the beach. After laying down her luggage and taking a look out of the window, Sara couldn’t resist, and she went back downstairs to take a walk on the beach. The girl on the front desk looked up as she approached, asking Sara if there was a problem with the room.

“No, it’s great, thanks. I’m just going to take a walk on the beach.”

“Oh, okay. You can either go through the car park, or if you go out this door here and turn left, you’ll find some steps at the far end, and those take you right onto the beach.”

Sara said thanks, then took the girl’s advice, going through a small gate and down a flight of stone steps onto the pale sand. She had to cross a wide but shallow stream to get onto the main part of the beach, so she kicked off her sandals and rolled her jeans to her knees, then waded through to the other side.

She walked down to the water’s edge, seeing a few surfers out at the breakline, watching them for a while as she wandered along in the shallows, enjoying the chill of the Atlantic water on her feet. After half an hour or so, she turned and realised just how far she’d walked - there was a cliff between her and the hotel! She began to walk back, getting forced closer to the cliffs by the encroaching tide.

There was a large building up ahead, and Sara veered toward it when she saw the sign that said ‘fresh coffee’. The place was called The Watering Hole, and it seemed to be staffed exclusively by surfers. There was a definite drop in the conversation level when Sara walked in, because she was a stranger, Sara guessed. The young guy at the bar was more than happy to take her order, trying to make small talk while he poured the coffee. Sara chatted for a few minutes, introducing herself when the guy offered his own name, but she just wasn’t in the mood to talk, so she paid for her coffee and took it to an outside table, sitting slowly drinking it while the sun sank toward the horizon.

Before the light faded completely, she walked back to the hotel where she ate a lonely dinner before heading upstairs for the night.