The Tides of Time - Book 2, The Porth Kerensa Series

Chapter Two

1992

It was odd, Vanessa thought, how some people could live happily in one place all of their lives, like Father and Vanessa herself. And others itched to escape, like Jessie and Jace. Now they’d left school all they did was talk about going to London and becoming famous. Vanessa thought they would have grown out of that now and started to make realistic plans for the future.

   Like Vanessa had.

   Vanessa Louise Harper was getting married in three weeks. Only twenty-two days until she married Rory Powell, the doctor’s son. Vanessa was so happy and excited that she was having trouble sleeping at night. Rory was the cleverest handsomest man she had ever met. She couldn’t believe he was going to marry her. They were going to live together in one of the new bungalows on the Lawn Estate, the other side of town. A gorgeous little house her father had bought for her and the newly qualified Dr Rory Powell.

   She was going to be the young doctor's wife! Sophisticated and beautiful, kind and gentle. She would make Rory so proud of her, for she loved him more than life itself. Vanessa sat in the pretty pink bedroom she would be leaving in under a month and remembered the first evening she realised Rory was the one for her. He had been away in London at medical school, but he came back for holidays occasionally and was the source of many an exotic dream amongst the young ladies of Porth Kerensa. Vanessa had always fancied Rory, but he was nine years older than her and she never truly believed he would ever look at her in that way.

   Not until the Christmas Dance, 1990.

   Vanessa had been just seventeen. She had been escorted to the dance by a boy she knew from school. She had danced one dance with Luke Murray when Rory cut in smoothly and whirled her away for the rest of the evening. He danced her off her feet and bought her drinks. He smoothed the hair from her face and he kissed her beneath the glittering lights of the dance. At the end of the evening Luke asked her in a small hurt voice if he could walk her home and Vanessa said no.

   She and Rory spent every day of his holiday together. They walked across the wet sand holding hands, telling each other everything. They kissed in the shelter of the caves and held each other tight against the wind.

   Rory went back to London and Vanessa wrote to him everyday. She got a job as a receptionist in Newquay and stopped going to the pub every night with Alice. Instead she spent her evenings sitting in her bedroom learning to sew and knit. She badgered Mrs Anderson to teach her how to keep house and begged Louis, the chef, to teach her how to cook. She was so sincere in her efforts and with her praise of their talents that they willingly taught her all she needed to know. Being the daughter of a rich man would stand her no stead as the wife of a doctor.

   Rory asked her to marry him on her eighteenth birthday and Vanessa didn’t hesitate to say yes. She could think of nothing she’d rather do than live in Porth Kerensa with Rory and their children for the rest of her life. She’d thought of her mother then and shivered. This life had not been enough for Selina Harper, but Vanessa wasn’t her mother. She hugged Rory tight and promised to love and cherish him always. He’d kissed her and told her he knew she would.

   Now, over a year later, it was so close to becoming Vanessa’s reality that she hardly dared believe it. She’d said as much to Jessie at their last dress fitting. Jessie had sniffed and declared Vanessa was becoming very boring with all her talk of love and Vanessa had smiled loftily. She had seen the way Jace looked at his best friend. She was surprised Jessie hadn’t seen it too; he hardly hid it. Typical Jessie, she was a tomboy through and through.

   She glanced at her watch and jumped up. Rory was arriving home from London in three hours. Vanessa had to start getting ready. She skipped into the bathroom she shared with Jessie to run a long hot scented bath. She smiled happily at the thought of the huge fluffy dark green towels that were in her airing cupboard in the new bungalow.