Winter at Pretty Beach by Polly Babbington (inspirational books txt) 📕

‘Well, I think it looks wonderful. Remember when we had that morning tea with croissants in France? It’ll be the American breakfast version of that.’

‘Hope so, I’m starving - I’ve never really understood the going out for breakfast thing. I’d rather a cup of tea and toast when I first get up and something an hour later - something like one of your fry-ups.’

‘You do that anyway, even when you’re going out for breakfast!’

‘True.’ Ben laughed; he’d already had two cups of tea and a bagel while Sallie had been in the shower.

They got out of the car and opened the door to the diner. A shrill bell rang overhead and a fluorescent sign told them to wait to be seated by their server. A tiny, blonde woman with a red apron, heavily lined skin and a tight black, shiny collared shirt addressed them after studying the computer looking for a table.

‘Welcome to Shelley-Anne’s, y’all. I’ll take you to your table. Your server today will be Valerie-Joy.’ The woman said to them.

Sallie and Ben followed the tiny woman through throngs of booths, filled with people and topped with flasks of coffee. They walked all the way to the end where she stopped at a small booth for four next to the window with the lace curtains and handed them a large black plastic folder menu inserted with pages of breakfasts.

‘Think y’all will find something in there to fill you up,’ she bounced off and Sallie opened the menu. There were so many different versions of breakfast she didn’t know where to start; row after row of different variations of breakfasts filled the pages.

Valerie-Joy approached their table, took a pencil from behind her ear, pulled sets of cutlery wrapped in heavy napkins from her apron and asked them how they liked their coffee. Ben replied that he’d like a white coffee.

‘Oh my! You have the cutest accent,’ Valerie-Joy exclaimed. She broke into a wide grin, filled up their mugs with coffee from her jug and took their order.

Ten minutes later and two huge plates arrived - a thick stack of pancakes for Sallie, country fried links, eggs and grits for Ben.

‘There’s enough for me and the rest of the diner here, possibly for the whole town,’ Sallie whispered over to Ben who sat there looking at the huge pile of food in front of him.

Having made a good dent in the breakfast, washed it down with coffee and Valerie-Joy asking if they wanted dessert they sat in the little red plastic booth in a food coma discussing the competition and the entry from the trainee vet and his nurse bride. Sallie showed Ben the picture of the would-be bride sitting on a wall in the Yorkshire Dales with a flock of sheep behind her, legs dangling out in front, bright red lipstick and an enormous smile.

‘She looks amazing for what she’s been through,’ Ben observed as he looked at the picture on Sallie’s phone.

‘I know. Bless her. What a terrible ordeal and then to have her dad pass away before she could get him to walk her down the aisle.’

‘Have you had any other good entries yet?’ He asked, handing her back the phone.

‘Hundreds. It’s been overwhelming. Lucian’s had to pass it onto an offshore assistant. There’s a couple from Spain and one from Australia who also look good, but I don’t know, I think it would be nice to go with these two in Yorkshire - a vet and a nurse. They’ll spend their lives helping other people and it would be lovely to give back to them.’

‘Very true,’ Ben replied, ‘Looks like you’ve already got your answer then. I think their story was made for it.’

‘Maybe...’ Sallie replied.

Just as she put her phone back in her bag it buzzed with a message. She put in the passcode and opened the messages, read it and gasped.

‘What? What’s happened?’ Ben leant over the table and touched her arm.

‘It’s a message from Pete - Nina is being admitted to hospital!’

‘What? You only messaged her last night, didn’t you?’

‘Yep. She seemed fine. Just said she was feeling a bit wheezy again that was all,’ Sallie replied, looking up. ‘Oh my. What’s going to happen to Tillie? I may need to change my flights.’

Chapter 35

Ben pulled the car into the airport car park, jumped out of the back and took Sallie’s suitcase and tote bag from the boot. They started walking towards the airport check-in desks as driving rain started to soak through their coats.

The news from home had not improved. Nina had been admitted to hospital and according to Pete was not doing that well at all.

It had been a few days since the initial text in the diner where they were having breakfast and initially everyone had been telling Sallie and Ben that it was okay, that it was just precautionary and according to the doctors Nina would be out in a day or so. Nina had texted her telling her not to worry, everything was under control and Lilly was there for Ottilie to hold the fort. They’d been doing some tests the results of which hadn’t seemed too serious.

Then, all of a sudden, two days before Sallie was meant to be flying home while Sallie and Ben were on a scenic trip on the railroad another text had come in from Pete and then another from Holly. Pete had asked her to call him right away. She’d taken one look at the text and phoned him.

‘Yeah, hello Sallie. Look I don’t want to worry you but she’s gone downhill quite fast overnight. I just came in to visit seeing as she hasn’t really got anyone else here and, well, you know the situation with her mum and they couldn’t let me in. She’s being moved to Intensive Care. I thought you would want to know as soon as...’

Sallie had gone white and relayed the whole thing to Ben, asking him what he thought she should do. There were