Read Online Someone Like You by Victoria Purman - Free Book Online Page B

attempt to get Lizzie to help him hadn’t worked. He was clearly pushing back, trying to put a distance between them. Lizzie felt foolish all of a sudden; she should have gone with her first instinct, which was to do exactly the same. Instead, she’d let herself be distracted by his handsome sadness.
    At the sound of girlish shrieks of laughter, Lizzie turned back to the sand and watched two young women contemplate the water. As they ran into the waves, their tanned knees rose up like prancing ponies. They were happy, giggling, calling to each other, clad in tiny, precarious bikinis that wouldn’t survive a strong wave. She wondered where they got their mysterious confidence and more importantly, where hers had gone. Part of it was back in London, she knew. Maybe she would never get it back.
    The girls ran deeper and then ducked under a wave like dolphins, emerging from the other side of the foam, squealing. Fifteen years before, that was her and Julia. She shook the thought away. So much had happened in those years, enough that she’d chosen to be tethered to the safety and comfortable regularity of Middle Point, as reliable and certain as the waves on the sand and the wind in the southern sky.
    Lizzie turned her attention back to the horizon, judging each wave as it rolled towards her. Some looked impressive, boastful even, full of foam and height but they petered out quickly. They were a trick for beginners. They looked strong but left you hanging, unsatisfied.
    Since London, she’d learned to be patient, to wait for a strong one, could tell by the foaming caps and the strength of the undertow if the next wave would be strong enough to take her, would be worth launching herself at, body and soul, and then riding it, hanging on tightly as it propelled her to the sand in the perfect ride.
    Lizzie saw one ahead, could feel it rushing towards her. There was a sound, a roar with it and she waited. As it approached, she turned to face the beach, gripped her board and then launched herself onto the wave.
    And then she was off, the force of it hurtling her and her board towards the sand, a schoolgirl squeal on her lips. The growl and splash of the water, the roaring noise, blocked out every other sound and she imagined people on the beach were wondering what the hell that woman was laughing at as she rode the wave into the silvery water of the shallows.
    When her board skimmed the sand and came to a sudden stop, Lizzie rolled off it and sat there, grinning, feeling free and light and unburdened. The adrenalin still coursed through her and she caught her breath, her board banging against her calf, tethered to her by her wrist strap.
    Whatever was happening in her life, there was the comfort of this. The ocean. The beach. The Point she loved so much. In all her best times, and her darkest, all this had been her constant. They gave her no excuses, cut her no slack. The waves rolled on no matter what was going on in her life away from them.
    Her life. Lizzie held up a hand to shield her face from the harsh sun and the light it shone on her circumstances. Suddenly, lately, it had felt like she’d put that life on hold. For years, she’d been content to simply let things happen to her, whether by luck or circumstance. Life as a waitress at the pub, doing her bit for others around Middle Point, hiding away and sleepwalking through her life had been enough.
    Now, she yearned for more. Maybe it had been spurred on by Ry’s arrival and his purchase of the pub, the way he’d given it a much-needed injection of energy. The previous owners, while wonderful to Lizzie over the years, had been old-school, happy to let business continue as it had since the 1970s. When Ry had arrived in town, the first thing he’d done was guarantee all the staff their jobs. Lizzie had liked him immediately and liked him even more when he’d promoted her to the newly created position of manager. He’d made special mention of all the work she already did