Midsummer's Magic

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 

Beth started to do some more unpacking and setting up her office while thinking over her meeting with Liam. She had to admit that, yes; he was a good-looking guy. A very good-looking guy, and she remembered the feeling of losing herself in those dark blue eyes and the strange tingling in her stomach. Come on, she thought, it was just lust. A natural reaction to a hunk, nothing more because she didn't do more, did she? As her mind drifted, the Stanley knife she was using to cut the tape on a box slipped and slashed the back of her hand. "Ouch, shit," she cried.  

As she looked at the blood oozing over her hand, other pictures came into her mind: Her mother lying in a bath, her wrists slit, the water red from her blood, and her frantic attempts to wake her up. The fourteen year old that she was at the time screaming and shaking her mother, her hands red and slick with her mother's blood. She crumbled to the floor, hitching her legs up, and wrapping her hands around her knees as sobs racked her body and the tears flowed freely down her cheeks. That was why she didn't do love and relationships. Her mother was devastated when her father left them and couldn't bear the thought of living without her 'one true love,' as she called him. Obviously, her mother's love for her didn't run quite so deep as to consider the fact that she was also leaving Beth alone.  

She sat huddled in the middle of her living room floor until the sobs finally stopped. Wiping her palm across her face, she stood up and ran up to the bathroom to splash cool water on her face and clean up the cut on the back of her hand. She looked up into the mirror at the tear-ravaged face staring back at her. Oh yes, she thought, no one was ever getting that close to her. She would never let anyone cause so much hurt that she would lose the will to live.  

She had toughened up, had to as her father had disappeared. She was pushed from one relative to the next until she was sixteen, then left to fend for herself. She had worked various jobs, waitress, cleaner anything she could get her hands on to earn enough to put herself through art college. Well, she had done it on her own. It had been tough, but she had managed to carve out a career for herself. Illustrating books as a freelance artist, she had the freedom to come and go as she pleased. When anyone got too close like Steve, she just took off, ran away. Oh no, she was never going to be tangled in a relationship. She was a loner. She enjoyed guys and sex, but that was enough as far as she was concerned. 

She grimaced at her red, swollen eyes, splashed some more water on her face, and decided to get back to sorting out the cottage. She worked hard. Finally, after getting some sort of order to her belongings, setting up her office, unpacking her computer and desk, thirst took her back to the kitchen. She noticed that the clock on the cooker said 2PM. Well, she thought, time to freshen up and take a stroll into the village for some lunch.  

By two-thirty, she had showered and changed into an ankle length white flowing skirt and matching vest top. Slipping on her sandals, she grabbed her bag and started down the lane towards the village. Her wild, flowing locks had been tied up into a scrunchy, still wet from her shower. The sun was so hot that it would soon dry on her walk. Reaching the end of the lane, she walked into the village. There wasn't much more than one road lined with cottages built mainly from the granite so easily found in Cornwall. There were a hairdressers, pubs, and shops. That was about it. Looking around, she decided to introduce herself to the locals in one of the shops that also doubled as the village post office. She would be using it often after all. As she walked past the pub towards the shop, she noticed a few tables by the small, front entrance and the admiring glances of a group of four lads who sat drinking there.