Page 23 of Not Just for Christmas

Chapter 12

Dylan settled himself into his suite in the first-class cabin of the transatlantic flight. The tour was over, his commitments all honoured and now he could relax. Next stop London.

His plan was to clear his inbox of urgent emails, then make the most of a few hours of uninterrupted peace, listen to music, watch a film and sleep.

His PA had printed out a travel itinerary for him, and he pulled it from the breast pocket of his shirt to look at. The amount of flights he took, countries he visited, and time zones he passed through meant it was impossible to hold his schedule in his head; he didn’t even try anymore.

He’d land in London tonight, and even though he was itching to get to the farm, he’d been booked into a hotel for the night. Farmers went to bed early and the last thing he wanted to do was disturb Lucy when she was already asleep. Then a car would drive him to Devon in the morning in plenty of time to see Sam’s show at school.

A member of the cabin crew stopped by with a glass of Champagne. He smiled and declined the guy’s offer. Booze would just make him tired, and he had some work to do before he’d allow himself to sleep.

‘Could I get a selfie?’ the flight attendant asked quietly, ‘I try to get selfies with all our celebs.’

Dylan did his best to hide his disappointment; he’d been enjoying that moment of peace and quiet. He read the flight attendant’s name badge. ‘Sure, Rayner, before we land, I promise we can. Right now, I’m just going to get settled in.’

‘Of course, of course.’ Rayner nodded discreetly. ‘Got it.’

Dylan turned on his laptop and read through his emails. There were several outstanding ones, but the most pressing was a message forwarded from the RNLI by his lawyer. After Jack died, he’d felt the need to do something positive in his best friend’s name. Something that would have been meaningful to Jack. But for over a year, he hadn’t worked out what. He’d already set up a savings fund for Sam when was born, and no matter how often he’d asked Lucy if there was anything she needed, anything he could do to help her out, the answer had remained a hard no. Then a conversation with Jack had come back to him about the volunteers who manned the lifeboat crew and what a vital, but underfunded service they provided. Fast forward to now and Dylan had made an anonymous donation, via his lawyer, which he was told would make a real difference to the bay where he had first met Jack and Lucy all those years ago.

There had been a lot of paperwork, but now the transaction was complete. This final email from his lawyer was to let him know that by Christmas a brand-new lifeboat would be entering into the Craggy Bay fleet, and that if ever the anonymous donor should decide to change their minds the RNLI would gladly give them a tour of it.

No, thanks. Dylan shook his head and typed his response. As far as he was concerned, he’d done what he set out to do: to make the ocean a safer place, just as Jack would have wanted. It wasn’t about him. End of story.

Within fifteen minutes, Dylan had dealt with the most pressing emails in his inbox, the aircraft doors had been closed, and the crew began to prepare the cabin for take-off.

Dylan picked up his phone to text Lucy with an update.

Flight looks like it’s departing on time. See you tomorrow morning your time. Say hi to Sam from me.

Lucy’s response arrived straight away.

You’re definitely coming? Sam will be very happy. Me too, obviously.

Of course I’m coming. Did you think I’d cancel?

He watched the flashing dots on his screen telling him that she was writing a response. It seemed to take an age.

Your track record is not entirely unblemished, Dylan. I can deal with your unavoidable change of plans. Sam’s feelings are more easily bruised.

Ouch. He’d forgotten how blunt she could be. He wasn’t sure how to respond safely to that in a way that wouldn’t provoke her. After all, she was right. Sometimes cancelling plans last minute had been unavoidable because of work. He’d put music ahead of everything from Sam’s last birthday party to even almost missing his sister’s wedding. But occasionally there’d been times like when Jack invited him to come surfing with him, he’d simply not been able to face being there, third wheeling in Lucy and Jack’s company. Because as much as he loved them, sometimes seeing them together served only to make him realise what he was missing out on.

He tapped out several messages only to delete them:

I’m sorry

Guilty as charged

From nowhere some lyrics drifted into his brain and he opened his notes on his phone, and typed them quickly before they evaporated.

There are things I cannot say, my guilty heart gets in the way.

He stared at what he had written, emotions twisting in his chest. He liked that. Out of context it was pretty generic, but it meant something to him, it was authentic, and that felt good.

He closed his notes and began to compose a suitable reply to Lucy again, but before he could type anything, a handwritten note appeared over his privacy screen, long manicured fingernails just visible. Dylan took it and read it.

Sorry to disturb you, but my daughter is a massive fan of yours. We took her to your concert in Miami for her thirteenth birthday and she talked about it for a whole year straight. Could I have a photo with you? It would make her Christmas. Thanks, Joleen

Dylan felt his heart sink at being recognised. Once the attention had been drawn to the guy in seat four, other people would get curious and want to find out who he was. Before he knew it, he’d be posing for selfies with half the passengers on the plane.