Heart to Heart

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter 1 - Heart of the Matter

Chapter 2 - Home is Where the Heart is

Chapter 3 - Heart Attack

Chapter 4 - Queen of Hearts

Chapter 5 - From the Heart

Chapter 6 - Heartland

Chapter 7 - Heartbreak

Chapter 8 - All Heart

Chapter 9 - Heart-Shaped

Chapter 10 - Heart-Stopping

Chapter 11 - Heartburn

Chapter 12 - Bravehearts

Chapter 13 - Taken to Heart

Chapter 14 - Heart-Throb

Chapter 15 - Heartfelt

Chapter 16 - Wild at Heart

Chapter 17 - Cold-Hearted

Chapter 18 - King of Hearts

Chapter 19 - Sweethearts

Chapter 20 - Heart of Gold

Chapter 21 - Heart-Warming

Chapter 22 - Hearts in the Right Place

Copyright

About the Publisher

heart of the matter

The sky above Coral curved like the inside of a giant beach ball, dipping and fading to blue before gently dissolving into the ocean’s horizon. She squinted at the edge of the world, her red-brown hair curled like a head of bedsprings, bobbing around her. The horizon definitely looked like the edge of the world. It was the edge of her world, anyway.

She scanned the enormous sandpit before her. The beach that morning was full of children with their buckets and spades, making shapes out of the soft, warm sand. A boy dripping wet from head to toe raced out of the sea before flopping, belly-first, on to a patch of dry sand. He rolled left and right until every bit of him was gritty and yellow before tiptoeing up to where a woman stood waiting to catch a Frisbee. Before she could do anything to stop him he had given her a full-body hug. She yelped. He laughed gleefully.

The sky above was suddenly filled with a whirring sound and an aeroplane droned across the sky with a long canvas tail that seemed to flick and ripple in the wind. Coral stared with a wrinkled nose until it was almost overhead. The canvas tail had a message: BEST OF LUCK SARA AND JEFF… LOTS OF LOVE.

The aeroplane continued on its way, as if to the sun, pulling the flying message across the sky. Coral shook her head. She was suddenly annoyed. Just who had wished Sara and Jeff the best of luck? Would Sara and Jeff know?

“Coral? Coral, can you hear me?’

Coral turned towards her best friend. “Mmm?”

“You actually have to move the broom to make a difference.”

Coral stared at the broom she held like a dance partner in her arms. There was a dent in her forehead from where she’d been resting against it. Her friend was right, she hadn’t done much sweeping. The thing was - she hated sweeping the beach hut. Unfortunately, her friend Nicks hated sweeping too. So every week they were taking it in turns. It was just that it always felt like it was her turn.

“What’s the hurry, Nicks?” Coral grumbled. After all, they were on their summer holiday.

Suddenly, and without warning, there was a loud thump-whack sound coming from the glossy red beach hut next door.

Both girls’ heads spun in the direction of the hut. They stared, silent and blinking.

“Did you hear that?” whispered Coral.

“Oh yes.” Nicks’s reply sounded like a hiss.

“We didn’t imagine it then?”

Nicks shook her head slowly. This wasn’t the first time they’d heard strange noises coming from the neighbouring glossy red beach hut either. And yet they had never ever (ever) seen a single soul enter or leave the place. It was always locked up tight with its shutters closed like two sleeping eyes.

Just then a shadow flitted across the window, and then it was gone.

“Did you see that?” gasped Coral, her lips hardly moving at all. She didn’t want the watcher to know she was talking.

Nicks nodded and gulped. She had definitely seen that.

They both stood still and silent, staring - almost wishing for another sight or sound because that might just offer some perfectly obvious explanation as to what they’d just seen and heard.

All of a sudden a dog started yapping. Both girls jumped like they’d been electrocuted. But it was only Romeo, Coral’s Jack Russell pup.

“Romeo!” they both groaned aloud. Romeo took his guard dog duties very seriously.

“We’re probably just being silly,” said Nicks. “I’m sure the noises aren’t anything.” Nicks had always been a sensible sort of girl. She’d never been the type to get tangled up in an overactive imagination, and she didn’t want to start now.

“But I definitely heard and saw something,” insisted Coral.

Nicks shrugged.

“We’ve heard strange noises coming from the red hut before,” insisted Coral.

“It’s the first time we’ve seen anything strange though,” replied Nicks reasonably.

“So what should we do about it? Who should we tell?” said Coral.

“Tell about what?” sighed Nicks. “We’ve no proof that there’s anything strange going on.

OK, we’ve heard a few noises… so what?”

That was true. Coral thought a bit more about this. Nicks had a point: apart from a thump-whack and a vague shadow, what else did they really have?

“So what should we do?” she asked instead.

“We should finish cleaning the beach hut and then concentrate on Cupid Company business,” replied Nicks sensibly.

Coral nodded. Of course Nicks was right. Cupid Company business should always come first. After all, it was what the hut was all about now.

Coral had inherited the hut from her Great-Aunt Coral, but it wasn’t long before it had become more than just a beach hut. It had become home to the little business they had set up - the business of love and matchmaking. And so far, they’d had two success strikes - Coral’s cousin Archie and Gwyn, and Charlie (daughter of the next-door beach hut owners) and Jake.

Coral sighed dreamily. The path of true love could be a lot of fun. Still, for now, she’d better get on with sweeping. It was her mum who had issued strict instructions to keep the hut clean and tidy at all times. Maturity and responsibility - that’s what it took to keep the hut, she had said. And her mum usually meant things too. Coral reached for her dancing partner, the broom, and sighed. Acting cool, calm and collected did not come naturally to her. Still, she would try her best to concentrate on Cupid Company business while she was sweeping the sand from the deck of Coral Hut, which was how she came to realise that there was no Cupid Company business! Quickly she pointed this out to Nicks.

“No business is the Cupid Company business we need to concentrate on,” came Nicks’s reply.

“Of course it is,” mumbled Coral, keeping one eye trained on the sandiest corner of the deck. She would keep her promise to her mum, but she wouldn’t take her other eye off the glossy red beach hut either. Something exciting could happen, and she wasn’t going to miss it!

“We are a professional matchmaking company,” Nicks said, while buffing the hut’s small glass windows. “At the Cupid Company, when we say ‘All for love and love for all’ - we really mean it!”

Now Romeo grabbed the end of Coral’s broom and started a game of tug-of-war. Coral grinned and pulled back hard. Nicks was too busy to notice. She’d already started on her next job of the day: a list written on the paper attached to her foil butterfly clipboard.

“One, we need to advertise. Two, we need to distribute Cupid Company questionnaires. Three, we need to think hard about all the single people we know in Sunday Harbour,” she said as she wrote.

Romeo finally won the tug-of-war and claimed the broom as his own. He was just about to disappear down the hut steps when Coral grabbed the end back to reclaim it.

Further along, a game of beach cricket had started up. The players were laughing loudly and running about and both girls stopped to watch them for a few moments.

“You know, the problem with living in a nice beachy town like Sunday Harbour,” grumbled Coral, “is that the single people out there are just too busy having fun to think about how lonely they actually might be.” She frowned thoughtfully and leaned against her broom. “They make matchmaking very difficult indeed.” Romeo sat at her feet and stared solemnly ahead like he knew exactly what she meant. “I mean, isn’t being in love what life is all about? Could there be anything better? Nobody can play beach cricket forever, can they?”

“Too right,” Nicks agreed. “But look, would you just give me that broom?” she said impatiently. “If you sweep any more slowly you’ll wear a hole in the floor.”

Coral grinned, handing the broom over cheerfully. “Sure, Nicky-Nicks. I’ll tidy up the inside of the hut, shall I?”

But it wasn’t really a question. Before Nicks could answer, Coral had dashed through the door. She simply loved being inside Coral Hut. With its whitewashed walls and the pretty rug of scrambling pink primroses, it hadn’t changed much since her Great-Aunt Coral’s days.

Coral sighed as she looked around at the walls decorated with gold-framed pictures of chubby cherubs and the two shelves with books of romantic poetry. The whole room was like a shrine to love. What could be better than that? CRREEAAK!

The sudden noise from next door snapped Coral out of her reverie. The sound was like furniture scraping. It really was a mystery. Coral shivered, even though it was warm. Perhaps she’d had too much sun. Or maybe it was time to head for the safety of home.

home is where the heart is

It was still morning when the girls got back to the beach hut, having handed out Cupid Company questionnaires to anyone who looked just a little bit lonely. Coral Hut stood fresh and pretty in its new coat of pale pink, lemon-yellow and minty-green stripes. There was no other hut quite like it among those dotted along Sunday Harbour’s promenade. The girls slowed to admire it.

The glossy red hut on the right-hand side of Coral Hut stood locked up tight, silent and gleaming in the bright sunlight.

The hut on the other side - named Headquarters - was painted a khaki colour and had camouflage netting thrown across its roof. Unlike the red hut, this hut buzzed with activity. Its small double doors were thrown wide open and Coral and Nicks’s neighbour Birdie, was lifting and bending and packing things into a rucksack at a frantic pace.

“Are you off somewhere?” Coral called out.

“Oh, hello, dears,” Birdie called over. “The Captain and I are going away for a few weeks.”

The girls stood still, waiting for Birdie to say something else. Birdie was the most talkative woman they knew - she spoke in chapters, not sentences. You never had to ask Birdie for more information, but this morning she was pretty quiet.

“So where are you going to?” Nicks finally asked, when they could wait no longer.

Birdie now held a torch in her hand. She shook it irritably and pressed the on/off switch several times. Pressing her eye to the end of the torch, she tried again. This time a bright beam of yellow light shot straight out. She dropped the torch and blinked a few times, momentarily blinded.

“Er, what was that, girls?”

“Where are you going?” repeated Nicks.

Birdie retrieved the torch from the deck and placed it in a small cardboard box. “My sister has just moved up north to the city. We promised we’d visit,” she finally replied.

“That is nice,” said Nicks, when it was obvious that Birdie was only telling the story in very small doses.

Birdie sighed. “Not really. I’m not fond of over-populated spaces.” She tried to smile - perhaps at the thought of seeing her sister - but the smile quickly dissolved into a grimace. Coral changed the subject.

“Birdie, we’ve been hearing some very strange noises—” she started.

“It’s terribly noisy in the city!” snorted Birdie.

Coral paused and chewed on her lip for a moment. “Not in the city… from the red beach hut next door. It sounds like—”

“Sounds like cars honking, engines roaring… traffic and trains… that’s all you hear in the city,” Birdie continued, ignoring them and visibly distressed. “It’s not like Sunday Harbour, where everything is quiet and peaceful.”

Coral decided to give it one more try. “But the noises coming from the red beach hut next door… they seem quite sinister.”

“Yes, yes, I know. And you’re quite right,” replied Birdie. “I must brave the city for my sister.” She paused and her eyes glazed over as she stared into the distance. Then she shuddered and snapped out of the moment before quickly resuming her packing. A compass, a pair of binoculars, mosquito nets, a set of two-way radios - they all went in her rucksack.

The girls watched her and sucked on their lips in concern.

“Maybe you’re misjudging the city a little?” suggested Nicks when Birdie added a tray of camouflage face paint to the bag.

Birdie glanced from the bag to the girls and back again. She stood upright and gave a small chuckle. “Perhaps you’re right.”

Both girls sighed with relief. That was more like the old Birdie.

“Attention, please!”

The girls spun round and found their noses touching an olive-green shirt with the word ARMY spelled in black across its front. It was Birdie’s husband.

“Morning, Captain!” They saluted half-heartedly (they still felt a little silly doing the salute thing).

The Captain smiled and tapped their heads affectionately. He moved over to the rucksack, limping slightly as he moved. If it weren’t for his bad knee he’d still be leopard-crawling through the bush with the rest of his beloved army comrades.

“Do we have everything?” he asked.

Birdie nodded. “It should be safe to leave the rest, I think.”

The Captain made a noise like a light aircraft coming in to land, as if he was considering things. “Well, I hope so,” he finally replied. “And I hope we can trust those four girls to be careful with Headquarters.”

“What four girls?” asked Coral, looking around Birdie and the Captain’s beach hut.

Suddenly, Romeo barked. A bold seagull had landed on the deck railing behind Birdie.

“Oh, I’m sorry, girls!” said Birdie, as if Romeo had been barking directly at her. “I should have told you that my niece Saffron is going to be staying in our house while we’re away. It’s the least we can do - after all, she’s given up her bedroom in the city for us.” Just the mention of the word ‘city’ seemed to turn Birdie nervous again. But then she coughed hard and squared her shoulders.

“Anyway, dears, Saffron and her friends will be making use of our home and our lovely beach hut while we’re away, which of course we’re delighted about. We trust her completely.”

The Captain made that light aircraft sort of a noise again. “Out of sight, out of mind, I say,” he replied. “We can’t take any chances with my specialised army gear.” He glanced lovingly at the rucksack they were taking away with them.

Birdie rolled her eyes and bent to zip up the bag. It was clearly time for them to leave. She kissed both girls on the forehead while the Captain closed and locked the doors to Headquarters. They waved goodbye. And then they were gone…

The crashing of the waves on the beach suddenly seemed louder than they ever had before as the girls watched their friendly neighbours head off down the path.

They stared at each other without speaking. There was no need. They’d been best friends for so long their conversations didn’t always need words.

What a time for Birdie and the Captain to leave. Just when we were getting to grips with the strangeness of the hut next door.

Coral glanced down at Romeo. Of course she’d never swap her beloved pup, but if only he was just a little big bigger… with bigger teeth… and maybe a really big scary growl…

heart attack

Nicks didn’t want to think about the mysterious red hut any more. And now that Birdie and the Captain had finally disappeared down the path it was time to get on with Cupid Company business. She tapped her glitter pen against her foil butterfly clipboard. “You’re staring again,” she said to Coral.

Coral tore her eyes away from the hut next door and bit the end of her pencil, which was actually a red plastic heart on a spring that jiggled when she wrote. At that moment she had nothing to write. There really wasn’t a lot to write about. Coral stared at her blank notebook and tried to look thoughtful. And then her brain circuits lit up like a neon billboard.

“I know - we could matchmake your mum!” she called out excitedly. “She’s been single since like forever…!”

“Well, only since she divorced my dad,” Nicks said doubtfully.

But already Coral’s head was flooded with good ideas. There was Mr McLeod from Arts and Crafts World (there wasn’t enough pocket money in the world to buy all their beautiful beads, but family discounts would certainly help). And there was a very good chance that Frank who owned The Frozen Cow was unattached. Their choc-fudge-brownie frozen yoghurt was the best in Sunday Harbour.

“Look, forget it!” said Nicks before Coral even had time to fully consider the man with the moustache who worked behind the counter at the surf clothing shop. “Mum doesn’t want to be matchmade.”

But there wasn’t time for further discussion as, just then, Romeo streaked up the deck stairs like a white and caramel blur. He screeched to a halt and stood panting through his nostrils, his mouth filled with half a sandwich. A salami slice slipped out of the side in slow motion and landed on the deck with a splat. Romeo kept his chin raised but monitored the fallen salami with one eye. Doggy drool dripped from his lips, but he didn’t budge.

“You’ve got it now, so you may as well eat it!” ordered Coral crossly. She had told him so many times before not to take food from people’s beach picnics. Still, one piece of salami probably wouldn’t do any harm.

Nicks giggled. “Maybe we should find Romeo a doggy girlfriend. It might just keep him out of trouble.”

Coral made a pooh-pooh sort of face. She puckered up her lips and rubbed Romeo tenderly on his chin, which was now mucky with mayonnaise.

The girls were so busy concentrating on Romeo that they’d failed to notice that the red hut next door was slowly coming to life behind their backs.

“Ew, look at your fingers,” said Nicks.

“What’s wrong with them?” Coral loved her pup, drool, mayonnaise and all.

“They could do with a good wash,” laughed Nicks.

“Oh, I’ll just wipe them on—”

The sound of rattling keys ended Coral’s sentence. Both girls spun in the direction of the sound.

There stood a very tall man - so tall his head loomed over the door frame of the red hut. And he was as thin as he was tall - so thin that the Adam’s apple in his neck stood out like a second (and only slightly smaller) head. He looked like a long thin snake that had just eaten something quite large. The lump pulsed up and down like it was still alive.

Both girls sucked on the air so hard it sounded like they’d been winded.

“What a scary kind of guy…” wheezed Coral breathlessly.

Scary-kind-of-guy heard their gasps and twisted his heads left. His eyes were small and round and so dark that they seemed to reach out and hook on to the girls. They couldn’t have looked away if they’d tried. The black pinpoints of his eyes drilled into theirs like a locked-on laser beam. And still the lump in his neck pulsed. Up-down. Up-down. Up-down.

Forever came and went and still they all stared at each other. And then, suddenly, Scary Guy moved the long thin sticks of his fingers. The keys on the round brass ring in his left hand banged together, the sound echoing like the clang of a giant brass bell. It even seemed to surprise Scary Guy, who all of sudden dropped the brown leather bag he’d been carrying. It landed with a monumental thud. The impact of the fall sprang the lock and the two halves of the bag suddenly split apart and fell wide open. They all stared at the bag as its contents spilled out across the decking. There was a hammer, a long coil of rope and a roll of thick silver duct tape.

Suddenly, Scary Guy stooped low, and in no more than two swift movements he had scooped the lot back up into the bag and snapped it shut. He was just as quick to unlock the hut’s door and disappear inside, slamming the door shut behind him.

And then the world seemed especially quiet. A wind came up and blew the girls’ hair, but still they didn’t move. They were all big eyes and thumping chests. It was Romeo’s howl that finally broke the spell. It was almost as though he sensed that something was up.

Coral was the first to breathe again. “Wow wee…” she gasped. “What do you make of that?”

Nicks was the first to actually move again. She slithered on to a deckchair and tapped her knees thoughtfully. “He was a strange one,” she said. “Did you see the stuff in his bag?”

Coral nodded solemnly. “You do know what the most common use for duct tape is, don’t you?”

Nicks shrugged lightly. If Coral was going into crazy mode there was no point in encouraging her.

“Kidnapping… murder… that sort of thing!” Coral cried out, grabbing the air with her hands and giving it a good shake.

Now it was Nicks’s turns to snort, only she made more of a delicate pssht sort of sound. “Oh, please, where do you get that from?”

“I watch television! Where there’s dodgy business - there’s duct tape. No criminal can be without it.”

“Keep your voice down.” Nicks glanced left, then right, before whispering, “So you’re suggesting that our neighbour is a criminal?”

Coral paused and took a deep breath. “Not just a criminal. A—” She stopped herself. Actually, she wasn’t exactly sure what she was suggesting. But she was convinced that Scary Guy was up to no good. Why else did you carry duct tape, a hammer and rope around with you?

Coral did an about-turn and tiptoed inside Coral Hut. She really needed to lie down on the lovely bright white daybed for a bit. She wanted to rest and think the whole dramatic incident through.

Coral sighed as she absorbed it all. She felt better already. Almost. Sort of. With just a bit more rest…

queen of hearts

Nicks and her mum were still jumping the early-morning waves the next day as Coral made her way over to the beach hut, feeling queasy from all the saltwater she’d swallowed. She climbed up the front steps and settled down on her beach towel, pressing her tummy to the deck, and resting her chin on her hands at the edge. The view was good and the warm morning sun had turned the deck toasty. She could even see the top of Romeo’s snoozing head poking out of the cool hole he’d dug in the warming sand. And then, very slowly, she started dozing off. When suddenly—