Free A Sea Change by Veronica Henry Page A

once bustled with life. Now it was deserted most of the day, until evening when gangs of bored youths collected there with cans of lager. The coastline was spectacular with its craggy rocks and crashing waves, but the town itself had become grey. A handful of attractions remained – a merry-go-round circled on the front, its horses in need of repainting. The arcade beeped and flashed with fruit machines.
    And Dream Ices sold twenty-nine varieties of ice cream, which you could have in a waffle cone, or in a cone coated in sprinkles, or in a cone dipped in chocolate. You could also have chocolate, raspberry or butterscotch sauce on top. Then if you still wanted more, there were chocolate flakes and fingers of fudge and a squirt of whipped cream to finish.
    Twenty-nine flavours had always annoyed Jenna. She would have made it thirty, but one of the tubs was filled with water for washingthe scoops. Three rows – two of ten and one of nine – of brightly coloured, mouth-watering ice cream. She had noticed over the past week that some of the tubs were nearly empty and hadn’t been replaced. Usually they were filled up before you could see the white plastic at the bottom. They’d almost run out of rum and raisin, and mint chocolate chip, and Devon clotted-cream fudge. There wasn’t any in the freezer, which was strange. When she mentioned it to her boss, Terry, he just nodded and said he’d get onto it.
    Dream Ices had done OK. Even though times were hard, it seemed like people still had money for an ice. There were just enough day trippers to keep the place ticking over. Sometimes Jenna scooped away all afternoon. All the same, she should have sensed trouble coming. For some reason, she hadn’t.
    So when the owner of Dream Ices, Terry, came up to her on Friday afternoon, Jenna hadn’t expected to be sacked.
    ‘I’ve got some bad news, love,’ he said. ‘I was hoping this wasn’t going to happen but times are hard. I’m going to have to let you go.’
    Her eyes widened in shock. ‘You’re not closing down, surely?’
    ‘No. Not yet.’ He looked gloomy, as if thismight happen. ‘But I can’t afford to keep you on. I’ll have to run the place myself.’
    She wasn’t sure how he was going to manage that. Terry spent most of his time in the pub or at the bookies. Maybe that explained why he was in difficulty.
    ‘Things will pick up,’ she said hopefully. ‘We’ve been busy today. And the forecast for the weekend is great. Nearly thirty degrees, they reckon.’
    Terry was always moaning that the glory days were over. He was always telling her about the life he used to have, when the town was in its heyday and his pockets were stuffed with cash.
    He shook his head. ‘Even if we doubled the takings in the next month, I can’t afford you. I’m sorry.’
    ‘Surely we’ve done all right this summer?’ she asked. ‘I’ve been rushed off my feet some days.’
    He shook his head. ‘Not like the old days. I could clear five hundred quid cash, no problem, on a bank holiday. I struggle to get that in a week now. And the rent’s gone up. And the wholesalers have put their prices up.’
    Jenna didn’t know what to say. Terry looked out to sea and cleared his throat. ‘I can’t give you your wages, either.’
    Jenna’s heart skipped a beat. He owed her over two weeks’ money.
    ‘You’re kidding me.’
    ‘I haven’t got it. I had to pay the supplier. There was nothing left.’
    There had been enough for him to have a few pints at lunchtime. She could smell the beer on his breath.
    ‘I’ll bring it round when I get it,’ he promised her. ‘If we have a good weekend . . .’
    She’d never see it. She knew that.
    ‘You could have told me before,’ Jenna told him. ‘You must have known you couldn’t pay me, but you let me carry on working.’
    ‘No,’ he said. ‘I promise you. I was hoping for something to happen. I was hoping . . .’
    ‘For a win on the horses?’
    Terry gave something between a