The Thorn and the Blossom: A Two-Sided Love Story by Theodora Goss

B y the time Evelyn arrived at the inn, she was tired, dirty, and hungry.
    “You must be Miss Morgan,” said the woman she assumed was Mrs. Davies, the innkeeper’s wife. “It’s late you are, dearie.”
    Evelyn slapped her credit card down on the counter. She had no desire to explain that, through a series of misdirections, she’d ended up on the wrong train and had taken a bus all the way from Portsmouth. A very slow bus that had broken down twice. And the first time, while she was walking around waiting for the man who was supposed to change what was described as a blown gasket, she’d stumbled into a ditch, which explained why her jeans were caked with mud up to the knees. The schoolchildren on the bus had found that very funny, particularly because she was an American. When she told them she was from Boston, they’d asked if she knew any of the Celtics.
    “I’ve given you the room at the front, dearie. You’ll be able to smell the sea. And shall I bring up supper? I’ve saved you some apple pasties.”
    Whatever apple pasties were, they sounded like food. “Yes, please,” Evelyn said. She picked up her backpack. Mrs. Davies picked up the duffle bag and led her up a narrow flight of stairs. The room at the front was small, but it had a bed piled high with a comforter and pillows.
A bed
, thought Evelyn.
Why didn’t anyone tell me how heavenly a bed can be?
By the time Mrs. Davies returned with a plate of apple pasties and a glass of hot milk, she was already asleep.
    T he next morning, Evelyn woke to the sound of gulls. The window was open, and she could indeed smell the sea. She hadn’t smelled it for several years, since the last time she’d gone to Martha’s Vineyard with her family. Lately, she avoided those family vacations. Too many relatives asking when she was applying to law school. They all assumed she would join her father’s firm. He’d already offered her a position at Morgan & Leventhal, LLP—where he could keep an eye on her.
    There was a knock on the door. “Are you awake, dearie?” Evelyn answered in the affirmative, and Mrs. Davies entered, carrying a tray. “I thought you might like a real Cornish breakfast. Unless you’re one of those Americans who just drinks coffee?”
    Evelyn was not one of those Americans. Evidently, a real Cornish breakfast consisted of thick slices of toast, dripping with butter and honey, two eggs, and the best sausage she’d ever tasted. The tea was strong and sweet.
    After a long bath in a claw-foot tub that must have stood in the small bathroom for the last hundred years, with hot water that was really and truly hot—the water in her dorm at Oxford had never, ever been hot enough—Evelyn felt human again.
    “I was thinking of exploring the town,” she said to Mrs. Davies after running down the stairs, quite differently from how she had trudged up them the night before.
    “Well, Clews is a fairly small town,” said Mrs. Davies doubtfully. “I don’t know that we have much to excite a young person like yourself. You can go down to the harbor and watch the fishing boats, although at this hour most of them are already out to sea. And there’s a church that’s been around since Norman times. And of course there’s Gawan’s Court. That’s what most tourists come for.”
    “I’m not really a tourist,” said Evelyn. All semester at Oxford, she’d felt like an outsider. She didn’t want to feel like an outsider here. “My family comes from here. Came, almost a hundred years ago. The Morgans.”
    “Well, then, you’ll want to look at the churchyard,” said the man in overalls who had just come in.
He must be Mr. Davies
, Evelyn thought. “That’s where all the genealogy people go. You might find your ancestors there, miss.”
    “Oh, please, call me Evelyn,” she said. “Is anyone else staying here?”
    “Just you, miss. It’s not quite the season, you know. The wife and I were surprised to hear from a young American visitor wanting