The Little Book Café

Tash laughed.

‘That’s better.’ Adrian looked at her thoughtfully. ‘You know, I haven’t heard you laugh for quite a while. I’ve missed it.’ He sat next to her and took her hand. ‘I’m worried about you, darling. You seem so busy all the time.’ He gestured to the garden. ‘If you didn’t work you could be here more. Look after the garden, the house.’ He squeezed her hand reassuringly. ‘You don’t have to, you know. We could afford for you to stop work quite easily. If the Manchester job comes off, I’m targeting half a mill profit.’

Tash eased her hand away. Adrian had never before suggested she give up work. He’d nagged at her for working too hard, wanted her to cut her hours but this was new. She put the glass down carefully. ‘I love my job, Adrian.’

‘I know you do, my sweet. But you don’t see what it’s doing to you. Always running late, never having enough time to do the things you enjoy.’ He paused. ‘Getting forgetful,’ he added, meaningfully.

‘Am I?’ Tash frowned. She didn’t recognise the picture he was painting. She’d always been efficient, organised, focused.

Adrian smiled. ‘Why don’t you have an early night? I’ll bring you up a cup of tea. Pretty Woman is on later, we could watch it in bed?’

It seemed easier, the less exhausting thing, to agree.

Chapter 11 (#ulink_b6324aa6-2fdd-5ecb-adb1-214fee5495e9)

The grand opening of Millie’s Little Bookshop Café was in full throttle by the time Tash and Adrian got there. Despite knowing Tash wanted to go, Adrian had got home long after he’d promised and then had insisted they ate before leaving. As a result, they were late.

Light spilled from the enormous windows overlooking the harbour and as it was another sultry evening, the double doors were flung open onto the paved space beyond. Fairy lights bedecked the outside of the building and the night air hummed with the scent of potted scarlet nicotania, purple petunias and the saline from the black sea crashing onto the beach beyond.

‘Millie always knew how to hold a party,’ Tash said, as she and Adrian fought through the crowd. ‘Is that a seafood bar over there? And a cocktail bar as well. Wow!’

‘Folks will always turn up if there’s free booze on offer,’ Adrian grumbled. ‘Doesn’t make it the most sophisticated of events.’

‘Oh, stop moaning and let’s have a drink.’ When he was about to start whining again, she added, ‘Look isn’t that Barry from the planning committee? Might have some work to put your way.’ She watched as Adrian darted off in Barry’s direction. He never missed an opportunity to network.

Collecting a mojito, she spotted Millie. ‘It all looks amazing,’ Tash kissed her on the cheek. ‘Congratulations. You must be a miracle worker to get all this done in the time.’

‘Thanks Tash. I’m not sure how we got it finished to be honest. And between you and me, there’s still a lot more to do.’ She winked. ‘I bribed the builders working on the hotel Jed’s brother owns to moonlight. My lemon drizzle will do it every time.’

Tash laughed and raised her glass. ‘It will. I know, I’ve tasted it and it’s my favourite.’ She groaned. ‘Not allowed it at the moment. On a diet.’

‘You? On a diet?’ Millie was incredulous. ‘There’s nothing of you at the moment. Won’t the training for the fun run help?’

Tash glanced over to where Adrian was talking to Barry. Patrick Carroll had joined them and looked bored. ‘It would if I didn’t keep missing sessions.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘You know what it’s like. Work.’

‘I do but I’ve learned the hard way to step back every now and again.’ Millie raised her eyebrows. ‘And with the wedding planning business, the café and now this place, I have to delegate. Still love it all though.’

Tash looked around at the shelves groaning with books. ‘Do you think you’ll turn over a profit with this place?’ She’d just ordered thirty pounds worth of paperbacks from Amazon and felt guilty. It was all too quick and convenient to buy books online. She wondered if Millie was doing the right thing.

‘Yes. Yes, I do.’ Millie sounded determined. ‘I still think there’s a place in the world for a well-stocked, old-fashioned bookshop and Amy is working so hard. As well as the book group, we’re going to run children’s events, readathons, puppet shows, that sort of thing. The organisers of the literary festival want to use us as a base too. And it’s great to have more covers for the café. We’re so busy and popular these days we’ve had to turn custom away.’ Millie looked so horrified Tash laughed again. ‘Books and cake,’ Millie went on. ‘Two of my very favourite things.’

‘And at least books don’t have calories,’ Tash observed.

‘That’s true. How are you getting on with Wuthering Heights?’

Tash pulled a face. ‘Not very well. Only got as far as Lockwood seeing the ghost.’ Tash shivered. ‘I’d forgotten how bleak that book is. I started reading it while sitting in the garden on my day off and it still puts the wind up me.’

‘Talking Wuthering Heights?’ A booming voice sounded as Biddy joined them, Elvis, her deaf assistance poodle, loyally trotting behind. ‘Could never abide Heathcliff the first time I read it and I haven’t changed my mind. Cruel man.’

‘I remember completely falling for him when I read the book at school,’ Tash put in. ‘I loved his wildness. His passion. The way he dominated the book.’

‘Well, reckon when you’re seventeen that’s what takes your fancy.’ Biddy slugged down her drink. ‘Too controlling by half, in my opinion. I’ll just go and get another cosmopolitan. Excellent cocktails, Millie. Excellent.’ She strode off.

‘She might have a point,’ Millie said. ‘About Heathcliff I mean. I’d never thought of him that way.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Have to confess I haven’t even started the book yet. The spirit is willing but the work schedule isn’t. I may have to cheat and do the SparkNotes.’ Someone called to her and she excused herself, squeezing through the crowds.

Chapter 12 (#ulink_fb6cc765-2600-50a6-9d81-94bc0cc148da)

Tash picked up another cocktail and wandered outside. She left the crowds behind and went to sit on the café’s terrace. Millie had been clever. She’d made the most of the café’s best asset by joining it up with the open space outside the bookshop. Now there was one large terrace lit by pretty fairy lights and fragranced by bedding plants. It would be the perfect spot to idle away a few hours with a good book and a pot of Millie’s famously excellent coffee. Maybe she was right about the bookshop being a success. It had all the right ingredients.

It was a balmy evening – one of those rare English summer nights when it was comfortably warm enough to linger outside. The murmuring sea shifted gently under a fingernail moon and one or two people had drifted onto the beach. Tash could hear shushed giggles and the occasional chink of glasses. She perched on the low wall which separated the terrace from the beach and breathed in the sweet-scented heliotropes. Millie loved her potted plants. She and her husband Jed radiated happiness. Tash had seen him earlier whispering jokes into Millie’s ear when she’d looked a little flustered at the volume of people who had turned up. He was supportive. Her rock. It was lovely seeing Millie blossom in the way she had since marrying Jed. Tash knew she hadn’t had an easy time of it after her parents died. She’d never complained, had made the best with what she had, drove a rusty old car and lived in the flat above the café. She and Jed still lived there. No five-bedroom detached on an executive housing development and a top of the range Porsche for them. They seemed happy without the trappings of the life that she and Adrian had so carefully carved out for themselves. Tash sipped her cocktail. Did it make her happy? She’d thought at one point a big house and a flash car would be all that it took. But she wasn’t so sure lately. The more she grasped at material things the more happiness sidled out of reach.

Tash sighed. Maybe she should leave Adrian. Start over again. But the voice of the chubby, bespectacled teenager, the girl who all the boys overlooked, wheedled in her subconscious. You’ll be on your own again. Adrian is the only man who has ever really loved you. Look how kind and generous he is.

‘That’s a heartfelt sigh.’ It was Kit. ‘I seem to make a habit of coming across you in moments of introspection. I called your name but you were miles away.’

Tash forced a smile. ‘Hi.’

‘May I join you? If you’d like to be on your own I understand.’

She gestured to the space on the wall beside her. ‘Do you know, I’d really like some company. I was in danger of getting maudlin and it’s too beautiful a night for that.’

‘It is.’ Kit straddled the wall and put his beer down in the space in between them. He stared into the night and at the distant lights of West Bay.

Tash took the opportunity to study him in the dim light given off by the fairy lights. Tonight he had forsaken the beanie hat. His hair had been shaved into a buzzcut and, with his collarless shirt straining over hulking shoulders, he looked the sort of man she’d cross the road at night to avoid. But Tash had seen how tenderly he’d treated Merlin, had witnessed his self-deprecating humour. She was beginning to appreciate that, under the muscles, lurked a gentle, caring man. And a very sexy one. A year ago she wouldn’t have looked at him twice. Too scruffy. Too many He-Man muscles. Not slick enough. But now? Now she could sense her skin prickling in his presence, feel the beat of her heart skipping out a little dance. She sighed again. The last complication she needed at the moment was to fall for a man like Kit.

‘Lot of sighing going on,’ he said mildly.

‘Just mulling over a few things.’ She expected him to ask what those things were, but he just lifted a leg onto the wall and rested his arm on his knee. No questions. No interrogation as Adrian would have done. No fussing over her. He simply let her be, in her own space. It was curiously soothing.

They sat in silence for a while enjoying the night and the sounds of the party in the background.

Kit picked up his glass and drained it. It broke the mood.

‘Not tempted by one of Millie’s cocktails?’ she asked. ‘My mojito is good.’

‘Not really a cocktail sort of a bloke. More of a real ale guy.’

‘Figures,’ Tash said and saw one brow rise.

‘And you,’ he pointed with his empty glass. ‘Are very much a mojito sort of a girl.’

‘Guilty as charged, m’Lud. I can’t help it.’

‘Goes with the outfit.’

Tash looked down at her silk jumpsuit. She’d thrown it on at the last minute. It was vividly patterned in oranges and pinks and showed off her black hair and summer tan. Adrian hated it which was probably why she’d worn it. ‘One of my favourites.’ She held up a foot to display the hot pink stilettos. ‘Goes with my fave shoes.’

Kit grinned. ‘So I see. You look very beautiful tonight, Tash.’