‘Oh...’ Abby slipped down from her stool, too, smoothing the short skirt down over her hips as she did so. ‘I don’t think so. I might just call it a night, if you don’t mind?’
Liz’s eyes drifted irresistibly back to Luke. ‘I don’t blame you,’ she said as one of the other girls pushed to the front of the group. ‘He’s gorgeous!’
‘Liz!’ said Abby in embarrassment, but she wasn’t listening.
‘Hi. I’m Amanda,’ said the other girl eagerly. ‘No wonder Abs has been keeping you to herself.’
‘I haven’t—that is—’ Abby looked at Luke in some consternation. ‘We’ve only just met.’
‘What she means is, she didn’t know I was coming,’ Luke amended lightly. ‘But in the circumstances, I’m sure you’ll understand that I’ll be taking—Abs—home.’
‘Oh, sure. Lucky Abs,’ remarked a third girl with a knowing grin. ‘But if you ever need a shoulder to cry on.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ he said, ignoring Abby’s expression, and, after a few more embarrassing quips, the half-dozen or so members of the hen party departed.
After they’d gone, Abby glanced anxiously about her. ‘Why did you let them think we were together?’ she demanded, bending to pick up her handbag, which she’d wedged beside the stool when she sat down. ‘We hardly know one another.’
‘That can be remedied,’ he replied, helping her extract the strap of her bag from the footrest. His hand brushed hers as he did so, and Abby felt an electric shock of awareness shoot up her arm. ‘Come on. I’ll give you a ride home. It’s the least I can do.’
‘How do you know I don’t have a car?’ she countered, knowing she should refuse his offer, and he arched a lazy brow.
‘Do you?’
‘No.’
‘So why are we arguing? I promise I’m not a thief or a pervert.’
‘And I’m expected to take your word for that?’
Abby looked up into his lean dark face. Liz was right, she thought. He was gorgeous. Tall, with a lean yet muscular body, dark-haired and olive-skinned, with curiously tawny eyes that were presently assessing her with a certain amount of amusement as well as interest.
‘You could ask my friend over there,’ he said, indicating the man he’d bought a drink for.
‘And he’s going to disagree, isn’t he?’ said Abby drily.
Then, with a fatalistic shrug, she said, ‘Okay. I’ll get my coat.’
‘Give me the ticket and I’ll get it for you,’ said Luke. And Abby, who had been seriously considering slipping out the back way, expelled a resigned breath.
ABBY TOOK THE last batch of blueberry muffins out of the oven, inhaling their delicious fragrance as she set the tray on the counter nearby.
She unloaded the muffins onto a cooling tray and checked that the coffee machine had been filled that morning. The scones she’d baked earlier were just waiting to be transferred into a basket.
She still had to fill the small pots with jam, but the creamers could wait until she had her first customer of the day.
She also had cupcakes to bake, but they were mixed and ready. She had only to separate them into their cases before popping them in the oven.
She wondered when she’d developed such a love of baking. Not while she was married to Harry; that was for sure.
In those days, she’d spent all her free time working, saving for the day when she could support both her mother and herself.
Unfortunately that day had never come.
She sighed.
Nevertheless, she felt a pleasant sense of satisfaction as she looked about her. The small café, with the bookshop she’d introduced, was everything she’d hoped it would be. Her mother would have loved it, she thought wistfully. But she’d died of motor neurone disease just two years after entering the nursing home.
Abby had discovered the small café, which had previously been run by two sisters, now retired, when she’d been trawling the Internet. Until then the idea of moving out of London had only been a pipe dream. But the café in Ashford-St-James had been available for rent, and it had seemed an inspiration. When she’d learned it also had living accommodation, Abby hadn’t hesitated before applying for the tenancy.
Then, when her divorce from Harry had been made final, she’d bought herself a bottle of Pinot Noir and had a private celebration. Before packing up the bedsit, where she’d been living since she’d left Harry, and moving herself and Harley, her mother’s golden retriever, to this small Wiltshire town.
She supposed she must have always dreamed about running her own café. And the owner, an elderly man called Mr Gifford, had had no objections to her desire to modernise the interior to suit her needs. She’d used what little money she’d saved to give the place a makeover. It looked much different now from the rather dingy tearoom she’d first encountered.
To begin with, she’d bought the cakes and pastries she served with the coffee from the wholesalers. But then, one day she’d tried her hand at making muffins, and the results had been so good, she’d never looked back.
But she’d also discovered that the café on its own didn’t generate a huge income. Which might have been why the sisters who’d run it before her had had to give it up. Although it had a steady clientele, they didn’t get a lot of tourists in Ashford-St-James.
Which was why she’d had the idea of adding a bookshop. There were a lot of older people living in the area, who found visiting the bookshops in Bath just too much trouble. How much easier it was to come out for a coffee and browse the bookshelves when you’d finished. Abby was sure that many of the single men who used the café wouldn’t have done so without the added attraction of choosing a bestseller.
And in the last four years, she’d made a good life for herself here, she thought contentedly. She was happier than she’d been since before her marriage. She and Harley suited one another.
Okay, her friends in London thought she was a fool to settle in a backwater like Ashford. But after working every hour God sent when she was employed in the English department at the university, Abby appreciated being her own boss. She was able to set her own schedule, with no one looking over her shoulder and checking her work.
Leaving the huge Italian coffee machine, which had been her biggest and most successful outlay, bubbling away behind her, Abby walked through to the small bookshop.
A young mother who lived in the town, and wanted employment to fit in with her six-year-old’s needs, worked with her. But Lori didn’t turn up until nine o’clock, after delivering her daughter to the local primary school.
At present, everywhere was quiet, and Abby wandered happily amongst the shelves, restoring books that had been misplaced, and generally admiring the result.
Her peaceful reverie was broken by someone hammering on the outer door. Glancing at her watch, Abby saw that it was barely seven o’clock and she didn’t open the café until half past.
It had to be an emergency, she thought, though what kind of an emergency she couldn’t imagine. Unless Harley had somehow got out of the flat upstairs and had been found roaming the streets of the small country town.
That would be an emergency!
* * *
Luke