Kitabı oku: «A Bride Worth Waiting For»

CHAPTER ONE

‘HIYA.’

Annie was just about to close when she heard Ruth’s voice behind her. ‘Hiya yourself, stranger,’ she said, turning with a grin. ‘I missed you over the weekend. How are you?’

‘Better than you, apparently. You look tired, Annie.’

She flapped her hand. ‘I’m always tired. I’ve been tired for years,’ she said, dismissing it. ‘Don’t worry about me, I’m used to it. What can I get you? Coffee? Tea?’

‘Nothing. I don’t want to stop you, you’re about to close.’

‘I have done,’ she said, shutting the door and flipping the sign in the window. ‘There’s half a pot of coffee left and it’s only going down the drain if we don’t drink it. Want to share it with me?’

‘If you’re sure you’ve got time. What about Stephen?’

‘He’s got chess club.’ She reached for the cups. ‘So, how are you? I haven’t seen you for days.’ Annie scanned Ruth’s face, checking out the slightly heightened colour in her cheeks, the sparkle in her eyes, as if something was bottled up inside her and threatening to spill over. She’d be a lousy poker player, she thought with a grin.

‘OK, come on, spit it out. What’s going on? Where have you been?’

Ruth gave a self-conscious chuckle. ‘At Tim’s. Actually, I’ve got something to tell you.’

‘I’d never have guessed!’ Annie teased, plonking the full cups on the round table by the window and pulling up a chair. ‘Come on, then—tell away.’

Ruth laughed softly and sat, making a production of opening the creamer and tipping it into the cup, stirring it unnecessarily long until Annie was ready to scream.

‘Ruth?’ she prompted.

‘Sorry.’ Her smile was—good heavens—shy? ‘I’m getting married.’

Annie’s heart squeezed tight, and she leant over and hugged Ruth, pressing her eyes firmly shut to hold back the unexpected prickle of tears. ‘Ruth, that’s fantastic!’ she said, her voice choked. ‘When did he ask you? I take it we’re talking about your gorgeous policeman, since you spent the weekend with him?’

Ruth sniffed and sat back, her cheeks pink. ‘Of course it’s Tim. And he’s asked me over and over again. I said yes this morning. I’m going to move in with him.’

‘Well, of course you will.’ She listened to herself in dismay. Did she really sound so bereft? How silly. She injected a little enthusiasm and interest into her voice. ‘Will you be far away? Where does he live?’

‘Not far. Only three miles. He’s been asking me endlessly to move in with him, dropping hints for ages before he began proposing—and I’ve finally decided to do it.’

‘Oh, Ruth, I’m so pleased for you! I wondered what was going on—you’ve been looking so much happier since you met him.’

‘I have been. I am.’

‘It shows.’ Annie smiled wistfully. ‘Lucky old you. You know, I did wonder at one point, when there didn’t seem to be a man in your life at all, if you’d got some kind of thing going on with Michael—’

‘Michael? Good grief, no!’ She laughed and shook her head. ‘Hardly.’

‘Is he so bad?’

Ruth chuckled. ‘No, he’s not bad at all. Far from it. I suppose if he was your type, you’d think he was very sexy in a rather brooding sort of way. I don’t know. You can judge for yourself on Monday.’

‘Monday?’

‘Mmm. He’s coming over then—I’m moving out at the weekend, and he’s going to start tearing the place apart. He’s jumped at the chance to get in there. He wants to refurbish the whole building, in fact; says it’s long overdue, which it is.’

Annie blinked in surprise. ‘Does he have time?’

Ruth nodded. ‘He’s going to have a break from writing, and he’s told me to take a holiday, so I am. I think he’s planning a little physical work to free up his thoughts and, let’s face it, the place could do with a hefty dose of TLC. I think he’s looking forward to pushing his sleeves up and getting stuck in.’

Her heart thudded unexpectedly. ‘Wow. So I get to meet the great man at last.’

She chewed her lip absently. She’d never met her landlord, not in the seven years since he’d bought the Ancient House. Ruth had been the go-between, working for him as his researcher and living here in the flat that occupied the whole of the top floor, but curiously Michael himself had never darkened her door, so she knew little about him except that he was a writer—a hugely successful one, if the best seller lists were to be believed.

That was probably why she’d never met him. Too busy and important to trouble himself with some trifling investment property—or so she’d thought. He certainly didn’t need her contribution to his income if the rumours of his advances were true.

Roger had loved his books—he’d even met him once, but she’d been out when he called and so she’d missed him, to her disappointment. But he hadn’t described him as broodingly sexy—

‘I wonder if he’ll use the refurb as an excuse to put my rent up?’ she murmured, dragging herself back to practical matters and the here and now.

Ruth shrugged. ‘Dunno. I doubt it. You’ll have to ask him.’ She pulled a face. ‘It’ll be odd not living here after so long.’

‘Seven years. It’ll be weird without you. I’ll miss you.’ Unaccountably she felt herself tearing up again and looked away crossly. ‘Sorry, I’m being an idiot. I’m delighted for you, I really am. It’s just—’

‘You’ll miss me. I know. I’ll miss you, too.’ Ruth patted her arm awkwardly. ‘You’ll be fine. You’ve got my mobile number—perhaps we could go out for a drink one evening, if Stephen’s with a friend or something?’

‘That would be lovely,’ she said, knowing quite well it was unlikely to happen but grateful to Ruth for suggesting it. ‘Thank you for all you’ve done for me in the past few years, especially since Roger died. You’ve been a star.’

‘My pleasure. You’ve been a good friend to me, too, Annie. There were times when I couldn’t have got through without you.’

That unexpected frankness was nearly her undoing. Annie swallowed and gave a little shrug. ‘What are friends for? I’m glad you’ve found someone. You deserve to be happy.’

Ruth nodded and turned her attention to her coffee, looking at it rather than at Annie, stirring it with meticulous care. ‘I just wish you could be as happy,’ she said quietly after a moment. ‘I know you and Roger were very fond of each other, but you weren’t exactly soul mates, were you? You’ve never really told me about Stephen’s father, but I get the feeling you’re still a little in love with him. Is there any chance—?’

Annie felt her smile slip. ‘No. He’s dead—years ago, before I started running this place. The way I felt—well, it was a one-off, crazy thing. I don’t know if it was the real thing, but it certainly felt like it at the time. He was French, and such a charmer—I just fell for that broken English and gorgeous, sexy accent hook, line and sinker. I adored him, but you can’t base a marriage on it. At least we didn’t have time to get bored with each other. I don’t know. It might have worked given time, who knows, but I doubt it. We just didn’t get the chance to find out.’

‘But maybe now—if the right man came along—?’

She shook her head. ‘No. I don’t need any more heart-ache, and nor does Stephen. He’s lost two fathers, although he only ever knew Roger. I think that’s enough for anyone.’

Ruth was quiet for a moment, then she looked up and searched Annie’s face. ‘Do you think Stephen’s suffered for not knowing his real father?’

Annie shook her head slowly. ‘No—not really. I know we had an unconventional marriage, but Roger was a good father to all the children. Stephen adored him, and I would have been horribly lost without him—even if I could never compete with his first wife.’

‘Ah, yes. The amazing Liz. Ghosts are always the hardest. She was a bit of a legend, by all accounts. They still talk about her, you know.’

Annie nodded. ‘She was certainly loved in the village. Her death was an awful shock to everyone. I couldn’t believe it. She’d been my college lecturer, you know—taught me everything I knew about catering, but she was more than that, even then. She was a friend, a real friend, and I was lost when she died, but at least we’d set this place up by then, so she saw her dream become reality. Still. Time moves on, and they’re together again now. And you’ve got your Tim. I really, really hope you’re happy together.’

‘We will be. Do keep in touch. Can I come and have coffee still?’

Annie laughed. ‘Of course. I run a coffee shop—what else would you do?’

‘But you’re busy.’

‘Never too busy for a friend. Please come. Don’t be a stranger. I couldn’t bear to lose you, too.’

‘You won’t lose me—promise.’

Ruth hugged her again, and then went out, running up the stairs to the flat above to start her packing, and Annie scrubbed the kitchen until it sparkled, determined not to let the stupid tears fall. It wasn’t as if Ruth was a bosom buddy, but as busy as she was, Ruth was probably one of her closest friends. Bringing up the children and working the hours she did didn’t leave a lot of time for socialising.

She straightened up, threw the tea towel she’d used for polishing the worktops into a bag to take home, and looked round, checking to make sure she was ready for the morning.

What would her landlord make of it, she wondered? And how would he want to change it? Refurb covered a multitude of sins. A shiver of apprehension went down her spine. The Ancient House was Grade II listed, so there were restrictions on what he could do to it—she hoped. She didn’t want it to change. She’d had enough change recently. But what if he wanted to throw her out and turn it back into a house? That was always a possibility now she was the only tenant.

It was old, very old, a typical low Tudor house, stretching all across one side of the square, with a big heavy door in the centre that led to a small rectangular entrance hall. There was a door straight ahead that led to the flat above, another door leading to Miller’s, her little tearoom that ran front to back on the right of the door, and one opening into the left-hand end that was occupied by the little antique shop.

Ex-antique shop, she reminded herself, now that Mary had wound down her business and closed the door finally for the last time only a week ago, so what better time for him to move in and make changes?

More changes. Heavens, her life was full of them recently. Roger’s death in June last year had been the first. Even though they’d been waiting for it, it had still been a shock when it came. Still, they’d got through somehow, comforting each other, and it hadn’t been all bad.

Kate, Roger’s younger daughter, had got the grades she needed for uni, and there had been tears, of course, because her father hadn’t been there to see her success. And Annie, telling her how proud he would have been, had reduced them all to tears again.

In September the girls had gone away—Vicky, the eldest, back to Leicester for her second year and Kate to Nottingham to start her degree, and the house had seemed unnaturally silent and empty. Stephen was back at school, and without the tearoom Annie would have gone crazy.

She’d grown used to the silence, though, and the holidays since had seemed almost too noisy. Much as she loved them, she’d been glad this September when the girls had gone away again and taken their chaos and untidiness with them, but without them, and with Ruth moving on, it would be very quiet. Probably too quiet.

She laughed softly to herself.

‘You are perverse. One minute it’s too noisy, the next it’s too quiet. Nothing’s ever right.’

Still, from Monday things would liven up with the refurb starting. And she’d finally get to meet her landlord, the broodingly sexy Michael Harding. Whatever that implied.

Well, she hoped it turned out right and he didn’t have an ulterior motive. Here she was trying to work out what broodingly sexy might mean, when all the time he might be going to give her notice or put up her rent. It wouldn’t be unreasonable if he did, but it would be the last straw.

Roger’s pension kept the girls in uni. The tearoom provided the means to keep her and Stephen and run the house, but the balance was fine and she didn’t need anything unexpected thrown into the equation.

There was always the trust fund, but she had no intention of touching that, even if she could. It was Stephen’s, from some unknown distant cousin who’d died intestate; it had been passed down to him as the man’s youngest living relative, which was apparently how the law worked. She wasn’t going to argue, and as only one of the trustees she wasn’t sure she could get access to it, even to provide for her son. Still, to know it was there was like a safety net, carefully invested for the future.

Whatever that might hold. Maybe Monday would bring some answers.

She went home, cutting the corner to where their pretty Georgian house stood at right angles to the tearoom, centred on the left hand side of the square. Like the Ancient House, Beech House occupied a prominent position in the centre of the village, its elegant, symmetrical façade set back behind a low wall enclosing the pretty front garden.

The fact that it was so lovely hardly ever registered with Annie, though. For her, the main feature was its convenience. It was handy being so close. That was why Liz had chosen to open the tearoom there, of course, and its proximity had been a godsend while the children were young.

It didn’t feel like home, though. It never really had. She was like a caretaker, and with Roger gone and the girls flying the nest she wondered what on earth she was going to do with it. Keep it for ever, so the girls felt they could always come home? Or just until Stephen was eighteen?

Another nine years. Heavens. The thought of another nine years of this was enough to send her over the brink.

She closed the door behind her, leant back on it and listened to the silence. She was right, it was too quiet, and Stephen with his bubbly chatter wouldn’t be home until eight. God, the house was so empty.

She made herself a cup of tea, then settled down on the sofa in the little sitting room to watch the news for company. She kicked off her shoes, tucked her feet under her bottom and flicked on the TV with the remote control.

And then she froze, riveted by the commentary and the picture she saw unfolding before her eyes.

‘—a vineyard in the Rhône valley, high up on the steeply terraced hillside where only the most exclusive wines can justify the exorbitant labour costs for handpicking the grapes—unless, like Claude Gaultier, you use a migrant workforce.’

The reporter waved an arm behind him at the serried ranks of vines, bursting with fruit just starting to ripen. ‘For the past eleven years, the vines here have been worked by what amounts to slave labour, the workers kept in very basic accommodation and forced to work hugely long hours in appalling conditions on these steep mountainsides to bolster Gaultier’s extortionate profit.’

The picture scanned over the familiar scenery, the bunkhouse, the farmhouse where she’d cooked, the winery, the terraces where they’d walked hand in hand—

‘All the workers were young men, most of whose parents had paid extraordinary sums to give them an opportunity to escape from countries such as Albania to the riches of Western Europe. They were lied to, cheated for the sake of money, but at least these young men were only forced to work hard. The young women, on the other hand, were shipped all over Europe and sold into prostitution, many of them in London and Manchester, and the fate of these innocent girls has been far worse. The dawn raid today, the culmination of a decade of work by the security services of several countries, has seen many of Gaultier’s accomplices arrested. Gaultier himself, the mastermind behind this hideous empire trafficking in innocent lives, died resisting arrest when his house in Antibes was stormed this morning, and it must be said there will be few tears shed for this most evil and wanted of men.’

The picture returned to the newsroom, and Annie stared blankly at the screen.

Dear God. She’d always known the conditions there were dreadful, but she’d had no idea they were that bad. People-trafficking? Slave labour? She’d not really been involved with the labour force, more with the managers. Like Etienne. And Etienne had taken her mind off anything but him, from the moment she’d set eyes on him…

‘Bonjour.’

She looked up, her heart hitching into her throat at the slow, lazy lilt of his voice. Blue eyes, a smile that started gradually and kicked up both corners of his mouth to reveal perfect, even teeth—no. Not perfect. Not quite. One of them was chipped, and his nose was nothing to write home about, but the smouldering eyes and the lazy smile were enough to counteract that in spades.

‘Bonjour,’ she replied, her hand hovering over a steaming dish of lamb casserole. ‘Desirez-vous un peu de ragout?’

The smile widened. ‘Tu,’ he murmured. ‘Vous is too—how you say—formal?—for me.’

She felt herself colouring. ‘Oh. Sorry. I thought it was correct.’

He grinned. ‘It is—but we do not need to be correct, hein, you and me?’

She found herself smiling back, her heart fluttering against her ribs like a thing demented. Her hand still hovered over the casserole, her eyes trapped by his. ‘How did you know I was English?’ she said breathlessly.

‘Your delightful accent,’ he replied, in a delightful accent of his own, and her heart melted into a puddle at his feet. He held out his hand. ‘Etienne Duprés—at your service, mademoiselle.’

‘Annie Shaw,’ she said breathlessly, and he took her hand, wrapping it in warm, hard fingers. His thumb slid over the back of it, grazing it gently, sending shivers up her spine while his eyes locked with hers.

‘Enchanté, mademoiselle,’ he murmured, then after an age he bent to press his lips to her hand—but not the back. Oh, no. He turned it over and pressed his lips firmly and devastatingly to the palm, then folded her fingers over to enclose the kiss and straightened up to meet her eyes again, a slow, sexy grin teasing at his mouth.