LITMIR.BIZ

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spoken only French to each other in private.

       ‘Ça va?’

       ‘Oui. Et toi?’

      Johnnie LeRoy nodded.

      ‘Haven’t seen that for a few years,’ she said, looking at the beret. ‘Thought we’d thrown it out when Papa died.’

      ‘Never,’ Johnnie said, shaking his head. ‘Family heirloom. Sign of the workers’ solidarity this is.’

      Sabine smiled. She doubted that any of the locals would realise the significance of the red beret.

      ‘Got a few signatures already,’ Johnnie said opening the folder and handing her a poster with the words, ‘SAVE THE KIOSK’ emblazoned in red across the top. ‘Need you to pin this up and to put the petition somewhere people can sign it.’

      ‘You don’t think the powers-that-be are serious about getting rid of the kiosk?’

      Johnnie shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Telling them we want it kept won’t do any harm though. Embankment wouldn’t be the same without the kiosk.’

      ‘True. Fancy a coffee?’ Sabine asked, reaching for the kettle.

      Johnnie shook his head. ‘Not this morning, thanks. I want to drop a poster off at the yacht club and then I’m planning on giving Annie and her bottom a good going-over.’

      Sabine smiled at the scandalised expression on a passing tourist’s face. Johnnie grinned at her before whispering, ‘Gets them every time!’ Annie, named after his late wife, was Johnnie’s thirty-two-foot sailing yacht moored out on one of the pontoons in the river.

      ‘Have fun. See you tonight for supper,’ she said, turning her attention to a couple looking at the times of river trips for the week and began to talk them into taking the afternoon trip. Gift of the gab, Owen called her sales technique. Said it was the main reason he employed her to run the kiosk. That and the fact he was in love with her. She’d lost count of the number of times he’d asked her to marry him since Dave died. Said he was going to keep asking her until she said yes.

      It had become something of a joke between them now. Only last week he’d asked her again and she’d said her usual ‘No’, adding jokingly, ‘I think you’d better stop asking me, Owen. Otherwise one of these days I might be tempted to say yes and then you’ll be saddled with me.’

      ‘If that means there is a possibility of you saying yes one day, I intend to keep on asking,’ Owen had replied seriously. ‘I’ve always loved you. Dave was my best mate but I could have killed him when you married him and not me.’

      Sabine sighed. ‘Owen, I love you to bits but not in that way. You deserve more than a one-sided marriage.’

      ‘If you were the one side, I’d take it happily,’ Owen said.

      Sorrowfully Sabine shook her head at him before reaching up and giving him a kiss on the cheek. ‘Sorry, Owen.’ She knew she hurt him every time she refused his offer, but love had to be a two-way thing for a marriage to work, didn’t it? She’d been a single woman for so long she could barely remember what it had been like being in a relationship, let alone being married.

      When Dave had died, it had been a devastated Owen who’d tried to step into his shoes and be there whenever Peter had needed a father figure, insisting that was what godfathers were for. Two years ago he’d made sure Peter had a job ready and waiting for him when he’d finished his engineering course at college. At the time she’d questioned Owen as to whether it was a genuine job at the time or one he created.

      ‘Of course it’s genuine,’ he’d said. ‘I need a boat engineer. Happy for it to be Peter. Besides,’ he added with a grin. ‘A bit of nepotism never did any harm!’ It was Peter’s second season this year and he’d told Sabine he loved it. Couldn’t imagine doing anything else – living anywhere else.

      She did wish sometimes that Peter had been a bit more adventurous – left home and seen a bit of the world before settling down in town. He’d done a couple of yacht deliveries with Johnnie but hadn’t wanted to do more. Took after his father in that respect. Dave had never wanted to live anywhere else or even take holidays abroad. Whereas she had always longed to see the world. The one opportunity to do that had sadly come at the wrong time of her life.

      She glanced at a tourist studying the sailing timetable.

      ‘Can I book a ticket for this afternoon’s trip?’ he asked, his accent marking him as American.

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘Great little town you’ve got here,’ he said, as Sabine took his money and handed him a ticket.

      ‘Your first visit?’

      ‘Yeah, hoping to unearth some relatives,’ he said with a grin. ‘Grandmother was a GI bride way back in ’44. She kind of lost touch with folks here when she left. Family name was Holdsworth. Don’t suppose it’s yours? Know anyone of that name?’

      Sabine laughed. ‘Well-connected ancestors you’ve got with that name, that’s for sure. No, it’s not mine. And as this isn’t small-town America, I don’t know everyone, but I don’t think there are any Holdsworths currently living in town.’

      ‘You mean there’s no longer a Govenor Holdsworth in charge out at the castle? I was hoping for an invite to stay there.’

      ‘You wouldn’t be very comfortable if you did – Windsor Castle it’s not.’

      ‘Shame. Good job I booked into The Royal for a week or two then. See you later.’

      By the time Sabine helped Owen and Peter to cast off that afternoon, the boat was three quarters full and she watched it depart, pleased the first of the season’s sailings was so full.

      As the Queen of the River began to make its way upstream, Sabine started to close up the kiosk. Life for the next few months would be ruled by the tide table and the need to open the kiosk every day to take advance bookings. Today, though, it was early enough in the season, with few people around, she could close up and go home for an hour or two before the boat returned and she had to be on hand to help the passengers disembark.

      A chilly March breeze was blowing off the river and Sabine was glad of her fleece as she made for her cottage halfway up Crowthers Hill, one of the old roads leading out of town into the back country.

      The house in Above Town she and Dave had bought together as a newly married couple had been too full of memories for both her and Peter to stay there happily without Dave. Far better to have a new start in a different house – one that she and Peter could build into a home, so twelve years ago she’d bought the cottage when Dave’s insurance money had eventually turned up.

      Johnnie and Annie helped with getting the place habitable – it had been empty for two years and took weeks of hard work from the three of them to make it habitable – and she and Peter had lived there ever since.

      Johnnie alone was responsible for the attic conversion three years ago. Sabine had watched in despair as her lovely, kind, compassionate brother all but followed his wife into an early grave. Finding him, bottle in hand, wandering around town at two o’clock one afternoon barely able to stand, she threatened him with dire consequences if he didn’t stop.

      ‘Did you see me doing this when I lost Dave? No. It’s hard but you’ve just got to get on with it.’

      ‘You had Peter,’ he’d muttered. ‘Perhaps if we’d had a child I’d have something to live for.’

      ‘You think it was easier because I had a child? Dream on. It was harder. A constant reminder of what I’d lost. He needed to grieve too. You’ve still got a lot of life to live so don’t give me that bullshit about not having anything to live for. I’m still here loving you and so is Peter.’

      Shouting and yelling at him to get a grip hadn’t made any difference so, in the end, Sabine had taken action the only

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