LITMIR.BIZ

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let her go, keeping his distance so as not to crowd her. She was confused. Hell, he was confused. He knew in his head that they had done the right thing. But his heart—his big-mouthed heart that didn’t know when it was well off—had got him into this mess and now it just refused to let go. He couldn’t, wouldn’t let her go.

      He caught up with her as she reached the kissing gate that led into the lane. ‘Hey, what’s your hurry? This was supposed to be a stroll, not an endurance test.’

      She stepped into the gate, turned and pushed the swinging part towards him, blocking his way.

      ‘Why are you here, Mike?’ she demanded.

      ‘Well, I thought we were going to get something to eat.’ She said nothing. ‘Maybe if you’d let me through the gate—’ She took her hands off the top rail and turned swiftly away. ‘Willow!’ She didn’t acknowledge him as he drew level with her. ‘I don’t know,’ he declared. Not true. He knew. He knew that he couldn’t marry her, live the life he’d offered her. But he couldn’t live without her, either. Still she ignored him and he swung round in front of her, forcing her to stop. ‘All right, all right. I didn’t think you should be on your own right now.’ That, at least, had the merit of honesty. She shouldn’t be on her own.

      ‘I’m going to have to get used to it.’ She walked around him. ‘And I’m not sure that you’re the person to help me with that. In fact I think it would be a whole lot easier if you left.’

      ‘You want me to go now? Tonight?’ She scuffed the ground, kicking at the dust with her shoes as she kept moving, not answering him and suddenly, having provoked a confrontation, she was the one backing off. ‘I really should finish the shelves now I’ve started them,’ he said.

      ‘How long will that take?’

      He tried not to let his relief show.

      ‘I can’t put them up until the kitchen’s been painted,’ he said casually, as if it didn’t matter. ‘And Emily asked me if I could build some storage boxes under the big window in the day room. To double up as extra seating.’ Okay, so he’d suggested it, not Emily, but he didn’t think he’d mention that right now! As they reached the pub, Mike steered her towards a table away from the road. ‘Of course if you want me to go, I’m sure she’ll understand.’

      ‘I wish I did.’

      So did he. Wished he had an answer. But he couldn’t be the man she wanted him to be. He’d tried. Waste of time. He should have been concentrating on making her want the man he was. Well, he had a week to do that. ‘What can I get you?’

      She slid onto the bench, folded her arms on the table and propped her chin on them. ‘A gin and tonic. And anything involving mega quantities of calories to eat.’ She pulled a face, attempted a smile. ‘I’m talking serious cholesterol, here, so you’d better make it a double portion of French fries.’

      He waited a minute, sure she would change her mind about that. When she didn’t, he said, ‘Do you want some salad with that?’

      ‘No thanks. I’m eating for comfort. I want to feel my arteries hardening.’

      ‘You should have said. We could have stayed at the cottages and I’d have made a stack of bacon sandwiches with brown sauce and we could have finished off the chocolate biscuits for pudding.’

      ‘I thought about it,’ she said, with every appearance of sincerity. ‘Then I thought about what we’d do with the rest of the evening.’ She looked up at him, her eyes luminous in the gathering dusk and this time the confrontation had taken on a different edge, something deeper, something more dangerous as she challenged him to admit that the transition from till-death-us-do-part lovers to friends wasn’t going to happen overnight. It wasn’t going to happen at all if he could help it. ‘Tell me, Mike, what do “just good friends” do when conversation is limited to the impersonal, and they haven’t got as much as a pack of cards to pass the time?’

      For a moment his breath seemed to freeze in his body so that he had to force himself to release it, force his mouth into a casual smile. ‘I have to admit, you’ve got me there,’ he said as he finally regained control of his thought processes and found the right words. The sensible words. ‘Are you sure you’re happy to eat out here?’

      ‘We don’t have a choice. Your jeans have got paint on them.’

      ‘It’s old paint.’ She didn’t move and he shrugged. ‘Okay, I won’t be long.’

      Willow sat back, watching the comings and goings as cars pulled into the car park, people walking by with their dogs, looking for something to distract her from the pain of what she’d done to herself. What Mike was doing to her. How could he be so casual? So laid back?

      A motor cyclist streaked passed, all black leather and crash helmet, exuding danger and excitement as his huge machine leaned into the mini-roundabout where the picturesque thatched village pump stood at what had once been the gossip centre of life in Hinton Marlowe. As she watched, he completed the circle and came back, coming to halt in front of the pub, putting his foot down while he tugged at the strap, then removed the helmet.

      Oh, heck.

      ‘Willow. I thought it was you. Enjoying the flesh pots of HM after a hard day with the paintbrush?’

      ‘Jacob.’ She managed a smile. ‘Finished for the day?’

      ‘Just about. The shop’s been shut for hours, but I’ve been doing the accounts.’

      ‘Is that what you do when you’re not shifting boxes and tending the till? Account?’

      ‘Something like that.’ He smiled and she tried harder to look as if she was pleased to see him. Clearly she’d succeeded, because he pulled the bike up onto its rest and walked across to join her. ‘Are you on your own? Can I get you a drink?’

      ‘Thanks, but it’s being taken care of.’

      Mike appeared in the doorway with a couple of glasses. ‘The food won’t be long,’ he said, glancing at the newcomer and then at Willow, waiting for an introduction.

      ‘Mike, this is Jacob Hallam. His aunt runs the village store. He’s an accountant, too.’

      ‘Give it up,’ Mike advised. ‘Get a life.’

      Willow stared at him. Then, gathering herself, she said, ‘Jacob, Mike is…’

      ‘Mike is getting in the drinks,’ he said, cutting off her attempt at anything more elaborate by way of introduction. She let it go. Maybe he wasn’t too keen on broadcasting his whereabouts, either. ‘Can I get you something? If you’re stopping?’ He wasn’t encouraging.

      ‘Oh, well, a lager, thanks. It’s thirsty work, cooking the books.’ Mike apparently felt no compulsion to smile.

      ‘We’re eating, Jacob. Will you join us?’ Willow offered quickly. Mike might not welcome company but she could certainly do with a buffer, an outsider to sop up the growing tension between them. It had been easy to ignore when they’d been working in separate parts of the cottages, but it was now beginning to stretch to twanging point. She moved up, inviting him to join her on the bench.

      ‘Just the lager, thanks. Aunt Lucy will have something waiting for me and she’ll fret if I don’t eat it.’

      As he sat down beside Willow, Mike bit back the urge to tell this leather-clad intruder that it was his place. It wasn’t. He’d forfeited any right to the place beside Willow when he’d walked out of church. So, instead of punching the man’s lights out, he went and fetched him a lager.

      If Jacob could have read his mind, though, he might have got straight back on his motorbike and driven off without drinking it.

CHAPTER FIVE

      ‘ARE you and Mike…?’ Jacob left

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