LITMIR.BIZ

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people at their ease, discovering their lives. It was what she did, after all, and he responded eagerly, not noticing that she was just going through the motions, had no real interest in his answer.

      ‘Jake, please. And she’s not really my aunt. Everyone calls her Aunt Lucy because that’s what she is, a sort of universal aunt to the village. She fostered me when no one else would have me.’ He grinned. ‘I was a bad lad.’

      ‘Yes,’ she said, and laughed. ‘I’ll bet you were.’ Still was, given half the chance, she was sure.

      ‘I owe her a lot, which is why I come down and stay whenever she needs me. It gives me a chance to make sure she’s still coping. That her accounts are neat and tidy. It’s little enough to repay all she did for me.’

      ‘She sounds quite a character.’

      ‘She’s a great old lady. Knows every snatch of gossip, knows who needs a hand, a chat, or just a cuddle. The village wouldn’t be the same without her. Lord knows what’ll happen when she packs it in.’ Willow perked up. Human interest. Village community under threat. It would make an interesting feature for Country Chronicle… No, no, forget that. The Globe. She had to start thinking in terms of what the Globe wanted. They’d have a different angle, but still… ‘You’ll meet her when you come into the shop again. You will come into the shop again?’ he added, hopefully.

      ‘I’ll make a point of it. I’d really like to meet Aunt Lucy.’ She had to get the kitchen painted tomorrow and go over the bits she’d missed in the day room. ‘When I’m not up to my elbows in emulsion, I’m a journalist. I’d really like to talk to her about her life, what the village shop means to the community. Would she let me do that, do you think?’

      ‘Aunt Lucy was born to talk. Drop by one afternoon, she’d love to see you. Tomorrow? Tuesday?’ Seeing her hesitation, he unzipped a pocket, took out a notebook and wrote down a number and handed it to her. That’s my mobile. ‘Call me.’

      ‘I’ll do that,’ she said, tucking the paper into her bag.

      He grinned broadly. ‘I look forward to it.’

      Willow looked up as Mike put a glass down rather sharply in front of Jake Hallam, looking as if he’d much rather tip its contents over the man’s head.

      Jealous? He was jealous? Did ‘just good friends’ get jealous?

      She glanced at Jake. He was certainly good-looking, but surely Mike knew her too well to believe she’d leap at the first man to make a pass at her simply because their relationship was over?

      But when had jealousy ever been rational?

      If she’d walked into the bar and found Mike chatting up some pretty airhead blonde, she’d have wanted to scratch the girl’s eyes out. And she knew that Mike wasn’t interested in airheads, whatever their colouring. At least not during the five months, two weeks, four days that he’d been the centre of her life.

      Jake, apparently oblivious to the dangerous under-currents in the atmosphere, lifted the glass and said, ‘Cheers.’ Then, after swallowing a mouthful, he said, ‘So, Mike, you’re part of this painting team are you?’

      ‘Willow’s painting. I’m making shelves.’

      ‘I see.’ Then, glancing at Willow, he said, ‘Maybe I’ll come along one evening and pitch in.’ It was more question than statement, she thought, testing her enthusiasm for the idea.

      ‘Do you know anything about carpentry?’ Mike asked, before she could answer, choosing to take the offer rather more literally than it had been meant.

      ‘Actually I was more interested in painting.’ Mike could see exactly what Jacob Hallam was interested in and gripped his glass so hard it was a wonder it didn’t disintegrate. ‘I couldn’t knock a nail in straight to save my life.’

      ‘Why? It’s not difficult.’

      ‘We’d really appreciate any help,’ Willow intervened quickly, glaring at Mike, even as her heart was doing a joyful little quickstep. Maybe she was shallower than she thought. She wanted him to be jealous. Green with it. ‘It’ll leave me free to get on with the kitchen. The sooner that’s done, the sooner you can leave,’ she told Mike mischievously and she was rewarded with a demonstration of what exactly was meant by the expression ‘if looks could kill’. If looks could kill, Jake would be lying on the ground in urgent need of mouth to mouth resuscitation.

      ‘I’m in no hurry.’ Mike was definitely cabbage-green. It was a side of him she’d never seen before. But then, he’d never been challenged for her attention before. Under the circumstances she knew she should be feeling outraged but, instead, she was experiencing a completely illogical hopefulness. Which was ridiculous. ‘I won’t be going anywhere this week.’ He glanced at her, defying her to contradict him. She hadn’t the slightest intention of doing so.

      ‘Oh, well, I’ll be sure to see you again,’ Jake said as he got up. ‘Thanks for the drink, Mike. See you, Willow.’ He fastened his helmet, then climbed aboard the big, dangerous-looking motorbike, kicked it into life and roared away across the village, to be lost from sight as he turned behind the church.

      Mike watched the motorbike leave with a sense of foreboding. Darkly handsome, graceful, dramatic in black leather, Jacob Hallam was the kind of man who only had to flash his eyes at a girl to have her at his feet. And he’d been so casual with Willow, as if he’d known that all he had to do was smile, snap his fingers and she’d be his for the asking.

      ‘Oh, good, here’s our food,’ Willow said gratefully, when the silence stretched beyond anything that could be described as comfortable, Mike’s expression of the kind that would turn milk sour. She smiled at the waitress, assured her everything was fine, since he didn’t respond to the girl’s query, and picked up her fork. ‘Cajun chicken!’ she said brightly. ‘Good choice. I love—’

      ‘I was wrong, you know.’

      ‘What?’ She stopped using her food as a conversational lifeline and looked up. He hadn’t even picked up a fork. ‘What do you mean, wrong?’

      ‘Yesterday.’ Willow held her breath. Wrong to walk out of church? Wrong to walk out on her? ‘It wasn’t five months, two weeks and four days. It was five. Five days. It’s a leap year. I’d forgotten.’

      She was unnerved by the depth of her disappointment. Four days, or five days, it didn’t matter a hoot. All that mattered was that she loved him and she’d let him go.

      ‘You’d forgotten?’ She made herself laugh to cover the tremor in her voice. ‘I can’t believe you’d ever forget that leap-day feature I did where I talked half a dozen girls into proposing to their boyfriends on the pavement in front of the office,’ she said.

      ‘This may come as a terrible shock to you, Willow, but I don’t actually read the Chronicle from cover to cover.’

      He always changed the subject when she talked about the newspaper outside of the office and she’d tried to keep her enthusiasm for her job within acceptable bounds, assuming that local news must bore him. But he didn’t even read her features? That was a serious dent in her perception of the way he felt about her. She’d have read a balance sheet to please him.

      ‘Even if you didn’t read the feature you must have noticed the increase in advertising revenue,’ she pressed. ‘We had wedding venues and bridal shops falling over themselves to book space, even offering discounts for wedding services for the six brave ladies involved.’

      Maybe her face gave her away, because he found a smile from somewhere.

      ‘I’m sorry, Willow. If I’d made an effort to read more of your fine prose I might have realised how good you are at your job. So,’ he said, distracting her from her unhappy thoughts, ‘how many of these unfortunate men bowed to the inevitable and accepted the fate you so cavalierly inflicted on them in the pursuit of increased circulation and advertising revenue?’

      ‘All

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