Welcome to the www.blinddatebrides.com member profile of: Englishcrumpet (AKA Grace Marlowe)

My Ideal Partner… Young at heart, just like I am. No cardigan-wearers, please! My teenage daughter has just flown the nest and it’s high time I remembered what it’s like to be young, free and single. I’d be lying if I said I was looking for a soul mate—true love like that only happens once in a lifetime, and I’ve been there, done that, worn the black veil… But I’m looking for someone to share my life with. Preferably someone who loves rock music and cold Chinese takeaway!

My Details… | You’ll match if you…
• Age: thirty-ten (think about it!) | • Are young at heart
• I live: in London | • Are London-based
• Marital status: widow | • Are unattached
• Hobbies: growing old disgracefully | • Want to join me

Read the rest of Englishcrumpet’s profile here www.blinddatebrides.com

www.blinddatebrides.com is running 25 chat rooms, 248 private IM conferences, and 15472 members are online. Chat with your dating prospects now!

Private IM chat between Kangagirl, Sanfrandani and Englishcrumpet:

Kangagirl: How was your date?

Sanfrandani: Weren’t you even just a little compatible?

Englishcrumpet: Erm…there might have been a little kiss…

Kangagirl: !!!!!!!!!!

Sanfrandani: And you turned down a second date? Why?

Englishcrumpet: He was too ‘grown up’ for me. And there was way too much chemistry.

Kangagirl: And that’s a bad thing?

Englishcrumpet:I can’t risk falling hard and then losing the man I love again. Surely I’m too old for all that Romeo and Juliet stuff? That kind of all-consuming passion only afflicts teenagers. Doesn’t it?

BLIND-DATE BABY

BY

FIONA HARPER

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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To my editor, Kimberley Young,

who urged me to dig deeper—somewhere else—

and I found unexpected treasure.

And to Jennie Adams and Melissa McClone—

even the (very) early morning IM chats were a blast!

CHAPTER ONE

GRACE MARLOWE and six o’clock in the morning weren’t normally on speaking terms. But here she was, standing in the middle of her darkened kitchen, the clock ticking in time with her heartbeat. Pearly light seeped between the slats of the blind, draining all colour from her funky little kitchen. She wrinkled her nose. Everything was grey, even the lime green mugs and the pink toaster. This truly was a repulsive time of day.

What was she doing here? Right about now she should be mumbling incoherently in her sleep, her left foot tucked over the top of the duvet to keep it nice and cool.

In a sudden flurry of movement she turned and headed towards a cupboard—any cupboard—and opened the door. It didn’t matter which one. She just needed to be doing something. Because she refused to think about why her little flat seemed like a gaping black hole this morning.

Bags of dried pasta and tins of tomato soup stared blankly at her from inside the cupboard. She shut the door carefully and tried the next one. Five boxes of breakfast cereal sat in a row, waiting for her to choose one of them. She closed that door too.

The kettle was within easy reach and she absent-mindedly flicked the switch. It roared into life, unnaturally loud in the pre-dawn stillness. She really must get around to de-scaling it some time soon. It boiled so violently when limescale had furred up the insides. The curse of London hard water…

Grace blinked. Just for a few seconds she’d forgotten to be miserable and lonely. That was good, wasn’t it?

She reached for her favourite mug, the oversized baby-pink one with the words ‘Hot Mama’ spelled out in crimson glitter. A present from Daisy last Mother’s Day. Daisy shared Grace’s love of kitsch and had known her ‘hot mama’ would appreciate the sentiment of the slogan and the garish colours.

Daisy had given the mug to her with a twinkle in her eye that had made Grace chuckle, pleased to see proof that her daughter had inherited her sarcastic genes. But when the laughter had subsided, she’d mourned. No more pigtails and scraped knees. Daisy was all grown up and ready to fly the nest.

In fact, she’d already flown.

It was Mother’s Day again in a couple of weeks and, for the first time ever, she wouldn’t spend it doing something totally fabulous with Daisy. Last year they’d gone to the ice rink and had spent the whole afternoon falling on their bottoms. Then they’d eaten a Chinese takeaway so huge it had gone down in family history as ‘the one that could never be surpassed’. But this year Daisy would be in Paris or Romania or Prague. She was going to be away for a whole year. And after backpacking there was university…

Grace hugged the mug to her chest. She missed her daughter already and she’d only been gone eighteen hours. How completely pathetic.

She dropped the mug to the counter with a clunk and stood there, her arms folded and her brows pinched together. Come on, Grace! You’re supposed to be the cool one, remember? The mum that all Daisy’s friends wished was theirs. The mum who had once worn fishnets and thigh-high boots to parents’ evening. The mum who had dressed up as Santa, complete with beard and potbelly, when little Joseph Stevenson’s dad had been too hungover to play the role. The fact that it had been Grace’s tequila that had caused the hangover in the first place was neither here nor there…

But Grace didn’t feel cool. For the first time in nineteen years she felt old and lonely. And not just wandering-round-not-knowing-what-to-do lonely. There was an ache deep inside her that could only have been caused by someone sneaking into the flat in the middle of the night, carving a huge chunk off her soul and stealing it away. She had a funny feeling that chunk might currently be sleeping in a youth hostel in Montmartre, but she couldn’t be entirely sure.

She made the tea and forced herself to turn the light under the cooker hood on. Sitting here in the dark would only give the impression that she was depressed, she thought as she slumped into a chair and lay her head on the table. Steam curled from the mug in front of her and she watched it rise gracefully on unseen currents and drift away. Eventually, she peeled her face from the table top and reached for the mug to take a sip.

Yuck! She stuck the tip of her tongue between her lips and grimaced. What the heck was wrong with her tea this morning? Looking into the mug gave her a pretty big clue. No teabag. Lukewarm water with milk in it was really not her thing.

Sighing, she hauled herself up from the table and crossed to the cupboard where the teabags lived. She reached inside and pulled out the Earl Grey. As she did so, a small pink envelope fell out of the cupboard and fluttered onto the floor.

Teabags forgotten, she bent to retrieve it and stood for a long moment looking at the familiar rounded scrawl that simply read ‘Mum’. She smiled. Ever since she’d been able to write, Daisy had had a habit of making her cards and notes, leaving them in unexpected places. Over the years the indecipherable crayon drawings had been gradually replaced by scribbled messages in a neat, even hand, but the flush of joy Grace felt at seeing each one had remained the same. She greedily tore open the envelope and began to read.

Dear Mum,

Please, please, please don’t be angry with me for this…

Grace frowned. She knew it! Daisy had borrowed her favourite David Bowie T-shirt last week, and she’d warned her daughter not to get any thoughts about ‘accidentally’ packing it in her rucksack. Little rascal. A smile turned up one corner of her mouth and she carried on reading.

…but I’ve got you a little going-away present. I know how much you sacrificed to bring me up on your own, and now it’s time for you to have some fun.

Grace stopped reading. A burning sensation tickled her nose and the backs of her eyes. She took another sip of hot water, shuddered and pulled herself together.

No one could have asked for a better daughter. And, somehow, Grace felt that God had blessed her with Daisy to make up for Rob being snatched away from her after such a short time together. Killed by a landmine on active duty in Iraq at the age of twenty-three. Where was the justice in that? He hadn’t even lived to see Daisy take her first steps or hear her say ‘Dadda’.

Grace sucked in a breath, overcome by the sudden urge to cry, but she shook her head, refusing to give in. She had Daisy. She had to focus on Daisy. Because Daisy had been the reason the sun had kept rising and setting for the last eighteen years.

She looked round the kitchen. Although she knew it was stupid to think so, it was easy to imagine the sun just wouldn’t bother to put in an appearance today.

Come on, Grace! Stop wallowing!

She looked again at the letter in her hands. Daisy didn’t have to thank her for everything she’d done. It had been her job and her joy. Being a widow at twenty-two had been hard, yes, but every time she looked into those beautiful brown eyes she’d known a big piece of Rob had lived on.

But I know you, Mum. I know you’ll talk about moving on or getting a hobby, or finally buying your own coffee shop so you can boss everyone else around instead of being bossed…I also know you’ll do absolutely nothing about it. So I’ve taken the liberty of giving you a little nudge and I make no apologies for what I’ve done. You need this, Mum. Don’t you dare try and wriggle out of it!

Grace’s colourful language as she read the rest of the letter shattered the greyness of the predawn kitchen once and for all.

‘She did what?’

She stared in disbelief at the pink sheets clutched in her hands. ‘You did what?’ she yelled in the direction of Daisy’s bedroom, even though her daughter had had the good sense to put a few hundred miles and a large body of water between them before she’d dropped the bombshell. Very good thinking. Because, right at this moment, Daisy would have been lucky to see another sunrise if she’d been within strangling distance.

Grace stared at the letter once again, then threw it down on the kitchen table. Despite what Daisy said, there had to be some way to get out of this.

Noah padded across the cream rug in his study, absent-mindedly rubbing his damp spiky hair with a towel. Even though he had already had his morning run it was still dark outside. And quiet. But he didn’t mind quiet. This was his favourite time of day. The time where ideas could brew and grow and take shape.

He turned his computer on. While he’d been running he’d worked out how to make the villain of his current novel even more dastardly. His editor would be pleased. The latest in his series of psychological spy thrillers was doing so well, the publishers were pushing to have the next one in as soon as possible.

He carefully folded the towel and hung it over the back of a chair before sitting at his desk and checking his emails. His inbox rapidly filled but, instead of clicking on the top message, he took a little detour, clicking an email link and arriving at a web page he was very careful not to visit when his PA was around. He logged into the site and opened up a page he had marked as a ‘favourite’ last Monday.

Grace hit the switch in Daisy’s room and blinked and squinted in the harsh yellow light. Maybe purple hadn’t been the way to go with the colour scheme. It was giving her a headache.

Daisy’s baby-pink laptop was on the desk and Grace picked it up and sat on the bed, one foot hooked underneath the other thigh, and settled the machine in the triangle of her legs. The ancient laptop chugged and whirred when she pressed the power button. While she waited for it to boot up, Grace inspected her fingernails and resisted the temptation to pick off some of the electric blue polish. Finally, she opened the web browser and typed in the address Daisy had printed carefully in the PS of her letter.

Blinddatebrides.com! What had her daughter been thinking? The thought of going on a date, blind or otherwise, was bad enough—but marriage? Been there, done that, worn the black veil…

A companionable coffee or dinner would be okay. She could probably live through that. While the page loaded, Grace’s mind wandered. Blind-date brides? How did that work? You turned up at the restaurant and…what?

Random images stampeded through her mind—wedding dresses made out of co-ordinating tablecloth linen…gold rings as napkin holders…waiters who were really undercover ministers, waiting to pounce at any hint of an ‘I do’…

Goose pimples broke out on her legs and worked their way up her body until the fine hairs on her arms raised. She shook her head. Okay, Daisy had undeniably inherited her impulsive genes, but even she wouldn’t subject her own mother to that kind of humiliation. Not unless she was present and in the possession of a video camera.

She winced as she typed in the username Daisy had invented to create an account. Frankly, it just added insult to injury. Englishcrumpet? Classy. Hadn’t Daisy seen enough old Carry On… films to know that crumpet would attract all the wrong sorts of guys? The sort who always seemed slightly sweaty and tried to peer down your cleavage when they thought you weren’t looking. Grace practically had to force her fingers to punch it out on the keyboard.

She logged on to the site and headed straight for the customer service section, bypassing minimalist cartoons of hearts, confetti and kissing stick figures. There had to be a number she could call and yell at someone about identity theft and being made to go on dates you really didn’t want to go on. It all looked deceptively easy. She clicked on a friendly-looking button that said ‘Contact us’.

Great. ‘Customer service teams are available to help you from nine a.m. to six p. m., Monday to Friday,’ she read aloud. ‘What good is that at—’ she checked the display on Daisy’s alarm clock ‘—six twenty-five on a Saturday morning? Most normal people go on dates at the weekend! Fat lot of good you are!’ she said to the smiley-face cartoon on the web page, obviously designed to calm and reassure distressed customers. All it made Grace want to do was frisbee the stupid laptop across the room.

Then she spotted another button: ‘Email us’.

She stopped scowling and rubbed her finger across the mouse pad to click on the link. Email would work. Not as direct as yelling, but she could use lots of capitals instead. A new window popped up: ‘Thank you for spending time letting us know how we can make Blinddatebrides.com better. A customer service representative will respond to your message within twenty-four hours…’

But the date was in less than fourteen hours! Grace was sorely tempted to revisit the whole ‘frisbee’ idea.

It was far too early in the day to start reading any kind of small print they might have stashed away in the deep recesses of this website. She needed help. Now. She dragged the mouse pointer to a sidebar button that read: ‘Chatrooms,’ spied a chat headed up ‘New to Blinddatebrides.com’ and typed, ‘HELP!’ Might as well not beat about the bush.

For an instant, her little plea for salvation blinked alone on the page. It was six-thirty in the morning, for goodness’ sake! Who in their right mind was going to be trawling for dates at this time of day? Only the utterly desperate—which summed her up quite nicely at the moment, actually.

Then a miracle happened.

Sanfrandani: What’s up?

Grace looked around the room. Was this person talking—erm, typing—to her? There was only one thing for it. Grace flexed her fingers and began to type.

Englishcrumpet: I’m new to this. Kangagirl: Hi, Englishcrumpet! Don’t worry, we’re all new in this chatroom! How can we help? Englishcrumpet: Oh! There’s two of you! Are you up at the crack of dawn panicking about a date too? Sanfrandani: LOL! It’s almost my bedtime! The ‘Sanfran’ in Sanfrandani stands for San Francisco. Kangagirl: And I’m just about to head home from work here in Sydney. Englishcrumpet: Australia?! Kangagirl: That’s right! Didn’t you know this was a global site when you signed up? Englishcrumpet: I didn’t know anything about this site until fifteen minutes ago! That’s the problem. Someone else joined on my behalf. Sanfrandani: How are you finding the site so far? Englishcrumpet: Well, I found two kind souls willing to help a sister in need, so it can’t be all bad.

Grace scratched the tip of her chin with a fingernail. She’d jumped to one conclusion already. Might as well make sure she had her facts straight before she carried on.

Englishcrumpet: You are a girl, right, Sanfrandani? Sanfrandani: Yes! Believe me, if you saw me, you’d know I was a girl.

In through the nose, out through the mouth… Grace took a deep breath and dived right in.

Englishcrumpet: I just found out I have a date with someone from this site tonight! Kangagirl: Good on you, girl! Englishcrumpet: But I don’t want to go on a date! I want to know how to get out of it! Sanfrandani: Do you have his email address? Englishcrumpet: No. Kangagirl: What about his username? Then you could contact him through his profile page. Englishcrumpet: I don’t know that either! Sanfrandani: Okay, Crumpet, what do you know?

Grace didn’t need the pink page from Daisy’s letter to relay the next bit of information. Every time she closed her eyes, the words floated in front of her face. She dropped her lids right then and—hey presto!

Englishcrumpet: The note says: Barruci’s, Vinehurst High Street. 8 o’clock. Kangagirl: Nice place? Englishcrumpet: Erm…I think so. A bit out of my league. I tend to prefer the Hong Kong Garden takeaway if I’m spoiling myself. Kangagirl: LOL! Sanfrandani: Why don’t you want to go on a date with this guy? The matching system at this site is supposed to be really good. He might just be your type. Englishcrumpet: Have your dates been perfect matches so far? Kangagirl: Not bad. On paper they should have been perfect, but just no…you know… Sanfrandani: So why not go?

Grace’s shoulders sagged. There were a million and five reasons why she should stay in, watch bad Saturday night TV and treat herself to a takeaway—especially now she’d mentioned it and was craving roast pork chow mein. What she wouldn’t do for a leftover tub of it cold from the fridge right now.

She wasn’t going to go. No matter how perfect on paper her mystery date might be. It had been years since she’d been on a first date. Of course, after Rob had died, she hadn’t even been able to conceive loving anyone else for quite a few years—and she’d had Daisy to bring up. Looking after a toddler on your own was pretty time-consuming.

And later, when she’d thought about dating again…well, a widow just had too much baggage for men her age. It had been a relief when she’d decided to give up trying. None of them had even started to measure up to Rob, anyway. Love like that only happened once in a lifetime.

There was an insistent ping from the laptop.

Kangagirl: Crumpet? Are you still there? Englishcrumpet: Yes. I’m here. Sanfrandani: So why not give this guy a try? You can come back tomorrow and share all the gossip with us! Englishcrumpet: I don’t really want to go out with anyone at the moment. I’m a widow.

There was a pause for a few seconds. The usual reaction. People didn’t know how to handle it when she told them. Grace sat back, propping herself against the pillows, and waited for the inevitable hasty retreat. These girls would politely excuse themselves and find someone more fun to chat with.

Kangagirl: I’m so sorry, Crumpet. Hugs. Sanfrandani: Me too. Even if you don’t go on the date, come back tomorrow and chat, okay? It’s going to take time.

Okay. Now she felt like a real heel. These were perfectly nice women and she was making it sound as if it was all recent history. Had she really been alone that long? She looked round the purple room. Last time she’d been on a first date, there had been teddies on the bed and pony posters on the walls. Now there were shaggy cushions and one of the walls was covered in wallpaper that boasted stylised purple flowers on a silver background.

Englishcrumpet: Actually, my husband died quite some time ago. But what I said is true. I don’t really want to go on a date, but I can’t leave the poor man sitting there on his own—that would be too cruel. Oh, I’m going to kill my daughter for this when she returns from backpacking! Kangagirl: Your daughter set you up?! Sanfrandani: LOL! What’s her taste in men like? Englishcrumpet: Her taste in men is fine—for a nineteen-year-old. I’m just not sure what sort of man she’d choose for her mother! Kangagirl: I think you should go. He could be cute! Sanfrandani: What’s the worst that could happen? You have a nice meal, chat a little. In a couple of hours it’ll all be over and you never have to see him again if you don’t want to. At least you’d have got back out there. Next time you could pick someone for yourself. Think about it.

Grace slid the laptop off her legs and left it on the duvet. Her right foot was all tingly from having been sat on for so long and she gave it a shake and stood up to get the blood moving again. Daisy’s dressing table stood a few feet away and she walked over to skim her fingertips over the curled edges of one of the photographs tucked into the rim of the mirror.

Daisy smiled back at her, her long dark hair ruffled by the wind, her eyes bright with mischief and easy confidence. Her gaze left the photograph and wandered until she met her own eyes in the mirror and she started. People said that she and Daisy looked more like sisters, rather than mother and daughter, but Grace could always see so much of Rob in her daughter. Just for a moment she was stunned by the similarity between her own reflection and the photograph. Apart from the eye colour, it was as if she were looking at herself in a time warp.

Yes, there were fine lines and wrinkles round her eyes now, and her once slender build had more curves, but she still looked closer to thirty than forty. What a pity that inside her head she was closer to being twenty-one. Being Daisy’s buddy had kept her thinking and feeling like that.

What would happen now Daisy was gone—only due to pop in and out of her life in between travels and university courses? Would she turn grey overnight? And it wasn’t just her hair she was worried about. She could imagine her skin taking on a dull grey pallor, her eyes becoming glassy. Would she wake up one day and discover an overwhelming urge to wear baggy home-knitted cardigans?

Come on, Grace! Snap out of it.

She twisted to check out her rear end and fluffed her hair with her fingers. She smiled. Even through the striped cotton of her pyjama bottoms, she could tell her derrière could stop traffic in the right pair of jeans. She was way too young to hide it beneath baggy cardigans. She did a little wiggle, just to prove herself right. Her reflection enjoyed the joke and laughed along with her.

See? She was still the same old game-for-anything Grace.

She picked the photograph of Daisy out of the mirror frame and studied it closely. One corner of her mouth lifted. That child was a chip off the old block, no doubt about it. This stunt with the dating agency was just the sort of crazy thing she would have pulled at nineteen. Why was she getting in such a lather about one silly date?

You never have to see him again if you don’t want to.

It was time she saw a little more sparkle in her own baby-blues.

She jumped back onto the bed, grabbed the laptop and typed in a frenzy, before she could change her mind.

Englishcrumpet: Okay, girls. I’ll do it. I’m going on the date.

After making a quick character sketch for his Ukrainian villain and jotting down some related plot ideas, Noah checked his emails again. He’d better get a move on, though. His PA would be here in twenty minutes and he really ought to finish getting dressed.

Yes, it was Saturday, but he had a big crime writers’ conference coming up soon in NewYork and they needed to go through the final travel arrangements and double-check that the notes for his seminar were all ready to go. Last job would be to proofread his keynote speech for the opening luncheon.

He shook his head, hardly able to believe that this was how his life had turned out.

It seemed he was always travelling, always speaking here and there. Everybody wanted to know what the secret of his success was, as if there were some ingredient other than a modicum of talent and pure hard graft. Living the life of a best-selling author had its great points, but there was a downside he hadn’t expected. For a start, he spent far too much time on publicity and promotion and struggled to find time to scribble more than a few words some days. Just as well his army background had taught him discipline and how to be cool under pressure.

And then there were the women.

His friend Harry thought he was crackers to complain about the women, moaning that he’d settle for just one per cent of the female attention Noah seemed to generate.

Oh, Noah had certainly enjoyed glamorous women making a beeline for him in the early days, when his books had first reached the top of the charts. The women had laughed and smiled and hung on his every word, marvelling at how clever and handsome he was and how he was just like a hero in one of his own novels. But after five years it was definitely getting a little tired. He was starting to feel like that guy in the movie who woke up and discovered the previous day was repeating itself. Only, in Noah’s case, it seemed to be the previous cocktail party repeating itself.

Okay, the colour of the skimpy dresses and the hair extensions changed. But that was as far as it went. He’d even stopped being surprised how so many stick-thin women professed to love martial arts or were totally fascinated by the cold war. One woman had even spent an hour telling him in great detail exactly how she could strip down an AK47, a hungry glint in her eyes the whole time.

After all his experiences, he could really write a convincing portrait of a glamour vixen who’d do anything to bag herself a rich and successful husband so she could bask in his glory and ride the celebrity merry-go-round for ever. Maybe he’d put such a character in his next book. And maybe he’d have the merry-go-round explode…

Compatibility started with sharing some interests, but it had to go deeper than that, surely. And it had to be a genuine interest, not facts and figures cribbed up on before a date. That was why his new pet project had come in handy. He’d read an article about this website in a Sunday magazine and had been intrigued with the possibility of being able to remain almost anonymous.

He flipped back onto the web page he’d minimised earlier.

Blinddatebrides.com.

If Martine, his PA, knew he’d been surfing on such a site, she’d have fainted.

But what was so surprising about him wanting to find a wife? He was of marriageable age, financially very secure and he had a huge house all to himself. It was just crying out for a wife. And he was fed up going everywhere on his own, being the odd one out at friends’ parties, always having to duck into the bathroom to avoid the glamour vixens at the writing ‘do’s’. Securing a wife would have the added bonus of being the ultimate deterrent.

He wasn’t asking for the moon. At forty-one, he was old enough not to fall for all that love-at-first-sight, finding-your-soulmate nonsense. He didn’t believe that his soul had another half floating around somewhere, desperately looking to re-attach itself. That sounded like a gruesome scene from one of his novels rather than romantic, anyway.

What he needed was a partner in life. Writing could be a lonely business. He spent days on end on his own, not speaking to anyone, travelling alone. It would be nice to have someone other than a part-time PA in the house. Someone to share a meal and glass of wine with at the end of the day. Someone to bounce ideas off or moan to about the latest deadline. And, if there was a little chemistry there, so much the better.

He’d been on three dates with Blinddatebrides.com so far and all had been unmitigated disasters. The women had been nice in their own way, he supposed, just not suitable at all. He was on the verge of downgrading his expectations in the short-term and just looking for a date-buddy, someone who wouldn’t mind attending functions with him to keep the vixens at bay. Even the stupid computer at Blinddatebrides.com—or the trained hamsters, or whatever they used to match people up—should be able to cope with something as simple as that.

Although the match suggestions from Blinddatebrides.com had seemed fine when he’d checked out the profiles, when he’d met the women in person…well, that was where it had all gone wrong.

Hopefully, tonight’s choice would buck the trend. He leaned forward to focus on the pixelated little picture on her profile. Local businesswoman. Age forty. And the picture was intriguing. Dark glossy hair. Stunning blue eyes and the smallest of smiles that hinted at both intelligence and mischief. Not his usual sort, but he’d kept coming back to this profile even after he’d discounted it. And if there was one thing he’d learned from all these years accessing his creative right brain, it was that sometimes you had to ignore the facts and go with your gut.

‘Coo-ee!’ Martine’s voice echoed round his empty kitchen. She’d obviously just let herself in. He reached for the mouse and had just closed the window as she walked through the study door.

‘What was that?’ she said, eyes fixed on the monitor.

He’d hired her for her razor-sharp instincts, but sometimes he wished he owned a remote control so he could switch them off.

‘Nothing for you to poke your nose about in,’ he said with a grin and handed her a stack of travel documents.

CHAPTER TWO

THE girl standing behind the reservations desk glanced up at him. It was the same girl as last week. He remembered the neat little bun she wore at the nape of her neck and how he’d wondered if it hurt to scrape one’s hair into something that tight. Just like last week, she didn’t seem to be in a particularly good mood. A raised eyebrow was all the welcome he got. Good. His attempt at going incognito was working.

‘Smith,’ he said, returning her look. ‘Table for two. Eight o’clock.’

She blinked, then deigned to check the reservations book. ‘This way, sir.’

She took off at a brisk pace.

‘Has my…dinner companion…arrived yet?’

The girl didn’t even turn to answer. The little bun wobbled back and forth as she shook her head. If Barruci’s didn’t have the finest wine list in this corner of London, he’d have boycotted the place weeks ago. But it was the best little restaurant in the suburb of Vinehurst, right on the fringes of London’s urban sprawl. A few minutes’ drive to the south and it was all countryside. Vinehurst had probably once been an idyllic little village, with its narrow cobbled high street, a Norman church and an old-fashioned cricket pitch that was still used every Sunday. Somehow, during the last century, as London had spread, it hadn’t swallowed up Vinehurst, as it had similar hamlets and towns. There was a distinct absence of grey concrete and high-rise buildings, as if the city had just flowed round the village, leaving a little bubble of rural charm behind. It was a great place for a first date.

At eight o’clock on the dot, a woman walked into the restaurant.

It was her.

The dark wavy hair was coiled behind her head somehow and she wore a neat black coat, fitted at the waist. Even though he was too far away to tell if her eyes were really the same colour as her profile photograph, they drew his attention—bright and alert, scanning the room beneath quirkily arched brows. He watched as her gaze flitted from one table to the next, pausing for a split-second on the men, then moving on when she saw they weren’t alone.

Noah put down the menu he’d been perusing and sat up straighter, giving no indication that his heart was beating just a little bit faster. Could the hamsters at Blinddatebrides.com finally have got it right?

Finally, the woman leaned over and whispered something to a waitress. The girl nodded and waited as the woman stopped to remove her coat. There was a collective pause as every man in the place held his breath for a heartbeat, then pretended to resume conversation with their friends, wives or girlfriends. In reality, they were tracking the woman’s progress across the room. Even the ones who were far too young for her.

Under the respectable coat was a stunning dress. The same shade and sheen as a peacock’s body. The scoop neck wasn’t even close to being indecent, but somehow it didn’t need to be. It teased very nicely while it sat there, revealing not even a hint of cleavage. The hem was short and the legs, the legs…

Well, the legs hadn’t been visible in the Blinddatebrides.com photo, but they were very nice indeed. Too nice, maybe. Maybe she was a vixen incognito. He loosened his tie slightly and tried to smile as she followed the waitress through the maze of tables, leaving a trail of wistful male eyes in her wake. The smile felt forced and he abandoned it. He didn’t do small talk; he did conversation. And he didn’t do overly effusive greetings these days, even in the presence of such fine legs.

When the waitress pulled out the chair opposite him for her, he stood and offered his hand. ‘Noah…Smith.’ A necessary diversion from the truth if he was to gauge if his dates really liked him for his personality rather than his bank balance. Sometimes he wished he’d had enough sense to use a pen name, but the lure of seeing ‘Noah Frost’ stamped in square letters across the front of a book jacket had been too great after all the years of rejections.

‘Hello,’ she said, shaking his hand, then quickly pulling hers away again. ‘You’ve got really nice teeth.’

He opened his mouth to say, All the better to eat you with, but managed to stop himself. Instead, he just kept quiet and motioned for her to sit down. He did the same.

‘Nice teeth?’ he said, smiling again. ‘Do you want to check my hooves to see if I’m good stock too?’

She blushed ever so slightly and the mischievous little smile from the profile photograph made an appearance.

‘Grace Marlowe—blind-date virgin…’ She clapped a hand over her mouth. It looked as if she were trying to wipe a cheeky smile away as she dragged her hand over her lips and let it fall. It didn’t work. The grin popped back into place as if nothing had happened.

‘That came out all wrong. What I meant was…this will be my first time.’

She closed her eyes and bit her lip. Without opening her lids, she kept speaking. ‘I’m making it worse, aren’t I—digging myself an even deeper hole?’

Noah stared at her. This wasn’t how the other dates had started. Where was the murmured conversation, the polite questioning as to jobs and musical tastes?

‘It’s only because I’m more of a blind-date veteran that I’m not in there with a matching shovel.’

She opened one eye. ‘You’re nice, Mr Smith. And chivalrous to a lady in distress.’ The other eye popped open and she tipped her head to one side. ‘How come you’ve had so many first dates if you’re such a nice guy? What’s wrong with you?’

Now it was his turn to laugh. His male pride really ought to be dented. None of his other dates had been so blunt. But none of his other dates had been quite so interesting.

‘This is only the fourth date I’ve been on.’

‘In how long?’

He shrugged. ‘A month?’

‘That’s a lot of ladies who passed you by, Noah. Tell me why I shouldn’t follow the crowd.’

Despite the fact that he was known for his cool, unruffled demeanour, he found himself laughing again.

‘I’ve got nice teeth?’

‘There is that,’ she said, her eyes twinkling. And they really were that blue. She looked at the tablecloth and scratched at a catch in the linen. ‘Sorry about the teeth thing. I was a little nervous, and when I’m nervous I tend to say the first thing that pops into my head.’

Although it seemed to get her into trouble, he found it quite endearing. And refreshing. The more successful he’d become, the more people second-guessed their every word around him. Getting an honest reaction—rather than one that had been carefully edited before it left a person’s mouth—was a wonderful novelty.

‘Shall we order?’

She breathed out a sigh, making a little round shape with her mouth. ‘That would be lovely.’

He opened the large, unwieldy menu and scanned it, even though he was pretty sure he was going to start with the carpaccio of beef and follow it with the scallops.

‘We can discuss my many faults over the appetisers,’ he said, completely deadpan.

The bright eyes appeared above the menu, laughing at him. Noah smiled to himself and paid careful attention. You could tell a lot about a person from what food they ordered. She chose the beef too. Another good sign.

No. Not a sign—he didn’t believe in signs. Just an indicator of compatibility.

She let him choose the wine and, by the time he’d narrowed the choices down to match their courses, their appetisers had arrived.

‘So, what do you do, Grace?’

She looked up from her salad—not by raising her head, but by looking at him through her lashes. A flicker of emotion passed across her face and she popped a piece of avocado in her mouth. Didn’t she want to tell him what she did for a living? It couldn’t be as bad as last Saturday’s date. A pet psychologist, for goodness’ sake!

When Grace finished chewing, she mumbled, ‘I’m a barrister.’

Not quite what he’d expected. He wondered if she’d be too tied down to her job to think about travelling with him. That might be a deal-breaker.

‘How about you? What do you do for a living?’

He opened his mouth and closed it again. Time to learn from past mistakes. The moment he mentioned thrillers and novel-writing, the game was normally up. Noah wasn’t a particularly common name and people tended to guess the connection, even if he used his totally imaginative Noah Smith alias. And he didn’t want Grace to go all giggly and stupid like some women did.

‘You do have a job at the moment, don’t you?’ Grace said.

‘Of course I do. I’m a writer.’

To his relief, Grace looked pleasantly unimpressed. ‘What kind of writer?’

He shrugged. ‘I write about military stuff. Quite boring, actually.’ Another little detour.

Grace dabbed her mouth with her napkin. ‘Are you pulling my leg?’

Rats. She could tell he was fudging the issue. Just as well he hadn’t decided to be an actor instead of a novelist. At least his characters were convincing, even if he wasn’t.

‘No,’ he said with his best poker face.

Grace looked at him long and hard. Had she guessed his secret? If she had, she wasn’t smiling and going all gooey, which was unusual.

‘So, tell me about your other dates,’ she said, her eyes never leaving his face. ‘What went wrong?’

‘Nothing.’ He took a deep breath and let his face relax out of his smile. ‘But it’s a serious business, finding a wife. I’m not going to trot off down the aisle with just anyone.’

She put her knife and fork down and stared at her salad for a few seconds. ‘You’re really looking for a wife on an Internet dating site?’

Why did his dates seem to find that so hard to believe? After all, the site in question was Blinddatebrides.com. It kind of gave the game away.

‘Aren’t you looking for a husband?’

Grace shook her head hard to loosen her hairdo a little.

‘What are you looking for, then? Love? A soulmate?’

She dropped her chin and gave him an Are you serious? look from under her lashes.

Good. She didn’t believe in those things either.

‘I’m glad we’re on the same wavelength,’ he said before taking a sip of wine.

Grace pursed her lips. ‘It’s not that I don’t believe in those things. Just that I’m not expecting to find them at Blinddatebrides.com. Nor do I want to. I mean, the whole Romeo and Juliet, all-consuming passion thing really only works for teenagers, don’t you think?’

He raised his eyebrows in what he hoped was a non-committal way. He wasn’t sure what this ‘in love’ thing was. Oh, he’d thought he’d found it once, but it had turned out to be a case of mistaken identity. What people sang about in love songs or wept over at the cinema wasn’t real. It was all an illusion—one he bought into about as much as he had the chick with the AK47.

His parents didn’t do all that hearts and flowers nonsense and they had been perfectly happy for almost fifty years. If it could work for them, it could work for him.

The evening passed quickly. Too quickly.

As Noah dug into his dessert, he decided he’d seen enough of Grace to know she wasn’t what Harry termed a ‘WAG wannabe’in disguise—definitely not a gold-digger! There was a recital at one of the local arts centres next week that he’d planned on going to, and he was going to ask Grace if she’d like to go with him.

He cleared his throat. ‘Grace?’

She looked up at him, a chocolate-dipped spoon half in her mouth. Slowly, and while Noah’s mouth began to water, she pulled it out, sucking the last of the rich brown mousse off.

‘Do you want some?’ she asked, eyebrows raised, mouth slightly smudged with chocolate. Noah meant to shake his head, but it didn’t seem to want to move.

‘Uh-huh,’ he heard himself say.

‘It is rather divine,’ she said, her eyes doing her trademark sparkle.

‘Uh-huh.’

Great. He’d won awards for his command of the English language and all he could do at present was grunt like a caveman. He watched as she carefully dipped the long spoon into her dessert and pulled out a bulging dollop of creamy chocolate mousse.

As she fed him the mousse, she unconsciously licked her lips. Noah felt a kick of desire so hard it almost rocked him out of his chair. His voice was horribly hoarse when he opened his mouth to speak. ‘Grace…?’

‘Yes.’

‘Um…’ Just like that, his brain emptied. Words circled round, but the ability to string them into coherent sentences had just vanished. He grabbed at a few of the nearest phrases in desperation. ‘Concerts!’ he blurted. ‘Do you like live music?’

Grace’s face lit up. ‘I love live music!’

It was only as his heart rate started to slow, pounding heavily in his temples, that he realised it had been racing for the last couple of minutes. He swallowed, which really wasn’t a good idea, because he tasted the chocolate mousse again and his pulse did a U-turn.

‘In fact, I was only at a concert a few days ago,’ Grace said, before turning her attention back to her dessert.

‘Really?’

She nodded and swallowed. ‘I saw this great band up in London recently—The Hover Cats—have you heard of them?’

He shook his head.

‘I don’t expect many of your colleagues share your passion, do they?’

She looked puzzled. ‘Why not? I know jazz and easy listening are popular in cafés, but that’s not all we listen to. Aren’t you being just a little bit narrow-minded?’

For the second time that evening, Noah felt as if he were under interrogation. ‘But I thought you said you were a—’

‘A barista,’ she said, folding her arms. ‘I work in The Coffee Bean further up the High Street.’

If she’d jumped up on the table and started doing the can-can, Noah couldn’t have been more shocked. She had such potential. And all at once he was intrigued, as he often was when he met someone who defied his expectations. What had led her to make those choices? Grace had the personality and energy to do anything she wanted. His brain whirred off, analysing her as if she were a character in a book.

She’d been sitting in silence as he’d absorbed the information, but now she flicked a glance at the door and started talking very fast. ‘Talking of coffee, I don’t really feel like having one—busman’s holiday and all that. Do you mind if we call it a night?’

She reached for her handbag and started to push back her seat. For the first time all evening, the confidence, the pizzazz drained away. She glanced at him for a mere moment as she smoothed down her skirt and he saw a look of both hardness and vulnerability on her face.

‘Grace, I’m sorry. In no way do I—’ He reached for her hand. ‘Don’t go.’

She shook her head. ‘You know what, Noah. This really isn’t going to work out. I think I should just leave.’ And, with that, she nimbly eased herself out of her chair and headed for the coat rack.

Known for his command of the English language? Hah.

Well, if Grace was leaving, so was he. He pulled his wallet out of his pocket, left more than enough twenty pound notes on the table to cover the bill and darted after her.

Grace didn’t even remember putting her coat on. It was only as the chilly night air hit her face that her brain whirred into action. Without making a conscious decision, she turned right and hurried down Vinehurst High Street as fast as the stupid high heels she’d stolen out the bottom of Daisy’s wardrobe would let her.

‘Grace!’

She bit the tip of her tongue between her teeth, shook her head and just kept walking. Every time she told people what she did for a living she got the same reaction, the same look. The one that said, why wasn’t she busy saving lives on the operating table or running a million-pound Internet business she’d started in her front room like other women of her generation?

Because she hadn’t been prepared to sacrifice time with Daisy to build a career, that was why. Daisy had already lost one parent and she didn’t need the other to become a dim and distant memory while childminders did all the hands-on stuff. So Grace had taken a job that let her fit her hours round the school day and didn’t require evening shifts.

The owner of the coffee shop was Aunt Caroline—or Caz, as she liked to be called. She was really Rob’s aunt, but had welcomed Grace into the family with open arms and had been a lifesaver when he’d died, taking Grace under her wing and letting her rent the upstairs flat. Grace’s parents had moved to the West Country when she’d got married and there had been no one close by to turn to. Her parents had begged her to move in with them, but she’d refused—too young, foolish and independent at the time to realise what a gift it might have been. But Rob was buried in the churchyard here and she hadn’t been able to wrench herself away, leave him behind.

She became aware of someone following her and picked up speed. She shouldn’t be made to feel ashamed of her job. She made the best pastries in the area. And, even if she hadn’t, she didn’t want to apologise for her work.

She could hear heavy, pounding footsteps behind her now. Just for a while, she’d thought she’d been having a decent conversation with someone who didn’t assume she had an IQ of twenty because she baked and served coffee for a living. And he’d been nice to her…But only because he’d misheard her and thought she was something she wasn’t.

‘Grace!’

He was right behind her now. She stopped and turned round, hardening herself, putting on that sassy front she used with difficult customers at The Coffee Bean. ‘Mr Smith.’

‘Grace, you got me all wrong! I don’t care if you work in a coffee shop or a lawyer’s office. I don’t want the night to end this way, do you?’

No, she didn’t. Adult company, a little bit of sophistication, had been nice. And she’d thought Noah had been gorgeous too, right up until the end. But he’d come after her. That was quite nice. To be exact, he’d run after her. And they had been having fun.

She started walking again. ‘What if I worked as a litter picker? Would you still have come after me?’

His features shifted and changed. When they’d been sitting down in the restaurant, she hadn’t noticed how tall he was. Now, she had to tilt her head up to get a look in his eyes.

They were the most beautiful colour. Green. Not the emerald-green of story books, but a cool, glassy green that verged on grey. Even so, their paleness didn’t detract from their intensity. When he looked at her she felt as if she had one hundred per cent of his attention, as if she were the only thing in his field of focus. But now they didn’t seem focused, they seemed puzzled.

‘Of course, I’d have come after you. I came out for a nice dinner and ended up chewing my own size twelve shoes. I needed to apologise.’

He wasn’t taking the bait, playing her little game, but his honesty won her over. She didn’t have time for slimy men who oozed the right things. She’d settle for Noah Smith and his no-nonsense words—even if they were occasionally muffled by his shoe leather. Had he really said size twelves…?

He fell into step beside her. ‘So, are we okay? Do you want to go somewhere for coff—a drink?’

She smiled. ‘How about if I was a sewage worker? Would you want to have a drink with me then?’

There was a tiny break in the rhythm of his steps. ‘Only if I was allowed to wear a peg on my nose.’

Her tense jaw muscles relaxed and a smile she’d been anchoring down sprung up. Finally, he’d joined her game. She grabbed his hand and speeded up. ‘Come on. I know the perfect place.’

Noah had no choice but to follow Grace as her shoes measured out rapid little steps. Even in heels, she only just reached past his shoulders and he didn’t have to do more than stroll to keep up.

The sky glowed a murky pink, reflecting the street lamps of a vast city. Typical for a spring night in England, an icy splosh of rain hit the top of his head, not even deflected by his hair. If he and Grace didn’t hurry up, they were about to get soaked. Just as he opened his mouth to ask where they were going, she dragged him into a doorway.

Out of the wind whistling down the High Street, the air was surprisingly close. Grace was only inches away, smiling up at him cheekily. He took a deep breath. It didn’t matter that the rain was now falling out of the sky and his right arm, out of the cover of the small doorway, was getting wet. All that mattered was the slight shine cast on her lips by the street lamp on the other side of the road. He couldn’t stop looking at them. The smile faded from her face and she regarded him with wide eyes.

The sound of the rain slapping against the pavement seemed to grow and intensify until it filled his ears. He knew he was about to lean forward and kiss her. Not that he’d made a decision; somehow he just knew. And there was nothing he could do to stop himself.

Just as his muscles prepared themselves for movement, he heard a jangle of keys and suddenly Grace was gone. He looked in confusion at the open door and listened to her heels track their way across the darkened shop. Attempting to follow was a bad idea, he discovered, sending a chair flying and leaving himself with a throbbing shin.

‘Hang on a moment,’ Grace said from somewhere in the darkness.

A few seconds later a light went on above a counter on the other side of the room. As his eyes adjusted to the blackness, a thunderclap rumbled a few miles away. Grace skirted round the tables and closed the door. She didn’t say anything as she moved past him; it was only as she was walking away back to the counter that she spoke.

‘This place serves the best coffee in the whole of South East London.’

Now he noticed his surroundings. The place almost resembled an auction room with its assorted wooden tables and chairs—no two matching. Large velvet-covered sofas occupied one corner and big canvases of abstract art and pictures of coffee beans hung on the walls.

‘The best?’

Now Grace was more than ten feet away and standing behind the safety of a counter she seemed to have regained her usual chatty manner. ‘Absolutely. And I know that because I make it. What will you have?’

‘Espresso,’ he said without thinking. ‘Double.’

‘Coming right up. Make yourself at home.’ He moved towards one of the low armchairs near the counter and sat down as Grace began banging things and turning knobs. A minute or so later she joined him with two cups of steaming espresso. The smell of freshly ground coffee filled the air like a fog. They sat and sipped their drinks in silence.

Grace hadn’t switched any extra lights on and they were sitting on the fringes of the yellow glow from the counter. Even in this artificial twilight she seemed brighter and bolder and more alive than just about anyone he knew.

‘So, Noah…How does a guy like you end up listed on an Internet dating site? If you don’t mind me saying, I wouldn’t have thought it was…you know…your thing, or that you needed help in that department.’

Noah considered what she’d said for a moment, then smiled.

‘I decided that meeting people via the Internet was as good a way as any. It’s all down to chance, really. You meet someone in a bar, or at work, or wherever…Why not the Internet? Joining a site with a matching service should help take some of the guesswork out of it.’

Grace rolled her eyes. ‘You make it all sound so romantic!’

Romance. What was that, anyway? He, like most men, had thought it meant flowers and chocolates and candlelit dinners. That much he could manage. In the five years he’d been with Sara, the one woman he’d thought of marrying without the help of a dating site, she’d tried to explain that romance was more about connecting with someone on a deeper level, about seeing into someone’s soul. He’d nodded and looked thoughtful and, although he’d tried hard to understand, he’d had the funny feeling he’d missed the point. Even though he’d connected to the best of his abilities she’d still walked away, telling him it wasn’t enough. The truly tragic thing was that he honestly didn’t know what he could have done differently.

Noah stared out of the plate glass window at the front of the shop. It was raining hard now, fat drops bouncing off the road and swirling down the gutters. That kind of romance was the last place to start if you wanted a successful relationship.

When he looked back at Grace that cheeky eyebrow rose again. How could she say so much with one small twitch of a muscle?

‘Don’t you believe in fate, in destiny?’ she asked.

Noah didn’t even have to stop and think about that one. ‘No.’

‘So it’s all just down to random events and chemical reactions, then?’

‘Well, partly…at least, I think that’s what sexual attraction boils down to, but we’re not just talking about that. Choosing someone to spend your life with is about more than chemistry, surely? Why? Do you believe in fate?’

Grace put her cup down and looked at the ceiling. ‘I don’t know…It’s comforting to think that love isn’t just some random genetic thing. Where’s the magic in that?’

Uh-oh. If she was looking for magic, she was barking up the wrong tree. He didn’t do magic any more than he did romance. Loyalty, honesty, sheer bloody-mindedness—he had those things in spades, but there wasn’t any fairy dust involved. It was just the way he was made. Time to get things back on firmer ground. Time to return to facts and figures and things a man could quantify.

‘Why did you join Blinddatebrides.com?’

Grace looked at the ceiling and shook her head. ‘Actually, I’d never heard of the site before this morning. Someone else joined on my behalf and I’m going to kill her when I get my hands…’ She bit her lip and grimaced. ‘Sorry. That didn’t sound the way I meant it to. I didn’t want to imply that I regret meeting you.’

‘Of course you didn’t.’

He liked the way she didn’t filter her words.

‘Maybe I’ll let her off with dunking her in the old horse trough on the common…Now that I’ve discovered having a blind date isn’t quite as horrendous as I anticipated.’

The corner of his mouth twitched. ‘I’m flattered. Me having such fine teeth, and all. You will tell your friend about the teeth, won’t you?’

Grace put down her coffee cup. ‘Oh, it wasn’t a friend who set me up. It was my daughter.’

His stomach plummeted just that little bit further. He hadn’t even considered that Grace might have children. She just looked too…And he was useless with kids. His friends’ kids only tolerated him when he visited because, on occasion, he could be coaxed into letting them ride on his shoulders. Any attempts at communication just fell flat. They would stare at him with their mouths open as if he were an alien life form. No, Noah and kids just didn’t mix.

‘You have a daughter?’ he asked, consciously trying to keep his tone light.

She nodded. ‘Daisy. Nineteen—the age when she thinks Mama doesn’t know best any more and is doing her best to organise my life to her liking.’

See? Nineteen was better. He might be able to manage children—well, young adults—at that age.

‘So, you’re divorced?’

She shook her head. ‘Widowed.’ Her hand flew up. ‘Don’t give me the look!’

He blinked. What look?

‘It was a long time ago. I was barely more than a teenager when I got married and not much older when I found myself on my own again.’ She gave him a fierce look, one that dared him to feel sorry for her.

‘How did he die?’

Grace went very quiet. Was he tasting his own shoe polish again?

‘Thank you for asking. Most people just…you know…change the subject.’ She tipped her chin up and looked straight at him. ‘Rob was a soldier. He was killed in the first Gulf War.’

Noah nodded. ‘I served in Iraq myself.’

She pressed her lips together and gave him a watery smile. He didn’t have the words to describe what happened next; he just felt a bolt of recognition joining them together in silent understanding. So many friends hadn’t made it home. And he’d seen so many wives fall apart. But here was Grace, not letting the world defeat her. She’d worked hard to bring her daughter up on her own. It couldn’t have been easy. And he’d bet she was a really good mother, one who had strived to be both mother and father to her daughter. If only every child were so lucky. He almost felt jealous of the absent Daisy.

This was getting far too emotional for him, pulling on loose threads of things he’d firmly locked away in his subconscious. Grace wasn’t looking for the same kind of relationship he was. She didn’t want to get married and, if she did, she wanted magic. His instincts told him it was time to retreat and let them both breathe out.

‘Well, Grace…’ He swallowed the last of his espresso and stood up. ‘I think I’d better be going.’ He shrugged. ‘Can I call you a cab or give you a lift somewhere?’

She shook her head. ‘No need. I am home. I live in the flat upstairs.’

Well, he hadn’t been expecting that. It kind of left him with nowhere to go.

‘It’s been nice…’

A small smile curved her lips. ‘Yes it has.’

The words See you again some time? were ready on the tip of his tongue. He swallowed them. But once they were gone he had nothing else to say, so he walked to the door, aware of her following close behind him. When they reached it, she flicked a couple of catches and turned the handle, oddly silent.

Before he crossed the threshold into the damp night he turned to look at her. ‘It was lovely to meet you, Grace.’

‘So you already said.’

He took a step backwards beyond the shelter of the doorway and the rain hit him in multiple wet stabs. He shuddered. For an instant, rational thought hadn’t come into it—he was only aware of his body’s physical response to the drop in temperature, the cold water running down his skin.

Grace stood in the doorway, in front of one of the angled panes of glass, her eyes large and round. All the laughter had left them now, but they were focused intently on him.

‘Bye, Noah,’ she said, and looked down at the floor.

Suddenly, he was moving. He took two long steps until he was standing in front of her and, without stopping to explain or analyse, he placed a hand either side of her head on the window and leaned in close. Her lips parted and she sank back against the pane and jerkily took in some air.

And then he kissed Grace the way he’d wanted to all evening.

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