The Country Escape - Jane Lovering Page 0,73

see much more than to tell light from dark. So, no, if you’re looking for a man who’ll sweep you off your feet and carry you to Monaco for a weekend of rampaging and sightseeing, then, no. I’m not safe.’

Cautiously I put up a hand and brushed some of his unruly hair away from his face. ‘What if that’s not what I want?’ I asked quietly.

‘If you want a man who will always try to put you first and who is, quite frankly, besotted with you to an almost lunatic degree, then I’m as safe as houses.’ His voice was quiet and had the tone of one who expects to be slapped down.

There was a pause, during which the car rocked a bit more.

‘And whilst I am trying not to draw conclusions from the ongoing silence, I am afraid that conclusions are very much being reached. I’m sorry, I shall keep my emotional tendencies in check from now on.’

‘Gabriel…’ I couldn’t think of anything to follow up with. My heart was scudding against my ribcage as though I’d swallowed a Viking longship and the oars were still going. ‘My life is… complicated.’

‘And mine is so totally straightforward that I’ve got my pension predicted to the last penny? Nobody ever knows. Not ever. My sight may stay as it is. It might go completely. I’ve learned that complicated is just another word for “life”.’

I glanced quickly over at the doorway to the café. Karen had obviously heard the car pull up and our lack of appearance in the café had made her concerned enough to come and peer out into the car park. The wind made her hair do a 360-degree arc around her head and her apron attempted to escape.

‘I mean, it’s complicated, as in I can’t just say, “Oh, yes, let’s have a relationship,” and move you into the cottage. I have Poppy to think about, and even though she’s taken my divorcing her father reasonably well I’m not going to subject her to a series of uncles.’

His lips twitched. ‘Firstly, I wouldn’t expect you to. I have a perfectly good house of my own and no desire to share a bathroom with a teenage girl any more often than was strictly essential. Secondly, I don’t intend to be one of a series and I’d hope you’d see me more as an endpoint than a starting block. Thirdly, Poppy always has to come first in anything we may do. I’m sure there’s a fourthly, but it’s not springing immediately to mind. But I am otherwise encouraged by the fact that you haven’t instantly recoiled. Or told me that I’m lovely but you see me as a friend.’

I looked at him sitting there, dark and with those incredible cheekbones. His face was so familiar now that noticing his good looks startled me afresh every time. ‘I’d like… no. Not as a friend,’ I said, and my voice was thick with a sort of desire. ‘It’s more than that.’

‘Excellent!’ He gave me a cheerful grin and opened the car door. ‘Now, let’s seal our pact with Karen’s excellent buns. Good Lord, that sounded really skeevy, didn’t it? Sorry.’

The wind took the car doors and flung them wide, then stirred all the detritus that naturally came to rest in the car into demonic motion. Every sweet wrapper in the world arose and sought its revenge, whirling around as though trying to manifest in earthly form. We slammed the doors and I watched it all come to rest again. My heart felt a lot like the car interior right now, only with less Werther’s Original packets. It was whirling and dancing around in my chest, stirred into unfamiliar motion by his declaration and the implications. Gabriel took my hand and we ran across the car park like two children dashing into school, heads ducked to reduce us as targets for the water splatters and the wind.

The inside of the café was a huge contrast to the outside. Warm and still, the only real noise some gentle background conversation and the tinkle of fork against plate. It was a little bit like coming across Miss Marple during the apocalypse.

‘Hey, glad you made it over!’ Karen bore down on us, apron rustling. ‘Turning a bit wild out there now, typical autumn. How are you, Gabe?’

‘Improving daily, Kaz, thanks.’ Gabriel still had hold of my hand and he gave my fingers a squeeze. ‘Life is continuing to surprise me.’

‘Sit down over there. I’ll go get you