The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,124
he explained, tucking in. ‘I don’t do much cooking, so if I get the opportunity of a decent meal and some fresh veg, I go for it.’
‘Do you mean you can’t cook?’ I asked incredulously.
‘Of course I can cook!’ he said indignantly. ‘I have an extensive repertoire of beans on toast, scrambled egg on toast, cheese on toast …’
‘OK, just admit you can’t cook. Those aren’t meals, they’re snacks.’
‘I’ve never taken a lot of interest in cooking,’ he admitted. ‘There is always something more exciting to do and, anyway, it doesn’t seem worth the effort for one, does it? Elf puts meals in my freezer sometimes, with cooking instructions.’
‘I quite like simple cooking – casseroles and risottos and things like that, and soup. This one is really good – home-made is so much nicer than the stuff you get in tins.’
‘That pasta you cooked the other night was really nice and it didn’t seem to take you long to make.’
‘It didn’t, though I used bottled tomato sauce, which speeded things up.’
He evidently enjoyed his lunch now, anyway. I finished the soup and ate my tuna melt, then gazed absently out of the window at the moorland, feeling suddenly slightly disorientated as you do, sometimes, when you find yourself in a strange place, though at least I was not with a stranger.
Ned had seemed like one when we’d come face to face on the day I’d arrived, but we were soon back on our old terms of friendship.
I turned my head and found that he’d finished eating and was regarding me with a faintly questioning look in his amber-brown eyes.
‘Something’s worrying you, isn’t it? I thought so yesterday, even though you said you just had a headache.’
‘You’re right,’ I admitted ruefully. ‘And I was going to tell you today anyway, I just hadn’t got round to it yet. It really isn’t anything much.’
And I described how I’d been spotted yesterday by Mike’s veterinary nurse, Melinda, and the shock of discovering Mike hadn’t remarried, after all.
‘Apparently his fiancée moved in with him before the wedding, which was bad for him, because she must have started to get some idea of what she was in for. But it was good for her, because she moved out again and called the wedding off.’
Ned was frowning. ‘So … he’s still single?’
‘He doesn’t seem to have found anyone else … and I admit I did somehow feel safer when I thought he was married,’ I confessed. ‘I’m not afraid of him any more, it’s just that … if he found out where I was, he might turn up and try to make trouble.’
‘I’ll sort him out for you if he does,’ Ned assured me. ‘But you said this Melinda promised not to tell him she’d seen you?’
‘Yes, and I don’t think she will, because she doesn’t seem to like him much, but she’s bound to tell other people and then it might get back to him.’
‘What does he look like, in case he turns up?’ he asked.
‘It’s been a few years, so he might have changed, and he must be in his late forties now. He’s medium height and has that deceptively slight, skinny build most runners have – that was his hobby. And short, spiky dark hair with some grey. He can be very charming and seems genuinely nice, so you’d probably like him.’
‘He certainly doesn’t sound very scary – but then, when Lois used to fly into a jealous rage she was pretty terrifying,’ he admitted.
‘It’s hard to describe the effect he used to have on me once we’d been married a little while. Have you read the Harry Potter books, or seen the films?’
He nodded. ‘Both.’
‘Well, the effect Mike had on me was like a Dementor, sucking all the happiness and willpower out of me and leaving me feeling empty and helpless. But I think he found me a tougher nut to crack than he’d expected – unlike his first wife, who killed herself.’
‘I’m glad you got away – and you needn’t worry. If he tries to contact you, come straight to me.’
‘I will,’ I agreed gratefully. I thought Ned would be more than a match for Mike, however persuasive and convincing he might be. ‘Treena knows about Melinda, of course. She said Mike couldn’t do anything to harm me now, too.’
‘It’ll be fine,’ he reassured me, smiling so that all the little sun wrinkles round his eyes spread out like rays, which I found rather endearing.