moped around his empty house regretting what he’d so carelessly thrown away.
A snuffle of laughter almost escaped. Yeah, right. Passionate affair? Who in their right mind would want one of those with her?
‘It gets so complicated, doesn’t it?’ she said thoughtfully, and then, just to see how Will would respond to the probe, she threw in another question. ‘And have you had enough time? Have you moved on?’
Will thought for a moment, and then he nodded. ‘I think I have.’
Which led to something else she wanted to know. ‘So why haven’t I seen a steady parade of attractive women beating down your door?’
‘Well, there hasn’t been any actual door beating as such, but I’ve been on a few dates.’
Oh. She hadn’t expected him to say that. ‘Anyone nice?’ she asked nonchalantly and twisted the stem of her wine glass in her fingers.
He sighed. ‘That’s not the problem.’
She glanced up at him. ‘Then what is?’
He shook his head gently. ‘I just always seem to go for the wrong type …’
‘What does that mean?’
‘There have been a few girls I’ve been out with that have sparked my interest, but I let it fizzle out after a few dinners. The ones I want to see again always end up reminding me of Sam.’
‘Really?’
‘I don’t mean looks-wise, I mean personality-wise …’ He lifted one shoulder then let it drop again. ‘Even when I try not to, I end up asking out someone who turns out to be just like her – free-spirited, unpredictable.’
‘Exciting, you mean,’ Juliet said, feeling her stomach sink. There it was again, that phrase. Free-spirited. It seemed that was what men wanted, even when they didn’t want to want it.
Will held her gaze. ‘Unreliable.’
She found she couldn’t look away. ‘And you don’t want that?’
‘No,’ he said softly. ‘I’m ready to stay in one place, put down some roots. That’s why I bought that big old house next door in the first place.’
‘Probably shouldn’t have made the big old marriage proposal to go with it without finding out if she wanted that too.’
That’s when Sam had run. And, unlike Greg, who’d at least had the decency to have a conversation with her before he’d left, Sam had just upped and gone, packed her bags and disappeared, leaving only a short and unsatisfactory note.
A flicker of discomfort crossed Will’s features. She began to apologise, but he shook his head and dismissed the words before they’d left her mouth. This was why she didn’t drink much, and especially not on an empty stomach; she always ended up saying things she regretted later.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘And that’s why I’m not in the market for another relationship like that – another woman like that. I’m looking for someone sensible, grounded. Someone who understands the concepts of home and family.’
Those words could have been instantly forgettable, if not for the way he was looking at her. Brown. His eyes were brown. Her pulse skipped again and she held her breath.
Something new appeared in Will’s expression. Something that looked suspiciously like a question.
In an instant, Juliet was out of her seat and clearing away wine glasses and fussing with fudge pans. Why? she asked herself, as she placed the empty wine bottle in the glass recycling. Why couldn’t you have just stayed still and looked back at the good-looking man who seems to like you? Why did you have to scurry away like Polly’s scared hamster?
Even now she couldn’t stop her busyness. It seemed to be her default position when anything uncomfortable happened. Eventually, she managed to slow herself down enough to not put on a pair of rubber gloves and start the washing-up. Instead she turned to look at Will, who was pushing his chair back and reaching for the jacket that was half-dangling on the floor.
‘Sorry,’ she whispered.
His mouth didn’t move from the straight line it was set in, but somehow she felt as if he was giving her the slightest of smiles. ‘For what?’
For not being ready, she wanted to say, but all she did was swallow.
Will gave her an infinitesimal tilt of the head. ‘The fudge was fabulous, by the way …’
‘Thanks,’ she said weakly as he disappeared through the back door. She heard him collect the mower and wrestle it back into his own garden, and when everything was silent outside once more she sat back down at her kitchen table and finished the entire pan of fudge off on her own.
Gemma stopped her car outside Juliet’s house, engine still running, but didn’t pull onto the drive. She sat there for a few moments, staring at the neatly-clipped evergreen hedge.
This was stupid. She was a grown woman in her thirties, but every time she approached Juliet’s front door the same thing happened: the years peeled away and suddenly she felt like a little kid who was merely something to be tolerated, a problem to be managed.
She drew in a long breath and blew it out again. This was no big deal. Just Juliet. She handled tougher situations on a daily basis at work.
Don’t care. It doesn’t matter what she thinks of you.
She pulled down the sun visor in her sports car and checked her reflection in the mirror. Apart from a couple of blonde ringlets, only her eyes were visible. As she stared at herself they transformed from round and wide like Bambi’s to apathetic and hooded like Garbo’s.
Good. She was ready.
Visiting one’s relations shouldn’t really involve goals and manoeuvres and tactical planning, but Gemma had learned the hard way that going in and dealing with Juliet without a battle plan was like going to war with a water pistol. The plan for today: a flying visit. She would swoop in, deliver the kids’ Christmas presents, chat for as long as she absolutely had to, then exit by fourteen hundred hours. It should be a piece of cake.
She took a deep breath and let it out again before edging her car onto the noisy gravel drive. She was sure Juliet had resisted paving, not only because she liked the old-fashioned look of the little stones, but because no one could approach her domain without her knowledge.
The place looked gorgeous, as it always did at Christmas. The steep gables and red brick of Juliet’s Victorian house suited the season so well. Plain white fairy lights were wound round a tree in the front garden and the struts of the covered porch. An evergreen wreath, complete with pine cones, silver jingle bells and a big red velvet bow graced the glossy black
