took the edge off Lisa’s disapproval. It can’t have been easy for Nan after the death of her only child suddenly having to become stand-in mother to a young, bereaved girl.
Lisa looked at the ring as her grandmother let out an exaggerated sigh. ‘And who knows where he is now? It’s not like he left a forwarding address.’
‘But we shouldn’t keep it, not … not if Mum wanted it to go back to him.’ Saying the words out loud caused a painful pang. Why hadn’t Mum wanted her to have the ring?
‘Well, you’re more than welcome to try and find the bugger if you want. I’ll leave it up to you, but you might as well have it. No good to me.
‘Now are you going to take me to Morrisons or not?’
Lisa snapped the ring box closed, putting it and the photos back into the envelope. She knew from the set of her Nan’s jaw that the discussion was over. She had no idea what she was going to do with them but she tucked the envelope into her handbag.
‘I haven’t got all day, you know.’
Lisa bit back a smile at the irony of the words. Nan filled her days crocheting squares for blankets for Africa, tending her dahlias, doing the Daily Mirror crossword with almost religious fervour, and gossiping and drinking endless cups of tea with her best friend next door, Laura. A trip to Morrisons inevitably took twice as long as it should because she, oblivious to other shoppers trying to reach around her to pick things off the shelves, insisted on checking every price, tapping away on her calculator, to ensure that she was getting her money’s worth.
‘You can have any of those tablecloths if you want them, otherwise they can go down to the charity shop. You can drop them off for me. And there’s a box of biscuits I found you can have. Left over from one of Sir Robert’s Christmas hampers. God knows why he keeps turning up.’
Lisa suspected that with a house-bound wife, fading rapidly in recent months, he was probably rather lonely. He was always quick to accept a cup of tea on his annual visit.
Nan waved the pack of shortbread biscuits at her. ‘I can’t tell him I give half the stuff away. Too fancy by half.’
Nan didn’t do fancy when it came to food. Meat and two veg had been her and Lisa’s staple diet for ever.
‘Your mother’s been gone these past twenty years. Sir Robert’s been carrying paternalism too far, in my mind.’
Lisa had always thought the hampers were rather generous, although she was equally relieved that Nan didn’t expect either of them to eat some of the weird and wonderful contents.
‘Thanks. Are they in date?’ Lisa peered at the tiny ‘best before’ information. ‘Those chocolates you gave me last time were two years past their date.’
‘Nonsense. That doesn’t mean anything.’
Lisa gave an inward shudder. She regularly sorted through Nan’s fridge on the quiet. Eating here was a bit like playing ‘past-the-sell-by-date Russian roulette’.
She waited as Nan pulled on her outsized mohair coat, which made her look like a baby woolly mammoth and was probably from about the same period in history.
‘Don’t forget to put them boxes in your car.’
By the time they left, heading towards the superstore on the edge of town, Lisa’s car looked like a jumble sale on wheels and the envelope in her bag weighed heavily on her mind.
It had been a simple plan. Clean and effective. In and out. Finish work, drive to the pub, pick Siena up after her shift, not even have to go into the pub, then drive her home, girls’ night in, a few glasses of Prosecco and crash in the spare room.
Lisa kicked the flabby tyre of her loyal but flagging-a-bit-these-days Mini.
‘Ouch.’ Not so flabby after all.
Not wanting to abandon her car on one of the country lanes, it had limped the last quarter of the mile here. Now safe in the pub car park, she didn’t feel quite so helpless.
‘Need a hand?’ asked a languid voice from behind her.
Lisa closed her eyes and curled her fingers tight into her palms, registering the bite of her fingernails. He wasn’t supposed to be here at this time. On Tuesdays, he didn’t manage the pub until 7.30. She’d planned it so that she wouldn’t have to see him.
Quite how she resisted the overwhelming urge to gnash her teeth or growl out loud, she didn’t know. Ninety-nine point nine, nine per cent of her would have loved to tell him to get stuffed, but unfortunately there was a stupid niggly, and practical, nought point one per cent that admitted she probably did need help. While she was prepared to have a go at most things, and had got as far as taking out the flimsy-looking jack, which didn’t look as if it were capable of lifting a shoe box let alone a car, those slimy black bolts on the wheel looked completely beyond her.
She gave Will’s tall, slim frame a quick glance. Big mistake. It reminded her that his slender build belied a sinewy muscled strength and, under his clothes, the tautest, toned stomach she’d ever seen. The man had abs. Words died in her throat and she stood there, looking like a complete idiot.
‘Is that a, “Yes, gosh, Will, thanks that would be super”, I hear? Or a “Sod off, I’ve got this?”’ His fake falsetto reminded her exactly why she invested so much effort in avoiding him and his supersized ego and vastly inflated superiority complex.
He’d already approached the rear of her Mini. ‘Christ, how old is this thing? You still have a spare?’
With a determined grimace, she ignored him and dropped down by the wheel to manoeuvre the jack underneath the car, inserting the winding handle, as if she had the first clue what she was doing, saying with outward cheer, ‘No problem, I’ve got this. I can always call the AA if it’s too much trouble.’
As he hoisted the spare out, he muttered something under his breath which sounded distinctly like ‘you’re always too much trouble’.
Without saying anything else, he nudged her out of the way.
‘Thanks,’ she muttered as he set to work, kneeling on the tarmac, its surface wet from a recent shower, his head down as he started cranking up the car. It had been one of those days where the weather couldn’t make up its mind.
‘You here to see Siena?’
‘Yes,’ she answered shortly, glaring down at the stubby blonde ponytail brushing the back of his neck. Grown men shouldn’t have surfer-boy hair and it shouldn’t be sexy. He wasn’t sexy. Or even likeable. But a memory surfaced of that long hair brushing her skin when loose, bringing with it a quick flutter of awareness. The long hair helped create a casual look, when Will was anything but casual, except for his dealings with women.
She shifted her weight from foot to foot and pushed her hands into her pockets. The flutter turned into full-scale butterflies and she froze, praying that none of this was obvious. The butterflies could just sodding well back off and behave. She. Did. Not. Have.
