Knowing You (Second Chance series)

by Maggie Fox

  He pulled his hand away. “I see, so all of this is just part of the usual welcome committee is it?”

  “No. I mean, yes,” Faith flustered. Had she offended him now? Had he thought there might be something between them, just as Faith had? Now she was confused again. Was this a date or not?

  The waiter arranged the plates with their main courses on the table and said he hoped they would enjoy their meals.

  “You were right about the food here. It is great,” Zane said as he tucked into the sea-bass.

  “What do you usually do when it comes to food?” Faith asked, as she took a bite of her vegetarian lasagne. “Live on take-aways and microwave meals?”

  “Something like that. I’m a passable cook, but I never seem to have enough time to make something properly these days. It’s usually late when I get back from the Centre, and when I get home I just want something quick.”

  He raised his glass to hers.

  “So thanks for agreeing to come along tonight. It not only meant I got to eat decent food but it also meant I had to finish work at a decent hour too, which is no bad thing once in a while.”

  Faith clinked her glass against his. “You’re welcome.”

  “Plus, of course,” he added, “I get to enjoy some great company as well. It makes a pleasant change from getting in late and eating fast food whilst trying to sort out legal contracts.”

  Was he flirting with her? Maybe just a little. Faith felt her emotions swing back and forth. She liked him. No. She shouldn’t get ideas. That way trouble lay.

  “Maybe I could cook you a meal one evening?”

  Then again… Faith smiled.

  “Nothing fancy, that would be beyond my culinary skills; but I can do a decent Mexican if you like chilli con carne?” He smiled at her encouragingly.

  “I love chilli. Sounds good.”

  It was only when she heard the hum of a vacuum cleaner that Faith realised it was beyond closing time. Sam, one of the barmaids, was starting to clean and tidy up for the evening. Had they really been chatting for that long?

  “I guess we’d better make a move.” Faith stood up and reached for her jacket.

  “I didn’t realise the time.” Zane gathered up their glasses and carried them over to the bar.

  “Can I drop you at your cottage rather than you having to walk back up the hill from my place?”

  He shrugged. “It’s fine. I don’t mind the walk.”

  Faith nodded and turned the key in the ignition of her jeep. If she wasn’t dropping him off at his cottage, that meant he would be going back to where they had started the evening. To her café and her flat. Would he be expecting a nightcap? Should she invite him in?

  As they dipped down the hill into Carleton, Faith was still undecided as to what she wanted to happen when they arrived back at her apartment.

  Chapter Three

  Coffee. Yeah, that would help matters.

  Zane flicked on the kettle and leaned back against the worktop of his cottage, eyeing the mountain of paperwork covering the dining table, waiting for him. Outside, the sun was shining, the wind light. Perfect weather to be out trekking or climbing. And what was he doing? Boring paperwork. Again.

  Still, it would all be worth it when the legalities were sorted and the Carrdale Outdoor Activity Centre was his. Well, half-his. He was picking Matt up at the airport in a couple of days. And once he’d shown him where the spare room was, Zane was looking forward to dumping some of the paperwork in his arms and letting him sort it out for once. It was only fair, wasn’t it?

  Matt had been in Austria doing some business research for the Centre. He’d been sorting out some private matters as well, but, you could bet, he’d have been making the most of the landscape and the opportunities whilst he was there – climbing, glacier skiing, abseiling. In the meantime Zane had been drowning in paperwork and trying to get the Centre ready for its grand re-opening – as well as organising, at very short notice, an entire outdoor adventure festival.

  Though the festival was, he was surprised to admit, coming together quite nicely. Largely thanks to Faith. She’d been beyond great, giving him loads of contacts for everything from marquee hire to musicians. She’d called him earlier to say she’d managed to organise an extra meeting of the local tourism group for a few days’ time, so that he and Matt could do their presentation about the festival. They’d discussed holding a dance in the marquee on the evening of the middle day of the weekend festival as well. There was still a fair bit to organise, but he was extremely grateful to Faith for all she’d done to help him out.

  The kettle built itself up to a bubbling frenzy before it clicked off, and Zane thought back to his night at the pub with Faith. He’s had a great time at the Poachers, and the fact that he’d enjoyed his first proper meal in ages had only a little bit to do with it. The reason he’d had such a good time was Faith. He enjoyed her company. She was intelligent, funny, and, of course, gorgeous.

  She reminded him a bit of the actress Emily Blunt: long dark hair, pale skin, big blue eyes all teamed with a mischievous smile. He’d found himself thinking about Faith far too often since their first meeting at the Coffee Pot. The afternoon shopping trip and the evening in the pub had just made matters worse; now he was thinking about her even more frequently and it was doing nothing for his concentration levels. He’d come to Carleton intent on making Carrdale one of the best outdoor activity centres in the Peaks. A relationship had definitely not been on his to-do list. Still, as he well knew, life rarely turned out how you planned it.

  He knew Faith wasn’t involved with anyone at the moment. He’d called into the Coffee Pot one day to get a take-away drink and sandwich, hoping to see her at the same time but she hadn’t been there. Instead Sophie had served him and she’d started chatting away about Faith, making it pretty clear that she’d wanted him to know Faith was young, free and single. Sophie had then proceeded to give him the third degree about his own relationship status. He had assumed Sophie would be feeding this information back to Faith as soon as she saw her.

  Sophie was clearly the matchmaker of Carleton. The fact Sophie had asked him those questions suggested to him that Faith hadn’t told her how he and Faith had kind of skirted around the whole are-you-single stuff on that first afternoon on the way to the cash-and-carry. So Faith hadn’t been talking about him. He wondered if that was significant.

  Anyway, it looked as though they were both free agents and they liked each other. So why hadn’t things gone any further that night after the Poachers? Why hadn’t he asked her out on a proper date, rather than just dishing out some vague invitation to cook her a meal sometime?

  Zane groaned as he made his coffee and headed for the paperwork mountain in the dining room. Why hadn’t he even kissed her properly? Yeah, well, he knew the answer to that question well enough. When they’d arrived back at her place he’d thanked her for a lovely evening, politely refused her offer of a coffee, saying it was late, and had kissed her on the cheek before turning on his heels and trudging up the hill back to his cottage.

  Was he completely useless when it came to women? It certainly felt like that at the moment. Plus, he had to ask himself, did he want to risk getting involved in another relationship? Things hadn’t turned out so well the last time he’d been down that route, had they?

  Picking up the nearest folder, he knew there was a further complication as well. He couldn’t help feeling Faith was holding back, putting up some kind of barrier around herself. Every so often she let the barrier down enough to relax, and then he’d say or do something and the barrier would be back up again in an instant. It was almost as though certain things triggered some unhappy memories in her, and then she closed herself off from him again.

  He had a pretty good idea something – or someone – had hurt Faith badly in the past He recognised the signs.

  The problem was that for the first time in quite a while, he really liked someone. He was drawn to Faith and wanted to get to know her be
tter, despite his own concerns about getting involved again.

  Anyway, for now, he should put all thoughts of Faith from his mind and set to on the contracts and legal stuff. Great. He hated this side of things. But, he sighed, turning over the first page of the first bit of paperwork in the folder, you didn’t get where you wanted to go in life without learning to take the rough with the smooth. You had to tackle the things you hated as well as the things you loved.

  And he needed to get through a good chunk of this stuff before he picked Matt up in a few days. When they’d spoken earlier Matt had said he’d “just about got things finalised in Austria” – who knew what that meant in the circumstances, but Zane hadn’t felt like asking – and he should be on the first flight out of Vienna on Friday.

  As expected he was planning to stay in the cottage with Zane for now. OK, so the spare room was only tiny, but, besides the little office he’d set up in there, the place had been part-furnished and there was the sofa-bed. Probably a really uncomfortable one, but Matt wouldn’t mind. He’d slept on plastic sheets on rock-hard ground many a time; a saggy sofa-bed shouldn’t be a problem to him.

  Zane sipped his coffee as he tried, once again, to focus on the legal-speak in the contracts. Soon there would be two of them to wade through the ever-expanding admin relating to buying the Carrdale Outdoor Activity Centre. About time too.

  He just hoped trouble wouldn’t follow Matt to Carleton. They were good friends and got on well, but when it came to women their tastes couldn’t have been more different. Matt, he knew, was the kind of guy about whom the old saying about locking up your daughters to keep them safe might have been created. As Zane buried himself in paperwork, he couldn’t help wondering if Matt’s arrival was going to help matters or complicate them.

  Chapter Four

  The sun was coming out. A sunny Saturday was usually cause for celebration in its own right, as well as being great for business too. But today Faith could have done with it tipping down with rain, to keep the tourists away.

  It wasn’t even eleven in the morning, and she was rushed off her feet and already exhausted. The queue in the Coffee Pot stretched to the door and she was struggling to cope. If she’d had her usual team of staff with her then things would have been fine; they’d have smiled and chatted to the customers while putting together orders as fast as humanly possible. But she hadn’t got her team. She was alone and she could tell that people were getting fed up with waiting for their morning coffee and cakes.

  “Is everything OK?”

  Faith looked up expecting to see an irritated customer asking the question. But instead it was Zane. She smiled and held a hand up to him.

  “One second and I’ll be with you.”

  She turned back to the couple standing at the counter. “That will be twelve pounds then please. I’m so sorry for the wait.”

  The couple took their change and Faith turned to the next people in the queue.

  “Welcome to the Coffee Pot, sorry for the wait, what can I get you?”

  “I don’t know,” the woman replied. “These cakes all look amazing. I can’t decide.”

  “Take your time,” Faith smiled, glad of the break. She ushered Zane into the kitchen.

  “No, everything isn’t OK,” she sighed as she closed the door behind her. “Sophie’s phoned in sick. My weekender Debs has gone back to uni early, and my usual help Sue is three months pregnant and throwing up every ten minutes. So there’s not much point in asking her to come in!”

  Zane frowned. “Right, give me a second, then I’ll give you a hand.”

  “You?” Faith asked, as she gathered together some more cakes ready to fill up the cabinet in the coffee shop counter.

  “Yeah, me.” He nodded. “I worked my way through uni waiting at tables, and when I was travelling I bartended in pubs at night and dished out coffees in the day. I even have a proper food hygiene certificate. Just give me a minute and I’ll be right with you.”

  As Faith returned to serving refreshments, she noticed out of the corner of her eye that Zane was talking to a young woman. He looked as though he was apologising to her, gesturing towards the counter and Faith as he spoke. Faith had time to note how pretty the girl was before Zane reached into the back pocket of his jeans and handed her his car keys. The young woman said something which Faith couldn’t hear. Then she took the keys and left, heading for Zane’s 4x4 which was parked across the road.

  One word came to Faith’s mind as she made a cheese and tomato sandwich for a customer. Girlfriend. Had to be. She’d been expected some gorgeous woman to appear and claim Zane ever since she’d met him. OK, they’d been out together a few times, but not on anything you could officially call a date. This woman was obviously the reason why.

  Zane squeezed past her heading for the kitchen, slipped a pink and green floral apron over his jeans and T-shirt, smiled at Faith and stepped up to the counter.

  “Next please!”

  ****

  Seven hours later Faith turned the “Open” sign on the door of the café to “Closed.” She was totally exhausted. Zane was in the café’s kitchen, sorting out the dishwasher. The day had been crazy, and she definitely wouldn’t have managed it without his help. It was good of him to don the apron and serve the customers with her – especially as he’d had to ditch his girlfriend to do so. How could she thank him? Offering him money seemed wrong, and offering to cook him a meal back in her flat was now out of the question thanks to the appearance of his significant other.

  “Fancy a cuppa?” Zane asked, popping his head round the kitchen door.

  “Love one but I’ll get it,” Faith replied. “Want something to eat? Cheesecake? Gateau? A scone?”

  “Anything would be great,” he answered, joining her in the coffee shop again. “Do we dare risk sitting out front to eat? I have visions of some weary walkers heading home off the hills, seeing us, and banging on the door wanting to be fed!”

  “You could well be right,” Faith laughed. “It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened.”

  Deciding to risk it anyway, they both flopped down on the sofa near the fireplace, resting their feet on the newspapers on the coffee table.

  “I don’t know how to thank you for today,” Faith said as she bit into the slice of carrot cake she’d got for herself. As it had been the last slice under its plastic protective cake dome, it made total sense to finish it up so that the cake stand could be washed. After serving cake all day she didn’t really fancy eating it now, but as they’d both worked through lunch she was starving. So cake it would have to be.

  “No thanks necessary.”

  “Yes they are. I’d have really been in a mess if you hadn’t offered to help.”

  She paused. Should she say it? Yes, why not. It was better to know one way or the other.

  “And you had to abandon your girlfriend for the day to do it as well. I can’t imagine she was best pleased.”

  Zane finished his scone and set the plate on the table. Reaching for his coffee he turned to Faith, a smile on his lips. “Girlfriend?”

  “Yes, the woman you came in with earlier. How long have you been together?”

  Flopping back against the cushions he said, “All our lives.”

  Fantastic. So they were childhood sweethearts were they? She must have been travelling with him when he was in Austria. No doubt they had a rock-solid relationship, with plans for an engagement just around the corner. Probably once the Centre was all set up and sorted, and they could put down some proper roots together.

  “I see,” Faith replied quietly.

  “No, I don’t think you do,” he said, nudging her playfully. “The woman is my sister. In town for the weekend on an escape visit.”

  Faith brightened considerably.

  Not girlfriend. Sister.

  “Escaping from what?”

  “Her family. She’s married with two kids, and one of them has just hit the terrible twos. She felt in need of a bit of time away, j
ust to catch up on some sleep, have some conversations with adults other than James her husband. So she could feel human again.”

  “Sorry, you probably had a whole day out planned, did you? She must have been disappointed.”

  “Nah, she was fine. Probably worked out for the best in a way. She took herself off for some serious retail therapy and was hoping to book in at the spa this afternoon for a facial, she said. She’s probably had a much better day without me in tow. And I get to avoid being dragged around the shops carrying all her bags!”

  “Is she staying at the cottage with you for the weekend?”

  “She should have been. That was the original idea, but things are a bit tight in that place even for just one. Anyway, I thought Becca deserved a bit of a treat and the luxury of a hotel room, so I booked her in at the Royal. She loves it. Being waited on hand and foot.”

  “Bliss. I’m sure she does love it. The Royal is gorgeous. Though she probably could have relaxed and been waited on by you if she’d stayed at the cottage, couldn’t she?” Faith teased.

  “Not quite!” Zane laughed. “It’s great to see her and catch up with family news, and I’m happy to dish out the tea and toast at breakfast, but I’m under no illusions about my culinary abilities. They definitely don’t compare to those of the chefs up at the Royal!”

  Faith sighed and leaned back against the cushions. “Their food is pretty special. I’ve only eaten there once but it was wonderful.”

  Zane turned to her. “I’m meeting her at the hotel restaurant for a meal tonight. Why don’t you join us?”

  “Oh no, I couldn’t.” Faith shook her head. “It’s a family thing.”

  “Hardly. It’s only me and Becca. Come along, she’d love to meet you.”

  Faith hesitated. Dinner at the Royal was a real treat and a lovely invitation in itself. But dinner with Zane as well – even if his sister would be there too, so it wouldn’t be a date or anything – was a very tempting proposition indeed.