Christmas at Willoughby Close (Return to Willoughby Close Book 3)

by Kate Hewitt

  “Is it so surprising, that I’d ring you?”

  “It is surprising to me—”

  “It’s just,” she continued doggedly, determined to get it all out now, for better or worse, “I thought we were becoming friends.”

  “Friends,” Roger repeated after a tiny, tense pause. “I suppose. Yes.”

  Which was hardly a ringing endorsement. Lindy told herself not to feel hurt. This was Roger, after all. This was how he conducted conversations. She needed to remember that.

  “Well, if and when my application is approved,” she said a bit recklessly, “and if I’m able to adopt Toby as I’m hoping to, perhaps you’d like to go for a walk with us one day? I know you said you were partial to him.” And perhaps to her, as well, although right now that felt very much in doubt.

  “There are quite a few variables in that equation,” Roger said after another one of those pauses. “And you will need to spend time socialising Toby properly before you take him out for walks.”

  “Yes, that’s true—”

  “But if your application is approved,” he cut across her, his tone as formal as ever, “and you do adopt Toby, then…yes. A walk would be…nice. Thank you.”

  “Great.” Lindy realised she was grinning. “I’ll keep you posted,” she promised and she almost thought she heard a smile in Roger’s voice as he answered, “Please do.”

  Chapter Nine

  “How was your weekend, Roger? Been to any raves?”

  In the two years that his young associate Chris had been working at Hartley and Fein Accountants, Roger had been the recipient of this question nearly every Monday morning. The first time he’d been bewildered; he had not known what a rave was, and Chris had found his ignorance hilarious. The second time, thanks to some judicious Google research, Roger had replied quite seriously that no, he had not attended any raves, as he was not the type of person to enjoy loud, impromptu musical sessions. Chris had found this equally amusing.

  Roger had realised then that the question was a joke, a gentle mockery, and he’d begun to answer in kind. It had become something of a challenge, similar to completing a sudoku puzzle, to consider what his reply would be on any given week. Sometimes he said he hadn’t been this week, implying he had on some other occasion; other times he told Chris he’d only been to two or three. At other times he researched the latest rave online and mentioned salient details to an appreciative Chris.

  Strangely enough, a bizarre camaraderie had sprung up between Roger and his young, over-gelled companion; their Monday morning banter had become something of a staple of both their working weeks, or so Roger liked to believe.

  Now, as Roger made himself a cup of tea in the office kitchen, he considered this week’s reply. “I’m afraid my raving days might finally be behind me,” he said in the tone of someone making a grand pronouncement.

  To his surprise, Chris let out a long, low whistle. “Is that where you got that shiner? Things got a little too wild during your last sesh?”

  Embarrassed, Roger touched his eye and then winced. “No, that was a…domestic mishap.”

  Chris raised his eyebrows. “That sounds…interesting.”

  “I mean, an accident. I bumped into a cupboard.” He was not about to explain about the ballroom dancing classes.

  “Sure you did.” Chris gave him a knowing wink. “Don’t worry, I won’t breathe a word about how rough it got.”

  “Nothing got rough—”

  “Mr Wentworth is sounding mighty pleased with himself, though,” he observed, which had Roger staring at him in bafflement. “I think dude’s got himself a lady.”

  It took a few seconds for Roger to process that statement, and then he shook his head. “I’m afraid your assumption would be incorrect.”

  “Why are you looking so smug, then, despite the black eye?” Chris asked as he took a sip of his own sweet, milky coffee.

  Smug? Was he? Admittedly, Roger had been feeling rather pleased with himself since Lindy’s call on Saturday afternoon. While he could fully admit he hadn’t handled their telephone conversation particularly well, the end result had been quite satisfactory.

  “I am not smug,” he told Chris, and then feeling that their three years of Monday morning banter deserved something more, he added, “But I admit, I do have some small hopes in that particular direction.”

  As soon as Roger had said the words, he wished he hadn’t. He might have hopes—and he wasn’t entirely sure he did yet—but he had no idea if Lindy shared them. Most likely she’d just been asking him on a walk for Toby’s sake, not hers. Besides, it wasn’t even a certainty yet. Far from it. There was the home visit, after all.

  “Ooh, my man! Some hopes!” Chris crowed. “Who’s the lucky lady? Tina from HR?”

  “No, of course not.” Roger stared at him, appalled. “It’s no one at work. I would never be so imprudent.”

  “Of course not,” Chris agreed, nodding.

  “It’s no one you know,” he informed his colleague firmly. No one who someone like Chris, who lived in Oxford and frequented rowdy pubs and pulsing nightclubs, would ever know.

  “Well, good luck, man,” Chris said as he hefted his coffee mug in a toast. “We all need it.”

  Roger forced a small smile of acknowledgement. He knew full well that if he ever did decide to ask Lindy out, he would need all the luck he could get.

  Lindy continued to prey on his mind all through his working day, which was extraordinary as Roger usually never lost focus at work. He was in his element when dealing with numbers and spreadsheets, things he understood and that didn’t change. Yet in the middle of a meeting about one of their major accounts, he lost the thread of the conversation completely, and was caught out when his supervisor asked him a pointed question about last month’s figures. Roger had gaped gormlessly for a second before he’d thankfully recovered himself.

  This wouldn’t do, he realised as he headed back home that evening. He drove from Wychwood to one of the park and rides on the outskirts of Oxford and then biked in, a commute that meant a bit of faff but at least got him exercising. On a Monday it also got him just in time for the ballroom dancing class, but when he came into his mother’s cottage that evening he found her curled up on the settee with an old episode of Inspector Morse on the telly, looking remorseful.

  “I’m sorry, darling. I just don’t feel up for dancing tonight.”

  “Oh. Right.” Roger tried valiantly to mask his unexpected disappointment; as much as he’d been dreading dancing, he’d been looking forward to seeing Lindy. “Well, never mind. I’ll heat up some of the soup I made over the weekend and—”

  “No, no,” Ellen said with surprising vigour, considering her rather woebegone state. “I won’t have you missing out. You go on without me.”

  “What?” Roger stared at her blankly. Such an idea had never occurred to him. “No, there’s no need. You’re the one who wanted lessons, not me. And besides, I don’t want to leave you alone.”

  “Nonsense,” Ellen declared briskly. “I don’t mind being alone, and I know you enjoy the class, Rog. Secretly, deep down.” She gave him a teasing smile. “Very deep down.”

  “Mum…”

  “I insist.” His mother sounded almost vehement. “There’s no reason for you to stay here and babysit me. You know I don’t like being mollycoddled.”

  “But—”

  “Why don’t you eat something quickly and then go change?” Ellen looked at him hopefully. “Wear your blue shirt. You look so nice in it.”

  Even someone as emotionally unastute as him was able to see what his mother was doing. She wanted to set him up with Lindy. The thought made Roger’s insides squirm rather unpleasantly.

  “Don’t,” he told his mum, and she raised her eyebrows, the perfect picture of innocence.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t meddle.”

  “I just want you to be happy, Rog. You’re a good man and you deserve a woman who loves you for who you are�
�”

  “I’m making supper now,” Roger cut across her, unable to bear hearing his mother list all his supposedly wonderful attributes. They’d had this conversation before and it always made him feel a bit nauseous. A man of his age did not need to hear his mother telling him what a catch she thought he was.

  With a sigh he headed into the kitchen to prepare them both the soup he’d made over the weekend. At moments like this he wondered how he’d got here—nearly forty, practically living with his mother, work being his entire life, no romantic prospects whatsoever.

  A few years ago, after Laurel, he’d braved a dating site and that had been an unmitigated disaster. The three women who had responded to his profile had been either desperate or bossy, and the dates had been worse. Roger had suffered through two excruciating evenings of conversation that had come in uncomfortable fits and starts before he decided he was perhaps meant to be alone.

  And then Lindy had come along and shook all that up…unless he was being ridiculous? She had said they were friends on the telephone, after all. Just friends.

  And yet…surely he wasn’t so clueless as to feel a spark leaping between them when it wasn’t there? On second thought, he probably was.

  “Rog?” his mum called. “The class is in ten minutes.”

  “I know.” Roger brought a bowl of soup and a slice of homemade bread to his mother, and she smiled at him gratefully.

  “You’re so good to me—”

  “I know, I know.” He waved her thanks aside with a quick smile. “I’ll see you after the class,” he promised her as he kissed her cheek.

  He bolted a slice of bread as he headed back to his own house, a sixteenth-century terraced cottage on a side street he’d bought six months ago. It had a musty, unlived-in air, since he spent so much time at his mum’s, and Roger glanced at the dusty surfaces with a slight grimace of distaste. He really needed to hire a housecleaner or get himself organised.

  Upstairs he peeled off his suit, hesitating for a moment as he remembered his mother’s entreaty for him to wear his blue shirt. It was washed and ironed, as he did all his work clothes on a Saturday, and yet he hesitated. Did he look nice in it? He had no idea. It was just a shirt, one he’d worn last week in fact. And last week Lindy had almost kissed him…

  Well, maybe.

  Roger reached for the shirt.

  Five minutes later, in his usual off-duty uniform of button-down shirt and khakis, he headed out into the chilly autumn evening. It was the end of September and it felt like it—the leaves starting to turn, a crispness in the air that hadn’t been there even just a week ago.

  With a spring in his step, Roger headed towards Waggy Tails Bakery—and Lindy.

  *

  Lindy had decided to dial it down for tonight’s class. She couldn’t help but remember her breathy laugh, the way she’d practically caressed Roger, last week without cringing inside. What must he have thought? After their phone call she was afraid she’d been friend-zoned, and she told herself that was just as well. She hardly wanted to jump into a relationship, did she? Not that that was even a possibility.

  Tonight she’d chosen a pair of canary-yellow cigarette pants matched with a bright blue button-down shirt, and she’d pulled her hair back into a sleek ponytail. High heels were, as always, a must, and so she’d matched the outfit with a pair of bright blue open-toed sandals. Still, for her it was a bit lower key than usual, although Olivia didn’t think so.

  She and Simon were the first to arrive, and she let out a delighted laugh as she took in Lindy’s ensemble.

  “You always look so fabulous, Lindy. Where do you get your clothes?”

  “Charity shops, mostly. Also from my grandmother.”

  “Your grandmother? How wonderful.”

  “I never met her, but my dad always told me she was a pistol.” Nearly as tall as Lindy herself, with a lot of attitude, Rosalind Jamison had seemed like a force to be reckoned with. Lindy wished she’d had a chance to meet her; Rosalind had died five years before Lindy was born, another person in her life she’d never had a chance to love.

  At times, mostly when she was feeling a bit low, she longed for the sprawling web of relatives that so many people had—grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins. It was all so beyond her experience, and usually that was fine. She made herself not mind, because she’d had so many blessings already.

  “Listen, you two,” Lindy told Simon and Olivia with semi-mock sternness, pushing away her melancholy thoughts, “I need to give you a bit of a talking-to.”

  “You do?” Simon raised shaggy eyebrows with an expression of teasing alarm. “Uh-oh.”

  “I know you’re having a laugh and a half, falling over each other every class, but you told me you were taking this class so you could wow people at your wedding, and I have to tell you, the way you’re going, that’s not going to happen.”

  Simon grinned but Olivia looked shamefaced. “It’s just we’re both so clumsy…”

  “I don’t care about clumsy. Even the most awkward person can learn how to dance. But you’ve got to put the effort in.” She wagged a finger at them. “Try harder.”

  “We will, Miss Jamison,” Simon said solemnly, and Lindy rolled her eyes.

  “We’re reviewing the waltz and the foxtrot today, and I want to see some dedication, okay?”

  “Aye aye, Captain.”

  Maureen came in then, hobbling a bit more than usual, although she was as sparky as ever. “It’s my hip today,” she told Lindy. “And my ankle. It’s always something.”

  “Are you going to be all right to dance?” Lindy asked.

  Maureen gave her a severe look. “I’m always all right to dance, missy. Now what about you and your man?”

  Lindy clocked Olivia’s interested look as she looked at Maureen in exasperated confusion. “What man?”

  “The stuffed shirt who comes along to the classes,” Maureen declared in a voice loud enough for everyone within a five-hundred-foot radius to hear. “You couldn’t keep your eyes off each other last week, I noticed. Or your hands, for that matter. That’s the way to do the foxtrot.”

  “Maureen…” Lindy could only goggle helplessly as the older woman let out one of her dirty cackles and Simon and Olivia pretended to be very interested in studying the Strictly Ballroom poster. “There’s nothing like that between us,” she informed Maureen rather sternly, only to have Roger walk through the door. Judging from the colour touching his cheekbones, it was likely he’d heard the whole conversation. Perfect.

  Lindy quickly looked away, busying herself with setting up the speaker, conscious of Roger’s presence like a force field drawing her towards him. After several minutes of pointless fussing with her phone, she turned back to him—and noticed he was alone.

  “Where’s Ellen?” she exclaimed, and Roger gave a little shrug.

  “She’s a bit tired tonight, so she decided to stay home and rest.”

  “Oh…” But he’d come anyway? Lindy was pleased, of course, but as she absorbed the news she realised it meant she’d have no reason to dance with Roger. There would be four students in the class. They could all dance with each other while she watched and instructed. The knowledge brought a pang of disappointment, which she firmly pushed away.

  It was just as well, she told herself. She really didn’t need to be embarrassing herself again.

  “Right, then,” she called out. “Let’s get started.”

  Over the next hour, Simon and Olivia applied themselves remarkably well, and Maureen gave Roger what-for, telling him to stop being so stiff and actually move.

  “Or else I’ll have to ask Lindy to come and show you how it’s done,” she said with a cackle, “and I know how much you’d like that.”

  Roger’s expression was completely unreadable, but Lindy felt his embarrassment. Or maybe she just felt her own. Maureen’s lack of inhibition when it came to commenting on their love lives or lack thereof was a decided danger to the class dynamic, as well as to Lindy’s
own mental wellbeing.

  “Shall I help you get the teas?” Olivia asked with a sympathetic smile during the break. “Maureen doesn’t know when to stop, does she?” she said with a little laugh once they were safely ensconced in the kitchen. “Poor Roger.”

  “And poor me,” Lindy said with a feeling. “Honestly…”

  “But he is a lovely man, you know,” Olivia said as she switched on the kettle. “I know he can be a bit—well—wooden, I suppose, but he’s got a heart of gold. Truly.”

  “I didn’t realise you knew him so well,” Lindy said after a moment, startled by Olivia’s assessment, and very stupidly, the tiniest bit jealous.

  “Just through the bakery. He comes in a couple of times a week to buy scones for his mum.”

  “Ah yes, cheese scones.” She remembered the scene from a few weeks ago with a twinge of discomfort. She still hadn’t apologised for that whole unsuitable remark.

  “He moved to Wychwood-on-Lea to take care of her,” Olivia explained. “She has cancer.”

  “She does?” Lindy looked at Olivia in surprise. “I had no idea.” Admittedly Ellen had always seemed a bit frail, but Lindy had just thought it had been because of her age.

  “Yes, and from what I gather, the diagnosis isn’t all that encouraging, although Roger has never said as much. It’s more just a feeling I have than anything else.”

  “Oh…” Why hadn’t Roger told her? There surely had been opportunity during their various chats.

  “Anyway, all this to say I think he’s a great guy. I know he comes across as odd sometimes—Harriet certainly thought so—but I really do think there’s more going on beneath the surface.”

  “So what are you saying?” Lindy asked with a small smile. “I should give him a chance?”

  “Well.” Olivia gave an abashed laugh. “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “I’m not even sure he’s interested in me,” she stated baldly, deciding to be reckless with her confidences. “He’s a very hard man to read.”