She gave herself nearly an hour to cry, and inwardly rant, and to write (and then delete) several expletive laden texts to Nathan before heading down to the café, all the while trying to convince herself that this wasn’t anything new; she had known it was over. This couldn’t break her heart all over again, because it had already been broken.
Part of her wanted to see her mum and sob in her arms; part of her knew it was better that she had left early that morning. She didn’t want to hear reasons why she should consider going back to Nathan again - especially now that he obviously wouldn’t be interested any more. She thought her mum had got the message - but she wouldn’t put it past her to think of another couple of reasons why her marriage was something worth saving.
What a mess it all was.
Chapter 12
A week flew by without Lee really knowing where it had gone; over halfway through December and Lee felt like the Christmas spirit that had always been a part of this month for her had flown the nest. She served coffees, teas and cakes; she discussed the big news in town that there was a possibility of snow the following week; she told Gina she was fine - but inside she felt like she’d gone as cold as the wintry weather.
“Is everything okay dear?” Val asked one day when she came in for a coffee and a scone. It was a quiet afternoon and Lee had found herself staring out at a family walking past the window, smiling and laughing in their big coats and scarves.
“Sorry? Oh yes, I’m fine.”
“You don’t seem to have the same sparkle as you did at the beginning of the month. I hope this place isn’t exhausting you already.”
Lee gave a slightly sad smile. “Oh, no. This place gives me a reason to get up in the mornings.” As she said the words, she was struck with how true they really were.
“A young, energetic, gorgeous girl like you? You need more in your life than just this place - no matter how much the locals rave about it.”
“You flatter me! I’m not that young, and definitely not that energetic. And I’m not sure you’d find that many people who would agree with the last part, either.”
The bell on the door tinkled as a cold blast of air entered the café. Stood in the door way in dark jeans, a black knitted jumper and a tartan scarf, was James.
Lee didn’t have time to think about the fact that she felt warm inside for the first time in days before Val began to speak.
“James! How lovely to see you dear, and on your day off. Come and pull a seat up next to me and agree with me.”
James laughed, a deep throaty chuckle that filled the café and made Lee smile against her will. “Of course, Mrs Thomas. May I ask what I’m agreeing with you on?”
“That Lee here - have you met her? You should, she’s fantastic. Anyway, my statement was that Lee is gorgeous, and she disagreed with me - which, as you well know, I don’t tend to accept. So you have to agree with me.”
“Oh, I do,” he said; Lee felt her cheeks burn red and almost wished the ground would swallow her up. She loved Val, truly - but asking the guy that she undeniably had a crush on whether he found her gorgeous was still extremely embarrassing. “She is most definitely, completely, utterly gorgeous.”
“There,” Val said, with a grin, seeming oblivious to Lee’s discomfort. “It’s settled.”
“Can I get you a drink?” Lee asked, feeling as though she couldn’t make eye contact with him; instead her eyes hovered slightly lower, although the danger in that was that she could see a hint of his defined muscles through his thin jumper and they didn’t help the direction her thoughts were heading…
“A Christmas coffee, please - surprise me with one.”
“Coming right up,” Lee said, pleased for an excuse to turn around and give the fire in her cheeks a chance to die down.
“I’d better get home, it’s dark so early and I like to be in with the fire lit before it’s pitch black!” Val said. “What do I owe you Lee?”
“You know your money’s no good here,” Lee said as she served a candy cane macchiato for James. As usual, Val tutted and put down a fiver on the counter, refusing to take no for an answer. “And you, PC Knight, should pop round and see me sometime. I used to see you all the time when you were growing up next door, and now you move two minutes out of town and I only see you when you’re on duty!”
Lee watched out of the corner of her eye as he gave her a bright smile that lit up his whole face, and in turn hers. “Of course I will Mrs Thomas. Take care.”
She busied herself with wiping down the sides and beginning to turn off the coffee machine; she had only just realised that it was nearing closing time. She’d suggested Gina head home early as they were quiet enough at this time of day for Lee to comfortably manage on her own, and Gina had been keen to go and get some Christmas shopping done. When she turned to glance at the clock, she realised it was just James and her in the little café. The sky outside had quickly turned from midnight blue to black, and the Christmas lights outside twinkled prettily through the condensation on the windows.
“Nice?” she asked him, as he sipped the sweet Christmassy drink she’d prepared for him.
“Delicious,” he said. “Very sweet - it’s filling me with the joy of Christmas!”
“Maybe I’ll have to make myself one then - I seem to have lost that lately.” The words were so honest, and they slipped out before she’d even realised she was saying them. That seemed to happen quite regularly around James.
“Why’s that?” he asked, and she found the way he was looking at her made her feel as though he could see right through the cheerful facade she had been putting on for the customers, for Gina, even for herself. “I thought you loved this time of year.”
“I do… I did. My life just isn’t as simple as it was - it makes it hard to find the magic like I used to.”
“It’s always there, I think - just sometimes it takes a little bit more searching to find it.”
“Maybe,” Lee said, not sure she could agree. Maybe some things just stripped the magic away. “I’m sorry but I’ve got to start locking up.”
“Sorry, I didn’t realise - can I help?”
“You’re a customer!” Lee said with a laugh. “You don’t need to help.”
“I don’t mind,” he said, reaching over and grabbing the cloth. “I enjoy the company.”
“If you say so,” Lee said, rolling her eyes a little and packing away the cakes in their airtight containers as James began wiping down the tables. She carried them into the small back room and took a deep breath; she was a thirty year old woman (with thirty one fast approaching!), she did not need to be mindless and giggly around a boy she liked. Man she liked. Man she kept picturing with his lips on hers…
Shaking her head to try to remove that undoubtedly pleasant image, Lee reached up to the fourth shelf in the wooden slatted shelving rack to put the cakes away and suddenly found a bag of flour toppling straight for her. In her distracted state she had knocked the baking ingredients to the far edge of the shelf and, unfortunately, the messiest had been the one to fall. It was too late to do anything - she tried to block the flour with her hands but in seconds she and the floor were absolutely covered.
“Great,” she muttered, shaking her head so the worst of the white powder fell from her hair and face. “Just marvellous.”
“Is everything all right?” a resonating voice called from the café, and she realised she’d forgotten for a second that James was in the building. ‘Brilliant,’ she thought. ‘Just what he needs to see - me covered in flour.’
She tried to insist that everything was fine, but moments later he appeared in the doorway, took one look at her and burst into laughter.
“What happened?” he said when he had collected himself. “It looks like it’s been snowing here!”
“Oh, it’s not that funny!” Lee said, feeling slightly irritated by the whole event. “I knocked the flour off the shelf when I put the cakes on. So stupid, I wasn’t paying enough attention.” She ran her fi
ngers through her hair, trying to get the flour that was clinging on to the blonde strands to fall to the ground, then realised her shoulders were covered and did a little shimmy before realising she must look ridiculous.
“Here, let me,” James said, and she didn’t have time to protest before his large hands were on her head, dusting the flour from her. She felt a warmth shoot through her that shocked her with its intensity; she was frozen to the spot, unable to speak, unable to think about anything but the fact that the top of his broad chest was right in her eye line and his hands were on her head, on her shoulders. She moved her eyes just a fraction to look up at him and as their eyes met it was as though the whole world stopped around her. Nothing mattered in that moment - just her, him and the pounding of her heart that she was sure was loud enough for him to hear.
One hand dropped from her shoulder to her waist without a word being spoken; the other was in her hair, palm to her cheek. Despite Lee’s height there was a decent amount of difference between their heads, and without knowing who moved first they were both moving towards one another. Lee stopped thinking about anything but his lips as they slowly, gently, sweetly pressed against hers. A jolt of something that felt like lightening shot from where their lips met to every part of her body, and what followed was not slow, nor sweet, nor gentle. Forgetting the flour completely, Lee reached up and threw her arms around his neck, pulling him closer to her. His hand on her waist became a little rougher, pulling her tightly towards him until there wasn’t a centimetre between their bodies. His hand remained in her hair, tipping her head upwards toward him and their lips met once more, passionately moving as though their very lives depended on it. A step backwards and Lee was being pressed into the shelving unit; she could feel the hard slats of wood behind her and his warm, soft yet toned body in front of her. She focused on feeling, feeling every one of these exhilarating sensations as their tongues met and she suppressed a groan of desire.
Neither heard the tinkle of the doorbell as it swung open, nor the footsteps in the café. They heard nothing until -
“Lee? Are you here? I realised I left my phone, I was going to ring you and ask you to bring it home but then, dur I realised I didn’t have a-”
She stopped dead in the doorway of the store cupboard, where Lee and James had not had time to extricate themselves from the embrace. Both were red and flushed and totally out of breath, and for a moment no-one said anything.
“Shit,” Gina said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt, I’ll just-” It was testament to the surprising nature of the situation that she didn’t even comment on the fact that they were both covered in flour. She turned on her heel, grabbed her phone and left, leaving James and Lee in close proximity with an awkward silence surrounding them.
“Well…” James said, taking a step back and running a hand through his now floury hair. “That wasn’t expected.”
Lee shook her head. “No…” She tried to smile, afraid that he would think that she wasn’t happy with the situation - because, despite what she’d said being true, she didn’t think she’d ever been so turned on in her life.
“I’m sorry, I know you said-”
“Don’t be,” Lee interrupted, putting her hand out to grab his; his eyes shot up to meet hers. “I mean… god I’m confused. I can’t get involved in anything right now, it’s all too mixed up. But that kiss… please never apologise for that.”
James grinned, and Lee almost wished he would kiss her that thoroughly all over again. “Okay. No apology. No pressure.”
“This may be a huge mistake but… would you like to go for a drink tomorrow night? To chat?”
“Sounds great.” He leant forward and pressed his lips to hers; a chaste, soft kiss this time, nothing like the fire that burned through them moments before - although Lee had a suspicion that that fire could be rekindled in seconds if any kind of contact between them continued. The attraction sparked around them like electricity.
“You’d better go or I’ll never get cleared up,” Lee said with a rueful smile.
“I could help…”
“Look where that got us!” Strangely, it seemed that her tongue had loosened around him, now that - well, now that it had so thoroughly explored his mouth!
“Fair enough,” he said with a shrug. “Until tomorrow, then.”
Once she’d heard the front door close, she leant back against the unit and closed her eyes, taking a few deep, calming breaths to still her furiously beating heart. She hadn’t a clue what she was doing, but god it had felt good.
Clearing up took longer than she had planned, thanks to the flour, and she spent the time thinking about what on earth she was going to say to Gina - who, she knew, would want a full explanation of the compromising position she had been found in.
Chapter 13
Lee had the chilly walk home to try and figure out what she wanted, what this all meant - and what she was going to tell Gina. If she hadn’t walked in on them, what would have happened? Could she enter a relationship with someone? What about just a fling? But then was that fair to James?
She couldn’t help but go round and round these questions, finding another unanswerable question every time she tried to reach a conclusion. The one plus side, she realised, was it stopped that sinking sadness she’d been feeling this week; reliving that kiss in her mind was definitely enough to banish the cold and miserable feelings.
As soon as her key was in the door, Gina was out of her chair.
“I want answers!” she said, flicking the kettle switch on and getting out two mugs. “Sit down and don’t even think about saying you’re tired, that was the hottest kiss I think I’ve ever seen.”
Lee laughed in spite of herself, and sunk into the cosy arm chair, waiting for Gina to bring over the cup of tea she was making.
“Oh Gina,” she said. “I don’t know what to do!”
“About what?”
“This! Him!”
“Is the answer of ‘bang his brains out’ too obvious? Because I’m struggling to see the issue here.”
“Gina! You can’t say that!” Lee said with a little giggle.
“I definitely can. So, how long has this been going on?”
“Nothing really is going on,” Lee said, sipping her tea. “We’ve flirted a bit, I guess and then… he offered to help clear up, I dropped flour everywhere, he tried to get it out of my hair-”
“And you ended up pressed against the store room shelves!”
“Pretty much! God, Gina, the chemistry is electric. I’m just drawn to him like I’ve never been drawn to anyone before. He walks in and I can’t think straight, he looks at me and I blush, he kisses me and…”
“You want to bang his brains out,” Gina finished with a smirk.
“Well, I wouldn’t put it like that, but yes, that’s pretty much the gist of it.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“My marriage has just fallen apart. I spent last week crying on the sofa because he’d told me he was dating someone else. I don’t think I’m emotionally ready to date anyone - and certainly not anything serious.”
“Ok,” Gina said, clearly mulling this over in her mind as she drank her tea. “Well, tell him that. Tell him you think he’s amazingly sexy, and you want to-”
“We don’t need to say it again!” Lee interrupted.
“Okay, okay, but that you’re not ready for something committed and so it can only be casual. See what he says - he might be fine with that. With chemistry like that flying between you, I bet he’ll accept it. And then you can see how it goes.”
“I guess,” Lee said, shrugging. “It terrifies me a bit. I’ve not dated in years. Not slept with anyone other than - than Nathan in such a long time. I feel so out of practice with that whole world.”
“Lee, that’s the fun bit. The awkwardness, the hours of kissing, the passionate sex… believe me, you’ll be fine once you take the plunge. I couldn’t believe when I walked in and there you two were, tangled up in on
e another and covered in flour… I hate to think what I would have walked in on if I’d been ten minutes later!”
Lee didn’t answer, but she silently agreed with Gina’s assessment; she had no control of her thoughts around James. Having sex in the store cupboard of the café certainly hadn’t been off the table!
***
Lee couldn’t sit still for the rest of the evening, and her night’s sleep was troubled by images of both Nathan and James. The reasons behind it were no mystery to Lee when she woke up tired and a bit irritable; she was nervous about the drink that evening and was clearly unsure about the decisions she was making.
The day passed in a blur with the usual routines and conversations that always made Lee’s day different from the previous one. She tried (and failed) to avoid watching the clock, knowing that James would be meeting her once the shift ended. Gina saved her multiple times from making mistakes with orders because she just couldn’t keep her mind focussed on one thing at a time. It was like she had too much energy and not enough all at once.
The South West Series Box Set Page 10