Harlequin Romance April 2021 Box Set

by Rebecca Winters

  She nodded. ‘Yes! There’s only one person staying now.’

  ‘One!’

  ‘Yeah...’ She felt her pulse speeding up. ‘A Swedish guy. He got jilted by his fiancée, so obviously he’s completely broken-hearted.’

  ‘Oh, my word, poor man...but at least you’ve got something in common.’ That was the thing about Grandma—no filter! ‘Is he nice looking?’

  ‘Yeah...quite...but he keeps to himself, more or less.’ A splinter of hurt started aching in her chest. ‘He gets his own breakfast, then he’s out sailing all day, so there’s no lunch for me to make. I’m only doing dinner... And Melinda’s on Tortola with her daughter, who’s just had a baby, so it’s kind of quiet.’

  Grandma’s eyebrows arched over the rim of her glasses. ‘And you don’t like that, do you, Em?’

  Grandma knew her all too well. She smiled. ‘I’m fine, really. I’ve got lots to think about.’ She pressed her teeth into her lower lip.

  ‘Don’t do that. You’ll get lines around your mouth!’

  She untucked her lip and smiled, widely.

  ‘You know, peace and quiet is a scarce commodity these days. Have I told you about the little tea shop in Calderburgh?’

  ‘No. You mean your favourite?’

  Grandma scowled. ‘It’s not my favourite any more. They’ve modernised it! It’s all laminate flooring and hard chairs, which are no use for stiff old bottoms like mine. They’ve stripped every bit of comfort out of it and the coffee machine screeches to high heaven so you can’t hear yourself think, never mind speaking or hearing. I was in there with Audrey three days ago and we vowed never to go back.

  ‘What the world needs is a bit of hush so if that’s what you’ve got on that lovely island then you should make the most of it!’ Her head turned sharply, and then the picture canted wildly before her face reappeared, bobbing in and out of frame because she was on the move. ‘I’ve got to go, dear. That’ll be Audrey at the door. She’s dropping off a romance novel. One of those sexy ones. They’re terrific!’

  ‘Grandma!’

  ‘Don’t Grandma me! I may be old, but I’m still warm and breathing.’

  She shook her head, smiling. ‘Bye, Grandma. I love you—’

  ‘Bye, dear.’ And then the screen went black.

  Grandma! What would she have done without her? When everything had fallen apart with Tom, she’d instinctively fled to Calderburgh. Flying out to Abu Dhabi to stay with her parents hadn’t even occurred to her. Their pristine condo suited them perfectly, but it wasn’t home, whereas Grandma’s house had always felt like a haven, a place where she’d felt at the centre of things, even more so after her grandfather had died. She’d always felt closer to Grandma than she had to her mum and dad.

  She parked her phone and poured herself a cup of coffee, taking it out on to the little veranda that ran along the front of the cottage. There was a padded swing seat not far from the door—another favourite spot. She kicked off her flip flops and sat down, swinging her legs up. The seat stirred gently. Through the frangipani trees, she could see a turquoise ribbon of sea, could hear waves tumbling on to the beach. Paradise!

  She closed her eyes, listening to the buzz of insects foraging in the nearby hibiscus and to the shrill chirrups of the yellow-breasted Bananaquits in the trees. Suddenly she noticed how springy the cushion felt beneath her and how utterly comfortable she felt. She sipped her coffee, savouring its rich praline notes. Good coffee, a comfy seat, tranquillity. If only she could bottle the feeling, take some back for Grandma.

  ‘Is he nice looking?’

  Joel on the beach...his eyes on hers...that dizzy, swoony feeling stirring her head around. Nice looking didn’t come close, but she hadn’t wanted to give Grandma any fuel for a fire. Melinda’s teasing had been quite enough and it was all wide of the mark anyway. She needed a man like a hole in the head, and as for Joel...

  She blew out a sigh. Four nights ago, when he’d come into the kitchen dangling the wine bottle, she’d been surprised, then she’d been surprised all over again when she’d heard what he had to say. Jilted at the altar, near enough! Sadness drained through her. That kind of hurt was bottomless. It was the hurt that kept on giving, the same kind of hurt she’d felt when Tom had told her about Rachel and about the baby they were expecting...

  She shuddered, felt the familiar lump growing in her throat, but for once there were no tears to swallow, only snapshots flashing in front of her eyes. Tom and Rachel. Those little looks in the bistro kitchen, the way they’d squeezed past one another with trays as they’d gone back and forth through the doors.

  She hadn’t noticed it then, but she could see it now, the way Tom’s face had seemed to brighten when Rachel came in; the way that Rachel had always come to work immaculately made-up: lip gloss, sweeping lashes, expensive scent. She could hear Tom’s voice animating, Rachel’s laughter tinkling. Only now, from a swing seat on the opposite side of the world, was she seeing what must have been going on under her nose for months and months. How could she have been so blind?

  ‘The wedding was called off. Not by me...’

  Grandma was right; she and Joel had a lot in common. They’d both had the rug snatched from beneath their feet. She knew Joel’s pain, had felt its scratch tearing at her own skin, especially that first night in the kitchen when he’d been too upset to hold her gaze, but before that he’d been making her laugh with his bad French accent, and before that he’d made her laugh on the beach, and she’d felt that in spite of everything there was something nice happening between them...

  The splinter in her chest twisted. But she must have been mistaken because although Joel had been perfectly polite since then, he’d also been distant, not lingering over dinner, not talking much. It had made her tense, made the atmosphere in the kitchen sticky and outside the kitchen...

  She blew out a long sigh. Joel had been away from the house so much that if she hadn’t known how much he loved sailing she might have thought he was avoiding her... She chewed her lip then stopped. She was doing it again, falling into the same old traps, finding new ways to make herself insecure! Of course Joel wasn’t avoiding her. This wasn’t about her! He was a broken man. If he was thinking about anyone, it was his ex...

  Hadn’t she been the same, over Tom? Shutting the world out, going over and over things...? That was Joel too, undoubtedly, wondering why his fiancée had called things off, or maybe he knew already and was trying to process it. Or maybe he was simply enjoying himself on the water, enjoying his surroundings and his solitude. It was exactly what Grandma had told her to do.

  She sipped her coffee, watching a butterfly dancing a jig around the hibiscus flowers. Mindfulness! That was the thing. Living in the moment. Focusing on what was in front of you. Peace, quiet, comfort and coffee...

  ‘They’ve stripped every bit of comfort out of it and the coffee machine screeches to high heaven so you can’t hear yourself thinking, never mind speaking or hearing.’

  She stared at her cup, realising suddenly that she was holding her breath. Grandma was spot on. Cafés had become noisy places and it was because of the hard floors and the hard seats, the wailing coffee machines. Surely there had to be a gap in the market for a different kind of café... A quiet café...

  Café Hush—no, Hygge.

  That was it! Café Hygge! A place which put good old-fashioned comfort first. Floors softened with rugs, seats with cushions comfy enough for stiff old bottoms. And the food... She swung her legs off the seat and stood up. Chocolate cake with thick ganache, gingerbread men, rich scones and—patisserie! Comfort food.

  She felt her heart lifting. This could be her new business. Tom was going to buy her out of the bistro...that was what he’d said. There’d be enough seed money there to start something small, not in London, but maybe in Calderburgh! She smiled. That would give Grandma and Audrey somewhere nice to go.

>   She slid her feet into her flip flops. With Joel seemingly set on spending his days elsewhere, there was time to work on the idea. She could hone her patisserie skills and perfect some recipes for her old favourites. And if Joel did decide to show his face, then he’d be the perfect guinea pig, because if anyone needed comfort food, it was broken-hearted Joel.

  * * *

  Joel turned off the main road and jolted the open-top Jeep along the rough track that led to the car park—happily, deserted. He parked and jumped out, leaning in to grab his daysack. For a moment he paused, taking in the view. Blue sea and blue sky stretching away and, in between, the myriad humps of the twenty or so forested islands that made up the southern archipelago. This lookout point was the highest on Tortola. Ironic, seeing as at that moment he was feeling lower than he’d ever felt in his life.

  He adjusted his sunglasses, shouldered his backpack, then set off along the path signposted to Apple Bay. It wasn’t that he particularly wanted to see Apple Bay. What mattered was that it was a ten-kilometre hike. Walking there and back would make his muscles ache and feeling an ache in his muscles was preferable to feeling the different, equally insistent, ache that he was trying to ignore.

  How had it come to this? Nils’s gift should have been the perfect island escape, but for the past four days he’d been on the run, hell-bent on escaping from his island escape, fleeing from sparkling eyes, lips that lifted so readily into the sweetest smile and cheekbones that begged to be touched with a slow thumb. Emilie! He stopped to swipe at the perspiration breaking over his brow. Kristus! What was happening to him? Why were these feelings hounding him when, if things had gone to plan, he’d have already been three days into his honeymoon with Astrid?

  He gritted his teeth. Bora Bora! He conjured the straw-roofed bungalow, the jetty, the turquoise water, but for some reason he couldn’t conjure any anguish. He pushed harder, deeper. They’d have been snorkelling maybe...and then afterwards Astrid would have stretched out with her book and he’d have opened his laptop...and they’d have been peacefully absorbed until it was time for cocktails. He frowned, walking on. Aside from location, their honeymoon would have been an echo of their life in Stockholm. Steady. Comfortable. Peaceful!

  The path sheared away suddenly, descending some thirty feet by way of steps cut crudely into the volcanic rock, then it flattened again, taking him into a stretch of dense forest. He pushed his sunglasses up and tramped along, brushing through fronds, taking in a million shades of dappled green, trying to spot the birds responsible for the shrieks and squawks he could hear. The air felt soft and damp against his face, and although the plants and the sounds were unfamiliar, something about the light reminded him of the forest on his family’s island east of Stockholm. It was where he’d spent that first summer with Astrid...

  He’d been sixteen. It was the year Astrid’s mother had been killed in a car crash. Her father, Karl, was his father’s dearest friend as well as his business partner at Larsson Lüning Construction. Karl had needed support and time to process his loss, so he’d brought fifteen-year-old Astrid to spend the summer with Joel and his family on the island, except that Joel’s whole family hadn’t been there. His older brothers, Johan and Stephen, had gone travelling with their university friends.

  Astrid hadn’t wanted to hang out with his two younger sisters any more than he had, so increasingly they’d spent their days together and it had been fun because Astrid enjoyed the same things as him—sailing, exploring, building campfires on the beach—and although she’d been grieving for her mother and had sometimes taken herself off for an hour or two, the summer had been good...

  He felt a gentle warmth filling his chest. That was how they’d started: two shy teenagers thrown together for a summer and becoming friends. The following summer Karl and Astrid came to the island again. That was the summer he’d noticed the way Astrid’s body was changing, the way her large blue eyes held his. That was the summer they’d become boyfriend and girlfriend, the summer he’d felt his father Lars’s eyes on him, felt a warning behind them...

  ‘Don’t hurt Karl’s daughter...’

  Hurting Astrid had been the last thing on his mind. He wasn’t a player, never had been. He and Astrid had gone on, rock solid, all though university, never falling out, never hooking up with other people for fun like so many of their friends did. They’d seemed to fit. Maybe that was why, when he was twenty-two, Lars had taken him aside and handed him a small box containing the engagement ring that had belonged to his grandmother.

  ‘You should make it official, son! Propose to Astrid at her twenty-first birthday party. It would mean a lot to Karl right now!’

  Karl had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease not long before. Maybe that was why Lars hadn’t mentioned Astrid’s happiness, or his own! He’d been thinking of his friend and had taken the rest for granted. A natural enough assumption! He and Astrid had been together for five years by that time. He’d accepted the ring, but he’d told Lars he’d rather propose in private. Hijacking Astrid’s milestone birthday party hadn’t seemed right, even for Karl’s sake. It was a year later, on Astrid’s twenty-second birthday, that he’d popped the question.

  He stopped walking and rubbed at a glancing ache in one temple. Getting engaged must have been a joyful moment, but for some reason the only picture he could bring to mind was the selfie they’d taken straight afterwards. It was his laptop screensaver. A squawk shattered the thought. He looked up, saw a green parakeet sitting on a branch, attacking a red berry with its sharp grey beak. He watched it for a few moments, then walked on.

  August was the time for lingonberries. He and Astrid had gone berry picking that first summer. He could see it so clearly...bright red handfuls landing in the basket by her feet. She’d smiled, said that when they got back to the house, she would make jam if there was enough sugar in the larder... He faltered, feeling a little dizzy. Jam, sugar, larder! Etched on his memory. Weird, remembering stuff like that! He walked on, picturing her younger face. Clear blue eyes. The dark green beanie she always wore... He faltered again, felt tightness banding around his chest. If he’d been happy for all the years that they were together, then why were his fondest memories of Astrid so firmly rooted in that first summer when they’d only been friends...?

  He pushed the thought away, pushing himself faster. The track was twisting downwards now, becoming narrower and more overgrown—more challenging. But physical challenges were welcome. Thrashing his way through dangling branches and dense undergrowth was far easier than hacking through the thicket of confusion in his head.

  And then the path exploded into a clearing and there was hot sun on his face and a ledge in front of him, overlooking a cove. A yacht was moored in the turquoise water. On deck, a man was lounging with a book in his hand and a woman was sunbathing. Two teenagers—boys—were jostling each other, then jumping off the side, all raucous laughter and splashing.

  He parked himself on a boulder and stripped off his daysack, retrieving his water bottle. He gulped down a tepid mouthful, watching the family, his focus blurring. He’d grown up surrounded by noisy siblings, but he’d always been quiet. The quiet one! Johan and Stephen had joined Larsson Lüning straight from university, but he’d never wanted to follow, even though Lars had tried hard to persuade him. He’d always wanted to steer his own course. He drew an uncomfortable breath. It wasn’t his fault that construction had never interested him. He’d always liked puzzles and strategy games so making a career in computer security had felt like a natural choice. And he was good at it. With his engagement to Astrid settled, he’d thrown himself into building his business, and now, eight years on, Larlock antivirus software was the number one brand across the globe. He was proud of that, but what had it cost him?

  ‘Joel, we need to talk.’

  She’d looked so pale and slender in grey cashmere, her silky, blonde hair twisted up, her eyes wide and anxious. He clamped his teeth
together, swallowing hard. It can’t have been easy, delivering the death blow. On the receiving end, it had felt like plunging into snow after a sauna: cold shock, disorientation, breathlessness.

  He simply hadn’t seen it coming. Yes, she’d been working unusually late for the past six months, but taking her place on the Board at Larsson Lüning when Karl’s Parkinson’s had made it impossible for him to carry on had been a huge adjustment. As Karl’s only child, it had always been on the cards that she’d step up, but they hadn’t thought it would happen when it did. There was so much to learn, she’d told him, and Johan had been such a help.

  He closed his eyes, tightening his grip on the water bottle. Astrid said that nothing had actually happened between them, but that her feelings for Johan were real, growing stronger, so she couldn’t possibly marry him. It was all so clean and tidy. A clinical finale. And now, after that initial, devastating shock, he was marooned in the numb fortress of his own skin, waiting for...what? Some stabbing pain to finish him off...to free him.

  He sighed, swigging back another tepid mouthful. Emilie! She made him feel the opposite of numb, but giving that feeling room to grow would only set him more adrift. He didn’t even know what the feeling was. Lust, desire...rebound stuff, definitely! He couldn’t indulge it or let it show any more than he could tell her that he always left her kitchen feeling hungry.

  The obvious pride she took in her work—the beautiful presentation of the tiny, delicious morsels she served him in the evenings—he couldn’t put a dent in that because he’d seen that first evening how important it was to her that he liked her food. He’d messed up that night with all his awkwardness. It was why he’d gone into the kitchen—to explain—but he hadn’t had the courage to tell her that the portions were too small. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her feelings, because her feelings had suddenly felt more important to him than his hunger. Then, somehow, he’d been telling her about the wedding that never was and there’d been such empathy in her eyes, as if she understood...