He had one foot over the café’s threshold when he realised that the woman in the orange dress was in there, sitting at a table in the window,histable, the table that he always sat at when he went there if it was free. She hadto be Cassie. Her hair had been tied back in her passport and driving licence photos, and now it was down, but facially she bore a reasonable resemblance to her passport photo.
She seemed to register him at the same time that he saw her. She glanced up, did a somewhat comedy double take and then smiled at him. Wow. She had a great smile; it totally transformed her face. And of course she’d recognise him because he hadn’t been wearing a shapeless raincoat with an enormous hood when they met, and his passport photo looked like him because he didn’t have gigantic amounts of hair to do in different styles.
He smiled back.
So what now? Obviously she’d chosen to go out this morning and hadn’t planned to speak to him. But since they were both here, it would be odd not to say hi.
He really couldn’t join her at her table, though, in case she didn’t want to chat.
Ridiculous: he was behaving like some kind of uncertain teenager.
Snap decision. He’d go and say hi first and then the ball would be in her court as to whether she wanted to leave.
And then Luigi shouted, ‘James,ciao,’ from behind the counter, squeezed himself out with difficulty and came towards James for some serious handshaking and man hugging.
When they’d finished catching up, James ordered brunch and turned to go and speak to Cassie while he was waiting for his food.
And she’d left the table and was standing only a few feet behind him.
‘Hi.’ She hoiked her large bag up onto her shoulder. ‘I was just going. I thought I’d say hello first.’ Bizarre how disappointed he was. Island living had clearly made him oddly needy.
‘Hello. I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure that you were you. Passport photos are never that reliable and I couldn’t see your face at all when we met in the rain.’
Cassie laughed. ‘Oh, yes, my hood. I love thatcoat. How was your flight?’
‘Yeah, not bad, thanks. I watched some old episodes ofThe Officeand managed to nod off for a couple of hours between meals.’
‘Sounds like a pretty good red-eye. I always slightly envy and slightly hate the people who can sleep the whole time.’
‘I know,’ James said. ‘Actual robots.’
They smiled at each other. James couldn’t believe he hadn’t realised before how stunning she was. Completely different from every woman he’d ever gone for in his entire life but beautiful.
What had they been talking about?
Luigi clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You want your usual table?’ No. He wanted to stay here and talk to Cassie. But she was clearly ready to leave.
‘Yep, great, thank you,’ he told Luigi.
‘I’m going to get going. Lovely to see you. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.’ She shot him another one of those gorgeous smiles and left.
James sat down at the table that Cassie had just vacated. He suddenly felt a little bit bereft. Ridiculous.
* * *
James shook his head slightly and tried really hard to concentrate on what the vicar was saying. He should be focusing on the service. That was the least he could do as godfather. It was hard, though. Matt had been right when he said the baby wasn’t sleeping well at the moment. How the hell were he and Beccasurvivingthis torture? There’d been screaming,loudscreaming, almost every hour through the night. James should have stayed in a hotel instead of in Matt’s spare room. He couldn’t remember being this tired for a long time. And Matt did thisevery night. Wow. James didn’t remember Leonie being like this when she was a baby but he’d been a teenager then and could have slept through anything. Or maybe his mother had just added a touch of vodka to her bottles. It really wouldn’t have been surprising if she had.
The baby, of course, was now sound asleep in his mother’s arms.
The vicar’s voice was monotonous and it was hot in here. James closed his eyes for just a second and felt himself sway on his feet.
‘James.’ One of the godmothers, who’d been at Matt and Becca’s wedding, a nice woman in blue called Anna, or maybe Emma – James had been too tired to concentrate when they’d been re-introduced – nudged him.
He opened his eyes wide, tried to blink his sleepiness away, smiled at her and mouthed, ‘Thank you.’
Matt handed James the baby and took a glass of champagne with one hand and ran a finger round the inside of his collar with the other. ‘Hot,’ he said.
The baby was screaming blue murder. James cradled him horizontally and did some vigorous sideways rocking back and forth and miraculously the noise stopped. He’d discovered the trick from his brother-in-law when his twin nieces were babies. It was definitely another thing that upped his desirability as a godfather. Peoplelovedhim for it.
