‘Hi.’ Shit. She’d said that too quietly, kind of moonily, like a lovestruck teenager, while smiling. It did feelgreat, though, that James had called her.
‘You on the boat? I just heard seagulls and a foghorn.’
‘Yep. My flight was a bit delayed this morning. I just made the last ferry of the day, thank goodness. Imagine if I’d missed it.’
‘Yes, that would be gutting. So near and yet so far. You’d have had to swim.’
‘Exactly. So you must be back? Does it feel good?’
‘You know, it is nice, although I’m already missing the States, but what’s made it really great is the food and the notes you left for me. Dinner was fantastic, thank you. I love the mansaf, as you know, and a pistachio and orange cake from Luigi is one of the few desserts I really like. And I’m about to read your notes before I go to sleep. So thank you. That’s why I phoned, to say thanks. But now I’m here, tell me about your journey?’
Not only had Cassie not finished telling him about the people she’d met during her day, she’d barely had a chance to ask him anything about his first day back at home when it was time to leave the ferry.
‘I haven’t heard about your day but I’m arriving,’ she said.
‘Happy homecoming and let’s speak tomorrow. I’m going to read your notes in bed now.’
Cassie was still smiling from their conversation when she saw Dina waving manically at her from the jetty.
* * *
Cassie turned her key and then the front door handle, and pushed.Solovely but also weird to step inside and have her own house back.
There was an A4 envelope with her name on it on the kitchen table. She opened it and pulled the contents out. James had written notes for her, by hand. A lot of notes. So many that she wasn’t going to read them all now because it would take too long.
Oh. Okay. Yep.
They weren’t anywhere near as long as the ones she’d left for him at the beginning of the swap.
Ofcourseshe shouldn’t have expected him to have read them all straight off.
She wasgoing to save these and read them this evening, when she got into bed.
He had great handwriting. At a guess, if an expert analysed it, they’d say he was very strong-minded, purposeful, pretty goddamn sexy, in fact.
She put the kettle on and opened the cupboard where she kept the tea. Wow. Someone had restocked it.
She opened the fridge and there was a large note in James’s handwriting.Look in the freezer.
She opened the freezer door and saw that every drawer was full.
She pulled open the one that was just below her eye level. Everything in there was labelled in James’s writing. Soda bread. Carrot cake. Cookies.
The next one down was shop-bought soups.
The one below that was portions of lasagne, which looked home-made.
Wow.
She was so glad that she’d done the house swap with James. It had certainly been valuable from a work perspective; she’d achieved even more than she’d hoped with regard to writing the London series and was well into her second book now. And even more importantly, it had been great from a personal perspective. She’d done her first round of IVF, which was a huge achievement, she’d been back to Glasgow and would now have the courage to go whenever she wanted to, and she’d made some wonderful new friends.
Particularly James. He’d morphed from one of the most annoying people she’d ever met into someone who sheadored.
Twenty-One
James
‘You’re doing what?’ Matt leaned his golf club against his bag and stared at James. ‘Mate. You’re having your neighbours over for dinner? And you’re cooking for them? It’s like you’ve been on some self-discovery retreat or something.’
