‘No, really, it’s fine,’ she mumbled. ‘It’s been nice to have the company. I don’t know where Carrie’s gone.’
‘Oh, she was helping me in the shop. Then she bumped into The Major. I’m sure she’ll be here soon.’ He paused as if wondering to wait with her, like a small child. ‘Would you like me to drop the bowl off when I’m passing?’
Erin was standing by her father now and picked her box up from the ground.
‘Or you could come by and choose the colour you want for the glaze,’ she said. ‘I could show you how it’s done – the dipping.’
‘Well…’ Jules began.
‘That’s an excellent idea,’ Carrie said, striding across the grass towards them. ‘You can choose a colour for me as well.’
She beamed at Lance and Erin.
‘Jules is brilliant with colour. Our home in Manchester was like something out of an interiors magazine, and she did it all on a strict budget.’
Jules felt her blush intensify and she wasn’t a blusher. She didn’t want to be a blusher.
‘Only if you want to,’ Lance added, as if sensing her hesitation. ‘I tell you what, why don’t you take a couple of days to think about it – providing you’re not hurrying back to the mainland?’
‘No, she is not!’ Carrie said, proprietorially. ‘She’s been signed off work for six weeks so she’s not scurrying back anytime soon.’
Jules cringed. She was sure the people several tables away had heard that. Now everyone would know that she wasn’t just here on holiday, that there was more to it than that.
ELEVEN
‘I wish you hadn’t said that,’ she muttered to Carrie once the others had gone.
‘Sorry, it just slipped out. But it’s nothing to be ashamed of, Jules. Loads of people have to take a break from work. Life is just too stressful for a lot of people these days.’
‘I do love my job.’
‘I know you do.’
‘I don’t want to give it up.’
‘Whoa! Who said anything about giving it up?’
‘I’m not sure I can cope with the responsibility of it going forwards.’
Carrie reached out and touched her arm.
‘You’re only thinking that because you need a break. Give it a bit of time and you’ll be back to your mums and babies and as good a midwife as you ever were, maybe even better because you’ve let yourself be vulnerable.’
They sat in the sun while Carrie ate her cake and Jules had a third cup of tea. Gradually people drifted away and they were there alone, the little café shut up, and all the tables cleared.
‘Imagine living in a place like this,’ Jules said, throwing a glance back at the house. ‘All the fun you could have as a child. Hide and seek would go on all day.’
Carrie gathered up the tray and took it to the table nearest to the closed hatch.
‘Do you want a wander around? It’s lovely and peaceful once all the visitors have gone.’
They walked across the gravel and up the steps at the side of the house on to a grassy area flanked by two long herbaceous borders. Catmint spilled over the edges, spires of delphiniums reached up past the top of the clipped hedge to the rear, the blue popping out against the dark green yew.
As they passed through a rose-enveloped archway at the end of the path, Wilbur came bounding up, ball in mouth. He dropped it at Jules’ feet, tongue lolling out, tail wagging. She stooped to pick it up and threw it just as an elderly man emerged from behind the trees to the left. The ball knocked the Panama hat backwards on his head.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she called as he stopped and shielded his eyes to look at them.
‘Do I need a trip to my optician or are there two interlopers now?’ he asked in a gruff voice. ‘And is one of them trying to kill me?’
