‘My brother, Jack,’ Sam said, indicating the couple. ‘Lucie, Keeley and Gus.’ She held out her arms for the infant. ‘I’m not sure if you’ve met Pierce’s daughter, Jemma?’
Her father had turned to greet more people and Jemma hid her cringe; this was so unlike the city, where you walked past people without making eye contact.
‘Come on,’ Dad said, pushing open the door. ‘Everyone else is probably already here.’
‘Everyone else?’ Jemma’s heart sank. When had her father become so sociable?
‘No such thing as a quiet dinner in Settlers Bridge.’
She preceded him into the restaurant, then froze. The tables were arranged into three rows to facilitate the sharing of the feast spread along the six-metre span. Rectangular white bowls lining the centre of the table glowed with jewel-bright contents. Jemma could identify hummus, a gold slick of pooled olive oil on top; the bright orange cylinders oflentil koftesi; and the lurid pink of tarama, but there were a dozen more dishes that she couldn’t immediately recognise. Each trio of plates was separated from the next by a flat loaf of cratered pide.
‘One sniff’—she murmured to her dad, inhaling the fragrances of spice and oil—‘and a glance at all these dishes, and I know why you were raving about this place.’
‘And why would that be?’ Dad asked. He lifted a hand in greeting to a dark-haired guy at the back of the room.
‘Pierce,’ the guy said. ‘Centre table for you, my friend. I’ll be over to talk you through the mezze in a moment.’
‘Because I’m not the only one who thrives on challenge,’ Jemma replied as Dad pulled out a seat for Samantha, nodding at Jemma to take one alongside.
Sam chuckled. ‘You called it. Pierce has been up at night, revamping our menu.’
Jemma was irritated by any similarities between her mother and herself, but always secretly thrilled to find them with Dad. ‘Overachiever, much?’
Pierce shook his head but looked chuffed. ‘Between Gabrielle’s inn, this place, our restaurant and Christine’s Diner, Settlers Bridge is turning into something of a foodies mecca.’
Their conversation paused as the owner, who Dad introduced as Rik, talked them through the mezze dishes, suggesting they start with the lighter hummus and baba ghanoush, before progressing to the fried kofte and the midye dolma, rice-stuffed mussels.
As he left, Jemma tapped her plate. ‘It’s bizarre that such an underserviced town has so many places to eat.’
‘Two of them are well out of town, though,’ Lucie said as she unbuttoned her shirt to put the infant to her breast. Jemma looked away, but it seemed no one else at the lengthytable was disconcerted, focused on piling food on the ornate blue-and-white plates before them.
‘Tell you what, it’s really weird without a bakery here now,’ a guy with reddish-blond hair said as he took a seat across from her. Jemma narrowed her eyes, but as no one complained, she assumed he was part of the group she was apparently dining with. ‘Is there no way we can persuade you to open up again, Sam?’
Sam leaned into Dad, looking ridiculously content. ‘Sorry, Hamish. Not a hope. Much as I enjoyed Ploughs and Pies, I am loving life now.’
‘Fair call,’ the guy said. He smiled at Jemma. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’re in town with plans to open a bakery?’
She almost choked. ‘Not a snowflake’s.’
‘Jemma,’ her father warned.
Sam patted his hand and Jemma scrunched her nose. ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with running a bakery. I’m just not a putting-pies-in-bags kind of girl.’
Dad groaned. ‘Jem!’
What was she supposed to say? She didn’t mean to denigrate Sam’s job, but it wasn’t like running a shop in a small town was a career.
‘Hey, don’t diss pies in bags,’ Hamish said as he added a spoonful of vibrant green samphire salad to his pink fish-roe tarama. ‘They’re an institution around here. At least, they were.’
She shot him a withering glare. ‘I’m not dismissing them. I merely meant that, despite my genes, I’ve no flair for food. So, no, I won’t be opening a bakery toserveyou.’
‘Genes?’ Hamish said, completely missing her takedown.
‘Jemma is Pierce’s daughter,’ Sam supplied.
‘Who clearly got her mother’s looks,’ her father added.
Her parents had been divorced almost her entire life, and yet it always surprised Jemma how respectful Dad remained about his ex-wife. As a result, Jemma had maintained a tenuous relationship with her mother … but it was out of a sense of duty to Dad. And a need to hide from the world just how betrayed she’d been by her mother.
