‘He’s pretty self-sufficient.’
‘I’m beginning to see that for myself,’ he smiled, leaning against the table at the very back. ‘After Mum died, I didn’t just head to Wales; I ran, couldn’t go quick enough.’
‘I understand the need to leave.’
‘I suppose some people run and others immerse themselves in the familiar when they come up against a wall of crap.’
She burst out laughing. ‘Wall of crap? I like the description.’
‘I’m better with wood than with words.’
She looked at the beautifully hand-crafted pieces. ‘I can see that.’
‘Do you know what I mean, though? Some people feel safer with the familiar. I didn’t. I needed something different, something else.’
‘And you’re settled in Wales?’
‘I have a lot of work, a good client base.’
‘That wasn’t what I asked.’
He quirked an eyebrow. ‘Hey, this talk started about you and Scotland. How is it that we’re talking about me?’
‘A skill I’ve got: flipping the attention away from me.’
‘I need to take some lessons from you.’
She looked back at him. Was he flirting? Was she?
‘When’s the big move?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Tell me to mind my own business, but…’ He eyed the paperback on her seat, closed with a leather bookmark inserted at the last place she’d reached. ‘Every time I looked over, it was as though you were reading a boring essay rather than an exciting promise of your future.’
He’d been watching her?
‘It’s just the thought of all the practicalities,’ she fibbed, deflecting his spot-on observation that her interest wasn’t quite where it should be.
But he wasn’t buying it. ‘No different to moving over here, really. Are you selling Forget-Me-Not Cottage?’
She leaned out of the stall, pretending to look around for any customers lurking nearby.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m looking for Madeleine. I’m sure her questions and anecdotes weren’t as bad as this.’
He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. ‘I apologise. I’ll keep quiet.’
‘No need, I’m kidding. But Scotland feels a bit of a way off yet. There’s a lot to do here with clearing out Mum’s things and getting the cottage valued.’ And the problem was, she didn’t merely need time for the practicalities; she needed time to think, to make a firm decision about whether she even wanted to say goodbye to Little Woodville for good.
‘But Scotland is the dream?’
‘It has been for a while,’ she said.
‘But…’ He focused on her now his customer had moved away. ‘Come on, I can tell there’s more.’
‘It sounds silly.’
