“So when will you take her?” Rachel asked Lucy.
“Tomorrow. She’s suspended from school at the moment, so we’ll go during the day. Alex is even giving me time off work, fully paid.”
“He really is desperate,” Rachel remarked.
“I think he is,” Lucy answered quietly. “It’s got to be very tough, raising two daughters on your own.”
Had their mother had it tough? Juliet had never spared a single moment of sympathy for Fiona, and she wouldn’t now. She’d ignored her first daughter and chosen to have the second on her own. She’d deserved whatever difficulties she’d encountered.
“Good thing he’s got you, then,” Rachel told Lucy cheerfully. “Although God only knows what he’s going to ask you to do next.”
Lucy blushed at that, and Juliet wondered just what her half sister felt for her boss.
A knock sounded at the back door, and all three women turned to gaze at the blurred figure standing behind the pane of glass. Juliet felt her insides lurch as she recognized that still, solid form, the untidy shock of brown hair. Peter.
“What on earth . . . ?” she murmured, and felt herself blushing just as Lucy had as she went to answer the door.
“Afternoon, Juliet.” Peter stood there, a potted miniature rosebush in his hands. He held it out to Juliet, who stared at it. “For you. To make up for the one that got et.”
“It was just a few petals,” Juliet muttered. Her face felt fiery. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually blushed.
“Peter,” Rachel called, and Juliet heard a gleeful interest in her friend’s voice. “Why don’t you come in and put your feet up for a bit? We’re all having a cuppa.”
Peter glanced at Lucy and Rachel sitting at the table, both of them staring at him rather avidly, and gave a slow smile. “Don’t mind if I do,” he said, and stepped around Juliet. He put therosebush on the counter. Rachel poured him a cup of tea, while Juliet simply stood there, like a lemon.
“You must be Lucy,” he said with a nod for her sister, and Lucy looked slightly startled that he knew her name.
“Yes . . .”
“Peter’s a neighbor,” Juliet explained stiffly. “And everyone knows everything in this village, anyway.” She sounded almost spiteful, and there was a moment’s awkward silence before Rachel broke it.
“Sheep getting out, then?” she asked as she loaded Peter’s tea with milk and sugar. “Wandering into Juliet’s garden?”
“Just the one,” Juliet said. She whisked the rosebush off the counter and put it on the windowsill, simply to have something to do. “Really, Peter, you didn’t have to go to such trouble.”
“It wasn’t any trouble,” Peter answered. Even though her back was to them, Juliet could feel Lucy’s and Rachel’s speculative looks. This was awful, and yet she realized she didn’t feel angry or annoyed. Discomfited, yes, definitely. But also . . . elated.
“So who’s going to the pub for quiz night?” Rachel asked, gazing at each of them in turn. “Lucy? You fancy giving it a whirl? You’d trump everyone on any American questions.”
“I don’t know about that,” Lucy said. “American reality TV shows, maybe. What’s a pub quiz?”
“Exactly what it says on the tin,” Rachel answered, which earned her another blank look from Lucy. “You go to the pub, have a pint or a glass of wine, and answer twenty questions. You work in teams of four, and the winner gets a free bottle of plonk.”
“Plonk . . .”
“Wine!” Rachel shook her head, laughing. “I thought you were British.”
“I left this country when I was six. Plonk and pub quizzes were not part of my childhood vocabulary.”
“Well, you need to get up to speed, then. It’s Thursday night. Juliet?” Rachel turned to her, and Juliet could tell she was on a mission. “You’ll come with Lucy.” It was not a question.
Everything in Juliet both yearned and resisted. She’d lived in Hartley-by-the-Sea for ten years and she’d never gone to a pub quiz. She’d barely gone to the pub, except after a parish council meeting, when everyone had gone out for a pint, and she had shyly, tentatively joined them, staying silent.
“We’ve got a team right here,” Peter said. “The four of us, unless you’re already on a team, Rachel?”
“They can do without me,” Rachel answered airily. She glanced around at everyone, smiling with beady determination. “So it’s settled.”
Peter smiled back, slow and easy. “I guess it is.”
