“What!” Rachel sat up straight. “Lucy again, I suppose?”
“No, not Lucy.” Juliet’s mouth curved in a small smile. “Kate Barton, from Hillside Farm. I buy eggs off her.”
Rachel let out a groan. “She was in the year above me at school. Is nothing private in this place?”
“You’ve lived in this village all your life and you’re only realizing that now?”
“No,” Rachel conceded with sigh. “Just having a moan about it.”
“Kate said you were wearing a sexy top and leaning over the bar while you talked to Rob.”
Rachel could tell her friend was enjoying this. “And that constitutes flirting, I suppose.”
“Not just flirting. Kate’s mother is wondering when you’re getting married.”
“Juliet.”
“You know how things are in Hartley-by-the-Sea,” Juliet answered, unrepentant. “Really, you ought to be surprised there isn’t a notice in the parish magazine, grateful that the church hasn’t been booked. Yet.”
“Thank heavens for small mercies.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m not really interested in Rob Telford,” Rachel said as she traced a pattern in the weathered wood of the kitchen table with one finger. “I just wanted a distraction.”
“Poor Rob, then.”
“I’m not all that sure Rob Telford is interested in me. Anyway, I don’t have time to date.”
“What about the whole nappies-and-bottles routine for you?” Juliet challenged. “You’re getting close to thirty, after all.”
“I’m twenty-eight,” Rachel answered indignantly. “In any case, I’ve already done the nappies and bottles with my sister Lily, and I still help out with Nathan.”
“They say it’s different when it’s your own.”
“I don’t think it is.” Rachel rose from the table. “I should go. The Harts are expecting me at three.”
“Are they the new family that’s moved up to the top of the village?”
“They have toddler twins. Which makes me all the more certain about not having kids of my own.” Rachel had meant it to come out flippantly, but she had a feeling she sounded bitter. And she wasn’t bitter. Not about Lily, anyway. She’d never regret taking care of Lily, or having Nathan in her life.
“Rachel.” The compassion in Juliet’s voice had her tensing by the door, her back to Juliet. “Look, I understand about someone blowing into your life unexpectedly and stirring up all sorts of memories,” Juliet said. “Trust me on that.”
“I know,” Rachel said, although she didn’t really. She knew Lucy and Juliet had had issues, that until Lucy had come to live with Juliet, their relationship as half sisters had been nonexistent and then fraught, but not any of the details. In any case, it was strong now, and Lucy and Juliet had each found happiness with a bloke to boot. Juliet may have once understood how Rachel was feeling, but she was in a different, better place now.
“When Lucy first knocked on my door,” Juliet persisted, as stubborn as ever, “I wanted to slam it in her face. Even though I was the one who invited her.”
“But you didn’t,” Rachel said. “And it’s all good now.”
“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard.”
Slowly she turned around. “What are you trying to tell me, Juliet? To give Claire a chance? We aren’t sisters. We were friends about twenty years ago, when we were children. We’ve both moved on. And like I told you, my... issues have nothing to do with Claire.”
Juliet regarded her evenly, her gray eyes seeming far too shrewd. “As you like,” she said, and whistled for her dogs, two greyhounds who came scurrying towards her, to come with her outside.
It was obvious that Juliet didn’t believe her, and unfortunately Rachel didn’t believe herself either. She drove up the high street to the top of the village and parked in the drive of the Harts’ neat new build, two stories of smart red brick with a slate roof and a fenced-in garden of runty trees and anemic-looking shrubbery.
Rachel collected her pail of supplies from the back of the car and headed towards the house, knocking once and calling hello before she stepped inside.
