‘I might have been tempted to think so myself at the start,’ he began, ‘but since I’ve been here trying to get things off the ground, I’ve realised there’s a lot more to it than I ever imagined. But’ – he smiled at Zoe, a hidden message in it that everything was under control – ‘we’re all going to pitch in – if you’ll excuse the pun. It’s going to be a proper family affair.’
Nigel turned to Zoe. ‘You’re leaving your job?’
She couldn’t help but smile at the obvious confusion with which he asked the question.
‘God, no! In my spare time, I’m going to help as much as I can is what Alex means.’
‘Not that you get much spare time,’ Alex said.
‘None of us do at the moment,’ Zoe agreed. She was about to elaborate when the restaurant doors opened and caught her eye. A second later, a couple entered, and the sight of them was enough to prompt a faint groan. She lowered her voice. ‘Don’t look,’ she told Alex, ‘but Magnus and Geoff have just walked in.’
Ordinarily, she’d love the opportunity to chat to the gregarious owners of Thimblebury’s village shop, but the timing of their arrival on this particular day couldn’t be worse.
‘Who’s come in?’ Chantal asked in a voice far louder than Zoe would have liked. To make things more obvious, she rose slightly from her chair to get a better look. ‘Do you know them?’
As Zoe had feared, the fuss was enough to draw Magnus’s keen eye. He broke into a grin and then waved at the table.
‘Hello!’ he greeted, bounding over with Geoff in pursuit. ‘Fancy seeing you in this place!’
Zoe straightened her expression into a neutral smile. ‘It’s a small world, isn’t it?’
‘Not so small when you consider where we live,’ Geoff put in. ‘Especially when you also consider there are only a handful of eateries in the whole of Cumbria that live up to Magnus’s very exacting standards.’
‘If we’re going to spend a lot of money eating out, I don’t think it’s a crime to expect it to be good,’ Magnus fired back.
At any other time, his haughty, slightly offended tone would have made Zoe want to laugh.
Despite Geoff’s thinly veiled criticism, he didn’t stay riled for long. A second later, his curious gaze slid over to Nigel and Chantal. It clearly took a lot for him to tear it away and turn back to Zoe. ‘What brings you here? Are you celebrating something? It’s not your birthday, is it?’
‘No, nothing like that. We’re just catching up.’
Nigel got up from his seat and offered a hand to both Magnus and Geoff in turn. ‘I’m Nigel – Zoe’s dad. This is my fiancée, Chantal.’
‘Ah!’ Magnus had been curious before, but the searching gaze he fixed on Chantal now bordered on fascination. ‘Your fiancée? How lovely to meet you both!’
Geoff’s response was still interested but far better managed than Magnus’s. ‘So you’ve come to see Zoe?’
‘Yes, and we’re going to look at the church too,’ Chantal said.
‘St Cuthbert’s?’ Geoff asked.
Chantal nodded. ‘We’re going to get married there.’
Magnus almost squealed as he clapped his hands together loud enough to make a good half of the restaurant turn to look. ‘I love a good wedding! You’ve set a date?’
‘Valentine’s Day.’
‘So soon?’ Magnus asked. ‘How long have you been planning it?’
At this, Chantal seemed suddenly uncomfortable. ‘Oh, you know, not long.’
‘You were lucky to get St Cuthbert’s then,’ Geoff said.
‘The vicar told us that too, but it helped that we wanted it on a weekday instead of a Saturday,’ Nigel said. He glanced fondlyat Chantal. ‘My little woman has a way of persuading people to help her out, and it worked a treat on him.’
As far as Zoe could tell, her dad was more accurate than he could ever know. Chantal’s charms had certainly always worked on him. And yet, she couldn’t help but like her future stepmum, and in many ways she had to admire the way Chantal went about getting what she wanted. She also suspected that Chantal had been secretly planning a lot of this longer than Nigel knew. Perhaps the idea of marriage had occurred to her when she’d first discovered her pregnancy and, if that was the case, then their big day was at least four months in the making – if not longer.
‘I wanted to get married before I started to show,’ Chantal said. She stuck out her belly. ‘I’m pregnant, you see.’
