He jolts and takes a step backwards, as though something has awoken in him too.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he says. Then he turns and stalks up the road to the driveway gate.
I shakily close the door behind him, wondering why on earth the ground feels so unstable.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘There’s a man upstairs who asked after you,’ Libby, my new hire, says on Sunday afternoon when I return to Seaglass with a bag of lemons.
My heart skips a beat.Finn?
‘What does he look like?’
‘Very tall and broad.’
A description I’m familiar with.
‘What did he say?’ I whisper conspiratorially, upending the lemons into a bowl behind the bar. They were missing from our regular delivery.
‘He asked if you were working today.’
I shrug off my raincoat and stash it under the bar.
‘He’s in the sofa area,’ she adds.
I feel nervous as I climb the stairs, and even more nervous when I see Tom at the other end of the room, relaxing on the sofa with a sea view, one ankle propped up on the opposing leg’s knee. A battered-looking paperback is open in one hand and a coffee cup is in the other.
It’s quite late in the day and he’s the only person up here. I peer through the serving hatch and see that the clean-down is already under way in the kitchen. I’ll probably let the staff go home early.
Tom glances over at me, straightening up and closing the paperback as I wind my way between the tables.
‘Hi,’ he says, giving me a small smile that sets off a baffling chain reaction of fluttering inside my chest.
‘Hey.’
He’s wearing a long-sleeve light-grey T-shirt with the sleeves pushed up over his toned, tanned forearms. His faded blue jeans have almost worn through at the knees and his clothes are damp from the rain, as is his hair: I can still make out finger tracks from where he pushed his hand through the slightly longer lengths on top.
‘Did you find that on the shelves?’ I ask genially, nodding past him to our book-swap display with the cheerful sign I painted myself:Help yourself, but please return or replace with another sometime!
‘I did,’ Tom replies, turning the book over so I can see what he’s chosen.
‘The Call of the Wildby Jack London,’ I read aloud. ‘Any good?’
‘I’m enjoying it so far. Did you get caught in the downpour?’ he asks as I comb my hair with my hands, trying to prevent it from frizzing.
I’m still surprised when my fingers fly through my locks and come out into thin air.
‘Yeah, I had to nip up to the supermarket. It’s brutal out there.’
I perch on the arm of the sofa opposite him. There’s a damp patch around the hem of the blue-and-white summer dress I’m wearing, but the material is so thin that it will soon dry out.
I have a sudden compulsion to sit down for a chat. I was planning to use the downtime to do social media, but it can wait.
‘I’m going to make myself a cup of tea. Do you want another coffee? Or a tea?’
‘Sure, I’ll take a tea. Thanks.’
I stand and he digs his hand into his frayed jeans pocket, pulling out his wallet.
