‘Don’t be upset, it’s a good thing, honestly.’ He reaches inside the serving hatch and lets his finger brush along my cheek, and I bend until I can lean my elbows on the wooden board he installed and look him in the eye.
‘You idiot. You shouldn’t have done that. I didn’twantyou to do that, Reece. It was my mess, it should have been up to me to deal with the consequences. I’m actually quite annoyed at you.’
He grins and pushes himself up until he can lean further in the window and look around. ‘I thought I could smell Yorkshire curd tarts. You can’t be that annoyed if you’re baking for me.’
‘Oh, believe me, Ican. I can beveryannoyed at you and still make your favourites. Lettie reminded me of your weakness for them and gave me a recipe. It could have gone very, very wrong. I need an expert opinion.’
He grins again and drops back from the window and comes round to the van door while I boil the kettle and make us a cuppa each.
When I turn to give it to him, he’s sitting in his usual seat and I hand him the mug and plate. ‘I didn’t need you to do that, Reece. You took away my autonomy.’
‘I had a way of helping, so I did. I intended to use that money to do something good for the area, and I’ve done that. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to Thimblenouth. Well, at least since the person who said, “You know what we should do in this pub? Have a quiz!” There was no better use for that money than making sure the Marzipan Campervan Café stays exactly where it belongs. Andthisis just one of the many reasons…’
He breaks a forkful of tart off and tries it with a happy sigh. ‘Oh, sweet niblets, you see? Vastly better than the ones Lettie buys in, and please don’t tell her I said that in case she murders me. You can’t insult anything in Lettie’s shop if you don’t want a bounty on your head.’
I blush and take a bite of my own tart, and try to let myself breathe and enjoy it because I can feel panic crawling up my chest again. ‘But what about you? What about what you’re doing here? What about this place that you wanted Zach to be proud of?’
‘The budget I had left was never going to be enough to fix the roof, and roofs are not something you can do in half measures. It doesn’t make any difference to me. Everything I wanted to do will still happen eventually. Maybe not as quickly as I’d hoped, but I’m not giving up.’ There’s something in his expression that makes my breath catch. ‘I can keep working on the pub, bit by bit, learning as I go. It might take years instead of months, but I’ll get there one way or another. I have a law degree that I’m not using, maybe I can look for consulting work to earn what I need. The money was important, but it wasn’t anywhere near as important as you.’
I’ve never known what it feels like to really, truly melt before, and if I wasn’t already sitting on the seat opposite him, I think I would’ve liquefied into a puddle on the floor. I reach across the van and rub my hand over his knee through the smart pleated trousers, which are nowherenearas attractive as his usual legwear. Although I want to jump on him and snog him senseless, there’s still so much that needs to be said, and it takes me a few moments to collect my thoughts. ‘I didn’t need you to rescue me.’
‘You rescued me,’ he says instantly, and then pauses to think it through. ‘I wasn’t camping in the car park to be closer to nature – I was doing it because it was easier than being surrounded by the guilt of buying the pub and not knowing what to do with it.’
I bite my tongue to stop myself telling him about my revealing conversation with the ladies today. They told me not to, and they deserve that at the very least.
He takes another forkful of his tart and thinks while he savours it. ‘Do you know what my life was like before you arrived? I was rattling around in that old building, failing at everything I touched, drowning in guilt and grief. And then you came along and changed everything.’
‘I rammed a rod through your leg!’
‘And it was the best rod I’ve ever had rammed through any part of my body,’ he says with an emotional laugh. ‘I will forever treasure the scar on my leg because it was the start of something wonderful. You’ve brought meaning back into my life. You’ve given me a purpose again. You’ve made mefeelagain. Watching you build up something that so many people love with nothing but your grandmother’s recipe cards. Seeing how much you care about every customer, and every person in this village. The quiz nights, and how you’ve become a huge part of this community and dragged me along with you. You’ve inadvertently made me a part of it too, and that’s what I was searching for when I came here. Somewhere I could belong. Somewhere I’d matter, and where I could dosomethingthat would matter. I hadnointention of re-opening as a pub, but you’ve made it into such a tangible dream that I can’t believe I never even considered it. It doesn’t matter if I don’t fix the roof this year – it would have mattered if Jared had done something to destroy whatyou’vecreated here – for both of us.’
He’s short of breath after such a poignant speech, and tears are welling up in my eyes again.
‘I’m going to pay you back, you know that, right?’
He starts saying that I don’t owe him anything, brushing it off like he did earlier, but I stop him. ‘Jared might not have been willing to accept a payment plan, but you have no choice. Iamgoing to pay you back every penny, end of story.’
He sighs and gives it some thought. ‘Okay, but it’s not a big deal. We don’t know what business is going to be like when summer ends yet. People still go for walks in the winter, but do they stop for tea and cake in the belting rain?’
‘We’ll find out,’ I say with a shrug, trying to adopt his positive outlook.
‘Yes, we will, and if there are months when business is slow, paying me back is not a priority, okay?’
‘Okay,’ I agree, even though I hope it won’t come to that. ‘I see potential for the colder months. Autumn walks through crunchy leaves, stopping for a cinnamon bun and a pumpkin spice latte. Christmas at the Marzipan Campervan – a hot chocolate and a mince pie in the middle of a wintery walk…’
‘And if you practise driving her, you could even go mobile – take Campervan to festivals or events. The sky’s the limit.’
I feel myself fizzing at the thought of that. Me, at a festival or a wedding reception in my little yellow van. There are so many possibilities now this is really mine, and I feel like the full realisation of what he’s done hasn’t hit me yet. I’ve been holding back from getting excited about the Marzipan Campervan Café because I’ve known that it could be taken away from me at any moment, and he’s given me back my safety and security and ability to dream and let my imagination run away with me.
Suddenly it’s overwhelmingly too much, and I’m on my knees in front of where he’s sitting, a position I took up so many times while dressing his leg wound, and I kneel up so I can throw my arms around him.
He laughs at the force of the hug and his arms slide around my back and squeeze tightly, his palms open, like he’s trying to pull me as close as possible.
One of my hands finds its way into his wavy hair and strokes through it and I press a kiss somewhere against his cheek. ‘I still think you’re an idiot and you shouldn’t have done that today, but thank you. “Thank you” doesn’t even begin to cover it. You’re the best idiot I’ve ever been lucky enough to run over.’
His hand tangles in my hair and holds it back from my face as he tilts his head far enough to catch my eyes. ‘There’s one main reason I did that today…’ He takes a deep breath and pushes it out very, very slowly. ‘Because a few weeks ago, you made me a lemon meringue pie, and I fell in love with you.’
A gasp makes its way out of my throat and he definitely hears it. I wasnotexpecting a confession like that. I’ve made a few pies for people over the years and they’ve never hadquitethat effect before. ‘Because of the pie?’
