“Near the bottom, I think. I was trying to get down before my legs went.”
“I’m debating calling you an ambulance.”
“No!”
The vehemence of Saskia’s protest made her head start hurting again. She raised a shaky hand to press it to her temple.
“You clearly aren’t-”
“No,” Saskia said again, firmly. “I know why it happened. I just haven’t eaten enough today. It’s happened once or twice before over the years when I’ve been on my own. I just need to get something in my body.”
Five minutes later, Saskia was sitting on the chair with a cheese sandwich, a chocolate biscuit and Kivi holding the glass of water. The food made her feel nauseous, but she forced it down, knowing that her body would settle when it had something to run on. Kivi was sitting on the bottom stair next to her, looking thoughtful. Saskia didn’t want to know what she was thinking.
“I’m going to get an early night,” she said once the sandwich and biscuit had been consumed.
“You didn’t eat dinner, did you?” Kivi said. “I wondered how I’d ended up with an extra cottage pie.”
“I forgot.” Saskia tried to chuckle, but it sounded false to her own ears. “My head was too absorbed in what I’ve been writing.”
“And you missed breakfast.”
“True.” Another attempt at a laugh.
“Did you even eatlunch?”
There was nothing she could say that wouldn’t sound like a brush-off. So in the end, she made a third game attempt at a chuckle and said, “Mystery solved.”
“I’d like to take you out tomorrow.”
“Huh?” Saskia nearly choked on her water, it was such an abrupt subject change.
“You contacted some caterers, right? And gave them my email? Two of them have contacted me asking to meet. With Cass’s allergy, it’s easier to deal with them face-to-face so we can gauge their allergy safety. I’d like you to come along.”
“I can’t do tomorrow,” Saskia said regretfully. “I have a couple of online meetings about my progress with the Cornwall articles. We could go out between them, but it would be a rush.”
“Wednesday then.” Kivi wasn’t letting her get away that easily. “We’ll make it a day trip. One caterer is in Millsbrooke and the other is in Lygate – I’ll take you to Lygate shopping centre and we can get lunch. What do you say?”
Saskia knew exactly what she was doing with the lunch thing. An‘If I can’t trust you to eat on your own, I’ll do it with you’sort of arrangement. It made her want to snap, and push her away, but she bit her tongue. If it would prove to Kivi that everything was all right, then so be it.
“I say yes. We can make the arrangements tomorrow, can’t we?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kivi
“I hope your stomach has settled after breakfast,” Kivi said as Saskia got into the passenger seat and did up her seat belt. Today she was wearing pink. It shouldn’t have looked right, with her auburn hair, but somehow it did.
“That bad of a driver, are you?” Saskia’s lips quirked.
“Cheeky so-and-so!” Kivi pouted. “I’m a good driver. Passed my test and everything. It’s the roads. They’re… turbulent.”
“Gave me a headache first time I drove them,” Cass said from the back. Kivi jumped – she’d almost forgotten Cass was there. She hadn’t been meant to come with them, but an unexpected day off work to use up some time off had coincided perfectly with this trip.
“I’ll try and be as considerate as possible, but some of the holes are more like craters, and you might need peeling off the ceiling by the time we get there.”
“You can’t be more erratic a driver than me.” Saskia gave a self-deprecating, slightly bashful smile.Adorable.“I tend to view the speed limits as… guidance. Rather than the law.”
“And how many speed awareness courses have you done?” Kivi raised her eyebrows to the heavens.
