Kivi almost felt her eyebrows ping off the top of her head. “Are younuts? I couldn’t possibly tell her!”
“She deserves that honesty, don’t you think?”
“You must be certifiably doolally if you think that me telling my heterosexual barely-friendly crush of my feelings would go well. She’d run for the hills. No, scrap that, she’d cross the hills and wouldn’t stop until she got back to the Midlands or wherever she came from.”
“The Midlands? But her accent is cut-glass!”
“Not important right now!” Kivi eyed her sister beadily. “The point is, she’d run a mile. Several miles. And I need her on board for the wedding.” Despite what she’d told her last night, she realised this was true.
“But she deserves better than to have you randomly leering over her without an explanation.”
“I do notleer.”
“Not explicitly, no. But I’ve seen the way you look at her. And given how intelligent she is, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that she’s noticed too.”
“Oh, bollocks,” Kivi murmured for the second time that day.
“Indeed,” Eva said. “So I would consider telling her. You never know – she might not be as straight as you thought.”
“Yeah, right. How much are you willing to bet?” Kivi said wryly, but didn’t fight Eva when she pulled her into a hug. Trouble was, it instantly reminded her of the way she’d hugged Saskia last night – a hug that hadn’t really been returned, which meant it probably hadn’t been welcomed.
“Just consider it, okay?”
Chapter Thirty-One
Saskia
The interview with the local illustrator couldn’t have come at a better time, really.
After her emotional chat with Kivi, Saskia hadn’t been able to help running away. It was a fight-or-flight instinct, and she’d already done enough fighting with Kivi for one evening, so she opted for the latter. When she got back to her bedroom and sat down on the bed, she’d lifted her hands to see that they were shaking. Her legs felt like jelly, her heart was pounding, and her mind was keeping up a constant stream ofOh my God oh my God oh my God oh my God.
I can’t believe I just did that.
Saskia’s… eating proclivities had been her most closely guarded secret of all time. She’d gone to great lengths to hide them, even going so far as to fabricate fake family emergencies during uni society dinners so that nobody would notice her disappearing. She’d never dreamed of telling anyone, ever.
And yet all it had taken was a little gentle pressure from Kivi, and she’d caved and blurted it all out with nary a moment’s hesitation. Okay, yes, Kivi’s pressure had been about as gentleas a juggernaut. But somehow she’d pressed the right buttons, found the crucial combination for the lock – and the box was opened.
The trouble was… Saskia feared it was more of a Pandora’s box.
She would never forget that look of pity mixed with horror that had adorned Kivi’s face. There was no way the woman would ever look at her the same way again. She would probably – and quite justifiably – run for the hills. Which wouldn’t bode well for their burgeoning friendship, or indeed Saskia’s silly schoolgirl crush. To her surprise, she found that it was this thought that troubled her more than the loss of image. Which was ridiculous. Which was out-of-character. After all, she wasn’tgay.Probably.
And so it was with relief that she woke up the following morning to a phone call from local illustrator Charlie Rucker. She’d found him on the web a couple of days ago – he’d illustrated books by several prominent children’s authors over the years, and he was based just a stone’s throw away from Miltree. A chance email had led him to call her – he was game for an interview, and told her he’d take her to the setting of the famous Cornish Creamery series near Lygate.
Perfect timing,Saskia thought as she quickly got ready.If I can endeavour to be out all day, I won’t have to face Kivi until tomorrow.
In the event, she wasn’t out quite all day. Mr. Rucker met her at his family farm, and spent a good hour and a half giving her a tour, complete with anecdotes which he linked back to various scenes he had illustrated. They then had brunch at the farm café, and Saskia perused the little farm shop, half-debating whether to take something back for Kivi, a little bottle of homemade wine perhaps as an apology. But no, an apology like that was best given in person, using words as opposed to material belongings.Plus, it was alcohol that had loosened her tongue anyway, so perhaps wine might not be the best fit…
They were finished by two-thirty. So much for getting dinner with him. Saskia burned a bit more time by having another coffee in the café while she typed up her notes, since she preferred to interview with pen and paper rather than the annoying tip-tap of a laptop keyboard. And then she decided to detour via Lygate shopping centre on the way back, because her laptop charger was starting to fray and she didn’t fancy being electrocuted any time soon. By the time she pulled over at a small convenience shop about ten minutes outside of the village, it was four o’clock. She really wanted to be out until after dinner – so another three hours. But what could she possibly do to fill that time?
In the absence of any immediate inspiration, she went into the shop itself. It couldn’t have been more different from Mr Elliot’s archaic little greengrocers – pop music played from a speaker overhead, the fridges glowed with bright light, and there was an atmosphere of… well, life. She was greeted cheerily by a colleague with short purple hair and a ‘they/them’ badge displayed prominently on their lapel. No name badge, though.
Feeling pretty conspicuous since she didn’t actually need to buy anything, she found herself wandering the aisles with a faint feeling of panic brewing. Kivi’s expression was still etched onto her brain, despite all efforts to avoid it, and Saskia’s heart started thumping in time with the honking background music. That hug though… that had been addictive, if unexpected. What would a kiss feel like? What would-
“Are youfucking kidding me?”
A man’s voice rent the air, smashing straight through Saskia’s reverie. On pure instinct, her feet took her at speed in thedirection it had come from, until she reached the till area. There, a red-faced middle-aged man was standing, poised like The Incredible Hulk, shouting incomprehensibly at the ashen-faced young girl behind the counter. As Saskia surveyed the situation, what the man was saying became clearer.
“This always happens in this fucking shop! Can none of you count? I very clearly gave you a twenty-pound note.Nota ten. They’re two different fucking colours! Are you blind, or just stupid? Open up that till and give me my change, this instant.”
