‘So there’s really nothing going on between you and Xander?’ Lizzie said in disbelief.
‘We have to liaise with each other because of the Easter egg hunt. Talking of which, are you all ready for the Easter yarn bombing?’ Immy tried to change the subject.
‘We will be,’ Lizzie said. ‘Just a bit of finishing off.’
‘You two would make the perfect couple,’ Diya said, clearly not to be diverted.
‘What makes you say that?’ Immy asked.
‘I can just feel it. I can see it, you have a connection that’s something rare and wonderful,’ Diya said, dreamily as if she was picturing a happy ever after. Immy had long since given up on that.
‘He doesn’t want that, he wants to concentrate on raising his daughter.’
‘Doesn’t mean he can’t have a little fun along the way,’ Lizzie said, obviously seeing something more fleeting than the big love story.
‘I don’t think he wants that either,’ Immy said, although Xander had seemed pretty keen when she’d spoken to him.
‘Why, have you asked him?’ Lizzie said, suddenly suspicious.
‘Let’s call it a feeling,’ Immy said.
Just then Jacob walked down the back stairs, obviously having heard Diya and Lizzie’s voices. He was the perfect distraction with both of them bending over to lavish him with love and belly strokes.
Some more of the Knit ’n’ Natter group came in and Immy gave a small sigh of relief as they all greeted each other. It seemed, for now at least, she had been forgotten.
CHAPTER TWO
Xander lay in his bed, staring up at the ceiling.
He was a complete and utter ass.
He hadn’t gone over to see Immy because he knew how it would have ended and, no matter how much he wanted that, he knew it was for the best that it didn’t happen again.
Because if it did, when he held her in his arms, when he made love to her, he’d have to face those feelings he had spent months denying he had. And so like the coward he was, he had hidden himself away over here and now he was regretting it, mostly because he’d let Immy down, maybe hurt her all over again, and he hated himself for that. And also because she’d wanted to talk and he’d promised he would come over and he couldn’t even give her that.
He got out of bed, wondering if it was too late to go over. It was gone eleven but sometimes, late at night, he’d look out the window at her flat and her lightwould be on in her bedroom where she was probably reading.
He pulled back the curtain to look across the street and could see the bedroom light was off. He couldn’t exactly go and knock on her door at this time anyway, he’d scare the crap out of her.
He was just about to let the curtain drop and go back to bed when he noticed something in her shop, a flickering light.
He frowned and opened the window to get a better look. She had fairy lights in her shop so maybe some of them had been accidentally left on and they were just twinkling away – but the light seemed bigger than that. He leaned down to look as the light seemed to be coming from the very back of her shop and getting bigger and brighter.
Suddenly the bottom dropped out of his world as he realised the light was in fact a flame. The shop was on fire.
He grabbed his phone and called the emergency services as he shoved his feet in his boots and ran outside. Fortunately the fire station was at the end of the road, they could be here very quickly. He hoped.
He sped across the street and could see the fire was spreading. He ran round the side to the door that led upstairs to her flat. He smashed through it as he heard the sirens of the fire engine in the distance. He took the stairs two or three at a time and burst into Immy’s flat. He looked around, realising he was in her lounge. He’d never been in here before but there were only a fewdoors off the lounge and he guessed that one of the two rooms facing the front was her bedroom.
‘Immy!’ he roared.
He heard a bark from Jacob, her dog, and followed the noise, slamming through the door in seconds.
‘Xander, what the hell?’ Immy said, sitting up in bed.
‘Get up, you need to get out.’
‘What?’
