The coffee in his cup sloshed suddenly. Body like a dancer, smile like a fallen angel, heart like a lion. In his head, in his bed. The past couple of days had been a dream come true and whatwas done was done. But there was part of him — not that part — that wished he hadn’t lost control when he had found her in his arms in that tiny, stretchy excuse for a dress; that he could have put her down and hung in until she’d been able to wind things up properly with her husband. Been strong. He’d sworn after Rosie had made an idiot of him that he would run a mile rather than get involved with a married woman again.
Conveniently forgetting that running a mile was something he did with incredible ease.
Chapter Twenty-Five
By Sunday, Robina’s cakes had run out. Honor let Ru and Aletta do all the prep in the morning while she made chocolate cupcakes from the recipe she remembered from school, times five, and cherry scones from a recipe she called up from the internet on Ru’s phone. She used the last of Robina’s chocolate frosting from the fridge to swirl over the cupcakes, hoping she wasn’t contravening any health regulations and crossing her fingers that no one would get sick.
There was plenty of jam for the scones, which, because she included a little extra baking soda, rose every bit as majestically and drunkenly as Robina’s ever did.
The cake table still looked empty, by Robina’s standards, so, cursing, remembering a recipe from Jess’s time at girl scouts, Honor mixed up apple and cream cheese with chopped Snickers bars and dolloped the mixture into more cupcake cases and cooked them.
When she emerged from her mad bake-in, hot and bothered and muttering, she realised that Ru had filled the potato oven and opened the tearoom and he and Aletta were serving, everything under control. ‘You guys are so great.’ She opened the back door and fanned herself, gulping iced water, then called Ru into the kitchen to tackle the washing up whilst she whizzed through the mini clean-down necessary after her efforts. Just in time for the “elevenses” trade to morph seamlessly into the lunchtime trade.
By three in the afternoon, she was flagging. With Martyn in France, she’d gone to bed early on Saturday evening. But then he’d called from his hotel room and what began as a quick goodnight became, ‘So, what are you wearing?’ and ended up as phone sex. Fabulous, but it didn’t fulfil the same function as sleep.
But the teagarden was busy and she was making a couple of pints of fruit slush by throwing fat red strawberries into the blender with ice cubes.
‘Honor!’ Aletta scuttled in from the garden, eyes wide in alarm.
‘What’s up?’ Startled to see Aletta moving at more than a serene amble, Honor twisted the blender jug from its base and halted.
‘Those . . . those . . .’ Aletta’s English deserted her. ‘Big boys! And they push Ru—’
Throwing open the counter flap, Honor raced outside to find Frog and his Tadpoles gathered in a threatening knot around Ru, whilst customers exchanged looks of alarm and drew away.
Ru stood, unmoving, his hands by his sides, eyes on Frog. His hair was pulled off his face by his reversed ball cap and it made him look vulnerable. But he was clearly composed as he said, ‘No. Not without the money up front.’
‘No, freak?’ Frog sneered, his back to Honor, his jeans hanging low to reveal the swirling black pattern on his boxer shorts and his shoulders menacingly broad in a tight black T-shirt. ‘“No” isn’t the right answer. Get your arse indoors and get me a drink. I know your freaky mummy isn’t here to cast her scary spells on me.’
Honor knew that she should give Ru a chance to sort this out on his own. This is what the classes had prepared him for, given him the confidence to face. If she charged in then she was undoing all the good that Hughie the instructor had done.
Ru smiled into Frog’s face. ‘No.’
Delicately, as if preparing to enjoy himself, Frog put his fingertips on Ru’s chest. And shoved.
As he was forced to step back, Ru’s gaze dropped to the ‘button’ at the base of Frog’s throat, his smile stretching into a big grin of anticipation as his right hand drew back.
And suddenly, Honor didn’t want him to make that jab that would stop Frog in his tracks and even throw him, coughing, to his knees.
She didn’t want him to drop to Frog’s level, to get the badass reputation she’d once wanted for him, or maybe even get pleasure from the violence, get a taste for it. She’d watched Stef stand up for an underdog and enjoy it; she’d had a hard time calming him down afterwards and preventing him from turning all vigilante. Being a badass could be bad.
Even for the badass.
With a squeak, she leapt forward, yanked out the elastic waist of Frog’s boxer shorts and tipped in the contents of the blender jug. ‘Watch your ass, buddy.’
Frog screamed, spinning around to face her, gyrating and glaring, plunging his hands into his pants. ‘You fuckin’ Yankee!’
‘Good one!’ Ru began to howl with laughter.
The Tadpoles started to snort, shoulders shaking.
Customers joined in as Frog jiggled and danced and ice rained out of the leg of his jeans, until the teagarden was swept with gales of laughter.
When he had finally pawed what he could from his underwear, ice and crushed strawberries lay glistening on the ground. He glared ferociously at Honor. Honor glared right back, swinging the jug gently.
Slowly, laughter was replaced by silence.
‘That,’ said Frog, with perilous dignity, ‘was fuckin’ ’orrible.’ But his lips twitched as he looked down at a damp patch spreading over the crotch of his jeans. Gingerly, he wiggled his hips, reigniting some giggles. His mouth actually curled up at one corner. Without his habitual teeth-gritted snarl, he was nearly good looking.
