“No problem. How about another drink while we thrash it all out?”
“God yes, I need one.”
He laughed and got up from the table. “Thank you for agreeing to do this. You’re really helping me out.”
“I just hope I don’t let you down.”
“You could never do that, Gaby.”
He dropped his gaze and walked off to the bar to order their drinks. Gaby watched him go, thinking about what she’d just agreed to.
She was genuinely terrified at the prospect of standing up in front of a bunch of kids and talking about herself.
But agreeing to be a guest speaker at Peter’s school event also meant she’d have to spend more time with him, although that hadn’t exactly figured in her thinking when she’d reluctantly agreed to help.
The upside more than cancelled out the downside.
As she waited for him to return with their drinks, she wondered if she’d really needed an excuse to spend more time with him. They were old friends, after all. Just catching up. Making conversation. Remembering the old days. She could’ve suggested they meet up again after tonight without the excuse of the school talk to bring them together.
A voice inside her head whispered that she was on dangerous ground.
Gaby ignored it. She’d agreed to help Peter with the school talk, so she was on the hook now whether it was a good idea or not.
8
It was almost closingtime at the pub when Peter finally checked his watch and realised how long he and Gaby had been talking. The time had gone by much too quickly.
As they pulled on their coats and made their way outside, he was glad he’d asked her to help with the guest speaker gig at the school careers fair. If he hadn’t done that, he now would’ve been trying to come up with some justification for why it was a good idea to ask her to get together again while she was still in Hamblehurst.
And while part of him knew it would just have been another quick drink, or maybe some dinner with an old friend whose company he’d enjoyed, another part of him would’ve known only too well that he was risking bringing disaster down on his own head by asking to spend more time with her.
Because after only a few hours in the pub, every single emotion he’d felt for Gaby all those years ago had been thoroughly reawakened.
Everything about her charmed and captivated him, just as it had when they’d been teenagers. Her beauty, warmth, humour and adventurous spirit had only deepened as she’d grown from a girl into a woman. Add in the confidence, style, success andambition she’d cultivated in the years since he’d known her, and the end result was a woman who he simply couldn’t take his eyes off.
Peter held the door of the pub for her and she walked through ahead of him. The milky skin on the exposed nape of her neck looked even more appealing now than it had when they’d arrived, and that wasn’t just the beer talking.
“It’s freezing out here,” Gaby said, buttoning her coat as they started walking. “And frosty too.”
The pavements were covered with a soft white shimmer thanks to the plunging temperature. It was early in the season for frost but autumn brought all kinds of surprises in this tucked away corner of the South Downs.
And with a frost came a clear sky. Peter looked up and saw the moon and stars were still out.
“I wonder if there are any meteors up there tonight,” Gaby said, also looking up at the night sky before giving him a smile.
He laughed, thinking again of the memory he’d reminded her of from their shared summer when they’d watched the meteor shower from Blackberry Hill.
“We could head out of town and walk up to Blackberry Hill and find out,” he said.
“Not in these shoes I can’t,” Gaby said with a laugh.
“Yeah, I’m not walking that far in these shoes either.”
That got another laugh from her. He loved hearing it, loved the way it made him feel when her face lit up like that.
As they negotiated the lane’s slippery cobblestones, Gaby slid her hand through the crook of his arm.
“Don’t let me fall,” she said.
