Page 51 of The Sugar and Spice Bookshop Bakery

‘Properly dated?’

Louise bites her lip. ‘Well, no, but it just hasn’t felt right with anyone.’

‘You keep waiting for the perfect story, like something from one of your books. Instead of just going with the flow and seeing what happens. Jack’s a decent guy. I wish Theo would look at me the way he looks at you.’

‘How? How does he look at me?’

Maddie pulls an exaggerated love-sick face, her hands on her heart, her eyes wide and swooning. ‘Or maybe it’s more…’ She then pulls a lustful one, half-lidded eyes, her tongue lolling.

‘Maddie!’ Louise shakes her head, but can’t help laughing, despite herself. ‘Stop it! He does not look at me like that.’

‘He absolutely does when you’re not looking at him.’ Maddie turns back to the window. ‘God, look at those arms. All that sawing. Very primal.’

‘You’re terrible.’

‘I’m observant. Most of us would kill for a man who shows up when he says he will, listens when we talk, looks at us like we…’

‘Like we what?’

‘Like we matter,’ Maddie says, and suddenly her voice has lost its teasing edge. She’s still looking out the window, but absently, her eyes unfocused.

‘Maddie, you—’

‘He’s good with his hands.’ Maddie snaps back to her usual brightness, and gestures through the window at Jack, who is, at that moment, running his hand appreciatively over one of his pieces of wood.

‘Yes, all right, Calm down.’ Louise is beginning to feel a little hot. She’s far too young, surely, for a menopausal flush. She grabs a tea towel and fans herself.

‘It’s you who might need to calm down, stepmother dearest. You’re looking a little pink. Strange though, isn’t it? I didn’t expect an architect to be so hands-on.’

Louise bites her bottom lip. She’d known this might come up, of course. She doesn’t want to lie to Maddie, but she doesn’t want to betray Jack’s trust either.

‘I’m not sure what I expected,’ she says. ‘Perhaps he’s just at a bit of a loose end. You know, whilst Richard waits for his test results. And he did do some drawings.’

‘And it’s weird he drives a van,’ Maddie says. ‘I mean, an Italian architect. You’d think he’d have some swanky car.’

‘Yeah, maybe.’ Louise thinks back to when she first saw Jack’s van. ‘He said he was planning to convert it into a campervan.’

‘Cute,’ Maddie says, though she doesn’t seem convinced. She looks back out of the window at Jack. ‘He seems very at home with those tools too.’

And then Maddie’s phone rings.

And her jaw drops, her face full of excitement.

‘Theo?’ Louise says.

Maddie shakes her head, accepts the call, and says, ‘Hello… yes, that’s me.’

The person on the other end says something that Louise can’t hear, and then Maddie says, ‘Really? That’s wonderful… yes, yes, I’d love to.’

‘Job,’ she mouths at Louise. ‘Interview.’

‘Yes,’ she says out loud. ‘Yes, Thursday would be perfect. Yes, thank you. I’ll see you then.’

Maddie puts the phone down on the window ledge and squeals, ‘I got an interview!’ She reaches for the phone again, double-checking that she’d hung up the call. ‘I got an interview!’ she shouts, punching the air. ‘For a marketing job in an art gallery!’

From the corner of her eye, Louise notices Jack looking up at the window. Maddie reaches for the phone again

‘I have to tell Theo!’ Maddie taps at her screen.